Pierce gave a bitter, hollow laugh. "Hahahaha… from the moment I joined Hydra, I was ready to die for the cause. You won't get anything out of me."
Wanda folded her arms, her expression calm. "He's right. Hydra doesn't fear death. If torture worked, their ranks would've been gone long ago."
Lock smiled faintly. "Who said anything about torture? I don't need to hurt him. I just need the thread on his body."
"The thread?" Wanda blinked in confusion. "What thread?"
What Lock referred to wasn't physical—it was the thread of causality, the invisible line connecting fate and fortune.
Every being's luck, every twist of destiny, was bound by cause and effect.
If Lock declared a winning number at a casino, his luck didn't change the result—it bent the cause to match his desired effect.
Powerful enough beings could even reverse the order entirely: first the result, then the cause.
To trace Quicksilver's location, Lock intended to follow Pierce's web of causality—Hydra's tangled threads would reveal the path.
At that moment, Fury, Captain America, and Maria Hill emerged from the underground command center.
"Most of the Hydra troops escaped," Fury reported grimly. "They took several missile warheads and encrypted intel. The three of us only stopped a few."
He looked at Lock. "Why didn't you intervene?"
Lock shrugged. "I was testing a different kind of method."
The others exchanged puzzled looks. Different? How many ways could there be to stop an army of Hydra soldiers?
Even Wanda leaned forward slightly. For someone who'd seen Lock punch an alien warship out of orbit, her curiosity was piqued.
Lock raised a hand, and Pierce's body floated helplessly before him. With a single motion, he pressed his thumb between the man's brows and focused his Qi.
The air shimmered—then, faintly, Lock saw it: a network of luminous threads, stretching into infinity.
Each person nearby—Wanda, Natasha, Fury, Hill, Steve—was bound by delicate filaments. Some thin, some thick, all connecting back to him.
These were the threads of luck, the unseen links formed by relationships and influence. Allies, rivals, friends, lovers—each thread carried cause and consequence.
The stronger the connection—or the stronger one's existence—the thicker the line.
Natasha and Wanda's lines glowed warmly, intertwined with his. Fury and the Captain's were thinner, yet taut with the pull of respect and awe.
But Lock ignored them all. His focus settled on Pierce.
Pierce's body was a web of connections, thousands of lines spreading out in all directions—Hydra operatives, sleeper cells, black ops scientists, even foreign contacts.
Perfect.
Lock lifted his hand slightly. "Within a hundred miles should be enough…"
He whispered, "Luck Disinfection."
A surge of pale light burst from his thumb, running through the line between Pierce's brows. In an instant, it raced through every thread bound to him—spreading outward like lightning across a spiderweb.
Across a hundred miles, every Hydra agent connected to Pierce froze mid-breath. Each one felt a hollow drop in their chest, as if something precious had been ripped away.
Then the world struck back.
A Hydra driver lost control of his car, the tires screeching as it slammed into a guardrail. Gasoline leaked beneath the wreckage. He fumbled desperately with the locked door—just as the tank ignited.
Fire bloomed, erasing him in seconds.
Underwater, a Hydra submarine cruised quietly through the depths. Suddenly, alarms blared.
"The buoyancy's dropping! We're sinking fast!"
The craft plunged into a deep oceanic trench—a thermal current where denser seawater dragged the vessel down like a vortex. The hull creaked, metal groaning.
"Surface! Now!" the commander yelled. But the control rod jammed, unmoving.
The pressure built—then came a deafening crack.
The submarine imploded, crushed flat like an aluminum can.
Above ground, a fleeing convoy of Hydra trucks crossed a bridge. One tire burst, the vehicle jackknifed, and the entire line tumbled into the river below.
In the mountains, a helicopter rotor suddenly sheared loose, slicing the tail clean off before the craft spiraled into the forest and exploded.
Everywhere within a hundred miles, chaos erupted simultaneously—dozens, hundreds of accidents, deaths that looked purely coincidental but were all tied to one cause.
The Hydra version of Final Destination had arrived.
Lock's eyes glowed faintly. "Any Hydra whose fate is tied to Pierce now has zero luck," he said flatly. "From this moment on, every 'accidental' death you hear of in the next day… will be Hydra."
Fury frowned. "You mean—these deaths are by design?"
Lock shrugged. "Design, karma, call it what you like. I just erased their fortune. The rest was up to the universe."
No one spoke. Even Captain America looked uneasy.
It wasn't just raw power—it was the precision, the cold efficiency of it. Killing without lifting a weapon, wiping out an entire Hydra network in one thought.
The next day, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s reports confirmed it.
Hundreds of Hydra agents—dead in freak accidents across Europe. Cars, planes, labs, and bases—all destroyed in unrelated incidents.
Fury and Hill sat in silence in the command room.
Hill finally whispered, "Is this… what he meant by a special method?"
Fury didn't answer. His expression was grim, unreadable.
He'd seen powerful beings before. Thor. Captain Marvel. Even Thanos. But none of them manipulated fate itself.
He had once believed Carol Danvers was his ultimate failsafe—a cosmic powerhouse who could counter any threat to Earth.
But Lock didn't fight like others. He didn't rely on force or energy. He used reality as his weapon.
If he ever turned against them, there'd be no battle to fight—only silence.
Fury rubbed the bridge of his nose and muttered, "Let's hope he never decides to change sides."
For now, Lock showed no trace of malice. His gaze was fixed far beyond Earth—beyond even the Milky Way.
He knew the universe was vast, dangerous, and only growing darker.
And the day for rest was still far, far away.
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