Everyone turned toward the voice.
A calm, confident figure stood at the entrance — an Eastern man with silver-gray eyes that glowed faintly in the lab's harsh light. He was smiling as he regarded the miniature Wasp suit hovering in the display.
Lock.
He looked at Darren Cross and said evenly, "I want what you have."
Cross's expression froze. "Who the hell are you? I don't recall inviting you here."
The CEO's voice carried both anger and confusion. Everyone in the room was someone powerful — corporate leaders, military officials, investors, global elites. And yet, somehow, an unfamiliar man had just appeared out of nowhere.
Before Cross could move, Lock raised a hand slightly.
There was a sharp crack!
The reinforced metal pillar beneath Cross's feet snapped clean in half, and both the platform and the magnifying lens above it tore free from their mounts, drifting through the air toward Lock as though pulled by an invisible tide.
From Cross's perspective, the world distorted — his field of view filled with a magnified, expressionless face growing larger and larger.
"What—what's happening?!"
Instinct took over. Cross activated his suit in a burst of yellow light. With a high-pitched bzzt, he shrank and shot forward like a bullet.
But the moment he tried to fly past the magnifying lens, he slammed into an unseen wall — and reappeared from the opposite side. Then again. And again.
No matter which direction he flew, he looped back into the same confined space.
A spatial cage.
Lock watched him coolly. I meant to leave him to Scott as training material, he thought, but Cross advanced faster than expected. If I wait any longer, he'll mass-produce those suits — and the black market will drown in chaos.
So Lock had acted for himself.
The room erupted in confusion. None of the guests understood what was happening — was this a demonstration? A part of Cross's presentation?
Then one man in the crowd suddenly went pale. He was tall, with sharp features and a commanding presence — a man used to giving orders, not taking them. His eyes widened in horror.
"You… you're the King of Apocalypse!" he shouted, his voice breaking.
Lock turned his gaze toward him. "Hydra?" he said calmly. "You people really are hard to get rid of."
The man's face drained of color.
In the original timeline, Hydra had tried to buy the Wasp suit from Cross. Lock couldn't recall the exact faces, but their reaction confirmed everything.
"It's him! King Apocalypse!" another Hydra operative screamed. "Run!"
The Hydra agents immediately scattered, tossing small objects from their pockets — pens, cufflinks, buttons — each one snapping open midair.
"Boom! Bang! Boom!"
The room erupted with flashes of light and smoke. The disguised trinkets were actually compact bombs — some fragmentation charges, some smoke canisters, all designed to pass security undetected.
The blasts tore through the air, shockwaves rippling outward toward the stunned guests.
Then—
Everything stopped.
The smoke froze mid-burst, curling like frozen ink in water. The shockwaves solidified into translucent ripples, hanging motionless in the air.
The explosions became a frozen tableau — an apocalyptic painting suspended in time.
Lock looked at the stillness and sighed. "Why are you just standing there? Is the explosion that beautiful?"
Only then did the crowd realize that they could still move. It was the bombs that were frozen.
Screaming, they scrambled for the exits.
Lock flicked his wrist.
The suspended shockwaves darkened, collapsing inward into nothingness — swallowed by an unseen void. The annihilated space rippled once before smoothing back into normality.
Outside, the Hydra agents were still running when the air around them twisted violently.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
They were yanked backward, smashing through the reinforced glass walls like ragdolls, tumbling across the lab floor, coughing blood.
Lock waved his hand again. The metal tables and chairs in the room groaned, stretching and twisting into thin coils that slithered across the ground like serpents. Within seconds, they wrapped around the fallen Hydra agents, binding them tightly.
"Alive," he murmured. "Good. SHIELD can have them."
He turned to face the rest of the guests. None dared move. Even breathing too loudly felt dangerous.
The name King Apocalypse was enough to silence the world — and here he stood, in the flesh.
Lock's gaze swept the room. He recognized no one; most were businessmen, politicians, or scientists — not enemies, not allies, just bystanders who had glimpsed something far above their comprehension.
When his eyes passed over them, many flinched.
For a long moment, the laboratory was silent.
Then Lock turned to Scott. "Sorry," he said simply. "I meant for you to handle him. But things changed."
Scott, Hope, and Hank Pym stood frozen, their minds blank.
They had seen impossible things tonight — time itself halted, space twisted, matter obeying a man's will.
But what truly shook them was not the power — it was the name whispered in terror by Hydra: King Apocalypse.
Scott's throat was dry. "You… you're really the King of Apocalypse?"
Lock shrugged lightly. "I told you from the start."
"But… but that's impossible."
Lock smiled faintly. "No, Scott. You just didn't want to believe it."
Scott's voice cracked. "I'm just some ex-con! Why would you — the guy who saved the world — come looking for me?"
"I already told you why," Lock replied.
Scott blinked, replaying the words he had brushed off before — You have the potential to be a hero. A key figure in the battles to come.
He'd thought it was a joke. Something to make him feel better. But now…
Was it actually true?
Could someone like him — who couldn't even beat Hope in sparring — really matter that much?
Dr. Hank Pym, meanwhile, was still staring at Lock, face pale and expression dark. After a long silence, he finally spoke.
"Tell me," he said coldly, "did the Stark family send you to steal my equation?"
The words escaped before he could stop them. Regret flashed across his face immediately.
He'd spent his whole life protecting the Pym Particle formula. Ever since Howard Stark had tried to replicate it decades ago, paranoia had consumed him.
Now, facing Tony Stark's ally — the King of Apocalypse himself — the fear boiled over.
The room fell silent again.
Then, to everyone's shock, Lock actually nodded. "I do want your equation," he said calmly. "But it has nothing to do with Tony."
The collective gasp was audible.
He wasn't joking.
Even the most arrogant guests were trembling now.
Dr. Pym's heart pounded in his chest. The man who stood before him — who could freeze time and crush space — wanted his life's work.
What kind of equation could attract the attention of the King of Apocalypse himself?
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A/N: Advanced Chapters Have Been Uploaded On My Patreon
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