Marvel Reborn: Gems Of Infinite Potential

With little more than a thought and a bit of concentration, I opened a portal to what I called the Pym Facility. Over two thousand miles away from my main Mars base, it housed nothing but the Pym Particle team and my three unwilling scientists. Hank, Hope, and Darren were dosed daily with Kilgrave, and they all were under orders to not even attempt to find a way around the mind control, contact anyone outside the facility, attempt to harm my operations, or any of a long list of other things, as I tried to close off as many potential loopholes as possible.

And still, I was always just the slightest bit hesitant. Hank Pym was every bit as smart as Tony Stark and had every reason in the world to hate my guts. Keeping him alive was a massive risk, and yet killing him would deprive humanity of one of its greatest minds. With a sigh, I headed towards his cell to pick his brain.

"Hank, have you found any loopholes in the orders I have given you that would allow you to act in a manner you don't think I would like?" I asked the same question that I had asked him every time I met with him. A good two-thirds of his standing orders had actually come from just this question. I kinda felt bad for him, as he effectively enslaved himself in ever-tighter chains.

"Not since the last time you asked, Octavian. Now what do you want?" he answered.

"Well, for starters, I'm curious about the regulator for the suit. I know that we can take objects down to below ant-size and return them to full-size just fine, and I see little reason that we couldn't at least theoretically take someone sub-molecular, but with the suit, it is a runaway chain reaction once you go past the minimum threshold. What is the cause?" I inquired, taking a seat in a chair near his computer setup.

He spun his chair to more easily face me and said, "We can take objects smaller because we aren't taking the regulator with them. The problem is that the regulator can only shrink so far before the Pym Particles themselves become so densely packed that the reaction becomes self-sustaining."

"Hmm, could you take a person smaller if their suit didn't need to be able to return them to full-size? If instead an external enlargement station was used?" I said after a moment's thought.

He thought for a few moments and said, "I can't see any theoretical problem with the approach, but why would you want to? Travel times and distances at such small scales are so large that it would virtually never be mission viable."

"Oh?" I held out my hand and a single tiny orange spark could be seen floating over it for a moment until I snapped it closed. "My portals don't need to be macro-scale. Indeed, when I am shrunk, I can make them so small as to be nigh completely invisible to cameras. Much less the n.a.k.e.d eye. But no, I wasn't really interested in the field applications. I'm thinking about the surgical and laboratory applications."

He winced at my comment. I guess he hadn't put together just how deadly a combination portal and an ant-sized body would be, but after a moment, he said, "I'm not sure that I follow. What surgical applications?"

I shrugged. "Targeted cancer treatment perhaps? Imagine if you could actually walk around inside the human body and individually kill cancer cells. Or how about nervous system repair? Or the particular use I was specifically thinking about: cybernetic enhancement?"

His eyes went wide. "You want to walk around inside the human body? Are you mad?"

"Probably, at least by most people's standards. But do you see some technical reason that it couldn't be done or some risk that I am overlooking?" I said, thinking that you had to be at least a little mad if you planned to make war on the heavens and reshape humanity in your d.e.s.i.r.ed image.

"No, at least not when combined with a sealed and sterilized suit. But what cybernetic device is driving you to this?" Hank questioned.

"Well, my first thought was to do a full nervous system replacement of everything except the brain, but I have yet to come up with anything that would outperform the human nervous system and doesn't have unacceptable downsides. So, instead, I was thinking that I would sheathe the nervous system in vibranium and perhaps lace the bones with it. Build a latticework of vibranium throughout every bone, and they should become virtually unbreakable without any negative health consequences. I'm not exactly sure what benefits the neural sheathing would have, but I don't see how it would hurt. Besides, it will be good practice for whenever I figure out how to transmit energy through vibranium without magic."

Hank smacked a hand against his face and said, "Did you find the Weapon X files in the SHIELD database you stole or something? Because Logan only survived that abomination thanks to his extreme healing factor."

I blinked, stunned at the implications of what he had just said. To the best of my knowledge, mutants weren't a thing in the MCU, and I didn't think that Wolverine existed. I knew that Magneto and Professor X weren't around, I had already checked on that a while back. Still, I moved to the computer and brought up the database, before running a search for Weapon X.

As the files started coming up, one after the other, and I started reading. "Well f.u.c.k me sideways, thanks, Pym. I didn't even know that adamantium was a thing, or that anyone with such an extreme natural healing ability existed. But no, that wasn't what inspired the idea. Well, I will read this all later; let's continue with our conversation. Do you think that you could use vibranium to improve the regulator?"

Hank seemed pissed at himself, not liking that he had given me yet another potential tool, but the commands still forced him to answer honestly. "I never had the opportunity to experiment with it. I still want to know how you got hundreds of pounds of that metal. As far as I'm aware, the total world supply amounted to a little under fifty pounds. I can't think of any immediate use for it, but if you want to supply some for me to experiment with, then I will see what I can do. Your idea for going sub-molecular will probably be more useful in improving the regulator actually. It should allow for a more precise and careful arrangement of the regulator's various pieces. Modern computer hardware and computer modeling would also help. I haven't attempted to improve the suit in a long time, and its current designs were done with much older technology."

I gave a nod. "I'll make sure you have the needed materials shortly. Anything else before I leave?"

"Why?" I c.o.c.ked my head interrogatively at his question, and he continued as he waved a hand at our surroundings. "Why are you doing all of this? My suit alone would have been more than enough to let you do whatever you wanted in the world, but instead, you seem to be grabbing for everything you can find and pushing ever harder. You already have to be the most powerful man around, so why do you keep us imprisoned here as your slaves?"

I threw my head back and laughed. "Me, the most powerful man around? Not even close, Mr. Pym. Entities are walking the Earth who could crush me like a bug. Tell me, Hank, did Howard Stark ever mention the Tesseract to you? Or maybe you have seen it, a glowing blue cube?"

"No, I've never heard of that or seen any glowing blue cubes. Why?" he asked.

"Because that little glowing blue cube is one of the six most powerful objects in all of existence, and there are things far beyond your comprehension that want it and will do whatever is necessary to possess it. When the Red Skull dug that little cube out of the tiny Norwegian church that it was buried in and used it to equip the Nazis with superweapons, he lit the spark. The age of the gods is returning, Mr. Pym, and humanity is not ready. When the Tesseract was used, it was obvious to beings across the breadth of the universe, beings for whom individual planets are akin to American states and with lifespans measured in centuries and millennia, not years and decades.

"The pieces are already moving, and the Apocalypse is no longer some far-off thing. I intend to ensure that humanity survives the oncoming storm, free and triumphant, and to do that we will need to break all the rules. You and those like you are what holds us back from striding across the universe as the equals of every other. You hoard your secrets to preserve a status quo that does nothing but shackle us.

"Your wife was a hero. Her sacrifice probably saved human civilization, and yet, the general public will never know. But she died because of your fear, because of your arrogance, because you refused to let anyone use your technology. You thought that only your family could be trusted, and so only your family could make the sacrifice required. She was a hero, you were a coward.

"Say what you will about Howard Stark, and I have many issues with the man, but he was no coward. His actions made messes and threatened civilization, but at least he was willing to face the risks on the path of progress. Imagine what the world would be like today if you and he had worked together because I guarantee you that he would have abused your Pym Particles in ways that I haven't even envisioned yet.

"So no Mr. Pym, I have no interest in ruling humanity or limiting others to preserve my relative power. I intend nothing less than gifting every man, woman, and child with divinity. To give them all the power to do as they see fit and leave their marks on the universe."

I stood as I finished my speech. "Now, I've got some other work to do so good day, Mr. Pym." I opened a portal and stepped through to my main base, in search of Natasha.

After looking at the Stark Expo model and finding the atomic structure hidden within, I had decided to alter my plans. I had little interest in waiting several more years before getting an Arc Reactor, and nothing was stopping me from acquiring the services of the other individuals who knew how to make one. It was time to recruit Anton and Ivan Vanko. And Anton also had experience with Vita Rays.