With Apocalypse dispatched to the cosmic frontline, Ernst is finally free.
His meticulous biological dissection of the First Mutant had yielded a breakthrough in the cosmic Rules.
The path ahead promised an exponential surge in power.
He spent his days at the farmhouse in Smallville, deciphering arcane mathematics while his children played in the fields.
Occasionally, he transmits instructions to Kerry.
Given his memories, a single whisper of foresight could shift global markets.
Kerry was the ultimate executive.
He managed a sprawling corporate empire for a mastermind who utterly despised administrative bureaucracy.
Despite his biological enhancements, the sheer volume of global logistics ran Kerry ragged.
Only Red Queen's massive, parallel processing power kept the man from collapsing under the weight of the empire.
In the quiet years that followed, Ernst vanished into his research.
To the outside world, he was merely a reclusive farmer. His apocalyptic power remained perfectly concealed.
He took occasional, leisurely trips to Skull Island.
He projected psychic waves to soothe the Star Whale, rode the Black Dragon, harvested Phoenix blood, and synthesized miraculous elixirs.
It was the idle, contented life of a near-immortal.
Then, the silence broke.
A priority transmission arrived from Chris, requesting immediate magical intervention.
An unprecedented guest had arrived at the Devil's Cabin to broker a deal.
The requested miracle far exceeded Chris's capacity. It required Ernst's personal touch.
That alone piqued his curiosity.
Given the vast, supernatural resources at Chris's disposal, very few problems in the universe were insurmountable.
The payment offered was too spectacular to refuse, but the task was too lethal to attempt blindly.
Once Chris transmitted the dossier, Ernst understood perfectly.
The client was Dr. Hank Pym. The original Ant-Man.
He was offering the total scientific matrix of Pym Particles and a functioning combat suit.
The price? The extraction of his wife, Janet Van Dyne, was lost to the quantum void.
The prospect of mastering subatomic mass manipulation fascinated Ernst.
He commanded his nanobots to shift his physical form.
He manifested as a terrifying, horned alien phantom and materialized inside the dimly lit Cabin.
This was not the frail, elderly scientist of the original timeline.
Dr. Pym was in his physical prime. He possessed the broad, muscular build of a veteran operative, though his posture was heavily shadowed by absolute grief.
Ernst's materialization instantly commanded the room.
Chris attempted to formally introduce the master of the Cabin. Ernst dismissed him with a wave.
"Greetings, Dr. Pym," Ernst said smoothly, preempting the scientist.
"I am already aware of your quantum tragedy."
Hank Pym tensed violently.
His hand twitched toward his belt, his eyes darting across the demonic figure.
"Who exactly are you?" Pym demanded.
"Do not bristle, Doctor," Ernst commanded, his voice echoing with localized atmospheric pressure.
"There are absolutely zero secrets within the Devil's Cabin. When we care to look, nothing in this universe remains hidden."
"You need not worry about operational security," Ernst continued.
"We do not leak client secrets. Now, to business."
"Your total knowledge of Pym Particles, and the Ant-Man hardware, in exchange for retrieving your wife from the subatomic realm."
"I accept your terms. Sign the contract."
Hank was visibly thrown by the absolute, chilling confidence of the entity.
"You are certain you can extract her?" Hank asked, his voice cracking slightly.
"Where she is trapped... it defies human imagination. It is a one-way trip."
"Do not insult me with your limited physics," Ernst replied flatly.
"If I accept the contract, she leaves the quantum world."
"It is merely a microscopic, parallel dimension. You are exceptionally fortunate, Dr. Pym. Dimensional geometry is my specific area of expertise."
"I will provide a magical anchor. It will prevent your consciousness from shattering in the subatomic void while you personally dive down to retrieve her."
Ernst drew a small, polished block of millennium wood from his dimensional pocket.
He brushed his right index finger against the Reality Gem hidden beneath his collar.
A violent spark of red, reality-warping energy ignited on his fingertip.
He moved his hand with blinding speed, carving a dense, ethereal runic matrix directly into the wood.
"Give me something that belongs to her," Ernst ordered.
Hank numbly handed over a silver bracelet.
Ernst extracted the lingering, biological signature of Janet Van Dyne, magically sealing her quantum signature into the runic card.
He tossed it to Pym.
Hank caught the wooden amulet. He stared down at the glowing, intricate fractal patterns.
Instantly, his mind was gripped by a terrifying, hypnotic vertigo.
He felt his soul being physically dragged into the wood.
"Wake up," Ernst snapped.
The verbal command shattered the trance.
Hank stumbled backward, gasping for air, cold sweat pouring down his face. He felt as if his very soul had been partially extracted.
He placed the wooden token on the table with a violently trembling hand.
"What kind of science is this?"
Ernst's tone softened fractionally.
"It is a magical anchor," Ernst explained.
"It will act as a Faraday cage for your soul against the psychic pressure of the quantum realm."
"Even at the subatomic level, your neural pathways will remain completely intact. Your wife's essence is bound to it; it will act as a compass."
"However, the magical containment is finite. You cannot linger in the void. Execute the extraction swiftly."
Hank hesitated. Deep, paranoid distrust warred with his desperate hope.
"How do you guarantee this works?" Hank challenged.
"If I lose my cognitive function down there, I am dead."
Ernst waved a dismissive hand.
"I offer absolutely zero verbal guarantees," Ernst stated coldly.
"Nothing I say will penetrate your scientific arrogance. The only guarantee is the contract."
"When you safely retrieve your wife, the Pym Particles belong to me."
"But I require the secondary suit immediately as collateral to facilitate the dive."
Hank was paralyzed by the lethal dilemma.
He desperately wanted Janet back. But if the alien amulet failed, he would be permanently stranded in the subatomic abyss alongside her.
Being a grieving widower was an agony he could bear.
But if he died in the quantum realm, his young daughter, Hope, would be completely orphaned.
Ernst paid the man's agonizing internal conflict absolutely no mind.
He casually sipped his tea, the very picture of terrifying, immortal certainty.
In the end, Hank's absolute love for his wife eclipsed his scientific paranoia. He chose to gamble his life.
He nodded grimly, read the ancient, glowing parchment, and signed his name in blood.
"Excellent," Ernst smiled.
"A sound choice."
Ernst reached out and gripped the scientist's shoulder.
With a sharp crack of displaced air, they vanished from the Devil's Cabin.
They materialized thousands of feet in the open sky, standing firmly on a transparent, telekinetic platform.
"We are positioned directly over the geographic coordinates of the accident," Ernst announced, gesturing to the landscape below.
"Execute the dive."
Hank looked down at the exact location where he had lost Janet.
A heavy wave of grief and adrenaline surged through his veins.
He unclipped a microscopic pendant from his belt.
The heavy, specialized Ant-Man suit instantly expanded.
He suited up rapidly, securing the glowing wooden amulet tightly to his wrist gauntlet.
Hank threw one final, lingering look at the demonic entity beside him.
He gritted his teeth, slammed the regulator on his glove, and shrank instantly into the microscopic void.
Ernst appeared entirely unconcerned.
Internally, he was projecting a massive, highly concentrated thread of telepathy, tracking Pym's descent.
Down to the size of an insect, the biological signature was perfectly clear.
As Hank shrank past the cellular level and into the molecular spaces, the signal fractured.
Ernst reluctantly severed the psychic tether before the quantum static could damage his own mind.
Absolute silence reigned on the floating platform.
Ten minutes passed without a single microscopic fluctuation. A slight, cold unease crept into Ernst's calculations.
He had absolute confidence in his runic engineering. But quantum space was governed by pure chaos theory.
If the amulet took any physical damage, Hank would be eternally trapped.
Thirty agonizing minutes ticked by.
Then, Ernst felt it. A violent, paradoxical ripple tore through the fabric of reality.
Hank Pym materialized on the glass platform.
He was panting heavily inside the Ant-Man helmet, and cradled tightly in his arms was a woman wearing a winged tactical suit.
Janet Van Dyne. The Wasp.
"Congratulations, Dr. Pym," Ernst stated smoothly, clasping his hands behind his back.
"It appears your voyage into the subatomic abyss was highly successful."
Hank retracted his helmet. His face was pale, exhausted, but flooded with absolute, overwhelming gratitude.
"Thank you," Hank breathed, clutching his unconscious wife.
"I need to get her to a medical facility immediately."
"I will transfer the Pym Particle schematics and the collateral suit to your network as quickly as possible."
"Of course," Ernst nodded graciously.
"I trust you implicitly. See to her health."
Ernst watched the scientist trigger a microscopic transport vessel and vanish. He made no move to delay them.
In absolute truth, Ernst was slightly disappointed.
He had secretly hoped Hank's legendary paranoia would cause him to breach the contract.
If Pym had defaulted, Ernst would have legally claimed the genius's soul and permanently folded him into the Shadow Mercenaries.
To his quiet dismay, Dr. Pym proved to be a man of his word.
Within hours, highly encrypted data packets containing the total Pym Particle matrix, alongside a physical delivery of the secondary Ant-Man suit, arrived perfectly intact.
Ernst was left with absolutely no legal loophole to exploit.
Regardless, the tactical outcome was flawless.
Pym Particles were a fundamental disruption of physics, several generations beyond current global technology.
Weaponized properly, their strategic value was mathematically infinite.
After aggressively studying and reverse-engineering the quantum matrix, Ernst transferred the technology directly to Kerry.
Kerry, the master of global logistics, grasped the terrifying potential immediately.
Kerry claimed a customized Ant-Man suit for himself.
Then, he initiated a massive, covert aerospace project.
Kerry launched dozens of advanced surveillance satellites into high orbit, utilizing Pym Particles to shrink them to the size of dust motes.
It created a flawless, totally invisible surveillance network monitoring the entire globe.
When Ernst reviewed the orbital initiative, he approved it instantly.
Absolute, undetectable global oversight would save him a massive amount of tactical friction in the future.
With the subatomic transaction completely closed, Ernst anticipated a return to his peaceful, agricultural cultivation.
Instead, less than a week later, the silence was shattered again.
An emergency, heavily encrypted transmission arrived from his estranged father, Shaw.
Something catastrophic had just happened to the Black Shadow Mercenary Group in deep space.