006

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Inside the pod, the world was an endless void of warmth and darkness. The fluid that surrounded Subject Omega cushioned him, and the steady hum of machinery was the only sound his thoughts of his new life to keep him company. 

There was no pain. Not yet. Just a strange sense of existence. He wasn't entirely conscious of himself as an individual, but there was a presence deep inside him that stirred. His mind flickered in and out of the dark, floating between dreams and some deeper, unspoken reality. He could feel something in his veins, an energy that pulsed like a heartbeat. It was unfamiliar, yet comforting.

But then... something changed.

The fluid that cradled him shifted. Subtle at first, but enough to awaken the part of him that had been dormant for so long. A cold sensation crept into the warmth, pulling him out of his slumber, and forcing him to become aware of the world around him. The machines, the hum of life support systems—they all began to sound louder, more jarring.

Pain.

It was sudden, sharp as if his very existence was being stretched, torn away from the peaceful darkness he had known. His small body spasmed, and his mind, still too underdeveloped to comprehend fully, was flooded with a single overwhelming instinct: cry.

The cry ripped from him, involuntary and desperate, echoing through the sterile lab. It was the sound of a newborn entering a world far colder than the one he had known in the pod. The air, sharp and biting, filled his small lungs for the first time as his cry filled the room.

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Wanda Maximoff jolted awake.

She was back in her cold, sterile cell, the familiar hum of the Hydra facility surrounding her, but the sound—the cry—had come out of nowhere, like a scream inside her mind. It wasn't just any cry—it was a baby's, filled with a strange, potent energy that reverberated through her very soul.

Her hands shook as she sat up, wide-eyed, trying to make sense of the sudden intrusion. The connection between her and the Mind Stone was always faint—sometimes flickering in and out, distant yet present. But now it flared to life, brighter and more intense than she had ever felt before. What was that?

The baby's cry echoed in her head, as if it had pierced the very fabric of her mind. She clutched her temples, squeezing her eyes shut as the intensity of the sound overwhelmed her. She tried to focus, tried to find the source of the strange cry. But it was distant—unfamiliar—and yet... there was something so familiar about it. 

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Halfway across the world, in another Hydra facility buried deep in the wilderness, James Buchanan Barnes—the Winter Soldier—was in the middle of his grueling training session. He moved with mechanical precision, his muscles trained and honed to perfection by decades of conditioning. Sweat dripped from his brow as he fought, sparring with Hydra's top soldiers, driven by nothing but muscle memory and the iron will implanted in his mind by Hydra.

But then—everything stopped.

He froze in place, dropping the combatant he had just been grappling with. His enhanced senses, trained for battle and survival, were suddenly assaulted by a sound—a loud, piercing cry. The cry of an infant, is impossibly loud and filled with a strange, overwhelming energy. It was inside his head.

Barnes stumbled backward, clutching his head in pain as the sound tore through his mind like a dagger. He gritted his teeth, his vision swimming, unable to focus as the cry grew louder, more insistent.

"Stop it," he gasped, his voice strained as if someone were driving nails into his skull. "Make it stop."

But the cry didn't stop. It grew louder, and as it did, something deep within Barnes—something long buried—began to stir. Old memories, hidden beneath layers of brainwashing, flickered at the edges of his consciousness.

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Back in the lab, the cry from Omega grew louder, more frantic. His small limbs kicked weakly, still adjusting to the sensation of freedom from the pod. His eyes fluttered open for the first time, squinting at the harsh light that pierced his vision. Everything was a blur—shapes, shadows, indistinct figures moving around him. His mind, though still infantile, screamed with an awareness he couldn't fully comprehend.

A flood of sensations bombarded him: cold air, the rough touch of hands, the strange newness of his lungs filling with air. He could feel the faint hum of something deep within him—the energy of the Scepter, though he didn't know what it was, pulsing through his veins like fire.

Dr. William Stryker watched from the observation window, his eyes fixed on the small, writhing form of Subject Omega. The boy's cries echoed through the lab, filling the sterile room with the first sounds of life outside the pod. Stryker didn't flinch. He wasn't moved by the infant's distress.

"Prepare the child for the next phase," Stryker ordered calmly, his voice cold, detached. "We'll begin the conditioning immediately. We don't have time to waste."

Behind him, Dr. Volkov nodded, gesturing to the team of scientists to proceed. The infant would be monitored, and cared for, but only insofar as it served Stryker's ultimate goal. Subject Omega was not a child to him—he was an experiment, a tool, a future weapon. The boy's cries meant nothing beyond the data they provided.

As Omega's small form was taken from the pod and placed in the prepared cradle, Stryker turned away, already thinking about the next steps. This was just the beginning.

But as the cry of Subject Omega continued to echo through the lab, Stryker couldn't know the full extent of what had just been set in motion. A ripple, faint but real, had spread across the facility. Wanda heard it. Bucky felt it. And somewhere deep inside, the power of the Scepter, the force that had bound them all together, pulsed again, growing stronger. 

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