[Age Of Apocalypse] - New Developments

In the HYDRA Siberian facility,

Vasily Karpov, wearing the Soviet Armed Forces uniform, was sitting in front of a massive screen playing the scrambled footage of Val's fight with Apocalypse.

He paused at the footage when Val hovered in the air with his eyes glowing blue and his bare hands emitting blue light from them.

He stared at Val and said out loud, "This is your target. Do you understand?"

Without waiting for a reply, he leaned back in his chair and continued, "You cannot ask questions. You have to carry this out. There is no such thing as a question. Orders are to be followed, and the target must be eliminated. Am I clear?"

"Da!"

He heard a reply from his right and turned his head to look at the figure walking towards him.

He sneered and asked, "Зимний Солдат (Winter Soldier)! How would you eliminate this target?"

The Winter Soldier stopped before him, looked up to the screen where his target was displayed, and answered, "By killing him!"

"How?" Karpov asked, "You can see from the footage that this man can't be killed. An energy beam blasted a hole through him, yet he was still alive. Do you still think you can kill him?"

Winter Soldier calmly looked at the screen once again and stared for a few seconds before replying, "Everybody can be killed. Even him. If he can't be killed physically, I will kill him... emotionally!"

Karpov was stunned for a moment, but he still had one more question: "And, what is that, would make him emotionally dead?"

Winter Soldier's dull eyes glinted sinisterly, and he replied in a cold and detached voice, "...HIS FAMILY..."

* * *

In an underground base, somewhere on Earth,

A figure was hunched over a small screen before it. It was re-watching the footage recorded during Val's fight with Apocalypse.

In front of it was a table with a newspaper whose first page showed a picture of Val and the X-Men hugging with a big title - STARLANCE AND X-MEN SAVE THE DAY!

Underneath the title was a sentence: Starlance comes back from the dead and defeats the evil mutant - Apocalypse, along with the X-Men. 158,424 people were reported to be injured. Miraculously, zero deaths were reported. This was possible due to Starlance's leadership, the X-Men, and the CIA's teamwork. Starlance was later seen shaking hands with all members of the X-Men and the government officials before each parting in separate ways.

The man looked up at the wall behind the screen, which showed the picture of Val where his whole face was replaced by a question mark. He stared at it intently and said in a hushed voice, "Not all questions need to be answered. Just answer one which matters most, and answers will flow like a river. But which is that question...?"

"Hehehe!" The figure grabbed its head and started laughing maniacally before focusing on the small vial of blood on the table beside the newspaper.

As the figure leaned over to grab the vial, the light from a bulb above illuminated its face, and thus, the figure was revealed to be none other than Mister Sinister.

He held the vial in front of his face, twisted the cap of it open, and watched the crimson-colored substance swirl slowly.

"Such a strange substance you are!" Sinister murmured, "Even Apocalypse would envy the things I could make with you."

After a minute lost in his thoughts, Sinister finally returned to his senses.

He closed the bottle back up, kept it in the jacket pocket, and said, "Heh! Starlance. Never did someone pique my curiosity like you do. I will not wait for others to do my work. No, my target is solely you!"

Sinister turned his head towards the whiteboard behind him and saw more pictures of Val.

"The greatest weapons are the ones which are hidden. Don't show your powers off so openly; think that the world would think of you as a hero. What do they know about heroes? That word doesn't exist in my dictionary because those people who are trying to be 'heroes' are, in fact, destined to be my next 'experiment'!" Sinister laughed evilly before he stretched his arm toward the whiteboard.

"But to do that, I need information."

The moment his finger touched the center of the picture of Val, his fingers broke through it, and the paper burnt with a blazing purple fire, illuminating the room in a dull purple hue.

"Information that your blood would give me..."

Then, the picture exploded into millions of tiny pieces, disappearing before they touched the floor.

"...GET READY...."

"...STARLANCE..."

That word echoed throughout the place like some demon's whisper in the black night.

* * *

In the Stark Mansion located at Fifth Avenue in New York,

Howard Stark was watching the television report of Val and the X-Men fighting Apocalypse.

"So, he lived from such an injury, huh?!"

Howard had his arms folded, and a thoughtful expression flashed as his eyes were fixated on the television before him. As the scrambled footage continued to play, his eyes widened suddenly, and he quickly shouted, "PAUSE!"

The television automatically paused in the next frame, and Stark stared at the still of Val in his new armor in amazement.

"Replay from there and zoom in at his armor."

The moment he ordered, the television started from the paused frame and rewinding. Then, with a ding, it played at the requested point at least thrice as fast as regular speed.

"Stop!"

The television stopped at the time he asked it to stop, and then his eyes sparkled when he saw what had happened.

"Zoom in! More! More! Stop."

The television screen enlarged Val's armor, but Stark wanted a better look at the core area. He asked, "Can you bring the core part to the bigger side?"

This time, the screen quickly zoomed in, and the core region showed a sea of blue.

Stark asked, "Bring it closer."

The screen zoomed in again until a golden streak was highlighted amidst the sea of blue. It also enhanced the streaked part even more.

"Amazing! So, this is what you could make, huh?" Howard walked toward the television and touched the screen with his fingers at where the golden streak was.

"Such beautiful color! And this energy formation is something I have seen in the Tesseract." he rubbed his chin thoughtfully before his eyes shone with excitement.

He returned to his couch, grabbed the remote, and played the television until Val hovered in the air after killing Apocalypse.

Howard stared at Val's armor and murmured, "This armor... This metal... Only two words come to mind about this scene - UNKNOWN ELEMENT!"

"I need to know more about this guy..." his gaze traveled toward the news headline under the video - Starlance returns from the dead and defeats Apocalypse.

After an hour of discovering everything he could about Val, Howard plopped back on his couch and murmured, "He... He has an element that can control Tesseract's energy, but something else, too?!"

* CLINK *

* CLANK *

Suddenly, he heard some noise and turned to look behind him.

"Coool!" A 12-year-old Tony Stark said while staring at the video of Val in his armor with his jaw dropped. There were numerous metallic parts near him.

"Tony, weren't you supposed to be sleeping?" Howard asked while frowning.

"Don't wanna!" Tony replied and ran to the television. He stared at Val's glowing blue eyes and his glowing hands.

"Who's that?" Tony asked excitedly.

"That.." Howard paused for a bit, then smiled widely as if a thought had just crossed his mind.

"Tell me, Dad! Come on!"

"That's your uncle!"