At this moment, Cross turned around and pulled a real gun from inside his jacket, something that looked like a Desert Eagle. He aimed it at Dr. Pym's head, clearly intending to kill him. But like every villain who can't help himself, he had to monologue first—going on about how he'd already won and how miserable Pym was about to be.
Pym could keep listening, but Blaine couldn't wait. He was just about to teleport in when—
Suddenly, an explosion sounded. The glass containment chamber somehow shattered, and Scott burst out, tackling Cross directly.
"What the—? What's going on?"
"Why is someone stealing my job?"
Blaine had been about to make a move, but now he just stood there, stunned.
Dr. Pym, realizing Cross's conspiracy had been exposed and that staying here meant certain death, reached to his belt. Blaine watched as he unclipped a keychain, pulled off a tiny toy, and tossed it to the floor. The instant it landed, the toy expanded—transforming into a full-sized tank.
"Fuck—shit, shit, shit!"
"This is a thing? This actually works?!"
Even though Blaine knew Pym could do this, seeing it in person shocked him to his core. It was incredible. And honestly, what man didn't dream of being able to grow or shrink things at will?
At that moment, Scott also threw down something Blaine didn't recognize and flew out riding a winged ant.
Blaine was about to charge in to face the Yellowjacket suit and Cross when a sudden spike of danger hit him out of nowhere. A sharp, inexplicable sense of threat surged into his chest, crawling across his skin. It wasn't as overwhelming as what he'd felt facing Dormammu or Gali, but the intensity told Blaine one thing clearly—whatever was coming could actually hurt him.
"Damn it. What the hell is strong enough to set off my danger sense like this?"
Warned in advance, Blaine bolted toward the nearest glass window. Below, the brightly lit street stretched out. Without hesitation, he jumped. His flight ability activated instantly.
Falling from that height wouldn't kill him. Still—if he had a magic trick that could keep him from looking like a wreck, why not use it?
Just as Blaine soared upward, the building beneath him exploded with a thunderous bang. But strangely, the blast didn't spread outward. Instead, at its center, a vortex formed—like a collapsing black hole. The entire building, along with the debris, was pulled inward and vanished.
"What the hell?!"
Suspended in midair, Blaine stared down at the sight, his heart pounding. Being sucked into that thing… even if you survived, you'd be torn apart. Who knew where the vortex even led?
Blaine felt more and more certain that Dr. Pym was no ordinary scientist. In Blaine's perception, the Ant-Man suit was already more advanced than Tony Stark's Iron Man armor—on a completely different level.
After all, Pym came from the same era as Tony's father, Howard Stark. Forty years ago, Pym invented the Pym Particle and built the first Ant-Man prototype. It was imperfect and unstable, but it still played a crucial role in World War II.
Back then, Hank Pym was the first human on Earth who could shrink or grow at will—the original Ant-Man. The suit Scott wore now, with its dartlike design, was based on that original version.
What's even more noteworthy is that Ultron, in the comics at least, was originally created by Hank Pym.
At that time, Howard Stark wasn't even a particularly skilled researcher—he just had wealth and resources backing him up.
Of course, Pym being famously stubborn and secretive meant that his research on Pym Particles eventually stalled. Why? Because he was terrified Stark Industries would copy his work.
And maybe because of that same temperament, he ended up with a student who betrayed him—someone who secretly built a combat suit even more advanced than the original Ant-Man armor: the Yellowjacket suit. Thankfully, this was only the early prototype stage. Otherwise, Scott probably wouldn't have been able to defeat him.
People might wonder why Dr. Pym didn't give such powerful tech to his daughter, Hope van Dyne. With her skill, discipline, and training, wouldn't she have been an even better choice for the mission than an ex-con like Scott?
And in terms of combat ability and learning the suit's mechanics quickly, Hope should naturally have the advantage. She was certainly more qualified than a thief with a prison record.
Others might not understand, but Blaine—who knew the storyline—understood perfectly.
As Pym himself said earlier, he's incredibly stingy. With tech this powerful, he wasn't about to hand it over to just anyone. Scott was essentially a test subject for the first-generation Ant-Man suit. Pym wanted to use him to identify flaws and perfect the second-generation armor—the Wasp suit—which he fully intended for Hope.
That's also one reason Pym didn't put on the suit to fight Cross himself.
Maybe it was destiny, or maybe Scott just had protagonist-level luck, but he survived being Pym's guinea pig. Blaine still wasn't sure why—and didn't particularly care.
Scott turned out to be a natural Ant-Man. With his electrical engineering background and Pym and Hope's training, he mastered the suit quickly and even learned how to command ants.
If Blaine remembered the Ant-Man plot correctly, the massive ant swarm and the flying ants he saw earlier in the Cross Tech building were all under Scott's control.
Not only that—because Pym was so cautious—he'd given Scott several Pym Disks. These little disks were incredible. They weren't much bigger than bottle caps, but their function made Blaine jealous.
Blue Pym Disks enlarged objects. In the lab earlier, Scott had probably escaped the containment chamber using one of them, and Pym had likely used another to turn his keychain pendant into a tank. Pym had also given Scott red Pym Disks.
Red Pym Disks shrank objects. Pym used them effortlessly—shrinking his house into a suitcase so he could take it anywhere, or shrinking his car and small tank into keychain trinkets.
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