I'm having a blast in Marvel!

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And he himself is shrinking at an alarming rate.

He screamed, but his voice was so soft that he couldn't even hear himself.

He tried to struggle, but his body wouldn't obey him.

A few seconds later, the frantic shrinking stopped.

He found himself standing on a vast plain.

This plain is actually just a small area of ​​the apartment's wooden floor.

An ant passed by, and the creature that was originally too small to be noticed now looked as big as a heavy truck.

Its two antennae on its head are taller than its entire body.

Chapter 141 The New Ant-Man

Scott felt as if his stomach had been twisted into a pretzel by an invisible hand. He lay on the ground, everything in his vision swaying.

The bristles on the six legs of the passing ant were clearly visible, like rows of sharp spears. Its compound eyes, like countless funhouse mirrors, reflected countless distorted, tiny, screaming versions of itself.

He wanted to run, but his legs were as weak as noodles.

"Press the red button again!" Hank Pym's voice boomed through the helmet like God thundering.

Scott's mind went blank, and on instinct, he raised his hand and slapped it haphazardly on his glove.

The feeling of dizziness came back. My vision snapped back to its original state, like a stretched rubber band.

He fell heavily to the floor, and the first thing he did was rip off his helmet and throw it into the corner with all his might, making a loud "bang".

Then he lay on the ground, his throat burning, and he gagged desperately.

"Get out!" He looked up and noticed two people standing in the living room: an elderly man with gray hair and a woman with sharp eyes. When had they come in? He hadn't noticed at all.

Scott grabbed the Ant-Man suit from the ground and threw it at the old man like trash, yelling, "Take your junk and get out!"

The old man simply sidestepped and easily dodged it. That man is Hank Pym.

The woman beside him, Hope van Dine, stepped forward, her gaze like an ice blade scraping across Scott's face. "You're not going anywhere, Mr. Thief."

Scott scrambled to his feet and tried to rush to the door, but Hope easily subdued him with a single, simple grappling move. He felt like his arm was about to break; the woman's strength was astonishing.

A few streets away, in Chu Hang's studio, a complex three-dimensional atomic structure model stopped calculating on a huge holographic screen.

"interesting."

He took a sip of coffee and looked at the analysis report that popped up on the screen.

Pym particles, in essence, don't shrink objects; rather, they forcibly compress the distance between atoms through an unknown quantum effect. This isn't shrinking; it's folding microscopic space.

This is infinitely more precise and infinitely more dangerous than the macroscopic spatial laws he currently understands.

Regarding the replication of Pym Particles, he didn't want the technical blueprints; replicating a technology he couldn't understand was meaningless to him.

What he wants is the result, the ability to distort his own dimensions at will.

This means that the replication of capabilities can only be performed on organisms that are fully adapted to the Pym particle effect.

Chu Hang tapped the table. He didn't need to learn how to plant trees; he just needed to wait for Scott, this guinea pig, to ripen the fruit, and then he could reach out and pick it. Direct copying technology was too dangerous; it would be disastrous if it triggered uncontrollable quantum collapse in himself.

But copying Scott's finished product would mean putting all the risks on Scott's shoulders.

He looked at Scott on the screen, being pinned to the ground by Hope, and smiled.

"Keep it up, future hero."

Inside the apartment, Scott gave up struggling. He knew he couldn't escape.

“Mr. Scott Lang,” Hank Pym finally spoke, his voice calm and utterly unwavering, “do you want to be a thief for the rest of your life, going in and out of prison, making your daughter unable to hold her head up in school? Or do you want to be a hero in her eyes?”

Scott froze.

The word "hero" was like a needle, pricking the softest spot in his heart.

Hank picked up the suit from the ground, carefully brushed off the dust, and treated it like a precious treasure. Then, he shoved the suit back into Scott's arms: "I'm giving you a chance. A chance to stand tall at Cathy's birthday party and tell her, 'Your dad saved the world.'"

Scott looked down at the suit in his arms; the cold metal and the strange feel of the fibers made him feel dazed.

He thought of Cathy. He thought of her clear eyes, and the way she always looked at him, a mixture of closeness and distance. He didn't want to be taken away from the party like a criminal on his daughter's birthday.

“What… do I need to do?” he asked in a hoarse voice.

Hank Pym's lips twitched almost imperceptibly, like a fisherman who had finally caught a big fish.

"First, learn how to use it."

The car stopped in front of an unassuming suburban house. But the house itself was a completely different story. In the center of the living room was a huge glass terrarium, where thousands of ants busily scurried about, creating a miniature city.

"Your training ground is downstairs." Hank opened the door to the basement.

The basement was large, like an abandoned laboratory, with strange instruments and pipes everywhere.

"Put it on. Lesson one: control shrinkage."

Scott took a deep breath, resignedly put on his suit and helmet. He pressed the red button.

This time, he was mentally prepared and forced himself to remain calm, focusing on the changes in the space around him. He felt as if he had fallen into an invisible vortex, with everything around him stretching and distorting.

A few seconds later, he succeeded. He stood steadily on the floor, only one centimeter tall.

“Very good,” Hank’s voice came from inside the helmet, like a thunderclap, “Now, run from point A to point B.”

Hank drew two dots on the floor with a laser pointer. What was originally only two meters away now seemed to Scott like a marathon with no end in sight.

He started running. The air was no longer empty; he could clearly feel the resistance of every gust of air, like wading through waist-deep water.

He ran until his lungs felt like they were about to burst before finally reaching the finish line, panting heavily.

“Thirty seconds,” Hank’s voice was flat and filled with disappointment. “Too slow. A proper Ant-Man only needs three seconds. Let’s do it again.”

Scott didn't even have time to catch his breath before he turned around and ran back.

Back and forth, countless times.

Finally, he returned to normal size, took off his helmet, and collapsed on the ground, drenched in sweat, as if he had been pulled out of the water.

Hope handed him a bottle of water, her eyes still filled with undisguised disdain: "I told you, he's no good. He's just a thief."

“But he has what we need.” Hank looked at Scott, who was panting heavily, with a complicated expression. “He has a mind to break the rules and a heart that wants to be a hero. That’s more important than anything else.”

Scott spent the next few days undergoing this grueling training.

He could already skillfully jump over a pencil and climb a vertical book while shrunk. Hank even threw him into the bathtub to practice balancing in the water. Once, he accidentally fell onto a half-eaten pizza, got stuck in the sticky cheese, and almost became dinner for a passing cockroach.

Hank finally revealed his true objective: to infiltrate Pym Technologies and steal back the misused "Wasp Suit" technology from his former student, Darren Cross.

“Darren weaponized my Pym Particles,” Hank said, his voice filled with anguish. “He wanted to sell them to Hydra. If he succeeded, the world would be finished.”

“Why don’t you go yourself?” Scott asked, panting.

“I’m getting old.” Hank looked at his hands. “Every time I use Pym Particles, it causes irreversible damage to my body. Besides, Darren’s security system was designed specifically to protect me.”

"And what about her?" Scott pointed to Hope, who was instructing him on fighting techniques.

Hank's voice instantly turned somber: "She can't go. I can't... lose her again."

Scott didn't ask any more questions. He knew there was a story behind it that he didn't know.

“Communication,” Hank’s voice came through the helmet, “is the key to control. Ants are your allies, not your slaves. You must learn to understand their needs and make deals with them.”

Scott was going crazy. He was in a shrunken state, standing in that enormous terrarium, surrounded by ants. They crawled around his feet, each one the size of a small car, its black carapace gleaming under the light.

The device inside the helmet converted the pheromones and antennae vibrations released by the ants into a static-like noise. His mind was filled with fragmented information such as "hunger," "danger," "carrying," "queen," and "mating," which gave him a headache.

Hank's task for him was to direct a worker ant to move a sugar cube from point A to point B.

He has failed seventeen times.

He tried to concentrate and give a clear instruction to the nearest worker ant: "Pick up the sugar."

The worker ant merely flicked its antennae, walked around him, and crawled away on its own.

"It won't listen to me!" he complained irritably.

“Because it thinks your instructions are stupid.” Hank’s voice was icy. “You have to give it a reason. Tell it why it should do it.”

Scott took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and tried a different approach.

This time, he didn't give the order directly. He tried to recall what Hank had taught him, weaving his thoughts into a signal mixed with various pheromones, and transmitted it. This signal contained the lure of "food," the security of the "nest," the supreme command of "what the Queen needs," and a "safe route" that he had planned.

A miracle happened.

The worker ant suddenly stopped, excitedly waving its antennae. It had received this complex "proposal." A few seconds later, it quickly crawled to the sugar cube, clamped it with its huge mouthparts, and then steadily carried it to the designated leaf, following the route Scott had planned in his mind.

"Well done." There was finally a hint of approval in Hank's voice.

“Dad, let him try 'Anthony',” Hope’s voice broke in.

“Okay,” Hank agreed. “Scott, get ready. Advanced lesson. Connect with 'Anthony'.”

"Anthony?"

“An ant,” Hank explained, “I gave it a pair of mechanical wings. It’s your ride.”

As soon as the words were spoken, a huge flying ant flapped its wings and slowly descended from the top of the terrarium. Its wings gleamed with a metallic sheen under the light, clearly artificial.

Scott swallowed hard. This thing was practically a living, breathing attack helicopter.

He tried to convey the same friendly request to Anthony as before: "Take me with you."

The flying ant tilted its head, its huge compound eyes scrutinizing him. Then, it suddenly flapped its wings, turned around, and flew away, landing on a distant branch to preen its wings.

"Does it think I'm stupid too?" Scott was on the verge of tears.

“No,” Hank’s voice sounded like he was about to laugh, “it just thinks you’re too heavy.”

"Dad! Something's happened!" Just then, Hope's voice suddenly became tense. "Darren Cross has moved up the product launch date!"

Hank's expression changed, and he quickly walked to the computer.

On the screen, Darren Cross stands in front of a huge glass display case, boasting confidently to a group of investors in suits. Inside the display case is a menacing yellow and black metallic suit—the Wasp Suit.

“He succeeded.” Hank’s voice was filled with bitterness and anger. “He turned my hard work into a killing weapon.”

“The press conference is tomorrow night.” Hope said, her face pale. “We don’t have time. Scott is completely unprepared.”