Fly, Dragonfly

Cassie's Emergency!

Scott gave us the directions for Cassie's school to find the original suit. He shrank down with Mom and left to retrieve it. "Whenever you go back to school, isn't everything supposed to look so much smaller?" Scott asked over his communicator. "This place seems huge." All of a sudden, Scott groaned in pain. "What is it?" I asked. "It's the new regulator." Mom explained. "Hank? Brenna? What's going on with this suit?" Scott asked. "How much of a work in progress is this?" As the bell rang, Mom and Scott hid in the janitor's closet. Scott ended up growing to probably 30 feet. Mom couldn't help but laugh. "What are you laughing?" Scott asked. "Please, could you just..." "Okay. Okay." Mom said, enlarging herself to examine the regulator. "What do you see?" Gramps asked. "The sizing coils are malfunctioning." Mom explained. "Just let me..." "Ow!" Scott winced. "Sorry." Mom apologized, fixing the regulator, only for it to malfunction again. "Awesome." Scott said sarcastically. "If only Cap could see you now." Mom joked. "Hilarious. What are we gonna do?" Scott asked. Mom looked at the Lost and Found with an idea.

Mom and Scott left the janitor's closet in search of Cassie's classroom. Although they almost got caught by a teacher, they were able to find the suit in a small trophy box. They escaped before the kids came in from recess. I've honestly never been around other kids. After all, I was homeschooled. I sometimes wonder what it's like to have a friend around my age.

Mom and Scott came back to the van with the old suit. Due to the lack of height, Scott struggled with getting inside the van. "Hiya, champ. How was school today?" Gramps teased. "I knew he was short, but I didn't think he was shorter than me." I laughed. "Ha, ha! Alright, get your jokes out now." Scott complains. "Can you fix the suit?" "So cranky." Mom smirks. "You want a juice box and some string cheese?" Gramps joked. "Do you really have that?" Scott asked.

A little bit later, Gramps took out the diffractor from the original suit to test Bill's theory. After a few seconds, my laptop began to show the potential coordinates of the lab. "This has got to be the lab!" I gasped. "Let's go get it." Mom smiled.

Gramps drove to the location on my laptop, pulling up to this mansion in the woods. "This seems right." Scott said. Mom and Scott got suited up to retrieve the lab. "Look at us, teaming up twice in one day." "Makes you think, huh?" Mom asked. "About what?" Scott wondered. "Germany." Mom replied. "What do you mean?" He asked. "We were working together, training together, and other stuffing together." Mom explained. "If I had asked you, would you have come?" Scott asked. "I guess we'll never know." She replied. "But I do know one thing. If I have, you'd have never been caught." She left the van, leaving Scott flattered. "Someone's crushing on my mama!" I gasped. "Hey, Scott? You think you can stop daydreaming about my daughter long enough to get my lab?" Gramps asked. "Yes, sir." Scott replied. "Thank you." Gramps said as Scott shrank to join my mom. "Okay, you're transmitting." "What took you so long?" Mom asked. "Sorry, I had to come up with a name for my ant. Your daughter gave me some ideas." Scott lied. "Liar, liar, ass on fire." I whispered with my mic on mute. "I'm thinking Ulysses S. Gr-Ant." Scott continued. "You like it?" "Hilarious." Mom said sarcastically. Looking at the screens, we couldn't see anything on the monitors. "That's weird." I said. "We're not getting anything on the monitors." Gramps explained. "There's some kind of electronic disturbance. Be careful." "You know me, Hank." Scott said. "I'm always careful... Whoa!" He was frightened by the ghost person's suit. "It's okay. It's just the suit." Mom explains. "How do you know?" Scott asked. "Look." Mom replied, flying over to a glowing chamber with a woman sleeping inside. "That's Ghost?" Scott asked. "What is she doing?" Mom wondered. "You think that suit is how she goes through walls and stuff?" He asked. "Let's just get out of here before she wakes up." Mom warned. "Hope, look! There's the lab!" Scott gasped. "Now, we're sure that this is our shrunken building and not somebody else's?" "Just take it, Scott. C'mon, we gotta be fast." Mom replied. "I'll take it." Scott said. Mom turned around to see the chamber was empty. "Oh, shit!" Mom gasped, getting knocked out by Ghost. "Mom? Mr Lang? What's wrong?" I asked. "Answer me!" That was all I could remember before blacking out.

"Wake up!" I heard someone say, banging my head against a wooden chair, turning to see that it was Ghost. "Dad? Brenna?" Mom asked as both of us woke up. "Don't ever touch them again!" "Now, now, Hope. I think I'm being rather gentle with your father and daughter, all things considered." Ghost said. "What the hell are you talking about?" Gramps asked. "Another casualty of Hank Pym's ego." I heard Bill respond. "Bill. What have you done?" Gramps asked. "It's what you've done, Dr Pym." Ghost replied. "You're with her?" Scott asked. "Aw, man! I thought you were cool." "Not really the best time, Mr Lang." I commented. "What the hell is going on here?" Mom asked. "I doubt Hank has ever mentioned my father. Why would he? Elihas Starr." Ghost explains. "They were colleagues at SHIELD. Quantum research. Until my father dare disagree with the great Hank Pym. You had him fired. Oh, and discredited for good measure. My father tried to continue his research on his own. Desperate to restore his name, so he took risks. Too many. Until something went wrong. He told us to run. I could tell he was scared. I didn't want him to be alone. When I woke up, my parents were dead. I wasn't so lucky. They called it molecular disequilibrium. A rather dull name, I think. Doesn't quite do justice to what it means. Every cell in my body is torn apart and stitched back together. Over and over. Every day." "I was still at SHIELD when I got the call about a quantum anomaly in Argentina." Bill added. "Dr Foster did his best to keep me safe." Ghost continued. "But others at SHIELD saw an opportunity in my affliction. They built me a containment suit so I could control my phasing. And trained me to be a stealth operative. They weaponized me. I stole for them, spied for them, I killed for them. And in exchange for my soul, they were going to cure me. They lied." "When SHIELD collapsed, I took Ava in." Bill added. "I built the chamber to slow her decay, but her condition was progressive. I didn't know how to cure it. She wanted to kill you, Hank, but I told her no and that she should watch you instead. And sure enough, she discovered that you were building the tunnel." All of a sudden, Scott's phone began ringing while Bill was talking. "Then she told me about Lang. And the message from Janet inside his head, that's when I... Christ's sake!" "That's me. I'm sorry." Scott apologized. "Look, can you tell me who's texting me?" "Cassie. 911." Bill replied. "That's my daughter. I need to text her back." Scott said. "No, that's not happening." Bill refused. "What. It's 911. That means it's an emergency." Scott argued. "You're not making demands here, Lang." Bill said. "You're not appreciating the gravity of the..." "Okay, look, she's trying to video chat me now." Scott sighed. "Something might be wrong. Let me talk to her. Please." Bill accepted the call and held the phone for Scott. "Cassie, are you okay?" Scott asked. "What's the emergency?" "I can't find my soccer shoes." Cassie explained. "What?" Scott asked. "I have a game tomorrow." Cassie said. "Hey, Scott. I know that they're there. Can you just walk the phone around the house?" Maggie, his ex wife asked. "No, I can't do that right now." Scott replied. "Why not?" Maggie asked. "Because I'm sick." Scott lied. "Can you just look around later and call me back?" She asked. "Bye, Daddy!" Cassie exclaimed. "Feel better!" "Bye, peanut." Scott replied as Bill hung up the phone. "I'm sorry. It said emergency." "Ava, I want to help you." Gramps explained. "She doesn't need your help. I know how to save her." Bill said. "Oh really? How?" I asked. "Janet." Ghost replied. "For the last 30 years, she's been down there absorbing quantum energy." Bill explains. "We can extract that energy. We can use it to repair Ava's molecular structure." "Extract it? Are you crazy? That would rip Janet apart!" Gramps exclaimed. "You don't know that." Bill said. "I'm gonna fire up your tunnel. When Janet's location pops into Lang's head, he's gonna give it to me, or I'm gonna turn him over to the FBI. You are gonna stay here just in case I need your help." "Like hell I would help you!" Gramps snapped. "You'll do whatever I say." Ghost scolded. "You're gonna kill my grandma!" I shouted. "I'd be more worried about yourselves." Ghost said. "Goddamn it, Bill!" Gramps yelled, breathing heavily. "Dad?" Mom asked. "Calm down, Hank." Bill said. "So help me God..." Gramps gasped. "It's his heart! He needs his pills!" Mom exclaimed. "Please, Dr Foster, they're in the tin. Please." I begged. "He could die!" "Help him!" Scott exclaimed. "Dad, just hang on. Keep breathing." Mom said. "Help him, man! Come on!" Scott shouted. "The Altoid tin." I said. Bill grabbed the tin, accidentally releasing some ants to set us free. Mom grabbed the lab as we all made our escape.