Chapter 2: Friendly advice
Years ago
"Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others." That ironic sentence rang in Hank Pym's ears.
"Where do I know that from? Oh, right. Jack Welch. How do I know that?"
Just the day before, Pym had unleashed something into the world that he does not understand yet, a dangerous AI named Ultron that claims to be his artificial son. When Pym refused to help Ultron, he defeated the tired Pym without hesitation, so now he had to grow. He took it literally. He's now known as Giant-Man, while maintaining his other ego as Ant-Man.
"Faster." he screamed into his helmet, the words transformed into a strange buzzing and the ants sped on. At microscopic size he traveled with a small army of insects in Manhattan during rush hour. People took no notice, just like he wanted.
A few blocks away, in the laboratory of Dr. Vernon Van Dyne, a young woman named Janet just got back from her afternoon shopping.
"Dad?" she repeated but could not find her father anywhere. The young lady could easily be mistaken for a brat in her Gucci clothing and with her Louis Vuitton handbag only looking for her dad so that he can raise her allowance, but a way more mature woman was buried deep beneath. In fact, she only maintained this facade so that she could look for her real purpose in life.
"Dad! I'm back from shopping. You couldn't believe the traffic today. What was it that they said? Oh right, I think your weird bug friend found a way to reverse his Pym Particles into borrowing mass instead of... I mean he found a way to grow instead of shrink."
"I'm not weird." a voice behind her said. Surprised, she turned around to find Dr. Hank Pym standing at the other side of the lab, with ants around his legs about to depart to places unknown and with his helmet under his arm. He looked at the young woman with a smug face.
"Oh, I'm so sorry, Dr. Pym. I didn't mean to--"
"No worries... Janet is it? I don't think we've met."
"No. No, we haven't." She said blushing.
"Dr. Pym. What gives me the honor of seeing you here, without calling first?" a smiling Vernon Van Dyne said. He walked towards several of the weird machines he had in his lab.
"Sorry for the intrusion, my friend. But something has happened. You remember the Dragon Man body you lent me?"
"Yes. Eh, Janet, please, this is between us." he said looking at his daughter.
With a frown face she slowly walked away even though she could be to more help than the others realized.
"Go on." Vernon said to Pym.
"Well, in order to see what was wrong with it, I created a second body that I based on Dragon Man in order to move the lifeforce-energy to the new body. But something went wrong, very wrong. The body came to life, calling me his father and attacking me when I didn't want to cause genocide against the human race. I don't know where he is or what he's capable of."
Vernon was trying to melt all the information.
"What will you do?" he asked.
"That's why I came here. To ask for advice."
"What if... what if you would fight AI against AI. I know it sounds weird but..."
"Wait... I know exactly what I should do. Thank you, Vernon!" Pym shouted and ran up to Vernon, shook is hand and shrunk.
Vernon stayed by his machines and looked surprised.
"It will take some time, but it'll work." Pym thought as he called for his ants.
To be continued in Avengers AI and the return of Janet Van Dyne in the next issue of Hank Pym
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