Chapter 334: Unconventional Defense
"Batman?"
Even while trapped in the ant farm, where all her special agent skills had been rendered useless by the oversized building blocks and ant guards, Black Widow had been hoping someone would break her out—whether Hawkeye, Garrett, or Batman.
But when Batman actually appeared before her, Black Widow's first instinct wasn't to leave with him. She wanted to use the clash between Batman and Ant-Man as an opportunity to escape on her own.
As an agent, Black Widow excelled at seizing fleeting opportunities. The instant she saw Ant-Man's body rapidly shrinking, she made her move.
Hands pressing against the medical bed beneath her, Black Widow flipped upright, her bare feet hitting the cold laboratory floor.
The fragments had been removed from her foot, but stepping down still sent tearing pain through her sole. Yet Black Widow didn't make a sound. Her movements weren't affected by the pain in the slightest.
Her earlier screaming and limping in the ant farm had been a performance for Ant-Man's benefit. Now she didn't need to act—she just needed to focus on one thing: escape!
She glanced at Batman, who beat the black wings on his back to hover in the air, apparently evading Ant-Man.
Black Widow didn't hesitate. She grabbed the bedsheet from the bed she'd been lying on and bolted toward the laboratory exit.
TAP TAP TAP!
Outside, ants responding to Ant-Man's signals were converging on this location. The spiral staircase and corridors were nearly filled with giant ants—each over three feet long and nearly two feet tall.
Through the white smoke from the detonated smoke grenades, these massive ants appeared as indistinct shadows, impossible to see clearly.
Simultaneously, the buzzing of beating wings filled the atrium surrounded by the spiral staircase. Without even looking, she knew hundreds of giant flying ants were hovering on standby.
"Batman's no match for Ant-Man. I need to rely on myself to escape."
Standing in the corridor outside the laboratory, Black Widow couldn't help but frown.
Giant ants blocked both directions. With only a bedsheet in hand, trying to break through was pure fantasy.
As for the flying ants...
Black Widow considered for only two seconds before placing one hand on the corridor's glass railing and vaulting over the edge from the ninth floor.
WHOOSH!
Black Widow wasn't committing suicide. Less than a second after flipping over the railing, her feet landed on the back of a giant flying ant.
The flying ant couldn't withstand the impact of Black Widow's fall combined with her weight. Its body tilted mid-air, about to plummet.
Black Widow didn't waste time. The moment she landed on the flying ant's back, she whipped the bedsheet several times, twisting it into a tight rope. Then she lashed it toward another flying ant she'd heard buzzing nearby.
Her goal wasn't to snare the flying ant with the sheet—she was simply using it like a blind person's cane to help her navigate through the white haze of smoke.
Seeing the ant beneath her feet giving out, Black Widow immediately leaped again toward where she'd confirmed another flying ant was hovering.
She repeated this pattern four or five times until her bare feet finally touched the first floor of Pym Technologies Tower.
Here the smoke was even denser—thick enough that she couldn't see her hand in front of her face.
The irritating gases mixed into the smoke grenades made Black Widow's body unbearably uncomfortable.
SNAP!
Black Widow shook out the bedsheet, untwisting it from its rope form, then quickly folded it and pressed it over her nose and mouth.
Without water to dampen the fabric, covering her face like this didn't do much good, but it was the only option Black Widow had under the circumstances.
Reaching the first floor, Black Widow's movements became more cautious. She crept forward barefoot, hands extended, feeling her way through the darkness.
Ninth floor, in the laboratory that had served as Black Widow's temporary hospital room.
Batman apparently had no intention of dealing with the miniaturized Ant-Man who'd burrowed into his armor's interior. His black wings beat sharply as he pursued Black Widow out of the laboratory.
But Batman's current objective wasn't Black Widow—it was the other laboratory Ant-Man had just emerged from.
Last night in the Batcave, Batman had suspected that the Wasp's attack might have stimulated Venom Robin, potentially causing the symbiote to produce offspring.
If that had actually happened, Ant-Man would likely dedicate his energy to studying the symbiote in the short term, even if it meant temporarily abandoning other research projects to track down Batman.
Relying on his hearing and the lingering scent of Hank Pym in the air, Batman located Ant-Man's laboratory despite his vision being obscured by the smoke grenades.
Just as expected!
The moment Batman entered, he found the spot where Ant-Man had been standing for extended periods—in front of an electron microscope. Through sound alone, he located a writhing symbiote inside a glass container beside it.
Reaching out, Batman took both the symbiote and its sealed glass container, then turned to head quickly out of the laboratory toward Black Widow's direction.
But just then, Ant-Man—who had shrunk down and burrowed into the Vulcan Armor's interior—let out a scream.
Mid-scream, Ant-Man's size explosively increased from the invisibly small atomic-gap scale to pinpoint size—large enough to ride on a flying ant's back.
BANG!
A muffled impact erupted from inside Batman's Vulcan Armor.
The Vulcan Armor's first layer appeared to be ordinary plating made from alloy and memory fiber. Compared to the Arkham suit's liquid metal protective layer, the Vulcan Armor's defenses seemed remarkably crude.
Ant-Man had penetrated the armor's interior with minimal effort.
Just as he prepared to follow the armor's internal circuitry and narrow tubes toward Batman's body, Ant-Man discovered he'd entered a hollow space inside the armor.
Like the colonnade hall in the Metropolitan Museum, the Vulcan Armor's interior had a relatively spacious gap with only necessary support columns.
"Is this an internal defense system in the armor? Fire suppression? Air filtration?"
Ant-Man muttered quietly as he surveyed the interior space that seemed vast from his perspective.
He hesitated for a moment, then lunged toward the section closer to Batman's body.
But the instant his body became airborne, completely exposed in the Vulcan Armor's hollow interior, the armor's second defensive layer activated.
Not fire suppression. Not air filtration. Not even any conventional defense system.
Microwaves.
Just like a microwave oven, causing water molecules to vibrate rapidly—heating Ant-Man's entire body from the inside out, as if he'd been placed in a furnace!
This was why Batman had named it Vulcan Armor—for the internal microwave emitters that created a forge like that of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and smithing!
"Impossible! Who is Batman? Is he the guy who stole my Pym Particles during World War II? Otherwise, how could he have figured out a countermeasure in just one night?"
Under the microwave assault, Ant-Man's body temperature skyrocketed. The pain forced a scream from his lips!
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