Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

About Ten Years ago

Aqua sighed out as she flew through the Lanes Between away from Radiant Garden. Part of her hoped that Vanitas would listen to her and actually take Ventus back to the Land of Departure, just like Master Eraqus had requested they do. But given how much Vanitas believed Ventus to be ready when he clearly wasn't, she figured that probably wasn't going to happen. Why did she have to be the only responsible one?  *1*

Aqua put those thoughts to the side and continued her trek to the latest world in the path of the Lanes Between, which was a blue and green one called Earth 616. She flew through a portal provided and came out in the clear area of the world. She landed on a small hill that gave her a great view of a large city in the distance with a gigantic red bridge.

Aqua dismissed her armor and Glider and exclaimed in amazement at the sight of the large city, body of water, and enormous red bridge in front of her. She had never seen a city like this before, and it was beautiful.

The familiar sound of armor dismissing itself garnered her attention to behind her. Aqua turned around and was surprised to see Terra staring at her with a contemplative expression, and Ventus staring up at Terra with the widest smile.

"Terra!" Ventus exclaimed in excitement before he looked to the side. His eyes widened at the sight of Aqua. "Uh, oh..."

"Ven, what did I tell you?" Aqua asked, slightly exasperated.

"Ven, why didn't you go back home?" Terra asked, looking at his younger friend with his arms crossed.

"See, I have a very good explanation," Ventus said. "Just let me think of it..."

Terra's frown changed into one of confusion.

"Wasn't that from a movie or show V showed us?" Terra asked.

"Yeah, I think I've heard it somewhere before," Aqua agreed with a small nod.

"Oh, man, now I can't make up excuses anymore," Ventus softly complained.

All three of their attentions were drawn to the red bridge as a large explosion went off. They looked at the bridge in surprise as the fire and smoke flew up from a crashed car that was upside down on top of another car. The three friends shared determined nods of their heads, deciding to put their problems to the side, and travelled down the mountain and towards the bridge.

They reached the bridge after a short amount of time, quickly finding hordes of Flood and Scrapper Unversed waiting for them.

"Duck!" Terra exclaimed.

Aqua and Ventus exclaimed as they followed Terra's instructions and dropped to the ground, just as a red car flew over their heads and crashed into the ground behind them. Terra looked up in surprise to see another Trinity Armor floating a short distance down the road in front of them. Between them and the large Unversed was lots of Floods, Scrappers, Bruisers, and Red Hot Chilis that flew in front of them or over their heads.

"Never seen this many in once place before," Terra commented, standing in his battle stance with Earthshaker.

"Vanitas is probably here," Aqua assessed, summoning Stormfall and standing in her battle stance.

"If he is, we'll take him out," Ventus said, standing in his battle stance with Wayward Wind. "But first, we've gotta take care of these guys."

Aqua blasted a Flood with Fission Firaga, taking it out in the blast of flame. Ventus started a combo attack, taking out one Flood and ending the combo on a Scrapper, knocking it aside. Terra started the attack Quake and jumped forwards, slashing on the ground and making boulders burst up out of the ground and knock aside all Unversed in its path. Aqua started the attack Ice Barrage and exclaimed as she make ice crystals pop out of the ground and knock aside the Red Hot Chilis, taking out many of the flame related Unversed. Ventus started his attack Tornado, causing a large surge of surging winds that lifted up about a dozen of mixed Unversed, including Floods, Scrappers, and Red Hot Chilis. He released the magic and let the Unversed all fall to the ground hard, where they shattered into darkness.

Terra started a combo attack against a Bruiser, taking it out with the finisher. He then exclaimed as he started Quick Blitz, knocking aside another Bruiser, which Ventus took out with Spark Raid, throwing his electricity covered Keyblade through the Bruiser before it flew back into his hand. Aqua exclaimed as she started the Finish attack Explosion, gathering energy and jumping forwards, slashing at the ground and causing a shockwave that took out Floods and a Red Hot Chili. Ventus exclaimed as he started Deep Freeze, freezing a few Floods and Scrappers that were shattered within the ice. Aqua exclaimed as she blasted Thundaga Shot at a Bruiser, taking it out, and Terra exclaimed as he started Meteor, making a gigantic rock covered in fire fall down to the ground, which caused a giant blast that took out lots of Unversed.

With all the small Unversed taken out, the Trinity Armor floated over to the trio, who stood ready with their Keyblades. The Unversed uppercutted a grey sedan, which travelled through the air towards the three friends. Aqua prepared to cast a barrier around the three of them, but then all of their eyes widened in surprise when a small device flew over their heads and attached to the car, making it shrink down significantly until it resembled a small toy which harmlessly smacked Terra in his chest.

Terra, Ventus, and Aqua shared a confused look.

"I thought Mini only worked on smaller Unversed?" Ventus asked.

"That was me," a male voice behind the trio announced.

The three friends turned around and saw a man in a red and black suit with a silver helmet was standing behind them.

"H-how did you do that?" Aqua asked confused.

"Same way I'm about to do this," the man announced, running up past the friends.

He bent down and picked up the grey sedan. He attached another device to the shrunk car and tossed it towards the Trinity Armor. A light flared, and the sedan grew back to full size and rammed right into the head piece of the Trinity Armor, hitting it hard enough it detached from the rest of the body, slamming to the ground and disappearing in a flash of black. Aqua cast Transcendence, gathering the arms and legs in the vortex, and Ventus blasted Mega Flare, sending up the giant blast of fire that took out the remaining pieces of the Unversed.

The trio panted in and out with the man in the suit as they dismissed their Keyblades.

"How did you do that?" Ventus asked with and amazed voice.

"How did you guys do that?" the man asked, with an equally amazed expression.

"It's a long story," Terra said, wondering if there was a reasonable way to explain without revealing the secret about other worlds.

"And mine is also a long story," the man in the suit admitted. "But this probably isn't the place to tell it. The National Guard will probably arrive soon and try to figure out what happened. Come on."

The three friends followed the man in the suit across the road towards a black van just a short distance away.

' What was that thing V said about getting in strangers' vans?' Ventus wondered.

The man in the suit climbed into the driver's seat, Terra climbed in the passenger's seat, and Ventus and Aqua climbed in the back. The man in the suit drove the van across the bridge and back onto solid land, into the city and towards his base.

"Who are you?" Terra asked.

"Hank Pym," the man said, opening up the visor of his mask and revealing his face, along with little wisps of greying hair. "CEO of Pym Technologies. Who are you three?"

"Terra," Terra said.

"Aqua," Aqua said.

"I'm Ventus," Ventus said. "Ven for short."

"Where are we, Hank?" Terra asked.

"San Fransisco," Hank said. He looked at Terra with a confused expression. "How do you not know that?"

"Well, we're from... out of town," Ventus said, trying to hide the nervousness in his voice.

"Terra, he saw the full impact of what we can do with the Keyblade back there," Aqua said. "I don't think there's any other way to explain it other than the truth."

"Yeah," Terra agreed softly. "I'm hoping this doesn't become the normal."

He sighed out before looking at Hank.

"We're from another world," Terra said. "Those things we summoned are called Keyblades, and those monsters were called Unversed. They're created through negative emotions."

"They're mostly prominent when a boy in a mask appears," Aqua said. "He must be somewhere on this world."

"Probably not," Hank said with a sigh. "Today is the tenth anniversary of when my wife..."

Terra and Aqua went slightly wide eyed in sympathy. Ventus frowned in confusion for a second before his eyes widened, too.

"We're sorry to hear that," Terra said.

"How did it happen?" Aqua asked, sympathetically.

"She and I are both in this business," Hank said, gesturing to his outfit. "I invented the Pym Particles, which can be used to shrink and grow objects, and through this suit, people. She had a suit with wings, and we worked together to stop various criminals. I'm Ant Man and she was the Wasp. We were stopping a Soviet missile, and she went subatomic to get within and deactivate it from inside. But, she went too small, and was lost within the quantum realm, from where there's no return."

Ventus, Terra, and Aqua all exclaimed sympathetically.

"She went out doing what she believed in," Hank said with a nostalgic expression. "But I still can't tell what the hardest part was: living with her choice, or trying to find a way to break the news to our daughter."

Ventus, Terra, and Aqua exclaimed sympathetically once again.

"You said today is the anniversary of when she disappeared?" Aqua asked. Hank nodded his head. "How is she reacting to it?"

"I don't know," Hank admitted. "She just went right to school without saying a word."

"How old is she?" Ventus asked.

"Seventeen," Hank said.

"This happened when she was seven?" Terra asked with a wince. "Oh, that had to be rough."

"She's probably not reacting well to anything today," Hank admitted.

"Wait, Unversed are usually made through negative emotions..." Aqua pointed out, realization starting to dawn on her.

That realization spread throughout the rest of the group, even though Ventus had taken the longest time to get there.

"Oh, crap..." Hank sighed out. "My little girl is unintentionally releasing negativity monsters throughout the city."

"Surprisingly, not the weirdest thing we've seen on this journey," Terra commented.

"We've gotta make sure those things don't hurt too many people," Hank announced as they drove through the streets of San Fransisco. "If they're coming from Hope's negative emotions, then there's probably going to be a good amount at her school."

"Stands to reason," Aqua commented.

"So where's her school?" Ventus asked.

The sound of a horn blaring garnered their attentions. They all looked forwards and watched as a car flew through the air down the road in front of them, before it disappeared behind another building.

"I'm guessing down that way," Terra commented, gesturing to the road on the left.

Hank turned the wheel left, and the car drove down that road, traversing through the other crashed cars in the wake. They soon came to a stop outside of what Hank said was his daughter's private school, very quickly discovering a large Unversed.

The Unversed was around nine or ten feet tall, dressed in a purple and black military uniform that looked like it would have been normal at Castle of Dreams. It wore a hat similar to that of what you would see in a cartoon, and in each of its hands was a large scimitar about the size of Ventus. It was called a Castle Guard. *2*

"Okay, that doesn't look good," Hank commented.

"We can take care of one guy," Terra assured Hank, looking at the man dressed like an Ant.

"What about three?" Ventus asked, worry in his voice as he pointed at the Castle Guard.

Aqua and Terra followed his pointed finger to see two more Castle Guards stepping up to join the first one, twirling their scimitars in preparation.

"Terra, remember that thing V told us about not tempting Murphy's law?" Aqua asked.

"Yeah," Terra confirmed, nodding his head.

"You just did what he told us not to do," Aqua said.

"Yeah," Terra confirmed, once again nodding his head.

"If these guys don't destroy us, I'm going to kill you," Aqua said.

"Understandable," Terra admitted, still nodding his head.

Hank pulled the van to a stop, and he turned and looked at his three companions.

"Listen, we can take care of those guys, but you three need some form of disguising yourselves from the public," he told the Keybladers. "The news will be here quickly, and we can't have them get down our faces. That's part of the reason for the mask. Do you guys have any form of hiding your faces?"

Terra, Ventus, and Aqua shared a look, then chuckled at each other. They each pressed their hands against their armor buttons, and light flashed, making their armor appear.

"We'll take care of the Unversed," Ventus assured Hank.

"Hey, I'm helping you guys," Hank told them. "One thing of the suit is that when I'm small, I have great strength. I can help out."

"No, we can't let a civilian join in on a battle against these things," Aqua announced.

"You act like I'm actually going to listen to you," Hank commented, sliding on his mask and climbing out of the driver's seat.

"I like him," Ventus laughed as he climbed out of the van.

"Ven, you shouldn't..." Aqua started, but Ventus was already out of the car. She sighed out and looked at Terra in the passenger's seat. "I'm a Master, you guys should be listening to me."

"No, we shouldn't," Terra said, climbing out of the passenger's seat. "We never listen to V."

Aqua sighed out again as she climbed out of the car. Her, Terra, and Ventus summoned their Keyblades and stood in their battle stances while Hank stood ready. The Castle Guards stepped up, all while more Floods and Scrappers appeared behind them.

Hank shrunk down and rode some ants towards the smaller Unversed. He exclaimed as he punched aside a Flood, using his enhanced strength to knock it into another Flood so hard both monsters were destroyed. Terra charged at a Castle Guard and dodged a stab in the ground with its scimitar. He then did a full combo attack, then an aerial combo attack, getting enough energy to do the Finish attack, Explosion. Aqua used a barrier to block a full combo scimitar combo attack from another Castle Guard, then retaliated with a blast of magic from her Keyblade. Ventus dodged as fire was shot out of a Castle Guard's scimitars, then jumped up to attack with Quick Blitz.

Terra exclaimed as he started the attack, Geo Impact, jumping forwards and slashed at the ground, making boulders burst up and attack his Castle Guard. He followed it up with a combo attack, giving him enough energy to start the Command Style Critical Impact. Aqua cast Magnega, picking up her Castle Guard. She followed it up with a blast of Thundaga Shot, giving her enough energy to start the Spellweaver Command Style. Ventus started Sonic Blade, sliding around and striking his Castle Guard many times, getting enough energy to start the Fever Pitch Command Style. Hank continued fighting the smaller Unversed, using his enhanced strength and shrinking devices to knock aside Floods and stomp Scrappers to pieces.

Aqua, Ventus, and Terra did the combo attacks provided through their Command Styles against each of their respective Castle Guards, knocking them around quite a while. Ventus blasted Aeroga, causing strong winds that knocked his Castle Guard quite a bit, giving him enough energy to upgrade to the stronger Command Style Cyclone. Terra exclaimed as he used Brutal Blast to make energy surround him, which he used to knock aside his Castle Guard, getting enough energy to upgrade to the stronger Command Style Rockbreaker. Aqua blasted Mega Flare at her Castle Guard, but since she didn't have any stronger Command Styles yet, she started Spellweaver's Finish attack, spinning around and striking a lot of times with her Keyblade and magic, doing lots of damage.

While Hank took out more and more Unversed with surprise shrink-then-grown thrown cars, Ventus dodged another scimitar slash, then started an aerial combo. He got enough energy and started the Finish attack, surrounding himself in a tornado and spinning in it through the Castle Guard, knocking it around. Terra blasted Firaga, getting enough energy to start the Finish attack, but dodged a blast of fire from the Castle Guard scimitar fired at him. Terra exclaimed as he started the Finish attack, making three large rocks appear and sent them flying at the Castle Guard, causing lots of damage. Aqua blasted Thundaga Shot then Triple Firaga at her Castle Guard, then started Aerial Slam, doing two strikes and going up in the air, then did the final downwards slash. Hank used his enhanced strength to kick a car towards a few Unversed, taking out two Scrappers and five Floods.

Terra, Ventus, and Aqua then gathered together and started Unity Limit, standing in three of the circles in the patterns that appeared on the ground as an orb of light appeared over their heads. They looked down together in preparation before they exclaimed in unison and raised their Keyblades, making the light glow its brightest, taking out the Castle Guards and the remaining Heartless, ending the fight.

Terra, Aqua, Ventus, and Hank sighed out as the armored trio dismissed their Keyblades and stood together with Hank.

"Was that all of them?" Hank asked.

"We don't know," Ventus admitted. "From what we've seen, they can form from the simplest of negative emotion."

"Annoyance, jealousy, envy, the list goes on," Aqua said.

"You should try to cheer your daughter up so she can stop doing this," Terra suggested.

"Wish I could say it was all her," Hank admitted. "I mean, it's been ten years, and my wife is still gone."

"Okay, yeah, it'd probably make sense if he had some latent negative emotions about today," Ventus pointed out.

"So, what do we do?" Hank asked. "I can't have me and my daughter unintentionally creating negativity monsters."

"Okay, I'm not a therapist," Aqua said. "But maybe you and her should sit down and have a talk about today. See if you can try to get the negative out of your systems."

"Good idea," Hank said. "But we should get out of here."

"Yeah, that news Hank just mentioned is already here," Terra said, gesturing to the road ahead of them.

Ventus and Aqua followed his pointed hand to see news vans appearing, with people already starting to climb out. Hank and the Keybladers rushed to the former's van and climbed inside. Terra, Ventus, and Aqua all exclaimed in surprise as Hank started driving away before they could even get their seatbelts on.

It took them a little while, but they drove through the city and came to a stop just outside of a large, beautiful house that the Keybladers quickly guessed was Hank's. Hank climbed out of the driver's seat and into the back, quickly undoing the suit and revealing the white shirt and black pants he was wearing underneath.

"You know, despite how awesome that suit is," Hank said with a pant as he grabbed a suit shirt and dress shoes. "It is hot as hell."

"Can I borrow it?" Ventus asked with an eager, childlike smile under his helmet.

"That is going to have to be a quick 'no,'" Hank said, using a mechanic to shrink the suit down to action figure size. He put the suit in his jacket pocket before putting the jacket on. "Now, stay ready. I'll talk to Hope, and once I'm sure we've worked everything out, I'll let you guys know."

"Please, hurry," Aqua requested. "We can't let those things continue to ravage the town and hurt people."

"No pressure," Terra said, smiling under his helmet and giving Hank a thumbs-up.

Hank sighed out as he climbed out of the van and climbed out of the van. The Keybladers sat in the van in uncomfortable silence and just sat waiting for a little amount of time. After a shorter amount of time, Terra and Ventus's curiosities wore out and they climbed out of the van. Aqua stuttered in confusion before she climbed out after them. Being total stalkers, the trio walked up to the house and looked into a window to see Hank sitting on a couch with a dark haired teenage girl that they guessed was his daughter, Hope. They were having a conversation that looked like it was bringing them both great sadness. Hope then started crying, and she crashed into her father's arms. Hank wrapped his arms around Hope, and pressed his head against her shoulder, close to the point of tears, himself.

"That's gotta be enough to get the Unversed to stop appearing," Terra said.

"All right," Ventus said, a victorious tone in his voice. "Hey, you think we could try talking Hank into loaning me that suit?"

"No, Ven," Aqua said. "Now, we need to be discussing with Terra..."

She looked to the side just in time to see Terra disappear through a portal back into the Lanes Between.

"Oh... kay..." Aqua said. "Well, Ven, instead we can talk about how you are definitely..."

She looked to her other side just in time to see Ventus disappear through his own portal back into the Lanes Between.

Aqua groaned in frustration and once again wondered why she was the only responsible one before summoning her Glider and flying through her own portal back into the Lanes Between.

Present Day, The Land of Departure

Vanitas laughed in victory as he, Terra, Ventus, and Aqua walked across their familiar training grounds once more, happy that they were finally back home. After they did a quick stop at Radiant Garden to get back Aqua's armor and Keyblade, they didn't hesitate to come back to the Land of Departure and walk together once again across their familiar training grounds.

"So, just to recap," Terra said, wanting to make sure he got everything right. "Ven is actually apparently older than all of us combined. He was there after the original Keyblade War to help form a new union. But it was a fake, because darkness tricked him, possessed him, and made him kill one of the real new union leaders."

"Yep, that just about covers everything," Vanitas said with a nod of his head.

"I still wish I could have apologized to Lauriam after you said he got back his memories," Ventus said. "I mean, even if I was possessed, it was still me."

"He tried to kill you, even when you were crying on the floor that you didn't know what happened, and even when he saw that you were possessed when you did it," Vanitas reminded him. "He wasn't gonna listen to reason, he just saw the person that was used to kill his sister."

"Yeah, maybe it was better you didn't see him again after he got back his memories," Aqua said with a slight wince. "Credit where credit is due, but I don't wanna mess with a guy who wouldn't even listen to reason after all that."

"Yeah, okay..." Ventus sighed out in resignation as they continued walking across their old training grounds.

"Hey, let's not worry about him too much," Terra told his friends with enthusiasm in his voice. He spun in a circle and smiled up, gesturing to the familiar rings on chains set up for training. "We're finally back home!"

"Hell, yeah!" Vanitas exclaimed. He, Ventus, and Aqua whooped in excitement over being finally back. "You can travel to anywhere in the galaxy for however long you want, but the most beautiful sight will always be the home to return to. And trust me, I've seen a lot of places."

"Oh, yeah?" Ventus asked, one eyebrow raised in a challenging manner, since he had also been to a lot of places that he remembered from his past. "Like what?"

"Oh, you'd be surprised," Vanitas said, walking in front of his friends. "I've seen a helluva lot of places, by myself, with the Radiant Garden crew, and the animals and Sora. A place where there were cards alive and a freaky cat that was able to take its head off, a place with living toys, a world full of zombies, two of 'em, actually..."

As he continued listing off various worlds that he had been through in the past, Ventus, Terra, and Aqua got close together.

"You know, even though we saw a lot of worlds in the past, there weren't any that we went to together to really enjoy together," Aqua muttered. "And I mean without the threat of the Unversed."

"Yeah, we ought to do a quick trip before we start settling back in," Terra suggested.

Ventus looked between the two of them, wondering if this was a genuine suggestion, or if they were just looking for an excuse to try not to reveal their true feelings for each other. Either way, he couldn't say no to a quick trip to another world again.

"Hey, no problem with that," Ventus said. "Let's go to Castle of Dreams!"

"No!" Terra and Aqua said with wide eyes, remembering how romantic Cinderella and the Prince had been together, knowing that that'd bring their feelings to light.

"Well, then what are we supposed to do?" Ventus asked, legitimately a little annoyed. "We've got a lot of options."

"...Oh, yeah!" Vanitas exclaimed in excitement and pointing at his friends, getting their attentions. "And one of my personal favorites, Earth 616. I've been there a lot, for good reason. Hell of a place, and I met the best guy there! I'm taking you guys there some time, I really want you to meet him. And then after that..."

Terra, Ventus, and Aqua all smiled at each other as they got an idea from Vanitas's words. They remembered the last time they had been on Earth 616 when they had to help Hank take out those Unversed. He said he fought to help people, and was experimenting with particles that made people shrink, which Ventus was really interested in. The choice was made in minutes.

"Well, anyway, that's just some of the places I've been in the past," Vanitas said, still looking away from his friends. "But what I'm really looking for is what we can do as a group now that we're back together. What about you guys?"

Somehow, in all his rambling, Vanitas had missed the tell tale sound of his friends summoning their armor and converting their Keyblades into Gliders. He turned around just in time to see his friends flying through a gateway to the Lanes Between, which disappeared behind them.

"Uh..." Vanitas started, wide eyed in surprised confusion. "...Where you guys going?" *3*

Earth 616

"I still think about the day your mother and I had to leave you," an older Hank Pym admitted to his grown daughter, Hope, as they sat together in their lab in front of the monitors. He had a nostalgic expression as he remembered that day in great detail, from Hope wishing they didn't have to leave, to when they had to stop the Soviet Missile in their suits. "I wish we could have put down our bags, tucked you back into your bed... but too many lives were at stake. To disarm the missile, we had to get inside it one morning, but the plating was too thick. The only way in was to shrink between the molecules."

He winced as he once again remembered that incident.

"We both knew that if you go that small, there's no coming back," Hank continued. "It should have been me, but my regulator was damaged. Your mother's wasn't. She turned it off. She went subatomic to deactivate the bomb. Your mother saved thousands of lives that day, knowing that she'd be lost in the quantum realm. Alone. Afraid. Telling you that she wasn't coming home... was the hardest thing I ever had to do."

Tears had started running down both Hank and Hope's cheeks as he recounted his tale.

"But then Scott showed up," Hank said with crossed arms. "Or should I say, broke into our house. But when he went to the quantum realm, and came back. Everything changed. I started to wonder... could your mother still be alive?"

He stood up.

"So I dusted off some old plans," Hank said, walking up to a nearby table and grabbing a rolled up paper of plans.

Hope followed him and watched as he took the rubber band off of the paper and unfurled it on the table, revealing the plans for a quantum tunnel. Her eyes went a bit wide as she observed the plans, then looked at Hank with an expression of growing hope.

"Dad, what are you saying?" Hope asked.

"I think it's possible to bring her back," Hank said.

Hank and Hope shared a look then looked down at the plans together. Their attentions were then drawn to the sound of a portal opening nearby. They looked up and their eyes widened in surprise at the sight of three armored figures coming out of the portal on Gliders. The portal disappeared, then light flared, revealing the surprised and confused forms of Terra, Ventus, and Aqua.

"Uh... are you guys sure this is the right place?" Ventus asked.

"Uh... I think so," Aqua said, looking at the weird looking metal walls.

Terra looked to the side, and his eyes narrowed at the nearby forms of Hope and Hank. Hank frowned as he realized that the three of them looked familiar.

"Uh, I think I found him," Terra said, gesturing to the older form of Hank.

"Terra?" Hank asked, walking around the table towards the trio. "Ventus? Aqua?"

"Hank?" Ventus asked, confused. "Is that you?"

"Yeah, it's me," Hank said. "It's just been about twenty one years since the last time we saw each other."

"Wow, he was right; time does work weirdly between worlds," Aqua commented, eyebrow raised at Hank in thought.

"Yeah, I'm gonna try not to take offense to that," Hank said. "So, what? It's been only two days for you three?"

"No, ten years," Ventus said. "I was in a magical coma that wouldn't let me age, Terra was possessed then lost to darkness, and Aqua wandered the realm of darkness and didn't age at all."

Hank and Hope looked at the trio with slightly surprised expressions, both at the trauma they had endured, and the nonchalance on their faces as Ventus recounted the tale.

"Would you guys happen to be friends with Vanitas Jordan?" Hope slowly asked, a thought coming to her.

"Yeah, we call him V," Terra confirmed.

"He and his cousin, Sora, helped rescue us," Aqua said with a smile.

Hank and Hope slowly looked up, going, "Ohhh..." in realization.

"V mentioned he comes here a lot," Ventus said. "Do you guys know him?"

"No, we've never met," Hank said. "But that's not important. What are you three doing here?"

"Well, V and Sora literally just saved us the other day," Terra said. "So, we decided to take a small trip together since the last time we traveled worlds, we ended up fighting monsters, an evil old man, and a clone of Vanitas."

"I was right," Hank commented. "You do not lead normal lives."

"Three questions," Ventus said, holding up three fingers. "Where are we? Who is this? And what are you guys doing?"

"This is my new lab of operations," Hank said, gesturing up to the ceiling before gesturing to the long haired woman next to him. "This is my daughter, Hope." Hope did a small wave to the Keybladers. "And right now, we're coming up with plans to get back my wife." *4*

"Wait, I thought you said she got lost in the quantum tunnel," Aqua remembered.

"She did," Hope said. "But then our friend, Scott, the new Ant Man, went subatomic and down into the quantum realm, and he managed to get back out."

"If Scott was able to survive, then Janet could have, too," Hank said. "We're gonna build this tunnel down into the quantum realm so we can try to find her."

He gestured to the plans on the table next to him, and the three Keybladers walked up and examined it.

"I don't understand most of this," Ventus admitted before looking up. "But we wanna help you."

"Are you sure?" Hope asked.

"Of course!" Ventus exclaimed. "We already helped him when you and him accidentally made Unversed with your negative emotions the last time we were here. With three extra sets of hands, we should be able to get it done quickly."

"You know, that's a good idea," Hank said, pointing to the blonde with a small smile. "I like the way you think, Ven."

"Wait, what do you mean 'Unversed with negative emotions'?" Hope asked, a little confused.

"Remember twenty one years ago, when I told you our negative feelings were messing us up?" Hank asked his daughter. She nodded. "Yeah, I meant that they were taking monster shape, and those monsters were those giant beasts that attacked the Golden Gate Bridge and your school. I worked with these three to destroy them."

"So... these things were different from Heartless?" Hope asked, a little surprised but not knowing what else to say.

"Quite a bit," Ventus said, nodding his head.

Terra and Aqua had been silent the whole time, doing their best to not look at each other with terrified expressions. They had come here to try to get away from things that would try to remind them of their romantic feelings for each other. Helping Hank try to find his wife? It was very romantic for Hank, but it would be enough to make them end up having to face the truth of their feelings, and they were terrified of that truth.

"You know, maybe they don't need our help," Terra started, shakily.

"Yeah, we don't exactly know how this stuff works," Aqua added, just as shaky.

"Oh, I'll guide you the entire way," Hank assured them. "Just like we did with Scott. When you're as determined as we can be, we can overcome whatever comes at us."

"Yeah!" Ventus exclaimed, excitement of his voice as he pumped his fists up into the air with a wide smile.

Aqua and Terra sighed out in defeat as they realized they had just lost the vote before it had even started.

"All right," Terra said. "Let's do it."

"Wait, first, how do you guys know who V is?" Ventus asked. "And how do you know what the Heartless are?"

"You guys call him V, so I'm guessing he's a friend?" Hope asked. The three Keybladers nodded their heads. "Well, let's just say he's been busy since the last time you guys saw him..."

Hank and Hope led Terra, Ventus, and Aqua to a nearby collection of computer monitors, and started bringing up files, news reports, and YouTube videos showcasing various events revolving around Vanitas or Heartless on this world. The file SHIELD started on Vanitas back in '95. News reports about the New York incident, showing Vanitas, Sora, and the rest of the Avengers. YouTube videos showing Vanitas and Thor, and then Vanitas and Roxas fighting the Winter Soldier and the Hydra Heartless. YouTube videos or pictures he had done with various fans in New York during the year he lived there. And then even more YouTube videos mixed with news reports about the Sokovia incident, which included the entirety of the Avengers, including Sora, Donald, Goofy, Riku, Kairi, Mickey and Cloud Strife.

Terra, Ventus, and Aqua watched with expressions of surprise, and silent bouts of being impressed. Seeing their friend go through so much for a world that wasn't even his actual home, and most of them from when he didn't even have memories, really drove home just how strong and brave he was in the end.

"V was right," Ventus said, nodding his head with a small smile. "He has been here a lot..."

"And it is certainly one hell of a place," Terra agreed, nodding his head in agreement.

"Language," Aqua softly said, also nodding her head.

Everyone brushed that aside as they continued watching the clips.

Chapter Text

As the Keybladers and Hank had guesstimated, with three extra pairs of hands, the work to put together the quantum tunnel was considerably shorter than it possibly could have been. Even though they still didn't entirely understand the mechanics, Terra, Ventus, and Aqua were able to at least follow Hank and Hope's instructions on what to do.

"Never thought it'd be this easy to become a scientist," Ventus laughed as he held up a large piece of metal.

"It's not," Hank said as he drilled the metal plating into the wall.

Ventus let go of the plating as Hank drilled the last of the drills through the plating, attaching it to the wall.

"Then how come I have this card that says I'm an esteemed scientist?" he asked, playing an act as he pulled out a card and presented it to Hank.

"That's a pass to enter some town," Hank said. He read the card. "Disney Town, from the looks of it."

"Really?" Ventus asked, turning the card around and looking at it. "Huh. I didn't think I still had this thing."

Hank rolled his eyes at Ventus's simplistic attitude and walked over to where Terra and Aqua were following Hope's instructions and hammering the last bit of plating into a wall. He was able to catch the small looks the two pointed at each other when they thought they weren't looking, and was quickly able to figure out the hidden feelings they had for each other. From the looks of it, though, they were both too chicken to actually act on those feelings.

"Yeah, we're gonna have to find a way to help them," Ventus whispered, walking up to Hank to look at his friends across the lab. "They've been trying to avoid it for years, and that's before we all went under for a decade."

"We'll talk, see what we can do to get them to nut up," Hank said before moving to another part of the lab.

"You and V would get along so well," Ventus commented, following Hank.

A little while later, Ventus sighed out and sat down in one of the chairs in front of the computer monitors. They had been working all day, and it was not the kind of work he was used to from the Land of Departure. Figuring he would try to find something to occupy himself, he grabbed the mouse for one of the monitors and clicked a few things, getting more and more confused as the computer took him further and further through the internet.

"Huh, wonder what this is," Ventus wondered aloud, clicking the link for a video.

"Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?" a pirate voice then asked from the screen as it panned down through the ocean to a pineapple with a door on it.

"Spongebob Squarepants!" kids cheered as a cartoon sponge with a face pushed open the door with a smile.

Ventus laughed with his usual bout of childlike innocence as a live action hand put pants on Spongebob. *1*

He watched the show for a little while, laughing a lot as he watched Spongebob fail at his Driver's test before Patrick decided to help him by sticking a radio in his head. Just as Spongebob revealed to Mrs. Puff that he had been cheating, Hope walked up and turned off the monitor.

"Hey!" Ventus complained.

"You're coming with me," Hope said. "We just got a call from our ally, Scott, and it looks like he'll be able to be a big help."

"You could have said that without turning off the Sponge guy," Ventus commented, gesturing to the blank monitor with an annoyed expression.

"I know," Hope said, walking away from the blonde.

Ventus sighed out, but he figured that she'd probably be a little on edge now that they were getting closer to actually getting her mom back.

"Can we get something to eat along the way?" Ventus asked as he followed Hope across the lab. "I'm hungry."

Scott Lang slowly woke up to the sound of soft music playing on a radio. As his vision slowly came back, he found himself in a car, and looked around, seeing Hope driving the car, and a blonde kid with spiky hair holding a brown paper bag in the back seat.

"Hope?" Scott softly asked. Hope gave him a small look before focusing on the road. "Is this another dream?" He looked in the back seat. "Is that how that Keyblader named Roxas is here?"

"I'm Ventus," Ventus said, raising a hand while still looking at the bag with some apprehension. "Call me Ven. He and I have already prepared ourselves for the mix ups."

"Do you think it was a dream, or is it possible that you really saw my mom down there?" Hope asked.

She had explained to Ventus along the way to Ventus that they had gotten a call from Scott, who said he had a dream about being down in the quantum realm, and seeing Hank's wife, Janet, down there, before he briefly became Janet for some reason.

"I'm not sure," Scott admitted, looking at Hope. He looked back at Ventus to see the blonde still looking at the bag with apprehension. "What's wrong?"

"She got me some corn dogs from Sonic," Ventus said. He looked up with a frightened expression. "Is it... is it really a dog?"

"No," Scott told him.

"You really waited this long to ask that?" Hope asked.

"This is a different world, different cultures," Ventus pointed out, opening up the bag and reaching inside. "I didn't want to offend anyone."

Still a little nervous, Ventus pulled out a corn dog in the paper wrapping and held it with one hand. He undid the wrapping with his other hand and dropped it in the bag, staring in contemplation. His stomach was rumbling, so he slowly and cautiously held the corn dog by the stick and raised it to his mouth. He took a small, timid bite, and chewed the mixture of meat and dough with his mouth closed. His eyes then suddenly opened widely.

"Oh... my... god!!!" Ventus exclaimed in excitement with a smile. "This is the best thing I have ever eaten!" *2*

Scott and Hope smirked at his excitement as the blonde took another, larger bite out of the corn dog, chewing and swallowing the food quickly. He took another bite, then exclaimed as his teeth hit something hard. He looked down in confusion to see a tiny bit of the other end of the stick poking through the hot dog.

"Oh, right..." Ventus chuckled, holding the remains of the corn dog up to his eyes to let himself see the length of the stick better. "The stick has to go somewhere."

"Yeah, that's... how they usually work," Scott chuckled, mentally wondering how this became his life now.

Hope kept a stoic expression on her face as she pulled the car to a stop. It was then that Scott realized something.

"I can't be here!" he exclaimed, jumping in his seat and frantically looking at Hope. "I can't be here! I'm under house arrest!"

He grabbed a door handle and started pulling it, to no avail.

"They won't open while the system's engaged, Scott," Hope told him.

Scott looked at Hope, confused, then a giant eye moved down next to the window and looked within. Ventus and Scott exclaimed in fear as the normal sized pigeon looked down at them in their shrunken car. The pigeon was joined by another pigeon, and the both of them pecked at the car with curiosity. Scott and Ventus both had wide eyed and scared expressions as a garbage truck drove over them, scaring away the pigeons. Once the garbage truck continued down the road, Hope started driving the car down the road again.

Ventus, still a little scared from the giant pigeons, grabbed another corn dog and started taking frantic bites, giving into the trope of stress eating.

"You have to take me home," Scott frantically told Hope. "They could show up any second!"

"Relax," Hope assured Scott. "As far as your nanny cops know, you're still at home."

"Yeah, we already took care of it," Ventus said, slowly calming down.

Curious, Scott looked down at his left ankle to see a small pale mark where the ankle detector monitor used to be.

The monitor was currently attached to one of the many legs of a human sized ant that was eating Froot Loops and watching the morning news on Scott's couch. Scott's roommate and business partner walked into the living room.

"Whoa!" Luis exclaimed, wide eyed. He walked forwards with his jaw dropped as a few Froot Loops fell to the floor. "Scotty?"

The ant hugged the box of Froot Loops.

"He's been programmed to replicate your daily routine," Hope explained. "Nine hours in bed. Five hours in front of the TV. Two hours in the bathroom, whatever that's about."

"That's totally inaccurate," Scott remarked. "How do you know about my daily routine? Are you spying on me?"

"We keep tabs on all security threats, all right?" Hope told him. "And so far, the biggest one we've had is you."

Ventus then laughed aloud, and Scott looked back at him.

"You went to Germany..." Ventus laughed. "And drew on walls with Captain America!"

He continued laughing, dropping two corn dog sticks to the floor of the van.

"So who is this guy, if not Roxas?" Scott asked, gesturing back to Ventus.

"He's a Keyblader who helped my dad about two decades ago," Hope said. "He and his two friends that he's trying to set up came here to have a small trip, and decided to help us out. He's friends with Vanitas Jordan."

"Huh," Scott commented, looking back at Ventus. "Must've been a big surprise when you learned about what he's been to around here."

"A big one, yeah," Ventus agreed, grabbing another corn dog.

Hope continued driving the car, narrowly dodging a normal sized bike riding next to them, and drove into a large, ceramic pipe.

"Look, I'm sorry about Germany," Scott told Hope. "They just showed up. They said it was a matter of national security. That Cap needed help, so..."

"Cap?" Hope asked, looking at Scott with a confused expression.

"...Tain America," Scott said. "Captain. Cap. It's... it's what we call him. If you're a friend." Hope smirked as she looked out in front of them again. "I'm not saying I'm a friend of... A little, I know him. He's nice. Whatever."

"Usually, fighting a big battle with someone is enough to become friends with them," Ventus said. "I know. I've done it four or five times."

Hope drove them out of the ceramic pipe and back onto the road.

"I'm sorry!" Scott exclaimed. "All right? I didn't think I'd get caught."

"You didn't think about a lot of things," Hope blandly said as she kept staring at the road.

"I've done that four or five times, too," Ventus admitted, finishing the third corn dog.

Scott sighed out and looked down.

"How's Hank?" he asked.

"We're still running," Hope told him. "The house is gone, so is our freedom. How do you think he is?"

"I'm sorry," Scott said. "I know you're mad."

"I'm not looking for an apology, Scott," Hope said, looking to the right out the windshield. "The only reason why we're even talking is because we need what's in your head."

She pulled the car to a stop and looked at the confused expression on is face. Hope pulled a crank, and the car and everything inside grew back to normal size in front of the large building now serving as the lab.

"I think I just got whiplash," Ventus commented, rubbing the back of his neck. "That's the thing where you get neck pain, right?"

"Yeah," Hope said. "Get the trash; this isn't a pigsty."

Ventus grabbed the sticks off the floor and put them in the paper bag, which he carried as he, Hope, and Scott climbed out of the car. Scott, seemingly not realizing that he was only wearing a bath robe, a shirt, his underwear, and slippers, followed Hope and Ventus up to the glass doorway, where Hope pressed some buttons to input the code. The door beeped, and she opened it up.

Scott and Ventus followed her into the building, with Ventus dropping the Sonic bag into a nearby trash can. Scott looked around in curiosity as they walked down the hallway after Hope, noticing the flickering lights and construction equipment. Hope pressed a button for the elevator, and the doors slid open. Scott and Ventus followed her inside, and Scott faced back the way they came as Hope pressed the button for the floor they were going to. However, he turned around when he saw that Hope was still looking towards the other side of the elevator. Ventus, still a little confused about the concept of an elevator, just looked up at the ceiling, not knowing what he was supposed to do. *3*

There was a tiny bit of uncomfortable silence.

"Is this where you're living?" Scott asked Hope, concern in his voice. "If you need help or money or something, maybe I can..."

"We're fine," Hope assured him with a small smile.

The elevator doors dinged open, and Ventus and Hope walked inside. Scott trailed behind a little, but that's because his jaw had dropped at the sight of the lab in front of him. He walked inside, taking in all the desks and consoles with various equipment, tools, and files along them. The main attraction, though, was the ginormous quantum tunnel that could be seen through the glass walls of one part of the lab. With an amazed expression, Scott walked through the glass walled hallways and watched as many other human sized ants walked along the railways and the tunnel, doing... something.

Hope led the way onto one of the railings over the tunnel, opening the glass door for Scott and Ventus, which they walked through with nods of thanks. Scott trailed behind a bit as Hope and Ventus walked forwards a bit more quickly, so he had to step out of the way as another human sized ant passed by him, chittering before picking up a large, green box.

"We came here saying that three more sets of hands would make the work go by more quickly," Ventus told Scott, gesturing to the many ants at work. "Didn't occur to us that they had so much more help that didn't necessarily have hands."

Scott softly gasped in a form of agreement with Ventus and walked with him after Hope to the side of the lab, where more ants were at work constructing a large pod like vehicle at the end of the "road" part of the tunnel. Terra and Aqua were sitting at opposite desks, very clearly trying to avoid talking to each other about their feelings, since they were not so subtle-y throwing longing but fearful looks at each other when the other wasn't looking. Ventus facepalmed at their stubbornness, remembering from Vanitas that that was something you did when you're annoyed or embarrassed at someone.

Scott's attention was drawn to a small, high pitched beeping, and he looked towards the inside of the tunnel to see Hank at work, using a computer on a wheeled desk. Scott immediately tensed up in guilt and stood up straight as Hank looked towards him, slightly covered in shadows due to the minute nature of light in the tunnel. He closed the laptop and carried it as he walked down the tunnel, while a laser burned one of the walls next to him. The former Ant Man just walking down the tunnel and not even reacting to the laser was a very cool image to Terra, Aqua, and Ventus.

Hope just crossed her arms and watched her father walk down the tunnel towards them. Ventus, despite only knowing Scott for probably twenty minutes, was a little afraid for him. Especially after he had seen through those monitors what a caring father and friend he was.

"Hey, Hank," Scott greeted. "Look, I just wanna..."

"Save it!" Hank snapped in an actually calm sounding voice. That actually confused Ventus, but he brushed that to the side as Hank looked at Hope. "Can we start?"

"Yeah," Hope said as her father walked to another side of the lab. She walked up to Scott, still having her arms crossed. "So, while you were relaxing at home, we were building this with our new friends."

She looked towards the quantum tunnel, and Scott followed her gaze.

"You already met Ventus," Hope said, looking at Scott again. She gestured to Terra and Aqua. "That's Terra and Aqua."

"Are we really 'new' friends when we helped your father back in the 90s?" Ventus asked.

"Ven, that's really what you're most worried about?" Terra asked.

"My priorities are a bit different than most here," Ventus commented.

"Guys," Hope said, successfully getting the two to quiet down. She looked back at Scott. "It's a tunnel. To the quantum realm." Scott actually got a surprised expression. "To my mom. We think she might still be down there. We just don't know where."

"What?" Scott asked.

Hope started following Hank to the other side of the lab. Terra and Aqua stood up and started walking with them.

"If we can pinpoint my mom's location, then the pod can take me down to get her," Hope said as she walked, gesturing to the pod while Scott and Ventus followed the others.

"You built all this and you don't even know if she's alive?" Scott asked as they walked down a hallway that was beside the quantum tunnel.

"It's called a hypothesis," Hank said.

"A working theory for experiments," Ventus proudly said. He smiled and looked at Scott. "I learned that here."

"Last night, we powered up the tunnel for the first time," Hank explained as they walked behind the quantum tunnel to the parts of equipment that would no doubt power it. "It was overloaded, and it shut down."

"But for a split second..." he continued, walking up a small staircase that led in front of a large piece of equipment, and the others slowly followed him up as he kept talking. "...the doorway to the quantum realm was opened."

"When did this happen?" Ventus asked, confused.

"When you were busy watching that weird Sponge Guy on the computer," Aqua said, looking at the pieces of the tunnel above them.

"Spongebob," Scott told her, and Ventus smiled at him. Scott looked at Hank and Hope. "And?"

"And five minutes later, you called, talking about Mom," Hope told him.

"We think when you were down there, you may have entangled with her," Hank said.

"Hank, I would never do that," Scott said, in a tone that was only partly serious. "I respect you too much."

'V would understand what he was talking about,' Ventus thought as Terra and Aqua realized how close they were to each other and stepped away. Ventus face palmed again.

"Quantum entanglement, Scott," Hank corrected the dark haired man, keeping a surprisingly stoic expression.

"We think she might have put some kind of a message in your head," Hope said. "Hopefully, a location. And opening the tunnel triggered it."

"Your mom put a message in my head?" Scott asked, skeptically. "Come on. That's insane."

"We can summon giant keys that can open any door and turn them into Gliders to travel between worlds," Terra pointed out.

"And I'm four hundred," Ventus said, getting Scott to look at him with an eyebrow raised in surprise. He looked up in thought. "Or... four thousand. We don't entirely know. It's somewhere between those two." *4*

"... You look good for your age," Scott eventually said. *5*

"Besides," Hank said, walking up to Scott. "Insane is going to Germany without telling us, and fighting the Avengers. Just tell me you weren't lying about the suit you took. Tell me you really destroyed it."

"I did, I destroyed it, I swear," Scott assured Hank.

"I can't believe you destroyed my suit!" Hank exclaimed, holding up his arms in an offended manner as he backed away from Scott. Terra, Ventus, and Aqua frowned in confusion. "That was my life's work!"

"We didn't see him much, but is Hank crazier than V?" Aqua muttered to Terra, who had to bite his tongue at the feeling of her breath on his neck.

"What was I supposed to do?" Scott asked.

"You were supposed to not take my suit!" Hank snapped.

"I'm sorry, Hank!" Scott said. He continued talking as he followed Hank across the railing, followed by Ventus. "I'm sorry I took the suit. I'm sorry that I called last night."

Hope, Terra, and Aqua followed the three as they walked off of the platform.

Scott stammered out, "I don't remember seeing Janet down there. I wish that I did."

As he talked, the small group walked through the hallway, passing pillars and walking next to a glass wall.

"I just had a dream about her playing hide and seek with a little girl," Scott said, coming to a stop near one of the glass walls.

Terra, Ventus, and Aqua had trailed behind a bit, but Hope and Hank stopped and looked at Scott, a confused expression on Hope's face.

"What?" she asked.

Scott looked between Hope and Hank.

"I had a dream," Scott repeated. "She was playing hide and seek with a little girl. Cassie and I do it all the time." He shrugged his shoulders. "Doesn't mean anything."

"Cassie is...?" Terra softly asked.

"His daughter," Ventus said. "Nice kid."

"But was it Cassie in the dream?" Hope asked Scott.

"No," Scott said.

"Where was she hiding" Hope asked.

"What?" Scott asked.

"The little girl," Hope said. "Where was she hiding? Was it in a wardrobe?"

"No, it was in a... tall dresser," Scott said.

"You mean a wardrobe," Hank corrected him.

"That's a wardrobe?" Ventus asked.

"Is that what that's called?" Scott asked.

"What color was it?" Hope asked.

"Red," Scott said, understandably confused, as were the three Keybladers.

Hope and Hank shared a look.

"Were there horses on it?" Hope asked Scott.

"Oh, boy," Scott muttered as realization set in.

"It's where I hid every time that we played," Hope said with a small smile.

"It doesn't really sound like you got the gist of the game," Scott muttered.

"Yeah," Ventus agreed as Hope and Hank shared a smile. "That sounds a little." He snapped his fingers in thought. "What's the word?"

"Predictable?" Scott suggested.

"Yes!" Ventus said with a smile as he snapped his fingers one more time and pointed at Scott. "Thank you."

Hope and Hank ignored their words.

"She's alive," Hope exclaimed as she walked up to her father and they hugged each other rightly.

"I knew it," Hank exclaimed in relief. "I knew it!"

Hope stepped back from her father and looked at him with a serious expression, tears starting to build up in her eyes. "We need to get that part."

"Okay," Hank softly agreed.

The two of them went through the nearby glass doorway back into the smaller lab, and Scott and the Keybladers slowly followed suit.

"The sooner we get the tunnel working, the sooner we can get this message out of his head," Hope said as they walked through the lab.

"Does Burch have it?" Hank asked.

"Yeah, let's go," Hope said. "Aqua, get changed."

"On it," Aqua said, stepping to the side through another doorway.

"What part?" Scott asked as Hank picked up a case shaped and designed like a tire. "Who's Burch? Wait. What's happening?"

"There's one last thing we need for the quantum tunnel," Terra told him. "I don't entirely know what it is, so I'll let them explain."

Aqua rejoined the group at the elevator, dressed in a dark shirt, pants, jacket, and boot. She had a dark cap in one hand, and was doing her best to avoid looking at Terra. Scott was able to see the tension between the two, as well, as they went through the elevator and exited the building, walking back to the car.

"We need a component to stop the tunnel from overloading again," Hope announced as they walked out into the open.

Hope went into the van and reached inside while Hank started opening the tire shaped case, revealing dozens of vehicles shrunk down with the particles.

"I grabbed your clothes," Hope told Hank. "You might want to change."

She tossed Scott a duffle bag, and he exclaimed as he caught it.

"Wait, did you guys really just abduct this man when he was getting ready for bed?" Terra asked, just now seeing Scott's state of undress. "When he wasn't even wearing pants?"

"Don't look at me, she sent the ant in," Ventus said, pointing towards Hope.

Hank pressed a button on a remote he took out, and the car that Hope had drove them to shrunk down to toy size. He kneeled down onto the road and placed a grey van behind it, then picked up the car and put it in the vehicle case.

"Look, I'd really like to help you out..." Scott said as Hank pressed a button and didn't even watch as the van grew to normal size behind him. "...but if I'm not at home when they come to take off my ankle monitor, then I'm going away forever."

"We heard about these Sokovia Accords," Aqua said. "Sounds like they're doing more harm than good if they were able to cause a Civil War that broke up the group of heroes."

"I've got a hunch that they were influenced by a corrupt politician that was trying to gain power to legally control the Avengers because he hates that they're a greater power than him," Terra said, crossing his arms in slight irritation at the thought.

"Terra, you've heard too much about corrupt politicians from those movies V told us about," Ventus commented. *6*

"Guys," Hope told them again before looking at Scott. "Once we get the component and power up the tunnel, we'll get the message, and have you home by lunch."

"That's not usually how it works," Aqua said. "Usually, about ten or twelve different things go wrong along the way."

"Then we really have to hurry," Hope said. "The entanglement won't last."

"You owe us," Hank said, pointing right at Scott.

"All right, fine," Scott agreed with a sigh. "But can I just wait inside?" He looked back at the building the lab was in. "Because I'm not supposed to be out here."

But then Hank pressed another button on his remote, and the entire building the lab was in shrunk down, surprising Scott, Terra, Ventus, and Aqua greatly. Hank nonchalantly walked up to the shrunken lab and pulled up an extender, making wheels pop out of the bottom, making the lab more seem like a piece of luggage.

"Let's go," Hank announced.

"This place is awesome," Ventus commented with wide eyes.

"Very," Terra agreed with his own wide eyes.

"Yeah," Aqua said, nodding her head in agreement.

They all climbed into the van, with Hope setting the lab in the back with the majority of the group. She drove the van away from the empty lot and made a loop, driving through San Fransisco. All of them were unaware of the invisible person watching the entirety of the vehicles and building shrinking just a short distance away...

Chapter Text

Completely oblivious to the fact that someone was watching them, Hope drove the group in the van through San Fransisco towards where the meeting with their contact would be. Scott dressed in normal clothes along the way, which Terra and Ventus were appreciative of since they were riding in the back with him and Hank. Once they got close enough to the meet sight, Hope parked the van in the entrance of a small parking garage, and Hank started setting up the equipment.

"We good?" Hope asked.

"Yeah," Hank assured her, patting his shoulder.

"We'll be right back," Aqua told them.

"Be careful," Terra said as Hope opened the door.

"It's just a meeting," Aqua reminded him. "It should go smoothly."

"Still," Terra told her.

Aqua smiled at the brunette before the two immediately looked away from each other with blushes. Hank, Scott, and Ventus simultaneously rolled their eyes in annoyance behind Terra's back as Aqua stepped out of the van with Hope.

They had already sent out ants with cameras on them to let them see what all was happening. There were a few in the restaurant that the meeting would be taking place, and one outside the van to see if anyone was getting close. As the van door slid shut, the boys were able to see Aqua and Hope walk out of the parking garage, with Hope carrying a bag.

There was a short bout of silence before Scott noticed a case of Altoids on the desk.

"Can I have one of those?" he asked.

"No," Hank said, grabbing the case and moving it further along the desk, out of his reach.

"Hank, you don't always have to be an ass," Terra commented, and Ventus nodded his head in agreement.

"Trust me, he won't want one," Hank told them.

Hope and Aqua walked together into the restaurant, with Hope still carrying the case. Soft music played from somewhere as she politely nodded at a waitress that passed by. The two looked around the room, quickly noticing the bald men stationed on the balconies above them, staring down at them with stoic expressions.

"Remember what you're doing?" Hope softly asked Aqua.

"I'm your security," Aqua softly repeated her ally's earlier words. "If he makes a comment, you bring up how he has his own security around the room. Why are we going over this when we're just across the room from this guy we're meeting?"

"Just a quick reminder," Hope softly responded. *1*

They continued through the partly empty restaurant, keeping stoic expressions on their faces as they walked towards the table the client was sitting at. The man looked up at their arrival to the restaurant, and Aqua couldn't help but think he looked familiar. He resembled an actor from some movie clips Vanitas had shown them before she became a Master, like Predators and House of 1,000 Corpses. *2*

"Ah," the man, Sonny Burch, greeted Hope with a smile. "Susan! Welcome to Oui!"

"Sonny," Hope greeted with a fake smile, placing the bag on the table.

Hope and Aqua shared looks with Burch's guards before Hope looked back at the man with her hands on her sides.

"Oui is French for 'yes'," Burch said as one of his guards started inspecting the bag, while the other one kept an eye on Aqua. "As in 'yes' to farm-to-table, 'yes' to locally sourced, and 'yes' to planet before profit."

The guard inspecting the bag looked inside, seeing many hundred dollar bills held together in groups. One of the other guards looked at Aqua with an interested expression, and she inwardly growled. Unknowing to her, Terra did the same when he saw the look through the camera on an ant. Luckily, she shot the man an irritated look, and he immediately looked away, a little afraid after seeing how much fire was in her eyes. Aqua inwardly smirked in triumph while Terra watching outwardly smirked in pride.

"Well, let's hope it also means 'yes' to 'Do you have the component I ordered?'" Hope requested.

Burch laughed at her forwardness while Hope eyed the case on the table next to his plate.

"You know, I have always loved your sense of humor, Susan," Burch told Hope. He raised the plate with his starter salad up to one of the people next to the table. "Have a seat."

"No, I'm good," Hope said. "Thank you."

"What about your friend?" Burch asked, gesturing to Aqua.

"She's my own security, and she takes her job seriously," Hope said, and Aqua held her head up to emphasize that point.

"You brought security?" Burch asked.

"You brought security," Hope pointed out.

"Fair point," Burch admitted with a smile.

"Who is this guy?" Scott asked as they watched Burch take a sip from a wine glass while smiling.

"Sonny Burch," Hank started explaining. "He traffics in black market technology. He's been getting us what we need to build the tunnel."

Scott looked at him before looking towards the case of Altoids.

"Can I just have one..." he started, raising one hand towards the case.

Hank smacked his hand away.

"No," he said.

"Based off what I know, this is probably the moment he's gonna try to blackmail you guys into doing what he wants," Terra commented.

"Based off you know from what?" Hank asked.

"Movies V told us about when we were training," Terra said.

"There was a lot of information in those things," Ventus agreed.

Hank and Scott shared raised eyebrows of curiosity.

"You know, I have a special friend at the FBI," Burch said, his smile gone. "And I say 'special' because, well, he tells me things that I didn't previously know. For example..." He looked up at Hope. "Your name isn't Susan."

None of them knew that of the group watching, Terra exclaimed as he realized he was right, Ventus sighed out as he realized that things were about to take a dark turn, and Hank and Scott raised their eyebrows again as they realized that Terra was right.

"It's Hope Van Dyne," Burch continued as Hope and Aqua both tried to keep their calm. "And your unseen associate, that's your father, Hank Pym."

"That's not good, Hank," Scott commented.

"No shit," Hank agreed.

"I'm going in," Terra announced, getting ready to stand up.

"Calm down," Ventus said, grabbing Terra by one arm and preparing himself to have to strain and hold him down. "Aqua was able to pick up the most of those martial arts moves V showed us. She can handle some thugs." *3*

One of Burch's men pulled out a chair, and Hope shot him a look before she sat down in it. One reached for a chair for Aqua, but the blunette shot him a look, and he stepped away. Hope tried to keep her calm as she leaned forwards and rested her arms against the table.

"What do you want?" she asked.

"Relationships are built on trust, Hope," Burch told her. "And I want our relationship to have a strong foundation."

"Our relationship?" Hope asked with a frown.

"My business landscape has been shifting, Hope," Burch told her. "Hell, SHIELD and HYDRA don't even exist anymore, but now, Hank Pym..." He pointed at the table with a pointer and middle finger. "Hank Pym is a real opportunity."

"Do you have a point?" Hope asked while Aqua stared at him with a contemplative expression.

"Oh, you think that I don't know what you've been doing with all this?" Burch asked, holding up the case with the part. "Quantum technology. Now, you can forget nanotech, forget AI, forget cryptocurrency. Quantum energy is the future. It's the next gold rush."

Aqua didn't even try to hide it as she rolled her eyes at this being all about money. So many bad guys were all driven by their stupid greed.

"Is that so?" Hope asked Burch.

"I want in, Hope," Burch told her. "So, as a gesture of good will, I have taken the liberty of arranging some buyers for your lab."

Hope leaned back in the chair and crossed her arms in annoyance.

"Starting bid, one billion dollars," Burch whispered.

"Thank you, Sonny, really," Hope said, with an annoyed expression on her face. "But my father and I have something slightly more pressing than starting a business. So I'll just take the component as arranged."

She made sure to move the bag of money towards Burch again to emphasize the point.

"My buyers don't take no for an answer," Burch said, grabbing the case with the component and setting it down on the booth seat, out of sight. "So, we are either in business together, or we aren't in business together."

Hope softly scoffed and stood up.

"Then I guess we aren't," she said as she placed a hand on the bag full of money.

"You can go," Burch said, quickly grabbing the money bag with more force. Hope and Aqua watched with hidden rage as Burch handed the bag to the guard behind him. "But I'm afraid your money's gonna have to remain. Let's call it compensation for my injured feelings."

'Oh, your feelings aren't gonna be the only thing injured once I'm done with you,' Aqua angrily thought.

Hope leaned forwards and rested her hands on the table to look at Burch better.

"Listen, Sonny," she said. "This is gonna be so much easier on everybody if you just give me that component."

"Or what, you'll sick your little guard dog on me?" Burch remarked, looking over at Aqua. "'Cause she don't look like much to me."

Aqua and Terra watching gripped their fists in irritation at the man's words.

"Darlin', the only thing you're takin' from here is my heart, but it will mend in time," Burch told Hope.

"Okay," Hope whispered, doing a small smile.

Hope and Aqua turned away from the men and started walking towards the restaurant's exit.

"Now?" Aqua softly asked once she was sure they were out of earshot.

"Now we kick their asses," Hope muttered back.

"Good," Aqua said, thankful that she had kept her armor button attached under her black jacket sleeve.

"So, now what?" Scott asked.

"You'll see," Hank assured him with a small smile.

"This is gonna rock," Ventus said as he and Terra smiled at the screen.

"She said her and daddy had something pressing," Burch told one of his seven guards (henchmen) that surrounded him as he walked through the restaurant.

"Mm-hmm," that guard, the one carrying the bag, said.

"I want to know what it is because if they're not working for us, they're working with somebody," Burch said. "Probably the ones with the blue haired chick. So find out. I want some names..."

But then one of the seven guards got knocked aside by a small, fly sized figure, sending him crashing through a table and causing the glasses on top to fall to the ground and shatter. Burch and his men watched in surprise before the tiny figure, Hope in her Wasp suit, floated in preparation a short distance from them.

"Hold on, you gave her wings?" Scott asked, seeing Hope through one of the ant cameras in the restaurant.

Hope grew to full size, and immediately went into hand to hand with the guards. She hit a long haired white man in the face before sending a small, barely damaging blast of energy into an African American man's leg, disorienting him. The long haired white man started to rise, but she hit him with a blast of energy in the shoulder, making him drop to the ground, unconscious. Hope then shrunk down and flew to the African American man, then grew back to normal size and uppercutted him across the restaurant, sending him flying and crashing through another table.

"Get her," Burch said, slowly backing up from the scene and gesturing to his guards towards Hope.

A bearded white man charged at Hope, but she jumped up and did a spinning kick, hitting him in the face and knocking him to the ground. She then kicked a white man with a hat in the face, knocking him to the ground, then ducked under a punch from another African American man. She hit him in the chest, sending him sprawling, then blasted another burst of energy into another guard. Hope then she kicked the African American man in the chest, knocking him to the ground, before jumping up and pressing her ankles on each side of the last guard's head. She launched him forwards, sending him across the room and into a fountain, shattering it.

Burch and two of his guards started moving across the large room, and most of the guards stood back up and pulled out their handguns. Hope shrunk down and flew up as they all fired their guns. She flew through a chandelier's chains, so they all fired at it, taking pieces apart with their bullets.

"Not my turn of the century chandelier!" Burch exclaimed as pieces of the chandelier broken off started falling to the floor.

Hope flew through the chandelier's chains, successfully dodging all the bullets fired at her.

"Stop firing!" Burch exclaimed. "Stop!"

The guards all listened to him, and stopped shooting, though a lot of them did keep their guns pointed at the chandelier. Hope used that to her advantage and flew onto one of the crystals of the chandelier and landed on top. She retracted her wings and breathed in and out, trying to catch her breath again. She watched as Burch put the component case into the hands of the guard that had the bag of money.

"All right, take this," Burch instructed. "Go. Go, go, go!"

The guard listened and started moving back towards the kitchen, with some of the other guards moving with him.

"Go!" Burch exclaimed as the guards ran down the hallways into the kitchen.

Hope extended her wings out again and flew down towards one of the guards. The man exclaimed as Hope flew him through the small window that led into the kitchen. The man landed hard on the kitchen table, and Hope grew back to normal size. She looked up at the guard carrying the component case, who was staring at her with wide eyes. The man then turned and quickly started running towards the exit.

But then the door burst open, and an armored leg burst out and kicked the man in the chest, knocking him to the ground. Aqua, dressed back in her full Keyblade armor, stepped into the room as the rest of the guards entered, and shot her a confused look.

Hope then helped make sure that they couldn't escape by grabbing a salt shaker and throwing it towards the exit. She sent out a blast of blue energy from her suit, and the salt shaker grew to a large size, landing right behind Aqua and blocking off the exit.

Aqua dodged a punch from one guard, then did a palm hand to his chest, making the man lose his breath, before following it up with a kick to the chin, sending him into a wall hard. Another guard ran into the room and picked up a knife. He chucked it towards Hope, but she shrunk down again and spun through the air, narrowly dodging the knives that the man threw at her. She ran on top of one more knife and flew forwards, kicking a pot and making it hit the man in the face, so he quickly dropped to the ground with an exclaim.

One guard tried actually shooting Aqua, but the bullets deflected off of her armor. The man had a wide eyed expression of surprised fear, while Aqua smirked under her helmet. She then side kicked the man in the chest, sending him across the kitchen and out the door.

An Asian guard them grabbed a meat tenderizer and looked down at the shrunken Hope. He started swinging the tenderizer down at her, which she had to work to dodge. The man rammed the tenderizer across the countertop, smashing some cut up carrots and a tomato, before Hope slid under a portable cooker. She then exclaimed and dodged another slam, flying at a bag of flour and sending it flying into guard's face.

Aqua grabbed that guard and elbowed him in the face, knocking him unconscious due to the strong nature of her armor. Another guard in the aisle exclaimed and tried punching Aqua, but he exclaimed in pain as he felt what he was sure was a few finger bones breaking. Aqua exclaimed as she jumped up and spun around, kicking the guard in the face and knocking him across the kitchen.

Another Asian man ran into the kitchen and grabbed another large cooking tool, which he raised up over Hope. But Hope quickly flew to an open bottle of cooking oil that she spilled onto another portable cooker, making a fire fly up and catch onto the guard's sleeve, making him exclaim and stutter as he tried to put it out. Hope then flew up and grew to normal size, dropping and hitting him with her knee, so they both fell towards the ground, Hope kneeling on top of the guard.

Another guard rushed at Hope, but she hit him in the face with her wrist gauntlet, knocking him to the ground. Another guard charged at her from behind with a frying pan, but she shrunk down to dodge before she grew to normal size and grabbed his wrist. She hit him in the face, then kicked another charging guard in the knee, making him fall to his knees. Hope then used the frying pan in the guard's hand to smack it into the other guard's face, knocking him to the ground.

Hope then grabbed the man she was holding by the shoulder and slammed him face first into the table. The Asian guard with the knife tried charging her from behind, but Aqua jumped in and grabbed the man by the wrist and kicked him in the stomach. She then jumped up and elbowed the man in the shoulder, making him lean forwards. Aqua then grabbed the guard by both shoulders and exclaimed as she moved to the side, slamming the top of the man's head into the wall and making him fall to the ground, unconscious. Hope then exclaimed as she threw the last guard, the one she was holding, through the kitchen doors, and he slid across the floor unconscious with the green bag in one hand.

Hope grabbed the case with the component inside, and once they walked out of the kitchen, Aqua grabbed the bag of money. They started walking together down the hallway next to them, back towards the main part of the restaurant.

"Wings and blasters," Scott commented, looking at Hank. "So I take it you didn't have any of that tech available for me."

"No, I did," Hank simply told him.

Scott looked at him.

"Nice job hiding your favoritism, Hank," Ventus sarcastically commented as Terra smiled in pride at the screen in front of them. *4*

Hope and Aqua walked together into the main restaurant, where Burch was sitting at the booth from before. Hope retracted her mask, and light flared over Aqua's head, making her helmet disappear.

"It was a pleasure doing business with you, Sonny," Hope said as Aqua reluctantly placed the bag of money onto the table.

"I wish I could say the same, but you disgust me," Aqua told the man.

"Oh, our business isn't finished yet, Hope," Burch commented as the girls continued through the restaurant. "I can assure you of that!"

"Can Terra please throw that guy through a wall?" Aqua asked Hope. "He's done it before, and the guy survived."

Hope said nothing because her attention was drawn near the door of the restaurant. A figure in grey gear, a grey hood, and a grey mask with red eye holes started phasing into existence in front of them, with small see through images of that figure on each side of it. And it was made obvious that this wasn't Burch's work because he stood up with wide eyes and a dropped jaw.

"What in the hell is that?" he asked.

The figure started walking forwards, phasing in and out of existence before disappearing completely. Hope had her mask spread back over her head as light appeared over Aqua's, making her helmet reappear.

The figure in grey then reappeared, and Hope tried blasting at them, but they just phased through and appeared behind her. The figure grabbed the case, but Hope turned back and shouldered her off. The figure then spun around, swinging one hand, which Hope ducked under. Aqua kicked the figure in the leg, making them lose their balance, and Hope let the figure grab the case and shrunk down, flying up and kicking them in the face, disorienting them for a bit.

As the person flickered in and out of existence, Hope grabbed the case and did a spinning crescent kick, which went right through the figure. Aqua swung two punches at the figure, both of which went through their head, before she jumped up and did another spinning kick, which also went through the figure's head before they disappeared completely.

"Dad, are you seeing this?" Hope asked.

"Doesn't look like any Vanish spell we've ever seen," Ventus commented.

"Hope, Aqua, get out of there!" Hank exclaimed.

"You've got the part, so let's go!" Terra agreed.

But then the figure phased into existence and wrapped their arms around Hope. The figure jumped up with a spin, and Hope exclaimed as the figure phased through a table, making Hope hit it hard enough for her to drop the case with the component. The figure stood up, but Aqua managed to grab the case as Hope landed next to her. Aqua slid the case across the floor, and Hope shrunk down to help it get further as Aqua and the figure stood up to face each other.

Aqua did a side kick at the figure, but her armored leg went right through the grey suited person. The figure grabbed Aqua's leg and tossed her to the side, sending her crashing through a table before walking towards Hope. Hope grew to normal size and kicked a serving cart, sending it flying towards the figure, who phased through it easily.

"We gotta do something," Scott announced, moving to the van doors next to him.

"Yeah, we do!" Terra eagerly agreed, him and Ventus already raising their hands to their armor buttons.

"Wait!" Hank exclaimed, stopping them in their tracks.

The younger men watched Hank open up a compartment over his head, and pull out a glasses case. Hank placed the case on the table and opened it up, revealing another, small Ant Man suit. He took it out and held it out to Scott.

"It is still a work in progress," Hank admitted.

"Hey, that's better than nothing," Ventus rationalized to Scott as the former thief stared at them.

Hope and Aqua looked around in contemplation since the figure was gone. The figure swiped at Hope's head, but she shrunk down and dropped the case to the ground, all while Scott flew on an ant with wings shrunken down in the new Ant Man suit. Aqua and the figure both grabbed for the case, but Hope stepped on it, keeping it to the floor. Hope raised her blaster at the figure, but it went right through the phased out grey robed person. The figure kicked Aqua in the chest, knocking her onto her back, then they slammed Hope into a column hard enough that it cracked.

But before the figure could throw a punch at Hope, Scott grew to normal size and caught the fist. He then exclaimed as he kicked the figure in the stomach, sending them sprawling across the glass floor.

"You taught me that kick," Scott told Hope as Terra and Ventus ran over to Aqua, also in armor, and helped her up. "Remember?"

"Yeah, great form," Hope told Scott.

"Those were the days," Scott said with a wistful tone. "Whatever happened to us?"

"Not the time, Scott," Hope commented.

"Agreed," Ventus said as he summoned his Keyblade and looked with them towards where the figure was.

While Terra and Aqua held each other in relief, the other three looked towards where the figure was, and were all surprised to see them gone, along with the case with the component they got from Burch. All that remained was the broken glass on the floor from the shattered wine glasses.

"Damn it, where'd it go?" Hope asked.

"It phased in and out of existence; I think we should have seen this coming," Ventus commented.

Hope still ran back into the kitchen and looked around desperately, followed by the others.

"I've lost it," Hope said, slightly breathless.

"I'm not seeing anything on the ant cams," Hank informed Hope and Scott. "Try looking..."

But then static started glaring in their ears, clarifying that something was going wrong.

"Dad?" Hope asked, worriedly.

"Maybe we shouldn't have left him along," Aqua commented.

Scott and Hope shrunk down again, and Scott rode on an ant with wings while Hope flew after him, while the three Keybladers ran after them, still decked out in their armor. It took them a little while, but they managed to get back to the van, where Scott and Hope grew back to normal size, and retracted their helmets. Light flared over Terra, Ventus, and Aqua's heads, making their helmets disappear. They found the van door open, with Hank panting in and out and holding his hand to his neck.

"Are you okay?" Hope asked, worried for her father.

"No!" Hank exclaimed, breathlessly. "He got the lab."

"No," Hope said with wide eyes.

"Crap," Terra muttered at the same time Ventus muttered, "Not good."

"Come on!" Hank said, moving further up the van.

The group climbed back in the van, with Scott grabbing the door and sliding it shut while Hope climbed into the driver's seat. They got to driving through the city again, with Hank trying to recuperate from what he said was the figure phasing their hand through his neck.

"What was that?" Hope asked.

"I don't know," Hank admitted.

"You said it spoke, so it wasn't a Heartless or Nobody," Terra said.

"And we definitely took out all of the Organization, so they're out of the list of options," Aqua said.

"Basically, our list of suspects is getting smaller by the second," Ventus commented as he and Scott looked out the back shutters of the van, trying to see if anyone was following them.

"We need to find somewhere to regroup and figure out where the lab is," Hank announced.

Scott and Ventus, content with seeing nothing following them, moved further up the van while Terra and Aqua immediately got as far away from each other as possible. Ventus inwardly sighed at that as he and Scott sat in the seats behind Hank and Hope.

"So, where to now?" Scott asked. "How about my house? Hmm? I'm supposed to be there, anyway, and Woo could walk in any second."

"Exactly why we're not going to your house," Hank said.

"That guy's funny," Ventus said with a smile. "Can you introduce me to him?"

"Can't do that without us getting thrown in prison," Scott said before looking at Hank. "What about your house?"

Hank looked back at Scott with a raised eyebrow.

"Sorry," Scott softly said, looking down. He cocked his head to the side in thought. "Well, there is one place I can think of."

"Oh, yeah?" Ventus asked.

Hank realized what he was implying.

"No," he announced. "No, no, no, no, no!" He sighed out and looked forwards. "No!"

"I'm already looking forward to this," Ventus said with a smile.

Chapter Text

Scott's range of help was his partner's in his new business of X-con Security Consultants. Ventus laughed when Scott explained that the name came from him and his partners being former prisoners. Before they did, though, Terra, Ventus, and Aqua had to get themselves some civilian clothes to go along with Scott, Hope, and Hank's. Ventus got a green t shirt, a grey hoodie, and blue jeans. Terra grabbed a black muscle shirt, a long sleeve flannel shirt, and khaki pants. Aqua got a dark blue short sleeved shirt, a jean jacket, and a black skirt and leggings.

The reason for the garments with the sleeves was to help hide their armor buttons, so they could press them in case they were needed. But, Ventus and Aqua got an idea, and grabbed two grey shirts that Hank said were too small, (which they found ironic because of how they shrank and grew things with the Pym Particles). Nevertheless, they cut up the shirts and made them into the Land of Departure heart insignia that they sewed onto the shirts, right at the center of the chest. *1*

"Keeping tribute from our training," Ventus smiled as he lifted up his finished green shirt and presenting it with Aqua to Terra.

"Not bad," Terra said with a smile as he observed his black shirt with the Land of Departure insignia.

"Ven is actually pretty good with a needle and thread," Aqua admitted, looking at her own blue shirt with the Land of Departure insignia. She frowned in thought. "Hey, where'd you learn how to do that?"

"I could tell you," Ventus said, cocking his head to the side with a smile. "But then I'd have to kill you."

"V taught you?" Terra asked.

"...Yes," Ventus said, looking down as his smile disappeared. "And now he's gonna kill me."

Once Scott, Hope, Terra, Aqua, and Ventus dressed in normal clothes, with the Keybladers wearing caps to hide their easily recognizable hair, they made their way to the X-Con building, and quickly filled in Luis, along with Dave and Kurt, the other two.

"Wow, Doctor Pym..." Luis started, grabbing two mugs of coffee from the machine and walking over to his desk, which Hank and Hope were sitting in front of. "Like, who would've thought that, once again, in your hour of need, that, that you would turn to us, you know?"

He placed down the mugs of coffee as he sat in his seat.

"Not me," Hank admitted with a tiny chuckle.

Kurt, a white Russian man with black hair, placed an Entenmann's raspberry danish twist pastry box down on the desk between the mugs for Hope and Hank.

"Hmm," he said in a Russian accent. "Help yourself."

"Thank you," Ventus said with a smile, reaching to the box and opening it to grab a piece.

"Hey, what's up with the fancy pastry?" Luis asked, looking at Kurt with a confused expression. "We gotta keep the food budget down."

"Well, what are we supposed to have for breakfast?" Dave, a dark skinned man with very little hair and very tiny goatee, asked.

"The oatmeal packets," Luis said, gesturing to the part of the office where the food was.

"Oatmeal packets," Dave commented as he looked at the computer on his desk.

"It's insult," Kurt commented, pointing to where the packets were as he moved to his own desk.

"Why's it an insult?" Luis asked.

"Because it tastes like sand," Kurt said as he sat at his desk.

Hope and Hank and Aqua and Terra shared looks at the banter.

"You know why?" Luis asked Kurt. "'Cause it's organic. That's why."

"It's not organic, it's sand," Kurt remarked.

"It's the most important meal of the day," Dave commented.

"You know what, you can get creative with it," Luis told them as even Scott and Ventus were getting annoyed by the banter. Which was really saying something in terms of Ventus.

"Break teeth," Kurt told Luis.

"Put a little brown sugar on it," Luis told them. "You can put some cinnamon. Put a little honey. Whatever you want..." *2*

As the banter continued, Terra and Aqua both considered summoning their Keyblades and breaking a window to get them to stop talking. But Scott beat them to the punch and gestured with his arms to his business partners.

"Guys, guys, guys," Scott exclaimed, gesturing with his arms a bit more. "Come on, man." He looked around and gestured with his arms again, exclaiming, "We've got bigger fish to fry."

"Is that my desk?" he suddenly asked, confused, as he pointed and walked to a small fold out table and chair in the back of the room with a few supplies and a paper with his name taped onto it.

"Yeah," Luis confirmed, nonchalantly, while Ventus took a bite of the raspberry danish twist.

"What?" Scott asked. "Why do I have such a small desk?"

"Well, because, you weren't there when we were choosing desks," Luis told him.

"You snooze, you lose," Kurt added as he and Dave gave small nods.

"Well, I was under house arrest," Scott reminded them.

"Yeah," Luis agreed.

"Wait, so you took advantage of your friend not being able to come into work for your own personal gain?" Terra asked.

"Yeah," Luis nonchalantly confirmed as Dave and Kurt gave more small nods.

"Wow, these guys really are ex-cons," Aqua muttered to Terra while Ventus took another bite of the raspberry danish twist. The two shared a small chuckle as they remembered the company name, then immediately leaned away from each other.

"You know what, this isn't even a desk," Scott remarked, still gesturing to the table while Hank shot another incredulous expression at Hope. She just gave a tight smile. "This is garbage. You found this outside amongst garbage."

"I got it at a rummage sale," Luis remarked.

"So, you save money on my desk?" Scott asked while Hank sighed out in annoyance.

"Guys," Hope called out.

"Hope, please, we need to focus, all right?" Scott said, taking a step forwards. "We need to find that lab already. Jeez."

Hope looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

"Well, nice to see your priorities are still straight," Terra said. He raised up his forefinger and thumb. "I was this close to smashing that thing with my bare hands to get you to focus again."

Scott frowned in thought and looked at Aqua and Ventus.

"Can he really do that?" he asked.

"Yes," Aqua and Ventus said in unison.

"It's quite a sight to see," Ventus said while taking another bite out of the raspberry danish twist.

"That, it is," Aqua said, looking up with a smile and a look in her eyes that Ventus couldn't place.

"Oh, you know what?" Luis said, pointing up and looking at Hank. "I heard stories, like what happened to you. This crazy, creepy cat, who walks through walls and stuff. Like a... like a ghost."

"Like Baba Yaga," Kurt commented. Scott, Hope, Hank, and the Keybladers looked over at him, confused. "Baba Yaga, the witch. They tell stories to children to frighten them."

Scott cocked his head to the side in thought.

"You know Baba Yaga?" Kurt asked Hank. He looked at Aqua while Hank slowly looked away from the Russian with an incredulous expression. "You know?"

"We're not from this world," Aqua reminded the man.

"Which, by the way, you guys are reacting to exceptionally well," Ventus commented, gesturing to the former cons.

"Well, when something big happens multiple times a year, much of them other worldly or supernatural, you get kind of used to it," Luis told him with a smile. "From those aliens and Heartless, to the other incident of aliens, to lots more Heartless, to those robots that tried destroying the world with a guy called the One Winged Angel, to even the civil war that broke up the Avengers."

'Now I see why V keeps coming back here,' Terra, Ventus, and Aqua all unknowingly simultaneously thought. 'Things never stop happening on this world.'

"Whoever stole the lab, we need to find it," Hope informed the group.

"Oh, you don't find someone like that," Dave told her. "They find you."

"Like Baba Yaga," Kurt whispered, cryptically.

"Hey, wait, that actually makes sense," Aqua said. "Remember, we put that thing together, so we'd be the best ones to help explain how to use everything in there."

"So they'd probably need one of us for reference," Terra said with a nonchalant expression before his eyes went wide in realization.

"Uh, oh," Terra, Ventus, and Aqua simultaneously said. Ventus stress ate by quickly eating the rest of his raspberry danish twist.

"Dr. Pym, you're the smartest genius I know," Luis said with a smile. "Didn't you put some kind of LoJack on your lab? Because if you didn't..." He gestured up to the wall of devices behind him. "We have a variety of affordable options."

"What's LoJack?" Terra asked, confused since they didn't have that big a range of technology back at the Land of Departure.

"Of course I did, Luis," Hank told Luis. "It was disabled. Whoever stole the lab knew exactly what they were doing."

"They also looked like they were phasing," Hope said in thought.

"Phasing?" Scott asked.

"Quantum phasing," Hank explained since the Keybladers were also very visibly confused. "When an object moves through different states of matter."

"Oh, like when those bad guys kept teleporting around the arena," Ventus assessed.

"Yeah, that's what I was thinking," Scott told Hank.

"The lab emits radiation," Hope remembered aloud as Hank sipped the offered coffee. "Can we modify a quantum spectrometer and track it?"

"That could work, yes," Hank agreed. "But all my equipment is in the lab."

"Huh, maybe this is why some people in movies set up small stashes of spare equipment in secret areas just in case," Aqua commented.

"Never would have thought a movie would make sense," Hank admitted. "But it's something I never thought of doing because I don't have trust in some of my secret areas."

"Then where else can we find that equipment?" Scott asked.

Hank and Hope both sighed out in resignation.

"Well, there is one person," Hank admitted. "Bill Foster."

"Great!" Scott said with a smile. "Who's Bill Foster?"

"He's an old colleague of my dad's, from SHIELD," Hope said. "They had a falling out years ago."

"You seem to have a lot of falling outs with people," Luis observed.

"Yeah, and I'm starting to see why," Ventus begrudgingly admitted since he didn't like being mean.

"It's probably just a waste of time," Hank admitted.

"Maybe if you just apologize to him, he'll help us," Aqua pointed out.

"Yeah, it'll definitely be a waste of time," Hank admitted with a small nod. *3*

"Hank, I'm risking everything by being here," Scott told him. "Don't you think we should check?"

"We need to find out who took the lab," Hope told her father.

"Majority rules, Hank," Terra told him.

Hank sighed out in defeat.

They got in the van and made their way to the college campus that Hank found out Bill Foster currently worked at. With all six of them dressed incognito, they started across the crowds through the campus.

"Guys, it's not a good idea to be out in the open like this," Scott whispered to Hank and Hope. "I mean, the three of them are fine, but we're fugitives."

"Relax, no one's gonna recognize us," Hank assured him.

"What, because of hats and sunglasses?" Scott asked. "It's not a disguise, Hank. We look like ourselves at a baseball game."

"Hey, I'm just glad not a lot of people are giving me second looks," Ventus told Terra and Aqua. "You know, 'cause I look just like Roxas?"

"Probably helps that there are people that are constantly imitating him, Sora, and V," Terra said, pointing to two students across the campus who had their hair in ways to imitate Vanitas and Roxas. "Now I'm kinda glad that V broke the order and made everything clear to the people on this world."

"Didn't we technically break the order before him by fighting all those Unversed?" Ventus asked.

"Well, yeah, but he doesn't know about that," Aqua said with a devilish smirk. "We can nail him to the wall once we get back."

"Oh, I'm already looking forward to it," Terra eagerly said.

Once the two of them saw how close they were to each other again, they immediately separated. Ventus, Scott, Hank, and Hope rolled their eyes at their behavior again.

They moved on through the campus to a lecture hall where Bill, an older black man with very short greying hair, a matching mustache and beard, and glasses, was giving a lecture many students.

"In an isolated system, particles co-exist in a stable phase relationship," Bill told the students. "If the system is interfered with, that stability becomes chaos. Unpredictable. Dangerous. Beautiful. Isolated completely, a quantum system would revert back to separate states of matter, each entangled with a distinct state of its environment."

The group reached the stop of the stairs at the back of the lecture hall, with Hank intentionally coming last to help ensure that Bill didn't see him just yet.

"In other words, the object in question would be both in and out of phase with multiple parallel realities," Bill continued.

He looked up, and even though the group was in the back of the room, he was able to quickly zoom his attention in on Hank. He sighed out and looked down, doing a small smile.

"Speaking of being out of phase with reality," Bill commented as he walked to his podium. "I am noticing an unusually high number of glazed eyes out there among you."

The students chuckled, and so did Ventus.

"So, why don't we call it a few minutes early?" Bill suggested to the students. The lights came on, the students started standing up, and the incognito group looked down to keep their faces hidden a bit better. "That'll be enough for today. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, you may go."

Bill crossed his arms in contemplation as he looked past the dispersing students and up to the group.

The six of them traversed down the lecture hall and went with Bill in his office, where they quickly filled him in on their situation, from the quantum tunnel to Scott being linked to Janet, to the missing lab. Like Luis and the other ex-cons, he took the revelation that Terra, Ventus, and Aqua were from another world fairly well, which once again made them grateful that the World Order basically didn't exist on this world. Bill sat at his desk, Scott and Hope sat in the two chairs in front of it, Terra an Aqua leaned against the window that showed the outside campus, Hank paced in front of a blank window next to the door, and Ventus stood next to Scott's chair.

"It's incredible," Bill said, looking at Scott in the seat in front of him. "You're linked to Janet. It's quantum entanglement between quantum states of Posner molecules in your brains."

"...Yeah, that's what I was thinking," Scott said with a blank expression.

"All I understood was 'quantum, quantum, science, science, science'," Ventus admitted with a confused expression.

"Yeah, do you guys just put the word 'quantum' in front of everything?" Scott asked.

"Doctor, we need to find our lab," Hope told Bill.

"It's got the tunnel, which we need to get Janet back," Aqua repeated part of the earlier instructions.

"Hope, Aqua, I'd love to help you, but I don't have anything like the equipment you're describing," Bill admitted.

"I told you this is a waste of time," Hank told them. "Come on, let's go."

"Hank, stop being an ass," Terra said.

"Yeah, don't condescend," Bill agreed with a bit of a gentler voice, even though he did look up at Hank with a frown. "You're the one who's on the run from the FBI. All because you had to grow to a size that finally fit your ego."

"That wasn't me in Germany," Hank told him. He gestured with his head to Scott. "That was this idiot."

Bill looked at Scott.

"Really?" Bill asked with a thoughtful look. Scott closed his lips together and gave a tiny nod. "Going that big, it must've been exhausting."

"I slept for three days straight," Scott told him, eager to share the details. "You have no idea."

"Actually, I do," Bill told him. "Back in the day, I was Hank's partner on a project called Goliath."

"Excuse me?" Hank asked, holding up an arm. "You were my partner?"

"The only thing more tiring than going that big is putting up with Hank's bullshit," Bill told Scott.

"Right..." Scott agreed as he and Bill laughed together. But he looked at Hank, and his smile disappeared at the frown his Ant Man predecessor was shooting at him. "I don't know. How big did you get?"

"My record?" Bill asked with a nostalgic expression. "21 feet."

"Not bad," Scott said.

"You?" Bill asked as Scott leaned back in his chair.

"I don't..." Scott said, waving his hand, making it clear part of him wanted to brag, but another part still didn't.

"No, really, I'm curious," Bill said with an inquisitive expression.

"65 feet," Scott said with a smile.

"Whoa," Bill said, amazed.

"Yeah," Scott said, nodding his head.

"Huge," Bill said, looking down with his eyes closed, a wistful expression on his face.

"65," Scott repeated.

"If you two are finished comparing sizes..." Hope said, getting all of their attentions, but her eyes narrowed at Ventus, who was staring at Bill with a contemplative expression. "Ven, you've been looking at Bill like that this whole time, what is up?"

"I feel like I've seen him somewhere before," Ventus said in thought. He snapped his fingers and pointed at Bill. "Were you in a movie called Predators? Or The Matrix?"

Terra and Aqua's eyes lit up in realization.

"Oh, yeah, he looks just like Morpheus!" Terra exclaimed, remembering when Vanitas showed them clips of that movie.

"The resemblance is uncanny," Aqua agreed, looking at Bill with a contemplative expression.

"I've never heard of that movie before in my life," Bill said. *4*

"Guys," Hope said, getting their attentions again. " We need to figure out a way to track down the lab."

"And the great Hank Pym hasn't figured that one out yet?" Bill asked, looking at the still pacing Hank. Hope groaned as she stood up and walked towards the window. "Strange. You had all the answers back in the day." He looked at Scott and Ventus. "That's why I left the project."

"Left?" Hank asked. "I fired you."

"Best decision I ever made," Bill continued, ignoring Hank. "Hank was a terrible partner. Temperamental..." He frowned at Hank as he continued, "Stubborn, impatient. Sooner or later, he just pushed everyone away."

"Just the mediocrities," Hank told Bill.

"Janet was the only one who could endure him and chose to stick it out," Bill continued.

"Watch it, Bill," Hank warned.

"She paid the price, though, didn't she?" Bill asked.

"You son of a bitch," Hank snapped, rushing forwards.

Scott, Hope, Ventus, and Terra rushed forwards, with the shorter three getting Hank to stop just as Bill stood up to retaliate. Terra grabbed Hank by his shoulders and successfully pulled him back.

"I didn't come here to listen to you two squabble," Hope angrily told her father and Bill. "I'm trying to save my mother."

Scott and Ventus's attentions were drawn to a familiar sounding voice. They ran across the office to the open window and looked out with a confused Aqua. All three of their attentions were quickly drawn to Jimmy Woo and multiple other FBI agents talking to campus security.

"Uh, oh," Ventus said.

"Now, which office would you say?" they heard Jimmy ask the campus security.

"How loud is that guy's voice?" Aqua asked with a confused frown. "And how thin are these walls?"

The campus security man pointed towards the office they were in.

"Oh, it's Woo," Scott frantically said, and the others looked over at him. Scott reached into his jacket for the sunglasses. "Someone must have seen me."

"Relax," Hank said as Terra took his hands off the shorter, older man's shoulders. Hank pulled out his smartphone. "If this was about you, they'd be in your house by now."

"Yeah, you gotta remember that 'cause of those stupid ass Sokovia Accords, Hope and Hank are wanted by the FBI," Terra assured Scott while Hank checked the camera for Scott's house.

Hank's eyes narrowed on the security footage of the giant Ant playing the drummer section of Guitar Hero.

"What are you, 15?" Hank asked Scott.

"Come on," Hope said as she and Hank reached for their sunglasses. "We've gotta go now."

"Yep," Ventus agreed as all six of them moved towards the door.

"Wait," Bill said, stopping them. "You might be able to improvise that tracker if you modify the diffraction units on one of your regulators."

"That could work," Hope pointed out.

"I don't know what that means," Scott said as he opened the door.

"Neither do I, but we're running with it, anyway," Ventus said as they all rushed out the door.

"Thank you," Hope told Bill. "Thank you."

"You've been a big help," Aqua gratefully added as she pulled the door shut behind them.

They quickly ran down the hallways of the campus, successfully dodging the FBI agents who ran towards the office outside. Luckily, they didn't have to worry because Bill told them that he was the last person Hank would visit because they hate each others' guts. The group got back in the van and set off on the road once again.

"So I'm a terrible partner?" Hank asked as he drove the car. Terra, Ventus, and Aqua decided not to make any comments while Hank went on his rant. "Foster, he hasn't had once good idea in his unremarkable career."

"Hank, stop being an ass for two seconds," Terra requested.

"Yeah, because his idea about the diffractors could work, right?" Hope asked.

"Fine, one decent idea," Hank relented. "Except, I eliminated the diffractors when I upgraded the suits."

Scott got a contemplative expression.

"So, if we had an old suit, we might be able to track down the lab?" he slowly asked.

"Yes, but we don't," Hank told him.

Scott looked down in thought before he looked up again.

"What if we did?" he asked.

"What do you mean?" Hope asked.

"I mean..." Scott started. "Life's funny."

"Oh, my god," Hope realized. "You didn't destroy the suit."

"What?" Hank exclaimed.

"Well, it was your life's work, Hank," Scott rationalized with a reasonable voice. "I couldn't destroy that."

Hope smiled as she looked out the front windshield again while Hank still steamed a bit.

"You want him to destroy the suit, you don't want him to destroy the suit," Aqua commented. "Make up your damn mind, Hank!"

"Look, before I turned myself in, I shrunk it down and mailed it to Luis," Scott told them.

"You sent my suit through the mail!?" Hank exclaimed.

"Hey, the postal service is very reliable," Scott rationalized. Hope once again smiled as she looked up. "You know, they do tracking numbers now. Like UPS."

"Where is it?" Hank asked.

"It's in a very safe place, all right?" Scott assured them. "Don't worry."

"Based off what we've seen from all three of you, I'm guessing that means we should worry, anyway," Ventus commented.

"Probably," Scott admitted.

Scott took his phone out and called Luis, requesting that his roommate and partner get the trophy his daughter had gotten him, because he had told the others that was where he had stored the suit.

"What, the trophy?" Luis asked, gesturing to the empty shelf in front of him. "No, it's not here."

"What do you mean, it's not there?" Scott whispered to Luis as he called from the back of the van. "Where could it be?"

"I looked everywhere," Luis told him as the large ant messed with a plant. "It's not here. Hey, get away from the plant."

He gently started taking the plant from the ant.

"I put it back after Cassie and I..." Scott whispered. His eyes widened in realization, and he placed his hand on his forehead. "Show and tell."

"Scotty?" Luis asked as the call ended.

The ant then knocked the plant over, spilling dirt onto the table and the floor.

"No, stop!" Luis exclaimed, trying to stop the ant.

"Well, the good news is I know where it is," Scott announced, quickly getting their attentions.

"And the bad news?" Terra asked.

They made their way to Brookemont, which Scott said was Cassie's elementary school. Scott and Hope dressed in their suits and shrunk down while Ventus followed them. Terra and Aqua stayed behind with Hank in the van while the three of them went through the school. Scott and Hope had shrunken down and flew through the halls of the school, Scott riding on an Ant with wings and Hope flying with her wings, and Ventus following them in his casual clothes, his Keyblade summoned to use the Vanish spell just in case.

Ventus wore a pair of glasses Hank gave him to help him make out the shrunken forms of Scott and Hope, and followed them up some stairs to the second floor, jumping up over the railings since it was faster than just running up the stairs as a school bell rang. He already had cast Vanish on himself, but made sure to hurry because he didn't know when the spell would wear off. *5*

"Whenever you go back to school, isn't everything supposed to be so much smaller?" Scott joked. "This place seems huge."

Ventus laughed as he followed them, but then he stopped when Scott exclaimed in surprise as he suddenly grew again and fell to the ground.

"What is it?" Hank asked over the intercom as Ventus started helping Scott up.

"It's the new regulator," Hope told Hank as she flew to the other two.

"Hank, what's going on with this suit?" Scott asked as he messed with the belt to try to adjust the particles. He was just small enough to reach Ventus's knees. "How much of a work in progress is this?"

The school bell started ringing again, which, as Ventus learned before they entered the building, wasn't a good thing. Students started coming out of a classroom in front of them and down a hallway. To make things worse, Vanish wore off and made Ventus visible again.

"Uh, oh," Scott said.

"Here," Ventus whispered.

He rushed over to a nearby doorway and opened it up. Scott rushed into the Janitor's closet with Ventus as Hope flew in after them.

"All right, we're safe," Ventus assured his friends.

Scott smacked the belt, and then suddenly grew to a large size, quickly knocking Ventus into a wall hard. Scott sat on the ground, and his head hit the ceiling hard. His mask retracted, and he winced in pain.

"Ow..." Ventus whined, pressed against the wall by Scott's large foot.

Hope watched and just laughed.

"What are you, laughing?" Scott asked as ceiling plaster rained down on the sides of his head. "Please, could you just..."

"Please," Ventus added.

"Okay, okay," Hope relented, still chuckling.

She grew back to normal size and reached across Scott's enlarged leg to the belt with the particles. She opened it up, revealing the smoking and sparking frame.

"What is it?" Hank asked over the intercom.

"The sizing coils are malfunctioning," Hope said as she pressed one of the coils with her finger. "Just let me..."

She pressed one of the coils against the belt, and a spark burst.

"Ow!" Scott exclaimed in pain.

Hope looked up at Scott's enlarged face with a wince.

"Sorry," she told him.

"It's all right," Scott assured her.

"Please hurry," Ventus said, still pressed against the wall by Scott's enlarged foot.

Hope closed the belt plating and started pressing buttons.

"Okay," she said to herself. "All right. Try that."

Scott closed his mask, and he quickly shrunk back down to normal size. All three of them sighed out in relief, Ventus falling to the ground, and Scott falling to his feet and standing right in front of Hope, very close. The two panted in and out as they looked at each other.

"Sorry," Scott said.

Then his mask suddenly appeared over his head, and he shrank down to the size of a young child.

"What?" Scott asked as Ventus walked over and looked at him with Hope.

Scott opened up his hands a couple of times, then retracted his mask. He looked up at Hope with an annoyed expression and opened and closed his fingers again.

"Awesome," Scott sarcastically said.

"If only Cap could see you now," Hope said with a smile.

'Is there a mean gene in that family?' Ventus wondered with a contemplative frown.

"Hilarious," Scott commented. "What are we gonna do?"

Scott looked down, and his attention was quickly drawn to a bin labelled "Lost and Found" with a few pieces of clothes within. They grabbed a blue hooded sweatshirt and put it on Scott. Hope shrank back down and flew next to Scott and Ventus as they opened the closet door and looked around in worry, seeing if there was any one in the hallway. Relieved that there was no one, they started out of the closet and down the hallway.

Unfortunately, a teacher came out from around the corner behind them, quickly taking notice of the two.

"Hey!" he called out, stopping them. "Where's your hall passes?"

Ventus instinctively turned around with a frightened expression.

"Aren't you a little old to be here?" the teacher asked. Ventus and Scott said nothing. "Hey, I'm talking to you."

Ventus exclaimed as he and Scott ran forwards.

"Hey!" the teacher called out as the two rounded a corner into a hallway. Quickly losing interest, the teacher said, "Hey. Eh..." He looked down at the clipboard in his hands.

Scott and Ventus hurried through the hallways, followed by Hope who flew over their heads.

"This is an elementary school?" Ventus asked, looking around as they continued running.

Scott looked around with him as they soon came across a door labelled, "Mrs Broadwell." He opened the door and led Ventus and Hope inside before shutting it behind himself. Ventus panted as Scott slid off his jacket hood. They looked around, and Scott's attention was drawn to the cubbies where the backpacks were, so they started over to them.

Of course, once they reached the cubbies, they faced a new problem where Scott was too short to reach Cassie's cubbie. He jumped up to try to reach, failing.

"You can do it," Hope encouraged with a laugh as Scott kept jumping. "You almost got it."

"Really?" Ventus asked, him and Scott shooting Hope an annoyed expression.

Ventus reached for the bag and grabbed it as Hope grew back to normal size. Ventus handed the bag to Scott, who took it and kneeled on the ground. Scott zipped open the bag and pulled out the "World's Greatest Grandma" trophy Cassie had gotten for him.

"Oh, peanut," Scott said wistfully.

He then opened up the bottom of the trophy, revealing the old Ant Man shrunk down and taped into a small alcove in the wood of the trophy. Scott took the suit off and handed it to Hope before placing the wood back on the bottom and putting the trophy back in the bag. The school bell started ringing again, clarifying they didn't have enough time. Ventus placed the bag back where they found it, and he and Hope looked down at Scott.

"Okay, let's go," Hope announced.

"Let's hurry," Ventus said.

Hope shrunk back down to Wasp size and started flying ahead while Scott and Ventus ran after her. Scott put the hood back on, and they hurried through the school and out the entrance. They ran down the stairs and across the sidewalk to where the van was parked with the door open. Hope flew in and grew back to normal size into a seat while Scott and Ventus climbed in after.

"Hiya, champ, how was school today?" Hank asked in a joking manner.

Scott laughed sarcastically as Hope smirked, sort of confirming to the Keybladers there was a mean gene in the Pym family.

"All right, get your jokes out now," Scott told them. "Can you fix the suit?"

"So cranky," Hope commented.

"You want a juice box and some string cheese?" Hank asked, still joking.

Hope chuckled while Terra closed the van door.

"Do you really have that?" Scott asked.

"Yeah, I'm hungry," Ventus added. "Can we go get some corn dogs?"

Hank started driving down the road, away from the school, to find a safe spot to put Bill's suggestion into action.

Chapter Text

It didn't take them too long to find a good, secluded alleyway to get to work. Hank fixed the current suit and helped Scott grow back to normal size, then he opened up a component in the back collar of the old suit. He took out the diffractor, which caused some sparks to fly, while Scott and Ventus stood outside the van watching, and Terra and Aqua kept en eye out for trouble.

Hank attached the diffractor to his laptop and started running it through the network.

"Let's see if Foster was right," Hank commented.

Lights ran over the diffractor, and he sighed out as he, Hope, Scott, and Ventus continued watching the equipment processing. After a few seconds, it started beeping rapidly. They looked at the laptop monitor to see a tap popping up, announcing that a signal was detected. A more steady beeping started, showing an aerial digital map of the city, with a blue triangle appearing with a specific mark within it.

"This has gotta be the lab," Hank announced.

The four smiled and shared happy looks.

"Let's go get it," Hope announced.

"Yeah," Hank agreed.

"Terra! Aqua!" Ventus called to his friends. "Let's go!"

They climbed back into the van and set off through the city, following the signal provided on the map. Night fell, and they rolled the van to a stop outside a wrought iron fence and gate, with lanterns on each side of the gate doors. They all looked outside Hank's window to see a large, ominous building a short distance away on the other side of the fence, very little lighting glaring from the large windows of the building.

"This seems right," Scott commented.

"Reminds me too much of horror movies," Terra admitted.

Still, the group started getting ready. Scott and Hope started putting on their suits while Terra, Ventus, and Aqua pressed their armor buttons, making light flare and putting their armor on.

"Look at us, teaming up twice in one day," Scott told Hope with an epic voice as he slipped on the sleeve.

"Makes you think, huh?" Hope asked, looking down.

"About what?" Scott asked.

"Germany," Hope said, looking at Scott before looking down at her sleeve again.

"What do you mean?" Scott asked.

"We were working together, training together, and other stuffing together," Hope reminded Scott as the other three watched with interest.

"If I had asked you, would you have come?" Scott asked.

"I guess we'll never know," Hope said. "But I do know one thing."

"What?" Scott asked.

"If I had, you'd have never been caught," Hope told him.

"Hey, we saw the footage from what happened," Ventus pointed out. "He got a Spider guy's webs around his legs and fell. Everyone else was fighting each other. Would one extra person really have..."

He trailed off as he slowly came to a point.

"Yeah, you probably wouldn't have gotten caught if she was there," Aqua said, a contemplative expression of her own under her helmet. Terra nodded in agreement.

"Thank you, Aqua," Hope said, smiling at the blunette before she extended her mask back out.

Hope shrunk back down to Wasp size and started flying away, and Scott looked down at her words, then smiled. Ventus sympathetically patted his shoulder, not noticing the smirk, while Hank looked back over his shoulder to them.

"Hey, Scott," Hank said, getting their attentions. "You think you can stop daydreaming about my daughter long enough to get my lab."

"Yes, sir," Scott replied.

"Thank you," Hank said.

"Should one of us stay behind to guard him?" Terra asked, gesturing to Hank.

"I don't need a babysitter," Hank replied. "Letting you know right now, if one of you stays behind, I'm kicking you out."

'If he doesn't need a babysitter, then why does he act like a baby?' Terra, Ventus, and Aqua unknowingly simultaneously thought as Scott extended his mask out.

Scott shrunk down and climbed onto another ant with wings while the Keybladers climbed out of the van. Scott rode his ant out the window after Hope, and Hank kept a watch through ant cameras. Terra, Ventus, and Aqua followed after the two, with Aqua double jumping over the gate, Terra grabbing a bar and doing a flip over the fence, and Ventus parkouring over it. The three landed on the ground and followed after the small duo.

"Okay, you're transmitting," Hank informed them over the intercom.

"Let's hurry," Terra announced. "We don't know when this 'ghost' will come back."

"What took you so long?" Hope asked Scott.

"Sorry, I had to come up with a name for my ant," Scott told her. "I'm thinking Ulysses S. Gr-Ant."

The two of them flew through a crack through the doorway, while Terra, Ventus, and Aqua cast Vanish over themselves. Aqua tapped her Keyblade on the doors, and they opened on their own. They rushed into the room, and Ventus quietly shut the door.

"What do you think?" Scott asked Hope as the Keybladers sighed out in relief at the sight of no cameras.

"Hilarious," Hope commented as they flew down a hallway.

"Let's look around for that lab," Aqua announced.

"I'll..." Ventus started.

"Let's all three of us split up," Terra quickly interrupted.

"Good idea," Aqua agreed.

The two of them ran down opposite hallways, and Ventus sighed out, knowing he was going to suggest that he went with Scott and Hope while Terra and Aqua went together. He shook his head at his friends' stupidity before he still followed Hope and Scott.

"I'm not getting anything on the monitor," Hank informed them. "There's some kind of electronic disturbance."

"Is it me, or does that seem to happen all the time in these situations?" Ventus asked.

"Too much," Hank agreed. "Nonetheless, be careful."

"You know me, Hank," Scott said as they continued into another room. "I'm always careful..."

He looked to the side and exclaimed, "Whoa!" with Ventus in surprise at the sight of the Ghost costume hanging on a wall.

"It's okay," Hope assured them. "It's just the suit."

"Oh, thank goodness," Ventus said, placing his hand to his chest to calm down his heartbeat.

"How do you know?" Scott asked.

"Look," Hope instructed.

Ventus followed the two across the room, quickly finding a large glass chamber with a tan skinned woman laying down on a bed within, orange energy surging through the glass and into her unconscious form.

"That's Ghost?" Scott asked as Terra and Aqua walked in from the other side of the room.

"You just assumed that it was a guy in the suit?" Aqua asked Hank over the intercom, a little annoyed.

"The suit gave her a modulated voice," Hank told her.

"Okay, that's a good point," Aqua pointed out, cocking her head to the side. *1*

"What is she doing?" Hope asked as she, Scott, Ventus, and Terra observed the chamber.

"Do you think that suit is how she goes through walls and stuff?" Scott asked.

"Let's just get outta here before she wakes up," Hope told them.

"Agreed," Aqua said, remembering how difficult a fight it was before.

"Hope, look, there's the lab!" Scott said, gesturing to the nearby table the lab and the component in the case were on.

Terra, Ventus, and Aqua sighed out in relief while Scott and Hope landed on the table and looked up at the lab.

"Now, we're sure this is our shrunken building and not somebody else's, right?" Scott quipped.

"Guys, let's just grab it," Hope said, looking towards the case with the Ghost in it before looking up at the lab again. "Come on, we gotta be fast."

"I got it," Terra informed them as Hope and Scott grew to normal size and landed next to them.

As Terra grabbed the lab and picked it up, Hope and Aqua looked towards the incubator case, but their eyes narrowed in surprise when they saw that it was empty.

"Oh, shit," Hope exclaimed.

Ghost was behind them, and she hit Hope in the back of the head, knocking her to the ground hard. She then turned to Scott and kicked him hard enough that he went flying into a wall, knocking him unconscious. Terra tossed the lab to Aqua, who caught it, then threw a punch at Ghost. But the fist phased right through the girl and hit Ventus right in the face, knocking the armored blonde back a bit.

"Ow," Ventus simply said before falling to the ground, unconscious.

"Oops," Terra said, embarrassed.

Ghost didn't hesitate and kicked Terra between his legs, making him exclaim in pain. He gripped his crotch in pain and fell onto his knees before falling to the ground.

"Hey!" Aqua exclaimed, tossing the lab onto the table again.

Aqua and Ghost then went into a short bit of hand to hand, where Ghost managed to successfully push aside Aqua's armored fists and feet. Ghost then caught Aqua's arm and pulled back, making Aqua fall down onto her knees.

"How strong are you?" Aqua asked, looking up at Ghost.

Ghost responded by just punching Aqua in the side of her head through her armor, knocking her unconscious.

Scott and Ventus were the first to wake up, slowly stirring into consciousness with their face guards and masks gone. Their eyes widened considerably as they realized they were restrained to wooden chairs with black zip ties. They frantically looked around, and their eyes narrowed at the sight of Terra, Aqua, Hope, and Hank next to them, also unconscious and tied to chairs.

"Hope," Scott whispered, trying not to get Ghost's attention. "Hope! Hank."

"Terra! Aqua!" Ventus frantically whispered. "Guys, wake up."

Their attentions were drawn to a nearby swooshing sound, and they looked up just in time to see Ghost appear next to a table, smiling slightly.

"I don't think they can hear you," she told them as she leaned against a few black cases of equipment. Her smile creeped Ventus out. "Hi. I'm Ava."

"Scott," Scott said.

"Ven," Ventus said. "And I think I might need a new pair of pants."

"So... you don't need the suit... to go through things," Scott assessed from Ava, a similarly freaked out expression on his face.

"No," Ava confirmed, shaking her head while still smiling. "It just... helps me control it... And the pain, supposedly."

There was a long period of uncomfortable silence, during which Scott and Ventus shared a scared look.

"You're not gonna reach into our chests and crush our hearts, are you?" Scott asked.

"I just got mine back; I really don't wanna lose it again," Ventus said, fear in his voice.

Ava laughed and stood up straight, taking a few steps towards the duo.

"You're funny," she said. Still smirking in a creepy way, she crouched down to their level and leaned in to look at them. "Scott, Ven, I'm not going to hurt you, unless I have to."

She raised her hands up to Scott's head, and he flinched as her hands got closer.

"I need... what's in your head," Ava told them.

She placed her hands on the sides of Scott's face, and Ventus had a reminder to that movie, Alien Resurrection. Scott flinched again as Ava continued pressing her fingers against Scott's face, and he exclaimed as energy appeared over her hands, making them phase in and out of existence. She took her hands off of his face and looked at them as they kept phasing. Ava looked at her hands before looking at the very visibly frightened Scott and Ventus.

"Let's wake up the rest of the gang and get this over with, shall we?" Ava suggested.

Scott and Ventus sighed out in relief as Ava stood up and walked around them.

"Get up!" Ava snapped, hitting the back of Hope and Aqua's chairs, getting the two to wake up. She hit the back of Hank and Terra's chairs as she snapped, "Come on!"

The four other members of the group woke up and looked around in surprised confusion. Terra winced as he felt a bit more pain in his groin.

"Dad?" Hope asked Hank in worry.

"Maybe one of us should have stayed with you," Ventus pointed out to Hank.

"Okay, yeah, probably," Hank admitted.

"Terra?" Aqua asked the brunette in worry.

"They hurt," Terra admitted with a wince.

Hope and Aqua both shot death glares at Ava as she walked around the chairs to the cases of equipment.

"Don't ever touch him again," Hope angrily told Ava.

"Now, now, Hope," Ava said. During her next words, she looked at Hank. "I think I'm being rather gentle with your father, all things considered."

"He probably deserves it," Aqua commented, making Hank frown. She gestured to Terra with her head. "What about him?"

"He got in my way," Ava said like it was all the explanation needed.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Hank asked Ava.

"Another casualty of Hank Pym's ego," Bill Foster announced, walking into the room and getting their attentions.

'Most obvious plot twist ever,' Terra and Aqua unknowingly simultaneously thought. *2*

"Bill," Hank said as his former partner walked into the room and looked at him like he hated him. Because he probably did. "What have you done?"

"It's what you've done, Dr. Pym," Ava snapped.

"You're with her?" Scott asked Bill. "Oh, man. I thought you were cool."

"What the hell is going on here?" Hope asked.

"Yeah, I'm pretty confused, too," Ventus admitted. "I mean, that's nothing new, but still."

"I doubt Hank has ever mentioned my father," Ava assessed, still looking at Hank with an expression of pure anger. "Why would he?"

Terra and Aqua frowned in thought before they looked at Bill.

"Not me," Bill elaborated for them.

"Elihas Starr," Ava announced. A look of remembrance appeared on Hank's face, followed immediately by a wince. "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."

There was a small bout of silence as the group took in those words, with Ventus wincing at the thought.

"My father tried to continue the research on his own," Ava continued telling them. "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." She paused. "When I woke up, my parents were dead. I wasn't so lucky. They call 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."

Hank and Hope shared a look, and Terra, Ventus, and Aqua shared horrified looks.

"And we thought we went through hell," Aqua commented.

"I was still at SHIELD when I got the call about a quantum anomaly in Argentina," Bill told them.

"Dr. Foster did his best to keep me safe," Ava told them. "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." She paused, which gave a nice dramatic effect. "They lied."

"Was this before or after SHIELD turned out to be a hidden Nazi organization?" Ventus asked, remembering part of the short study he and his friends had done of this world when they got here.

"Before," Ava told them.

"Then if the right people were behind it, they probably would have been telling the truth," Ventus pointed out.

"And how's that supposed to help me now?" Ava asked, frowning at Ventus.

He didn't say anything, afraid of the look she was giving him.

"Hey, did they also give you super strength," Aqua asked, wincing a bit as pain from the earlier punch flared on her cheek.

"No, I just phased through both of your armors," Ava told her and Terra.

"And now I probably can't have children," Terra said with another wince in his groin.

Even though she very clearly loved Terra, Aqua and Ventus rolled their eyes at his current overdramatic nature.

"When SHIELD collapsed, I took Ava in," Bill told them. "I built the chamber to slow her decay, but her condition was progressive. I didn't know how to cure it."

Everyone's attentions was drawn to the smartphone on the table nearby, making a noise akin to a duck quacking while a picture of Cassie Lang appeared. Scott's eyes widened.

"She wanted to kill you, Hank, but I told her no," Bill told Hank. "And that she should watch you, instead. And sure enough, she discovered that you were building the tunnel."

The phone continued ringing from the duck sound, which got their attentions.

"Then, she told me about Lang," Bill said, looking at Scott. "And the message from Janet inside his head, that's when I..."

The phone continued ringing, in a much more rapid way than before.

"Christ's sake!" Bill exclaimed, walking over to the phone.

"That's me," Scott admitted with an embarrassed face. "I'm sorry. Look, can you tell me who's texting me?"

"If you can have wacky ring tones like that on a phone, I really want one," Ventus said with a smile.

Bill walked over to them and held up Scott's phone.

"'Cassie, 911'," Bill told them.

"That's my daughter," Scott told him. "I need to text her back."

"No, that's not happening," Bill said, reaching his other hand up to the phone while Hope and Hank shared a look.

"What, it's 911," Scott said. "That means it's an emergency."

"It's the guy's daughter, man," Ventus added to try to help Scott.

"You're not making demands here, Lang," Bill told Scott. "You're not appreciating the gravity of the..."

The phone started ringing a different tune, and Bill looked down at it.

"Okay, look, she's trying to video chat me now," Scott insisted. "Something might be wrong. Let me talk to her. Please."

Bill sighed out and moved in front of Scott. He pressed a button and raised the phone close enough to Scott's face so that the seat wasn't visible. The image of Cassie appeared on the screen.

"Cassie, are you okay?" Scott asked, worry on his face. "What's the emergency?"

"I can't find my soccer shoes," Cassie said.

"What?" Scott asked, frowning in confusion.

"I have a game tomorrow," Cassie told him.

"Hey, Scott, I know that they're there," Maggie, Scott's ex wife added through the camera before she appeared on the screen. Terra, Ventus, and Aqua shared confused frowns. "Can you just walk the phone around the house?"

"No, I-I can't do that right now," Scott told them.

"Why not?" Maggie asked.

"Because I'm sick," Scott said.

As Bill spun a finger around to gesture him to hurry up, Maggie said, "Hey, can you just maybe look around later and call me back? Please, thank you."

She moved the camera back so that Cassie was on the screen again.

"Bye, Daddy!" Cassie said.

"Bye, peanut!" Scott said as Maggie moved the phone again to show her, Cassie, and Maggie's new husband, Jim Paxton.

"Feel better!" Cassie told Scott.

"Feel better, buddy!" Jim told him before the phone cut off.

"I'm sorry," Scott said. "It said emergency."

"You know, how you and your ex-wife treat each other is actually pretty surprising considering the one other divorcee relationship I've witnessed," Ventus admitted.

"What was it?" Scott asked.

"V's great uncle Mike," Aqua said.

The Keybladers winced as they remembered the story Vanitas had told them.

"What happened to him?" Hope asked.

"He and his ex agreed to end things amicably," Terra told him. "But then he trashed her car, she burned his house down, then he had sex with her sister."

"And, then, oh..." Ventus said, wincing the last bit.

"What is it?" Scott asked, Bill now interested.

"She took some garden shears..." Ventus started. He winced again. "Well, you know how when they neuter dogs, they take off... those?"

Scott, Hank, and Bill went wide eyed, but nodded their heads, nonetheless.

"Well, she did that to him, but also castrated him," Terra said with a wince. "Then fed the parts to their dog." *3*

Scott, Hank, and Bill all winced together and instinctively tried covering their groins. Terra and Ventus nodded in agreement while wincing together. Aqua and Hope both also winced in sympathy, even though they didn't have those parts. Hank did one more wince before he shook his head and looked at Ava.

"Ava, I want to help you," Hank told her.

"She doesn't need your help," Bill replied. "I know how to save her."

"Oh, really?" Hank asked, looking at his former partner. "How?"

"Janet," Ava said, quickly getting Hank's attention.

"For the last 30 years, she's been down there absorbing quantum energy," Bill told them. "We can extract that energy. We can use it to repair Ava's molecular structure..."

"Extract it?" Hank asked, frantically.

"Yes," Bill simply said.

"Are you insane?" Hank exclaimed. "That would rip Janet apart!"

"You don't know that," Bill replied. "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."

"What?" Scott asked, offended.

"You're really gonna risk the life of an innocent woman who just spent the last 30 years torn away from her family?" Aqua asked, knowing a bit what Janet was going through since she was ripped from her friends, people she considered family, for ten years.

"If we have to," Bill said, moving over to the table with the team's small affections, including Scott's phone, change, small devices, and Hank's case of Altoids.

"You are gonna stay here, just in case I need your help," Bill informed them, grabbing a shrinking device.

He tossed the device at Ava's chamber, causing it to shrink down to an easily carry-able size.

"Like hell I would help you!" Hank snapped as Bill walked over to the case.

"You'll do whatever I say," Ava warned, colors phasing around her as Bill picked up the shrunken chamber.

Ventus looked to his side at Terra and Aqua, who looked back at him over the other members of their group.

"I told you guys we should have gone to Castle of Dreams!" Ventus exclaimed to his friends.

"Okay, maybe you were right," Aqua admitted as Terra nodded in agreement.

"You're gonna kill Janet!" Hank exclaimed.

"I'd be more worried about yourself, Hank," Ava warned as Bill walked towards the lab.

"Goddamn it, Bill!" Hank exclaimed before he groaned and looked down.

"Dad?" Hope asked, concerned.

"Is he having a heart attack?" Terra asked, concerned for the man sitting right next to him, even if he was still an asshole.

"Calm down, Hank," Bill told Hank before rolling the lab across the room.

Hank panted in and out as he desperately tried catching his breath.

"So help me god..." he weakly said, getting Bill and Ava's attentions. "The pills."

"It's his heart," Hope said, looking at Bill with a desperate expression. "Please, Dr. Foster. They're in the tin. Please." Bill and Ava shared a contemplative look. "He could die! Come on!"

"Help him!" Scott exclaimed.

"Dad, just hang on, all right?" Hope assured Hank. "Just keep breathing. Stay calm."

"You're gonna be okay," Aqua assured Hank.

"Help him, man!" Scott exclaimed. "Come on!"

"The Altoid tin!" Hope told Bill as he walked towards the counter with their stuff.

Bill picked up the case of Altoids and grabbed the case, but Ava's eyes widened at him.

"Wait!" she exclaimed.

But she was too late. Bill opened the case of Altoids, and multiple ants burst out and grew to a large size, landing on the ground in the room and surprising Bill and Ava. Ava fell to the ground as she phased in and out from surprise and Bill tried to move through the ants. One walked behind the wood chairs and started biting through the restraints holding the members of the team down.

"Thanks, guys," Scott said before standing up and grabbing an earpiece. "Hank!"

Hank stood up, and Scott tossed him his earpiece, which he attached back onto his right ear. Hope and Aqua went to work, with Aqua summoning her Keyblade while Hope fired one of her blasters at Ava, knocking her to the ground while she phased in and out of existence again. Ants backed Bill into a corner while Terra grabbed the shrunken down lab and Scott grabbed the component case. Ventus laughed in victory and Aqua pointed her Keyblade at Ava and Bill in warning as the group ran out of the room and out of the house, ready to resume work on the quantum tunnel.

Chapter Text

Once they had the lab back, the team climbed into the van and drove until they were in a nice, secluded location far enough away from Bill and Ava before they grew the building back up to normal size. The six members of the team entered the building and started going back to work on the quantum tunnel, with the help of more enlarged ants that went around the lab and did various jobs.

Terra and Aqua ended up next to each other, looked each other in the eye once, then immediately scattered to opposite sides of the lab. Scott, Ventus, Hope, and Hank all simultaneously rolled their eyes in annoyance.

"All right, even I'm getting annoyed at how obviously in love they are," Hope told them.

"Thank you," Ventus said, gesturing to her. "So, are you guys gonna help me?"

"We pretty much have to at this point," Hank said, gesturing towards where they last saw Terra and Aqua. "They're not getting anything done, anyway, because they keep running."

"Any suggestions?" Ventus asked.

Scott looked up in thought as an idea started coming to him.

"The Keyblade, you said it can unlock any door," Scott asked. Ventus nodded. "Well, can it do the opposite effect?"

"Yeah," Ventus said, pointing at Scott with a wide smile.

"But they both also have Keyblades," Hank reminded them.

"Yeah, that complicates the plan a bit," Hope told them.

Ventus looked up in thought before he remembered something.

"I just remembered," he told them. "I saw in the library once back at the Land of Departure that when Keybladers lock doors with their Keyblades, if they put enough energy into it, that means they're the only ones who can unlock it."

"Will that work?" Scott asked.

"I don't know, I never used it before," Ventus admitted. "But it doesn't hurt to try."

"As long as you take full responsibility," Hank said. "That way, if this doesn't work, Terra only kicks your ass."

"Honestly, if this doesn't work, I'd be more scared of Aqua," Ventus admitted as they went through the plan.

Once the plan went through, the four of them managed to find Terra and Aqua at the furthest spots of the lab and told them there was a complication that required all four of them. Hank led them through the building to a room that had no windows, sturdy walls, a metal door, and a single table in the center of the room.

"This is about where it's happening," Hope said as Terra and Aqua walked in first, looking around the room.

"This place is kinda... dull," Aqua said, confused.

"Yeah, guys, what's the complication?" Terra asked.

"You guys are," Scott said.

"What?" Terra asked as he and Aqua frowned in confusion.

"Trust me; this is for your own good," Ventus told them.

He grabbed the door and pulled it shut behind himself, Hope, Hank, and Scott. Ventus then summoned his Keyblade and tapped it to the door, causing it to lock.

Reasonably confused, Terra stepped up to the door and pulled at the handle, which had the effect he expected and didn't open. Terra sighed out at the predictability and summoned Ends of the Earth. He tapped the end of his Keyblade to the door handle, but nothing happened, confusing him. Aqua had a similarly confused frown, and walked to the intercom in the wall next to the door.

"Uh, guys, what's going on?" Aqua asked, remembering that there was another one next to the outside door. "The door won't open."

"Hey, the spell worked!" Ventus exclaimed in excitement.

"Now I wish I had a Keyblade in high school!" Scott laughed. "With that spell, I could have locked the door, turned on the computer, and then..."

He trailed off as he remembered how despite everything he had been through, (and how old he apparently really was), Ventus was still pretty innocent when it came to adult things. Plus, Hope and Hank looking at him with eyebrows raised ended up killing a lot of his resolve.

"...Watched SNL," Scott said with a nonchalant expression.

Hope chuckled at Scott's placeholder while Hank rolled his eyes.

"What's SNL?" Ventus asked, frowning in confusion.

"I'll show you later," Scott said.

"Guys?" Aqua asked through the intercom. "Hello?"

"Oh, right," Ventus said, remembering his friends.

He walked to the intercom and pressed the button.

"Trust me, you guys need this," Ventus told them through the intercom.

"What do you mean?" Aqua asked, Terra looking with her at the device in confusion.

"The way you guys are denying the truth is making it hard for you to work together," Hope told them.

"So we locked you in, and neither of you are coming out until you come clean about your feelings," Hank told them.

The fearful expressions returning to their faces, Terra and Aqua quickly looked at each other with their eyes wide, before they looked at the intercom again.

"NOOOO!" they tried yelling out in denial.

"Not gonna lie, I was just about expecting that," Scott commented through the intercom.

Desperate, Terra moved to the metal door and yelled out as he threw his right fist right at the metal door, which was enough to cause it to dent slightly, but nothing else.

"We thought of that," Hank told them. "That's why we went with the room with the sturdiest walls and strongest door."

"This isn't funny, guys," Aqua said, desperation in her voice. "Come on, let's get to work on the quantum tunnel."

"There's only one part left," Ventus reminded her. "Pretty sure just the four of us and the ants can get it done."

"Open the goddamn door right now!" Aqua exclaimed angrily.

"Whoa, you kiss your mother with that mouth?" Ventus asked. He laughed, "No, but you'll probably kiss Terra with it."

"Ven," Terra said, angrily. "Let us out right now, or I will break through this door with my bare hands, then punt you through a wall."

"You're strong, but it'd probably take you about twelve hours to break through the door," Hank told him. "Maybe in that time, you can just be open and honest with each other."

"Uh..." Ventus said, looking at his friends. "I... kinda hope he does it in less time than that, because, uh... I don't want to get punted through a wall."

"And I like my walls too much for you to be punted through them," Hank said. He pressed the button. "We'll check back in in a few hours. Try not to kill each other."

"That's actually probably a valid fear with those two," Hope commented as the four of them started down the hallway back to the main lab.

"You have no idea," Ventus agreed as they heard Terra and Aqua calling for them from the intercom behind them. *1*

With Terra and Aqua "distracted," the rest of the group went to work on the quantum tunnel.

"Bill is filling that girl's head with lies," Hank announced as he, Scott, Hope, and Ventus worked in the base part of the tunnel, and an ant walked down towards them carrying a black case. "Elihas Starr a traitor. He stole my plans."

"Yeah, but girls' love of their fathers always blind them from how screwed up they really are," Ventus told him. "I mean, Hope's been working with you for this long, and you're a huge jerk."

"He's got a point," Hope agreed, gesturing with a small device.

"Yeah, you really do," Hank agreed with Ventus before looking up at some ants working in parts of the tunnel above him. "Now, bring it back down. All right, lock it in."

Hope leaned in to look at the device that Scott was leaning over a table to view and work on.

"No, no, no," Hank told the ants as Ventus stood next to them, holding a small tool. "The bolt is on the other side. Tighten that one down, then bring it down one notch."

The ants followed his instructions and brought the top device down one rung down on the black horizontal pillars.

"Good job," Hank told them.

"It'll work," Hope assured Scott as she used a screwdriver to fiddle with the small device in her hand.

"I have no clue how these things go, but I'm sure it'll work," Ventus added as Scott stood up straight.

Hank walked over to them.

"Foster, he could have fried the entire system," he said, gesturing to the device.

"Look, we'll adjust the relays while you go reprogram the settings, okay?" Hope assured Hank as she gestured back to one of the computer stations a short distance away. "It's going to be fine."

Hank walked across the platform out of the tunnel, and Hope grabbed the component, which turned out to be the entirety of the item, not something smaller in a case. The three of them went into a part of the lab that appeared to be where the generators were in the back of the quantum tunnel, and Scott and Ventus watched as she slipped the component into the slot provided and turned it clockwise, making a green light glow.

"So this is it," Scott assessed.

"Yeah," Hope agreed, still looking at the component in the slot. "You'd think with all this time to prepare I'd be more ready."

"Oh, going subatonic isn't something you something you can prepare for," Scott assured her as she smiled. "It kind of... melts your mind."

"I mean seeing my mom again," Hope told him.

"That can melt your mind, too," Ventus said with a smile.

Scott and Hope both smiled at the optimism the blonde always seemed to have.

"What if she's a completely different person?" Hope asked Scott, genuinely worried.

"Yeah, like, uh, George Washington," Scott said.

"I'm serious, Scott," Hope said, crossing her arms through her smile.

"Or George Jefferson," Scott added.

Through her smile, Hope voiced her concerns.

"What if she's forgotten about me?" she asked.

Scott placed his fingers to his temple.

"When I was in prison, the only thing that got me through was Cassie," he told her. "I could have been locked up for 100 years, I never would have forgotten her." He was silent for a second as he rested against the black shelves next to them. "I know your mom is counting the minutes until she can see you again."

"...Thank you," Hope said with a smile.

Hope and Scott smiled at each other.

"Plus, I know from experience what it feels like to finally see someone after being separated for years," Ventus added with a smile. "I was super relieved to finally reunite with Terra, Aqua, and V. Plus, I'm getting my memories back of my time after the Keyblade War a bit more, and I just know that when I find my old friends again, we're gonna be very relieved to see each other again. Especially Lauriam after he forgave me for what happened to..." *2*

He trailed off as he realized that the both of them were looking at him with very tiny smiles.

"...Stelitzia," Ventus said, trailing off a bit. He smiled. "I just ruined a nice, private moment between you guys, didn't I?"

Hope and Scott gave small nods.

"Well, isn't that spectacular?" Ventus asked with an awkward chuckle and a just as awkward smile. He pointed up with both pointer fingers, then pointed to another side of the lab. "I'm gonna go get some tea."

Ventus continued laughing awkwardly as he walked around the large consoles and to the doorway to another part of the lab, and Scott cocked his head to the side.

"I'm having the strangest sense of deja vu," Scott said with a smile while Hope laughed. *3*

Scott's phone then started ringing, and he took it out his back pocket and saw it was Luis calling. He tapped the answer key and raised his phone to his ear.

"Hey," Scott greeted as he walked after Ventus, realizing he was also thirsty.

"We got a big problem," Luis frantically told him. "You forgot the motion sensor lights on the back of the building."

"Oh, no," Scott said, placing his hand to his forehead in embarrassment while standing in the center of the quantum tunnel.

"And they're on the proposal, and Karapetyan asked for them specifically," Luis told him.

"Uh, yeah, look, it's been a little crazy," Scott said, looking around as he started walking forwards again. He looked over his shoulder at Hope and looked forwards again. "Look, maybe I could stop by tomorrow, take a look at it."

"No. No, no, no, no," Luis quickly said. "The meeting is first thing in the morning. You gotta come right now and fix it."

"I can't," Scott told him. "I wish I could, but I can't leave."

"You know what, I'm coming to you," Luis told him. "I-I'll just bring the plans. They're on the laptop. And you can fix them there. Just tell me where you are, okay?"

"It's complicated," Scott whispered.

"W-What do you mean, it's complicated?" Luis asked.

"We're in the woods," Scott told him.

Scott still told Luis where specifically in the woods he could find the lab, though, then they ended the call. He sighed out as Ventus walked up to him, carrying a tray with some cups and a pitcher of ice tea on it. Ventus raised an eyebrow at the distressed face Scott was making.

"Made a mistake that's risking a lot?" Ventus asked.

"Yep," Scott said, taking one of the empty cups.

"Been there," Ventus said, placing down the tray and grabbing the pitcher. "They just happen so easily to guys like us, you know?"

"You're telling me," Scott agreed as Ventus poured them their ice tea. *4*

Aqua sighed out as she sat down on the table, looking down in resignation as Terra continued punching the door. Checking the smartphone Hank had given her, she had seen that it had been a solid two hours that they had been locked in the room, and it looked like that wasn't going to change anytime soon. They immediately ruled out the option of flying their Gliders through portals off the world and then flying back on the world due to the unpredictability of the time stream. They didn't want to land back on the world and find a week had passed, which Vanitas mentioned happened to him once.

Aqua looked up at Terra as the brunette panted in and out and looked over at her.

"Okay, it looks like I'm getting through," Terra said. He pressed his fist into the dent of the metal wall. "I can get fist deep, so we're getting there."

"Terra, it's gonna take you forever to get through that door," Aqua told him. She sighed out in resignation. "They'll open the door for us when they come around if we just talk."

"Nope!" Terra denied, punching the large dent in the wall again. "No talk! I just gotta keep punching!"

"Terra, your knuckles are gonna split open and reveal bone before you get through that door," Aqua pointed out.

Terra finally stopped punching and pulled his fist out of the door. He winced as he looked at the purple and red bruises on his knuckles.

"Okay, you... might have a point," Terra reluctantly admitted.

"Might?" Aqua asked, pulling out a Potion that she tossed to Terra.

"Okay, you definitely have a point," Terra relented, catching the Potion without even looking.

He gulped down the potion and sighed out in relief as he felt the wounds mend themselves. Gulping once again, this time in fear, Terra turned towards Aqua and started walking to the table she was sitting on. He sighed out and sat on the other corner of the table.

"So..." Aqua said, wondering how she was supposed to start the conversation. "You have feelings for me?"

She inwardly seethed at herself, knowing that probably wasn't the best way to start this.

"Uuuuuummmmm...." Terra slowly said as he nodded his head to the side. He curled his lips inwardly. "Yep. And... you have feelings for me?"

"That, um, that sounds about right," Aqua said, nodding her head, too. "When did, um, when did you start developing these feelings?"

"I think they started when we were around twelve or thirteen," Terra said. "We were at the time the only apprentices of Master Eraqus and V was the youngest, so considering you were the only girl there, I think it was only natural that I'd start developing some feelings for you."

"Yeah, that was sort of the same for me," Aqua admitted. "We were the same age, we had the same level of training, and despite V making jokes to make fun of us, I still felt a slight attraction to you."

"And then puberty hit us like a sack of bricks," Terra said with a smile.

"I know!" Aqua said with a laugh. "You sprouted like a weed and got all big and muscle-y."

"And you grew in height and developed... those," Terra said, blushing as he glanced at Aqua's chest awkwardly.

Aqua looked down at her chest and smirked at how childish he still was.

"I always thought they were a little too big," Aqua admitted. Terra blushed even harder and crossed his legs. "Not the time, sorry."

"Y-you're fine," Terra said, breathing in and out.

"And..." Aqua said, slowly preparing herself. "I think I fell in love with you about two years ago."

"What?" Terra asked, uncrossing his legs.

Aqua blushed and looked down with a smirk.

"It was when we were practicing together, we had first tried out our Command Styles," she started explaining. "V and Ven had moved to the castle around dusk, but we stayed out there together well into the night. We finally managed to get a handle on our Command Styles, and looked up at the stars together. We thought about what the other worlds those stars could have been and expressed our desires to see them one day. We stayed out there for hours just staring up at the sky, and eventually our hands just consciously slid into each other. And... that's when I knew."

She looked down with her eyes closed, accepting that she had now spilled out the truth.

"I think with me, it was a couple of months before that," Terra admitted.

Aqua looked up in wide eyed realization at his words.

"We were studying our history together," Terra told her. "The two of us sat together on the couch and poured through the books about the old Keyblade War, trying to learn as much as we could. The others were gone, and Master Eraqus was out on a mission, having heard about a large Heartless. Like with the watching stars, we were up pretty late, and had to use some lamps to light the place up. It didn't do much to keep us awake, though. We soon fell asleep, and when I woke up, and looked at how comfortable and safe you felt with me, that's when I knew."

Terra and Aqua both looked at each other as all of their words sank in.

"So... you love me," Aqua assessed.

"And you love me," Terra assessed.

"We're, uh... we're flip flopping a bit on the words here," Aqua said with a small chuckle.

"Yeah, usually one of us say that we love the other," Terra said, doing his own small chuckle.

"So, now that we're finally accepting of the truth, doesn't that mean we should start doing couple things?" Aqua asked, still smiling.

"Like what?" Terra asked.

Aqua's eyes widened in surprise a bit at how genuinely confused he was, but then she just chuckled again. She leaned in close and pressed her lips against Terra's. Both of them closed their eyes as they leaned into each other and held the kiss for a few seconds. Eventually, though, they had to come up for air.

"Oh... right," Terra said with an embarrassed chuckle.

"You know, you're cute when you're clueless," Aqua said, smiling.

"And you're just cute," Terra told her.

"Not that original," Aqua commented, still smiling.

"Why do I love you?" Terra asked.

Aqua leaned in again, and they started kissing again. This time, much more passionately. Their kissing extended into a full on make out as they fell together back onto the table.

"Oh, yeah, that's why," Terra quipped as he pulled back for air again.

"Now I'm kinda glad we're in normal clothes," Aqua said.

"Yeah, the armor won't get in the way," Terra agreed.

They started kissing again and rolled around together on the table, passionately kissing as they held each other while laying on the metal surface.

"What do you love about me?" Aqua asked, pulling back with a smirk.

"Let's see..." Terra said, going along with whatever she had planned. "I love how you always manage to find a way to smile no matter what we go through. I love how you always do everything you can to help your friends, no matter what. I love that between the two of us, you're the one smart enough to help pull my head out of my ass." Aqua and Terra both laughed while he continued rubbing his hand on her side. "And if you'll let me be superficial, I love your body."

"I looked online," Aqua said. "Apparently, I seem to have an hourglass figure, based on odd records."

"You fill it out good," Terra said, blushing as she hoped their entwined legs didn't reveal too much about how much he appreciated her body.

"You fill out your body, too," Aqua said, shamelessly looking along his torso.

Terra gasped in pretend offense.

"You're obsessed with my muscles!" he said with a fake dramatic tone.

"And you're obsessed with my boobs and butt," Aqua countered with a laugh.

"Well... can you blame me?" Terra asked with his own laugh.

"No," Aqua admitted. "So you can't blame me, either."

"No, I cannot," Terra said.

They continued laughing before they started making out again.

"Terra..." Aqua panted as they came up for air again. "We're both adults."

"Yeah?" Terra said, confused.

"Which means we can start doing adult things," Aqua continued.

"Yeah?" Terra asked, still confused.

"Which includes having adult relationships," Aqua finished. "And I want to have an adult relationship with you."

Terra's eyes widened at the implication, and his suspicions were confirmed he felt her leg slide up his own leg, and she smirked at what she found.

"Have I mentioned that I love you?" Terra asked.

"Yes," Aqua said, still smiling. "A few times, now."

"Because it's true," Terra said, smiling back.

"I know," Aqua said.

They wrapped their arms around each other again as they continued making out. *5*

"Terra and Aqua have been in the room for a while, now," Hope said as the four of them stood in the console room that connected to the quantum tunnel. "You think anything's changed yet?"

"With how stubborn the both of them were, we might have to wait another few hours," Hank commented.

"A little part of me is now wondering if we made the right call," Scott admitted, leaning against a desk. "I mean, we did pretty much force this on them."

"Hey, it was clear to you guys that they were in love, and none of us even told you," Ventus pointed out. "All we did was lock two fully grown adults that haven't seen each other in a decade in a room with just a table and tell them they weren't coming out until they admitted their feelings to each other. I mean, what can they really do?"

He laughed, and Hank, Hope, and Scott laughed with him. At least, until the three of him remembered what he said about them being adults, and not having seen each other in over a decade. Given that Ventus still had childlike innocence, he wasn't coming to the same implications that the three of them were. When they reached their shared conclusion, they gasped in surprise as they all shared a look, then started running down the nearest hallway.

"Hey, where you guys going?" Ventus called after Hank, Hope, and Scott before he started running after them.

Despite his usual reputation of being the fastest, the three people of Earth 616 ended up ahead of Ventus by a great distance, possibly due to the fact he was simply jogging while they ran.

"We really locked two people in love in a room together?" Hank chastised their actions as they turned down another hallway.

"And he added that they haven't seen each other in over a decade?" Hope asked, in a similarly self-chastising tone.

"Hank, you might have to clean those walls," Scott warned.

They reached the right room, and Hank threw a shrinking device at the door. The door shrunk down, revealing Aqua on top of Terra on the table. Aqua's jean jacket and Terra's flannel shirt were both on the floor, but they were still wearing the majority of their clothes. The couple gasped in surprise at the sound of the door shrinking, and Aqua raised herself up again as they both looked back at the disappeared door, right at the relieved three.

"So, you guys are okay with each other now?" Scott asked.

"Uh..." Terra and Aqua said with a tiny bit of awkwardness in their voice from being interrupted. "Yep..."

"Good, now stop trying to make babies on my table!" Hank angrily snapped. "And get off of her!"

Aqua and Terra frowned in confusion.

"I'm on him," Aqua slowly said.

"Sorry," Hank said, placing his hand to the side of his head in slight embarrassment. "I only practiced trying to get Scott off of Hope."

"Understandable," Scott admitted with a nonchalant voice, nodding his head once.

"Hey!" Ventus exclaimed, finally catching up to the others and standing with them. "What'd I miss?"

He looked into the room to see Aqua on top of Terra on the table. He frowned in confusion.

"Terra, why are you holding Aqua's breast?" Ventus asked, pointing at his friends.

Terra and Aqua only just now realized he was still doing that, and he immediately but reluctantly took his hand off. They both stood up with their faces pink and started grabbing their discarded jacket/shirt.

"You'll find out when you're older," Hank said, walking back down the hallway they had run down.

"I'm older than everyone here combined!" Ventus exclaimed, walking after Hank. "Even you!"

Scott smirked at the retreating forms of Ventus and Hank before he and Hope looked at Aqua and Terra as the new couple stood up and adjusted their clothes.

"It's gonna be really difficult for us to get some alone time for now, isn't it?" Terra asked.

"Yes, it is," Scott confirmed with a nod of his head.

"You two are both about to be much more affectionate with each other, aren't you?" Hope asked.

"Yes, we are," Aqua said, standing close to Terra and pinching him.

Terra jumped in surprise, and he and Aqua smiled at each other, adoration in their eyes. Scott and Hope rolled their eyes but smirked as they walked after Ventus and Hank, soon followed by Aqua and Terra, who each held an arm around the other, both of them happy that their feelings were reciprocated.

Chapter Text

After the group made it back to the lab, they continued work on the quantum tunnel, and found there was very little left to do thanks to the large ants. They finished everything they needed to do and walked into the main console room. Although, three times while they worked, Hank had to tell Terra and Aqua to take their hands off of each other and focus.

"I can't tell what's worse; the way they denied their feelings, or their overzealous flirting," Hank had complained to Hope and Scott.

"Please, like you and Janet didn't do that in the lab sometimes instead of working," Scott countered with a smirk.

Hank opened his mouth, but said nothing because he knew Scott had a point.

"Didn't need that mental image," Hope commented with a half-smile half-grimace.

Once all the necessary work was done, the group stood in their stations at the main console room. Hank flicked some switched and pressed some buttons, Hope typed in a computer and hit a few other buttons, and Scott and the Keybladers looked at the quantum tunnel through the window in the room.

"System's in the green," Hope announced as gears moved on the side mechanism of the quantum tunnel.

"Priming the coils," Hank announced while Scott crossed his arms in observation.

He pressed a few smaller buttons before pressing a large, green one.

"Full charge," Hope announced as the sound of gears shifting rose from the quantum tunnel. She looked at Scott. "As soon as the tunnel's open, let us know if you get anything that could be a part of her message."

"Yeah, yeah," Scott assured her. "I will."

"Hopefully opening it will actually do something," Aqua said.

"Hopefully," Hope agreed, turning towards Hank. She walked towards him and placed her hands together in front of her mouth in anticipation.

"Okay, then," Hank announced, flicking a few more switches. He grabbed a large lever. "Here it goes."

"And if this blows up right in our faces?" Ventus whispered to Terra.

"We summon our armor," Terra whispered back.

"Yeah, they can take a lot of damage when the damage isn't coming from Keyblades," Aqua whispered back.

Hank pushed the lever up, and the quantum tunnel came to life. Hope placed a hand on her father's shoulder and they all watched as side gears extended out on the tunnel. Lights came on as the outer part of the back tunnel started rotating. Hope and Hank chuckled in victory, with Hank happily taking his daughter's hand in his own.

"We did it!" Hope happily said, placing her other hand over her dad's.

"Good, it's not blowing up," Ventus whispered happily.

"You got anything?" Hope asked, looking over at Scott again.

Scott looked at them, and got a hopeless expression.

"Nothin'," he admitted, turning to look at the tunnel again.

"Well, just give it a minute, because it could..." Hank started, gesturing with a hand from Scott to the tunnel.

But then he stopped when he saw the back of the tunnel stop rotating as the lights went off, and it made the very loud sound of something powering down.

"No," Hope denied, brushing her hair back and quickly running to the laptop from before. She went to work typing to stop it as she exclaimed, "No, no, no, no!"

"What the hell?" Aqua asked.

"What's happening?" Scott asked.

"It's shutting down," Hope told them. "Maybe our vectors are off."

"We've been over them a million times, I know they're right!" Hank exclaimed.

"Well, then, what else could it be?" Hope asked, quickly rushing over to join Hank at work with the console.

"I don't know!" Hank exclaimed as the Keybladers shared a concerned look.

An alarm started quickly doing a high pitched beep, and Ventus raised a confused eyebrow when he saw Scott's head tilt to the side in thought. He watched as Scott looked around quickly, then rush to another part of the console.

"Scott, what are you doing?" Hope asked.

"Scott, get away from that!" Hank exclaimed as Scott typed at the laptop.

"What the hell are you doing, man?" Terra asked, confused, as Hope and Hank both moved towards Scott. "You're not exactly a specialist with this stuff."

Hank moved to Scott and grabbed his shoulder to try to pull him away, but Scott simply pulled it away.

"I'm sorry, I don't know how much time I have," Scott said in an effeminate voice. "I need to fix the algorithm."

They watched as Scott typed on the computer in a much more confident way than they would have expected. Hank and Hope were both surprised by the experienced way he was doing the work.

"Trust me, after 30 years down here, I've thought about it a lot," Scott announced.

That gave the others an inkling about what was happening while the terms "Restoring Dampening Field" and "Core Injection Terminal" flared on the screen in tabs. Hank looked at Scott with wide eyes as recognition appeared on his face.

"Janet?" Hank softly asked.

Scott stopped briefly and looked at Hank with a smile. He placed one hand on the side of Hank's face.

"Hi, honey," Scott softly said.

Hank was surprised, but was also confused, which made sense. This was his missing wife literally speaking to him through his daughter's possible boyfriend, after all. Scott then looked at Hope and placed a similarly affectionate hand on her cheek.

"Jellybean," he said, still smiling and with a soft voice.

"Mom?" Hope softly asked.

"Uh, despite the pleasantness of this moment, I don't think Scott's gonna appreciate this once this is over," Terra commented, wincing as he remembered his time being possessed by Xehanort. This might not have been as malicious or sinister as what happened to him, but it was still sort of the same concept.

"It's not the reunion I'd imagined," Janet told them through Scott as she continued typing at the computer. "It's all so rushed. You two have done such great work. You just need a little..." She typed the last bit on the computer and looked up at the quantum tunnel. "Nudge."

The quantum tunnel came to life once again, with the lights turning on as the back part started rotating again. Janet placed both of Scott's hands on Hank and Hope's shoulders before she walked over to the door out of the control room. Hank and Hope shared a surprised but confused expression.

"You get used to it when it's happened to three or four of your friends," Aqua told them before they followed Janet out of the control room.

Janet led the way in Scott's body to the computer behind the quantum tunnel, where the other components on the wall were. She ran up the stairs to the computer and started typing, causing the components to start working to pinpoint Janet's location in the quantum realm.

"Janet, how is this possible?" Hank asked.

The other five members of the group went up the stairs and watched Janet go to work, with Hope and Hank moving to each side of Scott's body.

"It wasn't a message you put in Scott's head," Hope said with a smile. "It was an antenna."

"Clever girl," Janet said, smiling at Hope. "I'm so proud of you."

Hope chuckled.

"It is not surprising to me in the slightest that you guys are so easily accepting of this," Ventus admitted. "Even before we came around, you didn't exactly lead normal lives."

"Understatement," Hank commented before looking at Janet while she typed at the computer again. "Honey, tell us where you are. Tell us how to find you."

"No, the probability fields are too complex," Janet told them as she typed at the laptop. "That's why I needed to talk to you." She looked at Hank. "You have to follow my voice."

"Of course!" Hank exclaimed, eyes widening in realization.

"Like tracing a call back to its course!" Hope said with a wide smile of realization as Hank moved next to Scott's body to work on another laptop.

Janet looked at Hope and winked at her through Scott.

"Just smile and nod and act like you understand what they're saying," Aqua muttered to her friends, smiling and nodding at the trio in front of them.

Ventus and Terra listened to her and smiled and nodded with her.

Hank and Janet kept typing on the laptops, and numbers and letters appeared on the platings on the wall in front of them.

"I'm tracking your signal using subatomic frequencies between point two and point nine," Hank announced while the numbers and letters kept glowing on the screen like platings, which then slid into place.

"I'd narrow it to four and six," Janet suggested.

"That's too tight," Hank remarked. "We could miss you."

"Look at us squabbling again," Janet said, smiling.

"Fine," Hank commented with his own smirk. "All right, between three and seven."

While the platings continued moving into place while numbers kept appearing, Janet used Scott to take one of Hank's hands and look at him with affection.

"Our first fight in decades, and it's over just like that," Janet told him while Hope watched with her hands on her sides.

"We were just like that," Aqua said, looking at Terra with a smile.

Hope and Janet laughed together, along with Terra and Aqua. Ventus and Hope got uncomfortable looks when they saw what could be misinterpreted as Hank and Scott having a romantic moment. They all looked up as more panels rotated rotated into place, with one assisted by an old fashioned oven turner. They watched as the components kept turning, with Janet taking Hope's hand in Scott's other hand as they watched the turning plates. Until eventually, one turned and started beeping with a single orange light in the center and the numbers 0125 at the bottom.

"Bullseye," Janet announced.

"Source lock," Hope said with a small chuckle and a smile.

"It's you," Hank announced triumphantly, still holding Scott's right hand.

"(Laughs) We got it!" Hope announced happily, so Janet placed a hand on her back.

"Now for the much more fun part," Aqua commented with a smile.

"You have to meet me at these exact coordinates," Janet said, looking at Hope with Scott's head. "In the wasteland, beyond the quantum void. It's very dangerous, especially on the human mind, so be careful." She looked over at Hank. "Time and space work very differently down here. You have two hours. After that, the probability fields will shift, and it'll be another century before they align like this again."

"Translation: we gotta hurry the hell up," Terra said.

"We'll find you," Hope said, giving Scott's hand an affirmative squeeze.

Janet looked at Hope and ran Scott's hand on her cheek again. She placed a kiss on Hope's forehead and stepped back to look at her.

"I know you will, Jellybean," Janet said with a reassuring smile.

Hope smiled and chuckled at her mom's words. Then Scott started blinking as his senses came back to him. He looked forwards. *1*

"Nope," Scott said, taking his hand from the side of Hope's face. "Nothing. I got nothing. No sign of Janet." He looked at Hank and sarcastically commented, "Perfect."

Ventus, Terra, and Aqua smirked and tried to hold back laughs as Scott looked around in confusion.

"How did we get up here?" Scott asked.

He and Hank then both frowned. They raised their still joined hands up, and Scott raised an eyebrow at Hank. Terra, Ventus, and Aqua then immediately started laughing. They managed to do a quick explanation for Scott as they went back around the quantum tunnel to where the pod to fly into it was. Hank adjusted a few remaining parts inside the pod while the rest stood outside, with Hope preparing to make the trip down into the quantum realm.

"All right, first you're gonna see all kind of lights, and it's gonna get really trippy, but then its gonna turn black and silent," Scott explained to Hope, warning her by telling her about his last time down there. "Really silent."

"Scott, I'll be fine," Hope assured him with a small smile.

"I'm just saying because I've been down there," Scott told her.

"Yeah, so you've mentioned," Hope said as Hank walked up next to her.

"It's only natural to be worried for your friends," Terra told them.

"Yeah, you know how many times we told him to go back home during our journey to fight the Unversed?" Aqua asked, pointing at Ventus with her thumb.

"And you know how many times I ignored them?" Ventus asked with a smile.

"Each and every time?" Hank asked. Ventus nodded his head. "Why am I not surprised?"

The group shared a small laugh, and Ventus got a mock-offended expression on his face before he joined them. Scott's phone then started ringing, so he looked down and took it out, seeing that it was Luis.

"Um, sorry," Scott said. "I have to take this."

He walked over to the side and Ventus followed him while Hank kept reassuring Hope.

"Hey man, you coming?" Scott asked.

"No, I'm not, but you know what?" Luis asked. "Ghost is. And you know what? The Feds, they know where you are."

"What?" Scott asked with wide eyes, which quickly got Ventus's attention.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Luis quickly said. "Uh, they gave me some truth serum. And then all of a sudden, I started talkin' all honestly. Like, I hate the way that you load the dishwasher." He exhaled while Scott's jaw remained dropped at the revelation that the FBI and Ghost were on their way. "I hate it, I hate it."

"Uh..." Scott said, looking over at Ventus, then over his shoulder to the others.

"But you need to go home because the Feds are probably going there now!" Luis told him. "And by the way, who puts the plates on the top rack, okay? They don't go there!"

Scott ended the call and looked down at his phone with his eyes still wide and his jaw still dropped. He looked up and sighed out with his eyes closed, a guilty expression on his face. He turned and walked back towards the others with Ventus (who had an expression on his face that made it clear he wasn't going to like the upcoming obvious yelling), where Hank was reassuring Hope with his hands on her shoulders. Terra and Aqua stood a short distance away, with their arms around each other. Hank looked up at Scott when he and Ventus got close enough.

"I feel like such a jerk," Scott told them. "You're gonna be really mad. We gotta go now."

"What?" Hope asked with her arms crossed in confusion.

"Ghost knows where we are," Scott told them with a wince. "So does the FBI."

"How?" Hank asked.

"I told Luis where we are," Scott admitted.

"You what?" Hope asked.

"I told him to come here so I could help him with the Karapetyan proposal," Scott told them, trying to defend his actions, not knowing that it would lead to this.

"Oh, my God!" Hope exclaimed, looking away from Scott with closed eyes.

"He said they got him with some truth serum," Ventus said.

"Truth serum doesn't exist," Terra told Ventus. He then frowned and looked at Aqua. "Wait, does it?"

"Apparently," Aqua said.

"Look, we need to land that account," Scott told them. "Otherwise, we lose the business! Do you know how hard it is for ex-cons to find work these days?"

Ventus laughed.

"Ex-con, X-Con, I just got that," he said, pointing with his right pointer finger.

"Jesus, Scott!" Hank exclaimed, gesturing angrily with his arms.

"This is just like Bill Murray's Law," Ventus said, realization in his voice.

"What?" Hope asked, confused.

"V told us about it," Ventus said. "Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong."

"Murphy's Law?" Scott asked.

"Yep!" Ventus said, pointing up with a smile.

"This is important!?" Hank angrily snapped at Ventus, who winced. "Terra, take your hand off of Aqua's ass, and let's go!"

Terra and Aqua then jumped away from each other with their faces red and followed Hank and Hope towards the glass door to the console room. Scott and Ventus stammered and groaned before they followed their friends through the door into the room. Hank and Hope went to work, with Hope typing at the laptop and making the rotating at the back of the quantum tunnel slowly stop.

"90 seconds to close the aperture!" Hope announced.

"You have to depolarize the coils first!" Hank told her.

"I know!" Hope snapped.

"I'm really sorry, but the, um, FBI is coming to my place, so..." Scott started. With a wincing expression, he said, "I have to go."

Hank looked over at Scott.

"Can I borrow the suit?" Scott asked.

Hank said nothing as he looked from the Scott to the console again, then flicked a switch.

"Gyroscopic stabilizers," an automated female voice announced. "Powering on."

Exclaiming in embarrassment, Scott reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, black, square case out and held it up.

"I'm just gonna borrow the suit," he told Hope and Hank. "I'll come back. Just tell me where you'll be."

"Don't bother," Hope snapped.

"What?" Scott asked.

"We'll come and get the suit from you, as soon as we've found my mom," Hope told him.

Terra, Ventus, and Aqua all internally winced as this sounded like the loss of a friendship.

"Hope..." Scott said.

"Scott, just go!" Hope snapped.

"I'll go with him, just in case," Ventus told them.

"We'll stay here with Hope and Hank," Aqua told Ventus, nodding at him with Terra.

"Okay," Ventus said as he and Scott started towards the door. "Careful of Murray's Law!"

"Murphy's!" Terra called to his quickly disappearing friends.

"Whatever!" Ventus called back as they moved out the door. *2*

Scott quickly put on the suit and Ventus summoned his armor, knowing it would be best to disguise his face since he looked exactly like Roxas. Scott shrank down and ran under the door and jumped onto an ant with wings. Ventus jumped onto his Keyblade Glider, which was luckily still able to cast spells. He cast Vanish around himself as a form of protection and flew after the smaller Scott.

They reached Scott's apartment and got out of their suits, with Ventus's armor disappearing in light, and Scott taking off and hiding the Ant Man suit. Scott was still taking off the Ant Man suit in a closet, and it was at that moment that Ventus realized it.

"Wait, where do I hide?" he asked.

Loud knocks came from the door downstairs, so Ventus improvised and raised his Keyblade up, casting Vanish again. He disappeared in a flash.

"I'll check it out," Ventus told him. "You keep getting out of the suit."

"Gotcha," Scott said, pulling at one of the stickers quickly, making it get stuck.

Invisible and remembering the apartment's layout from earlier Ant Cams, Ventus made his way down into the middle portion of the apartment and looked down the railing to where the door was at the bottom of the stairs. He sighed out in relief when the door opened and only revealed Scott's ex wife, Maggie, Jim Paxton, and Cassie Lang. But then he immediately held his breath, remembering that Scott's family couldn't be in the know about him helping heroes again.

"Scott?" Maggie called out as the three of them started into the apartment.

"Daddy?" Cassie called out as Ventus moved away from the railing and to another side of the room, still invisible.

"It's us, buddy!" Jim called out, closing the door behind him while Maggie and Cassie went up the stairs.

"We're here for Cassie's shoes!" Maggie called out.

Ventus stepped back and bumped into a table, and he nearly jumped out of his skin when the lamp on it started shaking around. He quickly placed both hands against the lamp while still holding his Keyblade in his right, settling the lamp on the table and getting it to stop. He sighed out in relief, then closed his mouth again when Maggie reached the top of the stairs.

"He must be resting," Jim suggested, making Ventus remember Scott's excuse about being sick in the call.

"Honey, why don't you go upstairs and look under your bed?" Maggie suggested.

Maggie complied and started running to the staircase.

"Daddy, you upstairs?" Cassie called out, turning and going up the staircase. "Daddy?"

'Can he not hear them in that closet?' Ventus thought, frowning in confusion.

Ventus's heart stopped when Vanish wore off, making him visible again. He was relieved when he saw that both Maggie and Jim were preoccupied, though, with Maggie in the living room adjusting some couch cushions, and Jim kneeling down to look at crunched leaves on the floor next to a plant. Ventus quickly raised his Keyblade and cast Vanish again, already feeling some strain from using the spell again almost immediately.

"He really lives like a pig these days," Maggie commented.

"Or like an ant..." Ventus muttered to himself with a smirk.

He then immediately covered his mouth again when he saw Jim look up in his direction in confusion. *3*

"Thought I heard something," Jim commented.

Ventus then nearly jumped out of his skin again when he heard the door downstairs burst open.

"Spread out!" Jimmy Woo announced, running up the stairs.

The FBI agents behind him yelled at each other in ways that Ventus couldn't hear as they followed Jimmy up the stairs.

"Again?" Jim asked, stepping up in front of Jimmy with an incredulous expression.

"You people have no shame!" Maggie exclaimed, stepping up next to her husband with an offended tone in her voice.

'Wow, she is definitely not like Mike's ex,' Ventus thought with an impressed tone.

A tall, white, male agent with silver hair and a shorter, female agent with black hair in a ponytail stepped up in front of Jimmy while the remaining agents spread out through the apartment.

"The monitor says that he's in the bathroom," the female agent told Jimmy.

"Yeah, I'm not buying it!" Jimmy told her, moving past Jim and Maggie towards the door to the stairs.

'Okay, now this guy is all No Nonsense?' Ventus thought, gripping his Keyblade just in case.

Jimmy moved towards the staircase, but he stopped when Cassie stood on one of the stairs in front of him.

"Cassie, let the man get by!" Maggie told her daughter.

"But Daddy's super sick!" Cassie announced, and Ventus smiled when he realized the loyalty she held for her dad.

"I'll see about that!" Jimmy remarked.

"He says he doesn't want anyone else to get sick!" Cassie said, stepping to the side to stop Jimmy when he tried stepping to the side to get past her.

"Well, I'll take my chances, sweetie," Jimmy told her with a reasonable voice.

He tried stepping to the side to get around her again, but she once again stepped to the side again to stop him.

"He barfed," Cassie said. "Like, a lot."

"Young lady, I am a federal agent," Jimmy told her. "I've seen worse things than vomit."

'Have you seen a tree Unversed?' Ventus thought with an internal laugh while Jimmy looked down in contemplation.

"Like, 'a lot' a lot?" Jimmy asked, and Ventus had to bite his tongue to stop himself from laughing.

"Yes!" Cassie told him.

"Forget it, move aside!" Jimmy exclaimed, successfully moving past her.

"No!" Cassie exclaimed as she followed him.

Ventus moved down the hallway and twirled his Keyblade around, internally commenting about how weird it felt. While the other FBI agents blocked off Maggie and Jim from following, Ventus slipped around them and quickly but quietly followed Jimmy and Cassie up the stairs. They reached the top and Ventus was wondering if his inner Dark Vanitas was influencing him as he raised his Keyblade up to hit Jimmy in the back of the head with the butt of his Keyblade just in case. But he sighed out in relief at the revelation he didn't have to do that when the toilet flushed and Scott walked out of the bathroom in his pajamas and bathrobe.

"Woo!" Scott greeted Jimmy, who looked incredulous at seeing him there. "What are you doing here?"

"Scott," Jimmy said, still surprised.

Vanish wore off again, making Ventus visible again, and Scott had to bite his tongue to stop himself from jumping in surprise. Cassie turned around, and her eyes widened in surprise at the sight of Ventus. Ventus frantically raised one hand over his mouth with a desperate expression, then raised his Keyblade to cast Vanish again. Luckily, Cassie nodded her head in agreement while Ventus disappeared again.

"I'm sorry, I'm just really sick," Scott told Jimmy.

"I told you," Cassie said, looking up at Jimmy.

Jimmy looked down at Cassie.

"Excuse me," Scott said, moving back into the bathroom. "Sometimes you gotta get it out. You know? Sorry."

He pretend retched as he moved the door shut. Ventus was impressed with Scott still going along with the ruse, while Jimmy tried to not look uncomfortable, and Cassie looked down in relief.

Back in the woods, Hank, Hope, Terra, and Aqua exited the lab, with Hope having her hair tied back as they moved towards the van.

"Get your armor on," Hank suggested to Terra and Aqua. "Just in case."

"Good idea," Terra agreed.

They pressed the buttons under their sleeves, and light flared around them, making their armor appear.

"I'll start the van," Hank told Hope as he took out his device. "You get the lab."

They all turned towards the lab, and Hank pressed a button, making the lab shrink down to small size. Unfortunately, that revealed the veritable army of FBI soldiers and agents waiting for them on the other side. They were standing near some fancy looking cars, with all of them wearing armor, some in green and some in black, and they raised their assault rifles.

"Murphy's Law," Aqua muttered.

"Freeze!" an agent bellowed. "You're surrounded!"

The soldiers started moving in an arc around the lab, moving closer and closer. The quartet turned around at the sound of sirens behind them, finding disguised cop cars and trucks moving towards them. The cars came to a stop, and two men wearing suits came out of one while multiple soldiers with more assault rifles came out of others.

"Hank Pym," one agent announced with a smile. "Hope Van Dyne, you and your two armored friends are under arrest."

"Get out of here!" Hank exclaimed to Terra and Aqua.

"But..." Aqua started.

"Go!" Hope exclaimed.

Terra and Aqua exclaimed in surprise as they turned and started running. The soldiers called out for them to stop, but they didn't, so the agents started firing. As Terra and Aqua ran to towards the woods, the bullets fired just easily bounced off the armor, surprising the soldiers and the agents. Once Terra and Aqua got into the woods, they summoned their Keyblades and cast Vanish around themselves as some of the agents came up to investigate.

"We lost them!" a soldier called out.

"Leave 'em!" the lead suit agent called out. "We've got the main two."

The agents left the woods and joined the rest of the army that was apprehending Hope and Hank. Aqua and Terra grabbed each others hands, helping ensure that they knew where they were.

"What do we do?" Aqua whispered, looking to the side to what she hoped was Terra's head.

Luckily, it worked. Terra looked towards what he hoped was her head, which luckily also worked.

"Now..." Terra started. "We gotta bust 'em out."

Back in the apartment, Jimmy stood to the side as another agent, the taller white man with silver hair, used a scanner on Scott's ankle monitor to run a diagnostic on it while Cassie, Maggie, and Jim watched while sitting on the couch. A green tab appeared on the screen of the scanner with a checkmark and the words "Diagnostic cleared." Ventus was in the other room only watching while peeking around the corner, since he was never able to figure out a good timetable for how long Vanish lasted.

"This is harassment!" Maggie exclaimed.

"Actually, it's not," Jim muttered to Maggie.

"What does the FBI even stand for, 'Forever Bothering Individuals'?" Maggie asked.

She looked at Jim with a smile, pleased at her own joke.

'Even I thought that was weak,' Ventus thought. 'And I don't even know what that saying means.'

"His monitor check out?" Jimmy asked.

"Of course it does," Scott said, and the agent nodded in agreement.

"Damn it!" Jimmy commented, looking down and placing his hand to his chin. "Looks like I just got fed a bowl of malarkey."

Scott nodded his head in agreement. Ventus felt his heart stop when Vanish wore off again. Luckily, he was standing right behind an agent, and no one else was looking in his direction. He sighed out in exhaustion as he cast Vanish once more. He disappeared, and the agent turned around with a frown, sure that he just felt someone close nearby.

Unfortunately, the shorter female agent with the ponytail then walked into the living room that Scott and Jimmy were in.

"We got 'em, sir," she announced, looking down at her phone. "Pym and Van Dyne are in custody."

"Seriously?" Jimmy asked while Scott and Ventus's hearts sank. The agent clapped his hands in excitement. "Yes!"

Scott looked at Jimmy, and the agent's excitement disappeared quickly.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Scott," Jimmy said with a sympathetic expression. "They're your friends. That's insensitive. I just really needed a win, you know."

Scott had a somber expression, which only Cassie and Ventus noticed.

"I'll be back later for the official end of your sentence!" Jimmy announced as he and the other agents started moving towards the door out of the apartment. Scott walked over into one of the doorways to hide his sadness from Cassie, Jim, and Maggie. "Sorry for misjudging you, pal! You should feel great about yourself!"

Terra and Aqua, still invisible with Vanish, watched as Hank and Hope were stuffed into the back of a black car, but their attentions were drawn to an agent that went to the back of a van. They watched as the agent opened up the doors and grab the lab. They followed the man as he moved over to the open trunk of his own car to set it down, but before they could act, Ghost appeared and placed her hand on the man's chest, making him fall to the ground, unconscious. They moved towards Ghost, but she grabbed the lab and disappeared quickly.

"Damn," Aqua and Terra muttered in disappointed unison. "Murphy's Law."

Back in the apartment, Cassie went up the staircase and walked into her room, finding Scott sitting on the ground and resting his back against the bed.

"Hey," Scott greeted.

Ventus then suddenly appeared, panting in and out desperately.

"Are you okay?" Scott asked with a raised eyebrow of concern.

"Vanish... is a spell... that takes up... a lot of energy..." Ventus panted out as he moved over to the chair on Scott's left side and collapsing into it. "It's why we're usually supposed to wait a short period before we use it again. It takes up a lot more energy than our usual spells or attacks, and has a longer reload time than most other ones."

"You gonna be okay?" Cassie asked.

"I'm fine," Ventus said, panting in and out, but holding one hand to his chest to steady his breathing. He looked at Scott. "But do you have any orange slices?" *4*

Scott frowned at the feeling of deja vu that Ventus had just given him.

"Are you Roxas?" Cassie asked.

"No, I'm Ventus..." Ventus said. "Ven for short. Roxas and I... we just look a lot alike... for reasons."

"Thanks for covering for us," Scott told Cassie.

"Yeah, you really... saved us there," Ventus said.

"Sure," Cassie assured them. She moved over on Scott's right side and sat down, looking up at him. "So... how long have you been Ant-Man again?"

Scott curled his lips inward and chuckled softly as he looked down.

"Not long," he told her. "It just sort of happened." He turned a bit so he was looking directly at her. "I'm sorry for lying to you, and I'm sorry for risking everything."

"Daddy, it's okay," Cassie assured him.

"It's not," Scott said, shaking his head. "I do some dumb things, and the people that I love the most pay the price. Mainly you."

"Trying to help people isn't dumb," Cassie countered.

Scott grunted and rubbed his hands down his face.

"I screw it up just about every time," Scott admitted.

"So maybe you just need someone watching your back, like a partner," Cassie suggested. She looked over at Ventus. "When he's not close to passing out."

"She's got a point, man," Ventus said.

"Well, she's made it clear that's about the last thing that she wants," Scott admitted, looking out in wistfulness.

"Who?" Cassie asked.

"Hope," Scott told her. He looked at Cassie to see that she now looked slightly upset. "Wait, who did you think?"

"Me," Cassie said with a small smile.

"You?" Scott asked before doing a small chuckle.

"Don't laugh," Cassie said. "I'd be a great partner."

"Oh, peanut," Scott assured her with a smile. "You would be awesome. And if I let you..." He placed a loving hand on the side of her head. "I would be a terrible dad."

"Fine," Cassie relented, looking down. "Then have Hope be your partner. She's smart."

Scott looked down at Cassie.

"She reminds me of you," he said.

"You gonna go help her?" Cassie asked. "I think you should help her."

"I wish I could," Scott said. "But... I don't know how I could help her without hurting you."

There was a small period of silence where Scott looked down, and Cassie looked up at him.

"You can do it," Cassie assured Scott. "You can do anything. You are the world's greatest grandma."

Scott and Ventus both chuckled, and Scott wrapped his arms around Cassie in a hug, which she returned.

"Yeah, let's get going," Ventus said with a pant. "We don't know if Terra and Aqua are still with them, so let's go find 'em all."

He pulled out a Mega-Potion.

"Surprised that these things are still here after ten years," Ventus admitted.

He opened up the cork and quickly downed the Potion. He winced at the taste.

"Did it go bad?" Scott asked with a worried frown.

"No, Potions never go bad," Ventus said. "But V said these ones taste and feel like tequila. And I remember how drinking it felt when he once confused it for a Potion. It definitely taste and feels like it. Next time, I'm just throwing it over my head like a normal person."

Scott laughed while he thought through the plan to help save their friends.

Hope and Hank were in an interrogation room in the building the FBI took them into and were handcuffed to a table by the male, tall, silver haired agent.

"Agent Woo will see you in an hour," the agent told them.

"An hour?" Hank asked, stopping the agent as he turned towards the door. "We don't have an hour."

"Oh, you got somewhere else to be?" the agent taunted while standing in the doorway.

Hope and Hank both said nothing as the agent closed the door behind him and went down the hallway. Once she was sure he was gone, Hope slipped the hair pin in her out out of her lips. She dropped it down into her bound hands.

"Oh, now, that's my girl," Hank praised as Hope quickly undid her handcuffs.

She then moved to Hank and quickly undid his handcuffs, watching in caution to see if more agents would notice through the large window on the doors.

"All right, what's our plan?" Hank asked, looking around once his hands were free.

She reached down into her sock and pulled out a shrinking device.

"To shrink that wall," Hope said, gesturing to the nearby wall.

Hank followed her gaze.

"It looks load bearing," he pointed out. "The ceiling could collapse."

"Then we run like hell," Hope said.

"Now, I estimate 15-20 agents on the floor," Hank said as Hope started putting the hair pin back into her hair.

"Roughly five times that in the building at large," Hope added.

"They're all heavily armed," Hank said.

"Not great odds," Hope sighed out.

"You got any better ideas?" Hank asked.

"Nope," Hope admitted. "And I'm not giving up on Mom."

"She's be so proud of you," Hank told her, patting her on the back.

They both stood up and moved to the side of the room, preparing themselves for the hell that would come when Hope threw the device at the wall.

"Okay," Hope said, sharing a look with Hank. "One... Two..."

But then the Wasp suit grew to normal size on the table in front of them. Hope and Hank both looked up in surprise to see many ants on the ceiling moving to the light in the center.

"Scott?" Hope asked.

"What're you two just standing around for?" Scott asked, which they heard through a transmitter on one of the ants. "We gotta go find that lab."

"What about me?" Hank asked, looking up at the ants.

An FBI marked jacket, hat, sunglasses, and earpiece then grew to normal size on the table next to the Wasp suit.

"Perfect," Hank said with a smile.

"Hurry up and get dressed," Scott told them. "We don't have much time."

"Hey, where are Terra and Aqua?" Ventus asked.

Hope and Hank's attentions were drawn to the doors as they heard a familiar grunt as the doors burst open. Vanish wore off, revealing Terra and Aqua, with Terra lowering his leg to signify that he had kicked open the doors. He and Aqua's attentions then narrowed at the equipment on the table and the ants on the ceiling.

"That was completely unnecessary, wasn't it?" Terra asked.

"Yes, it was," Hope told him. "Especially since the door wasn't even locked."

"Sometimes I really do fit the stereotype of dumb-ass muscle head," Terra commented to Aqua as Hope and Hank started suiting up.

"Hey, I don't mind your muscles," Aqua said, affectionately placing her hands on Terra's armored chest.

"Uh, not that I don't mind a little flirting, can we really do that when we're covered in centimeter thick bulletproof metal?" Terra asked.

"Probably not," Aqua admitted, taking her hands off of Terra's chest. She smirked under her helmet. "Until the armor comes off..."

"Until the armor comes off..." Terra promised back, also smiling under his helmet.

During their flirting, Hank and Hope finished changing, so Terra and Aqua cast Vanish again, both of them wincing from the strain of continuously casting the spell. Ants covered security cameras as the group moved through the FBI building, Hank disguised, Hope shrunk down to Wasp size flying next to his head, and Terra and Aqua invisible and following him through the building. They navigated through the hallways and around people and exited the building onto the open sidewalk in front of the road.

"Okay, now what?" Hope asked.

"You're asking me?" Hank asked, looking at his wasp sized daughter.

The van then suddenly grew to normal size in front of them on the road. Vanish wore off just in time for Aqua and Terra as the door slid open.

"Get in!" Scott called from the Driver's seat, his mask off.

"Come on!" Ventus exclaimed, waving to his friends from within the van with his helmet off.

The others didn't hesitate to comply. They got in the van, with Hope sitting in the Passenger's seat and Hank, Aqua, and Terra joining Ventus in the back, and Hank slid the door closed. Light flared around Terra and Aqua's helmets, making them disappear, and the two quickly kissed. Ventus decided not to comment about how they had just spent a couple of hours together, just the two of them. Hope had her mask retract down, and smiled at Scott, who closed his mouth and did a small smile back.

"Hi," Scott said.

"Hi," Hope said, still smiling.

"Uh, excuse me," Hank said, taking off his sunglasses and stopping their moment. "Are we planning on leaving soon, or are you two gonna keep staring at each other until they start shooting at us?"

"You are a savage," Ventus commented, remembering how Vanitas taught him that lingo.

"Yeah," Scott, then Hope softly agreed, putting on their seatbelts as Scott started the engine.

"We saw Ghost take the lab from an idiot who was trying to steal it," Aqua told them. "She vanished before we could reach her."

"So now we know who we're looking for," Ventus said.

"Let's go," Scott said.

They started driving the van down the road, not noticing that their little "spectacle" had been witnessed by two of Burch's men, who was already radioing back to his boss.

Chapter Text

After just a minute or two of being on the road, Hank had taken off his disguise and put his regular glasses back on. He sighed out and looked up at Scott in the Driver's Seat.

"Thank you," he said as he slipped a new device onto his right ear.

"You're welcome," Scott said, looking at Hank in the rearview mirror.

"We weren't gonna leave you guys to rot in that place," Ventus assured him.

Hope smiled at Scott while Terra and Aqua smiled at Ventus.

"So, uh, how do we find the lab?" Scott asked.

"After we lost it the first time, I put on a new tracker... of sorts," Hank told them, one hand on the device on his ear.

"Uh, what?" Terra asked.

Scott and Hope leaned forwards at the loud sound of wings fluttering. Terra, Ventus, and Aqua leaned forwards and got behind the two's seats and watched with similarly perplexed expressions as hundreds, maybe thousands of winged ants flew over their heads and formed into an arrow pointing forwards.

"That'll work," Scott quipped.

"That is awesome," Aqua commented.

"I pride myself in working on 'awesome'," Hank said with a smile.

"Watch the arrogance," Terra commented, smiling with the rest of the van occupants.

Scott drove after the ants, navigating through empty alleyways and underneath a highway overpass. They traversed through some more alleys and came out into a large, slightly hidden, mostly empty parking lot with a bridge overpass going through the middle of it. And on the other side of the parking lot was their lab, which rose high into the air, was the lab grown to full height. And it was clear that it didn't belong because some cars were flipped over, street lights were bent, and part of the road was torn.

"How did we not see that over this building?" Ventus asked, gesturing to the white building next to them while the winged ants flew to the lab.

"I have no idea," Aqua admitted as Scott parked the van.

Hank pulled out his phone and studied it.

"Energy readings show they have not used the tunnel yet," Hank told them.

"We don't have much time before mom's location shifts, and we lose her," Hope told them.

"Yeah, and we have a lot to do before then," Scott reminded them. He sighed out. "You know, my pep-pep always said, 'If you want to do something right, you make a list.' So, we should do that."

"Sounds like a good idea," Ventus said with an eager smile.

"One, we have to break into that lab," Scott said, pointing to the lab. "Two, we have to kick out Foster and Ghost. Three, we're gonna have to fight Ghost. That seems like it should be part of two. 2-A, all right? Let's call it 2-A."

Surprisingly, Hope and Hank didn't look annoyed at Scott's words. Terra and Aqua had honestly expected them to.

"Fight Ghost. 2-A," Scott continued. "Oh, also, we have to make sure that the lab is fully grown for you to come back. Otherwise, we're screwed."

"Scott!" Hank said, and now Terra was able to see that he was hiding his annoyance.

"You want me to start again?" Scott asked. "I'll start again..."

"I'm going to dive," Hank told him, getting everyone's attentions. "The only chance we got is if the rest of you are out here together, protecting the tunnel." Hope looked towards the lab with a worried expression. "Let me do this, Hope. Please."

He looked at the lab.

"Let me get her," Hank requested.

Terra thought about how long he had tried to get back to his friends, especially Aqua, over the decade his Lingering Will was remained in his armor. When Naminé told him where they were in the Graveyard, he didn't hesitate to take the chance to go and help them fight back against Xehanort, just to get back to his friends. To get back to Aqua.

"I think he's right," Scott said.

"So do I," Terra agreed. "A man will go to the ends of the earth to get back the person he loves." He looked at Aqua. "I'm speaking from personal experience." *1*

Aqua looked at him and gave him a soft smile. Hope looked at Scott as she contemplated their words.

But then everyone's attention was drawn to Hope's side of the van as another, brown van slid to a stop next to it. The window on the Driver's side slid down, and Scott curled his lips inwardly as Luis's smiling face was revealed.

"'Whassup'?" Luis exclaimed. Everyone looked at him with blank expressions, so his smile disappeared quickly. "You don't remember, uh, that beloved commercial? 'Whassup'?"

"Oh, yeah, that beer commercial that was funny for, like, two seconds, then just annoyed everyone," Ventus said. Hope and Hank frowned at him in confusion. "V told us about it. Pretty much the same way we know about all other pop culture material. Mostly horror movies, metal music, and the band Fall Out Boy."

Hope and Hank nodded their heads in assessment before they narrowed their eyes at Scott, who did look embarrassed.

"I had him follow us," Scott told them. "Even if there's six of us, I thought we could use some help."

Hank actually nodded his head in contemplation.

They went over a plan quickly, and everyone moved into position. Scott and Ventus stood in the empty, white building next to the lab and stared out a window, looking down at one corner of the building, right next to some flipped cars and a broken street light. They watched as the few thousand ants traversed down a line towards one of the cars, then to the lab.

"All right," Scott said into the earpiece. "We're in position."

"The ants are headed in," Ventus added.

"Copy that," Hope said from the van.

"Keep your eyes peeled, Scotty and Vennie," Luis told them.

"Don't call me that," Ventus requested, wincing as the name registered in his head.

Luis and Hope were in the Pym van with Terra and Aqua. The former two were sitting in the front, with Luis smiling and Hope resting in the Driver's seat. Luis took out a Hello Kitty Pez dispenser, currently chewing on a Pez.

"Do you want Pez?" he asked, holding up the dispenser.

"No," Hope said.

"I'm good," Terra said, him and Aqua holding up hands to emphasize the point to Luis.

They were silent for approximately one second before Luis held up the dispenser and pointed at it with his free hand.

"Cassie gave me this for my birthday," he told them. "By the way, I love your guys' suits!"

"Thanks, man," Hope said, a confused expression on her face despite the compliment.

"Ours are to match our Keyblades," Aqua admitted, smiling a nostalgic smile as she remembered being gifted her armor for the first time.

"I wish I had a suit," Luis admitted. "I would even like, like a suit with minimal powers, you know? Or maybe even just a suit, with no powers."

"Kinda like our armor," Terra said. "It doesn't really much but protect us from darkness in the Lanes Between."

"And from a whole lot more!" Luis said with a smile. "Wasn't it freaking bulletproof?"

"They're apparently indestructible," Aqua assessed. "Well, except from Keyblades. Had my helmet shattered once my a Keyblade."

"My armor was damn near shattered by a surge of Keyblades," Terra remembered. "Wasn't pleasant."

"Still, sounds awesome," Luis commented as they continued to stay in position.

In the lab, Bill Foster and Ava stood in the control room and watched as Bill pushed up the lever to activate the quantum tunnel. The back part of the tunnel started spinning and a light appeared in the central part of the inner mechanics. But then he looked up as the back of the lab started spinning as the machine powered down. Ava looked at Bill with wide eyes.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Don't know," Bill admitted, looking around in confusion while Ava flickered slightly.

He looked down at the ground, and his attention was quickly drawn to the odd looking shape in the floor. Bill and Ava both crouched down to look under the table, watching as ants climbed up the walls and messed with the power cables under the console.

"It's them!" Bill realized, watching some wires detach from the power console.

"They can't be far," Ava assessed.

She stood up and grabbed her Ghost mask. Fully geared up, Ghost walked though the doors out of the lab and looked around, watching the gigantic trail of ants that was going into the building. She looked up the ant trail, seeing that it led into the window of the white building next to the lab. Ghost quickly started walking towards them.

Back in the lab, Bill walked out of the console room and into the central area for the tunnel, then stopped when he realized he wasn't alone. He turned around and was surprised when four human sized ants surrounded him and clicked their pincers threateningly.

"All right, Hank," Bill assessed. "Hank?"

The ants clicked their pincers at him, and he exclaimed as he stepped away from the closest one.

"Not this again..." Bill muttered.

"Dad, what's your status?" Hope asked over the earpiece.

"Foster's taken care of," Hank told her, walking to the suit in the case on the wall. "Suiting up now."

He opened up the case and grabbed the suit. Hank put it on, saving the helmet for last as he walked into the central room. He was still adjusting the sleeves with the helmet on a nearby table as he looked at Bill, who was still surrounded by ants.

"I just wanted to save Ava," Bill told him. "She's facing death or something far more terrible. She's afraid."

"I'll help you find a cure once I get back," Hank promised, taking off his glasses and setting them down on a table. "I promise. Together, we'll figure something out."

Bill looked down, then looked back up at Hank as he grabbed the helmet.

"Good luck, Hank," Bill said, sincerely.

"Thanks, Bill," Hank said. "Now, I'm gonna need you to step back."

The ants clicked their pincers again, getting Bill to step away from Hank. One ant walked over to Hank, and he passed it a small device. The ants backed Bill into the elevator, and the doors closed behind him.

Hank climbed into the pod as the ants turned on the portal. He set the helmet down in the other seat as the port slid shut, and light gathered in the portal as the tunnel to the quantum realm was activated.

"Time remaining, 15 minutes," an automated female voice told him. *2*

"Scott, Ven, Hank's in," Hope announced over the intercom.

"You call your dad by his first name?" Ventus asked.

"Sometimes," Hope said. "But that's not important. Any sign of her?"

"No, nothing yet," Scott told her.

But then Ghost appeared behind them and grabbed Scott by his shoulders. She rammed his head into the glass so hard that it cracked, then she pulled him back and did a back kick, sending him flying through the wall behind them, making him crash into another one and fall to the floor, hard. Ventus exclaimed in surprised fear, and light appeared over his head, making his helmet reappear.

"Ava!" Scott exclaimed in surprise, pushing himself up.

Ghost looked at Ventus, which probably wouldn't have been menacing, but it definitely looked like it with the mask. Ventus summoned his Keyblade and swung at Ghost, and it went right through her arm and chest as she flickered again. Ghost then grabbed Ventus by the shoulder and threw him back through the hole in the wall. Ventus was able to compose himself and land on his feet right next to Scott.

Scott repeatedly pressed the button for his suit, failing to shrink down.

"Call off the ants, Scott," Ghost ordered, walking to Scott and Ventus.

"I think I'd rather do what I do best and run!" Ventus admitted, fear in his voice.

"Oh, boy!" Scott exclaimed, fear in his voice, as well.

He and Ventus started running down the side of the room, slipping on his mask. They went around one wall, which Ghost just simply phased through following them. Scott grabbed onto a wire from the ceiling and used it to help him turn and make a right turn.

"I want my mommy!" Ventus exclaimed as he ran with Scott. But then he cocked his head to the side as they continued moving. "Wait, do I even have a mommy? And if I do, is she even still alive?"

While he continued thinking over that, Ventus and Scott continued running from Ghost. They went around some pillars and hanging wires, watching Ghost as she stepped up onto the other side. Ventus held up his Keyblade in defense, contemplating whether or not he would actually try using a spell against the poor girl.

"Can I get a status report?" Scott requested over the earpiece. "'Cause we got some serious Ghost problems here!"

Ventus got over his internal fear and blasted Fission Firaga. The fire just phased right through Ghost and exploded against the wall behind her. Ghost looked over her shoulder at where the explosion was, then looked at Ventus through the small pillars. Ventus and Scott then exclaimed in surprised fear again as they started running down the hall again, with Ghost power walking after them from the other hallway. They reached another room, and Scott slid under a table while Ventus jumped over it, but Ghost just followed them, walking through the table.

"This sucks!" Ventus exclaimed.

Back in the lab, the components outside of the quantum tunnel extended out to their fullest length. Hank pressed a button on his pod's console, and the track came up, making a bridge between the pod and the quantum tunnel. The thrusters in the back started igniting in preparation.

"Ready to dive," Hank announced over the communicator. "In case I don't make it..."

"Don't," Hope requested. "Don't say that. I can't lose you, too."

"If Scott can do it, you can do it," Aqua assured Hank.

"Still," Hank said. "I love you, Hope."

"Guys, everything's bad over here," Scott said. "Can we please..."

He exclaimed as Ghost kicked him in the stomach, sending him flying across the room and crashing into the floor. Ventus swung his Keyblade at Ghost, but it phased through her again. She then kicked him right in the groin, and he exclaimed in pain. Ventus dropped his Keyblade and clutched his groin, falling to the ground with a high pitched groan. Ghost stepped up to Scott and looked down at his and Ventus.

Hank flicked a couple of switches on his console and stared forwards with a blank but prepared expression. He pushed forwards the lever, and it seemed like everything zoomed in. The pod then started flying forwards quickly, shrinking down by the second before it flew right into the quantum tunnel.

"Now," Hope announced.

"It's time to rock and roll," Aqua said with a smile.

A human sized ant outside of the lab pressed a button on the remote, causing the lab to shrink down to suitcase size. Ghost had just raised a hand to attack Scott, but she stopped immediately when she saw the lab shrinking. Hope drove the van to the center of the lot, and Luis climbed out. Ghost watched from the window as Luis picked up the lab and the human sized ants surrounding Bill continued corralling him around the parking lot. Luis laughed as he held out the lab to one ant, so it dropped the remote on top.

"Misdirection," Scott announced, getting Ghost's attention. "One of the first things they teach you at Online Close-up Magic University."

"I wish I didn't have to get kicked for this misdirection," Ventus commented through a wince, grabbing his Keyblade.

Scott shrank down to ant size while Ventus cast Vanish on himself again, making himself disappear.

"No!" Ghost bellowed, watching Luis climb back into the van.

The van turned around and started driving down the lot.

"The plan worked," Luis announced over the communicator. "Scotty, Ven, we got it!"

"Good going, guys," Aqua praised the two.

"Sorry you got kicked," Terra told Ventus, wincing as he remembered how Ghost had kicked him down there.

"Meet us at the rendezvous point," Hope instructed.

"Okay, on our way!" Scott informed them, already on a winged ant while Ventus flew on his Glider, once again using a device of Hank's help him see Scott in his shrunken form.

"We'll see you guys in no time!" Ventus added through a wince.

"Oh, no," Hope said in response to multiple cars drove into the parking lot in front of them. She slid the van to a stop. "Really? This guy again?"

"Who?" Scott asked.

"Burch, that annoying asshole," Aqua told him.

"I'll take care of them," Terra said. "I'm in the armor and I'm super strong. Just let me out here and I'll kick all their asses."

"Tempting, but no," Hope said, a ready expression on her face. "Change of plans."

She moved the van in reverse and started driving backwards across the parking lot. Burch and the other cars started driving after them.

"Hang on!" Hope instructed.

Luis, Terra, and Aqua listened, grabbing onto parts of the van to steady themselves as Hope turned the wheel, causing the van to spin around multiple times before Hope braced the car. She started driving down the road, followed by Burch's multiple cars, and even a couple of thugs on motorcycles. Terra chuckled as light flashed around his head, making his helmet appear. He stood up and walked to the back doors.

"What are you going?" Aqua asked.

"Making things difficult for them," Terra announced, summoning Ends of the Earth.

He cast a the spell Meteor, and watched out the slots in the doors as the giant, flame covered rock flew down towards the cars. They scattered, and Terra was able to see genuine fear in the drivers' eyes as they drove around the meteor as it hit the ground, exploded, then disappeared completely.

"Not bad," Aqua said, sounding impressed. "But why not hold your Keyblade out?"

"Thanks to our friends, they already know about Keyblades, so we don't want the people of this world to get negative connotations for them the next time they come here," Terra explained. "Let's be honest, they're obviously going to come back at some point, and they're probably the only people these guys associate Keyblades with. So, if they see someone using Keyblades in what could be seen as a negative light, it could tarnish their reputations."

"Wow, you're being so responsible," Aqua said with an impressed voice. Then with a low voice, she announced, "You have no idea how much I want to rip that armor off of you now."

"TMI!" Hope and Luis exclaimed from the front seat while Terra blushed under his helmet.

Hope drove the van down one of the hill roads, driving them through some traffic. One black car of Burch's men weaved around traffic and drove up next to the van on Hope's side, and the car's occupants gave her the stink eye.

"Hold on," Hope announced.

She pushed up a lever, and the van shrunk down, just as the black car made a sharp turn, so it instead crashed into a parked car. Still being followed by multiple cars of Burch's men, Hope drove them down another hill road and grew the van back to normal size.

Another van started driving closer, and Terra caused more trouble by casting Quake. Large boulders burst up out of the road and knocked one of the cars up into the air, sending it flying and crashing onto the road. Terra chuckled in victory and fist-bumped Aqua.

"That was awesome!" Luis exclaimed, having watched the spell be cast from the side view mirror.

"It really was," Hope agreed.

Another black SUV charged at them, but as it got close enough, Hope pulled the lever down and shrunk the van down, so they went right underneath the SUV. Luis exclaimed at the sight of the SUV above them.

"That undercarriage is filthy!" he commented.

"Oh, they've got bigger problems," Hope told him.

Hope pushed up the lever, and the van grew to normal size just as they reached the top of another hill road. The van growing to normal size sent the SUV flying and crashing down the road hard.

"Hope, what're you doing?" Scott asked. "You're heading away from the rendezvous point!"

"Plus, this isn't the most conspicuous, guys!" Ventus added, just as Vanish wore off and made him visible again. "I say as I become visible and exposed to all the public."

"Don't worry, I'm taking these guys on the scenic route," Hope told them. "And blame Terra for doing all the spells and drawing any possible attention."

Terra was about to comment about that, but then he realized he couldn't say anything since he did make a meteor fly down towards the cars chasing them.

"Wait, what're you..." Scott started to ask before he realized what road Hope was driving towards. "Oh."

Hope was leading Burch's squad towards the infamous winding hill on a mountain that led down. Luis held on with a frightened expression while Aqua closed her eyes in fear.

Hope pushed the lever, and the van shrank down to a tiny size, so they were able to go fast down the road, and have much more control. Unlike two of the cars carrying Burch's men. A silver, fancy looking car crashed into the barricade for the wall, and a black SUV crashed into the car, flying up while flipping and landing on the road so hard bricks flew up, narrowly missing the tiny van.

"Oh, my God! Oh, my God!" Luis bellowed in terror. "We're gonna die!" Hope simply turned on the windshield wipers. "We're gonna die!"

But Hope managed to maneuver them through the bricks and underneath the crashed SUV, doing the best she could to lose Burch while also moving towards the rendezvous point.

Hank's pod shrank more and more as it kept traveling down further and further into the quantum realm. He flew past red and green atoms before shrinking down further and going into a blue one. But then the pod came to a stop when he reached an area where what looked like green, orange, and blue organic structures floated around him in the air.

"Signal lost," the automated female voice told him.

Hank sighed out as he leaned forwards.

"What the hell are they doing up there?" he complained before flicking a switch.

"Recalibrating," the automated voice told Hank as he breathed in and out, leaning back in his seat.

Hank looked up and opened his eyes, and his attention was immediately drawn to the surroundings of the pod. The various structures floated around him, along with some large, orange, caterpillar like creatures that made whale-like noises called Tardigrades. *3*

"Recalibrating," the automated voice repeated, but Hank was paying more attention to the Tardigrades.

"You never said it was so beautiful, Scott," Hank whispered, looking at the sights and the Tardigrades around him with amazed eyes.

But then one of the Tardigrades turned to look at him, and Hank immediately sat up at the sucking motion it was making with its "mouth" as it started floating through the void towards him.

"Recalibrating," the automated voice repeated as the other Tardigrade turned to the pod and started moving towards it.

"Okay, any time now," Hank said with a slightly nervous tone as he gripped the levers on his arm rests.

"Recalibrating," the automated voice repeated.

Hank looked down at the console as a third Tardigrade joined the party and started floating towards the pod, so that it was now pretty much surrounded.

"Come on," Hank requested with a tiny bit of desperation at the same time the automated voice once again repeated, "Recalibrating."

But then the console beeped a high pitched beep, announcing, "Signal restored."

Hank did not hesitate and started flicking the right switches again as the Tardigrades got close enough. He pushed up the lever, shrinking down as he started flying forwards again, going through the Tardigrade in front of him as he flew deeper into the quantum realm, his determination to get back his wife never wavering...

Chapter Text

After they reached the bottom of the cliff, Hope pulled the lever back, and the van grew back to normal size. Unfortunately, a good number of Burch's vehicles, including the thugs on motorcycles and the car carrying Burch himself, still managed to navigate down after them, trying to catch up to get the lab.

Scott and Ventus flew down to the ground level, and Scott flew into the lab on his flying ant through one of the small windows in the back of the van doors, and grew back to normal size. His helmet shrank down, and looked at Terra.

"Open the door," Scott instructed.

Terra listened and opened up one of the back doors. Light flared, and Ventus exclaimed as he jumped off of his disappearing Glider and back into the van, still invisible thanks to Vanish. Terra closed the door behind his friend, and Vanish wore off, making Ventus visible again.

"It's actually pretty fun riding that thing over the city," Ventus told Terra with an excited smile under his helmet.

Before Terra or Aqua could make any response, multiple thugs on motorcycles weaved through traffic with automatics, firing at the van.

"They never make it easy," Aqua commented.

Hope unbuckled her seatbelt and stood up.

"Take the wheel," Hope instructed while Luis grabbed the steering wheel to steady the van.

"What?" Scott asked as he moved past Hope into the Driver's seat. "Wait! Whoa."

Hope extended her mask back up, and her and Aqua moved back to the doors past Terra.

"Nice job with the cars," Aqua told Terra. "But we got these guys."

"Yes, ma'am," Terra said, smiling under his helmet.

"Take a cold shower," Ventus said.

"What?" Terra asked.

"I don't know, I just heard people say that to guys in relationships in those episodes of Boy Meets World V showed us," Ventus said. *1*

While Terra frowned in confusion, Hope popped open the back doors of the van and sent out a blast of Particles from her wrist gears. The blast hit one of the motorcycles, causing it to shrink down, and the rider exclaimed in surprise and a bit of pain as he rolled on the ground hard, and the shrunken bike crashed on the ground, covered in fire. Aqua made sure to keep Stormfall hidden in the fan as she sent out a blast of Thunder, knocking a rider off of another bike, and making him stutter while the motorcycle crashed into a street light.

Scott made a hard right just as Hope sent out another blast of Particles. Luckily, it didn't affect her aim too much. Unfortunately, the driver ended up driving right behind some poor, old man's white car, so it got shrunk down, instead, while the motorcycle driver just drove on the sidewalk next to it, completely unaffected.

"Well, the 60's were fun, but now I'm paying for it," Stan Lee commented, looking down at his shrunken car.

"Be careful up there!" Hope exclaimed, shutting the back door.

"Hey, give me a break!" Scott remarked. "I haven't driven in two years! Terra, Ven, you guys wanna try?"

"I've never driven one of these things before in my life," Ventus told him. "Previous or current."

"I never even rode in one of these things, let alone ride one, before we came to this world," Terra told him.

As they drove down the road followed by Burch's men on motorcycles, Ghost jumped out of an alleyway and phased through a random car, terrifying the female driver. Ghost went through the car and kicked one of Burch's men off the bike. Burch and the others in the fancy, white car watched with surprise as Ghost climbed onto the motorcycle to drive after the other motorcycles chasing after the group.

The drivers fired their automatics at the van, so Hope shut the door again.

"Any ideas?" Aqua asked.

Hope looked down and saw Luis's Hello Kitty Pez dispenser next to Aqua's leg. She grabbed the dispenser and through it out the door, sending out a blast from one of her wrist gauntlets. The dispenser grew to a large size, and a motorcycle driver slid to the ground with a crash. The motorcycle went flying as the dispenser bumped on the road over him, which crashed into another driver, knocking him to the ground hard.

"Nice!" Aqua praised, high-fiving Hope.

"Oh, you got pezed!" Luis exclaimed in excitement, watching the dispenser crash into the bikes from the side view mirror.

Unfortunately, Ghost managed to maneuver through the wreckage of the motorcycles and drove up on the road, getting next to the van right in front of Luis, getting his, Scott's and Ventus's attention.

"Up here!" Scott exclaimed, looking back at the others.

Hope closed the doors, and since there wasn't any room to summon Keyblades, Terra, Aqua, and Ventus prepared to fight hand to hand. Ventus, Scott, and Luis looked at the bike Ghost was driving, and found it empty, falling to the ground with no problem.

"Oh, that's usually not good," Ventus said with a worried expression.

Thudding on the roof drew everyone's attentions. Ghost phased through the windshield, and Hope and Aqua charged forwards. Ghost kicked Hope right in the chest, knocking her out of the van.

"Hope!" Scott exclaimed.

Hope went flying out of the van, but she was able to shrink herself down and start actually flying to make sure she didn't get hurt.

Terra didn't hesitate and threw a punch at Ghost, but she managed to catch his fist and direct it out of the way before kicking Terra in the stomach, sending him flying back. Ventus threw a knife hand to Ghost's neck, which went right through her body. Ghost grabbed Ventus by his helmet and rammed his head into the van wall so hard it dented.

"Ow," Ventus simply said as he fell to the floor again, very dizzy.

Aqua having more training with hand to hand than Terra and Ventus actually didn't do too much since the enemy could phase out of solidity. Aqua did a right hand jab at Ghost's face, which went right through it, then she did a palm strike to Ghost's solar plexus, which got her to gasp to get through the strike. Ghost jumped up and kicked Aqua in the chest, sending her flying back into Terra, causing both of them to fall out the doors. Luckily, they managed to catch onto the van floor and hold on while their armored feet dragged on the ground behind the van, scraping up the road.

Ghost then ran to Scott and Luis and grabbed Scott's hand, which she wrapped up with Luis's seatbelt to restrain him. Scott and Luis exclaimed as she grabbed the lab right out of Luis's hands.

"No!" Luis exclaimed.

"No! No!" Scott exclaimed.

Ventus was able to shake off the dizziness and stood up straight just as Ghost opened the side door of the van. The van was coming up right next to a truck with a flat bed on the back, which she jumped to and grabbed with her free hand to brace herself. Ventus exclaimed as he followed her, jumping out of the van and onto the back of the truck.

Ghost punched through the side window, and the driver bailed out, climbing out of the other door and onto the road, roughly. Since Scott's hand was still restrained, he wasn't able to hold onto the steering wheel, so he and Luis exclaimed as it crashed into a nearby parked car, while Ghost continued driving the truck with Ventus riding behind. Ghost phased through the truck and got into position in the driver's seat, and turned hard, trying to throw Ventus off. He exclaimed as he fell to the ground of the back part of the truck, but braced himself up and started climbing up the bed.

"I've got her," Hope announced over the intercom. "Westbound on Fremont."

Ventus exclaimed as he jumped up onto the truck roof. He then exclaimed as he kicked the front windshield, shattering part of it to pieces. Ghost exclaimed in surprise while Ventus mentally praised how strong these armored shoes were. Ventus then jumped down onto the front of the truck just as Hope grew to normal size in the passenger seat. Hope grabbed the lab by the top strap, and Ghost tried pulling it back. Hope sent a blast from one of her wrist gauntlets while Ventus grabbed the steering wheel, trying to disorient Ghost a bit more than they already were.

Meanwhile, Scott climbed out of the van and started running down the road after the truck with Terra and Aqua.

"Hope! Wait!" Scott exclaimed.

"We're coming, Ven!" Aqua exclaimed.

Scott shrank down and jumped onto a winged ant while Terra and Aqua climbed onto their Gliders and flew with him after the truck.

"Hey, what about me?" Luis exclaimed from the wrecked van.

Terra, Aqua, and Scott managed to reach the truck just as Ghost grabbed Hope and put her in a headlock. Hope shrunk down, and Ventus exclaimed in effort as he kicked Ghost in the chest, knocking her back in the seat. Terra and Aqua landed on the back bed of the truck as their Gliders disappeared, and Scott leaped onto the front windshield, grabbing onto the wiper.

"We got you now, Ava!" Scott exclaimed.

Ghost responded to his declaration by turning on the wipers, causing water to spray out as they rose up and down, making Scott exclaim as he was thrown around. Ventus tried kicking at Ghost again, but she caught his foot and pulled him forwards, making him exclaim as he landed on the back of the truck. Hope reappeared in the passenger's seat and lunged at Ghost, but she disappeared, making Hope crash into the seat instead.

Terra and Aqua punched through the back windshield, breaking their way into the truck, while Scott exclaimed as he was continuously thrown around by the windshield wipers. Ghost tried putting Hope in the headlock again, but Hope shrank down again to dodge, while the shaking truck knocked aside a sports car, and Terra and Aqua, who were both about halfway into the truck, were thrown around.

Ghost climbed into the driver's seat again, and Hope reappeared in the passenger's seat. Hope fired a blast at Ghost, which phased right through, while Ventus managed to get himself back up onto his feet. He kicked through more of the windshield and climbed into the car, joining Hope in trying to pull the lab away from Ghost.

Unfortunately, Scott's suit was affected by water spraying out from the windshield wipers. He exclaimed in surprise as he grew to a large size. Ventus, Hope, and Ghost exclaimed in surprise before Scott punched through the windshield with his enlarged fist, hitting Ghost in the face and breaking part of her mask.

"Go!" Ventus instructed to Hope climbing out of the windshield again.

Hope listened and chucked the lab out of the window. She shrank down and flew out of the window while Aqua and Terra braced themselves and climbed back out of the truck through the broken window. Hope grew to normal size and caught the lab with her hand, but then exclaimed as she tried to keep her balance on the edge of the truck bed.

Ghost took her mask off, revealing her face again, and she placed a tool box down on the gas pedal.

"Oh, come on!" Ventus exclaimed, him and Scott watching as Ava did a backflip, phasing out of the car and onto the bed.

Now that they were out in the open, Terra and Aqua summoned their Keyblades and stood ready against Ava.

Unfortunately, Scott's suit started beeping again.

"Not again!" Scott exclaimed before he shank down to a size shorter than Ventus. He bounced off of the front hood of the car, but managed to catch himself onto the mirror to keep himself from falling to the road.

"Piece of junk!" Scott exclaimed.

"This is not fun!" Ventus exclaimed, trying to brace himself as he was shaken around a bunch by the out of control truck.

Just as Terra and Aqua raised their Keyblades to attack Ava, the car Burch was riding in rode up and crashed into the back of the truck, knocking Terra and Aqua to the floor of the truck bed, Ava off of the truck, and the unbalanced Hope back onto the windshield of the car, hard enough to crack the windshield. Hope lost grip of the lab, and it fell down to the left, right into Burch's waiting hands out of his window.

"Ah! Yes!" Burch exclaimed in victory.

"Oh, you gotta be kidding me," Aqua commented, rolling her eyes in annoyance on the truck bed.

Ava landed on the ground with a roll and watched as Burch's car stopped, causing the injured Hope to get thrown off and onto the ground. The driver listened to Burch's instructions and drove around Hope, just as she was pushing herself up.

"Burch got the lab," Hope announced over the intercom. "I'm going after him."

She shrank down again and flew up into the air as Burch's car got further and further out of eyesight. Ava pushed herself up as she phased in and out of existence, an absolutely pissed expression on her face.

Meanwhile, on the truck, Ventus finally managed to brace himself on the hood by holding onto the truck's roof. Terra and Aqua managed to stood up and brace themselves with the back of the truck, just as Scott's suit started beeping again.

"No, no, no, no, no, no!" Scott exclaimed.

He then exclaimed as he suddenly grew to a size larger than the truck. Ventus exclaimed and dodged Scott's enlarged arms as Ant Man braced himself on the roof. Scott tried to brace himself and get his footing, then jumped up to dodge the oncoming cars. He landed on the car hood and used his enlarged size to brace the truck so it wasn't driving so crazily anymore, much to the increasingly dizzy forms of Terra and Aqua.

"Work in progress, my ass..." Scott commented.

He then slammed his feet into the ground, causing the road to break apart as his enlarged feet scraped across it. Ventus, Terra, and Aqua exclaimed with Scott as he slowly managed to get the truck to stop, right in front of a red light. Luckily, people scattered out of the way to dodge Scott's enlarged size and the out of control truck.

"Yeah, this is gonna help us hide from the FBI," Terra commented.

Scott reached into the truck and moved the tool box off of the gas pedal. He then grabbed the truck and turned it so it was now facing the hilled road on the side. Terra and Aqua understood immediately what the plan was and climbed into the truck from the behind, getting into seats with wide smiles.

"Guys, where are you?" Hope asked over the intercom as Scott started wheeling the powered down truck down the hill like a scooter. "I've got Burch in my sights! Hurry!"

"We're coming!" Ventus laughed as he rode on top of the truck roof like a surfer.

"We're coming, we're coming!" Scott added to emphasize that they were coming.

"We're running out of time!" Hope exclaimed as they reached an intersection at a normal part of road and Scott turned it right.

Hope continued flying further and further down towards the quantum realm, shrinking more and more each second. He went through pink, green, blue, magenta, and red energies with a determined expression on his face.

"Warning, approaching quantum void," the automated voice announced as an alarm blared.

A stoic expression on his face, Hank flew through some wonky forms of existence further down the realm, before he came out into a completely blank area of just black and grey smoke all around him. Hank opened his eyes and panted in and out as he looked up, regaining consciousness. He flicked a few switches up and turned a dial, turning the engine back on. He opened up a panel and pressed a large button, powering up the thrusters again.

"I'm coming for you, honey," Hank announced as he flew further into the quantum void, going through kaleidoscope like energies as he went further through the void.

Hank exclaimed as he burst out of a glass like form of the void, entering the bright and orange landscape of the actual quantum realm, which was just as out of whack in appearance as everything else he had just flown through. An alarm blared again as Hank flew across the realm, dodging large structures that appeared like DNA helixes.

Unfortunately, he crashed through one of those helixes, causing him to get thrown through the realm by large spike like structures before he crash landed on the main structure hard. Shockwaves shook the entirety of the landscape. The engine powered down, and Hank grabbed the device that was tracking Janet and alerting him to how much time was left. He climbed out of the pod and stepped down onto the uneven ground, starting his trek to find Janet.

Meanwhile, back in the trashed van, Luis looked down with a look of realization and grabbed a black remote.

"Guys," Scott said. "Don't you need the remote to the lab? I just found it."

"We can't grow the lab without it," Hope said. "Get it to us fast."

"Yeah, but the van is busted," Luis told them.

"Use the Hot Wheels Rally case," Scott instructed.

"The vehicles in there grow to normal size with the remote," Ventus told him.

Luis grabbed the wheel shape case and rested it in his lap. He opened it up, and his eyes widened at the sight of all the vehicles within.

"Whoa," Luis exclaimed in amazement.

He grabbed a magenta colored sports car with flame designs along the sides, and looked up with a smile.

"I love you, Dr. Pym," Luis muttered with a smile.

He stepped out of the van and had the sports car grow to normal size. The van shrank down as he started driving the sports car down the road, driving past a black SUV full of Burch's surprised reenforcements.

"Awesome!" Luis bellowed in excitement as he drove down the road.

He went down another road, but then exclaimed in surprise when one of Burch's men drove after him and fired their automatics, hitting one of the mirrors. Luis quickly grabbed the lever on the console and pulled down, shrinking down again. The silver car drove still drove after him, even when they reached the top of the hill road that was in view with Alcatraz. Luis exclaimed as his speeding car was launched up from the top of the hill, along with the large car.

Luis's car landed easily on the ground while the car carrying Burch's men slammed into the road hard. Luis made a right turn and drove down the next road while the silver car crashed into another parked car. He then grew the van back to normal size while another black SUV drove after him, still firing their automatics.

"Hey, I'm going down Pacific," Luis told them. "Burch's boys are all over me."

Scott, Ventus, Terra, and Aqua were still on the truck, while Hope flew over Scott's enlarged head.

"I'm on my way," Hope announced.

"I'll go with her," Aqua announced.

She climbed out of the broken window and summoned her Glider, using the mechanic in the helmet that Hank had given her, Ventus, and Terra to track Hope and Scott's small forms. Aqua flew with Hope after Luis. *2*

"Right," Scott said. "We'll get the lab."

"Let's roll," Ventus said, still riding on top of the truck.

"Bitching!" Terra exclaimed from inside the truck.

Hope and Aqua had flown to the SUV carrying Burch's men, and Hope flew through the window and got in the back seat, where she grew to normal size between two men.

"Hi," she simply said.

Hope then shrank down again as one of the soldiers swung his automatic at her head, hitting the other soldier in the face, instead. Hope grew to normal size again and kicked the men in the backseat while Aqua rammed her Glider into the sides of the van, disorienting Burch's men a bit. Hope then jumped through the back side mirror, then kicked through the front side mirror, kicking the driver down. She then shrank down again and punched the passenger in the face before flying out while one of the other car occupants tried grabbing the wheel to brace the SUV. Aqua rammed her Glider into the side of the SUV one more time, sending the vehicle flying into a bike rack, where it crashed.

Hope flew into the passenger seat of the sports car and grew back to normal size next to Luis, retracting her helmet.

"Awesome," Luis said as Aqua piloted her Glider over the sports car.

Scott was still wheeling the truck like a scooter, right after the fancy car carrying Burch and his advisors. All of their eyes widened at the sight that was chasing them just as Scott wheeled the truck next to the car.

"Give us back the lab!" Ventus exclaimed under his helmet.

One of the men replied by taking out his automatic and pointing it at Scott.

"Doink!" Scot exclaimed, simply flicking aside the machine gun with a flick of his fingers.

He then exclaimed as he kicked the side of the fancy car, sending it spinning before it crashed into a nearby parked car. Burch watched through the rear view mirror with a worried expression as Scott, Terra, and Ventus climbed out of or off of the truck. He got out of his wrecked car and watched with a jaw dropped as Scott, Ventus, and Terra started walking towards him.

"Come here, you little weasel!" Scott exclaimed.

They chased Burch towards an alleyway that had wooden archways.

"Oh, no, you don't!" Scott exclaimed, reaching through the archways towards Burch.

Ventus and Terra were able to follow Burch, but Scott was too large. Scott exclaimed as the archways stopped him, and the three others looked at him with a surprised expression. Burch turned again and continued running down the alley.

"I guess maybe you do," Scott commented.

"Go after Burch," Ventus instructed to Terra. "I've got Scott!"

"On it!" Terra agreed.

Terra ran down the alley while Ventus gently helped Scott get his arms out of the alley. Scott tried pressing the button to shrink down again, but once again it malfunctioned.

"Come on!" Scott groaned in annoyance as he kept pressing the button, which still did nothing.

"This is not good," Ventus said.

"Get back here!" Terra exclaimed, running after Burch as the man ran out of the alley and went out into the Fisherman's Wharf of San Fransisco.

Terra cast Vanish on himself as he ran through the crowd, trying to find Burch. He now mentally chided himself for not paying too much attention to what the man looked like, or what he was wearing.

Scott and Ventus decided to throw subtlety out the window and charged down the road to a large crowd in Fisherman's Wharf. The people all exclaimed in surprised fear and took out their phones while Scott and Ventus came to a stop in the middle of the crowd.

"Anyone see a Southern gentleman carrying a building?" Scott asked.

"It's our building," Ventus added.

Their attentions were drawn to a loud boat horn. Scott and Ventus looked up, and Scott's eyes narrowed on the sight of Burch in the back of the crowd, holding the lab in his arms.

"How'd he even have time to buy a ticket?" Scott wondered aloud.

"Terra!" Ventus exclaimed.

Terra then appeared next to him as Vanish wore off, making people exclaim in surprise as another armored figure appeared.

"Don't worry, I think I've almost found him," Terra told them.

"He's on the boat!" Ventus exclaimed, pointing at the boat that was getting further and further away.

Terra followed his friend's pointed finger.

"Wow, I'm bad at this," he commented.

"Next time we play hide and seek, I'm betting munny," Ventus said with a smile.

Scott continuously pressed the button for his suit again, which continued to do nothing.

"Would you just one time, please work!" Scott bellowed before slamming a fist into his belt.

This caused him to finally shrink down again.

"Yes!" Scott exclaimed in victory. He placed his hand to the side of his mask. "All right. I need help."

A winged ant started flying towards him.

"Yes!" Scott exclaimed in victory again.

But then the ant was plucked out of the sky by a seagull.

"Oh," Scott said with a wince. "Sorry. Ah... Somebody."

Another winged ant started flying at him, but it was also plucked out of the sky by a seagull.

"Hey! Come on, man!" Scott exclaimed.

"Do you want one of us to..." Ventus started.

"I got it," Scott told them.

The next five or six times that a winged at flew at him, it was eaten out of the sky by a seagull, and Scott exclaimed in surprise at it.

"Murderers!" Scott exclaimed.

But then another winged ant flew down towards him, unscathed from the seagulls.

"Yes, yes, yes, yes!" Scott exclaimed, jumping onto the ant. He rode it up into the air. "Im gonna call you Ant-onio Banderas! You're a badass!"

"Let's roll!" Ventus exclaimed.

Their Gliders appeared, causing more people to take pictures, and the two of them rode their Keyblades after Scott using the mechanics from Hank placed in their helmets to track him. Unfortunately, another seagull started following Scott and Ant-onio.

"No!" Scott exclaimed, jumping off of Ant-onio right before a seagull was able to snapping it in its beak.

"Ant-onio!" Scott exclaimed before falling down and dropping into the water.

"Scott!" Ventus exclaimed.

"Look for him," Terra instructed. "I'll follow Burch."

Ventus flew down to the water to try to see if he could see Scott down there while Terra flew to the boat.

"Our friends, the humpbacks, dip in here to the San Fransisco bay..." a man announced over a speaker on the boat.

But then everyone exclaimed in surprise as Terra flew over the boat. People took pictures and the announcer's jaw dropped as light flared, making the Glider disappear. Terra dropped down to the boat, and people scattered to get out of his way as he landed on the boat.

"Anyone see a guy in a suit carrying what looks like a tiny building?" Terra asked.

A couple of surprised people gestured towards a seating area, where Burch was sitting down and talking on the phone, completely oblivious to Terra's arrival. Terra marched right over to Burch, getting the man's attention. Burch exclaimed in surprise and gripped the lab close to his chest as Terra grabbed him by the shoulders and lifted him up to his feet.

"I have half a mind to throw you into the water and letting those humpbacks have their way with you," Terra told him.

His attention was drawn to splashing water down the dock.

"Oh, look, there's one now," Terra said, and Burch gulped.

But then the flying form of Ventus flew over the splashing water that was surging towards the boat. People exclaimed in surprised fear as the super sized form of Scott as Giant Man burst up out of the water, looking down at them.

"Hi. Sorry. Hi," Scott said.

"He eats people!" Ventus exclaimed with a laugh, floating on his Glider next to Scott's supersized head. *3*

"This works, too," Terra told Burch, smiling at the man from under his helmet.

"It's okay," Scott assured them. "It's okay! Sorry, I know I'm not a whale. This will just take a second."

Burch desperately tried weaseling his way out of Terra's grasp, but Terra held strong, keeping Burch down in front of him. Scott reached down and grabbed the lab between two fingers.

"That doesn't belong to you," Scott announced, grabbing the lab. Burch exclaimed as he held onto the lab desperately as he was lifted up while still in Terra's grasp. Scott's wet hand dripped water down, completely drenching the thief. "You're embarrassing yourself, now."

"Let go!" Terra exclaimed, jumping up and kneeing Burch in the groin.

Burch clenched his teeth as a combination of Terra's enhanced strength and his super sturdy armor did a large impact into his groin, causing him to let go of the lab and fall to his feet, clutching between his legs.

"Thank you," Scott said before poking the drenched Burch in the chest with his enlarged finger, pushing the man to the ground.

"That was partly for underestimating my woman," Terra snapped at Burch as Scott lifted up the lab between his fingers.

"Nice to see they're finally open with how they feel about each other," Ventus commented to Scott.

"Oh, yeah," Scott agreed, holding up the lab.

Down in the quantum realm, Hank was maneuvering through the wonky landscape using his handheld device to continue to try to track Janet. Hopelessness grew in his chest as the device got down to ten seconds, and he still couldn't see Janet anywhere. He looked around at the surging landscape, then looked down as the timer ran out. Hank groaned before looking around as quantum particles surged, making it appear as if there was two of him before he looked around.

"It melts your mind," Scott's voice echoed.

"A message in your head," Hope's voice echoed as Hank started walking to the side.

Hank looked around more to try to find Janet as the landscape surged around him.

"I had a dream," Scott's voice echoed again.

"Daddy?" Young Hope's voice echoed. "Where's Mommy?"

"It's where I hid every time we played," adult Hope's voice echoed as Hank fought through the surging landscape.

"I love you, Hank," Janet's voice echoed.

Hank fell down to his knees and screamed in pain as he gripped the sides of his head through his mask. He continued screaming as the landscape surged underneath his knees, trying to fight through the pain.

Everything went black for a second. And after a second, he heard the sound of a clock ticking.

When he could see again, he was in some kind of illusion where he was standing in his old house, wearing normal clothes.

"Daddy?" Young Hope asked, getting his attention. He walked towards the sound. "Daddy?"

He walked into Hope's room to find her in her adult form. *4*

"Dad?" Hope asked as she walked towards Hank. "What's going on? Why haven't you found Mom?"

A hand grabbed Hank's shoulder, and he looked to the side to see Scott and Ventus.

"You look lost, Hank," Scott said. "Are you all right?"

"Everything all right?" Ventus asked, concern in his voice.

Another hand grabbed Hank's other shoulder, and he turned around to see Bill Foster, while the other three disappeared.

"Still think you have all the answers, Hank?" Bill asked.

The backed up through the now bright corridor, and Hank turned around, which caused the room to get darker again. Bill disappeared, but on the other side of the hall was a figure wearing a robed hood, and what looked like a broken set of wings on their back. The figure started walking forwards, and Hank backed up in fear.

Hank's surroundings started surging again as the figure backed him up in front of a door, fear on his face. He breathed heavily as the figure raised each of their pointer and middle fingers up, which they rested on his temples. Hank closed his eyes in fear.

But the landscape changed back into the quantum realm. His mask was off, and he opened his eyes to see the hooded figure still in front of him. The figure slipped off their hood, revealing silver hair tied back, and a black and red original Wasp mask covering their face.

Hank's eyes widened in realization as Janet slipped off her Wasp mask, revealing her face.

Relieved tears grew in husband and wife's eyes as they started crying, relieved to finally be reunited after thirty years. Hank reached up and placed a hand on the side of Janet's face, and she nodded at him.

"It's me," she assured Hank through her tears.

The landscape surged around the couple as they embraced and kissed each other again. They held onto each other as they deepened the kiss before they let go and hugged, relieved to finally be reunited.

"I'm so sorry..." Hank said as Janet cried in relief. "...it took so long."

"No," Janet said before placing two kisses on Hank's cheek. She pulled back and looked at her husband, one hand on his cheek. "No. You're here now. Let's go home."

Hank tried to control his emotions as he gave a tiny chuckle.

They made their way back over the landscape the way Hank had come, back towards the pod. They climbed inside and got in the seats.

"I thought I was gone," Hank admitted as they sat in the seats of the pod. "But that energy from your hands, how did you do that?"

"...I'm not the same woman I was 30 years ago, Henry," Janet admitted. "This place... it changes you. Adaptation is part of it, but some of it is... evolution."

Hank nodded as he took in his wife's words.

"Lab coordinates not found," the automated voice announced, back in its place on the console. "Do not ascend."

Janet looked at the console and back at her husband.

"I should probably tell you what we're dealing with up there," Hank admitted, looking at his wife and preparing to explain it all... *5*

Chapter Text

Scott, still as super sized Giant Man, walked through the water towards the dock with Terra and Ventus flying on their Gliders next to his head. People were taking pictures or making videos of the group with their smartphones, and Scott held up the lab as he started woozily taking steps through the water.

"I got the lab," Scott weakly said. "I got the lab."

He waved an arm to the people on the dock.

"Move," Scott instructed. "Move. Move! Get out of the way."

People screamed in fear as they started running away from the dock.

"Scott, you all right?" Terra asked, concern in his voice.

"Oh!" Ventus exclaimed, remembering Scott's earlier words to Bill. "Growing takes a lot out of him!"

"Oh, crap!" Terra exclaimed. "Stay awake, man!"

Unfortunately, but predictably, the commotion had garnered the attention of the news. Jimmy Woo got a team ready, Jim Paxton and Maggie shared a confused look while Cassie smiled with pride, and Dave and Kurt back at Ex-Con already started moving towards the door, knowing they would probably be needed.

"Get out of the way!" Scott exclaimed again to the ground, lowering one hand to place the lab down on the dock. "I got the lab."

The lab rolled across the dock and the road with the wheels on the bottom while Terra and Ventus floated next to Scott's head, trying to encourage him to stay awake. While they did that, Luis drove his sports car down the road with Hope still in the passenger's seat, with Aqua still flying her Glider after them.

"Oh, no," Hope said. "He's too big."

Luis parked the car in the road, and he and Hope climbed out. Light flared, and Aqua's Glider disappeared, so she landed on the ground behind them.

"Scotty!" Luis exclaimed, yelling up at their enlarged friend.

"Scott!" Hope exclaimed.

"Nothing we're doing's working!" Ventus exclaimed.

"Apparently he's too big for this to work!" Terra admitted, standing on his Glider and punching the side of the Ant Man mask. "This is actually hurting me!"

"I'm gonna go to sleep," Scott woozily said as he stood up. "I'm just gonna go to sleep now for five minutes. I just need five minutes." He started falling back. "Five minutes!"

Terra and Ventus exclaimed in surprise as Scott fell back down into the water, causing a large splash of water that drenched most of the crowd on the dock.

"That was both awesome and a little worrying," Terra said.

"We gotta help him!" Ventus exclaimed.

He jumped off of his Glider and jumped down to the water, then jumped out and exclaimed in surprise. Terra flew down to just over his friend as his helmet disappeared in a flash of light.

"What's wrong?" Terra asked.

Ventus lifted up the device to help them locate Scott and Hope when they're tiny.

"Turns out the helmets aren't watertight," Ventus said. "And Hank hasn't had enough time to waterproof these things."

Hope and Aqua stepped up next to Luis.

"You get the lab somewhere safe," Hope instructed to Luis. "Scott's air won't last."

"Okay!" Luis responded.

"Come on!" Aqua exclaimed as Hope's mask extended back out.

Hope shrank down and flew over the water towards where Scott was as Terra and Ventus swam down under the surface. Aqua watched from the dock as Hope grew to normal size and leaped down into the water after Terra and Ventus. Scott landed on the bottom of the water, and Terra and Ventus landed on top of his unconscious body.

"I just remembered I don't know how to use this," Ventus told his friend through the water.

"Me, too," Terra said. He cocked his head to the side. "Also, how can we breathe underwater?"

"I don't know," Ventus said. "V said he and Sora did this once. You think it's a Keyblade wielder thing?"

Hope swam through the water over Terra and Ventus's heads towards Scott's head.

On the dock, Luis was running through the running people towards where the lab was in the road.

"Move!" he exclaimed. "Move! Move!"

But once he reached the end of a road, Ava appeared and kicked Luis in the stomach, making him exclaim as he fell to the ground. The lab remote in his hand was thrown up, which Ava caught. She turned towards the lab.

"No, wait!" Luis exclaimed, reaching out a hand.

Ava pressed a button on the remote, and the lab started growing to normal size. She used her powers to phase through the lab as it grew large enough to shatter concrete and break cars and trees. Luis exclaimed in surprised fear as he backed up from the lab and raised a hand in defense before the lab came to a stop, smoke from the cracked ground flying through the air around the building.

This ended up being alerted to Hank and Janet down in the quantum realm.

"Lab at full scale," the automated voice from the device announced.

"They did it," Hank said as he and Janet smiled happily.

"Ready to ascend," the automated voice announced.

"Let's go see our daughter," Janet said, smiling at her husband.

She pushed up the lever, and the engines burst to life in the back thrusters. The pod rose up into what was probably air, and Hope and Janet held the steering device together and flew up through the quantum realm, past the surging landscape of the area, just as the ground they were on surged up in what looked like spikes. The pod started growing again as they flew up through the quantum realm again.

Hope swam down to Scott's head and looked at his enlarged closed eye through his mask.

"Scott!" Hope exclaimed. She rapped a knuckle on the mask. "Scott! Scott, come on, wake up!"

"You're the expert!" Ventus exclaimed.

"So do what you gotta do," Terra said. "We have no clue."

"Why am I the only one who understands this crap?" Hope commented, a little annoyed.

Hope swam down to Scott's wrist gear again and pressed the button, which had no effect. So, she swam to the belt again and slid the compartment open. She pressed the four buttons again, and red flew up through the gauge. She then floated down again and pressed the button, causing Scott to shrink down so fast that dust was sent flying as she, Terra, and Ventus were thrown through the water.

The trio managed to brace themselves and looked around to try to find Scott.

"Come on," Hope said, desperately. "Come on, where are you, Scott?"

"Scotty!" Ventus exclaimed, looking around through the water.

"Man, you were right about those things not being waterproof," Terra commented to Ventus.

Hope looked around again, but her eyes were drawn to Scott's shrunken form.

"Gotcha," Hope exhaled in relief.

She grabbed him in her left hand, and the trio swam up through the water again. They broke the surface, and Hope held up her hand holding Scott to help him get the air faster. The group climbed up onto the empty dock, where Aqua met up with them. Hope grew Scott to normal size, and her and Scott's masks retracted as Hope braced his unconscious form against a wooden bench. Ventus, Terra, and Aqua's helmets disappeared in flashes of light as they looked down at him with worried expressions.

"Scott?" Hope asked, shaking him desperately.

Scott's eyes slowly opened up, and he blinked as he looked up at his friends. Hope laughed a relieved laugh as relieved tears appeared in her eyes, and Scott blinked woozily.

"Hey," Scott greeted.

Terra, Ventus, and Aqua laughed in victory while Hope rushed in and pressed her lips against Scott's in a relieved kiss. Ventus cheered and looked at his friends with his arms raised, but then he exclaimed in surprise at the sight of the lab grown to full size on the other side of the wharf. Terra and Aqua followed his gaze and exclaimed in similar surprise.

"How did I not notice that before?" Aqua asked, confused.

Meanwhile, Luis was walking around the building, hand raised up to try to press the earpiece to call in the others.

"Hey, Scotty?" Luis asked. "Hope, come in. Terra, Ven, Aqua, you there? Did you get crushed by the building?"

He turned around, and his eyes widened in surprise as Burch and two of his men appeared in front of him, handguns in the other two mens hands.

"Where's the remote, Luis?" Burch demanded.

"I-I-I-It's probably in there," Luis stammered out, gesturing to the building behind him. He held up his hands as Uzman, the smart one, started patting his jacket. "I don't have it. I don't have it."

Uzman backed up from Luis.

"I guess this is where we say... Adios, amigo," Burch said.

"No, no, no, no, no, no," Luis quickly said as the two subordinates aimed their handguns at him.

But then Terra and Aqua appeared in their full armor as Vanish wore off and grabbed the handguns, pointing them down. Terra punched the silver haired subordinate in the face while Aqua kicked Uzman in the groin, causing both men to drop to the ground.

"That's racist, man," Terra said, pointing at a surprised Burch.

The two subordinates tried standing up, but Dave and Kurt fired tasers at them, causing the two to fall to the ground again. Luis then rushed forwards and punched Burch in the face so he fell to the ground with his subordinates.

"Thanks, guys," Luis told the four gratefully.

"No problem," Aqua told him, looking down at Burch. "That guy was annoying."

Dave laughed in victory while holding up his taser and looking at Kurt.

Bill Foster rushed through the crowd that was around the lab and looked up at the expanded building that was in a place it shouldn't have been.

"Ava?" Bill asked as he ran towards the doors. "Ava!"

With a determined expression on her face, Ava phased randomly through existence as she walked through the console room, activating the computers and moving towards the door out to the main room, where they had placed her energy chamber.

"Ava!" Bill exclaimed, running into the console room.

"Almost ready for extraction," Ava announced as she walked to the door with Bill following her.

"Please, stop!" Bill requested, following her through the door. "People are getting hurt!"

"Everything hurts," Ava remarked. "Don't talk to me about pain!"

"What if Hank is right?" Bill demanded as Ava walked to her chamber and started attaching a few remaining wires. "What if this process kills Janet?"

"What, you're worried about her?" Ava asked, not even looking at Bill as she attached the wires.

"All I'm saying is that she is a brilliant scientist," Bill told her. "She may be able to help."

"Oh, she will help," Ava said, walking towards Bill with an expression that "help" wasn't a good thing in this context. "Right now! And if she dies, she dies!"

She reached to press a button on the console right behind Bill, but Bill grabbed her wrist to stop her.

"No, no," Bill denied. "I'm sorry, we can't do this. We have to find another way."

Ava grabbed Bill by his jacket and exclaimed as she threw him over the road part of the quantum tunnel, sending him flying across the lab, where he landed on the ground.

"This is the way," she remarked. *1*

Ava flicked up a switch and rushed into her energy chamber, pulling the door shut behind her. She stood in the center and held out her arms to the side, prepared for the energy to surge through the tunnel into her. The inside of the tunnel started sparking as the energy surged.

Within the pod, Janet gasped as she started phasing in and out of existence. Her irises were gray, and orange energy surged under her skin.

"Janet!" Hank exclaimed.

Ava stood in the center of her chamber and watched as the quantum energy flowed through her, starting to solidify her form.

Scott, Hope, and Ventus, dressed in their full gear, burst into the room while Terra and Aqua stayed outside the lab to help Luis and the others finish up Burch and his men.

"She started the extraction," Hope observed. "She's gonna tear Mom apart."

Ventus summoned his Keyblade, and the trio charged forwards, jumping over or around the road for the tunnel. Hope went to work at a console to try to get the portal to finish what they needed it to, while Scott just flicked the switch down. The machine started powering down, and energy stopped flowing through Ava.

"That worked," Ventus said, dismissing his Keyblade.

He and Scott rushed forwards, grabbing the large cables and unscrewing them from the energy chamber.

"No!" Ava bellowed as she rushed out of the chamber.

Scott pulled the cable out of the chamber wall just as Ava reached in front of him. Ventus summoned his Keyblade, and Scott shrank down as Ava swung her fist at him. Scott grew to normal size and dodged as Ava did a spinning kick, turning away from him. Scott threw a punch at Ava's head, which went right through it, before he shrank down as she turned and swung her fist again. Ava decided to be smart and kick Scott in his tiny form, sending him flying across the room.

Ventus exclaimed as he swung his Keyblade in a combo attack against Ava, but she either dodged the strikes, or they went right through her. Luckily, the finishing strike hit her in the stomach, knocking her aside a bit. Ava managed to recover and give Ventus a look of pure hate that made him wish he had another spare set of pants. Ava did a jump kick, hitting Ventus in the head and sending him flying across the lab, where he landed in front of one of the glass walls.

Ava then charged towards Hope, who fired a blast from her wrist gauntlet, which went through her and hit the window of the chamber. Ava continued charging at Hope, who ran forwards to meet her in battle. She fired another blast at Ava, which once again went through her, before she shrank down to dodge Ava's swung fist. Hope grew to normal size on Ava's other side, and Ava did a spinning crescent kick, which Hope dodged by once again shrinking.

Scott then grew to normal size and elbowed Ava in the face before shrinking down again. Ventus laughed in victory and cast Vanish before striking Ava in the stomach. Hope grew to normal size and punched Ava in the face. Ava spun to retaliate, but Hope shrank down again. Ventus blasted Ava with Blizzara, knocking her back a bit. Scott then grew to normal size and kicked Ava in the stomach, knocking her back a bit more. He then crouched down to give Hope a good jumping point, which she used to fly at Ava and kick her in the chest, sending her across the road of the quantum tunnel again.

Ava landed on the ground in a roll as she phased in and out of existence again. She looked up at Hope with an expression of hate, then stood up on the road of the quantum tunnel. Hope flew at Ava, but Ava clotheslined her, causing her to fall to the ground. Scott rushed forwards, but Ava kicked him in the chest, making him fall to the ground. Vanish wore off, revealing Ventus again, and he swung his Keyblade at Ava. She caught the blade in her hands and held it up. Ventus exclaimed as he tried to keep a hold of his Keyblade against Ava's strong grasp.

Then Scott looked up in surprise as the pod appeared from the surging energy from the portal of the quantum tunnel.

"Hope! Ven!" Scott exclaimed.

"Screw this!" Ventus exclaimed, watching the pod charge at them from over Ava's shoulder.

Scott grew to Giant Man size and rushed forwards, grabbing Hope. Ventus let go of his Keyblade, remembering he could summon it later, and leaped to the side with Hope as the pod surged forwards as it grew to normal size. The pod hit Ava in the back, knocking her forwards into a case of equipment, while Ventus, Hope, and the shrank back to normal Scott landed roughly on the ground on the other side. The pod broke off from the track and crash into the wall hard.

Scott and Hope were on the ground, with Scott on top of Hope. The two retracted their masks and looked at each other.

"Are you okay?" Scott asked, worried.

Hope panted and smiled slightly at him.

"My life just flashed before my eyes," Ventus said, looking up at the ceiling with his helmet off and his eyes wide. "There was a lot."

The trios attentions were drawn to the busted pod on the other side of the lab. The side door creaked open, and smoke spewed out around some red light. Ventus and Scott helped Hope stand up, and they watched with incredulous expressions as Janet Van Dyne climbed out of the pod with her own incredulous expression, pointed right at Hope.

"Mom?" Hope softly asked, taking a step forwards.

Janet stepped down from the pod and mother and daughter started walking towards each other, relieved tears in their eyes. Janet reached her hands up, and Hope smiled before they gripped each other in a hug.

"Oh, my God," Janet said, relieved.

Hope cried relieved tears while Janet smiled in relief.

"It's beautiful," Ventus said, smiling and crying emotional tears at the reunion in front of him and Scott. *2*

"We found you," Hope said in relief as Janet placed a kiss on her cheek and gripped her daughter in a hug.

Mother and daughter pulled back from each other and smiled at each other while crying relieved tears.

"I've missed you so much," Hope said through her tears.

"I missed you, too, Jellybean," Janet said through her own tears. "It's okay. I'm here now. We have time."

Hope nodded softly.

"No more last-minute business trips, okay?" she requested.

Both of them laughed.

"I promise," Janet told her.

"No, it's okay!" Hank exclaimed as he climbed out of the pod. "It's all right. Just don't worry about me. I'll be fine."

"Dad," Hope said, relieved.

She rushed forwards to Hank and wrapped her arms around him in a hug, which he returned while gripping his side. Janet looked from her family to the smiling forms of Scott and Ventus.

"Scott," Janet greeted.

"Miss Van Dyne," Scott said. "It's nice to... Well, I guess we've already met."

"Yeah," Janet agreed with a smile. "I guess we have."

"Sweet, you're getting along with your girlfriend's mom," Ventus congratulated Scott. "Kind of already saw Hank not liking you 'cause according to V a father always hates his daughter's boyfriend."

Scott and Janet both laughed while Scott looked up with an expression that made it clear he found it funny, but also knew it was true.

"Oh, I'm Ventus," Ventus said, smiling at Janet and waving. "Ven for short. Nice to meet you, Miss Van Dyne. My friends and I helped your husband fight negativity monsters once."

"Of course you did," Janet said with a smile before looking back at Hank. "Hank always was one that actively looked for danger."

"That, he is," Scott said as he and Ventus nodded in agreement.

Everyone's attention was drawn to Ava as she phased through existence and stumbled on the case, trying to stand up. Ventus summoned his Keyblade again and he and Hope started walking forwards.

"Wait," Janet said, getting them to stop and look at her.

Ava woozily stood up as she phased through existence again. Hope, Hank, Scott, and Ventus watched as Janet started walking towards Ava with her hand raised. Janet stepped up in front of a surprised looking Ava and held her hands up in front of her.

"Your pain," Janet said. "I can feel it."

Ava had a terrified expression on her face.

"It hurts," she admitted, painful tears in her eyes. "It always hurts."

"I'm sorry," Janet told her. On the other side of the lab, Bill finally stood up and joined the others in watching the exchange. "I think I can help you."

She placed a hand on the side of Ava's head and energy built in her fingertips. The group actually understood what was happening. Janet was manually sending out the quantum energy that was within her into Ava, while a couple of tears slid down the poor girl's face. Janet placed her forehead against Ava's, and the phasing energy around Ava slowly started to dissipate.

After a few seconds of surging energy, Janet stepped back with a smile as Ava looked down with her jaw dropped. Ava looked at her hand and opened then closed it into a fist.

Scott and Ventus leaned up next to Hank.

"Did you know she could do that?" Scott softly asked.

"That's kind of a cool trick," Ventus softly said as Hank looked at them.

Janet took Ava's hand as the girl looked between the older woman and her hand with an incredulous expression.

"It's okay," Janet assured her.

Bill smiled from the pillar he was standing next to.

Of course, something ended up ruining the moment. This something ended up being Luis, Terra, and Aqua bursting into the lab, with Terra and Aqua not wearing their masks.

"Guys, the cops are coming!" Luis exclaimed. He stopped and looked at the full lab in front of him. "Whoa!"

"Yeah, this place has that effect," Terra told him.

"Guys, the cops are coming," Aqua repeated Luis's exclaim.

"Like, all of 'em!" Luis added.

"I gotta go," Scott said.

"We gotta go!" Hank corrected him.

"Yeah, we still don't know how these FBI guys are gonna react to three people with Keyblades they've never seen before," Ventus agreed.

Hope looked towards Ava and Bill.

"What about them?" Hope asked.

Bill and Ava shared a look.

Cops rushed forwards with their guns pointed at Dave and Kurt.

"Hands in the air!" one cop exclaimed.

"No!" Kurt and Dave both said as they raised their hands in surrender.

"We are going to our jobs," Kurt said. He gestured to Burch and his two subordinates handcuffed and on the ground against the cop car next to them. "You see, we see these guys. They trying to shoot people."

"Uh, huh, so we apprehended them," Dave said, gesturing to himself. "For you." He smiled. "Your welcome." *3*

"We traffic in stolen technology," Uzman announced.

"And we have killed many, many people," the other guy said.

"Uh, he's in charge," Uzman said, looking over the other guy to Burch.

"That's true, I am," Burch said, so the cops moved their guns from Kurt and Dave to the downed three. "I've also committed numerous health code violations in my restaurant. Some of them would shock you."

Uzman looked down at the empty vials and syringe next to his leg.

"It is truth serum," he realized.

The team, along with Bill and Ava, rushed out of the lab and stood together in front of the building.

"We gotta get out of here," Hope announced. "Fast."

"Any suggestions?" Terra asked as he and Aqua looked around to the others.

"I have an idea," Scott announced.

"Am I gonna like it?" Ventus asked.

"Probably," Scott told him.

Scott took off the Ant Man suit and made it grow up into Giant Man size, which they managed to position so it was pressed against a nearby building, almost like it was hiding against a wall. They listened as multiple FBI SUVs parked in front of the suit. Doors opened and agents stepped out.

"It's over, Scotty!" Ventus and Scott heard Jimmy Woo yell up to the empty Giant Man suit. "I'm sorry, but we got you, man! Come on, it's the end of the line, pal. There's nowhere to hide."

Scott, dressed in his shirt, socks, and underwear, and Ventus, devoid of all his armor, watched from a nearby corner before they turned and started running down the road.

"Just pull off that Band-Aid!" Jimmy yelled up to the empty Giant Man suit. "You lost! It's okay!"

They turned the corner and down into an alleyway.

"Damn it, Scotty, reduce yourself!" Jimmy yelled up to the suit.

Air started escaping from the suit, sounding like a balloon deflating, revealing to the FBI that it was empty, before it shrank down and out of their eyesights.

"Magic," Jimmy realized.

He and his other agents turned to look at the mega sized lab to see it shrink down.

"Damn it!" Jimmy exclaimed. "Get to Lang's, now!"

While the agents climbed into the car and drove off, none of them noticed the shrunken down form of Hope as she flew down and picked up the empty Ant Man suit.

"Dude is it this easy to trick the FBI?" Ventus asked as he and Scott ran down the alley.

"Sometimes, yeah," Scott admitted.

"I see why you used to break the law all the time," Ventus said. "You must've gotten away with it a lot."

"I did," Scott reminded him. "Until I got thrown in prison."

"Oh, yeah," Ventus said with a wince. "Sorry."

"You're fine," Scott assured him with a smile. "You just forgot."

They continued down the alley, ready to further outsmart the FBI...

Chapter Text

Hope grew back to normal size as she met Hank, Janet, Terra, and Aqua next to a powered down city bus, with Hank carrying the lab. Hope smiled and held up the shrunken form of the Ant Man suit.

"Well, done, honey," Janet praised.

"Yeah, nice job," Aqua added.

Luis's van horn started blaring "La Cucaracha" as it rolled to a stop on the road nearby.

"Let's go!" Hank exclaimed.

"Come on, come on, come on!" Terra agreed as Kurt slid open the side door and gestured for them to hurry in.

Bill and Ava supported each other as they moved down and hid in an alleyway, just as a cop car drove down the road nearby towards where the lab was. Ava panted as she looked at Bill, who had put his glasses back on.

"Leave me here," Ava told him.

"We can make it," Bill encouraged her.

"You said it yourself," Ava said. "I've hurt people. But you haven't. Go. Please!"

"We can make it, Ava," Bill told her.

"Bill..." Ava said.

"I'm not leaving you," Bill said, giving her a single nod.

Ava looked at Bill for a second before she rushed forwards, and the two gripped each other in a hug.

Multiple FBI SUVs came to a stop in an intersection in the road, right in front of the building Scott's apartment was in. Jimmy and the taller, white agent followed him as he kicked open the front door and ran up the stairs. They ran into the living room and looked around, until their attentions were drawn to a sound coming from down the hall. They followed the noise to find Scott with headphones on, deep into playing the drums of Guitar Hero. They walked to the end of the hallway with contemplative expressions, neither of them aware of Ventus in Vanish again, hiding in a corner of the room.

At the sight of the FBI agents, Scott slipped off the headphones and looked up.

"Oh, hey, guys," Scott greeted, setting down the drumsticks. "Are my two years up already?"

The agents shared a look, and Jimmy sighed out as he started walking to the side.

The agents and Scott moved into the living room, where the white man attached a gear into the ankle monitor, making the green light turn off. He detached the monitor and curled up the wrapping in his hand as he stood up.

"So, what's it like out there?" Scott asked Jimmy. "Huh? I mean, do people still dance? Are food trucks still a thing?"

"Well, you got away with it this time, Scott..." Jimmy admitted with a small smile. "...but, uh, I'll be seeing you again."

Jimmy turned away from Scott.

"Where?" Scott asked, genuinely curious and unknowingly voicing Ventus's thoughts.

Jimmy turned back around and look at him.

"Huh?" he asked.

"Where will you be seeing me again?" Scott asked with a small smile.

"Like... in general..." Jimmy said, perplexed. "I'll see... Like, the next time you do something bad, I'll be there to catch you..."

"Oh," Scott said in fake realization. "You'll be watching... I thought you were inviting me somewhere."

"...Why would I do that?" Jimmy asked, still perplexed.

Scott shrugged his shoulders, and Ventus had to bite his lip to stop himself from laughing again.

"That's what I was wondering, why would you do that?" he told Jimmy.

"Like a party, or like, dinner or something?" Jimmy asked.

"I don't know," Scott admitted. "I thought you planned the evening."

"No, I meant, 'I'll arrest you later, again'," Jimmy said.

"Of course, that would be strange," Scott said, which they both agreed upon. "Take it easy, Jimmy."

"Okay," Jimmy said, and the two of them shook hands.

Jimmy turned away, but then turned and looked at Scott again.

"Did you want to grab dinner, or something?" Jimmy asked. "I mean, because I'm free..."

Scott shook his head before Jimmy could finish.

"Yeah," Jimmy said, waving good-bye, which Scott returned. "Come on."

Jimmy and the other FBI agents all left the apartment, and Vanish wore off, making Ventus visible again.

"I liked him," Ventus said with a laugh. "You sure I couldn't meet him?"

"I'm sure," Scott told him with a smile. *1*

The next few days ended up being happy ones for the group.

Scott was finally able to actually go and pick Cassie up to take her out for their father-daughter time, where he greeted her, Maggie, and even Jim with happy hugs.

X-Con security ended up getting good press due to Dave and Kurt being on the news from taking down Burch and his men. They even managed to get a guaranteed deal with Karapetyan, which Luis had said would be enough to stop them from going bankrupt. This, combined with all the positive press they were getting, was guaranteeing their business would be doing very well.

Hank and Janet went to a beach and smiled to each other as Hank set their old house down, which then grew to its full size, ready for them to continue their lives within.

Terra, Ventus, and Aqua agreed to join Scott, Cassie, and Hope in their own personal Drive-In movie theater they were able to make thanks to the shrinking vehicles. They watched an old black white horror movie called Them!, which included giant insects. Scott, Hope, and Cassie were in an one car, while Terra, Ventus, and Aqua were in a van.

"Hey, I'm gonna go get some more popcorn and another corn dog," Ventus said, opening the door and stepping out of the van.

"All right," Terra said.

"Hurry back," Aqua said.

Ventus shut the door behind him, and once they were sure he was out of eyesight, Terra locked the doors, and he and Aqua shared smiles.

"Took him long enough," Aqua commented.

"I know," Terra agreed. "You know how fast I had to eat that popcorn to get rid of him?"

"Come here," Aqua said. "Your reward will be worth it."

"Oh, I'm sure it will," Terra said.

He and Aqua quickly rushed into each other and fell back onto the van floor as they passionately made out with each other. They rolled along on the van floor as they continued kissing, not even paying attention to the walls they bumped into. After a little while, Terra was on the ground, and Aqua pulled back, sitting on Terra.

"Terra... I'm ready," Aqua said with a smile.

"Ready for what?" Terra asked, legitimately confused.

Aqua rolled her eyes. Feeling like a teenager, Aqua raised a hand and cast a small spell, causing the windows to get darker, and all sound from the outside to go quiet. Terra's eyes widened in realization.

"Oh, man..." Terra said with an eager smile. But then he shook his head and looked at her with concern in his eyes. "I mean, are you sure? We were both messed up for so long, so if we're rushing anything..."

"Terra," Aqua said, leaning down and looking at Terra with a smile. "I know you're just looking out for me, and I adore you for that. But right now..."

Aqua leaned down next to Terra's head.

"I want you to..." Aqua started whispering before she whispered really quietly, finishing the rest in Terra's ear.

Terra's eyes widened.

"Yes, ma'am," Terra replied.

The two of them grabbed each other and started kissing again. Aqua removed her denim jacket, and then they rolled around so Terra was on top, so he removed his flannel shirt. He then suddenly pulled back.

"Wait," Terra said.

"What?" Aqua asked, a little annoyed as Terra reached into his pocket.

He pulled out a small, square shaped foil package, and Aqua's eyes widened in remembrance.

"V gave me this when we got back home," Terra said with a blush. "Said it'd come in handy."

"Good idea," Aqua agreed. "We're not exactly ready for that yet."

Terra and Aqua shared a small chuckle before they resumed kissing. *2*

Scott, Hope, and Cassie were actually paying attention to the movie, watching as the giant ants terrorized the people.

"This is awesome," Cassie commented, chewing on the popcorn.

Hope smiled at the little girl. But then the trio's attentions were drawn to the door as Ventus knocked on it, popcorn bucket and corn dog in one hand.

"Hey, can I join you guys?" Ventus asked. "Terra and Aqua locked me out of the van."

He pointed backwards at the van, so the other three followed his finger. Scott and Hope's eyes widened at the sight of the van rocking back and forth. The two shared a look.

"They did not wait," Scott muttered.

"No, they didn't," Hope agreed, shaking her head in agreement.

Ventus, being the innocent cinnamon roll he was, commented, "I think they're wrestling."

Scott coughed.

"Yeah..." he said. "Um... in a way."

"I wanna wrestle!" Cassie said, sounding excited.

"No!" Scott and Hope both exclaimed, surprising Ventus and Cassie. Scott cleared his throat, "I, uh... I mean, we're watching a movie, so this isn't a good time to wrestle. Ven, just get in the car."

Ventus and Cassie shrugged their shoulders as Ventus climbed into the car and sat next to Cassie. Hope decided to change the subject by asking Cassie what she was going to ask before Ventus had shown up.

"So, Cassie, what do you want to be when you grow up?" Hope asked with a smile.

"I wanna help people, like my dad," Cassie said, looking at Scott.

"Really?" Hope asked, smiling at Scott.

"He does do a pretty good job at it," Ventus pointed out, taking a bite of his corn dog.

"I wanted to be his partner," Cassie admitted. "But he said he wants you."

"Is that so?" Hope asked, smiling at Scott again.

"Hey, you guys worked well together a lot over the last couple of days," Ventus pointed out. "Imagine the full scale of what you can do together."

"Oh, I am," Scott said, smiling at Hope.

A moth then suddenly appeared on the windshield.

"Daddy!" Cassie and Ventus both exclaimed, Ventus in genuine fright.

Scott followed their gaze and exclaimed in surprise at the moth.

"Hold on," Scott assured them. He honked the horn, causing the headlights of the sports car to turn on. "Move, get outta here!"

The moth got scared away, but he kept honking the horn.

"Scott, don't, don't, don't!" Hope exclaimed while Cassie and Ventus also exclaimed, "Don't!"

But then a larger moth slammed down onto the roof of the car, sending dust flying. Hope laughed while Scott groaned in annoyance at the dust.

"Ow," Cassie commented.

"Oh, gross!" Scott exclaimed as the moth climbed along the car. "I hate that moth dust. Go. Shoo! Shoo!"

Cassie and Hope both laughed before the moth flew away, while Ventus just stress ate his corn dog again, just like he had once with the pigeon. Scott then realized something and looked back at Ventus.

"Did you call me 'daddy'?" Scott asked.

"I got scared," Ventus admitted, looking down in embarrassment. "Can we never talk about that again?"

"We could," Scott admitted. "But how would that be funny?"

Scott, Cassie, and Hope started laughing, and after a little while, Ventus gave a small smile to join them, happy to have a fun moment with his new friends.

Paul Rudd as Scott Lang/Ant-Man

Jesse McCartney as Ventus

Evangeline Lilly as Hope Van Dyne/The Wasp

Willa Holland as Aqua

Jason Dohring as Terra

Michael Peña as Luis

Walton Goggins as Sonny Burch

Hannah John-Kamen as Ava Starr/Ghost

David Dastmalchian as Kurt

Tip "T.I" Harris as Dave

Judy Greer as Maggie

Bobby Cannavale as Jim Paxton

Randall Park as Jimmy Woo

Abby Ryder Fortson as Cassie Lang

With Michelle Pfieffer as Janet Van Dyne

With Laurence Fishburne as Bill Foster

With Haley Joel Osment as Vanitas Jordan

And Michael Douglas as Dr Hank Pym

Ant-Man, Ventus, and The Wasp

Eventually, the Keybladers had to say goodbye, which ended up being pretty emotional. With promises to come back soon, the trio climbed aboard their Gliders and flew through the portal into the Lanes Between, right back to the Land of Departure. They came out of the portal and dismissed their armor and Gliders, finding Vanitas sitting down in a nearby stone chair and messing on his Gummiphone. He looked up at their arrival and walked over to his friends.

"Well, nice to see you guys had fun on Earth 616," Vanitas greeted his friends.

"What?" Ventus asked, a confused expression on his, Terra, and Aqua's faces. "How'd you know we went there?"

"You guys are still wearing normal clothes," Vanitas pointed out.

The three looked down, then looked back up with surprised faces.

"How did we not notice that?" Terra asked, legitimately confused.

"How long's it been for you?" Ventus asked.

"Like, three hours," Vanitas said, holding up his Gummiphone. "I've been playing some games Sora and I found from various worlds. So, what trouble did you guys get into?"

"Well, for one, we learned about the trouble you've gotten to on there," Aqua said, crossing her arms in the authoritative tone that she and Terra had agreed to do. "You really thought you could break the order on a world like that and we wouldn't find out?"

"Oh, that reminds me," Vanitas said, reaching into his pocket.

He pulled out the smartphone Tony Stark had given him and turned it on. He opened a downloaded article and held up his phone, presenting the screen to his three friends. The three of them looked at the screen and their eyes widened at the sight of the article, including pictures, of them in their armor fighting the Castle Guards with Hank as Ant Man.

"Did you guys really think you could break the order on a world like that and I wouldn't find out?" Vanitas asked with a smirk, throwing her words back at her. "Technically, I only broke the order to a covert government agency that was trying to protect the world from otherworldly threats. You guys broke the order by recklessly fighting Unversed out in the open." He gasped in mock shock. "And with a civilian, no less!"

"I really was a bitch back then, wasn't I?" Aqua softly asked, nodding her head.

"Yes," Terra, Vanitas, and even Ventus said in unison. *3*

"All right, fine," Terra sighed out. "We broke the order and fought a bunch of Unversed. Then we went back there and helped a man who made molecules that shrink down get back his wife, who was trapped in another reality called the quantum realm."

"I've been going to that place for years, and they've always got something new going on," Vanitas commented with a chuckle.

"Yeah," Ventus agreed with a laugh. "You helped fight back against a crazy Norse god and an army of aliens, and then helped Thor against a Dark Elf."

"Then you and Roxas helped Captain America stop that Project Insight," Terra added.

"And then you and everyone else helped all of the Avengers save the world from an evil robot," Aqua said. "I mean, that's awesome! And you didn't even have a Keyblade for any of those! Or full control of your powers!"

"Yeah, the power of stubbornness is actually pretty great," Vanitas laughed as he looked at his friends. He then pointed it directly at Terra. "You're gonna need some more, aren't you?"

Terra and Aqua both quickly blushed and looked down.

"Yes," Terra admitted, causing them to blush even further.

Ventus looked at Terra and Aqua with confused expressions, then looked at Vanitas for some kind of explanation.

"I'll tell you later," Vanitas said. "First, tell me what's up with the gang. How many terrorists or monsters have they stopped."

"Uh... not a lot," Aqua admitted.

"Why not?" Vanitas asked, confused.

"Captain America is sort of on the run," Terra told him.

"Steve is on the run?" Vanitas asked with a skeptical frown. He laughed. "What'd he do? Forget to salute the flag one morning?"

"No, he and half the other Avengers led something called a civil war against the other Avengers," Ventus said.

"What?" Vanitas asked, confused.

"The government decided to institute something called the Sokovia Accords," Aqua explained. "As a way to rein in the Avengers from causing too much damage."

"I'm sorry," Vanitas said, pointing up in surprise. "The guys who launched a fucking nuke at New York when there was still thousands of people in it are saying we're too dangerous?"

"That's part of the reason I'm thinking this was rushed together by a guy who put it all together as a way to control the Avengers because he hated that they had more power than him," Terra told him.

"You know, I originally chastised him for suggesting that, but from what we noticed on Earth 616, I think he might have a point," Ventus admitted.

"There's a bit more to explain," Aqua admitted. "But it's a long story."

"These are my friends," Vanitas told them. "I've got the time."

"Okay," Ventus said. "Let's head back to the castle. We'll tell you while we get the arrangements ready."

The quartet of friends started walking down the road back to the castle that was their oldest home for so long, ready to put together the burial for their fallen Master. All four of them were blissfully unaware of the horrors and the tragedy that they were going to face all too soon.

Because on the other side of the galaxy, on the planet Titan, Doctor Strange had just given Thanos the Time Stone.