Thinking on the fly, throwing off his rhythm

The wind blew in from the ventilation shaft, carrying a rusty and damp, earthy smell. Scott's knees were still trembling; the crawl had almost drained him of his last bit of strength. He leaned against the cold concrete wall and gently placed Emma Frost in the corner, as lightly as if he were placing a package that couldn't be dropped.

Ye Mo sat next to her, half of his body pressed into the pile of rubble. His left ear was covered in congealed blood clots, and the muscles in his right calf twitched from time to time, as if an ant was crawling inside. His eyes were open, but his gaze was unfocused, and his breathing was shallow and rapid, like a motorcycle that had run out of gas, coughing up a mouthful of bloody saliva.

"Can you... walk?" Scott asked breathlessly, his voice hoarse and unlike his own.

Ye Mo blinked slightly, without looking up. "Yes. It's just that when I walk, it looks like I'm drunk and riding a skateboard."

"Stop joking," Scott said, wiping the dust from his face. "That was pretty hard."

Ye Mo twitched the corner of his mouth, which could be considered a smile, "If we weren't ruthless, you'd all be carbon additives in his battle suit's energy furnace right now."

They both spoke very softly, afraid of disturbing something. But they both knew that what was coming couldn't be avoided.

Sure enough, ten seconds later, footsteps came from outside the passage—not the sound of ordinary walking, but the dull thud of metal boot soles hitting the ground, each step closer than the last, accompanied by a slight hum of electricity. The Yellowjacket had arrived. He hadn't been stopped by the collapse, nor injured by the falling rocks. His combat suit's scanning system glowed red as he scanned the ventilation shaft exit inch by inch.

The heat source locking procedure has been initiated.

Scott stared at Ye Mo, his expression changing. He knew they couldn't delay any longer. Ye Mo couldn't stand up, Emma Frost couldn't wake up, and running head-on would be suicide.

He glanced down at the Ant-Man controller in his hand, his fingertip sliding around the adjustment knob.

"What are you planning to do?" Ye Mo noticed his movements.

"I need to keep him busy," Scott said. "I can't let him focus solely on finding you."

"Are you crazy? You just escaped; going back would make you a sitting duck!"

"But he's coming for us." Scott had already stood up, dusting off his pants. "If I don't distract him, neither of you will even be able to crawl out of this lousy well."

After saying that, he pressed the controller.

His body shrank instantly, like a video that had been rewound. The three-meter-high passage became a giant canyon in his eyes, and even a pebble the size of a fingernail looked like a hill. He moved quickly along the wall, faster than a mouse, and disappeared into the shadows around the corner a few seconds later.

Ye Mo wanted to shout, but his throat hurt so much he couldn't speak. He could only sit against the wall, one hand on Emma Frost's shoulder, the other slowly reaching for his waist—there was an electromagnetic interference device there, a scrap he had taken from Stark Labs years ago. It charged slowly and had little power, but it was still a gadget.

Outside, the Yellowjacket stood at the ventilation shaft entrance. His suit's radar displayed three heat sources: two stationary, one moving at high speed. He frowned, and the lock-on program automatically tracked the moving target.

"Miniature units? Signal jamming?" he sneered. "Trying to bite an elephant with a mosquito?"

Before he finished speaking, a faint light suddenly exploded from the crack in the left wall with a "bang" —Scott appeared in a magnified form, positioned half a meter behind the Yellowjacket's shoulder. He deliberately stomped his foot heavily when he landed, kicking up a cloud of dust.

"Hey! Look this way!" he shouted.

The Yellowjacket whirled around, charged his palm cannon, and unleashed a beam of particles. But Scott had already shrunk back to the size of an ant, slipping away along the crack in the wall at a speed that even radar couldn't keep up with.

"Offset locked." The suit's notification sounded, "Target form unstable."

The Yellowjacket cursed, turned to the right, and just as he raised his hand, the ground shook again— Scott zoomed in on the other side, this time crashing directly into a pile of discarded steel pipes with a loud "bang."

"Left! No, right!" he roared, "This kid's playing me!"

He fired two consecutive particle beams, but each time the attack missed, Scott immediately shrank and moved, then changed direction and enlarged again to create a commotion. The third time, he even emerged from behind the smoke trail, jumped onto a broken steel bar, and bounced around a couple of times, like he was doing square dancing.

"Come on! You can't hit me! You can't hit me!" he shouted as he disappeared again.

The Yellowjacket was so enraged that his suit alarm went off. "Target is using non-linear movement mode, switching to wide-area suppression recommended."

"Shut up!" he roared, spreading his arms wide, ready to unleash Shockwave to clear the area.

But just then, vibrations came from the smoke and dust clouds on the left, right, and rear at the same time— Scott was using a "three-point jump attack," employing the nanometer modulators on his suit to frequently switch his body shape, magnifying it in three directions to create illusions. The radar went haywire, the lock-on program refreshed repeatedly, and it was impossible to distinguish which one was the real body.

"Damn! Is this a quantum illusion or a circus act?" He spun around in place, firing his palm cannon left and right, but missed every time.

In the twenty seconds that he frantically swerved, Ye Mo finally managed to stand up, bracing himself against the wall. He gritted his teeth, grabbed Emma Frost under one armpit, and hoisted her onto his shoulder. His movements were clumsy, each movement feeling like his ribs were being sawed, but he didn't stop.

One step, two steps, three steps...

He dragged Emma Frost along, slowly making his way to a side path deep inside the ventilation shaft. The ground was slippery, and the nerves in his right leg were still throbbing, so he had to stop and catch his breath every few steps. But he knew that those twenty seconds were something Scott had risked his life for.

We cannot waste it.

Over there, Scott had already circled around to the back of the Yellowjacket for the third time. This time, instead of enlarging, he remained in miniature, climbing up the back of the suit along the tubing to find the energy interface gap, and slipping in a small, secretly installed jamming chip—a scrap he had secretly removed from the controller during training, capable of causing brief signal disruption.

"Here's a little gift for you," he muttered, pressing the remote control.

The battle suit's energy core vibrated with a "hum," and its output power fluctuated for 0.3 seconds. In that instant, the Yellowjacket's balance system malfunctioned, causing him to stagger forward half a step, and the charging of his palm cannons was interrupted.

"Who did this?" he roared, tearing open the back panel of his suit, but Scott had already slipped away.

In the distance, Ye Mo had already led Emma Frost into the underground pipe network branching area. Here, the pipes crisscrossed, the space was complex, and the view was obstructed. He leaned against a thick drainpipe, gently put Emma Frost down, and then slid down to sit on the ground, panting heavily.

"Done?" He looked up and saw Scott emerge from the ventilation shaft, restored to his original state, looking smug.

"Absolutely," Scott chuckled, panting. "I just treated him like a boss, doing three rounds of the evasion dungeon, and I didn't let him even touch a corner of my clothes."

Ye Mo grimaced and coughed up a mouthful of blood. "Your move... even the system didn't expect that."

"The system?" Scott sat down and patted him on the shoulder. "Stop using the system as an excuse. I made this up on the spot."

The two looked at each other and smiled.

But the laughter didn't last long.

From the passage behind them, the Yellowjacket's voice rang out again, cold and metallic. "Trying to escape? I have thermal tracking. None of you three will get away."

The footsteps drew closer again, their pace quickening.

Scott immediately stood up. "He hasn't given up yet."

Ye Mo struggled to get up. "Let's go, there's an old sewage pipe up ahead that leads to the surface maintenance well."

"Don't be stubborn." Scott crouched down and hoisted his arm over his shoulder. "I'll take you away."

"Are you sure you can handle this? You're practically falling apart."

"Whether I can do it or not doesn't matter," Scott gritted his teeth. "The important thing is that we have to get out of here alive together."

With one person dragging and the other supporting, along with the unconscious Emma Frost, the three of them struggled to move deeper into the side path. The pipes descended lower and lower, until they could only walk hunched over. The air was thick with the stench of decay, and the ground was covered in sticky mud; every step felt like walking through a swamp.

Behind him, the Yellowjacket stood at the ventilation shaft exit, his combat suit radar re-locking onto the heat source, and three red lines slowly extended forward.

"Target group detected, 300 meters away, moving." System notification.

He narrowed his eyes, a smirk playing on his lips. "Escape? I'll chase you to the very ends of the earth and bring you back."

He stepped onto the side road.

Scott glanced back and muttered under his breath, "That guy's a real pain in the neck."

Ye Mo leaned on his shoulder, her voice weak. "Don't look back... keep moving forward... wait until he gets close to the sewage pipe... I still have a jammer... it can detonate for two seconds..."

"Then you keep it." Scott quickened his pace. "Use it when there's really no road left."

Ahead, a rusty iron fence blocked the way, with a sign that read "Danger, Do Not Enter". Scott reached out and pushed it, but it didn't budge.

"Is it stuck?" He shook it vigorously.

Ye Mo looked up at the top. "There's an access panel up there... Can you get up there?"

"No problem." Scott pressed the controller, his body shrunk, and he squeezed up through the gap in the iron fence, appearing at the top a few seconds later and pulling open the access cover.

"Come up!" he shouted, sticking his head out.

Scott handed Emma Frost up first, then turned to help Ye Mo. But just as Ye Mo grabbed his hand, a loud bang came from behind— the Yellowjacket's particle beam blasted through the corridor wall, and a wave of heat rushed towards them.

"Quick!" Scott yanked.

Ye Mo was pulled up to the inspection hatch, and the three of them rolled into the upper pipe. Scott immediately closed the inspection cover and stuffed in a metal plate to hold it in place.

Below, the Yellowjacket stood in front of the iron fence, staring up at the maintenance port; the radar on his suit showed that the target was still moving.

"You're quite good at dodging," he sneered. "But do you think that's all?"

He raised his hand, and a tracking beacon transmitter popped out from the wrist of his suit.

"I'll let you run even further."

The beacon shot out with a "whoosh," speeding along the cable track above the pipe and silently attaching itself to the outer wall of the pipe that the three had just climbed over.

At that moment, Scott was helping Ye Mo walk forward, completely unaware that their every step was being closely watched.

Ye Mo suddenly stopped, frowning. "Don't you think... it's going too smoothly?"

Scott was taken aback. "What do you mean?"

"Why didn't he just blast that wall open?"

The two looked at each other, and at the same time, a possibility came to mind.

Footsteps sounded again, coming from another parallel pipe, steady and unhurried.

He knew where they were.