Ch 4
"I wasn't the only one stranded in the Quantum Realm." Janet said as she told everyone how she met Kang the Conqueror. "He said he was a traveler. A scientist who crashed off course. He had a ship... beyond anything I had ever seen. A ship that could travel the Multiverse."
"The Multiverse?" Hank asked. "As in alternate dimensions? Parallel realities?"
He'd heard about the subject but didn't think it was real.
"I didn't believe it at first." Janet said. "But it's real. Just like we theorized."
She remembered everything like it was yesterday. Her discovery and her sacrifice.
"Can this take us home?" Janet asked Kang.
"It can take you anywhere." Kang replied.
I'd never met anyone like him. He felt so... lost. I guess we both were. But we had a way out. We tried everything... to recharge his ship's energy core. Nothing worked. But after so many years alone, it was nice to have a friend.
After so many nights trying and failing to restart the power core, Janet and Kang talked about her daughter when they were resting.
All those years, she had been alone.
Now, when she met Kang, it felt like she had been friends with him forever even though they had just met.
"I lied to Hope. I told her I was coming home. I can see her by the door. Waiting for me. That's the last thing I did... was lie to her. I just thought I'd have more time." Janet said.
Kang gave her a sympathetic look.
"I can give that to you. Time. It's not what you think it is. It's a cage. And it does everything it can... to break you. It's not until you free yourself from it that you see... just how small... it always was. We're going to get out of here. She's gonna open the door... and you'll be there. I promise. Let's get to work."
"Okay."
It took ages, but we did it. We brought it back to life.
"Let's go home." Janet said proudly as she and Kang looked at the glowing engine core.
His ship was neurokinetic. Connected to his thoughts. When I touched it... I saw his mind. I felt... what he had done. Entire worlds... entire timelines. Gone, like they never even existed.
She remembered the spark of pain and agony she had felt when she touched Kang's Time Sphere.
Planets going up in flames.
Many, many timelines shattering like glass.
The screams of death.
Then the sound of Kang's voice brought her back to reality.
"Janet?" Kang asked. "We can leave. Right now."
"Who is Kang?" Janet asked slowly.
"Who I need to be." Kang replied simply.
Janet: He didn't crash here. He was exiled here. Outside space and time. The only place... that could hold him.
Hank: Exiled? By who?
Janet: I don't know. But they sabotaged his ship. And trapped him here. And because of me... he was getting out.
"Janet?"
"Stay away."
Kang offered his hand but she didn't take it.
After what she had seen, Janet wanted nothing to do with Kang.
He wasn't what he said he was.
"You saved my life. I made a promise. Just let me take you home."
"And then? What are you going to do?"
"Win."
Then the Time Sphere lifted off the ground and made a new suit for Kang as his face was enveloped by a blue nanoskin emerging from his helmet.
"I told you time isn't what you think. I can make it... so you never left her. Hope is going to open the door... and you'll be there."
"And how many worlds will die... if you get out?"
"Not yours. She'll never know. Don't you want to see your daughter again?"
She did. She really did.
But if Kang got out, millions of people would die because of it.
She couldn't let that happen.
"I can't let you leave."
"Why do you think you can stop me?"
Then Janet turned on her Wasp Suit, shrunk down, flew inside the Time Sphere, grabbed the golden Multiversal Engine Core, and flew out.
Unfortunately for her, Kang had blasted her away with a huge blue energy beam from one of his hands, his fists clenched in cold hatred.
"Give it to me, Janet. GIVE IT TO ME!"
Janet: I couldn't beat him. He was too powerful.
Hope: What did you do?
In the memory, Janet held out the engine core, and held her Pym Particle disks with the other hand.
"I'm sorry, Hope."
She was going to make the sacrifice to save all of existence.
"NO!"
Then Janet smashed the discs into the core, and threw it away.
It expanded into a broilling red energy storm which Janet barely flew away from while Kang was forced to block the explosions with his force field. Then a blast of wind blew him and his Time Sphere away.
"I blew up his core. Cut him off from time. And trapped us both down here forever." Janet said, finishing the story to Hope and Hank.
"But I gave him back enough. Now that he had his suit back... he became what he always was. A conqueror. He's got weapons and technology... centuries beyond anything we can dream of. He took his prison and made it his empire. I spent years fighting him... running from him, hiding from him. And then you saved me. You brought me home. But I didn't deserve it. I unleashed a monster on this place... and ran away."
"Janet, you couldn't have known." Hank said.
"I'm sorry I never told you." Janet replied. "I just wanted to forget. I just wanted to be your mom again."
"I'm so sorry you had to go through all of that alone." Hope said softly. "But you are not alone now. We'll stop him together."
"He's after the core." Janet explained. "But he needs Pym Particles to reach it."
"And if he's got Scott and Cassie, he's got Pym Particles." Hank noted.
"And a head start." Hope concluded.
"We gotta get out of here." Hank said.
"Hope. He cannot get out." Janet told her daughter, who nodded determinedly.
They were going to stop Kang or die trying.
