Scott Lang's Arc

Chapter 4 of 5

They found Wally's father in a stone cell deep below. The man sat slumped against the wall. Heavy chains bound his wrists to iron rings in the floor. Scott shrank to beetle-size and slipped through the bars. But the chains were thicker than his whole body. He pushed one link. It did not move. At this size he could hide, but he could not free a grown man. He grew back to full height, and the problem stayed the same. The locks were old and rusted shut. No key. Just iron he could not break alone. "We need to cut them," Wally whispered. His hand drifted to the sword at his back. "My blade burns through metal." "It also lights up," Scott said. "Draw it and every guard comes running." Wally's jaw tightened. His father stirred and looked up with cracked lips. He shook his head at his son, afraid. A cool voice cut through the heat. "Then don't let them see." Scott spun. A woman stood in the cell doorway, dressed in white that stayed clean in all this grit. He had never met her, but Wally let out a breath like he knew the name already. She pressed two fingers to her temple. Her eyes were pale and sharp. "I am Emma Frost," she said. "I read minds. The guards near this corridor just fell asleep standing up. I put them under. It will not last." Scott stared. "How long?" "Minutes. Fewer if that sword wakes them." She looked at Wally. "But in those minutes, they are blind to this room. Cut fast." Wally drew the Thunderfang Blade. Blue light flooded the cell. Lightning crawled along the jagged edge. The father flinched from the glare. Scott held his breath, waiting for shouts from the hall. None came. Emma stood still, fingers at her temple, holding the guards in their dreams. Wally pressed the crackling edge to the first chain. Metal screamed. Sparks sprayed across the floor. The link glowed orange, then split. He swung to the second. It parted in a burst of smoke. The father's arms dropped free. "Done," Wally said. He sheathed the blade. The light died. Emma swayed and caught the doorframe. "They are waking," she said. "All of them. And now they know exactly where that light came from." Scott helped the father to his feet. The man was weak but standing. They had him. But boots thundered in the corridor above, dozens of them, pouring down toward the cell. The quiet rescue was over. Every guard in the fortress now hunted them, and the artifact still sat somewhere deeper in the heat, unreached. "We freed your father," Scott said. "Now we have to run with him through all of them."