Hank Pym, the Ant-Man, was nearly beside himself with rage.
How long had it been since Batman had infiltrated Pym Technologies to steal Pym Particles? Barely a week!
He had spent every single day of that week plotting how to capture Batman and reclaim what was rightfully his. But before his plans could even be put into motion, he had watched with his own eyes as a little girl barged into the building and flashed a badge at him:
"FBI!"
Then, in the heartbeat it took for him to register the claim, the badge fell to the floor and detonated with a sharp bang, releasing a rapidly expanding cloud of irritating gas.
By the time his newly developed Ultron drones—which were still in the testing phase—and his ant army swarmed the area, all Hank Pym could see was the girl skipping out of a laboratory. In her hand, she clutched a vial of deep crimson liquid.
It was his Pym Particles. Stolen. Again.
Ant-Man was beyond livid. He didn't care how young she was or if she was a minor; he swore that once he caught her, he was sending her straight to a juvenile detention center.
However, the girl proved to be exceptionally skilled at evading pursuit. She led him on a chase through Manhattan until she finally managed to lose him temporarily. When Ant-Man finally picked up her trail again and caught up, the first thing he saw was the massive Devil Dinosaur, and the second was the expressionless face of Batman standing nearby.
There was no hesitation, no deliberation, and no communication.
Hank Pym instinctively assumed that the girl's theft of the Pym Particles had been Batman's idea all along.
The fury in his heart flared into a literal furnace of rage. Without a single word, he and Janet—the Wasp—immediately launched an all-out assault on Batman.
"Hey! I'm the one who stole your Pym Particles, and it was Reed's idea!" Lunella shouted from her perch atop Devil Dinosaur's head, cupping her hands around her mouth like a megaphone.
Batman had already saved her once, and he had saved Devil Dinosaur as well. To Lunella, that was a debt of two lives. She had no intention of letting Batman take the fall. Her original plan had been to meet with Batman and then head back into Manhattan to leave a trail for Ant-Man to follow. By the time he caught up to the clues, she would have been long gone on a flight to Uzbekistan.
Ant-Man and the Wasp ignored her completely, unleashing a frantic barrage of attacks on Batman.
Their bodies constantly shrank and expanded under the power of their suits and the Pym Particles. Every sudden growth was accompanied by a heavy punch or kick.
Lunella blinked. To her, it looked as if Ant-Man and the Wasp were teleporting. Every time they appeared, a fist would come flying from a different angle and a different direction. Often, the image of their previous position hadn't even faded from her retinas before the next attack arrived. The entire process took less than a tenth of a second.
Such short intervals made it impossible for the human eye to form a clear image. All Lunella could see were the faint afterimages of light left behind whenever they manifested.
Lunella didn't understand how they were doing it. Reed Richards had told her they were just ordinary humans... was it really just the Pym Particles?
For a split second, she was tempted to take advantage of the chaos to sneak back to Pym Technologies and steal another vial. One to help Devil Dinosaur transform, and one for research.
But her conscience won out over her curiosity. Lunella shook her head, dismissing the thought; she couldn't cause any more trouble for Batman.
"If this keeps up, Batman's going to think I'm just some regular brat," Lunella muttered, her mouth twitching.
Beside her, the Lizard flexed his fingers. His razor-sharp claws extended with a metallic shing the moment Batman came under fire. Like Lunella, he couldn't clearly track the movements of Ant-Man and the Wasp, but that didn't mean he couldn't intervene.
The Lizard closed his eyes. In the darkness of his lost sight, he could "see" two heat signatures swarming around Batman. The two figures flickered between large and small, shifting positions and moving so rapidly that they were a blur even to his infrared vision.
Most lizards do not possess infrared sensing; it is a trait reserved for only a few specific species. But the Lizard was different. As a genetic mutant, he was the king of all reptiles, possessing the combined traits of nearly every lizard species. When necessary, he could spit acid or cause toxic pustules to erupt from his skin.
However, those were surprise tactics he rarely used. He preferred to rely on his claws and a tail nearly as long as his body for raw, physical combat.
"Professor, take Lunella and go," Batman urged the Lizard, even in the heat of battle. "I can handle them."
The Lizard didn't hesitate. He gave a sharp nod. "Right!"
He turned toward Lunella, who was still shouting at the heroes from atop the dinosaur. "Come with me!"
"No! I'm the one who caused this mess, I can't just leave Batman to deal with it!" Lunella argued. If she weren't afraid of accidentally hitting Batman, she would have already ordered Devil Dinosaur to charge.
"Staying here is causing him trouble," the Lizard countered, brandishing his claws at her. "Use the Pym Particles to shrink the dinosaur, and I'll carry you out."
Lunella opened her mouth to speak, but before she could get a word out, the Lizard gave her a second option: "Or I can kill the dinosaur and just take you."
Lunella's heart skipped a beat, and her scalp went numb. Looking at the Lizard's primal, savage appearance, she reflexively shrunk back against the dinosaur's hide.
Thud.
The Lizard took a step forward.
Snapping out of her shock, Lunella scrambled to pull the Pym Particles from her belt pouch, followed by a series of toy-like tools from her backpack. But as brilliant as she was, she had only just acquired the particles. Facing a creation that represented the pinnacle of Hank Pym's life's work, she found herself momentarily at a loss for how to activate them.
"Forget it, I don't have time for this," the Lizard growled, releasing a burst of pheromones directed at the dinosaur.
To Lunella's astonishment, Devil Dinosaur suddenly curled his head and tail inward, rolling his massive body into an irregular ball.
The Lizard bent down and, with a powerful heave, hoisted the dinosaur's seventeen-ton frame onto his shoulders. With a thunderous boom, his feet cracked the earth as he bolted into the distance.
"Waaaaah!" Lunella shrieked, terrified by the Lizard's raw display of power. She gripped the dinosaur's broken horn with both hands, terrified of falling.
Only after the man, the lizard, and the dinosaur had sprinted over a hundred meters did the Lizard slow his pace. He paused for a moment to glance back at Batman.
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