Reed
Richards gives Sue an odd look. He seems almost … sad.
Then he
faces Doom squarely and says,
“There,
you see, Victor? Sue knows who has always been the better man.”
THWA-KOOM!
Doom causes the miniature atomic reactor in palm of one of his gauntlets to EXPLODE,
venting a trail of poison flame and atomic steam which explodes against Sue’s
force field and curves into a rainbow shape.
“A
force field! Very well,” says Doom, and steps to the right. He fetches up
against the invisible wall.
Then
he points the index finger of his other glove at Reed Richards, and a beam of
green light snaps into being! As the force field is invisible, it is therefore
permeable by light, and this light is of an intensity to cut steel!
“Arrgh!
The .. pain …” says Reed, and falls in a heap at John Jameson’s feet.
“That
TEARS it!” says Jameson, and makes to leap at Doom. But instead, John Jameson
falls full-length, held by the ankle by Reed Richards himself!
Or is
it? For Reed’s blue uniform is tearing at the seams, bursting asunder as masses
of purple striated muscle form on Reed’s bony frame! His hair falls aside in a
shower of graying brown as the mighty brain of Mr. Fantastic swells within its
inflating cocoon of bone, while the now mighty-muscled purple bald creature who
once was Reed Richards lifts John Jameson upside down by one All-American
ankle!
“As I
suspected!” Doom crows. “You are not the Reed Richards with whom I have
contended over so many years, but the imitation impostor Reed Richards from
this mocked-up mockery of an Earth! The Reed Richards whose spacecraft exploded
in his face, killing his friend Grimm and the Storms, and transforming the smug Mr. Fantastic into the monster men call …
the BRUTE!”
“You
bet!” agrees the Brute. “And I knew you’d zap puny Richards and let me out! But
now, before the same thing happens here, lemme take advantage of the Man-Beast’s
momentary weakness …”
And
the Brute’s iron-hard purple fingers dig into John Jameson’s brow, pulling the
orange Soul Stone into view without, somehow, leaving all sorts of horrific
injuries.
INVISIBLE GIRL
ReplyDeleteThis is so sad! Sue figured out it must be the Brute all of one second after she made her speech.
The moment Reed gives her a sad look, it was obvious who it was. Because the real Reed would never look at her that way, and this IS counter earth, after all: The Brute did not need to move through space to get here, because he lives here.
She steps very quietly to a spot where the Brute is between her and Doom, so that if Doom shoot at her, the poor Reed of counterearth gets hit first.
Sue concentrates as she has never concentrated before and puts a small bubble of force right in the middle of the Brute's mighty palm!
She expands this bubble was quickly as she can, trying to catch him by surprise and force his fingers apart the barest fraction of an inch needed to slip a forcefield under his fingertips and around the orange stone.
To help the Brute loose his concentration, she takes out her compact (which she always carries with her in her belt. It is made of unstable molecules. Also a lipstick.) and blows compact powder through a forcefield straw leading up the nose of the Brute.
Hopefully he will sneeze and let go of the gem.
If she manages to get a force-field around the orange stone, she turns it invisible, and yanks it in a random upward direction.
Heck, she turns it invisible anyway, no matter what else happens. It might confuse somebody.
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