“Hey Reed!” Called out
Susan, stepping into her husband’s lab to get his attention. The Invisible
Woman looked up to see Mr. Fantastic stretched out in three different directions
keeping tabs on several experiments at once, it was only when his wife tugged
on his lab coat did he bother to look down.
“Oh good evening
Susan, what’s up?”
“It’s morning Reed, we
got a package in the mail, says its for all of us.”
Stretching back to his
default size and shape the elastic scientist looked at the package and read the
send address, his eyes going a little wide at the name. “Dr. Herbert Landon, I
haven’t heard from him in years.”
“Who’s that sweetie?”
Kissed the Invisible Woman, following her husband into the living room where the
Human Torch and the Thing sat watching television. “He’s a chemical genius I
spoke to a couple years ago at the University, he claimed he had made a cure to
mutation.”
“Hey wasn’t that that
big thing Spider-Man and those X-men took down last year?” Pointed Johnny.
Looking away
sheepishly Reed scratched the back of his neck. “Well… Yes, apparently he didn’t
consider what the effects of his concoction had on non-mutated DNA.”
“I’ll say, guy went
King-Kong in downtown Manhattan!”
Opening the package
Reed Richards found a vial and a letter inside, lifting the vile up for the
others to see while he handed the letter to his wife. “Dear Dr. Richards, glad
to see that you are well. I’ve sent you a vial of my concoction in the hopes
that maybe you could rectify a problem I’ve been having with it, in the hopes
of solving the mutant problem. In the hands of the four most powerful ‘humans’
on Earth you should be the best hands to have it.”
“OK… cryptic…”
“P.S. The liquid is
highly reactive to any and all ambient energy… InclUDING THE LIGHTS IN A ROOM?!
REED!”
Too late the four
looked to the vial just when the fizzing chemical cracked and then exploded the
vial in Reed’s hand, instantly turning into an orange vapour that filled the
living room. Coughing and hacking Reed called out to Herbie to filter out the
air, clearing the fog almost instantly. But by then it was too late…
“Argh!... W-Wha-t’s
happening?” Falling to his knees and clutching his sides Johnny doubled over,
his skin turning a dark brown. Susan, Reed and Ben soon did the same, pain and dizziness
rushing through them while the toxic formula ran through their bodies. Looking
at his hands Ben fought through the pain when he watches his fingers change,
giving him two fingers and a thumb per hand, sporting black claws. His skin was
smoothing out yet turning darker with every second. Reed’s claws had just
sprouted from his own altered hands and feet when he had to arch forward in
pain, his tailbone stretching out and forcing his costume to stretch to make
room for a new tail, growing out until it was as long as one of his legs. “What…
Why?”
Falling to her knees
herself Susan gasped when her sides bulged, her blue costume stretching out
when a second pair of arms formed under her original ones, sprouting fingers
and thumbs just when they grew out to match in length and then stop. Their
unstable costumes caught up with their radical changes, creaking and stretching
to match their new anatomies. At some point Reed could feel his face push out
somewhat, his nose and upper lip merging while his jaws pushed out to become a
stubby snout.
When the pain subsided
the four caught their breaths, breathing slowly and looking up at what they
became. Getting back up to their feet the Fantastic Four had become radically
different, standing on feet with three splayed out toes ending in black claws
they actually pierced the fabric of their boots, as did the four sets of clawed
hands they all now had. Heavy tails like that of a leopard gecko looked almost
comical wrapped in blue, their costumes forced to stretch to accommodate it. “Reed,
I’m… We’re…” Feeling her face with her clawed hands Susan felt the new muzzle
that was her face, her hair remained unchanged but it looked more unkempt.
Opening her mouth, she felt that her teeth had changed into sharp fangs, all of
them!
“we’re…"
-You are
all mine to use now. –
Looking around the
four wondered where the voice came from, it almost sounded like static at first
until it cleared up. - Good Morning Reed and Susan Richards, am I correct in
assuming Mr. Johnny Storm and Mr. Ben Grimm are with you also? -
“Y-yes… Who is this?”
The voice had an
elegant English accent, calm and reserved it spoke. – I am Dr. Herberd Landom,
I infused a nannite cluster into the formula I gave you that was preprogrammed
to bundle in the centres of the brain responsible for audio receptive cognition,
through them you may hear me. –
“WHY DID YOU DO THIS?!”
Screamed Susan, looking almost at the brink of tears staring down at her
altered body. – Quite simple my dear, I needed a solution to the mutant problem
and you four ARE that solution, since you are not mutants the formula would
have reacted to you the same way it did to me during that… Undesired accident
last year. –
“So what? You’re gonna
send us to snuff out mutants? The heck with that you mook!”
-I thought there would
be some resistance so let’s put this to the test. –
Caught by surprise Ben
Grimm looked down t one of his arms and watched his clawed hand form a fist and
punch himself square in the jaw.
-I take it we are now
seeing the situation, yes? My nannites give me full control of you if I so
choose, when the time is right I’ll send you off to deal with the largest
concentration of mutants in the New York area. -
“The Xavier Institute?”
-Quite right, until
then you will find that your new anatomy now feeds solely on energy, you will
absorb until you are sufficiently powerful enough to wipe the ‘X-Men’ off the
face of the Earth. -
“And what makes you
think we’ll go along with any of this, whether you can control us or not?”
-Believe me Dr.
Richards, the thirst WILL kick in soon enough…-