Kl'rt the Super Skrull watched four strings lower four functional dummies, his body armed with four new fantastic attributes & ready as ever. Always the diligent baddie, this marked a very high number of training sessions that commenced on his schedule since he received precious genetic keys containing the Fantastic Four's own powers. To do that, he risked the knowledge of his fellow Skrulls for he consulted a Kree. & of all Krees, Ronan the Accuser (who shared at least one common interest with him) was the one on his list to pick. The dummies were released & turned to attack Kl'rt, who tried an approach as creative as he could to bring them down in seconds. Hard as it was to sift through his serious facial expression, confidence coursed through his sinews, & it came close to boiling over. Successfully, he left each dummy mangled & malfunctioning after unleashing a combo of rapid moves. One thing was for sure, that diligent hands would rule & skill brought about success. As Skrull commander, he demonstrated these qualities which undergirded his servants' reverence toward him.

He breathed his little victory (possibly the 1000th little victory) & muttered something about Skrull-style dominion over the Four. His words were audible to cunning Ronan who had been watching the practice session in silence. The Kree was very happy to lend a hand, so long as he held his end of the bargain. He quickly pointed out in response to Kl'rt, "Remember our deal, Skrull." With clarity, he continued, "Destroy the rest of the Fantastic Four," his next sentence rang clearer, "but the Human Torch belongs to me. Only then will I give you what you need." He had in mind a vengeful villain's scheme, yet to unfold. Kl'rt's reply was courteous despite his enemy-turned-ally-in-secret's selfishness, "Of course, Ronan." The Human Torch dummy was still twitching; Ronan let out his frustration with a big stomp on the dummy's head that silenced it.

***

A Fantastic Four logo was on display today - only there was a number '5' in place of the conventional '4'. Printed on a huge banner on the Baxter Building's front wall, it caused a gathering crowd to grow excited to learn more about Sue's "Be A Fantastic Fifth For A Day" contest - a booster for the team's PR. Obviously. There was a Wolverine impersonator, a guy in a Robin costume & countless other wannabes of existing superheroes making up the throng of people.

"Wait a minute; we're doing what?" asked a blur Johnny. His sister replied calmly, "I've been telling you this for weeks. Look, just smile & wave. & don't burn anything down!" She was bursting inside to get into her opening speech, hand firm on the mic. When she addressed the crowd, the sea of faces cheered. "The winner of today's contest will get to spend a day with the team!" was the part of her speech which got the cogs in Johnny's mind working. He scratched his head. "Did she go crazy? Is that it? Why would she do this?" Reed, although busy on his PDA, quickly pointed out, "A little goodwill would never hurt anyone, Johnny. After all, the city sometimes takes the brunt of our more...destructive adventures." Ben snapped, "What? We tore up the city a little so now we gotta make nice? Great.." But he didn't wish to end on a sour note, "Well there's one thing I love; it's parading around like a giant freak for people." The others were wondering how sarcastic he was being (if he was intending to be sarcastic at all). When he surveyed the crowd, he spotted a crazed youngster: covered in pebbles. The world's crazy..., thought Ben with a dropped jaw. His voice nearly broke & sort of squeaked, "I think that kid..glued rocks all over himself..." Johnny seized the moment - "Maybe he wants to be your sidekick: The Thing & Boulder Boy! Ha ha ha!"

Ben was strong enough in will to ignore him. He continued scanning the throng of excited faces. In seconds, he noticed the difference now. Moments earlier there weren't that many sets of twins & triplets being part of the contestants. "Stretch, am I going nuts or are there a dozen sets of twins out there?? &..is that a leprechaun?" His mind told him the world got crazier. Reed wanted to see to the matter right away. "Johnny! The leprechaun! Get him!" That solved Johnny's occasional boredom issues (when he had to tag along on any team events aside from missions). "Aw, sweet! Flame on!" For a split second he caught sight of his target, clad in green. Johnny followed & weaved his way through the air. But the next moment, the green creature seemed to have vanished completely, so he flew back to the stage. Unbeknown to him, the leprechaun had taken the form of a teenage boy, now clad in blue & red apparel. Black was the cornea of his eyes, & the iris was blood red. Nobody saw this.

"Sorry, we need to conference for a moment." Reed took on his authoritative tone as he turned to Sue at the podium. "Be right back, folks!" he spoke into the mic. Sue sheepishly laughed & rendered herself invisible to try save the humiliation for later. She did not hesitate to ask, "What are you doing? You're ruining my contest!" "The crowd has been infiltrated with Skrulls!" Reed exclaimed. "So?" was Ben's casual question that followed.

"What do you mean 'so'? We knew they'd be back. This could be the start of an invasion!"

Johnny filled in, "Uh, good, because this contest," he made a Bronx cheer childishly, "boring!" Sue pelted him with a force field, making him yelp an "Ow!" She retorted, "It is not! Honestly Reed, could we talk about it tonight? I'm right in the middle of this."

Ben rejected the suggestion, "No! My show's on tonight! You have to stop an invasion, let's do it now.."

Mr. Fantastic got firm, "It's an alien invasion!"

Sue gave the room to Reed out of respect, but was honest, "True but...it's just that the Skrulls..well, they're kinda dumb."

"That may be the case but we have to take this seriously. The contest is over."

"What?!"

"Hallelujah!" yelled Johnny.

"Reed, I put weeks of work into this contest. We have to do this."

"Fine." He looked away & stretched his left hand toward the crowd, randomly picking someone out. "You. You win!" he turned & told his person of choice. "Congratulations! Now everyone go home."

The 'winner' went by the name Andrew, wearing a white blouse & grey-green pants, which was probably his school uniform. "Yesssss!!!! Yesssss!" he screamed while falling to his knees. His neighbours in the crowd felt quite the opposite, however. Moans & groans echoed about the air. "Err, wasn't that great, folks? Thanks for coming! See you next year!" said poor Sue to the dispersing contestants. A failure of her precious contest...& a little tarnishing of the team image.

***

Andrew was bouncy, deciding to amp up his use of flowery language to impress the Four. "Well, where to first? A tour? Of your humble penthouse abode?" His ear-to-ear grin was laughable, only the FF had more than half their minds on the Skrulls than their temporary fifth member's pearly whites. "Look, Andrew. You need to go home. We'll....mail you your prize," replied Sue hesitantly.

That bothered Reed the least, for the lobby appeared to be congested with human traffic. Every time someone eyed the five of them, they received a rather cold stare. The faces of the people were familiar, namely the lady who waters the plants, & a delivery guy with shaggy black hair & the fishmonger. "Mmmm, fish," said Johnny. When he turned away, the fishmonger's eyes changed colour but still, not even Reed saw this.

Ben said, "Lobby seems awfully crowded."

"Yes, it does..," Reed added. "Let's regroup upstairs. Head for the elevator."

Andrew wasn't very happy, & put on an innocent look which was almost puppy-eyed. "Well...you did say I could spend a day with the team. Ah, well."

Sue said earnestly, "Yeah, sorry. You need to -"

"The Skrulls are in the building. We have to move."

More people from outside entered the lobby through the front doors. Suddenly it dawned on the team that every person around them was closing in on them. These weren't their regular lobby bunch for sure, so they backed into the elevator & Reed shut the doors before the Skrull's ambush could commence successfully. He pressed the button to take them to the penthouse. Sue was nice enough to grab Andrew to take him along, just for the sake of safety plus the Fantastic Four's PR.

"Hmmm, do you think electrostatic fields will crash the elevator? Because my phone keeps getting chain messages," Andrew mentioned out of the blue, glancing at his phone.

"Ugh, guys...I'm...I'm not feeling too well. I think I picked up a bad case of GIANT DWEEB-ITIS," Johnny interjected.

Ben changed the subject, "Can this thing go any faster?"

The elevator door opened to the penthouse main corridor; Johnny ran out fastest, probably to ditch the "dweeb-itis". Just then, H.E.R.B.I.E. had a big warning in store for the team. "Dr. Richards, there's been a deep space alert."

Dr. Richards responded, "What? When?"

"Well...right now. & it's more like...'already here' alert." At this, Reed tensed up. Through the glass panes above them hovered a massive spaceship. It's dark surfaces made it more threatening; the vehicle blocked out nearly all the sunlight. Passers-by below were already getting their cameras & gawking at the ship. The team sped to the hangar & made their way to the rooftop.

Andrew obviously assumed this was part of the 'tour'. "This is gonna be exciting...do I get a code name? How about - "Sound Man"?" He chuckled. "I play the violin!" Nearest to him were Ben & Sue who didn't reply. But they paid close attention when he gazed upward & pointed at the alien ship, "Look, a Skrull Vindicator Class command ship!"

"Shouldn't we leave you inside? & how on earth would you know that?" asked Reed, keeping his cool.

"I found it on the net. Once."

They noticed just in time that a shaft of the ship had opened. A beam of bright violet shot out of that shaft, transporting the Super Skrull to where the team stood. He was rather slender in form, & looked like he could move lithely. He was a worthy opponent even without being flanked by his men.

"Fantastic Four....you will surrender to the Skrull Empire!" Super Skrull's voice boomed with confidence. Johnny & Ben, cocky as they were, folded their arms & guffawed. Careful Reed questioned Kl'rt in a similiar tone as the alien's, "What is the meaning of this invasion? What do you want with Earth?"

"There is a war going on, Reed Richards. My people have been fighting the Kree for thousands of years. & now -"

"Is this gonna be a long story?" Johnny was already tapping the ground with his foot & being cheekily impatient. This however, proved useful so as to prevent the Four from losing their focus so early in battles (when the villains got long-winded).

"Silence!" the alien's voice thundered. "Your planet is in a strategic location. But this is no invasion." Sue was flabbergasted & muttered angrily, "See? You canceled the contest for nothing." Part of her wished her eyes could bore into Reed's this instant.

"No, the invasion comes later. What the Skrulls want to see is the final defeat of the Fantastic Four."

"It's Fantastic Five today, alien," Andrew answered back. The team didn't mind a confidence boost.

Ben's plus point was his non-hesitant approach to a fight. Being the "less talk, more action" kinda guy, he stepped forward, "Talk time's over, pal. Now it's clobberin' t -" The exception: This time round, he said a little too much. Kl'rt packed a rapid, powerful punch. Before he knew it, Ben hurtled through the air too fast; he landed all the way in the water below a suspension bridge. FF was down to four members. Super Skrull mustered ounces of strength. He flexed every muscle & his sinews bulged till the shoulder guards he usually wore snapped out of place. But who needed shoulder guards when he had mastered the Four's abilities? Momentarily, he went invisible to complete the activation of his powers. Abruptly, his body was coated in flames - all done on his own accord. His Skrull eyes were now a blinding yellow; he cackled upon seeing his foes' changed expressions for they were taken aback. Even Reed didn't see such a challenge coming.