The Disclaimer telling all of you that I don't own any Marvel Characters or Joes or anything has been set on fire. Again. That happens a lot. I was watching an old Fantastic Four cartoon when I got inspired.
You know the Fantastic Four and how they fought Galactus right? You don't…
Well the story goes like this: the Watcher, an all knowing powerful alien tried to save the Earth by making some kind of fake hologram showing that the planet was really a ball of fire so Galactus wouldn't eat it. You heard me. Galactus eats planets. Of course it didn't work and the Fantastic Four fought off Galactus with help from the Watcher and the Silver Surfer.
However as you can imagine the entire planet being engulfed in a ball of flame might cause some panic. This is how I imagined what would happen in the Misfitverse side of things…
Under A Fiery Sky
It began one day when the Misfits were practicing their targeting skills.
"YES! YES! IN YOUR FACE!" Todd crowed as he kept punching the buttons on the video game controller. "A HOLE IN ONE! I AM THE RIBBIT KING CHAMPION!"
Okay, they were goofing off playing video games. Shipwreck went into the kitchen to get another drink when he happened to look out the window. He did a double take and spit out the drink from his mouth.
"Hey guys," Shipwreck called out. "The sky's on fire."
"How many beers have ya had Pop?" Althea called out.
"I don't think I've had enough," Shipwreck shouted. "The sky really is on fire! Look!"
"Man you must really be on a bender if you see…" Roadblock sighed and looked out the window. "Eep…."
"Eep?" Lance stopped playing. "Did Roadblock just say 'Eep'?"
"Roadblock what would make you say…?" Spirit looked out the window. "Eep!"
"Uh oh…" Wanda got up with the rest of the Misfits to look. "When Spirit says Eep that is definitely not good!"
"Yeah what would make them both say…" Lance looked out the window. "Eep!"
"Oh boy…" Althea gulped. "For once I wish you were drunk, Pop!"
"I think I can rectify that situation…" Shipwreck went to get another beer.
"Get one for me too!" Roadblock told him.
Sure enough the entire sky above them was a flaming red. A continuous stream of fire blanketed the sky. "This is gonna pre-empt my soaps, I just know it." Arcade folded his arms.
"Oooh!" Trinity called out. "Pretty!"
"This isn't good is it?" Fred blinked.
"Well Duh, Blob!" Pietro snapped. "Can you think of anyone who would think the entire sky being on fire would be a good thing?"
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Somewhere outside a secret base far away…
"YAY!" Pyro danced around outside. "FIRE IN THE SKY! FIRE IN THE SKY! WHOOO HOO!"
"Of all the Brotherhood I had to keep him!" Magneto put his head in his hand. "Why the hell did I have to keep him?"
"It's a mystery to me, sir," Winters sighed. Several other Acolytes were there as well.
"I've always wanted to go out in a blaze of glory but this is ridiculous," Lucas groaned.
Lorna blinked at the sky. "Father, shouldn't we do something?"
"I'm getting a drink…" Sabertooth grunted as he trudged back inside. He stopped and looked at everyone looking at him. "What? What do you want me to do? Snarl at it and hope it goes away?"
"Why is the sky on fire?" Lorna asked.
"WHO CARES?" Pyro whooped and blew on some noisemakers. "IT'S PARTY TIME! YEAH! DISCO INFERNO! BURN BABY BURN!"
"Well at least he's not under his bed crying like Cortez," Magneto sighed.
"Father what do we do?" Lorna asked. "We have to do something!"
"Why should we?" Sabertooth asked. "This is the kind of stuff the so called heroes are supposed to worry about! As far as I'm concerned, it's not our problem!"
"Oh so you're just gonna let us all get burned to cinders? Is that it?" Lorna snapped. "Yeah there's a practical solution!"
"Look I'm pretty sure our base is fireproof," Sabertooth folded his arms. "It is fireproof ain't it?"
"I believe so…" Magneto blinked.
"YOU BELIEVE SO?" Lucas shouted. "SHOULDN'T YOU HAVE CHECKED FIRST IF SOMETHING LIKE THIS WOULD HAPPEN?"
"Shouldn't you keep your mouth shut before I remember that I am still angry at you for your failures?" Magneto snapped. "And who the devil checks to see if your base is capable of withstanding an entire planet being caught on fire? Fire inside the building yes! Hail, yes! Flood, yes. Lightning, yes. Missiles…Most definitely, but the entire atmosphere catching on fire? WHO CHECKS FOR THAT? WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MINDS EVEN PREPARES FOR SOMETHING LIKE THAT?"
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"Now aren't all of you glad that we put that special stuff on the roof last month?" Daria was full of herself. "Now our home is fireproof."
"Yes it's a very good thing," Pietro was hiding under the table. "NOW COULD SOMEBODY PLEASE PUT OUT THE SKY?"
"Yeah your delicate features would get a real bad sunburn," Spyder quipped.
"We'reallgonnadie," Todd muttered as he crouched on the ground, hands covering his head. "We'reallgonnadie, We'reallgonnadie…"
"We are not all going to die," Angelica told him.
"Oh yeah I forgot, little Miss Firestar!" Todd snapped. "Sure, you'll be fine!"
"Just when I thought our lives could not get any more bizarre…" Lance sighed. "Great. It's the end of the world again. Just what we need."
"It does seem to put a real crimp in your day doesn't it?" Fred asked.
"Something is not right here," Althea looked out the open window.
"CLOSE THE WINDOW! YOU'RE LETTING THE CINDERS GET IN!" Pietro screamed.
"I am not!" Althea shouted. "In fact…All I'm letting in is a cool breeze."
"She's right," Lance stuck his hand out the window. "If the sky is on fire, shouldn't it be a lot warmer than it is now?"
"Yeah…" Shipwreck looked at the outside thermometer. "Okay something's busted here. It's either the thermometer or the sky. And right now my gut is telling me it's the sky."
Suddenly the flames disappeared and the sky reverted to normal. "Hey guys! The fires out!" Brittany shouted. "But nothing's burned."
"Nuts," Quinn snapped her fingers.
"Now we'll never get to test our new line of fire retardant men's underwear," Daria grumbled.
"Well we could always set Iceman on fire," Brittany said.
"You are not going to set Bobby on fire," Cover Girl looked at her.
"Yeah," Lance said. "In the first place it's not practical. He'd just ice himself up and put it out. Set Summers on fire."
"Too easy," Quinn shook her head.
"Oh yeah," Lance thought. "How about Colossus?"
"I wonder what it would be like to have a nice normal conversation?" Wanda groaned. "I've always wondered."
General Hawk walked in the door. "Sorry to interrupt Misfits but I need you all to help investigate what just happened. I would have called all of you but every telephone on the planet seems to be jammed with people calling either their relatives or dial a prayer."
"Well I thought it couldn't hurt!" Pietro said defensively.
"Oh yeah, like he'll listen to you," Todd rolled his eyes.
"Look I need you guys to go over to the X-Men and see what they know," Hawk said.
"I hope it's a lot," Althea sighed.
"I hope they were a lot calmer about this than we were," Lance grumbled before they teleported over to the Institute. "Now let's try not to…"
"So is it the end of the world?" Todd shouted as he hopped over to Scott and grabbed him. "Are we all gonna die? Are we all gonna die?"
"Make complete idiots of ourselves?" Roadblock looked at Lance.
"Yeah that's pretty much what I was going for," Lance sighed. "Kind of stupid actually."
"Toad you will die if you don't let go of me!" Scott shoved him off.
"Okay what did you guys figure out? Did you figure anything out?" Todd asked.
"Yeah anything at all?" Fred asked. "Are we gonna die?"
"I already asked them that!" Todd snapped.
"Well excuse me!" Fred snapped back. "I'm a bit scared too ya know?"
"We're all a little scared but we're not acting like world class idiots!" Wanda snapped at the both of them. "Except for my brother of course."
"Hey!" Pietro snapped. "Just because you couldn't fit under the table…"
"Does anybody know what these guys are babbling about?" Kurt asked the other X-Men.
"Nobody ever knows what the Misfits are babbling about," Scott groaned.
Several X-Men were still in their uniforms and were watching television. "What's got you guys so upset?" Bobby asked calmly.
"Uh, maybe the entire sky being on fire and the entire planet going into panic?" Todd gave him a look. "That might have something to do with it!"
"Has he been eating butterflies again?" Scott asked the Misfits.
"Only one or two but for once he had a reason," Lance said. "He's not making this up. Hawk sent us over here to see if you guys found anything."
"Anything about what?" Kitty asked.
"Am I speaking Swahili or something?" Todd said. "About the sky being on fire!"
"Wait, the sky was actually on fire?" Kurt asked. "When was this?"
"IT JUST STOPPED TEN MINUTES AGO!" Todd screamed.
"Really?" Jamie asked as he looked at the screen. "Well that explains all the people going nuts on TV."
On screen there was a half-crazed man with a sign saying THE END OF THE WORLD IS NEAR. "I told you people what was coming! But you didn't believe me! WELL WHO'S CRAZY NOW HUH? HUH? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! THE INVISIBLE ALIENS WERE RIGHT!"
"So the sky was on fire huh?" Kurt asked calmly.
"Yeah but nothing got burned," Althea said.
"How the hell could you guys not notice the entire sky being on fire?" Pietro shouted.
"And people call me dense!" Fred slapped his hand on is head.
"Actually they call you a lot worse," Pietro couldn't resist. "But still…"
"We were all stuck in the Danger Room all day," Kitty explained. "We just got out three minutes ago."
"All of you? At the same time?" Wanda asked.
"Yeah well Cyke was running this new teamwork program and we all had to…" Bobby began.
"Don't put the blame on me!" Scott snapped. "Forge was the one who was running the program!"
"So let me get this straight," Lance held up his hands. "None of you had a clue what was going on because you all spent the whole day in the Danger Room?"
"Well…" Kurt rubbed his head. "That's pretty much it, yeah."
"Gee remind me to make sure to call you guys if ever a real emergency comes up!" Lance said sarcastically. "Wouldn't want you to miss it."
"And what were you doing during the crisis?" Scott snapped.
"We were analyzing the situation…" Pietro said. "Coming up with a plan…"
"From underneath the living room table," Wanda folded her arms.
"Some smooth tactics there," Scott drawled.
"At least we noticed something was wrong!" Pietro snapped.
"Really? It's taken all of you this long to notice that something was wrong with you guys?" Bobby asked.
"Trinity I take it back," Lance looked at them. "You can test your underwear on Bobby."
"Underwear? I don't get it," Bobby scratched his head.
"Trust us, you will," Quinn grinned as she pulled out some matches from her pocket.
"Yeah just what we need," Althea groaned. "Another fire."
"Well maybe we'll get lucky this time and something will actually burn," Xi said.
"The odds are pretty good of that happening," Roadblock groaned.
Three hours and a few rather heated arguments later, General Hawk had joined the Misfits and X-Men in the Institute War room. "I can't understand it," Hank looked at the data on his computer. "It's as if the phenomenon never happened. As far as the sensors are concerned anyway. I have no idea what happened."
"Nobody knows what the hell happened and quite frankly…" Hawk began when his cell phone rang. He answered it. "Hello? Oh Mr. Richards. Nice to hear from you." He looked at them. "It's Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four."
Hawk made a face and spoke into the phone. "Say how did you get this number? Oh Trinity gave it to the Thing. Internet pen pals. Look in case you didn't notice we have a little crisis here…Yeah that's right. Fire in the sky. Well you have to admit it was kind of hard not to notice…"
"Unless you're an X-Geek," Todd quipped.
"Look! You try dodging a dozen Sentinels in the Danger Room for an afternoon and see how observant you are!" Kurt glared at him.
"Oh really? So it was you guys?" Hawk kept speaking.
"I knew it!" Pietro snapped. "The Human Torch went nuts! Never did like that guy!"
"Oh really?" Hawk spoke on the phone. "That's what happened? For real? Yeah well I've heard weirder. Okay I haven't but you gotta admit…"
"What did he say?" Pietro asked.
Hawk put his hand over the phone. "Turns out an alien named the Watcher did it so he could protect the planet from another alien called Galacticus. To fool him into thinking there was no life on this planet."
"What was he gonna do? Invade?" Scott asked.
"No, he was gonna eat the Earth," Hawk said. "And I am not being sarcastic he really was going to eat the Earth. Well drain its life force anyway."
"Okay that is pretty weird," Scott blinked. "Even for us."
"So this Watcher guy make it look like the planet was on fire so this other alien wouldn't eat it?" Fred scratched his head. "What did he want him to think it would give him heartburn or something like that?"
"Actually…" Hawk paused. "Yes…"
"Ask a stupid question…" Scott said.
"Summers if we didn't ask stupid questions we wouldn't discuss things at all!" Lance told him.
"And that's a bad thing?" Scott looked at him.
"Well thanks for the call," Hawk spoke on the phone. "I appreciate it." He hung up. "Now I have to make a call to the Jugglers. Oh they are going to love this one!" He went into the next room.
"So basically the entire world was in danger and nobody knew anything about it?" Kitty asked.
"For once," Wanda sighed. "It's kind of weird in a way, us not running off and doing something about it."
"So? Let someone else pick up the slack for once," Pietro said.
"Okay here's the official story," Hawk walked in. "Since the truth is too weird for the public we had to come up with something more plausible."
"Why do I have a feeling I am not gonna like this?" Rogue raised an eyebrow.
"The official story is that a mutant with the ability to create illusions went out of control and made the fire," Hawk said. "His powers went out of control and he killed himself. That'll give the public some closure on this."
"Wait a minute, where are you going to find a mutant to blame…?" Kitty began.
"Kitty there will be no real mutant," Lance interrupted. "They're just going to make one up."
"Are you serious?" Kurt gasped. "They can do that?"
"Please," Althea waved. "They make people up all the time that never existed. Heck they've made up a lot of things that never existed just to push an agenda!"
"Yeah but in this case this agenda kind of coincides with the FOH!" Kitty said. "Against us!"
"In other words we're getting the blame for something we didn't even do!" Scott shouted.
"Yeah like this wasn't gonna happen anyway," Lance told him.
"You have a point," Scott resigned.
"Sorry kids but that's the breaks," Hawk sighed. "It's not like we can tell people the truth. If we could things would be even worse. And like Lance said most people would jump to the conclusion that mutants were responsible anyway. There's nothing we can do."
Trinity was holding a set of flame-throwers. "Well we could always…" They began.
"NO!" Everyone shouted at them.