Fantastic Four: Storm Rising

Chapter Four

Hours ago at Doom's headquarters…

Victor and Miss. Frost walked back into the main room of Victor's lab in order to check on Johnny and the machine Doom had built to absorb the younger man's fire power. Over the last five days, Victor had turned on his machine for only an hour at a time, after which he had to switch it off for several hours so that Johnny could rest and rebuild his strength in order to remain alive, knowing that if he didn't, Johnny would die from the torture and his powers would disappear with him.

Victor walked over to stand in front of the machines set up next to the water tank where Johnny was still imprisoned in, which monitored the Human Torch's vital signs. The readings showed that Johnny was still alive, but barely. He looked over at the woman he had hired to work for him and nodded, after which she moved over to stand near the machine and switched it off, then observed the readings on its monitors.

As he stared at Johnny, whose head was down with his chin resting against his chest and whose eyes were closed, Victor spoke up as he asked, "How do the power levels look this afternoon, Miss. Frost?"

The woman replied, "Your machine is finally fully charged, Victor. I cannot believe you did it. How is our power source doing?"

"Johnny Storm is uniquely resilient," Doom answered. "I have to commend him for his will to survive, but then again, he is one of the Fantastic Four. Unfortunately, his fight is about to be worth nothing. Take him out of here and finish him off once and for all. Then, dispose of him somewhere far from here. I can't have anyone come around to draw attention to my machine. The city will learn of it when I'm ready for them to."

"Why don't you just turn the machine back on and let it finish draining what's left of him?" Miss. Frost asked. "It would be simple."

Victor turned to her and responded, "I don't want to risk burning out the machine and destroying what I have spent so long to build. Besides, I want his teammates to find his body. I want them to see that their actions have costs and for them to suffer for their loss. Now, release him and then finish him off. He is of no threat to you, as I now possess his power."

After Doom left the lab, the woman turned and looked up at Johnny, then spoke to him softly as if he could hear her, saying, "I am sorry that I got myself involved in this fight between you, your friends, and a madman, but the money was too good to pass up. I'm a mercenary and I do whatever I am paid to do."

After she thought for a few minutes, she moved over to the tank and pushed a few buttons on the monitor, after which the water began to drain from the tank. When it was finally finished, she opened the tank, unlatched the shackles that held the younger man in place, then uneasily pulled him down, and lay him down on the ground, as Johnny remained unconscious, or so she thought.

Just as she had finished laying him down, Johnny suddenly struck the woman hard across her face with her own gun, which he had gently pulled from off of her belt as she was focused on him, and then weakly kept it trained on her as he struggled to flame on, then when he discovered he couldn't, he asked, "What did you... do to me? Where am I?"

"I'm surprised, Johnny," Miss. Frost replied as she stayed back, even though she believed she could easily overtake him. "I am surprised you're awake despite the pain you are obviously feeling. I can help you."

"I wasn't… born yesterday, Lady," Johnny said as he struggled to stand, using the tank and monitors to help him. "Where's Vic? What is this…?"

"You're in no condition to fight me," she answered angrily. "Your powers are gone and you're dying. It's only a matter of time. I can end your suffering now, painlessly, if you let me."

Johnny knew she was right, as he felt an intense fever radiating throughout his entire body and he felt ill, but he wasn't about to give her and Doom the satisfaction of killing him, so he hid the pain as best as he could and responded, "Thanks… but I think I'm going to pass."

Suddenly, Johnny shot the mercenary in her shoulder, causing her to collapse to the floor from the impact and then took off running out of the lab as quickly as he could, despite how weak he felt. The wound in her shoulder wasn't bad and Johnny knew it wouldn't keep her down for long, so as he made outside, he looked for a way to escape and quickly spotted a building nearby that was engulfed in flames, where firemen were struggling to put the fire out.

Johnny couldn't flame on, but despite whatever Doom had done to him, he didn't have any other choice than to trust that he wasn't completely powerless and ran straight into the flames, ignoring one of the fireman's shouts for him to stop. Miss. Frost watched from the exit of the lab as Johnny had done so and stared at the flames, hardly believing the younger man's stamina. Even if Johnny was still alive, she couldn't go after him now and if she told her boss that she had allowed him to escape, Doom would kill her. So, Miss. Frost ran herself, realizing that staying alive was more important than the money Doom had promised her.

Back at the Baxter Building; in the present…

It was getting late into the night and Reed was quietly working on his computers, as he examined Johnny in hope of finding out what had happened to him. Johnny still remained unconscious, hours after the youngest member of their team had somehow made it back to them five days after his abduction. Heat was radiating off of his body and it wasn't because of his powers, or whatever was left inside of him. He was ill and Reed knew that if he didn't find some way to bring the fever down, Johnny was going to die.

After Sue had left the lab in order to try to locate Victor and the woman, who had helped the madman kidnap her brother, Reed had asked Ben to quickly get him as many frozen gel packs as he could get his hands on. After he did so, Ben and Reed had covered his body with them, hoping that the cold would help buy them time to find a way to save him.

Just as Reed had finished injecting an IV into Johnny's arm, which contained fluids that he felt would hopefully begin to work on bringing down the fever, Reed suddenly heard Ben shout his name from another room and so he quickly ran in and found that his friend was watching a story on the news about a fire that had destroyed a warehouse somewhere downtown, then asked, "What's going on? Is everyone on sight all right?"

"Relax, Egghead," Ben replied quickly. "This footage is from earlier this afternoon. I didn't think anything of it until the reporter started talking about how he witnessed some guy run straight into the building, but never came back out. The strangest thing is, when the firemen finished putting out the fire they went inside to look for the guy's body, but they never found one."

"It was Johnny," Reed answered as he realized what Ben was getting at. "He might have been running away from Victor after he managed to escape and knew that the only way to do that was to go somewhere only he could go."

Ben looked at Reed and responded, "But the kid's powers are kaput. You said it yourself. He had to have known that."

Reed nodded and replied, "Yes, but I also said that his chemistry hasn't totally been changed. The energy is still there, but Victor has seriously damaged his system by doing whatever the hell he did to him and it's killing him. I am doing all I can, but…"

He was suddenly cut off as an alarm began to ring wildly from the machines that he had hooked up to Johnny and as he and Ben both came charging back into the room, they saw that Johnny had begun to flat line. Reed rushed over to him and quickly yanked out the IV he had injected into him, as well as the many wires he had attached to him, then began to work wildly to restart his heart by using a defibrillator and thankfully, after a few minutes, he was successful in reviving him. However, the scientist suddenly lifted Johnny up from off of the table and with the help from Ben, they carried the younger man into the bathroom down the hall and gently lay him inside the tub, after which Reed quickly turned on the cold water, as cold as it could go, and allowed it to run over him.

"What the hell just happened, Reed?" Ben asked fearfully. "What are we doing?"

"I need ice and a lot of it," Reed answered as he held onto Johnny to keep his head above the water. "Get as much as you can get. Trust me, he'll need it."

Ben was about to ask something else, until Sue came running in and shouted, "What's happening to him, Reed?"

Reed looked up at Ben, who only nodded and then turned and rushed out to go and get the ice, then turned back to his wife and responded, "Johnny flat lined a few minutes ago. His body is heating up from his core as it normally would, I mean, since we were all changed, but because of what Victor did to him, his immune system cannot take his fever being this high. It's causing his body to shut down, which is why we need to cool him down as quickly as possible and keep him cool long enough to bring the fever down. I sent Ben to get us ice. I should have thought of this before."

By the time the cold water covered his body up to his neck, Johnny slowly began to come around as he sluggishly opened his eyes and began to whimper, as the cold water probably felt like needles shooting into his skin. Sue knelt down beside her husband on the floor and then slowly began to stroke Johnny's forehead for comfort in order to let him know she was there. Even though he was no longer unconscious, Johnny wasn't aware of his surroundings either.

By mid morning, the three members of the team had finally managed to bring Johnny's fever down, but he had been in and out of conscious the whole night and not once had he been aware of his surroundings. Though his fever had broken, he was still very ill and Reed was unsure of what to do from that point on. It was nearly noon when Johnny actually awoke and recognized Sue as she was sitting in a chair beside where he lay back up on the medical table, after they had removed him from the tub.

"Sue, I…" he tried to say until the pain that still radiated across his body overtook his senses as he tried to sit up.

"Just lie still," Sue replied softly as she gently pushed him back down. "Don't try to move right now. You're in no condition to."

Johnny closed his eyes, then opened them again as he looked up at her and asked, "What happened? I feel so strange; empty. I don't know how… how to explain it."

Ben and Reed came over to them and surrounded him as Reed answered, "Victor did something to you when he took you. I'm working on trying to figure out what that was. Do you remember anything?"

"I remember, Victor and I remember feeling cold; pain, but I don't… I can't remember," Johnny responded groggily.

"Don't worry about it, Kid," Ben replied. "We'll figure it out and then I'll clobber Doom, just like before. No one has a right to kill you, but me."

Sue spoke up again saying, "Ben's right. We'll make him pay, I promise."