Author Note: First off, thank you so much for the reviews! They keep me going when I am ready to give up so this is for you guys ;). Second some of you are wondering where the hell I went, after I said "it be a quick update." I didn't lie when I said this chapter was almost complete, what I didn't anticipate was my schedule at work to change drastically. Suddenly instead of working mid-shift, I was having to get up at 4.am to be at work at 5. Now some days I can function as a human being other days it doesn't work out so well and I found that I had no muse. My writing ability was shot because I'd either take a nap when I got home or clean the house to stay up on my feet. Then before you know it dinnertime would roll around then it was lights to start the whole process over again.
I am truly sorry from the bottom of my heart, it was never my intention but I thought I should explain why it took so long.
To those who were kind enough and took the time out of the schedule to drop me a line, here a shout out to you guys. Inguderanged black kitten of doom, rachel eckstein, Xdaisy chainX, running in circles, Silver Dog Doom, sd freek, Lyless and lockesilever, Tricia, and MzPink. Thank you guys again ;) appreciate it!!!!
Now, the new chapter, hopefully you enjoy!!!
Chapter 4
It took all the willpower and strength that Johnny had to crack one eye open. His head felt like it had been split open and he was pretty sure he heard his name being called. But that could be the cartoon birds flying around his head amongst the stars he was still seeing. Shaking his head that could have been one of the worst mistakes he had ever made because that only helped the jackhammer banging in between his eyes to just intensify. Closing his eyes again listening to the crackling sound of fire all around him he then heard his name being called again.
'Sue?' He thought. 'Couldn't be, could it?'
Hearing the sound of crashing metal hit upon each other Johnny was convinced that more was about to fall on his head. But instead he saw his sister with a psyche bubble around the two other members of their group, Ben Grimm and Reed Richards. As they made their way towards Johnny, Sue would let down part of the force field for Ben to pick things up and throw them then put it back up to block out any intense heat radiating off anything that was burning.
Johnny suddenly realized he was stuck under some large beam with the man underneath him whom Johnny was trying to protect from any further harm. So even if he wanted to move, he was not going anywhere until Sue got there with the rest of the group. He watched as Ben toss things as though they weighed nothing more then a penny when it had to be more then few tons of metal here and there.
"Leave ya alone for one minute matchstick and look where ya end up."
Then in a mocking voice, "You're my hero Ben Grimm, now if you'd be so kind." Johnny replied eyeing the beam that was getting highly uncomfortable to the Human Torch.
Ben lifted it up and then grabbed Johnny up off the ground and set him back up on his feet before Johnny could even blink. Reed who even though was under the protection of Sue's force field still looked uncomfortable with the heat wreaking havoc on his elastic body.
"Johnny are you okay to walk?" Reed asked as Ben got to work getting the fireman free.
"He better be," Sue's voice straining "because afterwards, little brother, we are going to have a serious talk."
Right at the moment Johnny had no answer because, quite frankly, his head was still pounding and as far as he was concerned he had spent enough time, in the burning building.
"I got em, let's go." Ben declared having the man swung over his shoulder. With that being said it was only a minute or two later before they reached the night air and was safely away from the collapsing warehouse.
Sue had sat down next to Johnny immediately afterwards and had not moved for sometime. She was physically and mentally drained from using her powers to protect and shield them from anything raining down on their heads while they made their escape. Though it didn't drain her as much as before when she first learned of her powers, it still could wipe her out if she over utilized them and was not careful. As for Ben and Reed they had gone to get the car for them as Johnny just stared at the exact spot they had tried desperately to revive Lt. Johnson. The man they had pulled from the wreckage, the one Johnny had gone into the building hoping he could save.
There was nothing anyone could do; the man had died due to the numerous injuries he sustained when he fell through the floor. If Lt. Johnson hadn't died from the fall, the smoke would have gotten him long before the fire could do any damage. But it still did not make Johnny feel like a hero.
"Come on." Spoke Sue suddenly when she saw that Reed and Ben were waiting for them. Standing up, she saw Johnny was reluctant.
"Go on without me, I think I'm going to stay here for a little longer."
Sue was going to protest, but figured it was best to allow Johnny to come home on his own when he was ready. She had faith in her brother as she then put her hand on his shoulder.
"Don't stay out to late."
She then slowly made her way to the car and got in. The vehicle waited for a few seconds just in case Johnny changed his mind, and then left the scene. Johnny turned back to the place that had been Lt. Johnson's demise. Wondering if that had been the Lieutenants destiny, to die there all along no matter who tried to save him. Preordained. Johnny could not help but wonder what was laid out before him if you believed in that sort of thing. What was in his near future? Quite frankly, he didn't want to know as he stood there listening to the fire continue to crackle and pop as firefighters continued to douse the inferno that was in front of him.
(Baxter Building)
The three went their separate ways the minute they got upstairs as Sue went to take a shower smelling like a fire did not really suit her. Ben was walking to his bedroom ready for a nice deep sleep and Reed walked to his computer to start on one of his latest theories. But stopped and looked down at his keyboard. The keys were melted beyond recognition and even further it had been sealed to the desk. His mouth hung open but closed immediately when he heard a bellowing yell from Ben's room.
Reed ran into Ben's room to find him lying on the floor after the bed had collapsed under his weight. Looking closely though however it was plainly obvious the support beams had been melted and weakened to the point when Ben put his rock ton on it, there be no way for it to sustain him. What made it worse; it was a special bed Reed had made for Ben because not many places sold a bed that could withstand Ben's maximum weight.
Putting his hand out Reed helped Ben up off the floor who was muttering something fierce under his breath about rearranging a certain tinkerbell's face.
"JOHNNY!"
Looking at one another Ben and Reed then took off to Sue's room and found her standing there fading in and out because her emotions were going off the Richter scale. They saw her staring down in her closet as she glanced back at them with arms crossed, positively pissed off.
Peeking their heads in they saw that the majority of her clothes had been burned and were smoldering in her closet. Shaking her head she walked away and sat on her bed and looked at Reed and Ben.
Nobody knew what to say because they could not understand it themselves. It was quite obvious who had done it, for Johnny was the only one with fire capabilities in the house that could have done the damage in so little time. But the question was, why? Why would he do such a childish act? He was a lot of things, but doing juvenile tricks and damaging their property was not his style, or was it?
"I just don't understand what has gotten into him." Sue finally broke the silence.
"When we talk to him we should be rational and explain to him," Reed began but Ben quickly tarnished that idea by injecting.
"Screw rational, he destroyed our stuff! I'm going to rearrange his damn face!"
Ben walked out into the living room with the other two trying to calm the temper that was beginning to take over his common sense and coherent thinking. As though sensing this could be the worse time to make his presence known Johnny Storm arrived back home.
"What's going on?" Seeing the look on their faces, which he could not read at the moment Johnny took a few steps forward. "Did I miss family movie night or what?"
Johnny was completely oblivious as to what was going on and why everybody was staring at him as though he committed some horrendous act upon them. The last time he saw them everything had been fine, he just felt like shit after unable to successfully to save the one man from the building. He had stayed behind to clear his thoughts but the minute he walked in he could feel all the anger was set upon him.
He did not miss the look Sue was giving him, he had seen that one before. It was close to the one when he had ripped the head off of every Barbie doll she owned and then burned them to see what they looked like all melted together. This look however contained a look of complete disappointment and he really did not like this or understand why he was getting such a reaction.
Before he could ask again what was wrong with everybody Ben had taken just a few strides to grab Johnny by the shoulder and not to gently either.
"Woah big guy what is your,"
Before another word could be said Ben dragged Johnny to his room and then shoved Johnny in and made him see the bed. "What did you do to your bed?" Johnny asking. He then turned around and saw Ben's face was set to anger and it dawned on him as though being hit by a freight train.
"What, you think I had something to do with this?"
"You think your pretty funny damaging my bed, Suzie's clothes and Reed's keyboards?"
Johnny was baffled at such an accusation. He knew he was a lot of things, but to do something so petty? Sure there was that one guy in traffic who found what it was like to have your tires melted to New York City's pavement. Here and there a tree got flamed when fire would trickle from his body as he shot off. But damage material that belonged to his sister, his brother in law Ben. Well he had to admit, Ben's was pretty funny but that was beside the point!
"Who else can turn themselves into fire in this building?" Ben still glaring ready to bust somebody's head, preferably Johnny's.
Johnny tried to hide the pain coursing through his body at the idea of his family automatically assuming it was him. Shaking his head denying the act of vandalism, "Well it wasn't me."
Sue stepped in wanting to separate Ben and Johnny. Those two were as stubborn as people could get, and if they continued the way they were headed it would escalate to the point they would begin to trade blows.
"Johnny, we just want to understand why you felt the need to destroy our things."
Reed knew they were approaching this all wrong. They were going on emotions at seeing their stuff disregarded and ruined with such disrespect. He couldn't deny that there was a part inside of him that wanted to act upon his own anger that had risen up when he saw his keyboards destroyed. But acting out in resentment towards Johnny would not solve anything just like it was proving right now playing out in front of them. It was very evident on Johnny's face they were backing him into a corner. The three were attacking him all at once and that was only making Johnny push even harder. It was only so much this boy was going to handle before he finally had enough and made it clear. Reed decided to speak up, hoping to defuse it quick, "Look we all need to calm down, this won't solve anything, why don't we,"
"Give him a good thrashing and maybe that will teach him not to touch people's stuff!" Ben said interrupting Reed.
There was no denying the temperature around Johnny had changed dramatically. It was getting hotter as Johnny himself was slowly losing his cool and his emotions were sending his body into overdrive bringing his heat up. In seconds his body would turn into a gulf of flames, and all three knew it.
Johnny wanted nothing more than to scream at the top of his lungs, allowing his body to explode with scorching flames. But by doing so he would kill the three that mattered the most to him and no matter how pissed he was he'd die before he allowed that to happen.
It took everything in Johnny not to lose his temper, not to lose control of the fire that was burning with inside his very body. For the first time since Johnny could remember he left the fight without having the last word.
Sue, Reed, and Ben watched as he left, slamming the door to the stairs behind him. He didn't even want to wait for the elevator to reach the top floor. Watching as her brother leaves she turned back to look at her fiancé and then to Ben. On the border of saying something she found that no words would come. Probably for the best she decided to just leave the room with Reed following behind silently. Ben stood there watching them then his eyes traveled back to his bed. "Yeah but who's going to fix my bed?"
Johnny Storm stared out at the harbor before him. It had been one of the few places he could always escape to when he felt there was nowhere else to go. Even his own sister didn't even know about this place, and quite frankly he was glad.
He kept running the fight through his mind and though he wanted to forget it he kept playing it over and over. So desperately he wanted to make something of it try and figure out what went wrong. How one minute they were fine, the next they were ready to condemn him. They had separated at the warehouse fire and everything seemed okay. When he had left the Baxter Building nobody had come in, he would have remembered. There were no black outs in his memory, no insignificant time loss that he couldn't count for.
It just didn't make any sense, unless the intruder had gone in when they were all absent from the building. But as far as Johnny knew they would have known because of Reed's new state of the art defense system for any intruders into their domain.
What he should do is go and check the surveillance tapes. But that meant going back and quite frankly he was not ready to. Maybe he'd go crash at one of his friend's place till he was ready to face them without shooting into flames.
"Still haven't figured it out yet, have you?"
Johnny spun around seeing somebody standing in the shadows.
"How somebody or someone could slip into the Baxter Building undetected."
Readying himself, Johnny wanted nothing more then to know who this asshole was standing before him. It was obvious this was the guy who was responsible for his family wanting his head tonight. Johnny could feel the hairs on the back of his neck rise at the sound of the man's voice. It sounded so familiar, but why?
"Don't look so confused Johnny, makes perfect sense. " Stepping into the light that was casting down on them from the streetlight. "When that somebody looks like me, eeeer you," letting out a laugh, "us."
Johnny stepped back hitting the metal railing, finding he felt suddenly cornered and trapped. His mouth hung open as he pointed. "How?"
'This was not possible,' he thought. Then again he could turn himself into flames, having a doppelganger could happen, couldn't it?
"Come on, like I want to explain science to myself. We both know that was never our strong suit."
Anger had slowly shifted from the shock state at seeing himself. "Why? Why would you ruin their stuff?"
"Hello! It's not obvious? Did I eat paint chips in this reality, or what? Who else knows about this place?"
Johnny's mind began to become frantic. He knew the answer and suddenly his tongue had gone completely dry in his mouth. "No one knows, but me. You ruined their stuff knowing I'd leave to come here to be," swallowing hard, "by myself."
"Sucks don't it?"
Johnny never saw the gun that was being held behind his doppelganger's leg. He was still to shocked at the unfolding events before him and all of it happening to fast.
All he registered was the hit in his chest, as he glanced down and saw the tranquilizer dart embedded into him. Moving his head up that already felt fifty times heavier then it really was all he could do was muster a glare. Knowing there was nothing he could do now. His fate was sealed and all he could think was, his sister was going to be so pissed at him.
His legs failed him as he felt his body crumble underneath him. He couldn't move anything nothing was responding to his demands and he never felt so tired in his life. The last thing he saw was himself grinning like a predator above him.
"Don't worry I'll take good care of your family."
For the second time that night, Johnny Storm lost consciousness to the world.
TBC…(Please do not kill me!!! I hoped you liked it, I have no idea what I'm going to do next (slams head down). Tell me what you think and I'll see you all next time around)
