Chapter 6
Johnny walked into the living room to find Alicia and Ben chatting, and Helena sitting on the couch Indian style reading A Midsummer Night's Dream. Johnny sat down next to Helena and told everyone, "They're breaking up the team." Helena looked to Johnny, confused, "What?" Johnny continued, "Reed and Sue, I just overheard them. They want a nice normal boring-ass life, no more Fantastic Five." Ben got up and walked over, clearly annoyed, "Well what do they expect us do? Keep it going, just the three of us?" Helena shared his annoyance and said, "And call ourselves what? The Terrific Trio?" Ben walked further up to Johnny, "When were they gonna tell us?" Alicia cut in trying to diffuse the situation, "They'll tell you when they're ready to tell you! Its their decision not yours. You can't be mad at them for doing what makes them happy!" Johnny and Helena looked to each other, both remembering their conversation about potentially switching their powers.
Just then, Reed walked in a said "Guys, we have a serious problem!"
In the lab, Reed explains, "I've been cross-referencing the surfer's radiation through every astronomical database. Altar-7; Rigel-3; Vega-6." Ben asked, "He's been to all these planets?" Reed continued, "And now they're lifeless, barren, some even shattered. Everywhere the Surfer goes, eight days later the planet dies." Helena shook her head, not wanting to believe this, but needing to know, "And how are we gonna stop him? We don't even know where he is." There was a very uncomfortable silence as the five thought about where the Silver Surfer could be, each person could think of a billion different places, but then Sue had an idea, "What about the craters?" Reed's computer searched for a link between the craters, and found a pattern; "They're appearing in a numerical sequence. The last crater was formed in Greenland, so, the next in the sequence should be… latitude 51 degrees 30 minutes North, longitude 0 degrees 7 minutes West."
The Fantastic Five took a military helicopter to their destination, and being back in Europe was strange for Helena. This discomfort did not go unnoticed by Ben, who seemed to shake Helena out of a little daze she was in. "Hey Lena? You OK?" Helena shook her head coming out of her daze, "Huh? Oh, yeah, I'm fine, I'm… fine." Once Johnny heard Helena's response he knew she was just covering, and there was something really bothering her, he thought it best not to talk about it just then.
Reed then started in on the same safety speech that he always made before every mission, "When he surfaces, we've gotta move the fight away from the crowd." Johnny quickly replied, "No he's too fast to be contained, when I see silver I'm hitting him." Reed and Sue looked at Johnny like he was nuts, as Reed said, "Wait you can't do that. We've got to stick to the plan and work as a team." "Oh so we're a team now, that's news to me!" Johnny quickly replied. Reed appeared confused and said, "What are you talking about?" "You know what I'm talking about!" Helena looked out the window at the London Eye and then back to the fight, she needed something, something else to take her mind off of where this flight was landing; Johnny's outburst did just fine, which she also happened to agreewith. Reed finally figured it out, and said, "Look, we were gonna tell you guys…" Johnny was too quick for Reed though, at least when it came to arguments, "When were you gonna tell us? When you moved all our stuff out of the Baxter Building?" Sue got slightly annoyed at the aspect of getting caught, especially in front of the military and said "Johnny this really isn't a good time!" Helena was getting sick and tired of just about everyone picking on Johnny, and so she got angry, really angry, and shouted at Sue, which she had never done, until now, but she couldn't help it, she felt betrayed, "You could have told us! You didn't have to lie! Damn it Sue we're NOT KIDS!" Sue felt horrible as she heard the pain and anguish in Helena's voice, but what she didn't know was that it wasn't all because of her and Reed's decision. Ben tried to jump in and defend Helena and Johnny saying, "They do have a point. You should have told us Reed!" Reed annoyed and embarrassed that this discussion had gone as long as it did decided to stop it, "Alright, alright, that's enough! We'll talk about this later." This was when General Hagger who had noticed the whole fight stepped in saying, "What the hell is wrong with you people?"
The water from the river Thames started sinking deeper and deeper into a large crater, right in front of the London Eye. All of a sudden a burst of energy shot up and it waved hitting the land; making an earthquake and the cables from the Eye rip. The Eye tilted without its full support and came off its axis. The five made their way to the Eye; Sue created a large force field keeping it from falling, Ben lifted the bottom and brought it upright, Reed attached himself to the support axis and used his arms as the extra set of cables that were missing; Johnny and Helena watched from the sidelines. Johnny turned to Helena, and asked as she watched in horror, "Are you OK?" Helena never looking at Johnny replied with a cold, "I'm fine."
The water from the hole dropped suddenly into the abyss, and from there, out came the Surfer. Johnny spotted him and took off before Helena could say anything, even though she tried screaming as Reed did the same, they both shouted, "NO JOHNNY!" It was too late. Johnny hit one of Reed's arms, and dropped to the pavement. Reed had turned into the Human Torch, but Sue's force field could only hold so much as she screamed, "Guys! What are you doing?" Without a word, Helena flew up over the water, raised her hands and created a wall of water. She pushed it against Sue's force field, alleviating some of the pressure from Reed's missing stretchy arms. Helena screamed, "I've got your back Sue!" It wasn't a permanent solution, but it helped. Reed looked as his entire body was on fire and he flew above the axis beam. Reed finally got an idea and screamed, "Ben lift it higher! Lena, push it forward!" They both shouted, "I'll try!" Helena used all her all her strength, made the wall of water even thicker and pushed as hard as she could. Ben lifted the Eye as high as he could. When the Eye was finally on it's axis, Reed welded it together, and the crisis was over.
Helena flew back and landed on the hard cement; she collapsed and lay on the ground. Johnny spotted her first, but didn't want to hurt her in her weakened state so he called over Ben, who lifted her up next to Johnny. Johnny bent down to see her face and said, "That was some display of power." Reed came over carrying Sue, and noticed Johnny searching Helena's face, so Reed scolded him, "Stay back! Before you get somebody killed!" Helena could see the hurt in Johnny's eyes, and became furious with Reed for treating Johnny like that. Ben could see the anger rising in Helena, but knew she was too weak to do anything. Helena breathed Johnny's name loudly and he came right over to her, careful not to touch her. She whispered to Johnny while trying to catch her breath, "Don't… don't listen… to… Reed." Johnny smiled at the kind words, and looked to Ben, who nodded, agreeing with the sentiment. Ben looked to the Eye, but his attention was drawn more to the river, as he breathed, "Oh my God." Helena looked up at Ben, who was still carrying her, "What?" The five walked over to the railing, and saw that the entire river was completely dried up. Helena looked up at Ben and said, "I didn't do that! Did I?"