Real quick chapter to wrap things up. I end a running gag, Emily states her plans from here, and whatever happened to Doom? ;)

Chapter 21

Permission Granted

After the police had picked up Jacob and was no longer in the Fantastic Four's hands, Emily packed up what little she had brought to New York, and prepared to go home. Her powers aided the process, as she had gained enough control of her telekinesis powers to do one thing while she physically did another.

Once she was all packed, she left the room she had been staying in at the Baxter Building, and wandered over to where the Fantastic Four, in civilian clothes, stood waiting next to the once-again repaired Fantasticar, ready to take her home.

Since Emily still had her powers, and no one had any intention of changing that, it was unanimously agreed that it was time to tell Emily's parents, who had remained unaware of that detail. Reed and the others had agreed to help in the explaining. Emily wasn't looking forward to it, for she had an idea how her parents would react, but this was nullified by the fact that she was now going home.

"Ready Emily?" Sue asked as Emily approached.

"I certainly am." Emily replied, and sighed at the sight of the Fantasticar. "One more chance to get to ride in the Fantasticar I hope?" she asked hopefully.

Reed nodded. "But it's called an FHC." he reminded as they all climbed inside except for Johnny, who was again going to have to fly under his own power.

"Reed, permission to make a request?" Emily asked, settling herself in Johnny seat.

"Permission granted, Emily." Reed replied as he strapped himself in. "Make any request you want, and I'll follow it."

"Good." Emily said. "Stop calling this thing an FHC and start calling it the Fantasticar."

"Okay-wait, what?" Reed said, not entirely catching all of the question.

But he was interrupted by Johnny. "Yes!" he exclaimed, pumping a flaming fist. "Finally, I can start calling this thing what I want!" he tapped the Fantasticar's hull.

Reed slid down in his seat a bit. "I set myself up for that one, didn't I?" he said wearily.

"Yes you did, Reed." Sue replied, patting his shoulder.

"So are we going to go or not?" Ben asked from the back.

"Right." Reed said, starting the Fantasticar and taking flight.

"Fantasticar away!" Johnny cried out as he flamed on and followed, happy that for once, Reed did not correct him.

They cruised over New York City, looking none the worse after the affair with Jacob the previous night. In fact, to Emily, it looked better, with the light glinting off of the skyscrapers in bright flash of light, making the whole city seem to sparkle.

"So, Emily." Sue spoke as they flew. "What are you going to do, now that you have superhuman abilities?"

"I don't know." Emily admitted. "I think I'm going to wait before I really do much of anything with my powers. You know, finish school and all of that fun stuff. Then, who knows? I might be the next superhero to come to power around here."

"Well, whatever you do, we'll help you if you need it." Sue said.

"It's the least we can do, considering you saved all of our necks last night." Reed added.

"Thank you." Emily added, and then leaned back to enjoy the ride, allowing her mind to wander the past events of the last few days.

A thought then suddenly came to her. "Hey," she said, "Whatever happened to Dr. Doom?"

What happened is that he remained in the helicopter that Jacob had trapped him inside, and allowed the helicopter to fly away on it's own power until it finally ran out of fuel and crashed in the middle of nowhere. Doom, naturally, survived, and was heading to his next destination on foot.

"Way to go me, allowing myself to be outsmarted by a kid." he was mumbling to myself. "It was only the most obvious thing in the world, I had to have known it was coming, and I should have prepared to stop him!"

He let out a yell of frustration and zapped a nearby rock in his anger. Then he pressed on, grumbling about his present predicament.

"At least I'm alive." he said, satisfied with that much. "That at least means I can come back and attack my enemies once again. And this time let's see how they fair against me."

He kept walking, realizing just how far he was going to have to go on foot.

"But, I have to get to my destination first." he admitted. "And that's going to take awhile."

He pressed on regardless, knowing that someday, somehow, he would carry out his plans.