(A/N) Needed to republish the chapter due to some missed issues.
Yuri and Joe were going to talk with Simon Stagg about his attacker and who his identity might possibly be.
"You honestly think that someone wants to kill me?" Stagg asked the two of them.
"We're not a hundred percent sure, but...an event you were being honored at was attacked, followed by your head of security being found murdered." Yuri listed the reasons for them to believe why he would be.
"I am a scientist and a philanthropist, Ms. Watanabe. We're not often the targets of assassins." Stagg commented.
"No, the past few years, they're usually the ones causing trouble." Joe replied. "Octavius. Connors. That weird guy who dressed as a dog."
"Spot?" Yuri guessed that's who he was referring to.
"That's the one." Joe agreed and then waved a few files in his hand. "And not to mention, you've got about twenty lawsuits against you."
"It is a sad fact that when you have money, people who don't have it think they can take yours." Stagg replied,
"People like him?" Joe asked and took a photo of a man. "Danton Black? You fired him and now he's suing you."
"Unfortunately, our working relationship wasn't successful, but I can assure you both of one thing. Danton black isn't a killer. He's a clinical researcher, not a criminal mastermind. Now, if I can help you in any way, please let me know." Stagg said as he began to walk through the warehouse, leaving the two cops behind. "I want these people caught as much as you."
"Then here we are!" Someone cried and they saw that the men were back and all raising their guns. Yuri then leaped in and got Stagg out of the line of fire before pulling him to Joe as they hid behind containers.
"Joe, get him out of here! I'll keep them out of your sight." Yuri said as Joe began to lead Stagg out of the building. Once they were out of the line of sight, Yuri reached down and pulled her phone out before dialing Spider-Man.
"How about the Rock?" Cisco asked Ben, trying to come up with the nicknames for the team members.
"That sounds like something used for a wrestler." Ben stated.
Peter laughed at Cisco's attempted nicknames and the only that seems to be working out is the one he came up for Johnny, that being the Human Torch. But that's due to the fact that's what they usually call him when he gets into trouble.
And that's when his phone went off and he saw it was Yuri. "Yuri. What's up?"
"I'm at Stagg Industry warehouse!" Yuri cried and Peter could hear the gunfire in the background.
"I found our shooter, and he's not going down without a fight!" Yuri cried as she raised her head above the barrel and shot one of the men down.
That's when the furthest one removed his mask and revealed to be Danton Black. That's when Yuri watched as he started to shake his head and split off to create a copy of himself.
"What...the...fuck?" Yuri asked in shock at what she saw.
All the Danton's then walked over and began to fire on the detective. Yuri stayed down when she felt something land on the containers and looked up and saw it was Peter when he was followed by Johnny flying in through the ceiling. Then immediately followed up with Sue coming in and protecting them with a forcefield.
"Come on, let's get you out of here." Peter tells Yuri as she knew to leave these powered individuals to the professionals.
As Peter left with Yuri, Johnny and Sue faced the four of them.
"Whoever the hell you are, give yourselves up." Johnny demanded them.
"Sorry. We're not going anywhere." Black promised them.
"Until Simon Stagg is dead." All of them said in unison.
"Yeah, that's not creepy." Johnny said before he sucker punched the nearest Danton who was sent toppling. "Well, that was easy."
That's when the two of them watched as Black split himself again twice more.
"Okay, this might take a while." Sue said as she used a forcefield and pushed several copies away and Johnny punched the original, only for him to split off again as he flew backwards.
Sue wasn't entirely sure what they could do to stop him and was getting ready to go invisible when one of the copies punched the back of her head.
"Sue!" Johnny tried to get to her, but he was immediately punched in the gut by the original and the more he punched, the more copies that came.
Having enough, Johnny got ready to burst into flames when he began to feel light headed again. His powers don't seem to be working, making it easy for these clones to keep on besting him down when the side of the building busted open and Jennifer came down and tossed a heavy barrel of something she couldn't pronounce before tossing it to Black and sent them all flying.
Peter then finally made it back and saw Johnny and Susan down on the ground, bleeding from several places.
"Guys, get the medical room ready, we're coming in fast." Peter said as he picked up Susan and Jennifer grabbed Johnny.
After they made it back to STAR Labs where they were being looked over by Caitlin and getting patched up.
"Sorry." Caitlin whispered as Johnny winced in pain from her patching a mark on his head. "The abrasions are already rapidly healing."
"Yeah, it was like full on Attack of the Clones back there." Johnny muttered to himself, but everyone else heard him.
"You got blood on my suits." Cisco complained as he was looking over their outfits.
"Hey, I'm pretty sure most of that is his." Johnny promised.
"So, it seems you were correct, Mr. Parker." Harrison said as he pulled up the file on their Multiplex. "Danton Black. A bio-geneticist who's specializes in therapeutic cloning."
"Huh?" Ben and Johnny asked, not understanding what he just said.
"Growing new organs to replace failing ones." Tess made it simpler.
"Why didn't you just say that?" Jennifer muttered.
"Apparently Stagg stole his research and then fired him." Tess looked over the file.
"That's pretty ironic." Cisco commented. "The guy who specialized in cloning can now make Xeroxes of himself."
"It is possible that the particle accelerator exploded whist he was experimenting on himself, meaning the dark matter would've done this to him." Harrison explains how it's possible.
"Or it could be just ironic." Peter commented. "I mean, look at everyone here. The powers were both ironic and environmental."
"Hey, how come you didn't just flame on to get out of there?" Jennifer asked Johnny.
"Yeah, there's something about that..." Johnny decided to tell them. "I've been feeling off. Like since the other day."
"What do you mean off?" Susan asked.
"Every time I stopped flaming, I felt light headed." Johnny explained to them.
"We should run a few tests. Maybe there's something wrong with your body that some pest of it can't stand the heat." Caitlin said in worry. "You could be experiencing cardiopulmonary failure or s transient ischemic attack."
Johnny looked over to the smarter people, waiting for a translation of what she just said.
"Mini stroke." Harrison explains.
"Ah." Johnny understood.
"Okay, let's see what's wrong with you." Tess guessed.
"Besides everything." Susan said to him playfully.
"I hate you." Johnny groaned as he rubbed his injury.
"But whilst that was going on, an old friend of theirs in another life was having a chat with his friend, Iris West. And in this life, Barry Allen never had fallen head over heels in love with Iris West. Meaning neither he nor she doesn't do everything possible in order to sabotage the other's relationship with other people. What the hell was that about? Anyways, so he's been supportive of her relationship with the police officer Eddie Thawne."
At Jitters, Barry and Iris were talking about their lives and just catching up.
"So, did you find a topic for your article?" Barry asked as he took a bite out of the food Iris got for them from the kitchen.
"Oh, yeah. I've got one." Iris said as she grew a grin. "Something that actually interests me. No offense on your nerd life."
"None taken." Barry promised her as she got up and walked to her computer on the counter.
"Now, I know this is going to sound crazy...but there have been rumors all over the internet the past few days." Iris said as she pulled up the tabs she saved regarding her topic. "At a building fire, at a bank heist, and even at the Mardon barn, they've been spotted."
"What is it?" Barry asked and Iris pulled up a photo taken from the ground and it shows a streak of fire flying across the sky.
"A man on fire." Iris said and showed another photo, this time it being a blurry image of Jennifer charging into the warehouse with Spider-Man swinging in to help Johnny and Sue. "There are new heroes out there, working alongside Spider-Man."
"You really think so?" Barry wondered.
"I don't know how or when, but they are showing up around the time the particle accelerator exploded, maybe when it did, it created them." Iris gave him her theory.
Back in STAR Labs, Johnny was focusing as hard as he could and then bursts into flames and allowed the others to get the results off him.
"Heart rate, blood pressure, nerve conduction, body temperature are all normal." Tess got off the readings.
"For Johnny." Harrison supposed.
"Brainwave fiction within standard limits." Tess says.
"Wait, honey, look at the hypothalamus." Harrison suddenly noticed.
Tess then looked and groaned at not getting that earlier. "Oh, god of course. It's so obvious."
"Johnny, we think we know why you keep..." Harrison was saying when Johnny fainted. "...fainting."
Back with Caitlin, she was working on the blood from Danton Black when she turned around for a quick second and turned back only to shriek.
Peter heard the cry as he and Sue raced to her labs and saw Danton was standing in the middle of the room.
"Black!" Peter cried as he went in and shielded Caitlin and Cisco.
"Peter, it's okay." Caitlin tried to calm him down.
"It's not okay! Black is here, and he's..." Peter was screaming when he realized that Black was just standing still. "Just standing there." He then turned to face Caitlin. "That's not really him, is it?"
"Nope." Caitlin assured him. "His replica."
Peter then looked closely and snapped his fingers in front of his face. "And how'd you get it?"
"I grew him." Caitlin said with a giant grin, causing everyone to look completely confused.
"Caitlin I don't think that's what people mean by creating a perfect boyfriend. Also, he's a murderer." Jennifer said jokingly.
"Ha-ha." Caitlin said sarcastically before she lead them to her computers to show how she did it. "I isolated a sample of Black's blood from Johnny's suit to see if I could trigger the in vitro cultivation process and learned how Black multiplies. So I exposed to a protege gel, and they began replicating. Into that."
Susan was poking and flicking Black and got nothing while Tess was scanning his head. "Then why isn't he...acting? Like why is he as brain dead?"
"According to this brain scan, involuntary motor functions are active." Tess commented. "I think the clones are just an empty shell, doing what Black, the original, is telling them to do."
"Take down the hive, the followers go down." Ben finally understood what they were saying.
Johnny then began to groan on the med table in the middle of the room. "What happened?"
"Oh, Johnny, you're finally up." Peter said. "You missed everything."
Johnny then looked and shrieked when he saw Black standing there and immediately calmed down when the others weren't reacting. "What's with the human doll?"
"Long story." Jennifer said as Johnny sat up.
"So what's been happening?" Johnny asked.
"It turns out your headaches are from a metabolic failure caused by dehydration." Caitlin confirmed to him.
"What, I'm not drinking enough?" Johnny asked and they gestured to his I.V. bags and revealed to have ten hooked up. "Whoa."
"I did a few calculations, and you need to drink up to an amount of three gallons of water daily." Cisco informed him. "Unless were talking dairy and energy drinks, which are all new sets of equations."
Just then, the clone of Black began to move and freaked Caitlin out when Johnny blasted him with a fireball, scorching him within seconds.
"You didn't grow any more of them, did you?" Jennifer asked Caitlin.
"Nope, only him." Caitlin promised.
"Why'd it start moving?" Ben asked.
"The prime must be on the move; he just heard the summon." Harrison took a guess.
"Stagg's in trouble." Peter took a guess.
The others stood down and Peter saw they weren't planning on helping, thinking they'd make things worse like last time.
"Guys, I know that this isn't your field of expertise. You're usually thinking rather than fighting, and the others are fighting rather than thinking. But I think that's how we can help each other." Peter tried to motivate them. "Okay, like Johnny pointed out: there are five of us. Nine if you count the others without powers. Now I've been doing this alone for years, and I know the strain it puts on you. But when I started, after I fell, I was the only one who could help me get back up. But this time, if you guys fall, I'll gladly be there to help catch you if you need it. And I need your help. Okay, the strongest and dangerous person I went up against was Electro. I can't beat Multiplex alone."
"Ha!" Cisco cheered after hearing Peter use his name.
"But I might be able to fight them if I have someone other than my senses watching my back." Peter continued. "For those who can think, use that to your advantage. You now have powers, use that brain and your brawn. For those who can't think, Johnny..."
"Hey!" Johnny complained.
"listen to the voices in your head or your partners." Peter told them. "What do you guys say? Wanna start working like a team?"
Everyone looked around at one another and it seemed that all of them had the same idea.
"Let's do this." Johnny said as smoke began to leave his body.
At Stagg Industry, the entire security team was already taken down by Black and his clones as they reached Stagg.
"Hello, Danton." Stagg greeted them.
"Goodbye, Simon." Danton said as he raised his gun, just as soon as he fired, Jennifer crashed through the ceiling and took the bullets head on.
"Huh. I'm bulletproof." Jennifer said in shock, no idea she was able to do that and let out a laugh. "You're dead." She then punched him, sending him flying and revealing to be a duplicate.
One was getting ready to shoot Jennifer from afar, but he was immediately punched in the face by an invisible force and then thrown off the balcony by a forcefield that sent him falling.
Peter then leaped down, crossed his arms before he webbed two clones before slamming them into one another and turning to Stagg.
"Run!" Peter demanded as he and the team began to work on finding the original and Stagg did just that. "Listen, Danton, we know that Stagg stole your research. But that doesn't give you the right to murder him."
Peter then sensed that one was behind him and getting ready to shoot him when Johnny came in and blasted a fireball onto the gun, scorching it and his hands, letting out a scream of pain.
Johnny then went and punched him in the face, taking him down, but still wasn't the original.
"You think this is about my job." One of them said as he went up to the visible Susan, which she retaliated with creating a forcefield the second he opened fire and then pushed the forcefield at him that knocked him out.
"This is about Elizabeth." Another said nearby Peter who took him down with a taser web.
"She was my wife!" Another nearby Jennifer said as she picked him up by the foot and tossed him across the building.
"She had a degenerative coronary disease." Black kept explaining as he was searching for the four individuals. "She'd been on the transplant list for years, but...time was running out. So if I couldn't get her a new heart-"
He was interrupted by the other duplicate coming flying at him and involuntary tackling him.
"You we're gonna grow her a new one?" Susan asked as she was back to being invisible and used her forcefield to wrap it around her fist and punched them in the face with it.
"I was so close!" One of them said, heading towards Stagg's office. "Until Stagg stole my research, just so that he could real the glory. And I got to bury my best friend. Now...I'm alone."
The team had to stop and began to actually feel sorry for Stagg as they all understood what it felt like to be alone. But none of them have taken it out on other people.
Johnny then sent a fireball at him, taking down the last of the clones. And that's when they finally found the prime Black as he sent hundreds of duplicates their way.
Jennifer then got an idea as she summoned all of her energy and sent out a thunderous clap that shattered the glass and took down numbers of them in seconds.
But Black just created more and more versions of himself and sent them their way when a portion of the building came crashing down and Ben revealed himself.
"Hello." Ben greeted as he then punched the original and sent him toppling down.
The team then watched as all of the clones of him dropped down and slowly began to decompose.
"So, wait, did we do it?" Johnny asked, surprised at himself.
"Yeah, we did it." Peter confirmed with a smile and scratched the ripped part of his suit. "Man, I need to fix this thing."
"Ooh, can I help? Maybe give you a fresh new look?" Cisco asked him over the comms.
"What's wrong with my red and blue?" Peter asked him.
"Nothing. It's just...outdated." Cisco explained to him.
Peter sighed and knew he wasn't gonna drop it. "We'll tall when I get back. Send a tip to Yuri. Tell them we're gonna be dropping by and bringing a guest."
The next hour later, they were watching on the news that Danton was arrested and is now currently on his way to the RAFT, a super max prison that was built to hold super powered individuals like the Sinister Six.
"Authorities are able to confirm that it was former employee Danton Black who was responsible for the robbery on the Stagg award ceremony, and the attempt on his life."
"I'd say this was a day's worth of a job well done, team." Harrison congratulated everyone.
"And it looks like the Fantastic Five have saved the day again." Cisco said, confusing all of them as they turned to face him with confused faces. "You know, you are a group of five, so I thought, 'what do we call them when they're together?' Hey, Fantastic Five!'"
"It is pretty catchy." Johnny agreed.
"Thank you, Human Torch." Cisco replied and looked to Susan. "What do you think, Invisible Girl?"
"I'm sorry, what?" Susan asked, confused at what she was just called.
"Invisible Girl. Finally got you a good name." Cisco explained to her.
"Kinda on the nose, don't ya think?" Peter asked him.
"You know, you might be right, Spider-Man." Cisco said sarcastically as he thought about it before giving Peter a stink eye.
"Okay, point taken." Peter supposed.
"Isn't that right, the Thing and She-Hulk?" Cisco asked the last two who looked back at him.
"She-Hulk?" Jennifer asked and thought about it. "I like it."
"Why am I just the Thing?" Ben asked him.
"Meh, you are just that. A thing. Long before the accident." Johnny stated jokingly, getting Ben mad and ready to fight him.
"Hey, we all know that you could take him." Peter said to calm Ben down and he decided beating Johnny up wasn't worth it.
"And that's how these five individuals were able to learn how to use their differences to their advantages in order to save a life. Both lives. As in the original timeline, Danton Black took his own life, rather than be taken to prison. But that doesn't mean that this is the end of the story."
Iris was back at work and her phone went off and she sees a news alert about the Living Fire, Ghost Girl, Rock Man, and Green Girl.
"They still have many loose threads to tie up."
Reed was standing in the middle of his office space and stretched his arms out to incredible lengths and saw that the suit he had developed was stretching alongside it.
But then he looked at the mark that Sue left and after the accelerator exploded, it began to form into a scar. That was something he needed to find how to cover up. And not to mention the fact his head is starting to grow with his intelligence.
"And many other threats they have yet to know about."
Stagg was back in his office and was talking to some government officials about what happened.
"So, a man who had the ability to multiply himself expeditiously was taken down by, and I quote: 'a man who has the powers of fire, a woman with super strength, a ghost girl, and a man made out of rocks along Spider-Man." The man asked Stagg.
"Yes, that's the basics of what happened." Stagg confirmed.
"Thank you for your cooperation, sir." He said before pulling a gun out and then shooting him in the head. Making a quick call, he turned away from the scene. "I need a clean-up at Stagg Industries. We might have something in this city." He then listened to the response on the other side. "No, I don't think it's worth bringing her out for this one. Yet. But keep that Psycho-Man out of this. We have a hard enough time controlling him as it is." He then heard the reply and sighed. "Yeah, Hail HYDRA."
"Now they have to deal with new villains. Some that were never around in the original timeline. Some enemies that were never brought to light. And some victims that were never rescued."
In a cell, a woman with long flowing dark hair was bouncing a ball off the walls to her cell and as soon as it was about to hit the back of her head, she immediately caught it using her reflexes.
"Jessica Drew. HYDRA's Spider-Agent."
"And then there were the people who were always there, but never paid a visit...until now."
In the darkness of Central City, there wasn't a person in sight. That is...until the gigantic dog with an antenna sticking out of his head appeared alongside a woman with long slowing red hair and another with short cut orange hair with a black stripe through it.
"That murderous, ungrateful, son of a bitch!" The orange haired girl cried in anger as she stormed in circles.
"Calm down, Crystal." The redhead tells the now named girl Crystal.
"Calm down?!" Crystal asked. "Medusa, Maximus murdered Black Bolt!"
"I know." Medusa assured her. "But we can't lose our heads."
"We're going to if they catch us! He framed us!" Crystal reminded her sister.
"I was there. I know." Medusa promised. "But we can't be drawing attention like this, we need a place to lay low."
Crystal then calmed down and understood what her sister was saying. "Okay. What's our next move?"
Felicity Jones as Jessica Drew
Rebecca Ferguson as Medusa
Isabelle Cornish as Crystal