Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean. It was a nice beach, a warm, balmy, tropical sunset, and the sun was about to set and call it a day. The sky was a nice, pastel red to yellow gradient, the colors the way they are thanks to Raleigh scattering, some white, streaky, and puffy clouds here and there. Birds squawked, palm trees swayed, and the wind blew a light breeze. It was your average tropical green and brown forest with sandy yellow beaches.

All seemed serene, peaceful. Light breezes everywhere, birds flew, the oceans ambient. Then came something that disturbed all that. Something falling out of the sky. A meteor?

It sure looked like one. It was a ship, and it came in hurtling in hot, in bright oranges, yellows, and reds, a trail of puffy and cloudy gray smoke behind it. Crackles of blue appeared here and there. At first, it looked like a small streak, like a normal meteor, but to anyone standing on the island, it slowly but surely got bigger and brighter. Soon, it looked like a meteor about to bring impending doom, roaring as it hurtled down.

Four small pods were ejected from the ship and flew alongside it for a brief while, before separating ways, landing safely in different places on the island. The ship crashed in a violent explosion of blue upon blue energy and dust and ash, knocking down trees due to the force of the impact.

No one heard it, however. Smoke and ash dissipated, leaving behind the ship. The hull was damaged, not a single speck of damage on the hull, nor on the insides. The engines, however, were scrambled. You couldn't expect it to just fly to the next star system now, nor could it fly away.


Jonathan Storm woke up. The hatch opened. He pulled himself out of his pod, his head still reeling from the crash. Ugh, he groaned, reorienting himself in this new location he was in. He noticed he was on some sort of beach. The sun was setting, he could see the birds fly and squawk, he could hear the crashing of the waves as they overlapped one another. He looked around, looking for any signs of his teammates.

"Oh, where am I?" he asked himself as he got up, clutching his head with his right hand. There was no smoke anywhere, no sign of any life other than him.

"Reed? Ben? Sue? Anyone?"

"Looks like there's no one here."

He looked around, looking for rocks and wood to ignite a fire. He quickly gathered the wood necessary, a lot of trees were knocked down by the impact of the spaceship. He then proceeded to gather the rocks needed. After finding two perfectly shaped rocks, he rubbed them against each other to generate fire. He struck them together multiple times to no avail. He wasn't discouraged. Training told him that it would take more than just one strike to start a fire. Determined, he struck the rocks together multiple times.

After a few minutes of striking, a small spark of flame lept from his finger, striking the wood, setting up a fire. Johnny punched the air, before getting up to find more wood. It would be a lot more to do so. He hauled many pieces of wood towards the fire. As he carried a large piece of wood, it suddenly burst into flames. He was confused, what was going on?. His heart and lungs started to feel painful, like they were burning. Johnny clutched his chest, looking for a tree to support himself on.

He slowly walked to the tree, where he placed his hand on it, where it suddenly burst into flame. Realizing he caused this, he looked at his hand. He took a deep breath as his chest burned. Exhaling with his mouth, to his surprise, he let out a large stream of flame, knocking him down on his back.

He struggled to control his breathing. His lungs felt like they were burning, they were on fire. The heat wouldn't go away, and soon his entire chest felt like it was burning. The heat spread from his chest to his stomach, paining him greatly. Soon, it spread to his head, then to his shoulders, then arms, then his legs, then his feet. His chest was glowing a bright red, his mouth glowing yellow. He couldn't take it anymore, and as he struggled to take one breath…

"HAAAAAAA!" Jonathan screamed, orange flames being emitted from his body, his orifices glowing a bright yellow as his body glowed a dark red, evaporating some of the nearby water on the shore.

He struggled to get up, laying back down, his arms convulsing profusely. He made some progress, lifting his head and back up, until…

"HAAAAAAA!"

Another breath of fire, knocking him back, hitting his head.

"AAAAAAH!"

More flames were emitted in a fiery blast. Johnny couldn't move - his body convulsed and set aflame. The sand below him had suddenly turned into glass, no water in near sight.

AAAAAH! Another convulsion. Johnny continued to scream as his body set aflame and convulsed.

I-I'm on fire, I'm on fire! he thought to himself. He was in disbelief at everything. At one moment, he found that we are not alone in the universe, then he was the first to step foot in the Outer Solar System, then he found alien life, again, and then got sucked into a wormhole and it turns out all those theories his sister's boyfriend rambled about were true, and now he set on fire.

He was unable to speak as his body set aflame again, struggling to breathe against the immense chest pain, before letting out flames from his eyes and mouth, his hair burning a bright yellow.

He struggled to get up, his insides burning in every sense of the word. As he did, the flame stopped. He walked slowly, still in pain. He trudged, looking for his crewmates, when his body suddenly set up in flames again, floating higher and higher into the sky, releasing another burst of flames.

Visibly panicked, he tried calming himself down, to which he did, and for a brief moment stopped burning. He relaxed before his skin turned dark red and set aflame, levitating in the air while on fire, before suddenly shooting forward like a rocket.

He shot across the beach, hovering over the ocean. He steered himself upwards, and he started flying up. He shot up into the sky, and suddenly he could see the beach and trees shrinking, getting smaller and smaller.

He passed a cloud before reorienting himself downward, where he went shooting towards the seas. Managing to steer away in time, he hovered above the seas, leaving behind a stream of steam in his wake. He wondered how to stop, a wave getting in his way. He tried to dodge, but it sent him crashing into the sea. He swam towards the shore when he felt someone grab his right hand.


Reed Richards woke up, underneath a canopy of trees, green and brown leaves everywhere. He could barely see the rays of the sun passing through, illuminating them in an ambient way. Next to him was his escape pod, smoking coming out of it, the hatch popped off.

He looked around - his vision was blurry, but he could barely make out his glasses, even if they were rimless. He reached out for them, but he could not reach them. He moved his hand, trying to reach them, but they were too far apart.

He struggled to stretch his arm out. He struggled, his arm hurt. He looked around. He felt pain in his arm as he reached it out. Suddenly, he felt his arms stretch out. He grabbed his glasses, and retracted them. He grabbed them and put them on his face.

Suddenly, his vision became clear again. He could see the green and brown canopy of leaves, the setting sun's rays shining right through. He stood up, dusting off the dirt on his spacesuit. He looked around, nothing but trees and canopies for what seemed to be miles.

Preparing to walk towards the ship, his knees started to feel like they were spaghetti. They wobbled, and soon the wobbling spread to his stomach, his chest, his arms, and then his head. He wobbled for a while, flowing like water. He tried to stay stiff, but soon his legs, and eventually, his whole body, gave into the weight and collapsed into a blob of liquid. The pool of liquid moved around on the ground, moving around and stretching up, trying to get back into its original form.

For a brief while, Reed remained in this state. Then suddenly, he rose up, stretching upwards and reverting into his normal form. He took a deep breath, sighing heavily, glad this was over, or so he thought.

Once again, he found himself morphing again, becoming shorter and shorter, collapsing in on himself and forming a sphere. He tried to move and bounce around in this shape, but he wouldn't, he just stretched again and again as a sphere.

He then morphed again, this time into the shape of a cube. He could barely move, just jump up ever so slightly, in hopes he could turn around. Which he did, where after a large amount of effort, he turned around, a different side facing down. He morphed again, into a trigonal pyramid, and once again he struggled to move. He then changed into a square pyramid, and then other solids.

After morphing from one solid to another, he formed back into his regular old human form. Then his cranium expanded. It inflated, expanding into something bigger, before returning to its normal size.

His fingers started to ooze out like a liquid, stretching and elongating like spaghetti. His fingers stretched and stretched until they reached the ground, and they continued to stretch and sprawl on the ground, extending endlessly. Reed found that he couldn't retract them, no matter how hard he could try. He wasn't in control of his body at the moment. He grunted, trying to control his new elastic body and retract his fingers back into normal shape.

"AAAAAAHHH!" he heard somebody scream, it was Johnny. He noticed smoke up ahead, the trees were finally clearing up. He could see the beach up ahead, and the glistening waters. He saw a fireball flying around in the sky. He figured it was the boy.

He watched as the boy struggled to fly like a human rocket in the skies before crashing down, a screen of evaporated water appearing on the surface, quickly dissipating.

He walked towards the beach, struggling to gain control over his new body, when suddenly, he felt his fingers retract. He continued to retract his fingers until they were of normal size. He tried to reach out to the boy, who started swimming towards the shore. He reached out his left arm, which stretched under his command until it became long enough such that the boy can grab onto it.

He felt him grasp his arm, and he retracted it to pull him out of the water. The boy looked at his clothes, wondering how they did not set on fire. He looked up at the outstretched arm, alarming him.

"My clothes. How did they-WHOA!"

"Reed?! I-is that you?"

"It's me, Johnny," Reed said matter of factly.

"What-what happened to you?!"

"I gained the ability to stretch my limbs at will."

"No, no, I mean, what happened to US?! You, me, we're capable of doing weird stuff."

"We, along with the ship, were mutated by the various forms of matter and energies from the wormhole. Exotic matter, dark matter, high intensity dark energy, frequently asymmetric dark energy, cosmic strings, vortons."

"Wait, I thought those were theoretical."

"How theoretical are our powers?" Reed stretched his left hand's fingers and contracted them to prove a point.

"Makes sense."

"Dark energy." he kept shifting his eyes from Johnny to another location and back.

"I now understand it all, the nature of dark energy. Dark energy. The fifth fundamental force of the universe. It-it's the reason why we've become like this. Must investigate further."

"Dark energy?"

"Dark energy, yes. But, but I don't understand how it affected us. Not yet. I'm gonna have to figure this out." Reed did not turn his eyes to Johnny as he said that.

"So what about our powers?"

"I don't know," replied Reed. "All I know is they had something to do with the wormhole. I don't know if you can even call them powers."

"I just hope Sue and Ben are alright."


Sue Storm found herself laying down sideways. Pushing herself up, she found that she was in the middle of the forest. She looked around, leaves, canopies, and trees of green, brown, red, orange, and yellow. The sun's rays shone through.

She clutched her head, shaking it. Groaning, she once again looked at her surroundings. Nope, no one around. No Ben, no Reed, no Johnny. She was alone for miles, just her and her escape pod.

"AAAAH!" It was the voice of her brother. Upon hearing that, she quickly dashed in the source of the sound. As she ran, she felt strange, like something was passing through her, that the light of the sun just passed through her. Unbeknownst to her, her eyebrows suddenly disappeared.

As she kept running, her eyes disappeared, then reappeared. She felt her eyes feel funny, like something weird was going on. After all, if light didn't pass through her eyes, she wouldn't be able to see anything.

Then, the side of her head disappeared. First, the skin, then her muscles, leaving only the cranium. But soon, even that disappeared, leaving only a part of the brain to be seen. Soon, the rest of her head's skin, then muscles disappeared, leaving only her eyes and skull. But even her eyes disappeared, then reappeared, along with the rest of her head. She was back to normal, for now. For a brief while, her mind entertained the peculiar thought of something that was happening to her. Maybe it was because she got exposed to the wormhole.

Oblivious to what was going on as she continued to run in hopes of finding her brother and the rest, she didn't notice that her hair disappeared from her head. And not too long after, her nose, and other parts of her face, until only her skull and eyes could be seen on her head, and not too long after, only her skull.

As she ran, her face reappeared for a brief while, before her skin disappeared, followed by her muscles, then her skeleton, revealing all her internal organs. Soon, she disappeared entirely, being nothing but what appeared to be thin air. For a while, various parts of her body faded in and out of visibility as she ran to the source.

She finally made it to the shore, the sun's warm rays greeting her eyes. She noticed two figures struggling near the water.

"Reed! Johnny! Thank goodness!"

"Huh? Who was that?"

"Very funny, Johnny."

"I do not see anyone." The two did not notice her and were looking around trying to find who said that.

"What?" she asked. She looked at her hands, noticing they were missing.

"I-I can't see myself!" she said, panicked, before taking a second to compose herself. She looked at her body, and noticed she could see nothing but the ground, she could not see anything that was of her body. She looked at her hands, nothing. She looked at her arms, nothing. She looked at her legs, nothing. They were all invisible.

As Reed and Johnny looked for the source of the sayings, the former bumped into Sue.

"Whoa!" she said, startled.

"Sue?" asked Reed.

"Reed? Johnny? Oh, thank goodness you're alright," she sighed.

"Wait, is it really you, Sue, because I cannot see you, it's like you're a ghost," said Johnny.

"Johnny, this isn't time for fun and games," she said.

"No, I mean, I can't see you, sis. Literally."

"I'm… invisible?" she asked herself. She then slowly reappeared, until she was fully visible.

"You've-you've gotten affected too," said Johnny.

"By what?"

"The wormhole," replied Reed. "You can turn invisible, Johnny can turn himself into a plasma state, and I have the ability to stretch my limbs at will."

"How?"

"I don't-" Reed was suddenly cut off.

"YER A DEAD MAN, RICHARDS!"


Ben Grimm clutched his head, pulling his hand away from it. He shook his head. He found himself in a forest, a canopy of red, green, yellow, brown, and orange leaves, the sun's rays entering his eyes. He looked at the escape pod to his left - broken, smoke coming out, the hatch cracked. He looked at his surroundings, wherever he was. His first concern was to find the rest of his crew, even if that meant Reed.

Reed, for a guy who is said to be the smartest on the planet, had to be some idiot to lead us into a wormhole. Gee Louise, my head hurts, he thought to himself, clutching his head.

He looked around his view, it was all trees and leaves and rays. He dusted the dirt off his suit and made his way to wherever Reed was. He'll pay for this, he thought. For quite some while, his surroundings were nothing but what he awoke to, and as he walked angrily, all he thought of was getting revenge on Reed.

Soon, his skin felt itchy. At first, it was just his hands, nothing but a simple scratch would take care of it. Then, his arms felt itchy. A few simple scratches would do the track. But then, his stomach and chest felt itchy. More scratches would do it. But then, his backside would become itchy, and he had no backscratcher to satisfy it. The trees wouldn't do, they'd collapse under his weight, not to mention they were weakened by the strength of the ship's crash.

Soon, the itch spread over his body. He noticed that his skin felt like a rock - abrasive, rough, hard. The itching stopped, but he'd have to deal with this new skin. He hoped it was temporary. But soon, he felt heavy. His chest felt heavy. His heart and lungs felt heavy. He collapsed onto the ground, clutching his chest, his arm raised out, pressing onto the ground for support.

His muscles became heavy, starting with his chest. Then it spread to the arms, then to his legs, then to his head, then to his back, and that is when he collapsed onto the ground. He could barely move - too heavy, but he nonetheless struggled to get up. But sooner or later, his body gave in. The pain was too bearable. He had collapsed onto his hand, and he noticed it turned into a shade of orange. It soon felt harder and harder, like it was becoming more like a rock. He could barely notice it.

His body then felt internal pain, like something was stabbing from the inside out, like his insides wanted to spill out. His insides felt heavier and heavier, like they were becoming rock, just like his hand. It started at his very core, and it spread out slowly, all the while he was grunting and screaming in agony. But no one could hear him.

He woke up again and looked at his hands. They were like orange rock. He looked at his suit, it was torn, save for his lower half. His upper half was exposed, also orange rock. He looked at his chest, orange rock. Orange rock again were his arms. He dashed through the forest, panting, knocking over trees like a bowling ball. Arriving at the shore, he made his way to the water to look at his reflection. His head was almond-shaped, his eyebrows and entire face like orange rock, the only thing that stayed consistent between his new form and Ben Grimm being his blue eyes.

He gasped, looking at his entire reflection. He looked at his hands again, panting heavily. He wasn't Ben Grimm, he wasn't human, he was…

"I'm some sort of Thing!" he yelled. "Richards… he'll pay."

He looked to his right, he could barely make out three people. Two of them were blonde and were close to each other, the third one brown haired and was somewhat further from them. Without hesitation, he charged at the brown haired guy, yelling, "YER A DEAD MAN, RICHARDS!"

He threw a punch towards the bespectacled man, who quickly dodged his attack by stretching his torso to the left. The orange brute threw another attack at the man with a left hook, who quickly dodged to the left. Right hook, he dodged to the right. Reed stretched behind Ben, trying to restrain him.

"DO YOU REALLY THINK I WANTED THIS TO HAPPEN? NO!" Reed brought himself closer to Ben, trying to get him to get the message. Ben shook him off, about to stomp on his feet before Reed curled up into a ball and rolled backward.

"WELL, YE JUST HAD TA BRING US TO THE WORMHOLE, DIDJA?" Ben retorted/

"I HAD NO IDEA THAT THIS WAS GONNA HAPPEN!" Reed replied, dodging another attack, wrapping himself around his friend.

"WELL, YE JUST HAD TO INVESTIGATE SUMTHIN THEORETICAL." Ben turned his head towards Reed, yelling at him. Ben grabbed him with his hand and threw him off. Reed clutched his fists, he wasn't going to attack him. Just calm him down, so he stretched upwards and widened his torso. Ben charged at him, before…

"ENOUGH!" yelled Sue, as the two of them were separated by something invisible, yet hard.

"Whoa, Sue, did you do that?" asked her brother.

"I, I don't know," she replied, "but anyways, we gotta figure a way off the island. Like it or not, we got these powers, and we're gonna have to use them someday in some way. Don't know when, don't know where, but I will not have us fight on the island when we can figure ourselves a way back to Baxter and figure out what on Earth's going on with us."

"Your call, wise guy," Ben said to Reed. "What are we gonna do with these powers anyway?"

"Well, the universe is a lot more fantastic than any of us could ever imagine. We're living proof of it. Right now, the world doesn't know that we crashed, or that we found aliens and solved some of the universe's greatest mysteries, or about the fact we have powers now. Sooner or later, it's gonna find out, and it's gonna be an even bigger Copernican Revolution than the original. Aliens, dark energy, physics beyond our wildest imagination, us. We gotta transition the world into knowing all this, help it know that it's far stranger than anything we thought of. We're essentially heralding the dawn of a new era, a paradigm shift, and we gotta use our powers to lead the world into something better. Something great. Something fantastic."

"Who's with me?" Reed put his hand out.

"I am," said Johnny, putting his hand on top of his.

"As am I," said Sue, putting in her hand.

"Ah, screw it, I'm in too," said Ben, hesitantly, putting his on top, completing the handstack. It dissolved after a few seconds.

"How are we gonna get off the island? The ship still intact?" asked Johnny, pressing a button on his spacesuit, which would locate where exactly the ship was.

"Huh, good thing it's working." The rest of the three followed Johnny's lead and departed the shore, trekking through a forest of trees for what seemed like an eternity to them. At last, they arrived at the ship. The Fantastic was still intact, but a quick scan of the ship revealed the engines were damaged. Primary power was dead. Secondary power, however, was on. Normally, the engines would have worked even with second power but unfortunately, they were damaged.

The four boarded this ship, looking for a way to get themselves back to society. Reed walked over to the cockpit and started inputting commands.

"Just called the part of the ship that we left back on Callisto, which contained the first data cube, to return to Earth. It should be here within an hour or so. Our engines are dead, we won't be able to repair them that fast, and as of now, it's the only one that's got a working engine."

"What now?" asked Johnny.

"We wait," replied Reed.

"For what? Another wormhole?" asked Ben.

"Ben," said Sue, sternly. Ben sighed angrily, huffing out of the somehow large enough hatch and onto the beach, where he kicked up a pile of sand, constantly kicking it, before he proceeded to walk to the water and kick it as well, watching as the waves splashed. With nothing better to do, the other three occupants of the ship walked out as well and reflected on the series of unfortunate events that had befallen them that day. They walked towards different areas of the beach.

Ben sat on top of a rock. He sighed, slouching, arms dropping down. It broke under his immense weight. He sighed, looking for another rock to sit on, sulking as he tried to find another. After a few moments of looking, he sat on the rock, a much bigger one this time, but once again, it broke. He groaned in anger, getting up and punching down a tree. He grabbed another one, ripping it off by its trunk, swinging it to bash down the other trees that were next to it, destroying it. He grabbed another tree and was about to toss it into the sky, not before he quickly realized that he could hurt anyone that was on the island. He just slammed it onto the sand, kicking up a cloud that quickly dissipated.

Johnny walked around, still trying to process the events of the day. He looked at the setting Sun, watching as the skies grew redder and darker. He decided to look at his hands, setting them ablaze in a fiery yellow color. He watched it as it slowly became more orange and slightly cooler. He relaxed the flames, watching them turn red and cooler. He tried to set his whole body ablaze. He clenched his fists, held them close to his chest, and quickly straightened them, moving them to the side of his thighs. He succeeded, levitating above the ground for a brief while before the fires died out. He landed on the sand with a thump, as he chuckled incredulously before it faded away, looking at his hands once again.

Sue looked at her hands, holding them up as she looked at them with curiosity. They suddenly faded, and she was faced with the glare of the setting Sun, at which she covered her eyes with her arms, as her hands regained their visibility. She looked at them again, before noticing that they, along with the rest of her body, faded away into thin air. She looked down onto the sand, no shadow. She turned around, also no shadow. She looked at her hands again, yup, they were thin air. Trying to will herself back into invisibility, it was futile. She sighed, looking at the sunset, kicking up a couple sand into the air. Without noticing, she suddenly reappeared, suddenly feeling that she had returned to visibility.

Reed sat on a log, sullenly. He looked down at the sand and at the setting Sun. His face and arms drooped, dripping down like melted ice cream, a rubbery dripping sound being made by his body. He cupped his chin, elbows on his thighs, wondering and contemplating where everything went wrong. Everything wasn't supposed to go wrong. This was supposed to be the day where proved his theories right.

He did prove his theories. He didn't have to look into that wormhole. Why was he too curious? Why? Why? As he contemplated this and the events of the day, his thoughts eventually went blank. Then, he froze. He just sat down there, looking at the sunset and shore. He didn't notice his legs and feet droop as well, that he was like a human oobleck.

For about an hour, the birds flew by, squawking. The water ebbed and flowed, waves crashed, the wind lightly breezed, the sky darkened and reddened. After an hour, this serenity was once again disrupted. Something had entered the atmosphere, burning up due to the friction. It hurtled in hot, like the ship that came crashing over an hour prior. It was a spacecraft. However, it could control its direction, and it landed safety and neatly near the ship, becoming a part of it.

Upon noticing this, four quickly went to work, entering the ship, grabbing tools and equipment, dismantling the part that rejoined the ship. They took out the engines and power generators and all that was needed for flight from the part, took out the defunct and busted parts from the main ship's engines, and placed the working parts from the smaller spacecraft into the larger ship. Soon, they heard the sounds of engines revving, electronic whirring, power turning back on, and systems online once again.

Ben walked towards the pilot's seat, shoving Reed out of the way, who easily rebounded.

He grabbed the steering apparatus, then the ship was on its way. The ship ran on auxiliary power, and since the main engines were damaged greatly. The ship could barely fly. However, it could still move on water. It set off for the seas, no one talking to each other as it headed back to their home base, the Baxter Building.

However, that would soon be interrupted by a beeping sound.

Incoming Message: Alyssa Moy

Ben quickly answered it. Johnny noticed as Sue held a look of insecurity on her face, turning her head away.

"Hello?"

"Reed, can you read me?"

"Yeah, Alyssa I can."

"Okay, good. ANONG GINAWA MO, REED ?" Moy yelled. (What did you do, Reed?)

"Of all the things I had to put up with with you, this is perhaps the stupidest and most dangerous thing I've heard of."

" ANONG INIISIP MO NOON? " (What were you thinking, then?)

"Alyssa, I-" Moy sighed.

"Look, just head to the Baxter Building. I can get you guys into it without anyone noticing, not the people around it, not the people in the building, no one. Just go there, alright?"

"What have you done? You could have observed the wormhole at a distance. Analyzed what it was even without having a probe. Of course the data would have been safe.

But now, look what happened? You became the first four astronauts who went through a wormhole and now this. Now you have superpowers, or new abilities, or whatever you wanna call them.

Just get there, alright? I'll take it from there.

Nakakainis ka talaga, minsan …" (You can be really annoying, sometimes…)

The hologram switched off. Reed sighed. He just looked ahead, quietly. The ship flew above the ambient waters, the ambience occasionally disrupted by the one whale or dolphin surfacing up in a giant arc, or smaller fish that jumped above the waters. Up above, birds squawked. The four stayed silent, not talking to each other as Ben stayed focused on what was up ahead. He pressed a button and the ship turned invisible to light.

The ship neared the shore, and civilization. Ben pulled the ship upwards, high above any skyscraper or building, barely touching the clouds, but still below any airplanes. As they flew, no airplanes crossed their path, whether it be ascent or descent. Finally, as the skies darkened, they arrived at the Baxter Building, a 44-floor skyscraper building with a rrectangular building next to it, a transparent dome sticking out of it, both surrounded by grass and trees. They landed on the large yellow circle with an 'H' in the middle, where a brown skinned girl with dark teal hair tied into a ponytail, dark eyes, and rectangular glasses waited, arms crossed.

The ship turned on its visibility, and out of the ship stepped the four. Sue and Johnny stepped out normally, while Reed walked out with stretched out limbs, causing Alyssa to cover her mouth, but Ben caused her eyes to widen. She walked over to her ex-boyfriend.

"Oh gosh, how?!" she asked.

"It was the wormhole," Reed sighed. "Yeah I know, I was just shocked," said Alyssa, clutching her face.

"Look, come with me quickly. I can get you guys back into the building without anyone noticing. We don't have much time! Hurry!"

Alyssa raced towards the elevator, the four astronauts following suite. The elevator door opened, and she, Reed, Sue, and Johnny fit in easily. It took quite some time for Ben to fit in, he took all the space, after all, he was a big orange rock-like creature. Struggling to budge, she pressed the button 42 on the elevator. The elevator went down, creaking as it did so.

They went into one of the elevators, going up to the top four floors of the building. A brief ting, the hatch opened, and they saw a middle aged man with blonde hair, balding, a white lab coat, green buttoned up shirt with a black necktie, with a stern look, his arms crossed.

Seeing Sue and Johnny, his expression quickly became one of joy, quickly hugging them. He looked at the orange golem in front of him. He covered his mouth with both of his hands. Suddenly he felt a surge of heat. He turned to the source of it: his son, whose arm was on fire. His daughter suddenly disappeared, then reappeared.

He turned to Reed with an angry and disappointed look on his face, his arms crossed, shaking his head.

Finally, after a heavy gravity in the air, he spoke.

"Reed, I am proud of you. I was your first doctoral advisor back when you studied at MIT. I watched a sixteen year old prodigy predict and prove everything about the Jovian system that hadn't been known then without the need of manned missions, and the nigh irrefutable speculation and predictions of aliens there.

I've seen you grow from a boy to a man. You've become a brilliant scientist, one of the greatest ones, in the pantheon of Feynman, Sagan, Tyson, Hawking. You've proven the existence of FTL and got the backing of NASA, the Baxter Foundation, and all those other groups in building the first FTL rocket.

And now, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? You've taken your best friend, my children, and yourself into a wormhole, something so theoretical that not even you could know it was real. And now, you're this.

Reed? Why?"

Franklin shook his head, arms crossed, in disappointment. Reed just stood there, not emoting, but a hint of self-disappointment was there. Franklin went downstairs. The four waited in the 42nd floor, once again, not knowing what to do. Finally, after a long while, Franklin went up with multiple men carrying supplies and various materials.

The four watched as Franklin and the men went into each of the four's bedrooms, presumably to accommodate their new changes. As they waited, Sue went up to the kitchen to cook some food for them. Reed and Johnny offered to help, but Sue insisted she do it on her own.

When she was finished, Ben struggled to eat his food. His large hands barely allowed him to pick up a spoon or fork, so he just grabbed the plate and a fork, pushing the food into his mouth. Reed struggled to pick his spoon and fork as his hands and arms often flopped every time he tried to eat them. It took long for him to put food in his mouth. Johnny are regularly, never mind his hands heatin up the spoon and fork and making his food hotter than they should, not to mention the ice cream becoming soup. Sue was the only one who ate normally, minus the invisibility.

After a long four went into their rooms. Johnny's room had been coated in flameproof substances developed by the Baxter Foundation, not to mention it was chilled less than the freezing point, yet he didn't feel any cold. He walked towards and lay down on his hot rod red racecar bed, looking up at the ceiling for a while, his hands underneath his neck. He sat up. He set his hands on fire, hoping to learn to control them.

He tried generating a ball of flame in the middle of his hand. With his other hand, he tried to control it, keeping it stable as the flame burned. It suddenly died out, and he got up, looking at one of his old graphic novels and picking it up. It said, "The Human Torch!" in dark red. It showed a picture of a flying, burning man in orange flames. His eyes widened as he suddenly began getting ideas.

Ben Grimm's room was reinforced. Everything was strengthened, reinforced, built with the strongest materials they knew of. His bed was still the same, but there were lots of harnesses and supports built around it. He walked over to his desk, a few books scattered around. He looked at a picture frame of him and Reed when they were twelve. Ben, wearing a gray shirt and denim, had his arms wrapped around Reed, wearing a blue button-up shirt, a dark blue vest, and khakis. Reed was wearing a blue ribbon and holding a rocket in his hand. Both were smiling happily at the camera.

He briefly glared at it and knocked it down with only one figure, the glass shattering. He sat on his bed, which could be felt across the 42nd floor, and covered his eyes with both hands.

Reed and Sue's room did not need any kind of reinforcement or adjustments. They did not need to have any kind since they were relatively unaffected, minus Reed becoming a sort of oobleck. The two of them lay down on their bed, an RX-78 Gundam scale model greeting Sue's gaze. She turned to the right, looking away from him, staring at the window.

Reed, however, was sitting up, looking ahead at the wall. He looked at the Gundam in front of hiim. He turned to Sue and stretched his arm toward her. She refused, just looking away. He retracted his arm and looked up at the ceiling, not saying anything.

World's greatest astrophysicist…

The leading expert in almost anything and everything space…

It's YOUR field, Reed! You should have known better.

All this knowledge of the universe, now at your fingertips, for that?!

We already discovered aliens, why didn't we just go home?! LOOK around you, look what it's cost you and your friends. It's all your fault!

Reed recalled the events of earlier. He had done it, he had built the world's first FTL ship. He remembered stepping aboard his ship, everyone alongside him stoked for the mission, ready to make history. It launched, heading out into space. He could still remember the forces as they launched up, it was a feeling of uncertainty and excitement. They would be the first humans to ever travel faster than light. They could become the ones to find aliens, but nonetheless what they were doing was already something astounding.

He remembered arriving at the largest planet and its kingdom of moons, exploring the system, finding life in the planet's atmosphere and fourth largest moon. Then, that wormhole. Why did he have to be so curious? They could have just returned to Earth - they would have been hailed as heroes, the ones who initiated the biggest paradigm shift since the Copernican Revolution. Why? Why did he have to investigate the wormhole?

He had accounted for every possible contingency, from solar flares to the extremes of the Jovian system to the high energy environments of a quasar or the crushing gravities of a black hole. He didn't account for any of this, he couldn't have expected it. And the worst thing is, he could have easily avoided it. He could have just gone back to Earth, and everyone would have been okay.

But no, his and his friends' lives were changed forever, especially Ben's. Oh, poor Ben. His best friend. The one who protected him from bullies, his very first friend, the one who congratulated him when he graduated college, when he got his doctorate, the one whom he went on countless adventures with since childhood, the one who stook by him all his life, and now this. He's now something, some Thing. And it was all his fault.

He heard sniffling from the other room. He stared at the ceiling, before he slowly drifted away to bed, one thought replaying in his head over and over again.

This… this is all my fault…