"I will personally fuck-up your day."

Those were the emphatic and very sincere last words SHIELD Director Nick Fury spoke to Reed Richards at the end of the debrief. At least once a day they wandered into Reed's conscious thought for a moment of rumination.

After being taken into SHIELD custody for his part in the genesis of the Kaiju invasion, he had spent the next two days carefully explaining everything he knew to Director Fury and a small army of nameless witnesses.

What might have saved him from weeks-more worth of questioning and headaches, was the fact that there was no evidence that the machine created by McCoy, Stark, and himself had anything to do with how the malevolent Kaiju arrived. Gigan, Orga, SpaceGodzilla, and King Ghidorah all arrived via means unknown and at separate times and places.

It was true, Reed was forced to admit, that it was a virtual certainty that their intrusion and the entry of Mothra and Godzilla were somehow related. However, what the connection was between the two means remained a mystery. He argued that Godzilla's trespass was pure chance, and Mothra's a direct reaction to that. The forces behind the alien kaiju suggested the hand of another actor or actors.

As such was Fury's conclusion as well. However, that didn't save Reed from getting the most severe ass-chewing he'd ever received in his life. It was made clear to him, in no uncertain terms, that any future escapades to or from the other side of the wall was to be supervised by him personally. Any breach of these conditions or other unapproved shenanigans would not be tolerated, the consequences put succinctly.

The director, being a man of consummate pragmatism, decided to offer Mr. Fantastic something useful to put his mind towards.

MUCH LATER AFTER GODZILLA

Looking down at his clipboard of notes, Reed Richards exhaled with the same mundane huff of breath that had kept him company these past several weeks. Or had it been months?

Glancing up at the dark chamber surrounding him, and the multiple holographic images floating in the artificial ether. Shapes like celestial nebulae hover and rotated around him, smoky purple in hue and frozen in motion. Months, he realizes. "I've been at this for months, and still no closer."

On the various sheets attached to his board was the information pertaining to each of the formations. The one that appeared in the streets of New York had been reconstructed from SHIELD satellite telemetrics monitoring terrestrial energy spikes. This was where they deduced Orga had been inserted.

The next was modeled using SWORD data on the anomaly over Beijing, where the Gigan first appeared. The third, a combination of SWORD telemetrics and video footage of where the SpaceGodzilla manifested seemingly out of nowhere. All of them presented with the same characteristics and energy signatures; evidence if not proof he thought, of a hidden hand at work.

But who or what could it be? What power could be capable of transporting them? What could be their motivation?

A series of soft bleeps and boops signaled the ongoing process of his computer systems analyzing the data of the anomalies. The computer itself was the chamber. Inspired by the design of Xavier's Cerebro machine and Tony Stark's JARVIS AI; Richards built his machine with a connection to a neutral transmitter, allowing him to control it with a mere thought. Connected by a set of nodes attached just behind his ears, he tentatively called it 'THINKER'.

His eyes swung from one model to another, the image rotating, expanding, focusing, changing filter.

A circular door behind Reed opened, a bright white light illuminating the walkway. The angular sections of the door twisted towards an outer rim to allow a well-dressed man to walk in, a gold-trimmed crimson cape trailing his footfalls.

"Nothing yet?" Asked Dr. Stephen Strange, holding a leather-bound and yellow-paged tome in his hands, his focus on the content rather than what was in front of him.

"Nope." Not distracted by the arrival of the Sorcerer Supreme, Richards tilted his head as the model of the SpaceGodzilla portal changed from shades of blue to red. "Energy from the other side is bleeding through, but the process is definitely controlled, or else the dimension and duration would vary randomly." He sighed. "And we've still no model of the portal Ghidorah entered through, though I don't imagine it would be terribly different. How's your end?"

"Nothing too specific." Closing the book with a WHUMP!, Strange massaged his goatee with a contemplative hand. "But… if I may…"

With a flex of his fingers and movement of his hands, the amulet slung around his neck opened, and the Eye of Agamotto gazed widely at the same gaseous cluster. Now the portal cloud poured with a shimmering negative energy, waves of translucent white pulsating in the trans-dimensional exit wound.

"What you're seeing there…" He said with a gesture of an open palm in the direction of the model in example. "Think of it like a magical fingerprint, a signature left behind by whatever entity has been meddling in the fabric of space-time."

"Does it tell you anything?"

"It can tell you a lot. If you know what you're looking at."

Reed's brow furrowed. "Which you… don't?"

"Unfortunately, no." Strange sighed, dipping his head as the Eye of Agamotto closed. "I've never seen anything like it before, and there's nothing in my in-house library about it. My educated guess, given the inexplicable yet very powerful nature of the magic, is that it's old, very old."

"Is that you're prognosis doctor?" Reed asked.

"It is. I've got a few other libraries I can check, the other sanctums, K'un-Lun. I've got a feeling I'll be exercising my ancient Hyborean script muscles on this one."

"Sounds like you have your work cut out for you." The sly smirk on Richard's face betrayed the gag.

Picking up on this, Strange raised an eyebrow. "Oh, shouldn't be too much of a stretch for me."

Reed's grin broke into a smile as he reached out to extend a hand. "Doctor."

"Doctor." Stephen returned as the men shook friendly hands before departing.

Left to his own thoughts when the sections of the door twisted around the center and closed with a SHUNT that echoed in the darkness.

"Magic huh?" He questioned, glancing back to the altered portal which remained pulsating with negative colors. "Nothing that can't be figured out."

2249 hrs.

HELL'S KITCHEN

12TH AVE PIERS

A non-descript white van pulled off the road and onto the pier, streetlights overhead going dark as it traveled.

"Lights are down." The passenger said, the glowing screen of a handheld device the only source of illumination in the cab, his voice slightly modulated.

"Shouldn't be long." Replied the driver, his voice deeper but carrying the same alteration. "Just a milk-run."

The van swerved to the left to begin a Y-turn and backed the rest of the way down the pier, neither the brake lights or reverse alarm activating. Reaching the end of the wharf, they stopped a few feet from the edge, close enough to make quick work of their task. Exiting the vehicle and coming around to the back, the two AIM technicians opened the double-doors. Within, were two black metal barrels marked on the top with taped-on placards.

"Is it just me? Or has the Scientist Supreme been acting weird ever since those monsters came through?"

"You know, I have noticed some of the higher-ups get real nervous at any mention of those things."

While the two conversed, the driver grasped the drum on the left and spun it on its base, his companion grasping the bottom. Working in tandem, they lifted the drum.

"I even heard the head-honcho's been obsessed with what happened."

"Ha!" The other snickered. "Head". He muttered.

With a single heave the barrel was tossed away and into the water, quickly sinking below the surface.

"Alright, so this one…" Ducking down to enter the back of the van, the driver checked the placard fixed to the other barrel. "Uh-oh."

"What uh-oh?"

Placing a hand on the remaining drum, the driver turned. "This is the non-sentient sample. This is the one we were-supposed to dump in the water. That one was supposed to go to the farm in Queens." He said pointing to the water.

For a moment the other froze, then he pivoted towards where they had just tossed in the first container, then back to the van, then again to the water. "Well that's not good."

"So… What do we do?"

Extrapolations of ploys, explanations, and possible consequences raced through his mind, the passenger sitting on the tailgate to collect his thoughts. "Spider-Man." He muttered with a curious upturn.

"Where?!" The driver tensed, reflexively ducking as he looked around before his partner seized him by the front of his suit and made him focus.

"No, we tell them Spider-Man interfered, or Daredevil, or one of the other do-gooders, and that's how we lost the barrel."

"Ohhhhh…. That makes sense."

"Now stand still."

"Huh?" The passenger drove a knee into his driver's gut, crushing the air out with a pathetic HUFF. Then came the punch while he was doubled over that knocked him to the ground. "WHAT THE HELL MAN!?" He managed to force out between gasps of breath.

Coming back around to his side of the van, the passenger bounced on the balls of his feet. "We have to make it at least look like we got attacked."

With a quick series of breaths, he bolted forward and slammed face-first into the side of the vehicle, leaving a sizable dent as he fell backwards clutching one hand to his face and the other on his left knee.

"That was a good idea." Both got back to their feet, limping towards the opened back. "You know I've seen a couple guys who ran into Spider-Man." Driver took hold of the right door, and just as the other came close, he swung it with all his might. The door struck the passenger with a loud THUNK!, and once more he was sent to the ground. "It's gotta look real."

"Yeah…" Passenger groaned, turning onto his hands and knees. "Real…"

With the sound of boots scraping on concrete, Passenger launched himself forward to tackle his partner but failed to wrestle him off his feet. The two costumed AIM techs then displayed the depth of their combative ineptitude as they tussled clumsily in their suits, grunting and cursing the other.

This private exercise of nerdery carried on for another few moments before a calm yet amused voice spoke out.

"Take it easy guys, save some for me…"

Both AIM techs froze in place, their cylindrical heads turning to see a smirking Daredevil perched on the roof of the van.

"I gotta get some work in tonight." Uncoiling his legs, Daredevil leaped off the roof, his short-sticks poised overhead.

The black drum that had been mistakenly dumped hit the bottom of the river with a light THUB before settling on its side. Even though the particles of silt and biological matter around it float peacefully, the barrel itself rocks violently once, then again, each time denting the metal from the inside out.

YANCEY STREET PUB

"Ah come on, ya lousy…" As the television announcer enthusiastically detailed the sequence that led to the Boston Celtics scoring on the New York Knicks, Ben Grimm ran a frustrated hand over his face. "Ah, no wunda ya ain't been in the playoffs in seven years!"

Catering to the usual crowd at this time in the evening, the rocky brute was a familiar fixture. The sound of game machines along the wall, the crack of a cue-ball, the chatter of glasses and small talk filled the bar with an ambient spirit. In most places Ben would be a stand-out figure, but here he was as common a sight as the bartender and the antiquated UHF/VHF television hanging in the corner of the room.

"Sorry they let you down again, Ben." Setting two glass pints down on the table, Johnny Storm took his seat and glanced up to the screen. "But you really shouldn't be surprised at this point."

Thing shook his head as he took-up one of the drinks. "Things just ain't been the same Johnny." He said after wiping his mouth of foam.

"I don't know, they're doing pretty much the same as last season."

"That ain't what I'm talking about, goon." Turning away from the direction of the television, Ben grimaced in thought. "Picking bodies out of the Triskelion was a whole different kind of trouble than punching monsters like I usually do."

The flow of beer halted in Johnny's mouth as the solemnity of his friend struck him. He swallowed the gulp and apprehensively set the glass down. "Yeah, that was uh, that wasn't like one of our wacky misadventures.". Facing down the hordes of Annihilus in the Negative Zone, and getting his ass kicked by Namor, at least he could get a few good quips out of those experiences. But there was no comedy to be found in having to witness Godzilla's destruction first hand, and the lives lost to the monster's wrath. He could still hear the echo of the roar.

"Well, at least we got one of those sons-ah-bitches."

"A-friggin-right" Thing raised his mug, and Johnny toasted him before they both downed the remainder.

"Hey, Grimm!" Another fella called out from a table across the room. "Looks like your Knicks are chokin' on it again! BWHAHAHAHA!"

The last of the foam and brew sputtered out of the corners of Ben's mouth, and in his fluster, he slammed the mug down on the table, shattering the bottom. "Ah crap!"

BAXTER BUILDING

PENTHOUSE

Susan Storm stood in her office, poster-sized photos of the several kaiju her world had suffered tacked to the wall, along with a collage of a dozen more she had pulled from the references obtained from the other side of the wall. Dim lighting made it easy on the eyes in contrast to the night on the other side of the floor-to-ceiling windows.

"These aren't just big animals…"

She mulled to herself, running a hand through her hair. The trifecta of computer monitors on the desk behind her displaying each their own content: The middle a diagram of Godzilla himself surrounded with various data points and information windows. The left, a montage of footage collected from various sources of the battles that took place on this side of the wall. On the right, was a soft-lighted interview with an older, bearded man named Steve Martin, recounting his career-making ordeal in 1954.

"And they've known it for decades."

"What's this one called?" Susan turned to see her friend Janet Pym plucking one of the other pictures from the collection. Black and white but digitally enhanced, the dragon-like creature prowled between the Manhattan skyscrapers, neck extended and jaws roaring with feral savagery.

"It's called a 'Rhedosaurus'." Susan informed. "There's no evidence of it in our prehistory, but the other side seems to have quite the number of monstrous species fairly well dispersed throughout their fossil record."

"I still think it's crazy." Letting her arm fall, Janet looked over the number of creatures, of all shapes and sizes. "Look at all these things! This one is a floating space-jellyfish, and this one's just a giant walrus!"

"Yes, to us it is all very strange. But then again, imagine telling them about a world full of super-powered people flying around all over the place. Maybe they think our side is the crazy one?"

"Touché." Janet walked over to the window and placed the picture against the glass, trying to match it to the corresponding neighborhood. "Monsters on one side, superhumans on the other. It's like one of those 'butterfly effect' moments. Imagine your going about your day: picking up the groceries, driving to work. Then BLAM! there's an explosion! Then a side of a building begins to crumble. For us, it might mean Hulk is having a punch-fest with Abomination. For them, it's a four-story reptile just recently unfrozen from the arctic!"

Susan bobbed her head from side-to-side. "Well, it's not like that's never happened on our side. It's just less frequent."

Janet snapped her fingers into a point. "That is true." Continuing to look over the pictures, she bit her lip. "Am I crazy for wanting to go over?" She said, sparing Susan a rueful smirk. "I mean, I know I just had enough near-death encounters to last a lifetime, but I can't help but think it would be like the coolest whale-watch encounter to go see them in their natural setting."

Mrs. Richards raised a skeptical eyebrow. "I assure you, it's not as majestic as all the brochures make it look. Although…" Approaching the collage, Susan removed a photo. "This one looks kinda neat." The picture was of bipedal beetle-looking creature with arms that resembled drill halves, one arm raised up as if to wave in greeting.

"I know Hank wants to get a look at their Mecha units." Van Dyne said, hopping backwards to sit on the backrest of a couch. "He said that manual control of such large machines can't possibly have a reaction time necessary to effectively combat living creatures. They'd be much better served with some type of virtual drone control, or adaptive AI."

Sitting beside her friend, Susan crossed her arms. "Yeah, Stark said he's got a few plans along those lines. Which would go a long way towards smoothing things over with how pissed they were that Beast stole Kiryu."

"You think that's a crime over there?" Janet asked. "Grand theft… mecha?"

"Wouldn't be surprised."

At once, an alert sounded from their pockets. For Susan it was her miniature version of Reed's tablet, more portable and convenient for her day-to-day. Janet extracted her multi-functional Avengers smartcard, a series of blue arrows flashing across the top.

The Invisible Woman's brow scrunched. "AIM agents have been caught dumping something toxic at the wharf in Hell's Kitchen."

"Same here." Lifting her card, Janet read the scrolling white text. "Daredevil was on site, says it's really nasty stuff. Thinks it might be some kind of industrial waste."

Susan checked her information again, confused. "Mine doesn't say anything about Daredevil."

"Red's on the emergency Avenger roster, gives us a lot of inside tips others can't."

"You guys didn't offer him a full-time spot?"

"Doesn't want it, says he likes his day job too much. Whatever that is."

"I don't know what Avenger protocol is, but Reed has a special loathing for AIM, he's gonna want to be all over this." Susan pocketed her device and fetched her jacket from where it rested on her desk. "I'm gonna go get my husband."

Shouldering on her own light jacket, Janet took the chance to tuck the picture of Megalon into the inside pocket. "I'll talk to Tony, see if I can convince him to let you guys take the lead on this one. Wouldn't want to have too many monkeys on the football."

"Too- what?" A perplexed blond asked.

Wasp paused with one arm still outside the sleeve, taking a second to realize the expression was lost on her friend. "Sorry, he-he. It's something Steve likes to say sometimes. It means-"

"Yeah I… gather what it means."

HELL'S KITCHEN

Later

The sleek and near-silent Fantasticar lowered itself into the sea of flashing lights and bustling personnel. A tight cordon of SHIELD agents working over the van and securing the unconscious AIM operatives into the back of one of their vehicles. Maintaining a wider outer cordon was the NYPD and local FBI officers who had much more manpower to spare than the recovering SHIELD.

"The Four are on site." Observing the descent of the craft, stood a woman in a dark suit, with dark hair, and a set of glasses framed by red-dyed bangs. Clutching a clipboard and two inches of various papers to her chest, she moved her left hand away from her earpiece and waited patiently for the Fantastic Four to land. Sporting a dark shade of lipstick, her expression was one of dispassionate patience.

The first to exit the craft as it eased to just a few inches above the ground, Reed moved with a sense of purpose, one elongated stride bringing him to the woman.

"Victoria Hand." She said, introducing herself with a handshake. "I'm the new head of strategic management for the New York office of SHIELD."

"Reed Richards." Shaking her hand, he nodded his head. "Congratulations on the promotion."

"A lot of positions have recently become available." Victoria said dryly, the glint of a hard glare behind the lenses of her glasses. "Hopefully I'll be able to maintain this post a bit longer."

The subtle intent was not lost on him, and Reed curled a lip back, muttering in agreement.

Victoria pivoted her attention to see Susan, Johnny, and Thing approach. "Thank you for coming. Normally SHIELD wouldn't require your consultation on crime scene forensics, but given the situation, the Director requested that I make use of your expertise."

Susan then shook her hand. "We're happy to help. Mind if we get started?"

"Not at all." Hand gestured towards the van, where a man and woman wearing SHIELD windbreakers and latex gloves were taking photographs.

Reed and Susan went onward, but Johnny held back, wanting his turn at introductions.

"Storm, Johnny, pleasure to meet you." He said with a smirk.

"Interested, not." Victoria returned with a deadpan as she shook his hand and turned away.

For a moment Johnny stood stunned, his arm still out until Thing bumped a shoulder into him from behind, sniggering as he passed.

Reed took out his translucent tablet device, and framed the un-tossed barrel through it, allowing the computer to run its diagnostic analysis. Several data windows appeared around the outline of the drum, his eyes scanning the information at a glance.

"Interesting." His brow pinched, he held the device in front of him as he reached out to remove the container's lid. The seal broke with a pop and revealed a bizarrely beautiful mixture within. A black morass was swirled with dark pigments of many colors, blue, pink, purple, green, and saturated with sparkling flecks throughout. It reminded Reed of a nebulae cloud. But its texture was viscous and uneven, a bubble slowly rising to release the fermented gas.

"I'm getting some significant readings." He said flatly, examining the numerous data windows appearing on his device.

"Does that mean you can tell us what it is?" Hand asked, peeking over his shoulder.

"It's nearly everything." The response aroused more confusion from the others than follow-up questions, and sensing the awkward hesitation, he continued. "I'm seeing components of almost every known element mixed in here, and a number of elements even I've never seen before."

"So it's alien?" Using her powers to create a downward-pointing cone inside the substance, Susan lifted a sample amount from the drum and held it aloft for all to gander at.

"In every sense of the term, honey." Reed raised his device to the portion, his eyes adjusting for better clarity.

Innocently curious, Thing took a step and dipped his left pointy finger into the goop, scooping out a few pasty ounces. "What the hell is AIM making that they produce this kind'a crap in the process?" He said with a grimace of disgust before flicking the stuff onto the inside panel of the van's door. Where it stuck, the greenish-black broth began to dissolve the metal, consuming with an acidic hiss as it slid down.

Johnny recoiled. "Yeesh!

"Clearly highly caustic…" Victoria noted, adjusting her glasses.

"Wait a minute…" Reed's brow furrowed, and he started using a finger to expand and adjust the metrics across the face of his tablet. "I'm getting readings similar to the kind when I detected Godzilla's universe. It's very faint, but there are trace signatures."

Victoria's attention snapped. "As far as SHIELD is aware, all the remains of the invasive kaiju have been contained."

"What about Orga?" Johnny suggested. "We kinda blew that thing into a million pieces, might explain the alien sludge."

But Reed shook his head. "It's not Orga. The Millennian was a bit chaotic due to the mutagenic nature of its adaptation, but still followed basic fundamentals of biology. This… This is highly concentrated pollution, I doubt life, life from any planet is capable of being birthed from this."

"Hey Stretch!" Overlooking the water from where he stood, Thing grabbed one of the portable spotlight stands and directed its light out onto the ocean. "I don't think life on this planet is compatible with that stuff."

As the light drew across the water's surface, all eyes widened at the sight of dozens of objects bobbing gently on the lapping waves. Fish, seagulls, and a few objects not readily identified littered the brine, some with dark, sheeny splotches.

"Miss Hand." Reed gulped, measuring his thoughts. "I believe there was mention of another barrel…"

An hour and much technical discussion later, the large magnetic plate that hung from the mobile crane broke the surface of the water as it lowered. Having decided not to send human divers down for fear of the toxicity, Victoria summoned a salvage crew to plumb for the other drum.

"Got a snag!" The technician announced, staring down at a hand-held monitoring device. "Looks like the drum."

When the magnet resurfaced, the chains tethering it to the end of the boom were visibly damaged, looking as if they had been exposed to acid rain for years without protection. Nonetheless, the abandoned drum was indeed clinging to the underside of the electromagnet, dark water streaming down.

"Oh no…" The shock in Susan's eyes was shared by the others. Facing them head-on was a side of the barrel that had been shredded, the contents all spilled out.

"I thought these barrels were supposed to contain this stuff?" Johnny asked. "How did it eat through it?"

Reed shook his head. "It didn't eat through the container, Johnny, look." Peeling outwards from the middle, jagged wedges of metal spread out like flower petals. "They weren't just dumping waste in the river."

MORNING

Johnny's eyebrows arched in incredulity. "It's a what?"

The other members of the Four were gathered to see what Reed had managed to ascertain about the mysterious muck.

"It's called a Hedorah." Standing beside the display monitor in his lab, Reed gestured towards the screen featuring a close-up view of the recovered material, metallic sparkles much more prominent. "And as I said, it is quite literally a monster made of toxic sludge."

"This thing is alive?" Susan pointed to the picture, fixing it with curiosity. "How is that even possible?"

"Not this one, no. This is the sample we obtained from the undamaged container. The unit's label was coded to conceal its true purpose from the casual eye, but I was able to decipher it."

A close-up picture of the drum's label popped onto the screen, showing the block of numerical code that took up the bottom right of the pasted sticker. A ripple washed over the image and gave way to a data window that wiped away the original and replaced it with translated English text.

"Non-sentient sample…" She read.

"Which means the barrel that got loose in the river was one of… these." Tapping his finger on the screen, Reed swapped the current displays for a paused video. With another tap, the clip began to play.

"Looks like some kinda' refinery." Thing remarked, tilting his head.

"This footage is from Sagami Bay, Kanagawa, Japan, 1971." The video panned across the industrial district as Reed continued to narrate. "Obviously the quality isn't great, this was taped at night and with comparatively primitive quality. A local tv crew happened to be around to get some stock footage for a show they were making, and they managed to accidently capture this interesting bit."

Whereas the video was making slow sweeps over various parts of the area, it halted, then zoomed-in towards a hulking black shape silhouetted against the grey lights of the city.

Johnny, none to enthused to be watching home video twice as old as he was, flared his hands. "Yeah, what are we looking at?"

A scowling Thing bumped him with an elbow. "An inside view of ya' head."

Suddenly the shape shifted, the object moving away from where it had rested to reveal a set of smoke stacks and a wispy trail of exhaust. Muffled voices on the track exclaimed in surprise, hurried questions, before quelling down into hushed tones. The audio was overtaken by a strange warbling sound, a response to some activity off-screen.

The image blurred as the camera swung quickly to the left, Susan, Johnny, and Ben waiting for the mystery to be unveiled. Suddenly a stream of blue fire erupted from seemingly out of nothing to bath the ground, causing the objects on street-level to burst into familiar orange flame. A roar from the darkness gave proof to the wielder of the atomic flame, as tremendous legs carried him partially into view before the video came to an abrupt end.

"A Hedorah-" Reed began. "-consumes pollution for both sustenance and to acquire body mass, a mass by the way, that is virtually invulnerable to physical harm and spreads toxic smog wherever it goes."

"So it's some mutant Kaiju from the other side?" Torch put his hands on his hips, how'd it get here?"

Rubbing the right side of his head for a moment, Reed sighed and clicked his tongue. "Well, according to their Kaijuologists, they actually theorize that the Hedorah are a species. Something possibly related to another amorphous… 'blob' like creature they're familiar with. An examination of material recovered from a live specimen was fostered in a Petri dish by a man named Dr. Turo Yano. Upon hydrating the sample, it came to life, becoming a tiny, tadpole-like entity. He then exposed it to a second sample, and the two merged into one."

"A hive organism?" Susan asked, posturing a guess.

Richards swept another video screen onto the monitor from his tablet. "According to the notes of his experiment, it went something like this."

When the video played, it showed two computer animated petri dishes side by side, in each of them a miniscule black blot swimming about. The dish on the right was turned over by unseen hands, dumping the contents into the other. After a few moments, the two blots eventually found one another and collided. Where once there had been two now became one entity, swimming on smoothly, only twice as large.

"A micro-organism…" Susan nodded tightly, becoming more certain of her deductions. "If it's divided, it can reform, or, simply become two separate creatures. Hedorah's capability to reproduce is astronomical."

Turning to her husband, her expression tightened. "With enough material, it could spread itself throughout a city in a day."

Thing clasped his hands together with a thud, interlacing his fingers. "Then pull itself together, there'd be no telling how big it'd get!"

"Oh, it gets worse…" Reed sent yet another video, this one an import from the other side. "Once it has acquired enough material, it can transform at will."

What played for them was a montage of news footage, one showing the crawling quadruped, another, the flying manta-like body, then the upright shambling mass, taller and larger than even Godzilla.

"It's flying form is possibly the most deadly. Leaving exhaust in its wake capable of corroding metal structures to the point of failure and stripping humans to the bone within seconds. This creature is a living biological catastrophe. And unfortunately-" Reed exhaled. "None of us here with the possible exception of Sue, are even capable of engaging it, even for a limited time."

Ben raised his hands, palms up with frustration for lack of a problem he could simply punch. "We can't just let this thing run wild, Stretch, how do we stop it?"

"It's weakness lies in being dehydrated, and a general aversion to extreme temperatures." Setting the tablet down on a table, Reed crossed his arms. "They defeated it by shocking it with enough electricity to evaporate all the moisture in its body. We have to isolate and contain it long enough to dry it out."

"Sounds easy." Storm smirked, igniting his hand. "We corral it, I fry it for a minute, then we just got a pile of dust on our hands."

"That was an idea that occurred to me, Johnny. But that would release an incredible amount of toxic material into the environment. It could create acid rain clouds for hundreds of miles, contaminate water reservoirs, spread tons of carcinogenic substances into everything that breathes." The scientist shook his head. "It's far safer to keep the Hedorah's… bodily fluids… all in one place."

"Any creature in a new environment will instinctively seek out shelter and food." Sue wiped the monitor screen clear and brought up a satellite view of Manhattan island. "There's no shortage of places for it to hide, or sources of pollution to feed on in this city. Once it gets into the sewer system…"

"It's Vigo from Ghostbusters 2" Johnny muttered.

Susan, Reed, and Ben turned to him in unison, giving the typically superficial young man a curiously approving series of nods.

"Yeah... A lot like that." Reed agreed.

Thing scratched his chin, mulling an idea. "I got some friends in the city's water and sewage unions." He said with a raised finger. "Let me talk to some guys, see if they hear about anything weird going on in the tunnels."

Johnny, too, visibly perked with the flourish of a plan. "And I got this really hot female cop that I always like to, uh, check up on sometimes. I could ask her if the PD is tracking anything that sounds like our smog monster."

"Good ideas." Sue said. "You boys go do some sleuthing, me and Reed will work on a way to contain and destroy it."

Thing and Torch turned to leave, Ben towards the hall. But as Johnny headed for the balcony, he stopped short with a smirk. "I'm gonna put on some nicer clothes first."

When he was amused by his brother-in-law's cavalier attitude, the situation was rather serious, and his mind went quickly to solving the problem at hand.

"Right, honey." He said, already in motion to his work station. "I think if we can locate it while it's still small enough, I can- unff!"

His words were cut short as his face was flattened by an invisible wall that shimmered with translucent gleam upon impact.

"Honey…" Sue began, still facing where she had watched the others exit. "Question…" Her tone was anticipatory, like she already knew the answers. "In know for a fact that you did not come back from the other side with some of that information about the Hedorah."

A second translucent wall pressed onto Reed from the back, and acting in tandem, rotated him in place to face a tense, ireful wife. "So how exactly did you get access to it, if it wasn't by using my credentials? The credentials given to me by SHIELD, and very deliberately NOT to you?"

For a few seconds, she watched Reed's face twitch in the middle of her hard-light plates, just enough for him to see the displeasure in her own. Folding her arms, she dismissed the constructs with a wince.

"I knew you'd be mad about that." He said, shaking his head back into proper shape. "Which is why I used seventeen redundancies to make sure SHIELD can't prove that it was me."

"God-dammit, Reed!" Sue cursed with a clenched fist. "If Fury finds out your going behind his back, he's gonna bury you like one of his Cold-War secrets!"

"I'm sure it won't be anything so dire." He put his hands up defensively. "Right now we need to prioritize the kaiju, and figure out how AIM even got their hands on one."

WEST 53RD ST.

09:49 pm

"Eh! Frankie! Stop screwing around and get the hook over 'ere!" The senior Department of Sanitation worker bellowed impatiently, a distended beer-belly protruding noticeably from underneath the yellow vest bearing official insignia. "We gotta clear this block by eleven, and I wanna get home before friggin' midnight!"

He stood amidst all the usual safety equipment used when accessing a manhole in the middle of the street, a few orange cones, a fold-out barricade with DSNY logos, his tool belt in hand and white hardhat on his head.

His trainee for the night, a much younger man hurried around the side of the truck, careful to not step into any on-coming traffic. He carried a solid-steel tool that resembled the claw side of a crowbar, but with a handle on the other end. He offered it to his supervisor who grimaced before recoiling his hand.

"I ain't opening' it, you're the new guy here." He scolded.

With a frustrated gasp of remembrance, the trainee angled the pry-end of the hook and began to loosen, then drag off the metal disk, revealing the descendant ladder below.

Adjusting his pants, the older man affixed his tool belt and began to lower himself down into the shaft with veteran casualness.

"Alright, I'll go down and see if I can find out what's causing the blockage. You stay up here and stop anybody from throwing things down the hole." He stopped a few rungs down to look back up. "I was climbing back up one time, and some prick threw a brick down that almost cracked my head open."

"Shit." Muttered the assistant. "What'd you do?"

"I beat the fuck out of him with the hook. Now stay there and don't get hit by a fucking car"

"Yeah."

Allowing the flashlight from above to illuminate his descent, the senior worker moved down the rungs with a combination of practice and enough agility as his age and health would allow. His rubber boots splashed down into the water then submerged beneath the dark surface.

"Ah, hell." He swore, realizing the damage could be worse than a mere obstruction. The water was coming up to his crotch and plucking his own Mag-lite from his belt, began his examination.

Wading through the expectantly foul water, he moved towards where experience told him the problem must originate. There was an opening that had once connected this tunnel to another one where steel bars had been installed 20-something years ago. Normally anything large enough to create blockages was filtered out before it reached this destination, but something had managed to get caught in the bars and was causing problems elsewhere in the system. Wading forward he was forced to scrunch his nose at the increasingly repugnant stink.

"What the hell died down here?" He asked aloud. The prospect that an animal, or even human, carcass was the cause of the problem was not a pleasant one, but it wouldn't be the first time either. "Some poor shmuck get on Kingpin's badside?"

Finally reaching the juncture, he slipped a pair of elbow-length, yellow, rubber gloves from his back pockets and snapped them on. "Alright, bend and cough." The opening was no more than three-feet off the floor, but completely submerged, the water frothing against the wall above.

He was forced to twist his face to the side as he reached down, groping blindly for whatever was to be found. With a wince, he realized something down here was definitely odd. Feeling about, his hand gripped into a thick, squishy material adhered to the bars.

"What the…?" Bringing a sample up for examination, he saw a repulsive mass of dark grey, swirled with sickly pale green and silver. Squinting, he also detected the presence of more solid, flesh-like tissue wriggling in the goop.

The sound of thrashing water some paces behind him startled the man so much, he accidently grazed his right cheek with the substance when he flinched. Although the contact lasted no longer than a flash, and left only a thin trail of muck, within a second he felt the caustic burn lacing into his skin.

"Ahh!" He barked, flinging the soiled glove away from himself reflexively to create distance from the threat. The glove splattered against the brick wall and slowly began to slide downwards. Using the backhand of his other glove, he quickly wiped away the sludge on his face with a hiss of pain. "Shit!"

On the street, the younger man was watching traffic go by when he heard the sharp exclamation of pain echo from below. He cast his own light down the manhole. "You alright down there?" He called out.

Still trembling, the supervisor swung his flashlight in the direction of the noise, his nerves on high alert. There, perched on the first rung of the ladder above water, was a grimy rat, its tiny nose and whiskers twitching innocently.

"Jesus…" He gasped, clutching his naked hand to his chest. Remembering the call from his trainee, he gulped and tried to reign-in his heartbeat before he had a coronary. "Yeah!" He yelled with a bit of a chuckle. "Just got spooked."

Looking again to the rat to reassure himself, it was now he noticed that despite having just emerged from the water, the rat's fur was thickly matted with a dark, paste-like substance. The rodent didn't seem overly bothered by its condition, but nonetheless it looked like it had been rolled in mud.

"Somebody must be dumping waste in the system." He muttered. "You'd think they'd smarten-up after Roxxon got caught. Hmm, better get a sample."

Selecting from a pouch of his toolbelt, he obtained a small plastic bottle with a black screw-cap and approached the spot where his glove had left most of the sludge on the wall. He undid the cap and used the lip of the bottle to scoop a few ounces of the muck inside, careful not to get any on his hands again.

"I'll have to get some results from the lab before we can decide how to clear this stuff."

Tucking the bottle back into its place, he grimaced at his lost glove floating on the water and turned. He took one step when a sound, decidedly not made by a rat, sent a chill down his spine.

It was rapid-paced clicking sound that evolved into a high-pitched warbling. The gurgling bounced off the walls, distorting it further, but not enough to disguise its point of origin.

Slowly, he swiveled his light to the wall on the left, tracing it upwards, the beam beginning to shiver as it climbed. The man's jaw hung slack at what the light slowly revealed.

Clinging to the ceiling like a remora along the length of the tunnel, was a wedge-shaped grey body, bulky and with a tail that tapered. Two eyes, disjointed and asymmetrical like a flounder stared down at him with bleeding red irises.

His own expression widened in shock and terror at the eldritch-inspired thing above him, words unable to form in his mind. Words that would never come.

From a blow-hole aperture in the middle of the organism a plume of sticky black smoke was expulsed, spraying him in the face and smothering his every orifice. If the muck had burned his cheek, this acrid smog was like plunging his head in battery acid. His eyes shut immediately to save themselves but it was too late, the corneas already destroyed, the whites infected. The smoke sucked into his lungs began to eat away at his trachea, stinging his gums and filling his chest with a suffocating poison. Toxic exhaust filling his nasal cavity created a maddening, overwhelming urge to purge it from the body.

His wail of agony was muffled as he fell to his knees, clutching at his face, clawing frantically to do anything to free himself. As he scraped and dug, the top few layers of skin began to come away in blackened flakes, the underside of his fingernails packed with fouled flesh. The flashlight fell from his hand and into the water, it's light absorbed by the murk. The man's body began to convulse with only a pair of curious crimson eyes to watch. From somewhere on its body, it loosed another warbling cry.

"Hey Steve?" Franklin called down after hearing some commotion and strange sounds. "What are you doing down there? You need help?"

Nervous, he glanced to his left and right, trying to decide what the proper course of action would be.

"Alright, I'm coming down there!" He warned, tucking his flashlight into its belt-loop. Giving the world one last glance, he began to descend the rungs, mumbling to himself. "I really don't wanna get filthy on my first night."

NEXT MORNING

Rocky orange knuckles struck against the white door, edging it open with each knock.

"Hey Reed, I got sumthin'."

Richards turned from the screen he was working at, several different models of molecular compounds rotating in 3-D. He set aside his trusty tablet panel on a table and greeted his friend with cautious curiosity.

"Did you hear something from your network of unionized city sewage technicians?"

Thing paused for a moment to ponder whether he was being funny or not. "Yeah, maintenance job turned into a horror show last night." Presenting a manila folder, he handed it to Reed as he approached.

A quick scan of the contents was enough to make Richard's face twist with revulsion. "It… definitely matches what I know about the creature."

"Yeah, and this happened a long ways from where those AIM goons were dumping the barrels. This… whatever it is, is getting into the city, Stretch."

"I'm afraid that's not the worst of it." Going back to the monitor, Reed summoned a semi-translucent representation of Manhattan, a bird's eye view with a pulsating blue cloud above the dock area of west Hell's Kitchen. "Of course, my first thought to find the creature was to trace the signature of the alternate universe, simple enough to program our satellite."

"I feel like there's a 'but' coming on." Thing scowled.

"However…" Fantastic said with a bit of a sly smirk. "By the time I was able to generate the results, this was the case-"

The city graphic rippled and branching out from the original location were several blue lines that spread out north, east, and south.

"These trails were from seven hours ago." Reed explained with a tired sigh. "Since then the signature level has diminished to the point of being undetectable. My theory is that they've assimilated enough native material that the algorithm can no longer distinguish them."

"Well ain't that peachy!" Throwing a hand up in frustration, Thing gestured towards the simulation. "There's at least eight of those things crawling around down there! We're gonna need to flush the whole city's pipes to get them out!"

"Fortunately, it should be much simpler than that. We know what it seeks out, and like any animal, we just have to use the right lure."

"Stink bait."

A click of his tongue and a hand-pistol gesture from Reed signaled the affirmative. "An industrial-strength stink bait."

MIDTOWN MANHATTAN

Reclining against the side of his cruiser, NYPD officer Ramirez, coffee in hand, was enjoying a casual conversation with his partner beside the sidewalk sausage cart when a commotion of honking horns stirred their attention. Both heads pivoting somewhere to Ramirez's left, a set of brakes screeching to a halt caused them to quickly set their cups on the hood of the car and dash towards the source of the disturbance.

Both lanes of east 32nd street were blocked, cars halted at angles, onlookers stepping cautiously onward from the sidewalk. A few drivers having opened their doors to stand partially out from their seats traded comments and gestured towards some event in the epicenter.

An androgynous figure, likely a female if Ramirez had to guess, was standing in the middle of the lane, a manhole cover by her right foot displaced from its position. Like an 80's glam rocker transported through time, she wore leather pants with a matching jacket that was torn jagged at the shoulder seams, a thin, yellowed t-shirt underneath. Around her neck she wore a studded black choker, and her jet-black hair was cut short. Most striking was the eyepatch she wore over her right eye, complementing the rest of her rough-looking face.

Another individual was rising from the sewer hole, albeit one shoulder at a time. Possibly at a height of 6'5 but with his head and neck slouched forward, the sheer breadth of his frame forcing him to shove his left shoulder upwards first with clear discomfort. All that was visible of his attire so far was that his conical head was as bald as a cue-ball, and his olive drab jacket had similar torn sleeves.

Ramirez and his partner used the stopped cars as cover, moving from one to the other while keeping an inspective gaze on the strange people emerging from the street.

"Hey ah… Miss!?" Ramirez called out, a pre-emptive hand on the butt of his service pistol, the same hip pulled back. "What uh, what's going on?" His partner, similarly poised, moved in a semi-circle around to the left, speaking quietly into the radio mike on his left shoulder.

"Officers…" The mysterious woman returned upon seeing the approach of the uniforms. "My name is Callisto, and we require assistance."

"Okay…" Trading a queer expression with his partner, Ramirez stopped at the front bumper of the nearest car. "Is there a reason you're climbing out of the sewer in the middle of traffic?"

"We live underground." Callisto's tone was serious and defiantly prideful, her own stance, chin forward, was firm but diplomatic. "We live in the sewers, in the abandoned tunnels, and all the dark places beneath your feet. We are the Morlocks."

By now the lumbering man had extricated himself through the manhole with no small number of grunts and grumbled complaints. Following him was a scrawny old woman, who looked more like a living scarecrow than a human, dressed in ragged, dirty clothes.

The more information they gathered, the more confused the situation became to the officers.

"Morlocks… right." Another, even more bewildered exchange of glances and the officers slowly began to heel-toe step a bit further. "So what's with the grand entrance?"

Callisto's face winced, and for a moment she turned away to watch the brute help the crone with gentle strength. "We can no longer live in our hollows and warrens, we have been forced to the surface, and not with everybody who should be with us."

She fixed the officers with a hard glare, this time with a quiver of her lip and the beginnings of a tear in the corner of her good eye.

"Something is down there, and it's killing us."