Chapter 7

Back to Square One

Johnny found himself grounded again, only this time worse. Not only was he confined to the Baxter Building, he was also confined to his bedroom, at Sue's command. She didn't want to hear a thing about Johnny's story with the boy, thinking it was his idea of a lame excuse.

However, Reed was thinking otherwise.

He knew Sue well enough to know that if you got her mad enough, she didn't think straight. Fortunately, she was very rarely that mad. Unfortunately, she was that mad right now. Unlike Reed, she didn't find it odd that Johnny would persist to his story even after he got such bad treatment for it the first time. Reed realized that if Johnny was still sticking to this story of his, then he was more likely telling the truth. Besides, he didn't find it believable would mess up quite that much with the incident with the neon sign.

Now, all he had to do, was convince Sue. Reed grimaced. In her current attitude, that would be no easy task.

"Sue?" Reed asked cautiously, inching his way into the living room where Sue sat, flipping through a magazine.

"What?" Sue asked, more angrily than Reed hoped she would.

Reed sighed, then decided to get right to the point. "Don't you think you're being a bit hard on Johnny?" he asked.

"No." Sue answered simply.

"But think about it." Reed said, sitting down next to his wife. "Johnny maybe be a little arrogant and very self-centered, but he's not dumb. If he knows something didn't work the first time, he's not going to try it again."

"Point?" Sue asked.

"This story Johnny keeps going on about, the teenage boy stealing his powers," Reed said, "He's stuck to it since all of this began. It wouldn't be like him to do that if he was just making it up. I think it's time we start listening to him and start investigating the possibility that his story might be true."

"You're saying that you actually believe that load of...of..." Sue began, but trailed off angrily.

"I'll admit it seems hard to believe, but think about it," Reed said, but Sue cut him off.

"Reed, Johnny's my brother. There's no one who knows him better than I do." she said.

"True, but I know him pretty well myself." Reed pointed out. "I have a pretty good idea what he would or wouldn't do."

"You'd be surprised." Sue said, staring with daggers at a picture in her magazine. Reed was thankful she wasn't using them on him.

"Look, just think about it for a little bit, okay?" Reed asked politely after a short period of silence, then he walked off.

Sue continued staring at her magazine, and sighed, truly giving what Reed said some thought...

Johnny sat in his bedroom obediently. He had decided that if he was going to get the others trust, he was going have to play by the rules. Unless of course something happened to change that. And naturally, something did.

He heard a tapping sound on his bedroom window and turned around to face it. There, hovering outside his window, was the teenage boy again.

"You!" Johnny yelled, loudly, "Why I'm going to..." he began to threaten, but then realized that his window, being closed, didn't transmit sound enough for the boy to hear him, especially with the boy fully aflame like that.

The boy seemed to get the message though, for he stuck a flaming tongue out at Johnny before zooming off. Johnny ran forward to the window, ready to jump and take flight, but stopped short. He walked to the window, slid it open, climbed out of it, then flamed on and took flight.

He chased after the boy, again having trouble keeping up. Johnny tried a few new tricks he had thought up while being grounded he could use the boy, and they all almost worked, with Johnny catching up with the boy enough to nearly touch him and end this madness. Yet Johnny wasn't quite fast enough even then, and the boy still eluded him.

The boy turned around the corner and Johnny followed, but Johnny had to stop after that.

"He did it again!" Johnny exclaimed angrily, realizing the boy had vanished again, like he had in their first chase.

But, Johnny noted, it wasn't raining this time, so there was nothing else, really, to slow him down. Johnny shot off into the sky, determined to not rest until he had found that boy...