Second Stretches

by IWfan53

AU: A few years after she gave birth to sextuplets Susan Richards also known as Ultra Woman proves why it really takes a superheroine to be a mother, wife, and crime fighter all at the same time! Reed/Susan Johnny/Crystal, a sequel to Swelling With Love

4. Chapter 4

Second Stretches Chapter four: Bursting, in which Susan Richards inspects a playground and Reed Richards liquidates some assets.

And so after Atuma had been suitably dealt with, Namor proceeded to delay his wedding just a little bit more. This gave Dorma some time to recover from her ordeal, and Ben time to ferry Alicia and the kids back to Atlantis so they could witness the proceedings.

Said proceedings were quite impressive. Namor and Dorma's wedding actually managed to be even more ostentatious then Susan and Reed's, a wedding which had seemed to be attended by every single superhero in New York (that wasn't anywhere near as many as there were now but the point still stood) who wasn't in some kind of mortal peril.

Suffice to say, it was the only wedding Susan had been to where "Here Comes the Bride" (or what passed for the Atlantean equivalent of it) was played on trumpet (or once again the Atlantean equivalent of it). That event set the tone for the rest of the ceremony. Afterwards her children at least had the decency to wait until they were back in the Baxter Building to start complaining.

"So you make us sit through that snooze fest, but when mom gets to fight a giant octopus we have to stay home? What a gyp!" Rachel, much like Jane, was in a bit of a sulk though. Of course, even that couldn't keep her from wanting to parse her sister's words whenever possible.

"More like, Mom fighting a giant, MECHANICAL, octopus which, of course, makes it just that much cooler!" To Susan's immense surprise at this point her brother, for one of the few times she could remember such an occurrence, decided to side with his sister instead of his nieces and nephews.

"Now now kids, you probably ended up spending enough time underwater anyway. Reed, are you sure that your fancy wrist bracelets work exactly the way you said they would? Because while I wasn't going to say anything while we had an evil villain to defeat, I think spending so much time under the sea has given Crys a cold." Crystal shook her head as calmly as possible.

"Don't be silly JoHNNNYYYYY!" Her attempt at reassurance was somewhat drastically undercut by the fact that midway through it she broke out into a loud sneeze. Crystal blushed slightly. Since she lacked easy access to a napkin proceeded to carefully make use of her powers to evaporate the remnants of her sneeze. After she had done this, a slight blush began to creep into her face as she made another go at explaining the situation to her husband.

"Don't worry about it. I'm sure it's just something that I ran into underwater that still needs to work its way out of my system, sort of like the undersea equivalent of pollen." At this particular point, Johnny was looking mildly worried. Reed and Susan were exchanging glances that were considerably more so, as if each was silently daring the other to speak up. Finally Reed being more or less the official team leader decided to be the one to spit it out.

"Johnny, you would mind it if I went and ran a few tests on Crystal in my lab? You're welcome to come along of course..." Johnny at this point had a look of such benign perplexity on his face that Susan actually felt a couple dozen pangs of regret for him.

-----

One series of lab results later Reed Richards had his answer, and it turned out to be the one that he'd expected from the start.

"Well Crystal, there's some good news and some bad news. The good news is that you didn't come down with some sort of special undersea parasite or disease. The bad news is that you're pregnant." Johnny's flesh went from being its traditional shade of pink to a metallic grey in the blink of an eye, as if this would grant him some form of protection against this turn of events.

"Crys, you're pregnant? How did this happen?" Susan buried her face in her hands sighing mightily. She contemplated what it would mean if her Jonathan Spencer Storm actually had kids of his own that he couldn't pick and choose when he cared to look after them.

"I thought you two were taken precautions against this kind of thing. In fact I distinctly remember giving you a lecture about it, Crystal. Between the six I've already got, and the eight more on the way, add in however many you're carrying, and this place is going to look less like a superhero headquarters and more like a nursery!"

"You know that's not a bad idea..." Susan sent Reed a look which suggested that him saying those words were right up there with not having arranged for proper radiation shielding on the rocket they'd tried to take to the moon on the list of the ten biggest mistake he'd made in his life. But as usual once Reed Richards got an idea into his head he couldn't resist examining it from all possible angles and voicing his thoughts aloud.

"After all, given how many different labor saving devices I've come up with when it comes to child care. With how secure the Baxter Building is, there are doubtlessly worse ideas than offering it up as a safe place for other superheroes to leave their children, where they can be sure that they won't come to any harm." Susan needed to close her eyes and remind herself of all the different reasons why she loved her husband, that way when she opened them again she'd be able to resist the temptation to throttle him within an inch of his life.

"So how many is Crystal carrying and how far along?" This time it didn't upset her that Reed was quick with an answer.

"Four of them and she's only about one month along." There was a flash of realization in Johnny's eyes and his body transformed back to being made of flesh.

"Oh, okay, in that case, umm... do you remember right after we agreed to ignore the Impossible Man and just basically do whatever? Well, right after we got back I was a bit too busy thinking about how this was supposedly going to help save the city that I forgot to take certain precautions..." Susan's forehead became extremely well aquatinted with both of her palms yet again.

"Crystal, in retrospect, this is why it sort of behooves you as a woman to take care of looking after that kind of thing yourself." Of course Susan had no sooner said those particular words than she realized how hypocritical it was of her to say them. Part of being a parent or older sibling was to be able to tell certain people "do as I say not as I do." Johnny was very slowly struggling to reboot his mind after the shock her was given.

"So umm, Crystal, do you want to keep them?" Crystal's eyes sparkled with the kind of glow that only a first time mother could manage.

"Of course!" Johnny very slowly shifted a hand behind his head and began to rub the back of his neck.

"Well, okay then. I guess on the bright side, we're going to get a chance to raise some kids without my sister and brother in law looking over our shoulder all the time. But still seriously four kids, wow, you're going to get pretty big, I mean what were the odds?" Crystal's eyes now flashed with something else entirely and she proceeded to look back towards Reed rather beseechingly.

"Well, you know how I mention that the Inhuman's reproductive cycle works slightly differently than your human one does because of the genetic modification that we underwent? You see, part of it was designed so that it'd be easy for them to continue certain bloodlines. So while we're only fertile one day a month, we also tend to ovulate several eggs at once. That's why I wasn't surprised to find out that Medusa was having twins. I mean Medusa and I were paternal twins as are Blackbolt and Maximus." Johnny looked at Crystal again for a few moments.

"Huh, really? Wow, because Medusa, well except when she had her amnesia always managed to seem a bit more, well mature than you do, not that I mean that as an insult on anything." There was a long pause, and then Crystal shrugged slightly.

"That's mainly because Blackbolt fell in love with her at a pretty early age so she grew up expecting to be queen some day." Susan coughed loudly intending to bring this conversation back on track.

"As fascinating as I'm sure my husband finds all of this, is the Fantastic Five really going to become a team with not one, but two pregnant superheroines on it?" Johnny looked back at her with his usual expression of devil-may-care laziness.

"Sure, why not?" Susan proceeded to punch herself in the chest hard enough to completely flatten her three month pregnant belly for a moment. Then she did it again, and again.

"Because I can do this or worse to myself all day long without getting hurt. If Crystal takes one bad fall, let alone a laser blast from some evil villain it could put her kids at risk." Crystal evidently intending to point out exactly what "or worse" could mean, proceeded to raise up her gloved hands and let loose with a powerful blast of flame in Susan's direction. One moment she was a rather bemused pregnant woman, the next she was an extremely irritated puddle of blue on the floor.

"Well that's another thing that's different about us Inhumans, we're very hardy, and we aren't prone to having any sort of troubles involving pregnancy. I'm sure I'll be able to keep up with the rest of the team the same way you have, Susan. Besides, unlike you, Johnny, or Reed I'm not usually getting in the thick of things. Since it's my job to stand back and provide 'tactical support' I should still be up to it at least into the start of my third trimester."

Susan was still struggling to form a face with which to shoot a worried look at the team's leader, but it apparently wasn't even worth wasting her time on. Crystal was doubtlessly more mature then her brother, but if she'd learned anything from working side by side with her for the last few years, it was that when the Inhuman princess put her mind to something she'd get her way sooner or later.

So Susan metaphorically bowed to the inevitable and once she was able to manifest a mouth the first words she said was, "Well then, I suppose we should make time to have another talk so I can let you know about a few useful tricks I learned during my first nine months of combining superheroics with pregnancy...."

----

When they broke the news to the kids a series of wide eyed surprised stares were sent in the direction. Once they had subsided Rachel began to speak in the slow and cautious tone of one who was wadding into uncertain waters.

"So first Aunt Medusa got pregnant, and then you got pregnant mom. Now Aunt Crystal is pregnant. Are you sure that this 'pregnant' thing is something we don't have to worry about catching?" Before any of the adults had a chance to answer Jane snickered slightly and used her powers to produce her own miniature baby belly which was given her slight stature actually looked "larger" than her mother's real one at the moment.

She wasn't the only one of Susan's daughters who quickly adopted that surreal shape either. A superheroine who had faced down countless foes bent on world domination Ultra Woman was at that moment left unable to do anything at that moment but shake her head, and muse on how imitation was the sincerest form of flattery after all.

-----

(One month later)

Samantha Richards ran for all she was worth. She was worth quite a lot, too. Thanks to her powers she had incredible stamina and thanks to some much longer than normal legs each step she took carried her farther than your average adult's stride, let alone how quickly a girl her age should have been able to move.

Unfortunately it still wasn't enough as her pursuer continued to cling to her heels, following her as closely as smoke did fire. The formless blob oozed across the floor like greased lightening eating away at her lead inch by inch. Samantha's only small advantage was that she could twist her neck around to see how much of her minuscule lead was left without slowing down much. But in the end this just made her all the more aware of the fact that her pursuer was gaining on her. She'd already seen it ooze over her siblings and it wouldn't be long until...

She never managed to finish that train of thought because she felt one of her feet come down in something soft and squishy instead of hard and solid. The blob oozed around her leg bending it so that it couldn't support her weight and Samantha fell face forward onto the ground.

It didn't hurt, but it wasn't the impact that she was worried about. She stretched out her hands grabbing hold of the solid objects she could find and strove to pull herself free, but it proved a wasted effort. Inch by inch the blob oozed over her, and for every inch away from it she stretched it covered two more inches of her body. The end result was inevitable as it managed to completely and utterly engulf her eventually at which point everything became dark. She felt herself being buffeted around slightly and then landed some place warm, and from the sound of breathing which surrounded her she wasn't alone.

"I do believe our glorious leader has finally joined us." Samantha stretched out an arm and punched in the general direction she'd heard the voice come from. "Blast it, Benjamin. Now is no time to for us to be fighting with each other. Maybe if we work together, all six of us stretch in six different directions we can pull this thing apart from the inside." It was Jane's voice that answered her words.

"You think we didn't try that? It didn't work with five, and it's not gonna work with six." Then a voice that didn't belong to any of her siblings joined the conversation.

"If you don't want to spend the next few minutes blinking I'd suggest you close your eyes." They all followed the instructions, and a moment later the blackness faded away and once again there was light in the world. The six stood up at various points, and Franklin took a moment to reflect on their situation.

"Well we lost again." The body of their mother transformed itself from the amorphous blob that had captured them to her usual appearance.

"Well two of you actually managed to get out of the room this time." Benjamin huffed in irritation.

"If you want call being able to plant one foot outside the room before getting yanked back in 'getting out' mom." Susan lazily coiled her neck around her dark haired son. "Hey, you crossed the doorframe, and that's what mattered. Besides, I'm sure each and every one of you had your average individual time increase, and as for the total, well let me just take a look..." Susan checked an unstable molecule watch that her husband had made for her and smiled at what she saw.

"Forty three seconds, sure enough you beat your old time." Rachel seemed to randomly increase and decrease the length of her fingers for a few moments before commenting.

"Still less than a full minute. Heck that's just barely more than seven seconds for each of us. Not that the mean is a very good measure in this case since it was really more like ten seconds of grabbing all five of us, ten seconds of dealing with us bouncing around inside of you, and then twenty three seconds of chasing down Sam." Susan pulled her neck back to its normal length and confidently lay on her side smiling at her children.

"Well that's the reason why in all honesty I decided that I shouldn't be known as Not Bad Woman, or Pretty Good Woman, or even Great Woman, but instead went with Ultra Woman." Benjamin scowled up at his mother as he stretched his way over to a nearby kitchen counter, sitting down on it so that he could look her in the eye without needing to stretch his neck upwards to a rather ridiculous degree.

"Well what really matters is that we're gonna get stronger and stretchier as we grow up. In another few years you won't be able to take two of us at the same time let alone all six!" Though there was plenty of truth to his words (while her children would probably never stretch any better than their mother if they perfected their psychic powers then it would give them a considerable advantage over her) she couldn't help but find how energetic her children were to have themselves considered genuine superheroes rather cute in its way.

"You've still got a fair bit more growing to grow before that, of course." She playfully looped a hand around his waist giving him a quick 'hug', enjoying another brief show of mothering that was destined not to last. Susan wouldn't be surprised if one or even all of her children ended up being taller than she was, since her 5'6" wasn't an especially high bar to clear, and they had their over six foot tall father's genes to help them achieve that particular goal.

Jane who being down on the ground only came up to her mother's waist let loose with a slight groan of irritation.

"Yeah, yeah, we've all heard it before. I just can't believe that we'll have to wait till we're thirteen years old before we really start growing more elastic. That's going to be forever!" Susan bent down and patted her daughter's unruly mop of blond hair as she griped about the speculations Reed had made concerning the rate at which the children's powers would assert themselves.

"Now, now, I'm sure once you've the batch full of younger sisters and brothers I'm carrying within me at the moment to play around with it'll make time fly by for you a lot faster." At the very least Susan was certain that it would end up making her days fly by a lot faster with so many different daughters and sons to look after. Rachel joined her brother up on the table but only because it made it easier to lean up against a wall.

"Not to mention Uncle Johnny and Aunt Crystal's kids." Samantha remained on the floor gazing down at it.

"Yeah, but they won't be able to stretch like us." Franklin seemed rather taken aback by this information.

"Really?" Valeria also opted for choosing herself a seat on the highest ground available crossing her legs neatly once she had found the spot she wanted.

"Of course, they won't. They'll be able to control the elements like Aunt Crystal and turn to metal like Uncle Johnny. Kids take after their parents like that." At least Susan and Reed's had, not even Mister Fantastic was 100% certain of what would result when you mixed a human whose DNA had been altered by cosmic rays with an Inhuman, the children might be born with the exact same powers as one or both of their parents, or they might develop entirely different powers but only after being exposed to the Terrigan Mists. Samantha had a slightly melancholy look on her face as she contemplated sister's words.

"Yeah, but still that means those four won't be able to do a lot of the stuff that we can do for fun." Franklin on the other hand openly winced in response to them.

"I bet it must hurt not to be able to stretch, sooner or later at least. I mean you walk into something you get hit by something..." Susan coughed "loudly" and sure enough all of her children's eyes were focused on her in an instant.

"I know that you consider your powers the norm because it's all you ever know, but believe it or not I was born not being able to stretch." Jane began to nod along with the bored expression of a child who has heard a particular speech one time too many.

"Yeah mom and that was back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and people had to rewind movies before they could watch them again. Go ahead, tell us what it was like..." Susan shot her a disapproving glare, though she was willing to admit that Jane had a point. With every passing year Susan's memories of exactly what it had been like not to have her powers tended to get a bit dimmer.

That was the natural way of things, of course, but it meant that Susan did in fact have a harder and harder time remembering when accidentally getting her hands caught in a door was a problem, or she might have ever actually broken a nail. But that didn't mean she liked her children taking their powers for granted, and acting as if everyone else was handicapped because they lacked a particular superpower instead of simply consider those who did have them to be incredibly lucky. She could quite clearly foresee how her own children's playful style of rubbery rough housing could lead to problems if her brother in law's children were subjected to it, especially if before they learned how to transform their skin into something harder than steel.

"That's not what matters at the moment, Jane. To bring this conversation back around to original topic, while it might be a few years until you can all stretch your bodies as far as I can, it never hurts to practice." Benjamin continued to wear a rather sour scowl upon his face.

"Maybe so, but given that they're our powers, how come we're always practicing them in the ways that you guys want?" Susan proceeded to get a big leggier, adding a good solid two inches to her height so that once again none of her children couldn't meet her eyes without tilting their neck upwards.

"That would be because I've had considerably more experience in life or death situations with my powers than any of you have had, and thus I know some tricks of the trade that you'd probably have a hard time figuring out on your own." Not to mention there were some things that Susan knew she could do with her powers that she didn't want any of her children to end up learning for one reason or another. Jane took one look at her mother's longer legs and proceeded to stretch her neck out to a degree which would have done a giraffe proud until the two were eye to eye.

"Well that was a fine way to start with, but these days we don't seem to have lessons based around particular techniques all that often." Samantha nodded and a moment later stretched her neck out as well, though it didn't have anywhere near as far to go as Jane's.

"Not to mention we've always got to do our training in here. I mean I know this place is huge, but it sometimes seems like I've been living my entire life inside this one sky scraper. Would it kill us to be able to go someplace else to train?" Rachel saw an opportunity and straight away got to building upon her sister's question.

"Yeah mom, we did figure out how to do that mermaid tail thing in Atlantis before you did. Maybe we'd be able to figure out some other new ways to stretch that you haven't even thought of if we got a chance to just get turned loose some place that wasn't made up entirely of ninety degree angles and grey walls." Valeria now latched onto the idea with a vengeance.

"You and Dad are rich as rich can be right? So how about getting us our own private island?" Oh boy did that particular idea make a full dozen blue eyes sparkle like sapphires and half a dozen mouths practically salivate. Jane began to nod as quickly as she could, her long next making the action rather ungainly.

"Oh man, that would be so cool! You know some place that we could go to just do whatever with our powers, even if only during the weekends! Please?" The others weren't fair behind but Susan decided to take action before she got buried under a veritable avalanche of requests.

"I'll talk to your father about it. It's his money you'll be spending after all." Of course what she left unsaid was that given the way that Reed Richards seemed to turn out different inventions and patents for them in his sleep, it probably took a man of his intellect just to be able to properly count how much money he had these days. But this was no reason to swell her children's heads even further.

The response she got to her answer was immediate in that from their different positions around the room, every single one of her children elongated their arms and found a different section of her body to hug.

"Mom you're the best!"

-----

After managing to wiggle her way out of that six way embrace (it was trickier than it sounded given that her children didn't seem to want to let go possibly in a small way of getting back at her for how she'd managed to capture all of them again) she headed off to her husband's lab. As usual Reed proceeded to be as magnanimous with money as ever, and was no sooner introduced to the idea got to work searching for something that would be suitable.

Even in between all his other work he had his answer inside a week and called Susan to his lab so he could show it to her. After taking one quick look at the thing the pregnant mother reflected upon her experiences as Ultra Woman and knew what questions she had to ask right off the bat.

"Before we get started Reed, is this particular island 'uninhabited' and formed by volcanic activity?" Reed who wasn't wearing his armor at the moment flushed slightly.

"Well yes. But Susan, do please realize that past volcanic activity is just about the only way that new land masses are created, give or take some other kind of disaster separating one that already exists into two or more pieces. But look on the bright side, as you can plainly see, the volcanic activity never lead to the formation of a volcano itself above ground." Susan took another look at the island. It did at least look less ominous than plenty of others she had ended up visiting.

"Would I be correct if I guessed that there's a system of underground caves?" Reed nodded calmly and Susan took a step closer, stretching out her neck until her nose was practically touching the image of the island in question being displayed on the screen of one of the many computers that filled her husband's lab.

"In short, there's still no logical reason to think that this couldn't be a supervillian lair, is there?" Reed nodded calmly as he pressed a few more buttons on his computer.

"None at all, Susan. That's why we're going to investigate it ourselves before we even think about having our children so much as set a single foot down on this island." Susan nodded quite calmly.

"And by 'us' you mean the entire Fantastic Five, rather than just you and me, right?" Reed nodded serenely.

"Exactly, Susan. Let's just hope that we're only being overly paranoid." Susan just shrugged her shoulders giving off her own serene smile.

"Look on the bright side, Reed, its only paranoia when nobody has a reason to plot against you."

---

"So let me make sure that I understand this correctly. We're going to be going to go to this uninhabited island, the kind of place that supervillians JUST LOVE to use to hide their armies and the doomsday weapons with which they plan to conquer the world, and we're going to do this just so that we can get your kids a new playground?" Susan lengthened both her neck and her right arm so that she could get a good look at her brother and even feel out his head.

"Wait a moment. What is this? Is my brother actually sounding like a rational human being? I don't believe it! Where's the risk taking daredevil I've had to put up with for all my life? Are you coming down with a fever?" Johnny transformed his flesh to metal just so that he could swat her sister's hands away hard enough to make it slam into a wall on the other side of the room.

"Hey quit it. I only take risks when it means doing something cool or fun, and there's nothing cool or fun about going supervillian hunting since we run into enough of them in our everyday lives. I don't see why my brother in law Reed 'I can invent anything' Richards can't just whip up some kind of virtual reality device if you want to give your kids some place new to run around and have fun? That way, we wouldn't get caught up in another adventure that leads to us all of us only just getting away by the edge of our teeth." Susan looked first at her brother, and then at his wife, both women happened to be giving off expressions of polite befuddlement. Then all of a sudden she broke into a gale of laughter.

"Oh my god, it's actually happened! I had hoped it would, but I couldn't be sure, but now it's official, you've come down with a horrible case of FTFS." Even Reed got a slight chuckle out of that statement, though Johnny continued to look around the room, clearly knowing that there was some joke going on, he just didn't know the punch line.

"Okay, you know what? I think this doubtlessly has to be the very first time that I've ever been having a conversation with the two of you, and it's my sister who has left me completely and utterly unable to figure out what is being talking about. So who wants to take pity on me and explain?" Ultra Woman volunteered up the fact of the manner straight away.

"It stands for First Time Father Syndrome. Symptoms include sudden realization of your own, and even more frequently your wife's mortality, tackling anyone who brings a bottle of liquor into the same room as your pregnant wife regardless of the reason why, and in general previously unexpected levels of maturity.

I figure that FTFS is the only possible reason why you wouldn't want to pick up everything and suddenly go visit an 'uninhabited island' and possibly end up fighting some monster that looks like it never should have existed in the first place. I mean I might have expected this kind of stuff from Ben, but from you? Of course I could be wrong I mean maybe you're just getting on in years?" Sure enough when it came to her brother's mind Susan didn't need her husband's psychic powers to get him to do what she wanted.

"Oh come on! If that's how you're gonna be then fine, I and quite possibly my wife who happens to be pregnant with four kids at the moment, will be heading out to this "skull island" or whatever it's called and we'll just see what happens. Crystal, do you want to get involved in this particular disaster in the making?" Crystal openly smiled at her husband's fuming.

"Of course I'll come. After all my own kids might end up doing some training of their own on this island if things turn out well enough. I'll also see if there isn't anything I can't do to put my husband in a slightly better mood..." With that Crystal got up to follow Johnny out of the room, while Reed and Susan prepared themselves for the task of convincing Ben to come along with them as well.

---

As it turned out, that was actually easier done than said, perhaps because this time around unlike with Atlantis there was no chance that Alicia would be put in danger during the mission. So before they knew it the team was headed out towards the island in question. The team had decided to take the "Pogo Plane" which was technically more of an intercontinental ballistic missile turned transport vehicle than an actual plane. As Susan got her first look at the island a small smile threatened to twitch at her lip.

"Well, well, it looks likes its now pretty clear why exactly this place was for sale so cheaply. The view might be nice but the location leaves a lot to be desired." To be exact the location of the island just happened to be in the middle of some kind of barrier reef. Reed began to carefully examine the island as well.

"While I can't be completely sure, the odds are probably pretty good chance that clearing a path through it would cause considerable ecological damage. It's too far out to sea for a helicopter to reach it from the mainland, which means that it's probably near impossible to access. Of course for us that'll be no problem at all. Not that it wouldn't be a prudent to see about constructing a reasonably sized landing strip across it in the near future." Johnny, who still seemed to be in an unusual sulk despite Crystal's best efforts, let loose with a snort of contempt.

"That assumes that it's still standing by the time we're done kicking the tires and looking under the hood." Ben who seemed to be taking Johnny's bad mood as an excuse to be unusually jovial himself began to undo his restrains.

"You know if it gets any cheerier in here we just might have to establish a two drink minimum. I think I'm going to step outside and get a bit of fresh air." Reed was about to raise some object (Susan expected it had to do with the possible dangers that Ben might be exposing himself to, not to mention what dangers the craft might suffer from the change in pressure in mid flight) but he opened the door all the same, and took to the wing, though he was kind enough to slam it shut on his way out.

A few moments later Susan heard his "voice" contact her and the rest of the team through the mental link that Reed always took the time (and effort) to set up when the team might be going into battle.

/Well so far so good. There aren't any eighty eights or SAMs opening up on me so that's something at least. I'll go try and pick out a particularly good landing spot.\ Reed checked the screen again and then smiled.

/While I appreciate the effort on your part Ben, it's hardly necessary, my equipment has already picked out a good spot for us to put down on.\ To prove his point he proceeded to take his hands off the controls and pick up his facemask, attaching it to the rest of his armor that he'd already donned before even setting foot in the Pogo Plane.

As the vehicle's landing thrusters fired, Susan felt the usual jerking sensation which also as usual (at least based off her experiences during her first pregnancy) set her unborn children bouncing about her womb.

"Oomph, only four months along and already they're practicing how to take down supervillians." Crystal however kept a blithe smile on her face all the while as she playfully stroked her own stomach which possessed only the slightest hint as to the fact that she was pregnant.

"Speak for yourself, Susan, my kids are being quite as mice at the moment." A part of Ultra Woman once again couldn't help but mentally ponder just how unfair it was the way that the difference between what pregnancy entailed for a human and for an inhuman could be so vast. However by the time the Pogo Plane had finished setting down she'd managed to make herself content with the knowledge that however blissfully easy Crystal might sail through the process of having her children grow within her, Susan was going to end up having a much easier labor, by far.

Then she easily slid free of her restraints and got to work disembarking from the Pogo Plane, refraining from making use of the handles attached to the side of the ship, instead simply flowing down the ship's length using a pair of extra long arms to brace herself, and thus avoid momentarily turning herself into a pancake upon landing.

Crystal likewise used her own powers to ease her decent, generating a miniature tornado so that she drifted to the ground like a leaf. Reed and Johnny on the other hand actually bothered to climb down, and Ben landed next to them a few moments later. Johnny, at this point, proceeded to transform his body from flesh to metal and then wrap an arm on the back of his brother in law's armor.

"So Reed, how about a little psychic sonar pulse to see if we actually are alone out here?" Before Reed could make use of powers they got their answer in the most direct way imaginable.

The section of rock that they had parked their craft under suddenly seemed to give way as if it had been struck by a miniature earthquake. Susan wrapped one arm around her husband and another around a nearby rock formation that seemed to be as stable as anything else nearby.

Without even asking for an invitation Johnny proceeded to grab hold of Susan to brace himself against as well, while Crystal and Ben used their powers to take to the air. When the shaking finally subsided, another rocky outcropping had given way so as to prevent any of them (except possibly Susan) from trying to head downwards and find out exactly what had happened to their craft. Johnny looked down at the area where only a few moments ago the Pogo Plane had been and then smiled and pumped his arm in the air.

"Oh yeah, it's official. We've walked into a supervillian trap! Man, all that uncertainty really was the pits. Okay, lets go find whoever was behind this beat them thirty two different shades of black and blue, and go home." Susan blushed, actually rather pleased to have the brother she remembered back. The familiar really did have a comfort all of its own after all. As Ben landed back on solid ground he kicked at a few loose rocks.

"Well it'd would probably help if we knew who exactly we were dealing with. You have any ideas how we can figure that out professor?" Reed gingerly placed an arm on Crystal's shoulder as she placed her feet on hopefully solid ground once again.

"I have a few theories. To start with Crystal did your elemental powers give you any warning of that.... event which swallowed the Pogo Plane?" Crystal shook her head back and force and then bent down to run her hands along the ground itself.

"I'm not picking up any residual after affects of elemental manipulation, at least none other than my own. Which means whoever did this is either vastly more powerful than I am, or they simply made use of more conventional, means to cause that shake up. " Reed nodded slowly as he scratched his chin, or at least would have it wasn't for his armor getting in the way.

"So in other words excavation, pullers and levers, not to mention somehow being able to know when exactly we landed. Though I suppose it's equally likely that they might have designed this island's surface in such a way that landing where we did would be the only reasonable choice, and then setting things up so that his trap would spring was sufficient weight was placed upon it. It certainly would seem the easier of the two, though it probably would prove remarkably easy to hide a camera among all these rocky outcroppings.

Now then as for that mental sonar pulse you were asking for Johnny..." The answer came back a few moments later he pointed out towards one nearby section of rock.

"There's something over there. Whoever it is they're doing something to prevent me from being able to read their thoughts, but they can't hide their location from me. Susan, use your powers to maneuver your way through this place. Ben, get back in the sky and see if you can spot anything that looks vaguely intelligent. Johnny and Crystal, you follow me. We'll try to keep Susan from getting too far ahead of us." Having received her orders Susan got to work at once. She didn't bother trying to walk to her destination, instead she started stretching her body off in the direction Reed had pointed. Sure enough the wisdom of having Susan act as a scout became extremely clear as she found the most direct path imagine able littered with all kinds of obstacles.

Obstacles that Ultra Woman was able to laugh off however as she thinned her body down to be as flat as a sheet of paper letting her slip under some, or managed to fit herself through holes that shouldn't have been large enough to work her pregnant belly through, let alone the rest of her body as well. In the process she left behind her elongated blue body so that her teamates an easy trail to follow. As she did so however she felt Ben's mental voice echo through her mind.

/Well I'm up here, but I'm not seeing anything Reed. This island looks even more like a giant maze from up here than it did from down there. But maybe if Suzy Q could spook our mystery host into moving then I'd be able to catch sight of him.\ Just as Ben was finished making his request, Susan caught sight of a shadowy figure crouching in a rocky overhang.

"Hey who are you?" It wasn't the wisest tactical move possible to announce her presence ahead of time, but being a superheroine (especially one with no secret identity) meant that you were suppose to be the good cop no matter what. There was a possibility (an extremely minuscule possibility) that whoever this was happened to be an innocent bystander who had somehow wound up stranded on the island.

But the figure's actions more or less doused any hope she had of that being the case, since they proceeded to scramble up the side of the rocky incline they had been hiding underneath and then take off running at a surprisingly quick pace. Susan chased after her target, elongating her body up the side of the incline, to keep hot on their heels. As the distance closed she got a better look at the figure she was chasing after and it was clear that he was male, was short and had a large green cloak on. That was all the information which Ultra Woman needed to make a pretty substantial guess about who exactly was behind all of this.

"Oh no you don't!" Her opponent might have been a pretty spry fellow, but she doubted he'd be able to flat out outrun Ultra Woman's elastic arms. Except that apparently her prey had given this possibility plenty of forethought because as he passed into what looked like some kind of underground cavern, another section of rock shook itself free.

What made this all the more dramatic however was the fact the section of rock that came loose happened to be in the shape of a pair of handcuffs that landed directly on top of Susan's outstretched arms pinning them in place against the ground. She began to jerk her limbs and forth angrily but wasn't able to get them free, and the weight the rocks placed upon her arms was too much of a burden for her to continue stretching them forward.

So Ultra Woman was left with nothing to do but wiggle her immobilized limbs and back and forth while slowly retracting her legs as she felt her teammates working their way along her body. Eventually however the other four members of the team caught up with her and Reed tenderly placed an arm on Susan's shoulder as he saw her struggling with her restraints.

"Do you need a hand?" Susan blushed and nodded.

"Yeah those things didn't just land on top of my arms, they buried themselves into the ground so that I can't get them free!" Reed nodded quite calmly as he approached the rocky handcuffs.

"Well then, while I'm normally a proponent of solving problems by outthinking them, I haven't been a superhero for five years without recognizing that sometimes a sufficient quantity of brute force has a quality all its own." At that point Reed let loose with a pair of concussion blasts from his armor's gauntlets before getting to work simply hammering the rock formation which trapped his wife's limbs into dust.

Johnny pitched in with a punch or two of his own once he figured out what was going on and Crystal tossed in a lightning bolt, all of which added together to make sure it wasn't long before Susan was calmly rubbing her once more free wrists.

"Okay, I might have gotten caught by that stupid thing but now I'm pretty darn sure I know who is responsible for all of this." Before Susan could answer, a figure dressed in a green cloak stepped out from behind a nearby stalagmite, and he wasn't alone. To be exact, he was being escorted by at least a score of small yellow creatures that were only about three feet high.

"Welcome to my trap Fantastic Five!" Johnny sighed heavily as he examined the supervillian standing before the group.

"Oh great it's the Mole Man. You know what's the most pathetic part of all this? This is the SECOND time we've gone and bought something that it turns out you already own. This is gonna be the kind of thing that we're going to have a good long laugh about once we're done shutting down whatever evil villainous plan you're working on this time around! I mean would it kill you to diversify a little?" In response the Mole Man bitterly slam his staff into the ground in silent seething anger. Though the thing seemed to be made of ordinary wood, every member of the Fantastic Five knew that it was perfectly capable of releasing powerful bolts of energy at distant targets, and producing even stronger surges of the stuff into anyone unlikely enough to actually be struck by the staff.

That said considering that the Mole Man had been the very first supervillian the team had taken on (back when they were the Fantastic Four, though ironically they'd fought him a second time shortly after Crystal had unofficially joined the team but before it had become the Fantastic Five) and all things consider Susan couldn't help but view him as the Yugo of supervilliany.

Yes, he had all the classic hallmarks of a proper supervillian: a hatred for the rest of humanity based on how they had "mistreated him" (if you considered the vague unplesantries that accompany being born ugly, 'mistreatment') in the past, an army of unquestioningly loyal servants, a plethora of secret bases, an actual superpower himself (a highly turned sixth sense which allowed him to manipulate dark caverns with ease) and had even show a real talent for being to be able to create various plots for how he could either conquer or destroy the portion of the world that knew what shape the sun was.

Yet, despite seeming to meet all of the qualifications the only time he'd ever been able to seriously menace Susan and her teammates was when he'd caught them completely and utterly by surprise to the degree that Reed wasn't wearing his armor. Today he had only managed to take the Fantastic Five by "surprise" to the same extent that you were "surprised" when you felt the first drops of water splash on your head after going for a walk on a day when the sky was full of grey clouds. At the moment the Mole Man clearly was most displeased with Johnny's quip, a vicious smile playing upon his lips.

"Oh believe me I have much to tell you. But first let me see to your proper arrangements..." He then calmly tapped his staff against the ground and suddenly the cave's floor gave way beneath the superheroes. As they plummeted Susan could look up and see that a number of rocks were joining them in heading downward, making any attempt to fly back towards the Mole Man seem more or less suicidal.

They didn't have time to compare mental notes, but the other members of the Fantastic Five apparently came to the same conclusion as Ben dived downwards trying to position himself so that none of the falling debris would land on him. Crystal and Reed both began to let loose with streams of energy (one generated by the Inhuman's mysterious control over the elements the other by pure technological innovation) each proving equally adept at shattering many of the larger rocks above them.

Ultra Woman for her part quickly managed to stretch her body out into a wide soft living parachute intending to serve double duty as a blanket which would protect her teammates from the falling debris. As she did so, Susan discovered that apparently there was some kind of very powerful updraft shooting upwards from beneath her, since in her now flattened appearance, she floated right up into the rocks. Not wanting to get separated from her teammates she curled her body around one of them, and let the rocks weight carry her to whatever awaited the Fantastic Five.

As it turned out, this happened to be a surprisingly soft landing. As she uncurled her body Ultra Woman realized she and the others had landed on some kind of wire mesh net. As Reed was recovering from the fall and inspecting the floor slowly.

"Susan, do you think you could slip through this stuff?" It took her less than five seconds to get a finger through the mesh, and less than ten to get her whole right arm.

"Getting through would be a cake walk, but I'm not sure how good an idea it would be to head down there..." Beneath the mesh Susan could quite clearly see the huge fan that had been billowing air upwards which had slowed their fall. Though said spinning blades wouldn't be able to slice her rubbery body into pieces, they could considerably inconvenience her, and she'd have no idea what lay below it.

Given that she was in a supervillian liar, the odds were pretty decent that it would be bubbling hot lava, the kind which would melt her and then before she would know it drag her beneath its surface to either drown or possibly evaporate her body. So for the moment, it was probably better to stick with a teammate, and having decided that the most obvious path of escape was out of the question, she might as well take a closer look around.

The team seemed to be surrounded by a fifteen or so foot high wall made out of some glowing green material. One look at the thing was all she needed to make her want to scuttle as far away from it as possible, except that moving away from one edge of the circular wall just took her closer to another one, and so the most she could achieve was to stand more or less in the middle of the arena she'd landed in.

"Umm... Reed, this might just be my paranoia getting the better of me, but in retrospect it's more or less been spot on today so... is that wall radioactive?"

"It is indeed, Mrs. Richards!" Looking up she saw that the Mole Man was now sitting on a plush throne with a small collection of his yellow skinned servants (the moleoids if Susan's memory served) gathered around him.

"It was made from considerable amounts of radioactive material gathered by my most faithful and powerful servants who could be exposed to such energy without being harmed. In its current form, the sheer energy of it would flash fry any you in seconds if you tried to escape. So you see my long time foes, you really have no choice but to sit and listen while expound upon you and all of humanity's fate!"

Susan felt a slight blush coming on her face. It really was rather pathetic when a supervillian was perfectly aware of the fact that he was about break into a monologue. But there was no reason not to listen while they plotted how to escape from this trap, and whatever he was going to tell them would make it just that easier to foil the plot.

"Ever since our last encounter I have been preparing for this moment, for the supreme instant when I would have my revenge! With the aid of my subterranean subjects I have been constructing huge hydraulic platforms under the largest cities in the world! Now they rest but a single press of a button away from lowering themselves beneath the Earth's surface!

But that is only the first step on the path toward my master plan! You see, after I have accomplished this tremendous feat, your own countrymen will take care of the rest of things on their own quite nicely. When they discover that the cities have vanished they'll assume that there long time enemies are responsible, and then retaliate against them with every weapon in their arsenal!" Johnny leaned in close and whispered a few choice words to his sister.

"Umm... do you think this guy even realized that the Cold War is over?" Susan proceeded to elbow her brother back in irritation.

"Look, as supervillian plans go it's still dangerously likely to cause some real havoc." Of course at the moment they still didn't know how he was going to actually set his plan in motion. They didn't have to wait long however as a moleoid entered the room carrying a pillow that was every bit as plush as the Mole Man's throne, upon which held a wired device which looked just like you'd imagine some kind of detonator from a science fiction movie. As it drew closer foot by foot the Mole Man continued to gloat to his heart's content.

"And to make my triumph complete, the five of you who have sworn to defend humanity will witness my moment of victory, unable to do even the slightest thing to save millions upon millions of your fellow man!" It would have been quite an impressive speech except for the fact that he had a little problem acting upon it, because no sooner did he reach for it than the triggering device proceeded to roll right off of the pillow and land on the floor. The short supervillian rose from his chair, his entire body rippling with rage.

"Accursed clumsy fool! Fine then, I shall make use of the weapon myself!" He proceeded to try and simply bend down to pick up the weapon he needed to press in order to set his evil scheme in motion, except that now it began to roll across the floor away from him.

At this point as he was starting to mutter vaguely muffled curses, and Crystal was breaking into a fit of giggles while Johnny was actually out and out laughing at the Mole Man's misfortune. Of course "misfortune" probably was hardly the right word for it all things considered.

Not that many people were quick to realize that Reed Richards was telekinetic. It simply tended not to come up. Having a nearly indestructible strength enhancing suit of high tech armor that was full of all kinds of futuristic toys would probably be enough for your average superhero (or even another super genius who Susan knew who apparently rivaled Reed for IQ as well as depth of pockets) so his mental superpowers were often went underplayed.

Reed liked it that way since if people didn't bother to shield their minds from him it made it that much easier for him to either read or influence their thoughts. Also he tended to shy away from making blatant use of his telekentic powers whenever there was another option open to him.

At times like this however, when all of humanity seemed to be hanging in the balance there was no reason to hold back abilities in reserve. Still while Reed might be able to make the Mole Man appear to be a complete and utter fool (granted not that it as much of a stretch) on its own, it still didn't get them any closer to properly defeating him. But it turned out that apparently Reed had been working on a plan for that as well.

"Susan I need you to spread out again and Crystal you need to make use of your powers to generate an even greater updraft then the Mole Man's machine already is making. I'll use my suit's jetpack to provide us with additional thrust and we'll float over that radioactive barrier." Susan nodded very slowly. It wasn't exactly the most brilliant plan, but it seemed like it had a pretty dam good chance of working so she'd do her part.

Once more flattening her body down into a sheet Susan was almost at once blown upwards by the draft of air originating from underneath them. She extended her arms and legs, downward so that each of her teammates would have something to hold onto, and awaited the other's response. Reed quickly grabbed hold of her right arm while Johnny seized her left. Crystal took Susan's right leg and proceeded to tie it around her waist so that both of her hands would be free to direct her powers.

Ben didn't even bother simply taking flight instead, though he was careful to fly to the side of Susan rather than above or beneath her, which would have insured he either got slapped by her upwards expanding body (if he went above) or got buffeted by harsh winds (bellows) when Crystal cut lose her powers. Sure enough, the Inhuman's abilities to manipulate air showed themselves yet again a few moments later, and Susan billowed upwards lifting herself several dozen feet above the glowing wall.

Given that they were now about the same distance vertically from the walls as they had achieved horizontally while standing in the middle of them it seemed like they should be high enough up to head forward. Crystal shifted the direction the gusts of wind she was creating were blowing and Susan turned from parachute to parasail as the entire team began to glide forward.

Meanwhile the Mole Man was continuing to try and get his hands on the device which would actually activate his dastardly machines, and continuing to fail. But he was not so focused on the task that he didn't notice how his penned superheroes were escaping. He took his eyes from the floor, raised up his staff and let loose with a blast of energy.

Seeing as at the moment Susan was a great big blue target that was more or less complete incapable of any evasive action. The beam of energy thus struck her almost directly in the "five" symbol she wore between her breasts and Susan felt the stuff flow through her entire body playing havoc with her nervous system.

A normal person probably would have ended up with a great smoking crater in the middle of their upper body, but Ultra Woman was more resilient. In fact in an event that she didn't care to dwell upon at the time, she had once survived being exposed to considerable more than a single blast of energy from the Mole Man's staff.

But while the blast might not have done any permanent damage to her, it did cause Susan to crumple like a damp sand castle. Her body which had previously been perfectly position to catch the gusts of air that Crystal had been reliably creating now curled in upon itself as she began to plummet toward the ground, every fiber of her being filled with hopeless tingling. It was as if the sensation that occurred when you sat in the wrong way restricting blood flow to a leg had been superimposed upon her entire body.

So she fell looking toward the ground hoping that she covered enough ground that she and the others would come down a safe distance away from the radioactive wall. As she continued to plummet she suddenly felt Ben's hands pressing into her body as he flapped around her like a wasp around a falling sparrow.

She wondered if he was trying to somehow straighten out her body, and if she had been able to speak clearly she would have warned him not to bother. However as things turned out all she was able to utter was a mutter along the lines of "mughsdhirth" and even getting that out was enough to leave her jaw feeling doubly numb.

Luckily however Ben had other things in mind. Instead of putting wasted effort into getting her back to the way she used to be, he was working as hard as he possibly could in order to shape Susan's body into a large ball. Thus she more or less bounced off the floor, providing a protective cushion for the other members of the team (though Crystal had apparently leapt clear at the last moment) jerkily crossing a fair bit of the distance between her and the Mole Man's throne before finally coming a stop.

At first Susan just laid there like an oversized tarp with two of teamates trapped inside, but the sheer shock of the Fantastic Five's escape paralyzed the Mole Man long enough for her to mostly recover from his attack.

By the time he'd remembered that he was suppose to be trying to activate his special little doomsday device, Ultra Woman had finished unfolding herself and the entire Fantastic Five was taking part in a headlong rush (well Ben was flying overhead) towards him. Just when it seemed like she'd seen the worst the diminutive supervillian could muster however, Susan's feet came down on one section of his floor and suddenly it gave way beneath her.

With the momentum of running full tilt forward added to that of her pregnant belly Susan had no chance of avoiding going head over heels right into the trap door. In an instant she found herself tumbling down some kind of shaft and cursed herself for having fallen (literally) for one of the oldest tricks in the books twice in one day.

Trap doors were nothing new for her to encounter as a superheroine and given that the Mole Man more or less specialized in tunnels, it was hard to imagine creating tunnels underneath other tunnels would give him much trouble.

Granted the strange shaft she found herself in now was no ordinary tunnel, it was all gleaming metal illuminated by some unseen source and banked downward so steeply and so smoothly that there was nothing Susan could do but more or less roll her way along it until after about twenty seconds of falling the shaft came to abrupt halt and she found herself deposited into a nondescript room.

It was about ten feet wide by fifteen feet across, and hole through which she'd been dropped into it closed almost immediately as a metal ceiling slid into place. Without even bothering to think, she extended her arms upwards to probe the surface of that ceiling and see if there was a gap in it she could slip through.

By the time she'd come to the conclusion that no such gap existed, Susan had also realized that even if she could find such a weakness in the Mole Man's trap it would only take her back into the shaft which had brought her here, and happened to be so carefully designed that even she couldn't possibly scale it.

So for about ten seconds she sat down and simply skulked before standing back up (in the process wishing she hadn't sat down, her belly was really starting to make its presence known these days) and got to work feeling out the walls of her prison to see if they contained any convenient cracks through which she could squeeze her body.

After only having had time to check about a quarter of the painfully dull cell suddenly the Mole Man's voice poured into the room seeming to echo from every single side making it impossible to locate its origin.

"I do hope you enjoy this little trap I set up just for you Ultra Woman. I haven't forgotten how even while ridiculously fat with child you managed to thwart my plan to force all of humanity to become every bit as blind as I am, and so I made sure not to underestimate your abilities. Enjoy your last few breaths!" As his voice cut out Susan could hear a sound akin to the hissing of a thousand snakes as a green gas began to seep into the room.

Susan looked at it, and two powerful emotions instantly went to war for control of her body. The first was puzzlement at how the Mole Man could have been so confident in which member of the Fantastic Five would end up going down which trap door. Perhaps the downward leading tunnels were interconnected some way to make sure the right superhero ended up in the right deathtrap? This "reasonable" solution suggested about two seconds later the second emotion, mirth wore out.

Ultra Woman openly laughed at how little their current adversary thought of her powers to judge by his actions. The Mole Man might claim not to have underestimated her abilities, but the last time she'd been defeated by a room being filled with dangerous gasses of one type or another, not only had she been a considerably less experienced superheroine, but she'd also been off her game due to the unexpected internal antics of the first veritable litter of children.

In fact, she'd have to remember to thank the Mole Man when she got a chance, left to her own devices and with nothing to work with but her body this particular cube might have been able to hold her for quite a while. As it was, Susan promptly curled her body into a large sphere with her face turned inwards so that while she couldn't see anything, she was able to breath the uncontaminated air she'd corralled inside her body, instead of the doubtlessly poisonous fumes which continued to fill her cell.

Then she began to expand that sphere trying to make her body as big as possible, as she did so Susan felt the gas slowly starting to press against her, or at least the gas's pressure was. With a seemingly unending supply of the stuff being forced into the room there was only so much room for either her or it to spread out. As both the superheroine and deadly vapors began to occupy more and more of the room the air pressure became palpable.

Susan didn't bother to try and slide her body over the minuscule vents through which the gas was making its entrance, she simply lay there biding her time confident that she had captured enough breathable air (not to mention had a large enough supply of compressed oxygen in her lungs a trick she'd started using on reflex to prevent herself from being affected by knockout gas attacks) to last her through the poisonous assault.

Sure enough, the pressure continued to mount until it felt like Susan's rubbery body was trapped in some kind of vice that was pressing down on it from all sides, trying to crush her into the smallest sphere imaginable, but Ultra Woman refused to budge and inch knowing that if she allowed herself to get squeezed she'd loose her chance to escape and possibly survive as well.

Since the mounting pressure was unable to make her budge, instead it inflicted its wrath upon the walls which Susan could hear starting to creak ever so softly. Then suddenly with a BANG, it was like a popped balloon only a thousand times louder and considerable lower pitched, then Susan suddenly felt the pressure that she had been under vanish.

Not willing to risk exposing any of her extremities whatever traces of the gas might still remain in the room, Susan instead began to extend probing tendrils from her body, blindly feeling out the new nature of her container. It didn't take her long to notice a significant change, there was now a gapping hole in one of its walls. Deciding as she usually did to take the path of least resistance in such situations, Ultra Woman decided to get her spherical body to roll right through the hole, and it turned out that the opening lead to a downward sloping tunnel.

Willing to risk the possibility of being herded into yet another death trap over breathing in a few chemicals which her lungs would just as soon not become aquatinted with, Susan waited until she had finished rolling downwards to return to her normal form and examine her new surroundings, and what she saw brought a smile to her face.

"Well that's one problem out of the way!"

----

Crystal saw Susan drop into the trap door and realizing that where there was one there might be others (after all, why booby trap only one part of the floor?) and she began to summon up a gust of wind to get her airborne. Sadly she was too late, as suddenly the floor section she was standing on gave way beneath her, breaking her concentration in the process.

Before she knew it, after tumbling downwards through a trap door Crystal wound up in what she found to be a strange scene of domestic bliss instead of any kind of dungeon. Sure enough, as she stood up she found herself surrounded by what looked like a small kitchen, except without any visible doors or windows, and as she looked down Crystal discovered another odd thing about her situation, she was standing in a table, not on it, in it.

The brown piece of furniture only seemed to exist wherever she wasn't, a theory which swiping a hand through it and watching her hand passed right though it confirmed for better or worse. Before she could figure out what to make of this strange "trap" suddenly the voice of her captor echoed through her surroundings.

"Hello my dear, I hope you do enjoy the view, since it will be your last! In thirty seconds a lethal gas will be pumped into that room in quite copious amounts! Unless you manage to find the door to the chamber quite soon you will expire within moments of taking your first whiff of the stuff! You might not have been one of the original four who temporarily spurned my efforts to make the rest of my misbegotten race pay for mistreating me, but you've been a thorn in my side all the same ever since we met. Farewell for the last time!" When his voice finally faded Crystal was left with only one immediate thought, that she hopped he'd waited to finish his monologue before starting that thirty second count down.

Of course such wry dark humor wouldn't help her escape from this place, which as walking out of the table and through a nearby sink proved was apparently composed mostly of some kind of high tech holograms. That meant if she didn't figure a smarter way of searching for the door she'd be reduced to bumbling around blindly looking for it.

Rather than trust to random luck to insure her safety (and that of her four children to be of course) Crystal closed her eyes and called upon her powers. Instantly a powerful wind storm ripple through the room, and the through her connection to the elements the Inhuman Princess felt how each and every single gust made its way through the room, learning what it came in contact with and what it didn't.

Within ten seconds Crystal's eyes flickered open again, and she knew exactly what she needed to do. She ran to the other side of the room, passing right through several pieces of furniture, grabbed the handle of a door that was apparently being made invisible (most likely by some slightly different application of whatever was making her see things that weren't truly there) pulled hard to yank it open, darted through and then slammed it shut behind her just as her ears were filled with the hissing sound of something decidedly unpleasant seeping into the room she'd left in her wake.

---

The floor suddenly gave way beneath Johnny and he let out a cry of shock and surprise. He found himself plummeting through empty air with no idea at all what would break his fall, or possibly break him, and not quite able to resist simply following that old truism about not looking down.

He had no idea what to expect next, though truth turned out to be even stranger than anything he might have expected. It was soft, like a giant water bed. Out of confusion Johnny transformed out of his Mandroid form so that he wouldn't weigh down on the material quite so heavily and thus possibly send himself plummeting downwards through it with one poorly chosen move.

As he stood up, he noticed that there already was a tear in the white covering upon which had landed and through it was streaming a large amount of pinkish material. Easy come, easy go, Johnny returned his flesh to metallic firmness, so that it would be better able to resist any sort of dangerous material. He hesitantly approached the growing puddle of the stuff, and kicked at it, just to see how it reacted.

On the upside it didn't feel like it was some kind of superpowerful acid that was eating through his body, in fact it felt soft and squishy, like you would imagine clouds must feel like as a kid.

"Wow, Mole Man, the quality of your deathtraps has really gone downhill recently!" Sadly as it turned out his captor must have been listening, because at that point the speed with which the pink stuff was pumped upwards increased dramatically. Before he knew it, Johnny was knee deep in the stuff and trying to lift his feet out of it proved that despite being all innocent looking, the stuff was about as easy to move around in as molasses.

"Ughh..." Johnny knew what was happening even as the gunk slowly rose further and further up his body reaching his knees. Jonathan Spencer Storm wasn't anywhere near as smart as his brother in law, but he'd known ever since his sister had effortlessly managed to hand him head shortly after they got their powers, that all his strength was pretty darn useless against an opponent that he couldn't harm by punching it hard enough. This puddle of, whatever was definitely such an opponent and as it rose ever upward. He struggled to think of some way out of his predicament.

"Okay, okay... I'm gonna have to think fast if I don't want to die in what has to be most of the most embarrassing ways possible." So Johnny thought, and thought and thought, and by the time he felt the warm material starting to brush against the tips of his fingers he knew what to do.

Johnny took in the deepest breath that he possibly could, and then proceeded to dive downwards into the hole that the muck was seeping out of. The stuff had to be getting pumped into the room somehow, so all he had to do was figure it out before he drowned. That wasn't exactly the most reassuring of plans but for something he'd come up with all on his own it wasn't half bad.

Even more importantly, as he slowly worked his way through the muck, he finally managed to wrap his hands around a firm metal tube. Johnny yanked at it with all his strength (at least all the strength he could muster while he was completely buried in a material that he'd rather not think about the composition of) and he felt the thing first creek, then buckle, then finally a snap.

Of course behind the tube was a tunnel full of the stuff, but by this point it wasn't completely full and so the room began to drain into this new tunnel, taking Johnny along with it. After floundering in the muck for a while he was finally able to work his way free from the stuff. Thus he found himself crawling through a tunnel panting heavily and trying to scrape bits and pieces of the material he'd been dunked it off of his body.

"Double uggh, I really didn't need this."

----

"Susan!" Reed Richards let loose with a cry of pure, utter, and complete anguish as he watched the floor drop out beneath his pregnant wife and she vanished from his sight. For a moment he was hopelessly terrorized by imagines of the trapdoor she had just vanished down leading to some kind of bottomless pit from which he'd never see her again.

It passed however as Reed reminded himself that if here was one thing he had noticed in all his years as a superhero, it was that supervillians never made the most of the fact that they were allowed to kill off their opponents.

It might have been just a little egotistical of him, but Reed Richards was quite certain that if he'd put his mind to it, he would have easily conquered the world by now and been serenely worrying about what to name after himself next rather than his wife's safety.

As it was, Reed had managed to regain his composure and assure himself that Susan was doubtlessly only headed into another "deathtrap" just like one of the thousands she had already escaped from. By the time Reed was done considering his situation it was unfortunately too late to avoid the trap door that had opened up beneath him.

A long fall into apparent nothingness ended as he feel into a room that seemed like giant freezer or meat locker that had walls made entirely out of (or at least in the shape of) ice cube trays. Reed stared at the things, for a few moments trying to figure out what purpose they served. Then he got his answer and wished he hadn't as a white mist spread out of ice boxes coating his armor.

"How do you like it, Mr. Fantastic? A little bit of liquid nitrogen and all our fancy armor becomes nothing but one big paper weight!" Reed inwardly side as he struggled to move and indeed discovered that his armor was more or less frozen completely solid. That said, his armor happened to be very much air tight with a self contained environment inside of it.

Thus while his armor's joints were frozen solid, Reed Richards himself was perfectly comfortable, which meant that he could still think (and concentrate) without distraction. The Mole Man's problem was that he was still under estimating Reed's powers, but was probably just an inevitable side effect of the fact that the first time the team had fought him Reed had been nothing but a brain in a jar whose only purpose had been to be nothing but a living communications network for the other three.

So the fact that he had gone from a glorified cell phone to arguably the most powerful member of the team was bound to have taken plenty of people by surprise. He hesitantly directed his psychic powers outside his armor so as to break the ice that encased it. But apparently no sooner so had he done just that than another blast of the freezing material came out keeping him stuck in place.

Of course, it would take a lot more than that to sink Reed's spirits. He had tried one approach and it had failed, that just meant it was time for another. This time rather than trying to free his body he snapped off one particular chunk of the frost that was more or less in the shape of an ice pick. He then turned it around, and hurled it straight back at the miniature holes that the icy material came out of.

Then he pulled it back out and proceeded to jab it into a few more sections of the wall before it had completely shattered to a point that it was worthless. With mounting feelings (and proof) of success Reed proceeded to break off another sheet of ice, and once more vent his wrath upon the, vents that lined the wall before him. After using about five different slabs of ice Reed once more tried to move about and though a few more sprays of ice came out, they weren't enough of them to properly coat his armor to the point that it immobilized his armor.

Thus he was able to bring his metal fist to bear on the wall, which of course given the strength his armor lent him meant that the entire thing had developed a man sized hole large enough for him to slip through five punches later. On the other side of the wall he found something that looked like a large collection of cold war era computers. "Hmmm...."

-----

"What a revoltin' development..." muttered Benjamin Grimm as he watched as all four of his teamates vanished down various different trap doors. But rather than waste time feeling sorry for himself (poor him he wouldn't be able to experience yet another death trap), he got to work.

Ben tilted his wings downward and made towards the device which the Mole Man needed to complete his plans. He snatched it up off the floor before rising upwards towards the ceiling grasping the device close to his chest. The Mole Man glowered up at him and raised his staff in Ben's direction.

"You flying fool! Even as we speak each and every one of your teammates are being destroyed by finest traps and tricks that I was capable of conceiving!" Then he fired up a blast of energy that Ben managed to avoid by doing a quick midair barrel roll.

"If you think that you'll be able to talk Dragonfly into giving up that easily, then you don't know Dragonfly!" Of course, while the Mole Man wouldn't exactly have any considerable chance of being able to blast Ben out of the "sky" (and obvious his horde of extremely ground bound minions wouldn't do him much good) the lone superhero was also keenly aware that trying to take them all on by himself had "bad idea" written all over it.

So for the moment he just kept flying circles around the Mole Man dodging blast after blaster of energy. However as time passed he discovered new obstacles that he'd have to contend with previously, as sections of the ceiling started to give way in the wake of the Mole Man's attacks.

After darting out of the way of one such delayed cave in he turned to find the Mole Man angrily slamming his staff against the floor rather than trying to line up another shot.

"You cursed fool. Give me the device and you will at least live to see my glorious conquest of the surface world!" Ben was about to shoot back at least a mildly witty response when suddenly a section of the room's walls decided to give up the ghost as well.

Why became readily apparent as a moment later Jonathan Storm clambered in through the entrance he had just created. This sight further infuriated the Mole Man to an almost comical degree.

"How did you survive my death trap?" Johnny proceeded to stand up and playfully stroke his chin.

"It's a long story, though that's not as hard a question to answer as how exactly I managed to find my way back here. But I figure I'll leave I'll leave problems that require long drawn out discourse to resolve up to Reed Richards. Instead I'm going to set my sights a little lower and try to answer something a bit more topical; who wants to get their face pounded in first?" The Mole Man pointed his staff quite firmly at this new arrival.

"Get him!" A moment later sure enough a flood of small yellow bodies was headed in the Mandroid's direction. Luckily he was able to punch, pummel, and punt his way through all of them without too much trouble. Taking the time to trod upon one fallen foe he advanced towards the Mole Man himself.

"Looks like now that all of your little friends are out of the way it's your turn. Ben, old buddy, would you like to do the honors?" Ben nodded as he tossed aside the supervillain's precious device figuring that the fall would probably break it or at least keep it away from him.

"All right then, it's clobbering time!" He dive bombed downward towards the Mole Man while Johnny charged forward careful to avoid the section of the floor that he knew to be more or less littered with trapdoors. However they approached more or less in tandem all of a sudden the lights went out.

"Fools! Did you think I wouldn't have kept at least one trick up my sleeve just in case?" Johnny groped blindly from the Mole Man while Ben took his turn to mock the supervillian.

"You know if you'd turned the lights out in here while it was just me then you might have actually been able to get that doohickie you want so much away from me!" In response however there was the sound of the Mole Man's staff discharging and then Ben let loose with a cry of pain. A moment later the sound of a swinging staff whistled gently through the room and Johnny gave loose with a cry of surprise that soon became a scream of fright as he found himself once again in free fall while the Mole Man's mocking voice called down to both of them.

"Enjoy your trip downwards, and trust me there will be no fancy escape this time, just a very long drop with a short, sudden stop!" Johnny grouped blindly in the darkness but couldn't even find a wall to grab hold of to try and slow himself down.

"Ben, old buddy, can you fly right about now? I figure if I went back to being flesh and blood you might be able to slow us down some, then when we get near the bottom you let go and I'll go back to being the Mandroid..." Johnny considered this a good attempt at making the best of a bad situation, sadly the only response he got back was a rather agonized mumble.

"Oh well in that case I guess we're just boned. Right now all I can think is that I really shouldn't have procrastinated figuring out what my last words would be...." A moment later the two landed and bounced. Still unable to see his hands in front of his face Johnny slowly groped around at what they had landed on.

"You know for a death pit, this is surprisingly soft..." A moment later however he felt something very firm start to wrap its way around his arms and legs, pulling him down against the material tightly.

"OH GOD! IT'S GOT ME!" A moment later however a feminine laugh filled the room. "Sorry little brother, I couldn't resist." The binds holding Johnny in vanished as quickly as they had come into being, and he slammed his hands against the rippling material in anger.

"Sis, you have a sick sense of humor!" Susan's voice was completely unperturbed however.

"Well, I learned it from spending it time with you. Now then, would you like a bounce back into action. A moment later however a very loud "THUMP" suggested that yet another being had just landed on top of Susan's body.

"Actually that won't be necessary Susan I think it's time that we find Crystal and get out of here." A strange smell began to drift up and as Susan shifted her body aside a single light filled the chamber. Crystal was using one hand to control a strong enough wind current to keep herself airborne, and in her other hand was a flickering flame.

"I'm right here, Reed. But we still don't know how to get out of here..." Susan coughed loudly, her voice growing even more smug than it had been after first catching two of her teammates.

"Actually I found where the Mole Man is keeping the Pogo Plane on my way over here. It'll be a little tricky for those of you who can't fit your entire body inside a milk bottle to follow me to it, but you should be able to enlarge the passages fairly quickly. But what about the Mole Man's evil plan?" Reed Richards spoke up with the kind of voice that brooked no disagreement.

"It's been taken care of. Don't worry."

----

As the Pogo Plane's engines fired and it lifted off toward the hole that Crystal had made for it to travel through to the world above, Reed Richards was looking at his arm. Of course, there was no watch upon it. He had a chronometer built right into his suit, but even a man such as he could find himself performing old routines even when they weren't necessary.

"Well by my calculations we've got about thirty seconds left give or take until the Mole Man manages to activate his creation." As he spoke he proceeded to press a few more buttons to take care of guiding the ship back home. Johnny was considerably less blasé about the situation.

"Meaning we've got less than a minute until he manages to destroy several of the world's largest cities? Isn't that what we in the superhero business consider a 'bad thing' last time I checked?" Reed smiled as he calmly began to remove his armor starting with his mask.

"Yes, that would be a bad thing if it actually took place. However, after I managed to escape from the death trap that the Mole Man dropped me into I managed to locate the equipment that was responsible for controlling his device. So I did a little creative rewiring. To make a long story short, when he pushes that button this entire island is going to be 'vertically' relocated to put it politely. Suffice to say its highest point is going to be about a couple dozen feet below sea level." Johnny looked down at the floor quite thoroughly chastised.

"Well lesson learned, yet another reason for me to add to that very long list about why I should never piss off my brother in law. Well as long as we get to go home, and nobody innocent gets hurt, I'll call that a win. Wake me when we land Crys, I'm gonna see if I can grab some shut eye..."

----

The flight back to the Baxter Building was completely uneventful and later on that night, Susan and Reed's bodies lay intertwined with one another as they shared their thoughts on the day.

"You know while it's not like we weren't expecting it, it still is a shame that we weren't able to get our kids that private island they wanted." Reed nodded very slowly, his body slowly rubbing up against his wife's.

"Well, if it's that important to you, Susan, I suppose I could speak to Tony Stark. Last time I checked he has a few private islands that he isn't quite sure what to do with and would probably be willing to part with them for a fairly reasonable price." Susan carefully matched each and every movement of her husband's body with its like, shifting herself in turn.

"Well, it wasn't so much about the island, as giving our kids a place for them to test out their powers in some unique ways when we weren't around..." Reed felt a particular itch on his chin and given how tightly bound his arms were he needed to make use of his powers in order to scratch it.

"Well, I'll make sure to sleep on it dear." Susan bristled slightly tightening her grip in an irritated rather than playful manner.

"You mean that we'll sleep on it together given that when it comes to this kind of outside the box problem I'm just as likely to come up with a solution as you are... Wait a minute, the two of us sleeping on something.... I do believe that I just might have a solution..." A peach colored tendril proceeded to extend from Susan's body reaching across the room over to Reed's desk in order to pick up a pencil and scratch a few notes on a piece of paper before opening up a drawer and dropping it into the compartment and shutting it.

"There, now I'll be able to look it up in the morning in case I forget it, and baring any mind reading I'll get to enjoy the sensation of knowing something you don't for a while!"

-----

"Wow, would you look at all of this stuff...." mumbled Samantha as she looked around the room extending her neck towards this, that, and a few other things in order to get a better look at it. Meanwhile Rachel was poking something not at all innocent looking which happened to have multiple spikes sticking out of it.

"So, um, what exactly is all this stuff?" Susan offered her children a broad smile before she gave them an explanation.

"Simple, whenever your father or I come across an evil villain's deathtrap that gets used on me, we take mental notes. Then he sees about recreating it so that if the villains aren't creative enough to have come up with something new next time we run into them, I'll be so experienced with the particular mechanism that I'll be able to escape it in no time.

But since I'm confident of my skills concerning everything here, we're turning it over to you six. Of course, you do need to pay attention to us while we explain how it all works, but once we've done that you'll be able to test each other's elastic powers in several different ways whenever you want!"

----

After doing quite a bit of explanation and hanging around just to make sure that they'd gotten the hang of it, Susan and Reed lived up to the promise by leaving their kids alone, exiting from their new testing room with Susan's right arm wrapped twice over around her husband.

"Are we bad parents for doing that?" Reed just shrugged slightly leaning in close against his wife's body.

"Not really Susan, after all our kids are happy and there's no reason for them to expect the real reason we had such equipment in the first place." Susan let loose with a contented sigh, a wistful smile on her face.

"Of course now that it's theirs and we've moved it out of your lab, we're going to have to do without." Reed glanced into her eyes, a wide smile on his face.

"That's one point of view. Another would be that this is a chance for me to start developing all sorts of new toys for the two of us." It was at this point that Susan kissed him. "I knew there was a reason I haven't stopped loving you one little bit since the day we got married..."