Disclaimer: See Chapter One.

Crash and Freeze

Chapter Five

"Johnny, you have to leave your room sometime, you know!" Sue's voice reached him through the door, the pillow, and the blanket. As soon as he had seen the fear in that little girl's eyes as she slowly backed away from him, he had left the scene quickly. When he got back to the Baxter Building, he had barricaded himself in his room and cocooned himself on his bed with his comforter and pillows. That had been three hours ago, and none of his teammates had felt that his self-enforced isolation was the way to deal with what happened.

"Maybe," he replied, turning his head slightly towards the door. "But I don't have to until whatever side-effects that I am apparently having from my drugs wears off!"

"Johnny, come on, come out," Reed reasoned. "Let us help you. Let me run tests and see if I can't flush the remaining drug residues from your system."

"No!" Johnny said vehemently. They had tried the same arguments on him over and over again to try and get him out of his room, but they didn't understand. Sure, the little girl had ended up fine, Johnny having realized what was happening before he could do much more than singe her shirt. However, if his control was so lax, what was to keep him from setting something on fire, or worse someone? He couldn't risk his family's lives like that.

For the first time since they had been exposed to the cosmic storm that had caused them to develop the powers they were known for, he was afraid of what he could do.

He sighed in relief as he heard the retreating footsteps of his family. All he wanted to do was sleep until this whole ordeal were over. He closed his eyes only to snap them open again at the sound of his cell phone. He groaned as he reached over and opened the phone.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Mr. Storm," a hauntingly familiar female voice greeted. "I'm sure you have noticed the problems you are having with your powers."

He shot straight up and clutched the phone. "Who is this?"

"No need to get up on my account," the cool voice responded in amusement.

Johnny's eyes grew wide and he looked frantically around the room, his eyes finally alighting on the window. He rushed over and let his eyes roam each adjacent building in a frenzy. "Where are you?"

"No where near you, I assure you. Now, calm down and behave yourself, before you cause the deaths of your entire family..."

"What do you mean? Don't you dare touch them!" he hissed menacingly.

"I wouldn't do a thing to them, at least, no one would know it was me, at least. You see, Mr. Storm, with a push of a button, I can control your body temperature. Now how would you feel if the entire Baxter Building burned down all because of you," the woman actually sounded delighted at the possibility.

"What do you want from me?" Johnny asked, resigned to do whatever the woman asked of him.

"Uh uh, not yet, Mr. Storm," she chided. "First we have to see if you can behave yourself in front of your family. But don't worry, I'll be in touch. Oh, and I wouldn't mention this conversation to your family. You wouldn't want to upset them... or burn them."

Before he could get in another word, the line went dead.

What did he do now? What else could he do but obey? He couldn't let Sue, Reed, or Ben figure out what was going on either, which was going to be hard because all three of them were too damn smart for him to fool for long. He sighed as he lay back down on the bed. The first thing he had to do was stay put for the rest of the day, just like he had planned before his unexpected phone call. After that, things would get a lot more complicated, but hey, on the bright side, he had all day to figure it out.

OoooOoooOoooO

The woman smiled as she looked at the screen in front of her. Her words had obviously had the desired effect on the mutated freak. Mutants—how she despised their kind. The Fantastic Four may not have been true mutants, but they held the key to the downfall of the mutant community. If only she could find it...

That's what she needed the little firefly for. Unfortunately for him, it will be very painful. She watched gleefully as he lay back on the bed. The little fool actually thought that obedience would save him and his family, not that she would have it any other way. After all, her plan would never succeed if he weren't afraid...

OoooOoooOoooO

Reed frowned in puzzlement as he looked at the display. The security system had a few wrinkles that needed to be ironed out, and he figured that he may as well work on it while he had some downtime. The system itself wasn't the most ideal, especially since it left much to be desired in the privacy department, but they had all agreed shortly after they had gotten their powers that it was for the best. All four trusted each other completely, so it was fairly easy for them all to agree to a security camera in each of their rooms. Thus far, there had been no problems.

However, he couldn't figure out where the damn problem was coming from! He couldn't get any video feed from any room in the house, a problem that he had discovered a few days ago when he ran a routine test to ensure everything was in working order. Upon investigation, he discovered that the video feed for more than a month was all blank.

He sighed as he turned away from the computer. It wasn't programming that was the problem, which meant that it had to be hardware. Since damages to one individual camera would not cause a problem with any of the others, he would have to check all of the main wiring.

However, before he could get started, Sue called him to dinner. He frowned again as he looked up to where the camera was in the lab and shrugged. There was no pressing danger to the team. It could wait another day or two.

Tbc...

Short, I'm sorry! I was going to make it longer, but I'm about to fall asleep! Hope you enjoy it and please review!