Chapter 45: Ambush

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At the top of the Baxter Building, Susan looked down at the city she grew up in with a hint of yearning, but also some melancholy and sadness.

While she grew up here and met many incredible people, it also brought up painful memories. But as she was getting lost in her thoughts, she felt a hand rest on her shoulder, and a younger man's voice speak.

"You alright sis?"

Susan turned her head to look at her brother, Jonathan, although he preferred to be called Johnny, and reassured him "Yes, I got lost in my memories…"

Johnny approached the window and looked down before teasing "Looks like the people here missed you."

"I understand they are excited, but what do they expect waiting down there? We didn't even accept the mayor's proposal for a speech!"

"You should stop worrying and enjoy their love. That's what I do, and I'm doing it wonderfully!"

Susan glared at her brother who showed a naughty smile and berated him "You shouldn't be doing these kind of things, you are still in High School for god's sake!"

"Stop being a mom."

Susan was about to retort something when another, gravy voice said "You should go on a walk Sue. On your own. To reconnect with the city."

Susan looked at her friend, Ben, also known as the 'Thing'. It was a hurtful name, for a not so pleasing power… Ben's life had been ruined by his appearance, and unlike them who could still live a normal life were they to ever wish to, but Ben only had this.

She smiled at her friend and said "Thank you, Ben. Actually, I think I will follow your advice." Ben showed a stony smile, but Johnny interrupted "You think we could find jade if we cut him open?"

Ben clenched his fist as he glared at Johnny, but the later walked away with a smile… before bumping head first into an invisible barrier.

Holding his bruised nose, Johnny complained "Sue!"

Susan only smiled though and winked at Ben before walking to the lab. Once in, she heard the familiar, distant sound of someone working, so she yelled "I'm going out Reed!"

A few seconds passed, and Susan heard no answer. With a defeated sigh, she walked out. She went to her temporary bathroom and adjusted her appearance to leave without being swarmed by the people below.

She straightened her hair and put 'serious' clothes on top of her costume before leaving the building through the 'back door'.

That is, going through the front door, but invisible. The people here were surrounding the building so it was either going invisible or being seen by everyone.

With her disguise, people wouldn't recognize her in the street because they wouldn't expect her to be there, but if she left the Baxter Building then they would recognize her straight away.

Anyway, once she left the near proximity of the Baxter Building, she turned back visible while in a big crowd of people in Times Square. No one looked around them in those crowds.

Looking around, it almost felt magical to be back here. She remembered that as a kid, she dreamt of this place, it was the 'cool' spot to be in.

But as she looked at the giant screens and saw an image of herself there… It no longer felt as exciting anymore.

She lived her entire childhood in this city, first with her parents, then only her father, and near the end only with her aunt and her brother…

Johnny had been too young to really remember what happened to their family, but she did. Her mother died in a car accident, and their father failed to save her, which he has always blamed himself for.

A lot happened, and she still wasn't sure as to how it happened to this day, but her father murdered someone and was sent to prison. She and Johnny were then sent to live with their aunt Marygay, who ran a boarding house, and that's where she met Reed.

She was only a teen then while he was already working on a PhD, his third one at that, but she quickly fell in love with the older man, so when he moved to California for work, she decided to follow him.

A rash decision, now that she had the benefit of hindsight, but she did it nonetheless. As for Johnny, he remained with their aunt, he didn't have any reason to follow her, and he had their aunt.

Now, several years later, and with powers now, she returned to this city. She just felt… weird. After wandering around for a bit, she decided to go to Central Park.

As a child, she remembered often coming here with her mother and Johnny, who was only a babe back then. Walking through the snowy grass, she felt a closeness to the cold. A connection to her childhood. To the uncomplicated times…

How she wished sometimes she could simply return to her childhood and live her leisure life. To relive her life and correct the mistakes she made. But she knew those were nothing more than stupid thoughts, she had to live in the present, not the past.

Her melancholy gave rise to bad memories too, as she remembered what her life truly was with her parents. She had cast an illusion on herself, forcing herself to believe those times were good.

But she knew the truth. Her parents, be it her father or her mother, ignored them and spent more time yelling at each other than taking care of them.

And even as tragedy struck them twice, her father still dared to ask the impossible out of her, and tell her brother their father died, instead of revealing the truth and telling him their father went to prison.

To this day, she still regretted following her father's wishes, and always wanted to tell Johnny about her father, but she was scared of doing it. How was he going to react? Would he even care? Would he yell at her? Would he ignore her?

Lost in her thoughts and memories, she didn't even pay attention to her surroundings anymore, and bumped into someone.

Brought back to the real world by this, she looked at the one she bumped into, about to apologize. However, she abruptly stopped as she saw who stood in front of her.

It was a giant man, dressed in a long overcoat… or so she thought, until she saw his face. It wasn't anything human, but an android she had fought in the past.

Dragon Man.

Susan instantly pressed on a secret button in her pocket, signalling she was in trouble to all other members of the F4, but did not start attacking right away as she asked rather meekly "Draconus, what are you doing here?"

However, the android did not answer and only looked at her with glazed eyes. Looking into them, Susan did not feel any kind of intelligence or emotion, as if she was looking into a robot's eyes…

"Don't bother, he can't hear you. I've had enough of his 'escapades' with you." Another voice made itself known, and Susan turned around to look at the newcomer, although she perfectly recognized his damned voice.

"Diablo. I can't say it's a pleasure seeing you."

Diablo, one of the villains the F4 fought before, and self acknowledged creator of Dragon Man, grinned at her scowl.

"Separating from the others, what a rookie mistake of you. Do you think you even have the slightest chance of winning against us?"

Susan didn't reply and instead extended both her palms outwards, sending two psionic forcefields toward the two. Dragon Man did not even try to escape as the forcefield smashed into him, sending him flying.

As for Diablo, the forcefield also smashed into him, but dispersed his image. This made Susan raise an eyebrow as she created a protective dome around her and said "Illusions? New tricks, Diablo?"

A laughter echoed from all around her as he replied "You are quite cocky. Dragon Man, attack her!"

Seeing Dragon Man charge her, Susan knew her shield wouldn't hold. She put it up more to protect against secret attacks than frontal assaults. They had already fought against the Dragon Man, and it had already shown the capacity to rival or even overpower the Thing, so she wasn't going to defend from one of his charges.

She created another forcefield, which she slammed into the Dragon Man's side, forcefully altering his trajectory. At the same time, she turned herself invisible and started running away.

But she barely ran ten meters when a potion exploded in front of her, and she barely had the time to change directions before a giant monster erupted from the ground. It looked like a weird mix between a lizard, an ape and something else she couldn't put a name on.

She did, however, recognize it as one of the Mole Man's subterranean monsters. As if to answer her thought, several other monsters appeared, surrounding her.

Alongside them, came the Mole Man himself, who laughed "Foolish woman, you are walking on snow!"

The Mole Man did have the nice habit of telling his foes about his plans and their weaknesses, and so she looked down, and saw her own footprints. She may be invisible, but she still affected the surrounding world.

The situation was rather grim, she was surrounded by three of their enemies, all of whom could threaten their whole group, on her own, and on the defence.

She uncloaked herself and provoked Diablo "This is why you never won against us, you need help to even take care of only me."

Diablo was prideful, and the most susceptible to fall for her words. However, his expression showed no change as he replied "You are going down today."

But as he took out a potion, the air whistled as it suddenly became hotter, and the Human Torch came swooping in, yelling "YOU are going down!"

Johnny fired several fireballs toward the surrounding monsters as he slammed into Diablo, who took out another potion and shattered it just fast enough to make it explode. The impact sent him flying out of Johnny's trajectory, but seemed to have injured him.

Meanwhile, Dragon Man, whose only command was to charge Susan, was doing just as it was told, but before it could get close to her Ben appeared in front of him, blocking his path.

Ben managed to stop the Android with ease, and made it fall as he began raining fists onto the android. As for Dragon Man, it didn't even try to defend itself as it tried to follow the order given.

An enraged growl came out of Diablo as he saw this "FIGHT YOU FOOL!"

Finally, Dragon Man started fighting back, but Ben already had the advantage.

The final one to appear was Reed, who stretched out his limbs to tie several monsters together while smiling toward Susan. However, from her viewpoint she saw someone appear behind him, and her expression changed as she hurriedly created a force field behind him.

A fist descended onto Reed, and smashed into the psionic shield. The usually tough forcefield was smashed apart with a single fist, but fortunately it was still slowed down enough for Reed to entangle from the monsters and dodge.

He wouldn't usually fear a punch as his body was like rubber, but he knew the one who attacked him. An alien from another planet, champion of his race… Super Skrull.

Through unknown ways, Super Skrull had gained the combined powers of the Fantastic Four, and even strengthened them.

Reed shaped his hand into a giant hammer, and slammed it into Super Skrull, but the alien's body alighted in fire as he took the blow head on. He barely moved from his position and showed no pain, while Reed had to quickly retract his burnt hand.

Super Skrull was one of their trickiest enemies, and now he had teamed up against their other foes. The situation was still solvable, he was confidant in their team, as long as…

"Reed, you poor idiot, always so eager to fall into traps."

A green portal opened itself in the air as a man in a silver armor and green cloth flew out.