Back to GatefoldIssue #72 by Jason Bruss & Tobias Christopher
November 2016 |
“Shattered”
*This scene happens in New Warriors #10
"You sure you want to do this?" Josh asked as he looked at Franklin. Franklin was dressed in his new F4 outfit, which was all white, with a white hexagon sitting on top of two hexagons. Josh was shirtless, wearing the bottom half of the same costume Franklin had on. His large red wings were folded over his shoulders as they stood in Reed Richard's lab.
"Well, we to need start this hero thing somewhere, right?" Franklin asked as he looked at the portal in front of them. "And with dozens of heroes, and Valeria leading our team without us, that's not going to leave us much to do. So I say we skip this dimension for a while and go looking for adventures off-world, see who we can help in other places, really get our skills honed before we come back."
"Won't your parents miss you?" Josh asked.
"It's summer vacation and my parents barely notice me when I'm here," Franklin told him, not realizing there was a mini-camera on a small fly that was following them. "They won't even notice I'm gone for a few weeks. By that time, we should be home and better than ever. You said you, trust me, right?"
"Yeah, I do," Josh said as he slung his backpack over his shoulder. "Okay, let's do this."
Two young men held hands as they took a deep breath, before jumping through the portal together. It closed, just as Reed came into the lab, whistling while doing a crossword puzzle. He looked up, seeing just a single red feather floating to the ground.
"I told those boys to not play in the lab," Reed sighed. "I'm going to have a long talk with that boy the next time that I see him."
# # # # # # # # # # #
Alicia Masters opened her eyes, finding herself suspended in mid-air by a rope, hanging from a steel beam in an old factory. She could smell Sharon's perfume near her as she moved her head around.
"Sharon? Sharon, are you here? Why are you doing this?" Alicia asked. Nearby, She-Thing just watched her friend, not responding as she put her rocky palms to her face while crying. "Please, I am your friend, you can tell me."
"I'm dying," She-Thing said. "The Wizard gave me a chance to live, and without his nano-tech... I'll die within weeks. In exchange for my life... I have to take yours."
"But... why?" Alicia asked as someone made a coughing noise from the doorway.
"I believe She-Thing has said more than enough already," Puppet Master said as he walked in.
"Father?" Alicia said, her voice shaking. "Why are you throwing away your second chance by doing this?"
"You will never understand my motivations, my dear," Puppet Master told her.
# # # # # # # # # # #
The vault of the Acme University Tech Department exploded as the Wizard and the mindless clone of the Sandman entered, where they began pilfering every piece of tech they could get their hands on.
"No one will mock the Wizard any longer!" the Wizard shouted. "With this technology added to my own, I will be unstoppable!'
The police showed up, responding to the silent alarm with their guns drawn, not ready for something like this. The Wizard spotted them and just pointed the Sandman in their direction. The clone shot his hand forward and began force feeding sand down the first officer's throat, choking him to death until the officer fell dead to the ground. The second officer began firing his gun, but the Sandman quickly turned into his sand form and wrapped around the officer, tightening his grip like a snake, putting pressure on the man's body. The officer's eyes began to bulge out of his head as his head began expanding like a balloon until he exploded from the build-up of blood.
"Okay, ew," the Wizard said. "Oh, well, let's hurry up, we have much to do!"
# # # # # # # # # # #
The Baxter Building
"Why isn't Alicia answering her phone?" Ben asked as he tried to dial again. "Something must be wrong, she never keeps me waiting like this."
"Ben, are you okay?" Sue asked.
"No, Suzie, my heart's hurting," Ben told her. "And worrying about Alicia's not helping. Maybe I ate too much Mexican food tonight."
Across the room, Reed and Nathaniel were talking.
"Someone close is dying," Nathaniel said. "That's why I came back. Someone dies and it changes the future of the team forever."
"Perhaps you should be more upfront," Yoshi told him. "Nothing has ever come from keeping secrets."
"Maybe it was Ben," Johnny said as he sat on the couch. "I mean, he did have a pretty close call in that fight in the Negative Zone."
Before anyone else could say anything, the alarm went off at the Acme Department.
"We'll discuss it later, right now we need to check out that alarm," Reed told them. "Suit up."
# # # # # # # # # # #
The Wizard was finishing a device, smiling to himself as he held it up. "Stand back, Sandman."
The clone did as he was ordered as the Wizard aimed the laser at a steel beam, melting it within seconds. "Blast! It was supposed to animate the steel beam, not melt it. But perhaps I can work with this."
"The only thing you're going to work on is a 10 - 20 jail sentence!" the Human Torch shouted as he flew in, followed by the rest of the Fantastic Four and Lyja. They saw the dead officers as Reed got a shocked look on his face.
"You killed those officers?" Reed asked. "Turn yourself in, Wizard. Those men were innocent."
"No man is truly innocent," the Wizard said he ordered the Sandman forward. Johnny, Lyja, and Ben went to fight him as Reed extended his upper body to attack the Wizard. Before he could reach the villain, the Sandman grabbed Reed while the rest of the team tried to help him The Wizard took the chance to escape while Sue noticed Nathaniel coming into the room.
"Nathaniel, you shouldn't be here," Sue told him.
"Sue, I came because I know what happens," Nathaniel told her. "We must follow the Wizard before it's too late."
Sue just nodded as she rushed over to her teammates and used her powers to pull Johnny out of the Sandman's grip.
"Johnny, supernova, now!" Sue shouted. Johnny just nodded and turned up the heat as he flew around the Sandman until the clone was a giant glass sculpture. Ben put his hand through it, shattering the Sandman with just one punch. As the glass showered to the ground, Sue looked around. "Reed, Nathaniel's gone after the Wizard, we have to help him."
# # # # # # # # # # #
The Puppet Master came back into the room, looking up at Alicia with a wicked grin on his face.
"Congratulations are in order, my dear," the Puppet Master said.
"Congratulations? For what?" Alicia asked.
"I did a bio-scan of you the day I saw you in the park, and I just got the results," Puppet Master told her. "I was hoping to use your physiology to give you some sort of virus to return to the Fantastic Four to make them sick, but it turns out instead that you are with child."
"A baby?" Alicia smiled. "I'm having Ben's baby?"
"Congratulations, Alicia," She-Thing said. "Puppet Master, we must release her. We can't keep her here now."
"She can go," the Wizard said as he returned. "She is merely the bait. I had planned on killing her, but even I won't kill an unborn child. Once she has served her purpose, she can walk out of here freely." That was a lie, the Wizard wasn't about to pass up the chance to dissect a baby with mutant genes in it to further his own agenda.
"You'll let her go now," Nathaniel said as he stepped out of the shadows.
"Were you stupid enough to come here alone?" the Wizard asked.
"Yes, because I won't let you harm my family," Nathaniel told him.
While they were talking, She-Thing freed Alicia and put her on the ground. "Go, Alicia, go to safety. I am so sorry for dragging you into this. You're my closest friend and I don't deserve your friendship."
The Wizard blasted Nathaniel away with a photon blast as he turned toward She-Thing. "You are a fool, Sharon! You betray me like this and you can kiss your survival goodbye. Without me, you die."
"I'd rather die a hero than be your puppet," She-Thing said.
"Very well," the Wizard said as he pulled out a ray gun and fired it at her. Nathaniel pushed She-Thing and Alicia out of the way, taking the blast for them. He fell to the ground, having been shot in the stomach.
"NO!" She-Thing shouted. "He only wanted to save his family."
The Fantastic Four burst through the door and saw Nathaniel in She-Thing's arms.
"Oh, now things are about to get interesting," the Wizard smiled.
"Sharon, what's going on?" Ben asked as he went to Alicia's side and hugged her.
"I'm so sorry, Ben," She-Thing said. "I was dying, and... the Wizard said he could help me if I did what he said. But once I knew Alicia was pregnant, I knew I had to protect her."
"Pregnant? You're carrying my baby?" Ben asked as he felt Alicia's stomach. "And the Wizard dragged you into this? It's clobberin' time!"
Ben rushed toward the Wizard in a mad rage, but the Wizard just smirked as he pulled out the device he'd built at Acme and fired it at Ben, blasting a hole right through him. Ben stared down at the hole in his body, falling to his knees, then falling forward as the life left his body.
Susan screamed and covered her mouth.
"No," Johnny whispered as tears fell down his face. "Not my brother."
"What happened?" Alicia asked.
"It'll be okay, I'll protect you and the baby," She-Thing promised.
"That is IT!" Reed shouted as he wrapped his body around the Wizard. "My father and my brother? And bringing my sister-in-law and her unborn baby into this?"
Reed's grip got tighter around him, while Lyja noticed the Puppet Master trying to escape. She quickly grabbed him before he could get away.
"Reed, stop, you're killing him!" Sue shouted. "Ben wouldn't want this!"
"We've been too easy on him, on all of them, and look at the cost we've paid!" Reed shouted as the Wizard smothered, before finally being decapitated by the pressure build up. Susan just looked away as Johnny stood there, emotionless by Lyja's side, feeling absolutely nothing, not even the touch of his girlfriend as she rested her head on his shoulder. Johnny Storm now felt dead inside, having just witnessed the destruction of not only the Fantastic Four but the two men closest to him.
"Is it over?" Alicia asked with tears in her eyes.
"Yes," Sharon said. "It's over. But nothing's ever going to be the same again."
TO BE CONTINUED...
"You sure you want to do this?" Josh asked as he looked at Franklin. Franklin was dressed in his new F4 outfit, which was all white, with a white hexagon sitting on top of two hexagons. Josh was shirtless, wearing the bottom half of the same costume Franklin had on. His large red wings were folded over his shoulders as they stood in Reed Richard's lab.
"Well, we to need start this hero thing somewhere, right?" Franklin asked as he looked at the portal in front of them. "And with dozens of heroes, and Valeria leading our team without us, that's not going to leave us much to do. So I say we skip this dimension for a while and go looking for adventures off-world, see who we can help in other places, really get our skills honed before we come back."
"Won't your parents miss you?" Josh asked.
"It's summer vacation and my parents barely notice me when I'm here," Franklin told him, not realizing there was a mini-camera on a small fly that was following them. "They won't even notice I'm gone for a few weeks. By that time, we should be home and better than ever. You said you, trust me, right?"
"Yeah, I do," Josh said as he slung his backpack over his shoulder. "Okay, let's do this."
Two young men held hands as they took a deep breath, before jumping through the portal together. It closed, just as Reed came into the lab, whistling while doing a crossword puzzle. He looked up, seeing just a single red feather floating to the ground.
"I told those boys to not play in the lab," Reed sighed. "I'm going to have a long talk with that boy the next time that I see him."
# # # # # # # # # # #
Alicia Masters opened her eyes, finding herself suspended in mid-air by a rope, hanging from a steel beam in an old factory. She could smell Sharon's perfume near her as she moved her head around.
"Sharon? Sharon, are you here? Why are you doing this?" Alicia asked. Nearby, She-Thing just watched her friend, not responding as she put her rocky palms to her face while crying. "Please, I am your friend, you can tell me."
"I'm dying," She-Thing said. "The Wizard gave me a chance to live, and without his nano-tech... I'll die within weeks. In exchange for my life... I have to take yours."
"But... why?" Alicia asked as someone made a coughing noise from the doorway.
"I believe She-Thing has said more than enough already," Puppet Master said as he walked in.
"Father?" Alicia said, her voice shaking. "Why are you throwing away your second chance by doing this?"
"You will never understand my motivations, my dear," Puppet Master told her.
# # # # # # # # # # #
The vault of the Acme University Tech Department exploded as the Wizard and the mindless clone of the Sandman entered, where they began pilfering every piece of tech they could get their hands on.
"No one will mock the Wizard any longer!" the Wizard shouted. "With this technology added to my own, I will be unstoppable!'
The police showed up, responding to the silent alarm with their guns drawn, not ready for something like this. The Wizard spotted them and just pointed the Sandman in their direction. The clone shot his hand forward and began force feeding sand down the first officer's throat, choking him to death until the officer fell dead to the ground. The second officer began firing his gun, but the Sandman quickly turned into his sand form and wrapped around the officer, tightening his grip like a snake, putting pressure on the man's body. The officer's eyes began to bulge out of his head as his head began expanding like a balloon until he exploded from the build-up of blood.
"Okay, ew," the Wizard said. "Oh, well, let's hurry up, we have much to do!"
# # # # # # # # # # #
The Baxter Building
"Why isn't Alicia answering her phone?" Ben asked as he tried to dial again. "Something must be wrong, she never keeps me waiting like this."
"Ben, are you okay?" Sue asked.
"No, Suzie, my heart's hurting," Ben told her. "And worrying about Alicia's not helping. Maybe I ate too much Mexican food tonight."
Across the room, Reed and Nathaniel were talking.
"Someone close is dying," Nathaniel said. "That's why I came back. Someone dies and it changes the future of the team forever."
"Perhaps you should be more upfront," Yoshi told him. "Nothing has ever come from keeping secrets."
"Maybe it was Ben," Johnny said as he sat on the couch. "I mean, he did have a pretty close call in that fight in the Negative Zone."
Before anyone else could say anything, the alarm went off at the Acme Department.
"We'll discuss it later, right now we need to check out that alarm," Reed told them. "Suit up."
# # # # # # # # # # #
The Wizard was finishing a device, smiling to himself as he held it up. "Stand back, Sandman."
The clone did as he was ordered as the Wizard aimed the laser at a steel beam, melting it within seconds. "Blast! It was supposed to animate the steel beam, not melt it. But perhaps I can work with this."
"The only thing you're going to work on is a 10 - 20 jail sentence!" the Human Torch shouted as he flew in, followed by the rest of the Fantastic Four and Lyja. They saw the dead officers as Reed got a shocked look on his face.
"You killed those officers?" Reed asked. "Turn yourself in, Wizard. Those men were innocent."
"No man is truly innocent," the Wizard said he ordered the Sandman forward. Johnny, Lyja, and Ben went to fight him as Reed extended his upper body to attack the Wizard. Before he could reach the villain, the Sandman grabbed Reed while the rest of the team tried to help him The Wizard took the chance to escape while Sue noticed Nathaniel coming into the room.
"Nathaniel, you shouldn't be here," Sue told him.
"Sue, I came because I know what happens," Nathaniel told her. "We must follow the Wizard before it's too late."
Sue just nodded as she rushed over to her teammates and used her powers to pull Johnny out of the Sandman's grip.
"Johnny, supernova, now!" Sue shouted. Johnny just nodded and turned up the heat as he flew around the Sandman until the clone was a giant glass sculpture. Ben put his hand through it, shattering the Sandman with just one punch. As the glass showered to the ground, Sue looked around. "Reed, Nathaniel's gone after the Wizard, we have to help him."
# # # # # # # # # # #
The Puppet Master came back into the room, looking up at Alicia with a wicked grin on his face.
"Congratulations are in order, my dear," the Puppet Master said.
"Congratulations? For what?" Alicia asked.
"I did a bio-scan of you the day I saw you in the park, and I just got the results," Puppet Master told her. "I was hoping to use your physiology to give you some sort of virus to return to the Fantastic Four to make them sick, but it turns out instead that you are with child."
"A baby?" Alicia smiled. "I'm having Ben's baby?"
"Congratulations, Alicia," She-Thing said. "Puppet Master, we must release her. We can't keep her here now."
"She can go," the Wizard said as he returned. "She is merely the bait. I had planned on killing her, but even I won't kill an unborn child. Once she has served her purpose, she can walk out of here freely." That was a lie, the Wizard wasn't about to pass up the chance to dissect a baby with mutant genes in it to further his own agenda.
"You'll let her go now," Nathaniel said as he stepped out of the shadows.
"Were you stupid enough to come here alone?" the Wizard asked.
"Yes, because I won't let you harm my family," Nathaniel told him.
While they were talking, She-Thing freed Alicia and put her on the ground. "Go, Alicia, go to safety. I am so sorry for dragging you into this. You're my closest friend and I don't deserve your friendship."
The Wizard blasted Nathaniel away with a photon blast as he turned toward She-Thing. "You are a fool, Sharon! You betray me like this and you can kiss your survival goodbye. Without me, you die."
"I'd rather die a hero than be your puppet," She-Thing said.
"Very well," the Wizard said as he pulled out a ray gun and fired it at her. Nathaniel pushed She-Thing and Alicia out of the way, taking the blast for them. He fell to the ground, having been shot in the stomach.
"NO!" She-Thing shouted. "He only wanted to save his family."
The Fantastic Four burst through the door and saw Nathaniel in She-Thing's arms.
"Oh, now things are about to get interesting," the Wizard smiled.
"Sharon, what's going on?" Ben asked as he went to Alicia's side and hugged her.
"I'm so sorry, Ben," She-Thing said. "I was dying, and... the Wizard said he could help me if I did what he said. But once I knew Alicia was pregnant, I knew I had to protect her."
"Pregnant? You're carrying my baby?" Ben asked as he felt Alicia's stomach. "And the Wizard dragged you into this? It's clobberin' time!"
Ben rushed toward the Wizard in a mad rage, but the Wizard just smirked as he pulled out the device he'd built at Acme and fired it at Ben, blasting a hole right through him. Ben stared down at the hole in his body, falling to his knees, then falling forward as the life left his body.
Susan screamed and covered her mouth.
"No," Johnny whispered as tears fell down his face. "Not my brother."
"What happened?" Alicia asked.
"It'll be okay, I'll protect you and the baby," She-Thing promised.
"That is IT!" Reed shouted as he wrapped his body around the Wizard. "My father and my brother? And bringing my sister-in-law and her unborn baby into this?"
Reed's grip got tighter around him, while Lyja noticed the Puppet Master trying to escape. She quickly grabbed him before he could get away.
"Reed, stop, you're killing him!" Sue shouted. "Ben wouldn't want this!"
"We've been too easy on him, on all of them, and look at the cost we've paid!" Reed shouted as the Wizard smothered, before finally being decapitated by the pressure build up. Susan just looked away as Johnny stood there, emotionless by Lyja's side, feeling absolutely nothing, not even the touch of his girlfriend as she rested her head on his shoulder. Johnny Storm now felt dead inside, having just witnessed the destruction of not only the Fantastic Four but the two men closest to him.
"Is it over?" Alicia asked with tears in her eyes.
"Yes," Sharon said. "It's over. But nothing's ever going to be the same again."
TO BE CONTINUED...