Chapter 236: Chapter 236: Fantastic Four (2)
[Third Person's PoV]
The room was plunged into darkness. Electrical sparks flickered erratically, casting brief flashes of light across the chaos. Suddenly, the emergency power surged on, and the lights flickered back to life. As they did, the chaos erupted once more.
Johnny was running around, screaming at the top of his lungs, his entire body engulfed in flames. Susan was nowhere to be seen. Reed was peeling himself off the wall, his body stretched and distorted. Ben stood frozen, staring at his hands in disbelief. His gaze darted to the portal, which was now inert. When he looked back, he realized he had somehow managed to disconnect it.
Peter struggled to push himself up, but something was wrong. His body vibrated unnaturally, his entire body whether his face, hands, feet, all appeared to be motion blurred. MJ clutched her face, crying out in pain. Felicia was nowhere to be found, and Gwen stood frozen in place, her body a statue of ice that was now cracking and splintering.
Harry was the first to regain his senses. His eyes darted around the room, taking in the chaos, before landing on Lizzy, whose skin glowed with an unnatural orange hue. "Are you alright?!" he asked, panicked.
Lizzy groaned, holding her head. "I think so... but I feel weird. What's happening to me?"
"I'm trying to figure that out," Harry replied, his voice tight with worry. His gaze locked on Johnny, whose flames raged uncontrollably. "We need to help him! Lizzy, try to put him out!"
Lizzy hesitated but then extended her hands toward Johnny, focusing. With a deep breath, she willed the flames to leave his body. Slowly, the fire peeled away, swirling through the air and into her own hands. Johnny collapsed to the ground, naked but unharmed, his body smoldering slightly.
Ben snapped out of his own shock, his rocky hands flexing involuntarily. His eyes widened as he spotted Reed. "REED?! Are you alright?!"
Reed, still recovering, stared at Ben in disbelief. "BEN?! WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?!"
"I asked you first," Ben grunted, though his voice softened.
"I'm... fine, I think," Reed stammered, his voice unsteady. "What about Susan? And Johnny? Oh my God, Ben, the kids—are they okay?!"
Ben's concerns momentarily overshadowed his transformation. Scooping up the stretched-out Reed, he began scanning the room. "Susan! Where are you?!"
"I'm over here, Reed!" Susan's voice called out, disembodied. "I... I think I'm invisible!"
Reed's face twisted in confusion and realization. "The cosmic storm..." he murmured. "It's affected us more than we could have imagined."
"Peter?!" Harry called out urgently, drawing their attention.
Peter staggered to his feet, looking disoriented. "What's happening to me, I feel weird—" He froze, his voice distorted and echoing unnaturally.
Harry approached cautiously. "Pete, how are you feeling? Don't move—"
But it was too late. Peter took an unsteady step forward, and his body blurred as he moved at an impossible speed. He knocked Harry over, flipping him in the air, before crashing face-first into the wall and shattering it with a deafening impact.
A groan escaped Peter as the force of his movement sent a shockwave rippling through the room. A forcefield emerged around Susan shimmered and broke, rendering her visible again. The same shockwave shattered the icy cocoon around Gwen, unleashing a gust of frigid air.
Gwen staggered, hugging herself tightly as her body trembled violently. Her teeth chattered, and a long, visible breath of cold escaped her lips. Her eyes, now marked with snowflake-shaped pupils, locked on the others in terror. "W-what's h-h-happening to me?" she stammered, her voice trembling like the chill in the air.
"Are you alright?" Lizzy asked softly, crouching down beside MJ.
MJ looked up from her trembling hands, and Lizzy instinctively jerked back. "Oh God," she muttered under her breath.
"Is… is it bad?!" MJ asked, her voice shaking as she touched the strange boils forming at the corners of her eyes.
Lizzy hesitated, but MJ didn't wait for an answer. She fumbled for her phone, turning on the front camera. The moment she saw her reflection, a horrified scream tore from her throat.
"AAAAAHHHH!"
But as she stared, her panic turned into confusion. The skin around the boils began to peel and flake away, revealing something entirely unexpected. Beneath the damaged skin, gleaming, gem-like eyes of a pink hue emerged—four on each side of her face, surrounding her original eyes like a constellation.
Lizzy and MJ stared in stunned silence at the transformation.
Meanwhile, Harry groaned as he regained his footing after being knocked over. He turned to stand, but froze when his gaze landed on a small black cat near the spot where Felicia had been before the chaos. The cat shook its head, as if trying to orient itself.
Harry's eyes widened as a strange sense of recognition washed over him. "Felicia?" he called out in disbelief.
The black cat's ears perked up at the sound of her name. She opened her mouth and let out a confused, "Meow." Her feline eyes widened in shock as though realizing she had actually meowed.
Looking down at her tiny black paws, she hissed loudly, the sound a mix of frustration and disbelief.
Harry glanced around the room, his confusion boiling over. "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!"
---
Later, Reed, having finally managed to stabilize his body and return to a more solid form, helped Susan guide everyone into the examination room. They had done their best to patch everyone up, covering them in sensor pads to monitor their conditions.
"Peter, will you please stop vibrating?" Susan said, trying to take a reading on him.
"I CAN'T HELP IT!" Peter snapped, his blurred figure buzzing like a live wire. "You think I haven't tried?!"
Peter wasn't the only one being difficult. Most of the others resisted the idea of being examined, their apprehension palpable.
Reed adjusted his shoulders with a grimace, forcing them back into place after they had begun to stretch again. He looked over at Harry, who was standing stiffly by the wall.
"I, uh, think I'm too young to be examined without my dad's signature," Harry said nervously, clearly making an excuse.
"I-I-I'm f-f-fine," Gwen stammered, her teeth chattering. She clutched a blanket tightly around her trembling body, though the spot where she sat had already turned into solid ice.
Across the room, the black cat—Felicia—was hissing menacingly at Johnny, who was covered in his own set of sensor pads. He was attempting, with little success, to stick one onto her fur.
Reed let out an exasperated sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose. Finally, he turned to face Peter and the others.
"Are you all seriously worried that we'll figure out your identities as Spider-Man, Nightwing, Ghost-Spider, Scarlet-Spider, Firestar, and... Spider-Kat?" he asked, his gaze moving to each of them in turn.
The room fell silent.
Everyone froze, staring at Reed in stunned disbelief. Even Peter, for the first time since the accident, stopped vibrating entirely.
Reed glanced at their wide-eyed expressions and sighed again. "Yeah," he said. "I thought so."
"How…" Peter muttered, still processing the revelation.
"How long have we known?" Johnny asked with an amused expression, crossing his arms.
"Since the first day you two started your internships," Ben said gruffly, sitting on the floor, his bulky frame covered in pads. He glanced at Peter and Gwen knowingly.
"Y-Y-You a-a-all knew t-t-this whole time?" Gwen stuttered, her icy breath visible in the air.
Susan let out a soft chuckle. "You two weren't exactly subtle. The injuries you both came in with were... questionable, to say the least. Johnny kept showing us news clips of Spider-Man and Ghost-Spider fighting supervillains and the collapsed buildings. Then, a few minutes later, you'd show up here, looking like you'd been through the wringer."
"Not to mention," Reed added with a faint smile, "you both had a habit of being conveniently 'late' and then we later find out that around that time Spider-Man and Ghost-Spider were spotted. The timing made it pretty obvious after a while. And when Peter said he was bringing over 'four friends,' I immediately guessed it was your superhero team. Johnny even mentioned meeting them before."
"Why didn't you say anything?" Peter asked in a whisper, still stunned. "Like, that you knew?"
Johnny shrugged. "It wasn't our secret to share. You clearly didn't want your identities to be public, so we respected that. It was important to you."
"That's… surprisingly mature of you," Peter admitted, still astonished.
Susan scoffed. "Oh, please. He wanted to ask the moment he figured it out. I had to convince him not to."
"Sis!" Johnny exclaimed, throwing his hands up in exasperation. "I was having my cool moment, and you just had to ruin it!"
As if to emphasize his embarrassment, a faint blush appeared on his cheeks—quickly followed by an uncontrolled burst of flames, which incinerated his pads.
"Oops," he muttered, closing his eyes and concentrating until he extinguished the flames.
Susan rolled her eyes and held up fresh pads. "Can we please examine you all now?"
The group exchanged hesitant glances, still processing the fact that their secret had been uncovered long ago.
Peter sighed, relenting, and pulled off his shirt.
"Whoa…" Susan murmured, her eyes widening at the sight of his enhanced musculature. Without thinking, she reached out.
"Susan!" Reed snapped, glaring.
Susan froze, flushing as she realized what she'd done. Embarrassed, she vanished from sight, leaving only her floating clothes behind as she carefully affixed two pads to Peter's pecks.
"Sorry," she squeaked, mortified to remember Peter was only fifteen.
Peter, however, didn't seem to mind. In fact, he looked a little proud before turning to Harry with a mischievous grin.
"Now that they all know, I've been dying to say this," Peter said, barely able to contain his excitement. "It's been killing me!"
Harry tilted his head, confused. "What is it?"
"Wally and Dick are best friends in the comics!" Peter declared triumphantly, grinning ear to ear.
Harry blinked, trying to process the comment. A moment later, realization dawned, and his eyes widened. His grin spread across his face as he burst into laughter.
"HAHAHAHA! HELL YEAH! TALK ABOUT A FREAKING COINCIDENCE!"
Peter joined in, cackling uncontrollably. "I KNOW, RIGHT? I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M A FREAKING SPEEDSTER!"
The rest of the room stared at the two as they collapsed into hysterics, utterly baffled by what was so funny.
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