Pier 4: The Kitchen

"Doesn't anyone in the joint know how ta make decent java?" Ben Grimm, the ever lovin' blue-eyed Thing, bellowed. "This stuff tastes like Skrull pi… oops, sorry, Suzie."

Sue Storm just smiled and walked through the kitchen to the coffee maker. She lifted the pot and looked at the weak brew within. "Ben, did you start up the coffee?"

"Sure, someone already had the grounds in it, so I just added the water."

She dumped the contents into the sink and started to make a fresh pot. "Those were the leftover grounds from last night. No wonder your coffee tastes like Skrull pi…"

"Suzie!" Thing blushed, the glow on his face making him look like an over ripe pumpkin.

The Invisible Woman laughed and continued to get her own breakfast, while, behind her, the coffee gurgled.

The door swung open and Johnny wandered in, opened a cupboard, grabbed a bowl and filled it to the brim with Fruit Loops. Pouring milk on it, he quipped, "So, rock pile, what do you have on for the day? I'm going to the mall to give the local ladies a thrill, and maybe pick up a few new threads while I'm at it."

Swallowing a last bite of toasted bagel, Thing brushed a few crumbs from his chest and replied, "It's summer and it's hot. I'm gonna do what any sensible New Yorker does in the summer. I'm goin' ta Coney Island."

The Torch burst out laughing, splattering milk and Fruit Loops across the table. "Coney Island? That place is so not there. It's old, decrepit and seedy. No one goes to Coney Island any more."

Ben offered Sue some coffee then poured himself a fresh cup. "Yeah, well I do. I still like it there, and I still like riding the Cyclone. It's a Brooklyn institution, ya know. How can you call yourself a New Yorker, matchstick? You should have more feeling for the history of this burg. Gotta admit that it just ain't the same since they trashed the Thunderbolt, though." *

Johnny snorted, "I figured you'd feel more at home at the Coney Island Circus freak show."

"Why, you…."

"Ben, Johnny, can't you two act like adults? I thought you'd outgrown this foolishness." Sue filled a mug with coffee and grabbed a banana. "I'm taking this to Reed. As usual, he's already hard at work in his lab and if I don't feed him, he certainly won't stop to eat. When I come back I expect to find two mature adults, instead of two silly, bickering children! Or, better yet, I expect to find an empty kitchen." As she stomped out she called back, "And put those dishes in the dishwasher before you go."

Pier 4: Lab N

Protective goggles over his eyes, his body bent in a familiar scholarly stoop, his fingers flying over the keyboard of his computer, Reed Richards, known to the world as Mr. Fantastic, was in his element, deep scientific research. He glanced upwards at a glowing black rectangle that hovered in the middle of the room. This was a portion of the Negative Zone, a piece of another reality, pinched off and contained to exist in our universe. Inside the rectangle a muscular red skinned being slashed at the boundaries with his long, clawed hands while screaming unheard curses.

Behind Reed a large reinforced metal door slid open. Sue entered, reaching to shelf beside the door for a pair of goggles and slipped them on. She approached her unaware husband silently. He raised his head and sniffed the air.

"What is that wonderful smell?"

Sue laughed. "My natural alluring scent? My hundred dollar an ounce perfume?"

Reed whirled about, grabbed her by the waist, pulled her close, then reached over to take the mug from her right hand and declared, triumphantly, "Coffee!"

"Reed Richards, are you going to tell me that…" Sue stopped when she saw the twinkle in her husband's eyes. "Oh, you tease!" They kissed, and she continued, "Isn't that..?"

Reed peeled and started to eat the banana as he turned back towards the rectangle. Around mouthfuls he replied, "Yes, it's Stygorr." *

* the team fought him in FF 424

"But, how did he reform his body? When we defeated him, he was just a cloud of material."

Reed sipped his coffee and shook his head. Checking a few more readings on his bank of equipment he replied. "That isn't readily apparent, dear. Given the highly unstable state that the proximity of matter and anti-matter caused when we finally rousted him, predicting the resulting outcome was a dubious endeavor, at best. I have hypothesized that whatever, or whoever, gave him the ability to realign himself in the first place may have made this ability inherent in his makeup. Thus, it might be impossible to use the matter anti-matter technique to defeat him again. I have a test simulation running on the computer in my office which may give me some answers. I was just going to check that, but I wanted to confirm the stability of this Negative Zone holding cell first."

Sue pulled his head around so he was facing her. "Reed, you're back in lecture mode again. Remember, this is your wife, not your ESU class."

Sheepishly he kissed her cheek. "When I get in my lab I tend to forget everything but what I am working on," he apologized. "But I could never forget how lucky I am to have you as my wife."

Sue chuckled and took his hand. Pulling him from the lab with her she responded, "Been reading Hallmark Cards again, have you? Come on, if I know you, you'll be running back and forth between here and your office for the next ten hours. Come back to the kitchen and have more to eat first, because once you get started you'll forget everything else."

As they left Reed's laughter echoed back into the lab. The heavy door swung shut and two small flickers of light, one yellow, one blue, could be seen coming into existence in the middle of the room. The tiny points hovered a few feet apart. There was a loud snap as they merged, then disappeared leaving a small golden sphere, less than half an inch across. As the ball drifted near Reed's equipment, lights started blinking out.

Interlude: the kitchen

"That's odd. The clock on the microwave is flashing 12:00" Sue quickly reset it, while her husband attacked a bowl of cereal. "And the coffee is turned off, too."

"Maybe your brother is playing tricks on you." Reed mumbled around a mouthful of Special K. "Where is he, anyway? And Ben? It's early for them to be out and about."

"They were being idiots so I told them to leave." Sue grinned. " Actually, Johnny's off to the mall, shopping for clothes or girls, whichever comes first. Ben went to Coney Island for the day. And I'm conducting a children's tour of the Storm Museum, so you'll have the whole place to yourself and can experiment and lecture to invisible students to your heart's content."

"Am I really that bad?"

"Only when you have your mad scientist hat on, dear, and you have other fantastic attributes that make up for it." She winked.

"Susan!" Reed flushed, then laughed as his wife left the room.

Interlude: Lab N

In his cell, Stygorr paced restlessly. He had cursed and threatened Reed Richards earlier until his voice was hoarse, but Richards had just put a hush field over his cell. The Nightlord hated being imprisoned, but as he ranted, his eyes were busy taking in everything. Something would turn to his advantage and he would free himself. Then the accursed Fantastic Four would die, horribly. As he contemplated the best ways to demolish his enemies he noticed the small golden sphere. More sparks surrounded it and snapped into it, causing it to expand. As it advanced towards his prison he noticed that each piece of equipment that it passes ceased to work.

The ball grew in size, first one inch across, then two, then three. With each snap it increased; no longer a small sphere but now a luminescent ball of energy. Stygorr realized that it was heading directly towards him, sucking up power as it approached. His stomach grew cold with fear. He was trapped. He began to call loudly for Richards to return. cursing the hush field as he did so. The ball touched the walls of the Negative Zone cell; Stygorr cringed back, and fell to the ground. He was free. The ball had destroyed his prison, but, in doing so, it had expanded to take up half the room. To reach his enemies he would have to enter it. With no other choice available to him, Stygorr ran directly into the energy, and screamed as he fell.

The Storm Museum

As a little boy skipped down the hall, Sue Storm looked wistfully after him. She missed her son, Franklin, but knew that he was better off where he was. * Still, it was hard to have your child separated from you, especially one so young. She vowed to take a trip to Limbo soon. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted a strange man following her tour group and trying to hide in the shadows. She tore her mind from her melancholy thoughts and headed down the hallway to see what he was doing there, and why he was being so furtive.

* Franklin left to stay in Fantastopolis in issue 444

In a corridor behind her a HERBIE robot was floating along, checking for litter and lost children. It saw a glowing ball of light hovering near an electrical outlet. Recognizing it as something that did not belong the HERBIE buzzed towards it. The moment its gleaming metal side touched the ball it dropped to the floor with a clatter, lifeless.

Coney Island

Ben Grimm was having the time of his life. He had strolled on the midway and played a few games. He had eaten hot dogs from Nathan's, and then cotton candy, and caramel corn, too. He had laughed as he watched the young girls scream when the air jets of the fun house had blown their skirts up. Coney Island in the summer, there was no place like it, just like there was no place like New York City. No matter how far he ventured, and with the Fantastic Four one could venture pretty far, he would always be a New Yorker at heart. After all, only here could an orange rock monster, like himself, walk the streets and the boardwalk and not have anyone pay any attention. He could actually act like a regular person, like Benjamin J. Grimm, instead of the hideous Thing.

Now he was riding on the Cyclone. No matter how many new roller coasters there were, in how many new theme parks, this was still Ben's favorite. He had first ridden it as a young college student. The anticipation of the slow crawl up that first hill, then the stomach wrenching feeling as the cars swooped over that first summit, the unique reverberating sound that accompanied a ride on a wooden coaster, these were summer in the city for Ben and brought back so many good memories. He looked upwards eagerly as the cars clanked their way to the pinnacle.

He wondered as he saw a small golden ball that hovered near the apex of the hill. It seemed to be almost alive. Then it swooped downwards, passing over the cars. The Cyclone lurched to a halt for a second as the ball touched it. Ben felt momentarily ill. He realized that he had started to transform back to his human form, for just a moment. Now he was the Thing again, but he felt weakened. No time to worry about that though, as the first car was almost at the top.

Lab N

The large metal door swung back and Reed reentered the lab. There was no trace of the golden sphere, nor of the Negative Zone cell. Stygorr lay, unconscious, on the floor. Reed checked him quickly then dashed to his equipment. A few adjustments and the Negative Zone cell reformed, again imprisoning the Nightlord.

His first priority taken care of, Reed began to check all of his equipment to find out what had happened and how Stygorr had escaped. The cell should have been stable. If it was liable to dissolve that quickly he would have to find a different restraining method, and soon.

Pier 4 Mall

Not long after the team had settled in the pier area, a group of entrepreneurs saw a quick way to make money from a small block of decrepit empty buildings that no one wanted. Buying them up and securing a promise of three tax free years from City Hall, in exchange for development of a depressed area, the newly formed Pier 4 Corporation had slapped up a mall to cash in on the Fantastic Four's popularity.

It wasn't a large mall but it had all of the important things: Toys 'R' Us, Barnes & Noble, Pier 1 Imports, Starbucks, a small gourmet food market, an independent electronics store called Four 4 U that stocked CD's and games as well as audio and video equipment. There were more stores and a small food court, but today most of the attention was focused at the Gap.

Johnny Storm, the Human Torch had gone shopping. Blonde, handsome and virile, the junior member of the Fantastic Four always drew a crowd of young, and not so young, female fans. Today was no exception. He had already picked out a pair of baggy pleated khakis and some cargo pants but it was while he was looking at the 1969 collection that the crowd gathered. Flattered, as always, by the adoration, Johnny was performing a few tricks to entertain the staff and customers.

Gasps of astonishment greeted his pyrotechnic tricks. Smiling, he drew a perfect flame heart in the air, then pierced it with a fiery arrow. Behind the throng a spark of energy formed, near one of the store's spotlights, then another one. A thin tendril of flickering white bridged the space between the two of them, then with a snap they fused into a single tiny globe. Unnoticed by all, the energy ball grew as more sparks snapped into it, and as it enlarged the spotlights dimmed and failed, as the sphere drew closer.

Suddenly, a whoosh of air seemed to rush up from Johnny and join the ball, which doubled in size. As this happened Johnny's fire creations started to drop around the store, out of control. The displays and racks of clothes began to ignite. Johnny tried to regain control and draw the heat back to him, but to no avail.

Quickly pushing away those who surrounded him he cried, "Flame on!"

Nothing! He stood there, dumbfounded, in his T shirt and jeans, as the fire began to engulf the store.

Lab N

Reed Richards rummaged frantically in a drawer for more paper. He had already filled sheets of it with computations. He had tried to work with the computers, but every time he would come close to discovering anything about the strange power outages more of the energy balls seemed to appear and shut down his systems. Even momentary outages were enough to destroy the work, as his uninterruptible power sources had been failing as well. He continued to enter data and printed what he could, but he kept backup notes as well.

There was no doubt. There were power failures popping up all over the place, in the other parts of their headquarters, as well as his lab. Each time one happened there seemed to be a trace energy signature left behind. Reed was frantically trying to develop a model that would predict a pattern to the outages, before they spread. As the power flickered out on his computer he had just enough time to see that the next one should be… oh no!

He raced to the window just in time to see two twinkling specks of light in the sky over Manhattan. As he watched, tendrils of blue energy stretched between then and SNAP, they merged into one, like an splitting amoebae only in reverse. Beneath them lights could be seen flickering off in the skyscrapers. This was far worse than he had expected.

Storm Museum

Sue had abandoned her tour group, putting one of the museum volunteers in charge of them. She was still following the mysterious stranger. She had turned invisible and was dogging his every step as he tried to keep hidden in the shadows of alcoves. Now he seemed to have found what he was looking for.

He stood a few feet from a display cabinet that held some of the artifacts which Reed had brought back from one of his encounters with Galactus. She wondered why he was so interested in them, and crept closed. Just then the man threw his coat off and approached the case. Under the coat he wore a long cloak, inscribed with silver markings. Sue recognized them as magical inscriptions. He ran his hands over the edges of the case, muttering in a strange language as he did so.

Sue got closer and extended her hands, intending to wrap the cabinet in an invisible force field. Just then two more of the blue and yellow balls appeared above her. With a snap they merged, and, as they did, there was an upward swish of air and Sue found herself visible, her force field dissipated. Turning in her direction the man laughed and aimed his hand gestures towards her. A green glow emanated from his fingertips and swirled in Sue's direction. Just as it was about to reach her it swept aloft to the energy ball, which expanded again. Another green field flowed from the man towards the ball which once more grew in size, then disappeared.

Powers or not, Sue was determined to stop the sorcerer from pilfering the museum's treasures. She rushed forward. Stripped of his magic, the man fell back to more basic tactics and made to strike out at her. She took the blow with her arm, and brought her knee up into his groin. As he doubled over she clenched her hands together and brought them down on the back of his neck, at the base of his skull. He dropped like a bag of wet cement.

Sue smiled. It wasn't wise to attack a New York woman, with or without her super powers.

She glanced towards the window and saw hundreds of energy balls popping in and out. What was going on?

Coney Island

This was Ben's third consecutive ride on the Cyclone. The coaster had just reached the apex of the first hill. As the first car seemingly hovered at the top, awaiting the gravity pull that would drag it downwards, as soon as a few more cars got over the top, two more energy balls formed. Tendrils of energy seemed to fly towards them from all over the park. The Cyclone lurched to a halt as the power went off.

Ben Grimm looked in horror as the visitors to Coney Island began to panic. Rides were stopping all over the place, and, in the distance he could see more of the energy balls popping up over the city. There was little he could do to help the others that were trapped on the Cyclone with him because, when the last ball had passed over, he had reverted back to his human self. Without the power of the Thing, Ben was just as stuck as they were. What a revolting development this was!

Pier 4 Mall

By now the Gap store was fully ablaze. Working with the staff Johnny had managed to get all of the customers outside into the mall. Now he was afraid that the fire was going to spread. No fire fighting equipment had arrived and none of the hoses or fire extinguishers in the mall seemed to be working. He had to do something. That's when he spotted the Orange Julius kiosk. Of course, liquids, that was the answer.

"Quick, grab something wet and start sloshing it around the front of the store, " he yelled to the surrounding crowds. "We have to stop it from spreading." He grabbed a jug of juice and tossed it at the front of the store. "Hurry, anything, juice, water, iced cappuccino, whatever is handy…"

For a moment there was no movement then dozens of people surged forward, throwing any fluids they could find. As Johnny helped them he noticed lights blinking back on in the mall. He extended his hands and started to draw the heat from the fire, into his body. Woo hoo! His powers were back.

When the fire had been sucked from the blackened shell of the store, Johnny allowed himself a backwards glance out the doors of the mall. He could see energy balls snapping in and out. This looked like big trouble.

Lab N

Reed Richards, Mr. Fantastic, was racing against the clock. Keying data into his computer with his left hand, his right arm stretched out so he could scrawl notes on the walls with a red Sharpie, he was trying to finish his computations before the next outage. Suddenly the power was gone, again. His arm snapped back to its regular shape with jolt. From inside and out there was a massive flash. Reed raced to the window.

The skies were filled with energy balls, tendrils of what looked like lightning connecting them, drawing them closer together until they integrated into one. Massive clouds of energy were forming over the city for as far as the eye could see. As they coalesced the power in the surrounding areas seemed to drain into them, making them bigger.

Reed drew a sheet of paper from his pocket. It was a satellite surveillance photo he had been able to print before the outages became too frequent. It showed Manhattan, with a series of yellow-blue shimmering forms over it, not unlike a large honeycomb spreading above the city.

There were too many vital services that couldn't survive without constant power. He shuddered to think what would happen when the machinery in the hospitals started to fail. Then a noise drew his eyes upward. A small airplane buzzed overhead, just above the web of energy balls. It was safe now, because it was above the sphere of influence of whatever was draining the power, but if the balls expanded upwards… As the thought entered his head Reed noticed that some of the balls seemed to be popping upwards. With the air traffic over the city this could be disastrous.

The power flickered back on for a moment. Reed dove for the telephone and hit one of the speed dial buttons.

"This is Reed Richards! I need to talk to one of the Avengers, now!"

Author's Notes:

And so begins Power Loss. An MV1 event planned in 1997 finally starts.

I first read the Fantastic Four when it started, in 1961, but I have never attempted to write them before. When Mark Bousquet thought he'd like to have the FF participate in Power Loss I offered to script if he could send me the general plot outline he was looking for. He was as good as his word, and here is the result. I enjoyed this deviation from my usual Avenger oriented writings. I just might have to branch out my interests more often. Special thanks to my younger half, Tim, for checking my characterization.

Power Loss continues in Avengers 447 and then spreads.. how far? No one knows, yet.

Lonni Holland
July 21, 2003