Johnny Storm looked at the lights of Times Square all around him. New York City was an incredible place, especially at night. Johnny just wished that he didn't have to spend this time alone, that he could spend it with the woman he had fallen for- A'Kimba.* The beautiful Wakandan woman had been promised to a man called Grey Lion by her mother and against the will of her father Moyo Lumumba. In a futile challenge by Johnny, Grey Lion won dominion over Lumumba, one of Wakanda's most renowned scientists.

Johnny stopped still. His research into the Wakandan marriage customs had come to naught, but there was someone who would be able to tell him the customs of the Wakandan people better than any book. T'Challa would be able to tell him. Johnny made a note in his mind to stop by the Wakandan embassy in the morning. He'd heard Black Panther was in the United States to instate a Wakandan back in the embassy after Grey Lion abducted Lumumba. As he resumed walking, he heard a cackle form behind him.

"Whu-?!" Johnny started to turn, but was bowled over before he could find the source of the cackle.

"I've been looking for you for so long Johnny Storm," the voice said. "Of course, all I had to do was follow the giant blue dart in the sky. That is what gives you your powers isn't it? Flaming flatulence?" There was a pause, and then a long, wet finger entered his ear. "Wet willie!"

"UGH!" Johnny grunted. Johnny spun around, and the man jumped off him, rebounded off a nearby wall, and landed back on Johnny's chest.

"Hi, I'm Halloween Jack," the man said, a wide toothy grin on his pale green face. "Not to be confused with Christmas Jack, or Labor Day Jack. Of course, I've never met them, so I don't know if you can confuse me with them or not. I'd like to find out though. Do you know them? A famous guy like you needs to know them!"

"Get off me!" Johnny cried, shoving Halloween Jack off his chest.

"Oh come on!" Jack said. "I wuz just jokin' with ya! You do know what to do when someone tells a joke, right?" Jack's form suddenly shifted into that of a woman, who placed his (her?) hands and her (his?) hips and pouted at Johnny. "You put your lips together and laugh!" Jack shifted back into his original form and loosed a second cackle. "Okay, well, that was sub-par for me. Now you try one."

Flames flickered in and out of existence around Johnny's body. He clenched his fists trying to control his temper, but Johnny was a hot-head in more ways than one. His eyes narrowed at Halloween Jack.

"Look buddy, I'm not in the mood to deal with a sadistic supervillain at the moment," Johnny said, gritting his teeth. "But I really feel like I need to hit something, and since you attacked me- FLAME ON!" The ignition of Johnny's powers scorched the sidewalk, and the intensity of the flames forced Halloween Jack to jump back from the Human Torch.

"Oooh yeah! Fire! Fire!" Jack said, clenching his fists and laughing strangely. Johnny scowled and threw several fireballs at Jack. He dodged them easily, and leapt back.

"Waitaminit!" Jack cried. Jack jumped away from one of Johnny's fireballs. "Waitaminit!" Johnny fired a stream of fire at Jack, ignoring him. It was just one guy after another, always having some thin excuse about why they attacked him. This one just seemed nuts. He probably thought attacking him would elevate him to at least a player.

Johnny had followed Jack away from Times Square, and down a darker part of the New York streets. He was caught unawares of Halloween Jack's next action though.

"STOP IT!" Jack screamed and he jumped atop a fire hydrant. His body shifted into a large funnel, and he burst the hydrant, funneling water towards Johnny. The water hit him, and exploded in a cloud of steam. The Torch dropped and extinguished his flame. He strode over to Halloween Jack, and grabbed him by the collar. Johnny's free hand ignited, and he held it several inches away from Jack's face.

"What do you want?" the Torch growled.

"I wanna go home..."

Reed Richards stood in front of his class. Though many of them still felt betrayed by their last project, the construction of an elaborate bomb, they still seemed interested in their superhuman teacher's class. The exersize involving the bomb did teach the group caution though, the point that Reed intended to make.

"Doctor Richards, is there a point to this late night session?" Xeban asked with a quick raise of his hand.

"Yes Xeban," Reed laughed, "I'm not purposely robbing you of your beauty sleep." Reed stretched his arm to the computer console, where he input a series of commands. The room dimmed to pure dark, then suddenly the ceiling exploded into pinpricks of light. Xeban took the opportunity to inch closer to Amanda, an action that did not go unnoticed by the Australian biologist.

"This," Reed said, motioning to the simulated starscape, "is the night sky directly above us now." He stretched his hand out, and for the next half hour pointed out the origin starsystems of the Kree, Shi'ar, Skrulls, and Brood, the home planet of the mad god Thanos, and many other oddities of the universe. The class sat in silence until Cade raised his hand.

"No offense sir, but what's the point of this?"

"I've been waiting for that question for half an hour," Reed laughed. His face turned serious. He didn't raise the lights, casting a now eerie glow on his face. "Earth is under invasion by an alien race.

"The invasion has been going on for years. Our best efforts have been able to stop some parts of this invasion. Other parts have been going on unimpeded since the beginning. We have been able to wipe out entire populations of their soldiers, but not before they wiped out entire populations of human beings."

Blue interrupted. "I've never heard about anythin-"

"Blue, please, let me finish." Reed straightened his FF uniform and continued. "We have very few weapons against these aliens, yet they have literally millions of different types of soldiers, each tailored to do something different to human beings. They have torturers, kamikaze fighters, and out and out murderers. And each one of them is vastly different. Unfortunately for us, they're turned one of their ultimate type of soldiers on us." Reed stepped closer to the class, his arms behind his back.

"Who are the invaders?"

"The Skrulls?" Blue offered.

"Shi'ar?" Amanda blurted.

"Brood?" Cade asked.

"Viruses," Chang said quietly.

"There it is right there!" Reed exclaimed. "There are so many things on Earth alone that are completely unexplained, and the existence of viruses is one. They are a complete oddity to us. Who says they aren't alien invaders? We believe that only things of a certain size or shape can behave a certain way, but the galaxy is full of mysteries, and the Earth is home to many of them."

"What are the ultimate soldiers?" Patria asked.

"The HIV virus," Reed said solemnly. "One of our incurable diseases." The classroom door opened, throwing light over the darkened room. Reed turned to chastise the invader when he saw it was his brother-in-law.

Reed raised a finger towards his class. "One moment please," Reed said. He strode across the room to where Johnny stood.

"Reed, I'm sorry," Johnny whispered. Reed raised his hand to stop him.

"No need to apologize Johnny," Reed said. "What's the problem?"

"Well..." Johnny cocked his head to someone behind him. Reed stretched his torso and found himself facing a strange man with a greenish-yellow tint to his skin.

"Howdy," the man said, grabbing Reed's nose, and pulling. He stretched it to about a foot in length, then let it go. Reed's nose snapped back into place and Reed winced.

"His name is Halloween Jack," Johnny said. "He's from- as corny as this sounds- from the future. And he wants to get home. I went home first, and Sue said you were here, and so I just thought..."

"Good idea Johnny," Reed said. Reed nodded to Jack, who had stepped behind Johnny to get a good look into the room. "Gimme a few minutes-!" Jack sped into the room, startling both Reed and Johnny. Johnny groaned as he saw what Jack was doing.

"Hey there hot stuff," Jack said to Amanda. He sat in her lap, his arms wrapped her neck. "I haven't seen a good looking woman like you for a long time. What say we- URK!" Reed grabbed Jack by the collar and deposited him back in the spot he had occupied before. Xeban unclenched his fists, glad he didn't have to see the results of punching the room's strange invader.

"I'll wrap up class here, and meet you back at the Pier. Make sure he doesn't do anything like that again."

"Okay Reed. I'll see you in a little while."

"Yep." Johnny turned and pointed down the hall, and Jack reluctantly nodded. Reed shut the door and turned back to the class.

"Sorry about that. Now to finish what I was saying..."

The Fantastic Four gathered in the monitor room to discuss Halloween Jack's situation. Jack sat in front of one of the televisions with a remote control, flipping through channels at lightning speed.

"Crap, crap, crap, crap," Jack declared at each channel. "BAYWATCH!" Jack continued on. Ben raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything.

"He claims to be from 2099," Johnny said. "The Second Age of Heroes, or something like that. He was altered by a 'megacorp' called Alchemax to become their version of Loki and kinda degenerated from there. He didn't tell me how he got to our time."

"Damn seagulls," Jack muttered.

"I don't wanna know," Ben said.

"Neither to I," Sue agreed.

"So what can we do for you Jack?" Reed asked.

"You're asking me?" Jack said, his head snapping towards the Four. Jack jumped up, still aiming the remote at the TV and flipping channels. He bounded towards Reed and jumped on his back. "I feel so loved. You want to know what I think!"

"Hey Jack O'Lantern!" Ben barked. "Why did y' come t' th' FF?

"Oh, yer funny!" Jack said. "Well, in the few records that did survive to our time- what few there were- said that Misser Fantastic had built a time platform and a working one at that! I figgered..."

"Stretcho doesn't have any time machine," Ben growled. "Do you Stretch?"

"Well..." Reed ran his hand through his hair. "I've been working on something for a while. It's a device that enters Limbo at one point in time, then reenters the real world at a different time. It's pretty simple, and so far..."

"So far?" Sue asked. "Reed..."

"I've taken jumps in it myself with the Quad-Jet," Reed admitted. "It'll work, and the passage through Limbo is instantaneous."

"Where did you go Reed?"

"Well," Reed shrugged, "remember during the Superbowl a little while ago? Our bet? Well, I owe you your money back."

Ben's eyes narrowed into a glare at his friend. Johnny laughed uproariously, while Sue tried to suppress her laughter. Jack giggled, even though he probably didn't know what the Superbowl was.

Reed worked the controls of the Quad-Jet preparing the time travel device for the jump. Ben set the Jet to hover above New York. Reed nodded.

"We're set," Reed said. "You three set back there?" Reed turned and found Halloween Jack completely wrapped up in his restraining belt, leaving only the top half of his face uncovered.

"I'm good," Jack said, his voice muffled by the belt.

"We're set Reed," Sue said.

"It's not bumpy, but it's a little bit of a shock," Reed said. "Hang on." Reed input another sequence of button pushing and the flick of a switch and Reed nodded to Ben.

"Just take us forward slowly." Ben increased the throttle. Reed motioned upwards with his fingers and Ben sped up a little more, and more until there was a flash of multicolored light. All but Reed averted their eyes. Suddenly they found themselves over a vast expanse of water.

"Oooooooh!" Jack exclaimed, now free of his belt. "Are we there yet?"

"Where are we Stretch?" Ben asked, his hands dancing over the controls.

"My readout says we're in the same co-ordinates as when we entered Limbo," Reed said. "We should be able to see the New York skyline as it is today."

"I don't think the skyline's that great any more," Johnny said, pointing out the window. Buildings jutted up out of the water, nearly completely submerged in the ocean.

"Oh crap," Jack said, jumping to the window and pressing his nose against it. "Ohcrapohcrapohcrapohcrap!"

"Why do I have the feeling that this is a recent development?" Sue said.

"And what a revoltin' development it is," Ben growled.

"I'm getting some sort of signal," Reed said. "It's coming from the Antartic, the Savage Land." Reed nodded to Ben. "Take us there." Ben nodded and directed the Jet towards the Savage Land.

Miguel O'Hara was surprised to see the jet that appeared in the sky over the Savage Land. A large numeral four surrounded by a circle glared from the ship's hull. Spider-Man watched as the ship landed directly in front of him. He was joined by Xi'an Chi Xan as the hydraulic landing gears of the jet hissed as it settled to the ground.

The hatch opened after a moment to reveal the inhabitants of the jet. The full Fantastic Four strode down the newly extended steps, followed closely by Halloween Jack. Miguel stepped forward in a guesture of friendship.

"Hello, I am Miguel O'Hara, Spider-Man, and this is Xi'an Chi Xan, leader of the X-Men. Welcome to the Savage Land." Miguel extended his hand. Mr. Fantastic took it and shook.

"Hello, I'm Reed Richards, and this is the Fantastic Four. We're here to help."

"That's what I said." Reed spun to stare directly into the face of himself. Behind him were duplicates of Sue and Johnny.

"We're what's left of the Fantastic Four," Reed's double said. "Who are you?"

"We are the Fantastic Four."

"Ohcrapohcrapohcrapohcrap."

NEXT: The Fantastic Four and the remnant of the Fantastic Four 2099 try to devise a way to defeat the invaders of Earth- the PHALANX! But what is the secret of the true FF 2099?

Tony Thornley