Power Overwhelming

A couple, screaming and fleeing for their lives looked behind them in the dark streets of Manhattan, their feet splashing in puddles of ichor and blood while demonic laughter echoed out behind them in the perpetually dark streets. Forms could be seen hiding, chasing, hunting the pair as they ran, panting hoarse in exhaustion and running out of energy to keep going, and rightly so. They had been chased for over an hour… By their own shadows. The entire city had become a living nightmare; pure madness made manifest. Dark, harsh, and filled with terrors that kept the city in a near permanent state of fear. No one was safe from it all. Nearby a family sought safety in the locked doors of their car, only to find themselves being strangled by their seatbelts while the radio laughed at them. A man struggled against the thorny briar of vines wrapped around his arms and legs, of what were once decorative bushes in front of a restaurant, its windows twisted into raw black iron with jagged edges like the teeth of some predatory fish, its brickwork pitch black and yawning with gargoyles laughing at his fear and pain.

The entire city had become hell itself.

With a scream, the woman fell to the ground, whimpering from the blood stains on her clothes as her boyfriend tried to help her up. A gnarled hand of stone and earth burst from the concrete to grab hold of her wrist and legs, while more reached up and grabbed her love by the legs himself. Screaming and struggling to break free, the cackling shadows finally caught up to them. Silhouettes made of pure shadow in their cruel, laughing likeness laughed and grinned at their crying faces, silently making gestures to carve at their skin with brandished claws formed by their shadowy fingers. The two snapped and hissed at each other like rabid wolves before the shadow of the girlfriend finally raised its arm up to slash at her weeping owner… Then something happened.

An airburst overhead from the tallest spire exploded out across the entire city, the blast reached the couple, but there was no harm. If anything, it was the opposite, all at once the couple were overwhelmed with a sense of peace, of pleasant memory, almost as if the embodiment of kindness itself wrapped a blanket around them and filled them with every pleasant memory and sensation they remembered in their childhood. The shadows suddenly had a look of absolute terror in their 2-dimensional appearance, panicking, watching their forms crumble and return to being connected to their owners, becoming inert once again as what horrible will had manifested them lost its hold. The city all around them began to change, starting from the furthest edges of the Manhattan Island and making its way back from where the airburst began.

Gurgling rotting trees reached back upwards, their claw-like branches sprouting leaves as they once were and their barks cleared of the sores and gnarled faces that formed down their trunks, the grass regaining its lush green and the sidewalks becoming smooth grey concrete once more. Like a flood of reality, the madness was being washed out, the city being restored to its true luster as the corruption pulled back further, the darkened clouds receding to reveal the sun and clear sky. Stepping out of their hiding places and looking up and around them, the same sensation of peace and unconditional empathy radiated across the city, almost like a balm to make up for the terrors that wracked the city, where several embraced or hugged one another, overwhelmed by the sensation permeating the restored city. And yet, there was a sound that could be heard in the far distance.

The sound of someone screaming.

*

Blinding, searing, intense pain flooded the demonic entity that clawed at her horned scalp, red hued lightning arcing from her flesh as the lab echoed with her pain filled screams, it was the only sound that could be heard. Wave after wave of intense positivity poured out for miles around in every direction, encompassing the entire city in a bubble of pure empathy. Every creature that could think and feel were exposed to the very concept of compassion, forcing everyone and everything to bask in a warmth and peace found of their own memories and experiences. But Malice had no such memories, no concept of the idea. She had shed those concepts from her psyche, purified herself of any notion of kindness or love or fondness. And as a result, the intense raw emotions rushing through her were so completely alien… And excruciating. The pain so great she was robbed of thought and will, ****-fed emotions she could no longer process, shattering her psyche with every pulse of the empathy ray.

Nearby, Susan Von Doom was on her knees, clutching at the sides of her metal plated head as if to block out the drowning sensation, if not the screech of agony her former jailor gave off.

Clutching at her own ears, Susan Storm looked around to find the entire lab a maelstrom of energy crackling off Malice, like a storm bursting out of her from her pain filled cries. Looking up, she gasped to see Reed and the others quickly falling to the ground, being caught by the others as Ben’s skin returned to being flesh, and Johnny’s body finally was put out of the flame. Alicia fumbled blindly to reach out a hand and sighed, moving over to hug her husband tightly while the torrential winds grew in intensity.

“What’s going on?” She cried out over the screams and winds. “What is this?”

“She cannot comprehend it, neither could I…” Called out the version of Susan wearing a white dress, fumbling to join the others, and dragging herself close until she was shoulder to shoulder with the Invisible Woman. “I… I did nothing, I was so engrossed with the strands of fate, I… I willingly accepted my place as a puppet because I could see my strings being pulled… I never considered I could pull back… So many…”

Holding Reed in her lap and pulling the sobbing woman close to her for protection as her husband slowly stirred to consciousness, Susan guarded them both as she watched the lab change. The bleak, dark stonework began to bend, alter, becoming smooth and metallic. The chains hanging overhead evaporating, turning back into the florescent lighting filling the room with clean, sterile light. Everything touched and corrupted by Malice was being restored back to normal, her will no longer maintaining the changes she had made to the reality around her. Nearby she watched as a cat that was pestering a cage of mice flickered like a mirage, the cat doubling and tripling in size and changing into a woman as the four mice were turned into their true forms, Susan and Ben’s children cowering as the woman, the cat-burglar held them close, kissing their foreheads in both kindness and apology for what was going on.

“FRANKLIN! VALARIA!” Susan cried out over Malice screaming, looking up to her other self who wept, holding the children close to her for their safety.

“Suzie?” Murmured Reed, his eyes opening as he looked around, now alert from the screaming that filled the lab. Sitting up and wincing from the pain, Mr. Fantastic looked around, guarding his eyes from the windstorm blowing around the demonic Malice as she was paralysed with searing pain. “What’s going on?”

“The ray’s light drive’s back the demon, her powers are undone.” Explained the Canoness, she and the others huddled around the two to shield them from the windstorm as the Cat-burglar brought the kids with her to the group. The wendigo and autobot spread their arms over the group, shielding them with their bodies as the torrential winds sent tools flying across the room. The succubus closed her eyes, sensing what was going on with the terrible woman who by now levitated off the ground by her serpentine tail, trapped in a rigor pose of searing pain.

“She’s trapped in perpetual agony, but we can’t keep her like this, the moment the ray is turned off she’ll start this shit-storm all over again.”

“What do we do?”

By now the lab had been fully restored, any changes made by the terrible woman had by now been completely undone. Nearby, Susan Von Doom was on her knees clutching at her head, the ray’s effects hurting her painfully but nowhere near as agonizing as it was for Malice. Turning her attention to the group, the iron-clad woman pointed out to the center of the floor, just under Malice. There, Susan spotted something forming in front of her. Metallic creatures like insects scurried and huddled together in one spot in front of the invisible woman, their tiny forms coming together to reconstitute into their original form, the energy draining ray Malice used on all of them.

Crawling out from the safety of her interdimensional copies, Susan grabbed hold of the energy drainer, the device humming to life in her grip as she hoisted it up and looked at its readings. Dragging herself back when she was nearly clipped by a spanner that flew past overhead, Susan managed to look down at the controls and reverse its settings. Aiming the device at the terrible sight of the screeching demoness wearing her face in a mask of agony, Susan pressed her thumb over the dimple trigger to the invention. With a flash of light, cosmic energy was leeched from Malice, pulled away from the storm of pain and rage she exuded and funneled into the device to be stored. The longer she kept at it, the winds blowing across the lab died down and Malice’s inhuman form began to change and twist. Her wings evaporated, her tail fading away as her feet returned to human shape, and her talons became delicate fingers to human wrists. Her skin changed from a scaled blood red to soft pink flesh and the three sets of horns on her scalp unravelled into locks of blonde hair that draped down her shoulders as she collapsed to the ground, now powerless and human once more.

Holding the energy drainer in her hands, Susan worried for her safety when red lights flashed warning symbols in its gauges. Dragging herself back to the group, she handed it over to her husband’s attentive eyes to check over. “What’ going on Reed?”

Squinting his eyes and breathing through his mouth, Reed looked over the readings with shaking hands, still weakened from the **** he had endured by the vampire and Malice’s hands. “I-It’s taken in too much energy, there’s enough here to store a small star, it won’t hold for long.” Tilting it back and forth as its gauges and warnings chirped shriller and urgently, Reed’s forehead began to bead with sweat. “We need to expel the energy before it explodes!”

Surprising everyone, the Susan in the white dress grabbed hold of the energy drainer and aimed it towards her chest. “What are you…?” Not giving an answer, the woman turned the nob on the device and pulled the trigger, in doing so the lab was filled with an intense blue light that flooded the entire building. The explosion of energy was so great and pushed everyone back and finally deactivated the empathy ray.

Stunned, and stirring where she lay, Susan sat up and looked around, finding everyone getting up from the floor and shaking their heads from the vertigo of it all. The drainer was destroyed in what her other self had done, and she was nowhere to be seen. Reed sat up with the help of her other selves, checking on Johnny and Ben, turning her attention to the Cat-burglar holding her son and daughter. The two shared a warm smile, one the cat themed woman quickly lost as her attention fell to what was behind the Invisible Woman.

“Behind…!”

Tackled to the floor with a hoarse scream of rage, Susan found herself grappling with the now human and mortal Malice. Her eyes blood shot and her voice cracked from screaming, she struggled with her counterpart, unable to decide on strangling or gouging the Invisible Woman’s eyes out.

“YOU INSUFFERABLE PEASANT! I HAD EVERYTHING! I WAS EVERYTHING! YOU TOOK IT ALL AWAY FROM ME! I’LL KILL YOU!!!!”

“No, you won’t.”

Levitating down from the ceiling, the blue, glowing skinned version of Susan lowered herself down and outstretched her hand to take possession of Malice from on top of Susan and pull her up into the air. The screeching, threatening woman thrashing impotently to her will.

“You have done enough already, and all you have scarred will be undone.”

The voice carried over the entire lab as she pointed her other hand out to the others down below, energy seemed to flow like ribbons of light from her fingers to everyone else in the room. Ben quickly became enveloped in orange stony skin getting back to his feet with Alicia at his side, and Johnny found himself revitalized, his body quickly engulphed in cosmic flames as he got up to his feet. Already Susan could feel her powers restored when she too got up and pulled her children close in an embrace, followed swiftly to her husband who joined them. But their relief was short lived to the screeching complaints of Malice overhead.

“YOU WEAK MINDED BITCH! I WAS A GODDESS! I WAS GOING TO DROWN THIS WORLD, ALL WORLDS IN AGONY AND BLOOD! I’LL KILL YOU ALL FOR THIS! ALL OF YOU!!! WHEN I’M DONE, YOU’LL ALL BE REDUCED TO MULCH WHEN I…”

“You will do nothing. You can do nothing. You’ve done enough already, and now you’re done.” Extending her arm, she opened her hand, aiming it at the madwoman staring daggers back at her.

“I AM MALICE! QUEEN OF…”

Instantly the woman was reduced to ash, her remains sprinkling to the ground after the cosmic powered woman disintegrated her with but a gesture. Slowly lowering herself to the ground, the entire lab was silent, staring up at the blue woman as she traced her bare foot over the pile of ash in front of her.

“Now you are the queen of nothing.”