The Evil Susans make their move.

Back at the Baxtor Building…

“Hey everyone, just droppin off the kids.” Called out Ben, getting smiles and greetings from Johnny and the two remaining Susans while Franklin and Valaria moved aside to let Jo-Ven and N’Kalla run up and sit with them on the couch. Alicia hugged against Ben’s arm, smiling as she noticed the two Susans and sat with them, greeting the two warmly and taking a seat while her husband collapsed heavily in the recliner and immediately the footrest popped up for him.

“Hello Alicia.” Chirped the former sex ****, sitting up with a smile and holding her mug of coffee in both hands. “So, you won’t be staying long?”

“No, Ben’s taking me out to the opera today, now that I can see I just want to get the most of what I’ve missed. We’re going to the park, to the bay, then to a restaurant…”

Smiling warmly and pulling her mug close to herself, the model watched the healed woman with an almost sad, envious smile. That is until Alicia looked around and leaned to the side of her to peer down the hallway. “Where’s the other Susan? The one that glows?”

“Oh… She’s with Reed in the lab.”

*

Floating at the center of the lab and watching Reed work with expressionless eyes, the cosmic being folded her hands over her chest, watching Reed continue to calibrate the dimensional portal in the hopes of sending everyone back to their home dimension. Turning the device on, a swirl of energy opened like an eye at the podium of the device, acting like a window into realities not their own. Keeping the power low, the device simply acted as a window into these dimensions, nothing more. Watching each dimension pass by, it seemed different somehow. Unlike the other attempts to see each dimension, they focused on their versions of his wife. Now? He was looking in on a dimension where Peggy Carter was Captain Britain facing off against Loki with her version of the Avengers. Another dimension showed the Hulk well groomed and dressed writing on a chalk board while university students listened in on his every word. Another showed a hideous arachnid creature wearing the remnants of Spider-Man’s costume feeding on a web cocooned burglar.

“This… This hasn’t happened before.” Stepping aside to investigate the portal, Reed scratched at his bearded chin in thought. “What’s changed? Did I crack it?”

Looking up at the man and his work, the cosmically powered woman remained unflinching until Reed looked over his shoulder to her. Finding that she had been watching work the entire time. “Any thoughts?”

The woman didn’t respond, remaining silent while the man turned his attention from the portal back to her, crossing his arms and giving the floating woman a look. “You know, MY Susan usually interacts with me at times when I work, keeps me grounded in the now, the feedback tends to help me make sure I don’t mess anything…”

“The frequency has changed.” She finally replied, her expression never changing in the slightest. “There is no focus for the portal to be fixed to.”

A little taken back by her bluntness, it still pleased him that he was managing to help her break out of the shell she formed around herself. But her statement made him wonder. “In what way? I know we’ve been shifting from one dimension to the next. If anything, this attempt is even less focussed, before it would have singled out a version of my wife, but now? It’s almost as if… Sigh… What am I missing here?”

“The Susan from your reality is not present.”

Raising an eyebrow to that, Reed turned to look at the portal showing a medieval New York where a feudal Spiderman fought an ACTUAL Green Goblin in the air and back to the blue floating woman behind him. “Wait a minute… MY Susan? What are you getting at?”

“All events were a deviant version of your Susan Storm arrived was in due part to her presence in the laboratory.”

“Any headway Reed?”

Turning their attention to the new voice at the laboratory entrance, Reed and Susan found the vampire queen leaning against the door frame with a coy look on her blackened lips. Stepping inside, the pale skinned woman was poised in her stride, her hands folded together in front of her while her red eyes peered over to the portal and the random worlds it showed, then to the pair in front of her. Her smile inviting, and her eyes soft as she stopped between the two.

“I take it you’ve made some progress?”

Turning his gaze to the cosmic Susan behind him, Reed looked back at the pale skinned version of his wife and shrugged, a look of mock surrender as he scratched at the back of his head. “Well, my ‘lab assistant’ here seems to think my wife may be responsible for why you all specifically ended up here.”

“Oh? Does that mean we may need her here if we want to go home?”

Shrugging his hands up and trading looks with the blue glowing woman, the other Susan remained expressionless until Reed answered. “Maybe?”

Crossing her arms and tapping her lip with her fingernail in thought, the vampire pouted seductively and approached the man, draping her hands over his shoulders. Her red eyes bored into his as she coaxed him to stare into them, making him fixate into her hungry gaze and fall into her hypnotic allure. Looking into those red pools, he could feel his resolve going numb, like he was feeling sleepy while the undead woman caressed his shoulders and affectionately cupped his cheeks and chin. “Well then Reed, my special Reed, it seems our plans have changed just a small bit, haven’t they?”

“They have?”

“Oh yes Reed, we planned on doing away with ALL of you, in the worst possible way, but if she’s needed to help us get back then that means I have to stay my HAND. Do you really want me to hold back? You like it when I get my way, don’t you?”

“Y-yes… I do…” He couldn’t say no, the look in her eyes was all he could focus on, he had no focus at all except the will of her own honey-sweet words whispering into his ear while looking into her gorgeous eyes.

“Good. Head out of the lab and bring everyone here, when you do, you’ll get a reward from me, a SPECIAL reward.”

Nodding sluggishly, Reed acknowledged her request. “Yes, I should bring everyone to the lab, for you.”

“Your Queen, tell me I’m your Queen Reed.”

“I should do… As my Queen commands.”

Smiling with her fangs exposed, Susan patted his cheek lovingly and sent him out of the lab, the man slowly making his way out to turn and head down the hall and the lab doors close behind him. Once he was out of sight, the vampire’s grin spread until it looked positively devilish, turning her gaze to the cosmic being glaring down at her.

“You intend to harm Reed Richards, and by proxy his entire family.”

“Oh, very much so, and when I’m done deciding who to feed off and who to flay open to make leather shoes of, WE will have access to infinite worlds to pillage and claim for our own. Hmm… Can YOU imagine it? Ocean’s worth of blood for me to slake my thirst with?”

A glow of energy formed in the Cosmic Susan’s hands as she floated higher off the ground, filling the entire room with a sky-blue tint. “I cannot allow you to cease in Reed’s attempts to return me home. You will cease immediately.”

Folding her hands behind her back and laughing back at the display of power, the vampire giggled up at the woman.

“I don’t intend to, I’m only here to get rid of the others and distract you.”

“Distract…?”

A sharp whine from an electric device behind her alerted the cosmic being far too late to a beam of energy striking her in the back. Crying out in shock, she could feel her powers leech from her body, unimaginable levels of cosmic energy leaving her and causing her to collapse to the ground and curl up into a state of rigor as her flesh returned to normal and the room became dark again save for the overhead lights. Becoming visible, Susan Von Doom smiled down at the prone woman, hoisting the energy absorber in her hands like a rifle as she stared down at the shivering human woman at her iron clad feet.

“Oh, how the MIGHTY have fallen.”

“Indeed, and if Malice has succeeded in her part of the plan, the rest of our ‘sisterhood’ is out the way and none the wiser to what plot we’ve hatched.”

Looking back to her compatriot, the two women shared a grin of achievement as they waited for Reed to return with the others in tow.

“One down…”

“Several blood bags left to package…”