Into the dragon's lair...

The flight into New York was… Disturbing. Susan was grateful she set the Fantasticar on autopilot to return home, her hands were shaking the entire time they were resting on the controls. Everywhere she looked, the city was unrecognizable. The flying vehicle changed its flight path to avoid a tower that looked like some briar thorned crag of black stone. A thick fog polluted the air, keeping visibility poor, but even then, the twisted, jagged roofs and towers of the altered buildings could be seen just as the Fantasticar avoided them in its flight path. ON a screen on the dashboard, Susan could see a layout of the city the flying car was taking to weave through the forest of altered buildings, latticed with chains and pouring boiling blood from the open maws of gargoyles all around them.

“What the hell is going ON out there?”

“You’re not far off sister.” Worried the succubus, hugging herself tightly with a look of worry. In the corner of her eye, she could see the Canoness staring at her, but her face remained unreadable.

A voice called out from the dashboard radio, the voice of the to Susan following them outside in the form of the news copter she took to infiltrate the Helicarrier. “You all should count your blessings you can’t see and hear what’s going on out here.”

“Why? What’s going on down there?” Asked the wendigo, wincing that she may have asked something she shouldn’t have to keep everyone’s spirits up. For a few seconds the radio remained silent, making everyone wonder if they lost contact with their sister outside. That is until they finally got a response.

“Screaming.”

“The daemon thrives on pain and misery; she feeds on it as one would be nourished by air and water.” Explained the Canoness, looking out the window to the dark fog obscuring the city. Her attention fell back to the succubus and alien versions of her, the two looked unsettled by all that was going on outside. “You… This disturbs you… Doesn’t it.”

“I can feel people’s desires.” Explained the succubus, hugging herself even more tightly and shivering. “It’s how I know what they want and how I can give it to them. Right now, all I can feel all around me is a **** need to survive from thousands of people below our feet.”

Nodding, the Canoness turned her attention to the four-armed woman next to her, her tail coiled around her leg and the tentacles for hair she had over her scalp looked bunched and still like a nest of frightened snakes. She once overheard the alien could see and sense things outside of what the others could, extra sensory perception “And what of you… Sister?”

“I think I’m going to throw up!”

Nodding to the response, the Sister of Battle turned her attention to the front windshield where she could see what looked like a human face carved in black stone with its mouth gaping open in a permanent scream, only to immediately recognize the mouth’s interior as the landing bay for the Baxter building. Entering the landing bay and landing safely inside, Susan turned off the controls and turned in her chair to see the rest of her others looking back to her for guidance. “Well ladies, time to play our parts.”

Stepping out of the fold out walkway of the Fantasticar, they all managed to catch their autoboot follower arrive and transform to land onto a crouch in front of them, the trace components of her helicopter blades folding and retracting into her black as she got up to her feet and full height. It took a minute for Susan to process what had happened to her home, so completely unrecognisable she thought she was in one of the dungeons in Doom’s castle. Gone were the LED lighting and sterile smooth metal walls that made the large space look clean and precise. The walls looked like they were masoned black stone, dripping with moisture in the humid air as lit torches illuminated the entire landing bay, overhead she could spot bats roosting in the far upper corners while other creatures skittering in the dark.

Getting her hands behind her, the Invisible Woman gestured with her chin to the wendigo to have her hands cuffed just as the model gently gripped her arm and smiled a fanged grin as she got ready to play her part. “You ready to save your family?”

“You ready to act? I hope all that wasn’t showboating about your past because we’re going to need you to be convincing.”

“Pfff… You mouth breathers are so tiresome, I should have bitten out your neck when I first heard your damn pulse… What do you think? Convincing enough?”

The rest of the Susans shrugged, giving various looks of approval, or nodded with a slight shrug. “Not bad, might wanna tone down the threats when we meet up with the iron clad bitch and her wacky pal.”

“I’m scared.” Whimpered the last in their band to exit the Fantasticar, clutching to the empathy ray close to her body as she tip-toed out of the vehicle and looked around. “I don’t like this place.”

Wincing at the sight of her most timid version look around shaking like a leaf, the Invisible Woman approached the former sex **** and brushed her shoulder against hers. “It’s going to be alright. All we have to do is get inside and use the empathy ray to distract them and free our loved ones.”

Still frightened and holding the empathy ray in her arms, the woman looked down and eventually nodded. “For Reed…”

“For Reed, let’s get going.”

A sound nearby alerted them all to a heavy wooden door creaking open, with the shadow of someone stepping inside. Quickly, the other Susans took their place with the model standing next to the Invisible Woman with a hand around her cuffs from behind while the Canoness rested a hand over the woman holding the empathy ray, pulling it free from her arms to hold it in her possession. Looking up, everyone cautiously played their parts when Susan Von Doom approached and rested her hands at her sides, sneering behind the metal mask to look over the group of presumed mind-controlled thralls. Narrowing her attention on the vampire, the Queen spoke.

“You’re early, I’d have assumed you would have wasted your time killing everything that moved in whatever rabbit hole she’d hide in before heading back. Did you lose your appetite?”

Quickly pinching her fingers under Susan’s chin and giving the Invisible Woman’s face a playful shake, the vampiric looking woman smiled darkly. “And miss all the fun here? A girl’s got priorities after all… I did drink one of them though.”

Looking over to the rest of the Susans who looked back at her with various looks of silent contempt, the Latverian queen raised her chin and narrowed her eyes, the steel-clad mask detaching and unfolding around her to reveal her face and flowing blonde hair under her green cloak.

“Then nothing important was lost then, by the looks of the frail girl in the Canoness’s grip I take it the primmed up COW was on the menu? Good riddance…”

Hiding her frustration behind a raised eyebrow and a smirk, the vampire dragged Susan forward, looking over her shoulder to the rest of the others. “Well? Come along sisters, don’t want to keep Malice waiting.”

“Yes Mistress…” The others said in unison, following them out the door and down the hallway. Making their way through, the place didn’t look like the home they had been living in for the last few days. Dark, foreboding and lit only by torches overhead. Massive rooms too big to even fit in what was once their home had passing resemblances to the living room or kitchen, now looking like **** chambers to some nightmarish sadist.

Entering through the heavy wooden double doors down the hallway, the group found their way inside what was once Reed’s lab. Looking up at the sight of her friends and family hanging from the ceiling in various displays of pain and agony, the sight before her was enough to make the Invisible Woman gasp in horror. Ben was frozen solid into granite, her brother burning alive but never searing, having passed out from the pain, Alicia weeping with milky white eyes and her husband a bloody mess like meat hanging from a hook. But what caught her attention front and center was the nightmare of a woman turning around and unfurling her leathery wings.

Her taloned feet clicking as she approached the group, Malice tilted her horned head and posed with a claw at her chainmail covered hip. A cruel look of amusement on her fanged, black lips as she leered over the Invisible Woman in cuffs in front of her.

“Welcome home sister… Like what I’ve done with the place?”