February 12th 2025

Earth-5690

A portal opened on the surface of a dry and lifeless planet, where overhead the view of a blackened sky with the sun over the horizon could be seen. Looking around, the entire surface was smooth and flattened without a single landmark that could be seen. This was it; this was her Earth. Looking up overhead, without an atmosphere to obscure it, she could see every star in the night’s sky, at 2 PM. With the portal closing behind her, Susan Storm looked around the desolation. There was nothing, not even air to breath, not that she needed to breath anymore, and all around her for thousands of miles there was nothing but cold silence.

Space was quiet, it always was. Sound cannot exist in a vacuum; sound waves need a surface to reverberate off to be heard by anything that had ears to hear it. But something must exist to create that sound wave as well. There was nothing here anymore. Everything that ever lived or existed had all been torn apart at the subatomic level and converted into anti-matter, all to fuel the ever-demanding hunger of Galactus. Looking down at the barren orb that was Earth, seared of all life and colour, the cold surface devoid of atmosphere, there was no sound, not even from the howls of wind currents. There wasn’t even an atmosphere to produce those currents anymore. A massive barren moon, being orbited by a smaller moon, orbiting a sun. The last vestige of Galactus’s many meals left behind in his wake. Teleporting herself from where she was, the glowing blue woman arrived instantly on the surface of the moon, finding the same perch she sat on where she watched the calamity happen all those years ago.

It all played out in front of her in perfect clarity, how the end bringer simply came and scoured away everything that made a world what it was and left behind a dead rock. Like so many uncounted worlds before here. Standing up from her perch on the moon, Susan looked around the empty desolation of her solar system. Closing her eyes, she could feel the tug and pull, the eb and flow of the cosmic eddies of gravity and causality around her. Despite the silence, she could hear and feel a symphony of activity.

She was home.

Already she could tell what the future of this world would be, eons upon eons of silence throughout the solar system. Occasionally there would be the stray meteorite that would collide with the dead planet, leaving scars in their wakes. Volcanic activity would still occur, like blisters of heat and smoke marring the surface that would rage for brief stints of days or weeks before sputtering out again. But those likely would be the only acts of motion the Earth would ever know. She had seen this future, in perfect clarity. For her it was always meant to be this way, there were no deviations. At least that was what she had always known before. Then she was introduced to a question, one she had never comprehended since before her apotheosis, one that was too outlandish for her to even consider even when others had asked her before in this reality. Opening her eyes again, she looked up at the dead and lifeless Earth from her perch, and that question lingered off her lips.

“What if it was different?”

A plan began to formulate in her mind, one that she understood would take time. But time she had in near infinite abundance, what she had lacking were resources. Teleporting away to the surface of Ganymede, one of the many moons orbiting Jupiter, Susan looked around the icy surface of the frozen planet. Kneeling to trace her fingers over the ice caked ocean world, she brushed off a layer of frost away from the rough craggy glacier. Minus 20-degree temperatures so cold nothing could live on the surface, and yet there she knelt, unphased. Standing up and looking around the massive icescape that spanned for thousands of miles all around her, she gauged the amount she would need and teleported away… Taking half the oceanic glacier with her. Earth suddenly found itself being belted by trillions of tons worth of frozen water, like the lathering of frost over a hot stone baking in the sun, the continent sized glaciers of ice melted over time, refilling the empty ocean and seas. From her perch on the moon, she watched as the waters settled, the ice that had yet to melt swirling over the north and southern hemispheres to remain cool and became ice caps. It took 2 weeks for the oceans, seas, and lakes to form the bodies of water she last remembered them as, with help from her heating the ice to a flash boil.

Teleporting away again, Susan stood on the surface of Venus. Her glowing blue body untouched and unphased from the raging permanent windstorms crashing against her at supersonic speeds. Looking around and feeling the harsh winds blow between her open fingers, the atmosphere was so thick that any other human would have been crushed and boiled to **** from the pressure of it all. She teleported away again, stripping a third of the atmosphere with her. Reappearing on the surface of Earth, the layer of atmosphere she took with her was deposited on the Earth and blew out in every direction, encompassing the planet in a thick layer of greenhouse gases that eventually stemmed, and churned into an atmosphere of carbon dioxide. Water from the oceans and seas evaporated in the heat of its hemisphere and fell as clouds of rain in colder climates. Nodding at the formation of a layer of atmosphere on the planet, Susan bent at the knee and placed her hand against the surface of the dead world and began to concentrate.

“Nothing in this world is ever created or destroyed, only transmuted from one form to the other, its base ingredients, no matter how complex, still exist.”

Opening her eyes, the soil at her feet which by now was moist from rainfall began to shift with sprouting lumps of green leaves blooming from the ground. Rapidly, plant life grew and spread across the surface of the planet as quickly as a spreading flame. Seeing its effects, she teleported back to her perch on the moon and sat on a stone to watch her work from afar. It took weeks for the plant life to spread over the dry lands of the continents, even forming seaweeds and coral in the oceans. The results of which changed the contents of the atmosphere, where carbon dioxide was taken in and converted into oxygen by the photosynthesis of miles worth of plant life she created. Before, the skies were a sickly brown like those of the planet Venus from where she striped the first layer of atmosphere from. Now it was a sky-blue orb with streaks of bright green over its dry surfaces. A layer of ozone now encapsulated the Earth’s surface.

Teleporting again to the planet’s surface, Susan turned around and looked at the lush forests she had created. Trees that would have taken decades or even centuries to grow, developed in the span of days that would have rivalled bamboo. They stood several feet tall, looming over her head where sunlight creaked in between the spaces of leaves and branches. Smiling, she teleported to another spot on the planet to make changes. It took years for her, reshaping, creating, constructing. It all needed to be perfect, right down to the last detail. All the while, she could feel the symphony of motion around her, the future she envisioned before she was plucked from her reality. It changed just as much as the changes she made in the present. It could change, the future could be changed, it made her ashamed that she had never tried, but that was before. Now she wanted to make it all right.

Roads, towns, cities, farmlands, she pieced together the entire world as it was just before Galactus’s arrival, rebuilding everything back to the condition it was before their annihilation. She steadily added other life to the Earth to see it intrench itself into the current eco system. Microbiological organisms, insects, fish, birds, mammals. She was trying to recapture that very day, that very hour, the second she had broken Reed’s heart. Across the planet’s surface, she had gathered everything she needed to rebuild humanity from its base components, placing them all as they were when they had all been consumed. She had to time it all correctly, she did not want humanity to believe anything horrible had happened, or that all of this was fabricated by her. It all had to be perfect, right down to even the alignment of the stars on that day.

“February 12th… 2025… Now 2015 all over again.”

Teleporting to the room where it all happened, she looked around to make sure everything was as it was. Pools of dust and water were in key locations in the room, as she placed them. When everything seemed just about ready, just about right, Susan closed her eyes and concentrated again. Like a wake of energy that spread across the entire planet at the speed of light, millions upon millions of people sprung into existence with the materials she laid down to make up their building blocks, all of them appearing as they did on that day as if they had no idea what had happened. Their minds pre-programmed with the memories she had fabricated for them, knowing all their secrets, their feelings, their everything. Streets instantly became packed with civilians on their way to work, with cars and cabs honking their horns angrily for the vehicles ahead of them to move. Pigeons flew out in shock as entire walkways suddenly came to life with bicyclists, joggers, and families suddenly appearing in central park. Occasionally the odd pedestrian stopped what they were doing, confused for but a split-second wondering where they were before shrugging and carrying on.

The entire planet had been remade, repaired, and set back to that faithful day. The day she realised she had broken Reed’s heart. And as every individual person was recreated on the planet thanks to her power and will, she could feel the subtle effect they had on the symphony of fate. How did she not notice it before? Their presence on all things. She had been so infatuated with the effects of vast stellar bodies on this world she did not consider the effects of SMALLER bodies at play. After all, was not an avalanche a **** of innumerable small pebbles moving at once? Never again, she promised herself, never again will she ignore the small things again.

“Suzie, what are you talking about? Who’s this… Galactus?” Reed cried out while Johnny and Ben stand back in shock. There was a moment of confusion on Reed’s expression, finding her wearing a white sundress that looked like it had been lived in for a very long time. The fabric looked like it was faded, and the buttons stained from age. “Where… Where did you get that dress?”

Opening her eyes and looking up at the panicked man in front of her, and over her shoulder to the armed S.A.B.E.R. guards behind her, the glowing blue woman smiled, the first time since she had changed as far as Reed could remember. Slowly stepping towards him, Reed was slightly taken back when the woman wrapped her arms over his shoulders, the first act of affection she had ever expressed to him in so many years. Hesitating, Reed wrapped his arms around her. She held him like that for almost an entire minute before slowly separating, bringing a hand to cup at his chin and stroke his cheek with her thumb.

“Reed… Galactus is an omnipotent being that seeks to consume life energies to sustain itself, it has destroyed countless worlds in his wake in this perpetual goal. His herald, the Silver Surfer arrived to inspect our world to determine if it will suffice as a meal for him to consume” His eyes going wide, Reed worried, his skin going cold to her touch, just as she brought a finger to the divot of his upper lip to keep him from crying out. “It is alright, he is not coming here.”

“Y-you… You… Stopped him. Right?”

“I did not…” She answered cryptically, making the guards still aiming at her from behind hesitate in what to do. “But he will never come back again, he will have no reason to.” Blinking back up to the woman, it still surprised him that she gave a warm smile, just before she stuck her fingers into his lab coat jacket breast pocket and pulled out a gold ring, one that was machine made with a blue diamond at its center. Putting it on her finger, she admired the facets of the diamond with a wistful smile, then kissed Reed on the lips. “Will you smile if I admit that I was wrong?” She asked, the same sad smile on her lips.

“About… What?”

“About you, about ALL of you.” Looking behind her again, the S.A.B.E.R. guards had already lowered their weapons, mostly due to her no longer being a threat, and slightly due to the confusion of the moment. “I’ve been so engrossed on the grand scale of the universe… I forgot about the small parts of it.” Pulling on his hand, the blue, glowing, cosmic entity smiled more cheerfully.

“Can you show me what I’ve missed?”