Bottling up an Octopus

The whine of the SHIELD transport shuttles wound down after the vehicle landed over the rooftop of the building the crew found the Fantastic Four and their family. The exit ramps to either vehicle yawning open where a cadre of SHIELD troopers exited out with weapons aimed ready for anything, only to find Susan Storm and Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four sitting with their kids on the roof with Ben and Johnny nearby.

The Susan Storm variants were standing guard over the deceased body of the Blue Goblin, now covered over with Moon Dame’s cloak. Lowering their weapons after receiving a message in their comms, the agents quickly moved to check on the family for any injuries while a pair of agents arrived with a gurney to remove the dead.

Clutching her kids close to her, Susan kissed Valeria and Franklin on their foreheads. Her husband sitting next to her as she leaned her head against his shoulder with a look of peace on her face. Looking out over to the Blue Goblin as she was being carted out on the gurney, she didn’t fault Moon Dame for spitting on the monstrous woman before she was hauled away.

“Is she gone?” Asked Franklin, still being held in his mother and father’s arms.

“It’s okay now sweetheart, we’re safe now.”

One of the SHIELD agents approached the Fantastic Four, kneeling down and pulling his helmet off so they could see his face as he offered an extended hand. “We have been ordered to bring you back with us to the Helicarrier, do you need assistance?”

Getting up to their feet, Reed politely waved back and held his family close as he looked out over the city at night. “That will not be necessary officer, we’re parked over in Coney Island.”

***

A half hour’s worth of flying later, the Fantasticar and its SHIELD escort returned to the Helicarrier to be checked over for any injuries and for processing. After a thorough check, they thankfully found none of the Goblin’s venom in their system after it had been purged by Lady Anti-Venom. Once everyone was accounted for and the crisis finally resolved, came the difficult task of returning the uninvited guests back to where they came from.

Insisting to be present for each prisoner drop off in their respective realities, Nick Fury came with Reed and Susan with their prisoners in tow to be returned to their respective world’s equivalent of SHIELD. One by one, the ladies were brought to the authorities with their hands bound and collars around their necks preventing them from using their abilities. The reaction was… Jarring to say the least. Nick Fury found himself on more than one occasion of being chewed out by a variant of himself for the lackluster performance capturing their inmate.

Leaving Susan And Reed to bite their tongues watching the two Fury’s get into a shouting match over either world’s defenses for several minutes before the director made his leave. By the time the three returned to the Helicarrier in the 616 universe, the only one left to return to their home reality was Doctor Octopus. The woman sitting with her hands shackled behind her back and an inhibiter collar around her neck.

Stepping through the portal with a remote in hand, the very same one Doctor Octopus used to commandeer the portal’s controls, Reed deactivated the portal behind him and stepped off the ramp to approach the bound woman.

“And now all that’s left is to return you to your home reality.”

“Not a moment too soon if you ask me.” Muttered Ben under his breath, eliciting a grin from the bound woman as she was moved towards the portal, ready to be sent home. “Don’t let the door hit you on the ass on your way-out toots.”

Getting a read on the woman’s dimensional signature, Reed set the controls to her home reality. The portal opening up like an eye to peer into the world she came from, the sight of which only made Doctor Octopus smile.

“You honestly think sending me back to where I came from is going to keep me there?” Doctor Octopus called out over her shoulder as two SHIELD guards moved her up to stand before the portal ramp. “Even if you send me back to be put in prison, I’ll just be out in a week, tops! And I’ll be back with a whole new gaggle of psychotic blonds like my old crew that’ll make the Blue Goblin look like a burned-out coke fiend. Nothing you do here is going to stop me from getting what I want.”

To everyone’s surprise, the portal then closed, brought on by Reed deactivating the portal device with the remote in his hand as he gave the variant of his wife a stern glare.

“Reed?”

“She’s right.” Mr. Fantastic replied to his wife’s question. “She’s proven to be quite resourceful, and even if we drop her off at her version of SHIELD, her Reed’s portal still exists in her dimension.”

“You really think she can get out of prison?” Fury asked, his arms crossed as he stared back at the grinning prisoner with his good eye.

“No offense Director Fury, but she has already proven even YOU cannot contain her. And she has proven we too cannot contain her properly either.” Crossing his own arms and scratching his beard between his fingers, Reed looked deep in thought. “No. She cannot be trusted to be left supervised by either of our methods. Let alone its equivalent in any world we send her to. We will have to try for something a little more… Unorthodox to contain her.”

“What do you have in mind?”

***

Earth-265

The portal opened before a black stoned tiled floor of what appeared to be the depths of a castle’s bowers underground, the interior of the chamber they all found themselves in through bleak and foreboding, was lit only by oil torches hanging from the walls as the quartet stepped through the portal and looked around with Doctor Octopus standing in front of her jailors. Disarmed and wearing a power dampening collar around her neck with her arms crossed and shackled behind her, the woman scoffed. Giving the darkened chamber a look over, the blonde woman looked to her three captors and frowned.

“A literal dungeon? Really?” She snorted as she was pushed forward to keep walking by Nick Fury. “Stone walls do not a prison make, nor do iron bars a cage… I am not one to be bottled up out of inconvenience. And octopi are quite adept at escaping the impossible.”

“That’s enough out of you.” The director scowled. Eliciting a smirk from the blonde woman as they stepped forward, the portal closing behind them.

“I wonder when they’ll offer whippings as an introduction to my stay here, or perhaps they are more for the use of iron maiden as a warm-up for new inmates.”

“You really need to stop talking.” Susan frowned, leading them all forward, heading down a hallway that was adorned with busts and art on its walls. Most depicting nobles or family members who owned the castle prior none of them recognised. “And I’d keep your mouth shut when we meet her too, if she’s anything like either of us, she’s got a temper.”

Guards could be seen up ahead, armed, and armored in a metal the four did not recognise, but not one of them were alarmed or anxious of their presence, quite the opposite in fact when one stepped away from his post and stood in front of them all. Stamping his spear on the floor and bowing his head slightly to the four, particularly towards Reed.

“Reed Richards, Susan Storm.” The guard spoke behind an unreadable faceplate. “Welcome to castle Storm, formally castle Richards.”

“Formally?” Asked Fury, finding the answer cryptic.

“There has been a change of the guard as it were, new management since our former master has been deposed. Please, come with me, you are expected.”

Following the guard with some anxiety in his cryptic statement and looking over to the art they passed by earlier, the displays were clearer in the light ahead. The paintings were exquisite, but there were subtle signs they were not the originals, the stone carvings of faces not the previous ones. What with the dust lines with cleaner spaces of what used to hang there. The portraits showed the scene of… A woman. One of terrible stature and visage, she was a beautiful monster. Some of these paintings, the larger ones showed her ruling over the lands comparable to some nightmarish fiend, others strangely showed her as some compassionate demon, crouching and embracing the masses.

“Our queen has been quite benevolent in her rule… After her return from your world.” The guard explained. “She had overthrown the master overnight and has made sweeping changes to the kingdom both in its governance and priorities.”

A confused look smeared the former Doctor Octopus’s face, one she wore up to when she was pushed towards a grand throne room up ahead. There, a harem of creatures lounged around the foot of the throne, hissing, and eyeing her with blood red eyes. They bore wings, tentacles, and tails, amongst other limbs hidden in the shadows. Succubae… Demons… She-monsters, there was no other way to describe them. Getting up from their perches surrounding the throne, many of them sized up the four, hissing and snarling and licking their chops as they descended the top of the steps and surrounded them.

One of these… Creatures eyed the Invisible Woman with a keen curiosity.

“She looks like our mistress….” Hissed one of them, buzzing with diaphanous wings from her back and scurrying on the ground on her feet and four hands. Her skin a chitinous, alabaster and bristled with spines. “Lesser than what she is now…”

“She’s small… Puny” Husked another, tall and burly with a green tint to the albino chitinous skin and sea of writhing tentacles that coiled from her scalp like a nest of snakes. “Were we ever this puny?”

“THIS one I do not care for…” Snarled the striped one, her jaws and stature that of a jungle cat standing on her hind legs as her long prehensile tail whipped behind her and her spines chittered like the tails of rattlesnakes from her back. “He shares HIS face!”

They made to advance on Reed, leaving Mr. Fantastic and his wife to step back, nervous that they had made a terrible mistake until a voice from the throne called out, one that froze them all in place.

“STOP.”

Getting up from her throne, the creature that sat there towered over the lot of them twice over their own height. Her presence so gravitating it drew the attention of everyone there, the guards knelt, and the she-creatures fell prostate to the floor as their queen descended the steps. Her appearance, much like that of the frescos and art leading to the throne room depicting her was both stunning and horrifying in equal measure as her clawed toes clicked at each step. Her skin was an ivory sheen, chitinous and scaly yet polished like the finest of marble. Tentacles flowed from her scalp like the kelp of a coral reef, her arms, ankles and back bearing quills and spines and an elongated tail flicked and coiled behind her. Wings… Or fins, like that of a lionfish flittered behind her like a silken gown as she raised a clawed hand to sweep the tentacles from the side of her head like it was hair. Her face was angelic, demonic, and hideously beautiful… Her brow bore a crown of horns spanning a meter from her skull at either side, her teeth sharp and fanged, her eyes reptilian and slit, and all wearing the face of Susan Storm. For that WAS who she was.

“A year ago, I met a man like my husband and yet unlike my husband. A man who loved and was loved and was rewarded for such love. A man who wore the cruel face of my king and yet treated me like a queen in the stay of his own kingdom. Who showed me love and kindness and peace. And granted me the power to see to my own happiness upon my return home.”

Stopping just in front of the four, the towering monstress crouched to sit on her knees with her hands folded in her lap, but even then she was tall enough to see Reed Richards eye to eye with a warm smile on her fanged lips,

“Welcome to my kingdom Reed.”

Humming in silent delight to his smile back up to her, the creature turned her gaze to his wife.

“Hello Susan.”

“Hello Susan, we were hoping you could keep an eye on this one for us.” The Invisible Woman gestured to her prisoner, the woman looking up at the queen of this realm with trepidation. “We WOULD send her back home, but she’s proven to be quite the sneaky little bitch.”

Lowering her horned head to steel her gaze at Doctor Octopus, her red eyes narrowed. Fast as a scorpion strike, she had clutched the woman under her chin just with her thumb and index finger, pulling her up higher to look into her eyes.

“She reminds me of… Her.” She hissed, a low growl escaping her throat, one shared by the other creatures circling the four, but not making a move. “I believe I have space next to my other inmate.”

Getting to her feet, the monstress turned at her heel and looked over her shoulder back to her friends.

“Follow me, I’ll show you.”

Raising her hand and flicking her wrist to point ahead of her, Doctor Octopus gasped as she found herself being levitated off the ground, **** into a sitting position as she was moved over the throne room of the horned creature and guided towards a series of hanging cages behind the throne. With another gesture of her hand, the cage gate was opened, and Doctor Octopus was unceremoniously shoved inside the cage, slamming the door shut and locked. Feeling her shackles loosen and drop under the grate of her cage, Doctor Octopus grabbed at the bars of her cage and sneered down at those beneath her.

“Do you believe THIS can contain me?” Spat the woman, gripping the iron bars tightly. “No prison can contain me; I’ve proven it dozens of times. You dolts know NOTHING of what I’m capable of! I am Doctor Octopus! The master planner!”

Looking down to the others with her hands resting at her sides, the horned queen smirked. “She’s a talker.”

“Yes… She is a chatty bitch isn’t she.” Nick Fury chuckled; his arms crossed as he smiled back at the caged version of Susan Storm still spitting threats. “Remember to keep her fed three times a day and keep an eye on her for any messes she might make...”

“Who is THIS one?” The queen interrupted, her gaze now on the SHIELD director with a stern look on her face. One shared by her personal minions as they gathered behind their mistress. “I find his tone grating.”

“This is Director Nicholas Fury.” Reed explained, looking up to the horned creature as he introduced the man. “In return for keeping the portal device in his possession. He’s travelling with us to make sure the Sinister… Susans are being taken to the authorities for processing, this one was a special case, but it should meet the requirements.”

“Requirements for what?”

Looking over to Reed and Susan, Fury stepped forward with a sense of bravado. “We agreed that when this was all said and done, SHIELD would be in possession of the dimensional portal indefinitely and the Fantastic Four and their extended family would NOT to be arrested for having such a dangerous device on premises or be charged for the crimes their variants had committed in the city since they are indirectly responsible for their…”

Faster than the man could react to, the giantess was already knelt in front of him, staring eye to baleful eye with the director with a lengthened finger nail pointed right at his forehead. Tracing her finger down his nose, down his chin and all the way to his chest, she made a pinching gesture with her fingers and thumb and began to pull away from the director. In doing so, a thin black thread pulled away with him, squirming and writhing against her grip before it was finally pulled free and struggled against the pinch between her fingers. With a simple clench of her hand, she killed the poison in Nicholas Fury’s heart and brushed her hand clean at her thigh.

“Interesting…” Reed whispered to himself. “I take it you learned that from the Susan Storm from…”

“Yes, our more ‘angelic’ counterpart who gifted me this power.” The demonic Susan smirked, getting back to her feet with her arms crossed, she looked down at the disoriented man who finally looked back up to her with no memory of the last few seconds. “You were saying Director Fury of SHIELD?”

“I was saying… A-all charges will be dropped completely… And in return for SHIELD containing your dimensional portal, we will cater your annual family gathering today.”

“Mh’hmm…?” Coughed Susan, giving the director a dirty look.

“And… Every year following that. Provided you have an invitation.” Fury glanced back at the now smiling Invisible Woman. Who then turned to look up at her taller, demonic looking doppelganger. Tilting her shoulder with a grin.

“Did you remember the invitation sister?”

Closing her eyes and raising her chin, the towering monster woman began to shrink, her horns, spurs, and tail receding back while her wings wrapping around her took on the appearance of a dress, a dress the same colour as her pale white skin which now looked unblemished and completely human. The tendrils on her scalp softened and split to become free flowing locks of hair, just as her horns disappeared when she was the same height and build as her counterpart. The woman then opened her red eyes and smiled, pulling out a cracked open paper envelope between her fingers hidden behind her.

“How could I not?”