Like hitting a bee hive with a stick...

Falling to his back and rear and panting with fright in the elevator, Johnny needed a minute to gather his wits. The image of that creature wearing his sister’s face and spoke with her voice was burned into his eyes and he clenched them tight to make it go away. “That’s not Susan… THAT’s not Susan…” He was shocked out of his mantra when he heard something heavy slam against the elevator doors, followed by another, the door visibly denting from the impact as whatever was behind the other side tried to **** itself through. When the door buckled and a claw began to reach in and swipe at the Human Torch, Johnny panicked and engulphed the entire compartment in flames, incinerating the claw reaching out for him.

Boxed in and claustrophobic, Johnny used his powers to flash melt the roof of the elevator and escape through the hole to fly back up to the loft floor where the others lived. When the elevator doors blew open from the blast of superheated air and the man’s body slamming through the doors and colliding with the opposite wall, the fire alarms blared and doused the floor with flame retardant and water.

“JEEZ! WHAT THE HELL JOHNNY?!” Cried out Ben, tossing his punching back down to the ground, completely soaked. His temper fading when he noticed the fiery man scramble to his feet and blast down the elevator shaft with a look of wild panic in his eyes. Gathering up his kids, Valaria and Franklin looked over to their uncle panicking as he torched the elevator shaft. “What’s going on?” Cried out Valaria, still in her father’s arms with her brother clutching Reed’s other arm.

“EVERYONE GET AWAY FROM THE ELEVATOR!!!” he screamed, before a burst of super heated air **** the Human Torch back. Like a swarm, they poured out of the smelted doorway, crawling up the walls, floors and ceiling. Slithering creatures with claws and spines and tentacled limbs hissed and growled at the family as Johnny bolted from his prone spot and got back up to his feet, running to the others huddled in the living room. Several gave chase, swiping behind the panicked Human Torch until Ben pulled Johnny behind him to the others and swung his fist back.

“You want some of this ugly?” His only response was the hissing chitter of the beast lunging for him, splayed out mandibles, talons and slithering limbs reached out to attack, all of it sent reeling back with a strike so severe, the beast tumbled like a rag-doll with its bones pulverized in the wake of the left hook. Two more took its place, with one sharing the same fate as the other before the third found purchase and landed on Ben’s back, raking its talons across his shoulder and actually chipped scars into his stony flesh. “Gah! That’s it! “Reaching up and hoisting the monster by its snapping tentacles, Ben threw the creature down with enough **** to crumble the tile work and began pulverizing the offending beast. “IT’S CLOBBERING TIME!” Completely unaware of the horde still crawling out of the elevator and making ready to attack him from behind, he never saw the half dozen beasts lunge for him.

“GET AWAY FROM UNCLE BEN!” Raising her hands, Valeria protected her and the others in an intense bubble of solid light, cutting off her family from the monsters that still came by the dozens, who circled them all like a pack of wolves. Multiple tonnes of raw strength went into each punch as the Thing reduced the creature’s head to gelatinous sludge, only stopping when he found his fist was smashing straight through the floor. “Hope you learn your lesson freak.” Watching the oozing corpse, Ben got a surprise when it twitched and writhed, slowly rolling to its hands and feet while the oozing stump at its neck began to grow a new head!

“DAFUQ?!” Kicking it away from him, Valaria made it so objects could pass through out of the bubble but could not come in, the regenerating body of the creature collided with several of its brethren with the **** of a cannonball yet they bounced back rapidly to attack again. Single minded in their purpose to kill.

“What are these things?”

“MONSTERS REED, MONSTERS!” Screamed Johnny, keeping his eyes on the growing number of attackers swarming the living room and the entire floor. Seeing specs of the congealed matter from the creature that now hissed and snarled back at him with a regrown head, Reed Richards pulled out a spoon from the cup of tea he had at the coffee table to scoop some of the matter up, keeping an eye on it just in case it too had any surprises. “We need to get to my lab, maybe find a way to stop these creatures.”

“How do we do that? We’re surrounded.”

“HERBIE?” Called out Reed over the fire suppression system and fire alarms, getting a chime from the building’s A.I. “Yes, Doctor Richards, how may I be of service?”

“HERBIE! Activate the building’s defense protocols and sterilize the entire floor!”

“Of course, Doctor Richards, as you com… ERROR, ERROR, violation of protocol 5, cannot proceed with command.”

“HERBIE?!” Ducking as several of the green translucent creatures jumped on top of the bubble and began clawing and striking at its surface, Reed huddled the kids closer while Johnny and Ben closed ranks.

“Protocol 5? The hell is that?” Asked Ben, keeping his fists up as he watched their protection very quickly get swarmed over by dozens of bear-sized monsters clawing at Valaria’s **** field. Even Reed was stunned, a look of shock on his face when HERBIE refused the order.

“Protocol 5 is one of the many safety limits I placed on HERBIE, it states that he can’t directly or indirectly harm any of us or our relatives, just in case he was ever used to attack us or if we were compromised.”

“The hell you are saying. These things are related to us?!”

Looking back at the green slime held in the spoon in his hands, Reed wiped the water from his eyes and pointed towards the hallway where his lab was. “We need to get to my lab, Val, can you clear a path for us?” Shaking her head, the little girl had become too frightened now that they had all become surrounded by dozens of monsters, shivering next to her father. Holding her close and keeping Franklin with him, Reed tried to think of a plan as the numbers of this swarm seemed never ending.