Sniffing out a lead

Panic and screaming filled the exotic dance club after Susan had impaled a woman in the chest with her tail. The man and his ‘entertainment’ screamed and scrambled to move away as far as possible from the alien woman as all her attention was focused on the screaming stripper still impaled against the leather seating. Everyone else ran to the opposite wall, and those who tried to flee out of the building were stopped by the SHIELD agents whose attention were divided between keeping them inside, Reed Richards who struggled to calm the one SHIELD agent holding the detonator to Susan’s collar down, and the three alien women they brought with them.

“SUSAN STORM RICHARDS! YOU AND THE OTHERS WILL CEASE AND DESIST NOW OR WE WILL DETONATE YOUR COLLARS!” Threatened the man with the remote in his trembling hand while Reed tried to step in front of him and plead for him to stop. His requests all but falling on deaf ears despite Ben and Johnny calling for some calm themselves. Looking over his shoulder, Reed was horrified at the sight of his wife standing over the table and looking down at the stripper still screaming in agony with cold indifference. Pulling her tail free of the seating, Susan continued to keep the woman pinned by her stinger and hoisted up like some sort of trophy. Her strength utterly inhuman. “I MEAN IT! LET THAT WOMAN GO NOW!”

“That woman isn’t human.” The squad leader’s eyes shifted to Alicia and Janet who made that assessment, the pair walking past the SHIELD guards, ignoring the panicking guests keeping their distance to stand between them and Susan’s prey. “Look at the floor officer, look at the seating, see any blood?”

Looking down at the booth where Susan stepped off the table to the floor, the man found nothing. Reed, stepping closer, was beside himself with horror, wanting to approach his wife until Alicia raised a hand to stop him there, shaking her head. “Susan?”

“PLEASE! I don’t know what you want, just let me go…” The woman cried, hot tears streaming down her eyes while clutching at the tail speared through her chest and keeping her a foot off the ground. “I’ll do anything. PLEASE don’t kill me.” Tilting her head, Susan eyed the weeping dancer with contempt before bringing her closer to look her face to face. Sniffing the woman’s scent, the Invisible Woman sneered at her prize. Her many hands resting on her hips and thighs as she leaned back and shook her crowned head.

“The most dangerous creature in this building, capable of killing everyone with the same ease as a bear surrounded by rabbits… And your first survival instinct after being caught by a rival predator… is to play dumb?” Leaning forward, Susan stared into the eyes of the confused woman, her whimpering and cries going silent. “Whoever you are, you certainly didn’t come from MY brood.”

With a blood curdling screech and a hiss that made everyone shiver, the woman lashed out with talons that grew from her fingers, finding no purchase when they met an invisible wall that separated her from Susan’s face. Before the eyes of everyone present, the exotic dancer transformed; her flesh turning a murky translucent green and her eyes a reptilian yellow, slit and filled with unbridled rage and bloodlust. Spines jutted down her back, forearms and ankles and her formally long, dark hair came to life as a sea of tentacles that snapped all around her. The snaking limbs stopped a mere foot from her, enveloped by a bubble of solid invisible light. Then her changes became more horrific. Her lower jaw split open and formed a pair of mandibles that snapped to bite, and her tongue struck out, now laced, and tipped with razor sharp barbs that whipped at her jailor. Tentacles sprouted from her breasts and stomach that tried to reach out and strangle Susan, but to no success. The sight of the monster made everyone else in the building scream and panic, while others fell to their knees and wretched.

“Tell me where she is, tell me where Lilith is hiding.”

Again, the alien she-creature hissed and snarled at Susan like a caged animal. A near chaotic mass of teeth and tentacles to what used to be a beautiful woman. “You have fallen ‘former’ broodmother. Our Queen has not been stagnant like you have, she has been building our swarm for months. Growing, evolving, soon we shall consume all, and her apotheosis shall be complete. Nothing you do will stop that!”

Narrowing her eyes, and tilting her head slightly in annoyance, Susan pinned her to the floor by her tail and twisted her stinger in her prey’s chest. The she-creature hissing in pain before smiling back at Susan from her mandible crowded jaws. “You think this will make me talk? We are connected by the link, even NOW she sees you ‘former’ Broodmother, she sees you through my eyes, feels through my touch. We are all extensions of her will, and believe us… You are NOTHING compared to her… Or her new toys…”

“Who did that bitch get her claws into?” Demanded Janet, her own talons snapping with impatience.

Alicia Masters stepped closer, her hands at her sides while her tentacles braided into a trio of thicker roping appendages ending in sharp clawed tips. “I too want to know, and you’d BETTER have answers.”

Twisting the blade of her stinger in the alien woman’s chest again, Susan’s face remained stern and scathing. Her prisoner sneering up at her while clutching at the stinger tail… But then her eyes opened wide with surprise and looked down at the wound between her breasts. Something was spreading into her flesh, seeping into her blood stream, and changing her from within. “What… What is this?” Pulling her stinger out of the monster but keeping her **** field around her, the she-creature reverted her tentacles and mandibles back into herself while the sky-blue colouration now saturated her entire chest and was quickly spreading down to her stomach and up her shoulders. “I can’t… I can’t feel… What are you doing to us?!” By now the discolouration had spread down to her waist and down her legs, her body shivering as she quickly fell into a form of rigor. Hot tears returned in the woman’s eyes, the monster looking around frantically, in panic as the blue tint spread up her neck.

“MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP!”

The moment her face was enveloped and changed from a murky translucent green to a sky blue, the creature screamed at the top of her lungs. Clutching their ears, the guests and SHIELD staff winced at the terrible pitch, glasses exploding from the sonic pressure before the woman fell limp to the floor. At first, she laid motionless, still, but breathing. Crouching down to rest on her knees, Susan checked the alien woman over to find her slowly stir and curl up into herself. The moment Susan rested a clawed hand over her shoulder, the woman lunged forward and wrapped her arms around Susan’s waist. Gently sobbing while clutching at the Invisible Woman like a lifeline.

“THANK YOU… Thank you… It was a nightmare! I did… She made me… I couldn’t STOP myself!”

“Shhhh, I know… I know…” Shushing the woman and gently combing her fingers through her tentacles to calm her down, Susan’s demeanor had changed completely, acting warm and motherly while she helped calm the woman through this sudden transition. Looking up to SHIELD and her husband, Susan gestured Reed to come over. Still shaken by the ordeal, Reed slowly stepped towards the two and knelt to check on the woman. Helping her sit up, the vicious creature was long gone, replaced with a blue skinned reptilian woman with tentacles for hair, sobbing and hugging her arms around her ruined corset. Looking over to the stinger on Susan’s tail, Reed was curios of it. Seeing his fascination, Susan explained herself. “When I was… Worse… I created this stinger to infect others, make them like me by injecting some of my genetic material into their blood stream.”

“And the gene trigger I created is also in that material, you must have spread my treatment from you to her.”

Johnny and Ben finally moved closer with SHIELD in tow behind them, their weapons still aimed on the woman and Susan’s family, just to be sure. Helping the woman to sit up, Susan cupped her face and tried to help her focus.

“Can you tell me your name?”

“S-sara…” The alien woman replied with wheezing breaths.

“Sara.” Spoke Reed, trying to get the woman’s attention. “Do you know where Lilith is? What do you remember before being severed from the empathic link?”

“I…” Darting her eyes back and forth, the alien woman hugged herself more tightly, her face scrunching with concentration. “I… Remember a mansion… People… And… A robot?”

“A robot? Heck, WE got a robot, that doesn’t help us...Ow!” Coughed Johnny after he was given an elbow in the stomach from Janet.

“Hot-head’s got a point Reed, that doesn’t narrow it down too much for us.” The Thing Shrugged, looking around for a coat or jacket to give the woman now that everything had calmed down.

“No… But its more than what we started with.” Replied Mr. Fantastic, pulling a tablecloth off the table and ignored the protests from the bar owner when he draped it over the sobbing creature’s shoulders. “We’ll take her with us until we can get more answers, for now, we still need to set up the gene trigger.” Guiding the woman to her feet, the group made their way out with SHIELD in tow, but a thought continued to linger in Susan’s mind even by the time they entered the Fantasticar and ascended into the air.

“A mansion with its own robot, that just about narrows it down to about a dozen or more millionaires in the city with a Roomba.”