Sue Storm Lays A Trap At The Factory

For all her power and experience, many still underestimated the Invisible Woman. They thought of her invisibility and thought of ways to counter her as if she was the Invisible Man: thermal imaging, little strings with bells. They thought of her **** fields and thought of reaction times, surprise, snipers, maybe exotic energy weapons or lasers in the visual spectrum. They thought of her as a member of the Fantastic Four and imagined how to get her isolated and alone from her teammates.

Very few knew how intelligent Sue Storm was; Reed Richard's genius eclipsed her by orders of magnitude. They didn't see her planning, how she thought. It wasn't enough to be invisible. She had to plan around how people moved to avoid them running into her when invisible; had to think three-dimensionally; had to know where it was safe to hit someone and with how much **** so that they wouldn't die.

And she had the resources of the entire Baxter Building to play with. All of the tech they had recovered from villains and aliens. All the inventions Reed Richards had built, for whatever purpose. Weapons, vehicles...and stranger, more exotic devices.

A call to S.H.I.E.L.D. made arrangements at the factory. Sue spent the hours before Porkum's appearance setting up her little surprises, invisible as she attached the image inducers to nearby buildings. On the roof of the Mallomar factory, Sue Storm waited patiently. The trap was set.

The shift change happened near midnight. There was a moment of opportunity then, when the factory floor was clear. From an alley, a heavy figure stepped. Unlike Sue Storm, Porkum made no effort to conceal himself. Sue glanced down at a laptop, which was tied into the security camera feeds. She saw, to her mild surprise, that Porkum wasn't appearing on the streaming footage. He held up some kind of black card, and the electronic lock on the outside door open.

Porkum had shown no evidence of powers over technology. So either he was much more powerful and resourceful than she thought—or he was partnered with someone that was. Either way, he was in the factory now. She waited as he made his way deeper into the factory. With care, she checked around the building.

With the eyes of a spy she monitored the traffick. No one loafed around; no idling cars, no homeless people in the alleys. There was something in the air, a sense of expectation that chased off the street people. She picked up one of Reed's devices and scanned the building. Two life signs blinked. Sue smiled.

Time to close the trap.

Around the building, the image inducers hummed into life. To anyone on the street, it looked like nothing happened. Yet a holographic simulacrum of the building was now overlaid on the real structure. Impossible to see from within. Impossible to see past. Which let Sue Storm act without worry of discovery.

With one great breath, she drew her arms over her head; held it for a moment, and then as she let the breath out her arms went down down, and up again in a smooth, practiced motion, to come together with her hands between her breasts, as if in prayer. For a moment she was centered, perfectly calm.

Beneath her feet, the building went as clear as glass. Every inanimate object, every door, every pipe and wire, became perfectly clear. Which left only the Life Model Decoys that mimicked the employees—S.H.I.E.L.D. had told the factory owners there was a terrorist threat—and two other figures. One, which seemed to hover in mid-air with cock in hand, was Porkum. The other, on the factory floor, was also Porkum. Yet around the second figure there was a yellow light, a haze where Sue's power failed.

That would be the gem that negated her powers. That would be the real Porkum.

An invisible hand that could have belonged to a giant grabbed the fake Porkum and squeezed. The robotic figure in its realistic skin had no opportunity to scream before it exploded in a mass of white foam. The other Porkum, began to move swiftly, heading toward an exit.

All of the LMDs in the building moved like a swarm of bees. With the press of a button, the whole building locked down. From above, Sue Storm watched as Porkum slammed into a locked door. Then the LMDs were upon him.

Individually, an LMD was more than a match for the average person. They had no sense of self-preservation, they didn't feel pain, and it took more damage to put them down than the average person. Most importantly, they were immune to pheromones. The mutant pig-man punched the first as it tried to grapple with him, and his arm went straight through its chest. He hadn't managed to pull it free when the second one launched itself at him.

Within moments, he was swarmed, pinned beneath a heap of robotic bodies. Sue Storm allowed herself a little smile. She had Porkum right where she wanted him.