This Sue Storm is the Sole Survivor of Her World

"They called themselves Hydra," the other Sue Storm said. "A core of the old esoteric Nazis. Super-science, magicians. Racist bastards. Every time we thought they'd been defeated, they'd pop up again under some new name, some new vein of hate. The latest incarnation . . . they had found something in Antarctica. You've read Lovecraft? Imagine if the Nazis had actually found a shoggoth. Learned to make more. Declared war on the world."

A hollow laugh came from the dimensional refugee's chest.

"War. It was barely a fight. They ate everything. Everyone. My friends—my family—every hero, every villain, anyone that got in their way. Some people tried to escape. The shoggoths ate Atlantis, Attilan, Asgard. Latveria and Wakanda held out but there were . . . other weapons. Godkillers. They weren't broken. Just erased from existence."

The other Sue held her head in her hands, hiding her face. The Fantastic Four watched, this stranger so familiar to them, yet hurt fundamentally. Someone they instinctively wished to help.

"They couldn't eat through my invisible **** field. But I had to sleep. Reed—my Reed—he worked so hard. To find someplace we could escape to. I was so tired. They were all around us. Three days without food, without water . . .

Tears leaked from her eyes.

"My brain. Microsleep. Just . . . nodded off. A second. That was all it took. They surged in. I couldn't . . . I couldn't do anything as they ate Reed."

She lifted her face. Exhaustion was written in those features. Shock. Something that went beyond pain.

"He's gone. They're all gone. Now I'm here and I can't—even if you sent me back, there's nothing to go back to."

The other Sue began to shake, and Susan Storm went to hug her doppelganger.

"It's okay! Nobody's sending you anywhere!" she said.

Ben Grimm ran a stony hand over his chin.

"None of them shoggothim came through the portal with her, did they?" he asked Reed.

Mister Fantastic shook his head. "No. I've had the Baxter Building scan for biological anomalies. She is, genetically, a duplicate of our Sue. No signs of alien biomaterial or life signs."

"Can they trace her here?" Johnny Storm said, as his "sisters" shared an embrace.

"Possibly," Reed admitted. "Although if I was going to send Sue to escape from a dying dimension, I would have included a randomizer to make such tracking difficult, if not nearly impossible. Which would make verifying her story difficult."

"You don't believe me?" the Other Sue said. She sniffed. "No, that's smart. I could be anyone. A Skrull, and LMD. You'll need to run tests, maybe bring in a telepath. Do you have the X-Men on your world? Doctor-Professor Xaviera was the most powerful telepath on our planet . . ."

"Ours is male. And just called himself professor," Sue said. "Probably there are a lot of little differences between our worlds."

"We—we had holding cells. For quarantine, intruders. I presume you do too," the Other Sue said. "I can sleep there—you shouldn't trust me with a guest room. Not until you're sure I am who I say I am."

The men in the room said nothing. The Other Sue had simply said what they were all thinking. But Sue saw something else in the woman. She was sure that her other self wasn't telling them the whole truth. There was a deeper hurt in there.

"I'll help make you comfortable," Sue said as she guided her other self down the corridors. "There's a shower. Real food. The bed is comfortable. You need sleep, and you'll have privacy. Then we can—figure out where to go from here."