Who: Susan Storm & Jonathan Storm NPCs: Benjamin Grimm & Reed Richards When: 24th January, 2010 (Forwarddated) Where: Manhattan, NY: Baxter Building What: Reed accidentally gets sent to Negative Zone, while trying to find a way to defeat Galactus. Rating: PG
When Captain America had contacted them and shared the information that Carol Danvers had given them, Reed had paused all his projects and had only one question in mind to answer: How do you fiht a being as powerful as Galactus? He then proceeded to lock himself into his lab and not even Sue could get him to come out. She had brought him meals whenever he would let her into his work space and she slept alone most nights, as he had dragged a cot into his lab and slept there in short bursts of time. Reed occasionally let Sue assist on the project to fight Galactus, filling her in as they went even though she didn't completely understand most of what he was doing. All she knew was that it involved the Negative Zone, a theorized place of existance that Reed had previously been working on, and opening up a portal to it with a gun-like device.
Nearly three days passed and Reed hadn't seen the light of day. He had stopped letting Sue come into his lab, though he still occasionally accepted meals. She was almost certain that he wasn't sleeping anymore, but that's normal Reed behaviour for when he was on the verge of a breakthrough. All day, strange rumbling sounds came from Reed's lab. For the hundredth time it seemed, Sue knocked on the lab's door and got the same reply she had been getting all day: Silence.
Pacing in front of the locked doors, a very worried Sue turned to Ben. "He's been in there a long time, Ben. Maybe we should break the door down?"
"You know he gets, Susie. Just give him a little more time and then we'll drag him outta there, one way or another," the orange man said, patting her shoulder with gentleness one would not expect from someone made of rock.
Leaning into Ben's side, the blonde haired woman sighed. "But what if he's hurt?"
"You know the emergency lights would come. Roberta would notify us imme-!" Ben's reassurances couldn't have been interrupted at a worse time. Because just then, the building shook with an explosion that resonated from Reed's locked laboratory and the lights started to flash red.
"Attention Fantastic Four. Your assistance is required immediately in Lab A. I repeat, your assistance is required immediately in Lab A," Roberta's voice boomed throughout the building.
With an automated hiss, the locks on the lab were released and the lab door swung open. But the warning came too late. By the time Sue and Ben made it inside, Reed was nowhere to be found and the Negative Zone gun laid in ruins on the floor.