"Let's go for a spin."
Doctor Doom, a.k.a. Victor, spoke mockingly to the three aircraft (and one Human Torch) around him. A spiral of air, at Victor's command, swept all four of them into a powerful whirlwind.
Susan Storm (Invisible Woman) fought for control but Victor's attack was too strong. Her hovercraft went into a tailspin, throwing her back and forth between the seat and seat belt. There was no time to react and even less time to think as her craft spiraled down to the street several yards below, narrowly missing a few flashing neon signs and billboards.
Crash! For a moment, the whiplash left Sue stunned. She was barely conscious of the Silver Surfer (who had been sitting beside her) being thrown from the vehicle headlong into a crowd of frightened observers.
She blinked to clear her vision and painfully turned her head to see the Surfer, Noran, picking himself up and standing uncomfortably under the scrutiny of hundreds of staring eyes.
Then she saw something else- a flash at the edge of her vision that soon came around and revealed itself.
Dr. Doom had seen the Silver Surfer too. And he was coming in for another pass.
"Noran!" Sue screamed in warning, her instincts taking over. She unclipped the seat belt and leaped to her feet, scrambling over the side of the crashed hovercraft to get to the Surfer.
Victor brought something up to his shoulder- a crossbow of sorts, Sue realized, made entirely of the dark energy sourced in the surfboard Doom rode.
Sue threw up a force field around her and Noran as she jumped to shield him with her body.
Perhaps she forgot the surfboard's energy could pass through her field- a fact she had learned just prior to helping the U.S. Army capture the Silver Surfer. Perhaps she didn't- and that was why she took the extra step of placing herself between Noran and Doom. In any case, the crossbow bolt, made of the surfboard's power and fired from Victor's crossbow, hit Sue full on in the stomach.
"Uhh," she groaned, staggering. The force of the impact sent her reeling, and the force field between her and Doom disappeared.
"Sue!" Reed Richards screamed from ten feet away.
The Silver Surfer felt something squeeze his heart as the human who had just saved his life slowly sank down to the asphalt, muscles spasming and eyes unfocused. His mind whirred. He didn't know what to do.
Reed crossed the distance from him to Sue in seconds. Eyes filling with tears that refused to fall, he gently lifted Sue into his arms. The Thing, Ben, saw what was going on and made his way towards them. A little later, Johnny Storm, the Human Torch and Sue's brother, landed nearby.
"No..." the Torch whispered, his bottom lip quivering despite himself.
Sue stared up at Reed. She was only just aware of him holding her in his arms. She couldn't feel anything anymore, couldn't move her arms or twitch her legs. Slowly, her eyes traveled down the length of her body until they came to rest on the ugly black bolt sticking out of her belly right around the navel.
Seeing the display of people below him and sensing the heart-wrenching sadness of the Fantastic Four, up above Victor snapped his fingers and released the bolt of energy. As he did, the physical sight of the black weapon dissipated, but the wound in Sue's body remained.
Dr. Doom raised his arms in triumph and laughed- a cold, wicked, eerie sort of laugh that chilled the blood of all who heard it.
"Reed," Ben said gently, realizing this fight wasn't over. "Reed!"
Reed started. Sue moved her gaze from the gaping hole in her stomach to look at him. She saw his lips move as he spoke a reply, but the darkness was closing in and she didn't understand what he was saying.
"...take all of us..." Reed said a heartbeat later, possibly in response to something Ben or Johnny had said. Sue's eyes slid again, this time from Reed's stricken face to the impassive expression of the Surfer, still standing silently behind.
Then Reed took her hand gently in his own and lifted it, raising it to touch Ben's and Johnny's.
Sue's body shuddered, and she felt both her power and her life slipping away. She wasn't aware of Johnny, now possessing all four powers, soaring away into the sky. Nor did she register it when Ben left, or when Reed slowly lowered her hand and laced his fingers with hers. Her eyelids slid shut- it was just too much of an effort to keep them open anymore. Her heart stopped beating. Sue stopped breathing.
She lay, limp as a rag doll, in Reed's trembling arms.
And then there was darkness, and she knew nothing more.
Sue squinted. There was a light in her eyes- bright and painful to look at. For a moment she wasn't sure where she was- and then she saw Reed and everything came back to her.
"Hi," she said, her voice weak but unfaltering. Beyond Reed, she could see Johnny and Ben- a fact that seemed to be significant. Sue racked her brains. What was she missing?
"Hi," Reed replied, his voice breaking as he pulled her into a tight hug. Sue suddenly realized that Noran, the Silver Surfer, had disappeared from over Reed's shoulder and the city- the whole world, in fact- looked a whole lot brighter and cleaner and...safer than it had before.
"What did I miss?" she asked, and Reed choked on a laugh. He had nearly lost her, he thought as he hugged her again. The words of the Surfer came back to him, the words Noran had spoken just after he'd used some of the power from the surfboard (the same power that had come close to killing Sue in the first place) to heal her wound and bring her back to life.
"Cherish every moment with her. And tell her... She was right. We do have a choice," he had said before he turned away and soared away into the sky, away from the city, away from Earth.
Looking tenderly upon the love of his life, his fiance and the bravest and most beautiful girl he'd ever met, Reed vowed that he would.
