Marvel: A New God's Reign

Chapter 42: Crisis Averted, Chaos Engaged

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"You always told me that it was coming — that a new era would come along, pulled along by an unstoppable tide. The Age of the Daring Ones."

- Trafalgar D. Water Law, (One Piece)

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<(Omniscient POV)>

"FUCK YOU REED. You told us that the space storm was not headed in this direction, that it would safely pass by us without making contact with the shuttle. Even when I told you that it was coming straight for us, you still told me that everything would be alright and that we would be able to escape in case it came too near to us, right? WHY THE HELL DID YOU LIE, REED, WHY?" Benn yelled in anger as he punched one of the walls in the control station.

"Calm down Ben, everything would be alright. I needed to complete the tests before we left okay? We weren't going to get another chance like this again. With the data collected from the solar storm, we would learn more about the deeper space and radioactive energies in it than humanity could have learned in the next five decades. Besides, don't forget that I am Reed Richards, one of the smartest men on the planet if not THE smartest. I always have a plan." Reed tried to give a charming smile to the group but failed spectacularly as his fingers typed on the keyboard with lightning speed.

"Smartest man? At this point, I truly doubt it... By the way, where is Atem? According to the rumors and the legends, he is supposed to be one of the strongest metahumans on Earth right, so much so that he is placed on the same level as a god by the people of Genosha and even prayed to by them and other metahumans. He should be able to save us, shouldn't he?" Johnny worriedly spoke as he looked at his sister for more information.

"He is... missing. According to the last message that Zoya, his AI left for us before she too turned silent, he had gone to inspect the cause of the storm. She said that she had recalibrated all of the shields of the shuttle to be able to stop the storm from damaging the hull of the ship. But that was before the storm massively increased in power so much. Right now, the shields even at their full power would be able to stop only about 30% of the radiation and 40% of the physical damage." Susan sounded nervous as she wrecked her brain to find out a way to survive this.

She had tried almost everything. Be it directing power and energy from other parts of the rocket to the shields or trying to plot a course where the ship would be able to get out of the way of the storm at the right moment, however, every single time, the end result would always turn out to be a failure.

If only she hadn't listened to Reed. If only she hadn't stayed at this location in the direct path of the storm for so long. But no, she had to be the overachiever to impress Atem. Truthfully, if Reed hadn't enticed her with the possibility of dominating the solar energy industry by using the research collected from the storm, she would have never agreed to put their safety at risk.

The truth was that she had been as greedy as Reed in her wish to impress Atem and establish herself as a capable woman in his heart and she was now going to reap what she sowed.

"The storm is now dangerously close to us. Screw this, let's at least wear our anti-radiation space suits. I am not going to put my complete trust in these skin-tight costumes that Reed made for us. It doesn't matter if they are made of some ground-breaking research on unstable molecules or something." Ben complained as he gave a stink-eye at Reed's direction while hurriedly putting on the bulky space suit.

Susan and Johnny too silently nodded at each other and began to wear the specially designed astronaut space suits. Even Reed himself decided to wear his own suit after he looked at the other members with guilty eyes. At least with the suit, they would survive in space for some amount of time with the help of the suit's life support system if the ship were to be completely destroyed by the storm.