The Last Storm Rising

Starting out with a Bang

Johnny Storm was very used to danger. Not including his getting into NASA training (even if he didn't finish), and working as a trained pilot, he had also gotten caught in a massive space storm and his DNA had been semi-permanently altered. Shortly thereafter, he--and the rest of the team--jumped into a life of... saving other lives. Then, barely a year later, his molecular structure was altered again, and he went through several very rapid genetic changes over the course of... well, a long weekend, basically.

He and the rest of the Fantastic Four continued in their lives of saving the world-or small pieces of it at a time-and that usually landed them in some very dangerous situations. Earthquakes, wildfires, and floods were old hat at this point. But they were also sort of responsible for New York, since they lived there. So, they had been pulled into stopping-and rescuing unfortunate bystanders of-car chases, robberies, hostage situations and the like. So, all in all, this should have been a walk in the park.

If you asked the rest of the team, they would most likely have told you it was a completely avoidable situation. But Ben, Sue, and Reed weren't in the same room as a massive bomb: Johnny was. Almost as soon as a bomb threat had been confirmed, He had taken off-on foot-into the building. It really was the other's job to move civilians out of harm's way or protect them from a possibly crumbling building. Johnny knew that unless something was on fire or about to be, he was meant to stay away from the very panicked crowd of people.

A bomb, though... That was right up his alley. Assuming it went off, he was the only one capable of surviving the initial blast and following inferno. Sue and Ben might be able to survive the blast, but Johnny didn't plan on taking that chance with his teammates when he was already the perfect candidate. Even without bomb defusal training, he would take the least amount of overall damage. But this was...This was more than he bargained for.

"Okay, Reed. I got a math problem for you."

"This is not the time, Johnny!"

The youngest team member closed his eyes and allowed his hands to curl into fists as he took in and held a deep breath. He breathed it out slowly and decided to pretend he didn't hear his brother-in-law's brush off.

"Exactly how much damage could, say... 40-ish pounds of plastique explosives cause?" He kept his voice as level as possible, and worked to cool his outer temperature, very well aware that he was more than capable of igniting the brick-and-wire contraption in front of him.

"...How much?..." That breathless voice was Sue's. Then again, it should be easy for the team to identify the only female, and even easier for Johnny to identify his older sister. The fear that coated her voice, palpable even through the headsets, was enough to steal away some of Johnny's careful calm; he felt his skin warm a few degrees and fought to cool it again.

"There's at least four bricks of the stuff-and they are big bricks--so assuming they're between eight to ten pounds each, and rounding up to prepare for worst case scenario, I'm saying about 40 pounds. Reed? Math?" Johnny said, hoping to get their de facto leader's attention again.

"Um... Just... The building's already almost empty, Johnny; is there a timer?"

"Yeah, and we have a little over 2 minutes to make a plan, so...pull out a white board or something, buddy."

"Oh, Shit." Johnny rolled his eyes at Ben's incredibly helpful addition to the conversation. He was breathing shallowly now, both to cool off a little more and due to his slowly climbing fear.

None of the team were currently involved in the military, so facing major firepower--while an unfortunate side effect of their job--was not anywhere near normal for any of them. But Johnny, at all of 26 years old, was still the least experienced member of the team. Now, he didn't lack experience in adrenaline inducing experiences: he did do black diamond runs and motocross for kicks. That, however, was very different from the feeling of almost-certainly-imminent-death that one experiences when facing what should be considered an excessive amount of C-4.