Swelling With Love Chapter 15: Departures
Created Thursday, August 21, 2008
Last Updated Thursday, August 21, 2008
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In which Reed Richards phones home, and Susan Richard takes a bath.
The first thing Reed Richards distinctly heard as he came awake was the sound of the ocean. As he slowly sat up he realized what the sound's true origin was, just like Susan had promised yesterday since Tevo islands was somewhat lacking in places to sleep they'd just picked out two nearby palm trees, Susan had stretch herself out between them and Reed had fallen asleep with his head resting on Susan's child swollen belly. The sound of the "ocean' had actually been the sound of what had been a combination of the her last meal digesting and the movement of unborn children within her womb. "Have fun?" Susan's blue eyes opened slowly and she stretched, unfortunately in the process giving her body too much slack meaning most of her body and all of Reed's hit the ground a few moments after she'd woken up. "Whoops. Well when we do this tomorrow I'll make sure to throw in a few extra knots so that I don't look like such a fool in front of you again." Reed leaned forward over Susan's belly to plant a quick kiss on her nose. "You don't have to worry about looking like a fool around me, and coincidentally we're the only ones around for a noticeable distance, in fact if you disregard Ben the ones around for miles." Susan slowly began to straighten out her hair while she returned her arms and legs to their normal lengths so that she looked more like a human being and less like a hammock. "You're right, I really shouldn't let an events that's going to be an inevitable fixture of this relationship get under my skin. Your IQ is around twice mine after all. But hey, if I've got to be a blonde ditz, at least I'm a smoking hot blonde ditz." Reed tantalizingly ran a hand across Susan's bare belly. "You know I think of you as more than that..." Susan playfully wrapped her arms around Reed's body. He began to ever so tenderly run his tongue across her lips as he adjusted his posture now resting his elbows upon her belly. "Besides looking foolish is something that happens to everyone sooner or later, I certainly felt foolish when you pointed out how if I'd been trying to look just like I'd used to then I should have considered dyeing my hair. So, breakfast?" Susan nodded eagerly her arms returning to their normal length. "That sounds wonderful. You take care of that and I'll go find a decently-sized tree and waddle behind it, I might not have to worry about looking foolish in front of you, but there are some things that I'd really rather do in private." Reed gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and nodded. "Whatever you want, that's why we're on vacation after all." ---- Johnny knew that he now faced a task the likes of which he had never been confronted with before. Crystal might have picked up English with surprising quickness, but there was a lot of other stuff she didn't know. "The good news Crystal is that all things considered, most people only really care about what's happened during the last three hundred years of human history. Now my brother-in-law would probably insist you read a lot of textbooks, learn a lot of facts, but I have a much quicker approach planned. Well me, Reed Martin, Austin Tichenor, and Matthew Croke. It's a little show presented by the Reduced Shakespear Company called The Complete History of America, Abridged and I happened to have it on DVD." Crystal's eyes widened slightly as she joined Johnny on the couch in front of a TV who's exact measurements Johnny would estimate as, large. "How can they call it complete and abridged in the same title?" Johnny smiled at her question glad to see he was working with an attentive pupil. "That is what is known as an oxymoron like jumbo shrimp, Microsoft Works, military intelligence, or whenever Reed says he's going to explain things simply. It's a self-contradicting term; what matters is that these guys will hit all the high points of American history. After that Crys we can move onto more in-depth focus on certain periods stuff, for example I think we can cover just about everything you'll need to know about the Cold War by watching Dr. Strangelove, everything you need to or everything you need to know about Manifest Destiny by watching Go West with the Marx Brothers." "Are they identical or fraternal?" Johnny was momentarily taken by surprise. "What now?" Crystal's eyebrow twitched as if it should have been obvious. "The Marx Brothers, are they identical or fraternal?" Johnny shook his head very, very slowly. "All five of them are fraternal, though only four of them ever got involved in the movies and only three of them are in Go West." "So why not refer to themselves as the Marx Triplets?" Johnny wondered if having Crystal repeat the phrase "the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain" and hen bursting into a big musical number would suddenly make things better. "Because just the 'Marx Brothers' is what they decided to call themselves, they're a Vaudeville act." "So where is Vaudeville in relation to New York?" Johnny knew Crys was only honestly curious, but all the same he felt they were just about one minute away from her asking who was one first, and he wasn't used to playing the straight man, that was usually his sister or better yet Reed's job. "Vaudeville isn't a place, it's a style, which will make sense once you've seen them in action. Clearly we're gonna really put our noses to the grindstone if we want to be ready in time for European studies later tonight on Broadway, trust me Spamalot will teach you everything you need to know about Europe during the middle ages and I got us great tickets! Well everything you'll need to know except for the stuff that's in Robin Hood Men In Tights. Which brings to mind how we'll have to watch Blazing Saddles after Go West. And of course then we should be able to compact what it means to go to college into about an hour and thirty minutes by watching Animal House. You know something tells me we're going to need another bowl of popcorn, think you can handle it?" Johnny tossed the full packet to Crystal who caught it, emptied it into a nearby bowl and then held in both hands which quickly began to glow red. About thirty seconds later every single cornel was popped and not a single one burnt. "Just for reference, it's not the ability to pop those things that really impresses me Crys, its how you do them while keeping all the kernels in the bowl." Crystal smiled broadly at Johnny's compliment. "Controlling where they move is all about proper wind manipulation, nothing else to it really." Johnny just nodded along and shrugged, he rarely cared exactly how someone's powers worked so long as they did. "Ahh well getting back on topic, don't be afraid to ask me if you need clarification on anything, and if you see me laughing and you're not it's probably a good sign that you're missing something." ---- The times that Reed most resented being telepathic tended to overlap almost perfectly with the times when it was most useful. /Reed we got problems, that giant robot is back!\ Up until he had received that mental message the biggest problem that Reed had been planning to contemplate that day was how to spend the proper thirty minutes between eating breakfast and finally getting around to swimming. He'd already found an answer to that question to, which was why his lips had been wrapped around Susan's, while her body had been seductively wrapping its way around his. Susan felt the traditional semi-paralysis that accompanied the use of his powers and a pronounced frown appeared on her face. "Let me guess, the aliens didn't leave just one giant robot behind?" Reed shook his head, he suddenly found himself laying on the sand as Susan's body slipped out from beneath his own. "No, but apparently we didn't do a good enough job breaking the first one we came across." A very long drawn out sigh left Susan's lips. "Okay, well that is sort of a good thing I guess, it means there hopefully aren't even more of them waiting for us after we finish turning this one to scrap, not to mention we've already beaten it once. So what is our game plan?" Reed pointed in the necessary direction. "Ben's is that way, you go help him, while I get into my armor and contact Johnny and Crystal. Also you'll be glad to hear that once we're finished with it I think I'll forgo studying this thing all together and simply toss its components into the volcano that formed this island in the first place. It might be inactive, but the magma inside should still be plenty hot enough." Susan gave him a quick peck on the cheek. "It's kind of you to say that, but we both know you don't mean it. Just one thing before I go, isn't it way too early to count on Johnny being up, and isn't he way too far away for your telekinesis to work?" Reed pointed with his other hands towards the large metal case that held his armor not to mention vacation supplies. "On the first point, the difference in time zones works in our favor, on the second you're right, but because I know my own limitations I also made sure to bring some less ostentatious means of communication along with us. Now go check on Ben, up against a foe like Sentry he'll deffiently need your help." Susan nodded and slowly stood up, twisting her neck around so that she could look at him even as she slowly began to walk away. "There's that, and then there's the fact that you probably just wanna watch my extra bouncy backside." Susan gave her ass cheeks a slap from a temporarily enlarged arm before throwing in a saucy wink." Reed found it hard to do anything but nod at that point. Susan having wasted all the time she planned to waste promptly broke into the best approximation of a run she could manage, elongated her legs so as to cover several meters with each step she took.. For his part Reed just headed over to the case wondering what parts of his armor he could get on with just one free hand, he'd need the other to dial the appropriate number to call the Baxter Building after all. ----- Even if Susan hadn't know which way to head it wouldn't have taken her long to figure it out for herself, there just weren't that many (or so she was still able to hope) giant robots on the island. Unfortunately as she caught sight of it, Sentry had somehow managed to grab Ben out of the air and promptly slammed the hand holding him beneath the waves. Even worse, Susan had been elongating her eyes when she'd caught sight of that particular event, and it took her about half minute to cross the fourth of a mile between her and the her teamate. Rather then focus on Ben's plight she managed to find some perverse solace in the fact that doubtlessly if she ever felt like trying out of the Olympics she'd have no trouble snagging a gold metal in some track event on her way to going down in the records books as the faster pregnant woman in history, able to waddle an entire mile in just over one hundred and twenty seconds! "If you knew what's good for you then you'd let go of him now." Sentry turned itself around slightly facing her as she approached. "I must follow my orders, all intruders are to be eliminated." Susan took a few moments that she hoped like hell she had to spare to catch a really good breath. "Then funnily enough I don't have a choice about eliminating you either!" Susan turned her lower body into a spring and launched herself at the grey robot, making sure to first cover its eyes with her body before she set about wrapping it up about as thoroughly as a Christmas present. After about ten seconds of doing that she heaved herself upwards, causing Sentry to fall flat on its back into the water, the shock causing its right hand to unclench letting go of Ben. It was only as she was quickly untangling herself that Susan realized that she'd just bet Ben's (not to mention her own and of course those of her children) life on the hope that even with a crumpled head and a big dent in its chest Sentry was still water tight. Because if the fall she'd just put it through fried its circuits, causing it to pour a couple thousand volts into the water then it'd be an experience none of them enjoyed.. But even though that particular fate was avoided, that small bit of good luck was balanced out by the fact that Susan spent the next ten seconds fruitlessly lengthening her arms and swinging them around trying to find Ben by nothing more than blind luck, since with a face full of stinging salt water her vision was next to nil. As her head went above water and she tried to take in another deep breath and blink her eyes clear, it happened. The closest she could come to describing it was the first time she stretched out her arms to wrap themselves around a flying creature on Monster Island. All she knew was that suddenly she had a new understanding of how the world worked, it wasn't Reed's mental voice in her head, but an echo of it, and she couldn't help but wonder when he'd mentioned this particular fact. "Snakes never have to blink, they'd have an opaque membrane that covers their eyes, and it protects their ocular organs from the airborne irritants like dust and water that we have to blink to either protect our eyes from or clear them of." As Susan finished her breath she stretched her eyes in a way that she'd never done before creating an organic pair of goggles, and then she dunked her head right back underwater. Not only did it not sting but this time she could see clearly. Putting aside just how useful this would doubtlessly be at picking change off the bottom of pools, right now it was important because it let her wrap an arm around Ben's currently unmoving body and pull him onto dry land as she stretched herself back onto the beach and deposited him next to her. "Ben can you hear me?" He didn't move, but since Sentry was still recovering this gave Susan a chance to focus on one problem at a time. She leaned Ben's head back , but given that he wasn't responding and from how long he was under that probably meant he had swallowed too much water while he had been under... Susan mind raced frantically through everything she knew about CPR, the simplest way to describe it would 'not enough' beyond the shadow of a doubt. ABCs that she remembered, Airway, Breathing, Circulation. Airway: she opened Ben's mouth and looked in careful, there certainly didn't seem to be anything in the way. Breathing: not so good, she couldn't noticeably tell his chest going up and down, which lead her right back her needing to give him CPR. Susan would need to decompress the chest and breath into his mouth, and she was fairly certain it was fifteen of one to every three of the other, but wasn't sure if it was three breaths to fifteen compressions or fifteen breaths to three compressions. If she had to take a guess it was fifteen compressions to three breaths, but she didn't feel like betting Ben's life on that. More to the point, she wasn't quite sure if she could properly breathe into Ben's mouth at the moment. In her worry she'd want to make sure each one of her breaths carried as much oxygen as possible. Which would be a very bad thing because while Susan lung's could hold enough air to inflate a tire in one go, if she breathed too deeply into Ben's lungs hen they'd pop like balloons, at which point drowning would be the least of his worries. Susan rolled her tongue around in her mouth, if she waited for Reed to get here then she'd have to risk the possibility that Ben might not be able to hold out that long. There had to be something she could do! Then for the second time that day, her mind gave her exactly what she wanted, it delighted Susan to such a degree that she wasted a moment pondering the absurdity that some women claimed being pregnant made it hard for them to think! Susan opened her mouth and stuck one finger down her throat, while at the same she elongated and thinned down her tongue sticking it down Ben's. She carefully manuevered the finger through her body, mirroring its actions with her tongue inside Ben's, hoping like hell her arrangement or organs was enough like an ordinary humans for her plan to work. Then she hit paydirt as she felt her finger reach her lungs, and a few moments later felt her tongue reach Ben's. Susan plunged it in deeply, increasing its size in the process. Sure enough she could feel the water inside Ben's lungs, but it wasn't going to stay there long. The human tongue could absorb water, she was sure of it, how else would it be possible for the tongue of someone who hadn't drunk anything for a while to feel try? So in turn if Susan made her tongue big enough she could lap up all the water in Ben's lungs! As she got down to that particular task she couldn't help but contemplate that even if this worked she'd still need a certain amount of luck on her side, and of course if she got extremely lucky Reed would make sure doing this was called the Susan Richards Manuever when he got around to writing textbook about medical procedures that only worked on or for those with superpowers. After managing to wet her tongue enough that having it in Ben's lungs was probably doing more harm than good from the way it was dripping, she extracted her tongue from his body and using her left hand (since he right was still marking the path from mouth to lung inside her body) she began to squeeze her tongue like a towel, hopping to get it as dry as possible as soon as possible. It was at that point that Ben's eye's opened and he spat up the liquid contense of his other lung all over her. But seeing as she still had a finger so far down her throat it had reached her lungs, a tongue hanging out that looked like some kind of absurdly bloated pinkish snake, was still dripping wet from her own swim, absurdly pregnant, and wearing only a bikini, a little more water didn't do that much to make her look like something out of a work of abstract art. "Thanks for the French kiss of life Susy, but let's just keep this between the two of us. Not that I'm afraid of your husband getting jealous, but I can think of at least three guys right of the top of my head who would be willing to half drown themselves to get half that much tounge from you." Susan sighed and pulled her tongue back behind her teeth swallowing plenty of water in the process as it shrunk to the appropriate size, but it just went to her stomach instead of her lungs making her middle bulge a little more. "Why don't we worry about that after we deal with our mutual metal friend?" Almost the moment the words were out of her mouth, a huge metal foot came down on her like Sentry was crushing a cockroach. But it'd take a lot more than that to stop Susan, in fact what truly surprised her was just how easy it was to escape, by thinning herself down she was able to slide through the various grains of sand and emerge five feet to the left of where she had been, glad to see that Ben was already in mid-flight. "You know I don't claim to be a genius but most of the time when you break what makes them run machines stop functioning." Sentry once fixed its ruby gaze at her. "I am no mere machine, I am Sentry. Even the destruction of my primary instrumentation will not stop me." Susan just smirked back, confident that if it tried to crush her again she'd be able to avoid it and launch a counterattack this time around. "Wonderful. But considering that your fancy ray gun isn't working you're going to have to come up with something might fancy if you want to eliminate this particular intruder." Sentry held out his hands and sections of them slid back another slightly smaller of the ray gun that had emerged from its chest appeared. "Okay credit where credit is due, did not see that coming." It fired them, but Susan quickly half-jumped half-bounced backwards just in time considering the blasts left large holes in the sand where they landed. The guns kept firing blasts of red energy, but Susan kept bouncing away from them, trying to think up a plan in the process. She didn't want to stay still for any extended period of time or risk taking a laser blast by trying to wrap some part of her body around the weapons in question, but there had to be some way she could take down this Goliath. It was probably something stupidly simple that Reed would have thought of in a heart beat considering that all David had needed was a slingshot and a stone... A slingshot and a stone? A sling shot and a stone! "That's it, it is official. Forget Reed needing some fancy device, you're obviously all geniuses and telepathic. Because I'm just a blonde-haired theater major who got into college on a scholarship because I was good at swimming. Three flashes of brilliance in one day? Clearly the six of you are acting as my own personal think tank and then passing the ideas to me, so thanks for that, and now I'll go kick some chrome coated butt so that we can get back to having fun with daddy." Probably as a result of past volcanic activity there were lots and lots of good sized rocks laying around the beaches of Tevo Island. Susan carefully manuevered her next bounce to land behind, and as the Sentry was aiming she scooped it up in both hands and began to spin it around, the rock's speed increasing with each rotation. Centrifugal force was something that she didn't need Reed to explain to her in the slightest. Susan let go of the rock just before Sentry fired, and her low-tech project slammed into the high tech laser on the thing's right arm while Susan quickly curled herself into the smallest ball she could manage. The laser blasts "missed' her in the sense that all that ended up happening to her was getting slightly warmed up (to a degree that would have left most people with at least second degree burns) and thrown clear by the concussive force. It was the closest Susan had come to taking a hit from Sentry's lasers, but it been wroth it considering that she'd managed to cut her foes firepower in half. In a perfect demonstration of what doubtlessly qualified as Artificial Stupidity, the Sentry didn't change its tactics at all as Susan took out its other laser with ease, the second rock she hurled at it impacting before the robot could even fire. It was at this point that Sentry turned around and wordlessly began to walk back into the water. Susan watched it go finally giving her belly the good rubbing it disserved as Ben landed nearby. "Nice going Princess Charming, you even managed to wreck that golem and rescue the brave knight." Susan blushed and shook her head. "I'll feel safer when that thing is completely out of commission, right now I've got no clue what its doing but if it heads away from us then I guess that's sort of a good thing, isn't it?" She once again stretched out her eyes to improve her vision and saw yellow energy gathering around Sentry's right hand as it stood in what for it was chest deep water. It then drove that hand into the water and all of a sudden a HUGE wall of water sprung into being heading for them. It was at that point that Susan started rubbing her belly again for all it was worth. "Kids, if you've got another great plan, now would be a fine time to clue me in on it." Sadly just like all the stories said, genies only granted you three wishes. ---- Johnny casually wrapped an arm around Crystal's shoulder, and for her part she didn't seem to mind as the two watched what he personally considered more information packed into less then 120 minutes than he remembered of all four years of highschool history. "Listen I'm tired of all this snipping and innuendo about how our war effort is anything less than positively impacting up the British Entrenchment situation! It is very difficult to enumerate quantitatively at this juncture in time just how offensive our capabilities are! But I will tell you one thing, contraceptive to your popular belief, we are taking precautions at every penetration, and by the grace of god, our upcoming THRUST will break through the last membrane of British defence and into Virginia!" "Will this make you the father of our country?" "Well I have cut through some cherry trees in my time to be sure.... I can not tell a lie!" Normally Johnny would have laughed but at this point he just paused the performance to provide some obviously much needed commentary. "Okay Crystal, here's the big picture. One of the famous stories revolving around George Washington was that when he was a kid he cut down this important cherry tree belonging to his father and when his father caught him more or less red handed he owned up to it, leading to him supposedly ever telling a lie for the rest of his life. He was known as a the father of our country mainly because he was the most important general on our side of the Revolutionary War, and our first president. In this particular case however because of the lead-up to it, 'cut down some cherry trees' brings to mind the expression 'popped some cherries' which is a polite way of saying..." He leaned in close and finished the explanation in a whisper even though there wasn't any one else around to hear. Crystal didn't look shocked, she just looked confused. "It always comes back to sex doesn't it?" Johnny took his arm off her shoulder and leaned back against the couch. "Not always, sometimes it goes back to violence. But yeah odds are a good 50 to 70 percent of the time if it doesn't make sense it's probably a joke about some kind of sex." Crystal gazed at him intently. "Why?" That kind of thing was a question for the ages, but as the first human Crystal had ever talked to, it was his duty to at least take a stab at it. "I believe the general consensus is last time I checked because sex is funny. Typically because we're brought and sheltered from it for much of our lives when trying to keep people in the dark about sex is such a futile fight. No one would be here unless their parents had sex in the first place, squirrels screwing on the branches, birds doing it in the air, sex is everywhere. It's hypocritical, and poking fun at hypocrisy has always been a fertile ground for humor. Not to mention when you get right down to it, the very mechanics involved in sex can be just out and out hilarious, I mean I could do at least 20 minutes of stand up on the stuff I've learned listening to Reed with only one ear." Then just when all seemed right, tragedy struck. "About him and Susan? Johnny slammed his hands over his ears shaking his head in agony. "Crys, stick a magnet on my head, zap my with 15,000 volts, I need to forget that!" He saw lightening start to dance between Crystal's finger tips, apparently they'd need to go over exaggeration as a form of humor again. "DON'T! DON'T!" The lightening vanished and Johnny sighed, might as well explain since that was his job today. "Okay Crys, let me make this absolutely clear, preferably by metaphor. How do you feel about Medusa and Blackbolt... being together?" Crystal shrugged. "I'm glad that the two of them are finally back together after Maximus kept them apart so long." Johnny sighed mightily, this was going to be harder than he had originally thought. "Okay, maybe this would work better if you had an older brother, or maybe it's a chick thing. But listen, among our society, the sexual activities of our older siblings fall under the exact same categories as those of our parents, we don't want to know about them, and we certainly don't want to think about them! Because we grow up thinking of those people as perfect, and knowing that they actually have carnal desires not only makes them not only less than perfect, but downright disgusting. Our parents and older siblings then return the favor by promising to always think of younger siblings and their children as baby-faced kids, and not sticking their noses' into our bedrooms even though they'll make it a task and a half for us to actually get someone in there with us. So in conclusion, as far as I'm concerned my sister and my brother-in-law are not doing it." Crystal's green eyes got a little bit wider. "But isn't she..." Johnny held up a hand palm out towards her face in a request for silence. "Living in denial of the truth that is right before our eyes is another fine American tradition. Some people say that it started back during the American Revolution when we were fighting the mightiest empire in the world and basically believing that we could win on pure pluck alone. Of course it really got its legs during the Cold War when everyone was going along with their lives despite the fact that it'd the entire world could be brought to an end any day of the week just by pressing a couple of buttons. If we didn't have that ability today, then there's no way we'd be able to enjoy the great tasting, heart clogging cuisine served at so many of our restaurants. So in my own private little world, Victor Von Doom had his, figure it out, blown off during the accident in college and after Reed wound up in his body he had to develop some special kind of artificial sperm based off samples of his blood and then injected that into my sister, and that's how she got pregnant. It worked better then he planned it to and was only trying to make a demonstration of the stuff when it worked which is why she got pregnant before they got married. That's the reality I live in Crys, and considering how low the rent is I'd appreciate it if you don't evict me from it. So let me spell it out loud and clear just to make sure you've got it down pat, animals having sex funny, people in general having sex, very funny, people related to you have sex, not funny at all and in fact deeply disturbing. Which brings me back to my original point before you took me off on down that brain scorchingly bad detour. The twenty minutes of stand up was on the subject of what it'd be like if some of the conventions that are seen in animals happened to people as well. For example, once wolves start doing it, they can't actually come apart until they finish, which would probably make for some very awkward moments if you got caught halfway through in the closet." The only response Johnny got was wide uncomprehending green eyes. "Right, that's clearly advanced material, so let's get back to the subject at hand, the Revolutionary War." However as Johnny went for the remote there was flash of orange light and Lockjaw appeared in front of the TV and let lose with a loud bark. Johnny lay back on the couch and hung his head in defeat. "Let me guess, that's your way of telling us that Timmy is trapped in the well, again?" Crystal's gaze moved slowly back and forth between Lockjaw and Johnny. "Susan and the others are in danger, we need to help them!" Johnny nodded as he slowly stood up transforming in the process. "All right then Scooby, lead the way." ---- Reed arrived just in time to see Sentry generate the tidal wave, which was now heading towards them a depressingly fast pace. "I don't suppose you know how to outthink a tidal wave do you?" Reed raised his hands palms out. "I'm going to start firing concussion blasts, for whatever they're worth, and when it comes in, Susan curl yourself into a ball for Ben to carry up above the rest of the wave and I'll try to 'jump' at just the right time to limit how bad the impact is." It was at that point that an orange glow suddenly appeared next to them and Johnny and Crystal stepped out of it. "So what seems to the be the HOLY HELL! Can we grab another portal out of here, like right now!" Reed shook his head sadly. "No, we need to permanently disable Sentry, the robot causing this, and hopefully retrieve the Pogo plane before we can think about escaping. Crystal, try and do what you can to stop the tidal wave using your elemental powers. Susan slight change of plans, right before the wave comes in...." "Wrap myself around you guys for whatever that is worth?" "More or less." So that's just what they did. Crystal and Reed worked their respective abilities against the wave, and when its fully cast the five of them in its shadow Susan quickly wrapped herself around them before reaching out with her arms to grab hold of two palm trees that should do at least something to prevent them from getting carried out to sea. Then the wave hit them, she road it out feeling the wave slam into her, (it wasn't that bad) wash over her (she had plenty of air in her lungs and hoped there was enough for the four people inside her as well) and then finally depart. She uncoiled herself and fell upon the soggy sand, her flanks heaving. "That wasn't fun, I'm gonna start cashing in on the maternity leave I would have started using a few months ago if I wasn't crazy, you four deal with the giant robot." Johnny nodded as he carefully stepped away form his sister's body. "All right then, so where has said robot gotten to?" A moment later a large boulder slammed into him and everyone turned their attention towards the direction it had to have come from. Sentry had apparently headed back in land when while the wave had been headed that way. Crystal let lose with a blast of purple energy that struck just above the Sentry's head causing them to come loose and creating a miniature rockslide that carried Sentry down to the beach before leaving him buried A moment later Johnny pushed aside the boulder he'd been hit by. "Ouch, I'm pretty sure its a safe bet that I just got my warranty voided." Before any of them could act further Sentry emerged from the rocks that it had been buried under, but no sooner had it stood up to its full height then Crystal let loose with another blast of the purple energy and the ground caved in beneath Sentry's feet. "There, I'm pretty sure I got him that time." Unfortunately while Sentry didn't seem likely to be climbing back above ground any time soon, the cure might just prove worse than the disease given the shaking they were all starting to feel beneath their feet. "Crystal, your seismic powers probably just kick-started the volcano beneath Tevo island. Before you even ask Johnny, yes now it is safe to say that we've officially reached the point that we can run away first and ask questions later. Crystal if you could have Lockjaw create a portal for us back to the Baxter Building, I think we'd all appreciate it." Crystal nodded an a moment later the large brown dog was once again in their midst, his antenna giving off light before an orange portal appeared. The group quickly moved passed through it, at which point they took a moment to catch their breath and take stock of things as they once again found themselves back inside the Baxter Building and perfectly safe. "Well there goes your new plane Reed." Reed nodded sadly. "Yes, not to mention that case full of vacation supplies." Susan nodded along with the other two. "Yes, and lets not forget our vacation in general." Johnny looked at the three other members of the Fantastic Four and then looked away in a hurry. "And I'm pretty sure I just lost my libido for at least a week." Several glances were sent in his direction and Johnny shivered. "Listen, if it wouldn't be asking too much now that none of us are in mortal peril, could my very, very, very pregnant sister please, please, please, switch into something a bit more concealing?" Susan blushed and quickly slithered from the room. ---- "You know I'm a bit offended at the fact that you decided you need your armor to carry me around." It was two days after the group's return from Tevo island and aside from everyone doing their own little parts to pitch in and teach Crystal how to be 'properly human' the status quo had been more or less perfectly regained. "Well I wanted to make sure not to drop you, and like this you're light as a feather." Susan decided she wasn't going to ask what metaphor her husband would use to describe her weight when he wasn't wearing armor especially designed to let him lift a couple tons when he had a proper leverage. "So what's this present that you've got for me, and why are we taking the elevator down instead of heading for the lab?" Reed just smiled (he wasn't wearing the iron facemask though he did have the rest of his armor on) down at her. "Wait and see Sue, wait and see." Reed had positioned himself to prevent Susan from seeing what floor he had selected to send their elevator on the way to, though he didn't have bothered, since she didn't have that much knowledge of which floor of the building contained what. Then finally the elevator's door beeped and Reed walked out still carrying Susan in both of his gauntleted hands. "I decided that since our efforts to take a vacation outside the Baxter Building had a somewhat abrupt and unpleasant conclusion, we might have more luck trying to relax a little close to home. So behold, the Baxter Building's Olympic size swimming pool." Reed gently eased Susan onto her feet, which to her and just about everyone else's surprise still managed to support her fairly well. But then it as probably only due to the fact that her elastic limbs generally seemed stronger than normal human ones that she could still move about bipedally. Susan looked at it, then twisted her neck around so that Reed could see her own grin. "Nice. You didn't build all this for me though, right? I mean there's no way I could have gotten all this built in under 48 hours." Reed shook his head and slowly began to remove his armor revealing that he had nothing but a pair of swim trunks on underneath. "This has been in the blueprints since I first created them. Seeing as I was more or less haemorrhaging money at the time, I decided the cost of this pool was nothing to worry about next to the rest of the building and so I might as well get one just in case someone wanted it. That and it seemed like it would have been a shame not to get a pool to go along with everything else we have in this place. It's heated by the way in case you were wondering." Susan undid the twist in her neck so that she could throw one in her torso instead. This stretch might have been taking things a bit too far however as Susan was suddenly much more aware of how far removed her center of gravity was from its normal position. "All that water and me without my swimsuit. I hope you're not about to suggest I wear my birthday suit instead, since there isn't exactly a door to lock to keep people from coming in here through the elevator." Reed walked over to the wall and opened a panel by the elevator. "Actually, there is a system for 'locking out' certain floors, I designed it with the intent of hamstringing intruders, but it could be equally efficient for a few other purposes." He swung the panel closed without making use of the complicated interface that lay behind which doubtlessly only Reed Richards knew how to properly comprehend or command. "But that'd be taking the long way around to something that has a much more simple solution. Remember our unstable molecule uniforms are airtight and dry very quickly. You could still very easily go swimming in the entire outfit or just the undergarments, after all its the same material I made your swimsuit out of." Susan stretched out her arms so that she could cross them over her pregnant belly. "Which in turn begs the question of why bother designing that swimsuit for me in the first place?" Reed walked over, and kissed Susan's cheek so that he didn't unbalance her the way that trying to kiss her lips probably would have. "I believe the technical answer to that question would be 'because I could' as of the last time I checked." Susan smiled then righted herself, breathing a sigh of relief to once again have her knees pointing towards instead of away from her center of gravity. I don't see how I can argue with that, and since you were kind enough to go down to show some skin I think I will as well." Susan slowly began to strip down to her bra and panties, then took one slow tentative step after another towards the edge of the pool. She took a moment to examine her reflection in the water, felt a slight unexpected push and that was all it took to get to make her belly drag the rest of her body forward. Susan fell face first into the water with a loud "SPLASH" but she didn't sink anywhere near as deeply as she thought she would. Susan righted herself so that she was more or less properly treading water, coughing and spluttering for a few moments before she got words out. "That was totally uncalled for." Reed just smirked down at her. "Well given your current condition how you might have had some trouble climbing down a ladder to get in, so I decided to give the necessary push. How is the water?" Susan lowered her neck slightly to half swallow significantly more water than your average human mouth could hold. Then she promptly looked back at her husband and spat it at him with about the same amount of force as water came out of your average garden hose. "It's good, which is significantly more than I can say about you at the moment." Reed blinked his eyes clear then shrugged, and then calmly did a more or less textbook dive into the pool creating significantly fewer ripples in the water than Susan's entrance had. His head popped back up above water a few moments later a smile on his face. "So how does it feel to finally go swimming again?" Susan wrapped her arms around her belly but kept kicking with her feet, allowing her to maintain her position. "A little weird. I mean I feel a lot lighter than I expected to, though something tells me that, ehh might as well test the theory for myself since I'm in the right position to do so..." She tried to position herself flat in the water so that she could preform, well just about any standard stroke that involved pulling her body forward with her arms, but was unsuccessful. Instead she found herself bouncing up and down in the water like a buoy that had been struck by a wave. "Yep, that's what I thought would happen." For some reason despite how heavy and awkward her belly was on land, it was awkwardly 'light' (in the sense of buoyant) in the water. "Well Susan like most things in life it comes down to some fairly simple science." Susan crossed her arms over her belly and then elongated her neck so that it was resting on top of her belly as well. "All right then, tell me more." Reed nodded, since it was probably going to be a very cold day in hell before Reed Richards gave up his love of explaining things. "Well at the end of the day how well something or someone floats is directly dependant upon their density, and density is a ratio of mass against volume. And while you're not as light on your feet as you used to be, obviously being pregnant has caused your body's volume to increase as well. You can stop kicking your legs any time you want by the way Susan, if you can't force your belly into being fully submerged then the odds are against gravity having any more luck on its own." Susan stilled her legs, and though she might have gone possibly an inch deeper into the water than she previously had been, obviously she did in fact have a rather unique form of floating device working in her favor. "Okay, so now I suppose the question that needs to be pondered is, so how the heck am I gonna move around this pool..." Reed just shrugged before taking off in a fairly standard front crawl leaving Susan to wobble back and forth in his wake. For her part, Ultra Woman contemplated the idea of trying to figure out just how well she could backstroke in her current condition, but then decided if she'd been suppose to move about like a normal pregnant woman then fate wouldn't have been kind/cruel enough to give her superpowers. So in the blink of an eye her upper body took of stretching across the water and in a few moments she had she had her arms wrapped around Reed's legs. "Gotcha..." Reed twisted around slowly so that he was laying on his back allowing him to easily float even with his lower body constricted. "That's not very sporting of you." Susan just shrugged. "Well then, now you know how I felt about that push into the water. This way I can forget about how pregnant I am, in fact, why even bother with letting that thing lay their and bob up and down in the water?" Susan found it surprisingly easy to lift her belly out of the water even without anything firm to balance the rest of her body against. She further increased the distance between her breasts and belly, before safely lowering said belly onto the side of the pool. Susan gave a quick nod of approval at the completion of her chosen task before a quick smile came to her lips. "If I'm gonna look so serpentine I might as well finish the job..." She retraced her legs into her belly and then lifted it back into the air and shaking it a few times. The sound of liquids sloshing back and forth didn't have much in common with the warning rattle of the snake which was named that particular aspect of its tail, but it was the best she could do on short notice. "Very nice Susan, but rattlesnakes tend to be found in deserts rather than near large bodies of water..." Susan pulled her arms into her body as well releasing Reed from her grip. "Maybe so, and I bet next you're going to tell me how they use poisonous venom to deal with their prey instead of construction. But after that of course comes the fun part where I tell you just how little I care about such things when there's fun to be had. Now then I'm gonna take a nice deep breath and by the time I'm done my lungs should be holding about as much air as your average scuba tank. Then without my kids getting in the way I shouldn't have too much trouble submerging myself, and you go back to swimming laps, and then... well if you feel something slowly working its way up one of your legs don't worry, it's me." ---- So Reed swam laps and thought about various things, though fear was pretty high up on the list. Susan was "running silent" if he remembered the correct military phrase, and given the absence even a tell-tale trail of bubbles, he certainly wouldn't have been able to make out her head among the various other strands of pink flesh stretched out under the pool. Which left him with just his thoughts the sound of his strokes. So why was it that every single time he felt some part of his body rub up against some part of hers, he felt a shiver of apprehension go through his body? It was clearly a visceral gut reaction (since there was no logical reason for him to be afraid of Susan in the water any more than on land) so what was causing it? Answers came reasonably quickly. For one thing, humans were somewhat unique among primates in that they had bodies which could float, and swim proficiently, thus on some level any human would probably be prone to feeling out of their element while submerging themselves in water deeper then they were tall. It didn't help that even though superheroics (and a very active sex life) had done wonders for Reed's endurance, it had still be a long time since he'd done any serious swimming. Amoebas were naturally water dwelling creatures, and as for snakes, well there weren't any with gills, but there were snakes that tended to stick to water only a little less fervently than dolphins did. So here he was out of his element knowingly getting stalked by a creature that was much suited for its current environment, it would have been foolhardy if his mind wasn't blaring alarms every which way. Then he saw a slight ripple in the after and by the time he turned his head to more carefully examine it, he was far too late. ---- About a minute later Reed's head broke the surface of the water as he once again went about the process of drawing oxygen from the air around him. Luckily, Susan's elastic lips were ideal for forming an airtight seal which let him draw from the excess oxygen in her lungs, but that hadn't made the sensation any less unnerving. "If we keep going along those lines Susan I think we are going to need to take some precautions to make sure no one interrupts us." Susan's head came above water as well and she nodded swiftly. "All right then, but you might want to get your swim trunks back on before you leave the pool, you tread water, I'll go see if I can figure out where I misplaced them." She drew in another deep breath and then dipped her head back below the surface of the water. Ahh sweet anticipation. AN: The Reduced Shakespear Company does in fact exist, the lines in this fic are perfectly transcribed straight from the material mentioned, any accidental deviation is my fault, all of their productions are quite excellent, see them live if you can, check their website for more details. Being male I can't actually tell you what it feels like to be pregnant in a swimming pool, just extrapolating from how other people have portrayed in a few works of fiction. Also do not attempt the Susan Richards Manuever unless you are capable of licking your own toes while keeping your knees perfectly straight. If you fail that simple test you should probably stick to CPR which is (assuming the person in need of it isn't a child) three breaths, fifteen chest compressions, followed by three more breaths and an examination of if the subject's chest has started rising on its own before you do any more. Why do I know this? Because when I'm not behind the keyboard I'm also an Eagle Scout (well am/was I forget if you stop being considered an Eagle Scout and just say you reached the rank after you leave scouting, either way I'm calling a technicality of saying I still am an Eagle Scout because any of you who have reached that rank know that the experiences along the way, yadda, yadda, yadda, never forget them, yadda, yadda, yadda, you all get the idea) which teaches you all kinds of information you hope you'll never have to use. |
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