The Fantastic Five, chapter 3

Chapter 3: The Birthstory of The Fantastic Five

We went back to our house, locked the doors and closed the curtains, so no one could see in. Then we gathered into the kitchen, and my family started telling our stories how we had become superheroes, starting with Bart and me getting into an X-ray accident, followed by Maggie absorbing parts of our powers thanks to Professor Frink, then dad becoming the Pie Man, and finally, mom becoming The Entangler in our last big adventure at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant.

"So, that's it", I said after mom had finished her story. "Now, can we hear your stories?"

"Actually, they all come in one", Margerine said. "We all became superheroes in the same place at the same time."

"What happened?" Bart asked.

Margerine took a deep breath and started telling.

"It all started about a year ago", she said. "We were all having a trip at the Grand Canyon, when we were surprised and kidnapped by a group of crazy, but intelligent scientists, who took us to their secret hideout at the bottom of the canyon."

"It was a wicked place", Spider-Bart said. "Full of different instruments, chemicals, pools full of liquid metals, all caved within rock."

"That's true", Margerine said. "But, like said, those men were mad. They claimed they had wasted lots of time, money and energy just for one purpose: to see, if they could turn fiction into fact; to turn ordinary people into extraordinary ones, into superheroes. And since no one had freely applied to do that, they had decided to catch the next ones arriving to the place, which happened to be us, by force."

"That sounds cruel", I said.

"That's because it was cruel", Spider-Bart said.

"I still get shivers when thinking of that place", said The Jazzler, shuddering.

Margerine looked at BrainBaby, who also looked at her, and then nodded. Suddenly, the kitchen around us vanished, and we all were standing in a cave-like laboratory, where dim lamps on the ceiling gave some light into it. We saw five men, all with white jackets, swirly glasses and messy gray hairs taking our counterpart family into separate rooms all next to each other. I and my family gasped.

"BrainBaby has the ability to use telepathy and create illusions", Margerine said. "Now you will all see the story as we did. We're still in the kitchen of your house, but BrainBaby's powers make your senses see, hear and feel the story as we experienced it."

"Impressive", I said quietly. "This must be how she handled those robbers."

"For them, she can trap them into their own minds, leaving their bodies paralyzed", Margerine said. "But don't worry, these illusions are harmless for you."

"What happened next?" I asked.

"Some of us were taken part in project that focused on copying known superheroes, the others were meant to become made-up heroes. We were separated from each other, placed onto dissecting tables, and strapped down", Margerine told.

We all saw how our other dimension equivalents were taken to their rooms and forced to lay down. I saw my counterpart being forced down to a dissecting table and strapped down, although she struggled, flailed and yelled. I clenched my fists in anger.

"We tried to struggle, but it was useless", Margerine said quietly. "And then... the treatment started. And it wasn't pleasant. Not at all."

We saw them all, one at the time. First, my dad's equivalent was injected with a green liquid on his arm, and giving him green gas with a mask. He was shaking violently, and his eyes bulged. Then his skin started turning green, his clothes started ripping under the bulging mass of new muscle, his shoes blasted into pieces, his arms bulged, and finally, the straps snapped and Homer jumped down from the table and roared wildly.

Next we saw how my mom's equivalent was also injected with something into her arm, and then two pipes with injection needle-like needles in their ends were injected on the backs of her hands, and through transparent pipes, liquid, gray metal was pumped from small pools besides the table into her body. She trembled and shrieked, but she couldn't do anything. Then, after several horrible moments, she suddenly clenched her hands, causing the pipes to snap off and three sharp claws come out through her skin.

I looked at Margerine, and saw her quietly covering eyes with her hand, clearly wanting to block unpleasant memories.

Then it was my equivalent's turn. Like the others, she was also injected with something, this time turquoise liquid, and her body started shaking violently, causing her to make a noise that would in any other case been funny, but now was only horrible. Then her body suddenly stopped moving, for a moment looking completely paralyzed, and then it fell down to the table, being totally loose, and her eyes closed. Then one of the professors placed a saxophone around her neck and let it lay on my counterpart's chest. Then, like being pulled by a magnet, her hands rose from the table and grabbed the saxophone. As soon as she did that, her eyes suddenly opened wide, and her body was covered with turquoise light. After a few seconds, the light faded, revealing that she was now free from her straps and wearing her black Jazzler suit and glasses.

Then we moved on to Bart's counterpart. The professors took a transparent box, which contained a small blue and red spider. They released it onto struggling Bart's arm, where it skittered for a while, and then bit, causing Bart to scream in pain. As the spider was taken back into the box, Bart started squirming in big discomfort. Then they topped it by injecting something to the point where the spider had bitten, causing Bart to faint.

Finally we saw Maggie's counterpart. To keep her from crying, the professors had taped her pacifier into her mouth, but she was still squirming and making noises of discomfort. The professors took an injection needle, revealed Maggie's small arm and injected something into her body. If she hadn't had her mouth shut, she would have cried out loud. I couldn't help clenching my fists even tighter.

For a moment, Maggie just squirmed. Then, something very odd happened. It was as if her head was a balloon, where someone was now blowing air. Her head expanded into unbelievable size for any kind of human. And she wasn't looking discomforted any more. On the contrary, she looked oddly relaxed, her eyes staring into the ceiling.

After we had seen this, the room dissolved, and suddenly we were back in our kitchen.
"That was some weird experience", dad said.

"Then what happened after that?" mom asked.

"What would you think we did?" Margerine asked. "We escaped. By giving us those superpowers, they also had give us a mean to escape. We let them there, badly maimed, and returned back to Springfield."

"Served them right", Spider-Bart said quietly.

"And then you started doing hero works?" I asked.

"Yes", Margerine said. "Those maniacs had also given Lisa, me and Bart super-suits, so it didn't take long for us to start operating. And so everybody would recognize our work, I started leaving our signs on the crime scenes."

"How did you come up with your team name?" I asked.

"That was not too hard", The Jazzler said. "There were five of us, and we're fantastic, so what other name could have it been?"

"Anything", Bart said. "Like The Quackery Quintet, or..."

I stomped on Bart's toes, causing him to yell in pain and jump on one foot.

"That was a rhetoric question, Bart, you weren't supposed to answer it", I quietly mumbled through my gritted teeth.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, sis", Bart mumbled sarcastically through his own gritted teeth.

"It's almost morning", said mom while peeking out of the window. "Shouldn't we all take a little rest? You can stay here, there's room for you to sleep in the living room."

"Suits for me", Margerine said.

"And after that, we'll go to kick some sweet criminal butt", Bart said.

"Mmm... sweet butt", dad drooled.