61: Doing the Impossible
If Daniel had ever wondered what it would feel like to swim in a pool full of honey, now he had his answer.
Moving was difficult, slow, and clumsy. Countless waves of unknown energy struck his body at every moment, making his internal organs churn and nausea wash over him. Every molecule inside him trembled unstably, provoking a growing sensation of weakness.
'Maybe this wasn't such a good idea,' he thought as he felt the dizziness and almost fell to the ground. He almost collapsed but held his ground, straightening up as best he could before forcing himself to move forward—slowly but steadily.
Soon, his gaze fell on the person closest to him, who was Johnny. He had almost been thrown out of the energy "dome" due to the explosion that struck him when he fell onto Reed's machine.
The boy lay unconscious, face down on the ground, his entire body engulfed in flames. If Daniel hadn't been sure that he wasn't burning alive, he would have already rushed to his side to try to put out the fire.
The next person he focused his gaze on was Dr. Storm, who was several meters away from his son, also unconscious and with several minor wounds scattered across his body and not far from him was Susan. Fortunately, the girl had not moved from the spot where Daniel had left her before the lightning sent him flying.
The three of them didn't seem to be too far apart from one another, which made reaching them relatively straightforward. However, the same couldn't be said for everyone else.
Dr. Harvey and Victor were in the opposite direction of the Storm family—not to mention Reed and Ben, who were dangerously closest to the spatial rift and the machine.
His initial plan to evacuate the survivors first needed to change.
'First, I need to close the rift.' Reaching all of them would take too long, and with each passing second, the spatial tear was only growing larger and larger, putting more people in danger.
Now, how the hell do you close a damn tear in space-time?
Almost unconsciously, his eyes landed on Reed's machine. But as soon as he saw its condition, he could only grimace.
'I... don't know if I can fix that.' It wasn't completely destroyed; in fact, it still seemed to be functioning—somewhat. But a significant part of its structure was severely damaged, with uncontrolled sparks and arcs of electricity bursting from it.
Maybe he could try improvising on the spot with the remains and see if that would do any good, but deep down, he wasn't so sure of his chances.
His knowledge of dimensional portal technology was simply too superficial for a situation of this magnitude.
'But I don't have many other options.' It was either this or finding another way, but no matter how much he thought about it, not many good ideas were coming to his head—aside from trying brute force, and that rarely led to good results.
"Wh-what h-happened?"
The weak and fragile whisper immediately caught his attention. Reed Richards, who seemed to be starting to regain consciousness, tried to stand up, though with limited success.
The young scientist clenched his teeth, looking around in bewilderment, his unclear and chaotic thoughts slowly beginning to process the gravity of the situation he was in.
"T-this!"
Upon seeing the damage and devastating disaster in the area, as well as the massive expanding spatial rift above his machine, he couldn't stop an expression of horror from forming on his face, and a tremor ran through his body.
"No, no, no!" He shook his head, feeling bile rise in his throat.
"This wasn't supposed to happen!"
"Hey! Calm down." Daniel's voice momentarily snapped him out of his panic, causing him to look up toward him.
"You…"
Even if Reed hadn't been paying attention to the news lately, it was hard not to recognize the face of the World Hero. Still, he felt no relief at seeing him in this moment because, even in his chaotic mental state, he understood better than anyone the danger of what was happening.
"Listen, I need you to stay calm, okay? I'm going to help you."
Stay calm? How could he stay calm?!
"W-we're dead! Space-time is going to collapse! At any moment, everything will destabilize, triggering a chain reaction that will destroy Earth! A black hole will kill us all!"
And it was his fault.
He should never have allowed people to get so close to his machine, made demonstrations so recklessly, or ignored the growing tension between Johnny and Dr. Harvey. Staying on the sidelines of the conflict had let everything escalate until it was too late.
"No, no, that won't happen, do you hear me?! We can fix this. Your machine is still working, there's still time. If we can stop it, shut it down, maybe we can slow the expansion of the rift and prevent more people from getting hurt."
Daniel quickly intervened, seeing an opportunity. If he had Reed's help, the two of them working together could surely solve this.
Hearing his words, Reed swallowed his growing panic and focused his gaze on the machine beneath the rift. The device was a mess, but it was still active. If he could reach it and disable the space-time connection engine, then maybe he could break the anchor between both dimensions and, with some luck, close the rift.
"Y-yes! I can do it, I can fix this."
The hope that had seemed lost began to return to his eyes. With renewed determination, Reed took a deep breath and, resisting the pain in his body, started crawling toward the machine with all his strength.
Seeing that Reed had regained his resolve, Daniel smiled and began moving forward as well, ready to lend a hand however he could—though doing so wasn't exactly easy.
Under normal circumstances, he would have been able to close the distance between them in an instant, but right now, his speed was almost as slow as a damn turtle's.
'Once this is over, I need to figure out what the hell is happening to me,' he thought, frowning as he held his side, where the lightning had struck him.
Soon, he saw Reed reach the machine and begin working efficiently. Despite the tense situation, the boy seemed completely focused on what he was doing.
'Maybe I don't even need to intervene,' he thought with an ironic smile. But that didn't discourage him in the slightest. He had never had a complex about letting others be the ones to save the day. Of course, he would try to do everything he could on his end, but he understood that he couldn't always be the one to fix things. And he had no problem with that.
'Everyone needs to be saved at some point… even heroes.' It was something he had always been clear about.
But Daniel couldn't enjoy the moment too much, because once again, the universe had decided to be an asshole.
He was probably the first to feel it—how the turbulent air currents, generated by the waves of energy, stalled for a microsecond before suddenly shifting direction with unnatural violence.
"Oh no…"
Reed's horror-filled whisper was almost like a scream to his ears.
"What's happening?!"
The boy had no time to respond.
In an instant, the spatial rift doubled in size, fully opening into a dark and endless void.
A monstrous suction force began flooding the area. Without hesitation, Daniel lunged forward, using all the strength he could muster to close the remaining distance between him and Reed.
"It's too late!" Reed cried out in desperation. "It's started to collapse—I can't stop it now!"
The young scientist tried to pull back, but it was impossible for his strength to be enough to overcome the gravitational pull of a nascent black hole.
Slowly, the suction range increased until it completely enveloped his body.
"Grab my hand!" Seeing him ripped from the ground and starting to be pulled toward the rift, Daniel acted quickly and caught his hand firmly, planting his feet on the ground like an immovable anchor.
"Aaahrg!" Feeling his body being pulled in two different directions by monstrous forces, Reed could do nothing but scream in agony.
"Hold on!" Daniel knew this couldn't last forever—he needed to get Reed out of the attraction range before it was too late. The problem was that the range was expanding rapidly.
Soon, he noticed how objects around them were being ripped from their places, several crashing against his back. Out of the corner of his eye, he even saw the other survivors in the area beginning to be slowly drawn toward him.
The first to reach him was the still unconscious Ben Grimm.
'Fuck!' With agility, he stretched out his other arm, catching the boy by the leg and, using all the momentum he could gather, tried to throw them both out of the rift's suction range.
With Ben, he succeeded.
But with Reed… something went terribly wrong.
Like a rubber band stretching beyond its limit, Reed's body elongated impossibly due to the pressure exerted by the two opposing forces pulling at him.
Fortunately, Daniel noticed in time and didn't let go of his hand, holding onto him as tightly as he could. But that didn't stop the inevitable—Reed's legs and lower torso were sucked into the spatial rift.
"What's happening to me?!" Reed nearly fainted as he watched his body deform beyond all logic.
"Don't panic! I'll help you!"
Taking a step forward, Daniel tried to reach his other hand, but Reed's arm also began to stretch, pulling the boy further and further away from him. All he could do was tighten his grip on the hand he was already holding.
For a moment, he managed to keep him in place. But the harder he squeezed to stop Reed from being dragged into the rift, the more pressure he exerted on his hand.
If his bones were still 'essentially' solid, he would have crushed them by now. Fortunately, his strange elasticity prevented that fate, but it brought another problem instead: rather than resisting, his hand began to slip out of his grasp.
He wasn't the only one who noticed. Reed felt it too. His pupils contracted, and his heart sank.
"Save me!" he pleaded, but despite all his effort, his hand continued to stretch—until, finally, it slipped completely from Daniel's grip.
"NO!"
Watching Reed get swallowed by the spatial rift, Daniel could only scream in fury and helplessness.
"Shit!" he spat, letting his body be dragged until he was right in front of the rift.
Focusing his gaze, he tried to find him, to see where he had gone, but even though he looked into the void, the void did not look back at him.
For a brief moment, he considered throwing himself into the rift to try to bring Reed back.
But he knew he couldn't do that.
'He's not the only one I need to save,' he bitterly reminded himself.
"Fuck!" he growled, his frustration palpable.
'What the hell am I supposed to do now?' His best chance to stop this had just slipped away, and unless the Sorcerer Supreme decided to show up again and fix this mess, everything would be lost.
'No! I haven't tried everything yet!' He couldn't give up. Not yet.
Shoving aside all doubt, he decided he had to do the impossible.
Planting his feet firmly, he stretched both arms forward and—ignoring all logic—gripped the edge of the space-time rupture with all his strength.
The skin on his hands tore upon contact, peeling away in shreds until bone was exposed.
The agony was unbearable—a pain so brutal his legs nearly gave out. For a moment, he felt himself falling to his knees, but gritting his teeth, he remained firm and activated his core at full capacity, regenerating the wounds as fast as they were inflicted.
Space and gravity were linked—what affected one influenced the other. Since he possessed his own 'gravitational field,' holding onto the very structure of space should still be possible.
Or at least, that's what he thought when the idea of closing the rift with his own hands came to mind. But, of course, it couldn't be that simple.
The very fabric of reality was being torn apart. Gripping the edges of the rupture to try to stop it was almost like resisting the same force that was destroying it in the first place.
And that was anything but easy.
"Come on!"
Ignoring the pain, he began to exert every ounce of power in his body. His bones cracked, fracturing over and over again; his muscles tore just like his skin, but he didn't stop. The titanic effort made him clench his teeth so hard that several of them shattered under the pressure.
Slowly, inch by inch, he started to succeed, forcing the rift to retreat and reducing its gravitational pull.
Sweat drenched his body, mixing with the blood, but despite the extreme exhaustion, Daniel didn't yield. He persisted until, with one last colossal effort, his hands met in front of him, forcing space to submit and begin closing. The fabric of space-time mended itself the moment both ends of the fissure reconnected.
Coughing up a thick clot of blood, Daniel staggered backward, nearly collapsing onto his back. His clothes were in ruins, and countless spasms wracked every fiber of his muscles. Yet none of that stopped a small smile from briefly forming at the corner of his lips.
'I-I guess brute force works sometimes…'
He only wished he had tried it sooner instead of encouraging Reed to take the risk.
With that thought, his smile vanished, replaced by a somber expression.
Shaking his head, he decided it wasn't the time to dwell on it. He could lament his failure later—right now, he had a serious situation to resolve.
'I need to call some people,' he thought, looking around at all the chaos surrounding him until his eyes landed on the six unconscious people on the ground.
'And help these guys.'
Daniel wondered if he would need to use the fortress once again, but when he noticed Dr. Storm starting to wake up, he decided to take a different approach this time.
.
.
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Note:
This might be one of the shortest chapters I've released so far, I apologize for that.
And sorry for the long wait too— I know many were expecting something longer. Don't worry, the next chapter should be quite a bit longer. I hope you understand. With nothing more to add, I'll say goodbye for now. Don't forget to leave your comments, critiques, and suggestions.
See you soon.
P.S. I've been experimenting with a slightly different way of titling the chapters. What do you think—too many words? Should I go back to the old way and keep it simple?
Remember that You can already find the next chapter of this story on Patreon ( patreon.com/EmmaCruzader ) All the support received is appreciated ;D