Over half the Island nation had become trapped under the barrier but fortunately for those who wished to investigate the phenomenon, Thule Air Base was on the uncovered portion. The base was the United States Armed Forces' northernmost installation but in recent days the US was sharing control, both with the UN controlled SHIELD and the super group known as the Fantastic Four.

“Absolutely fascinating,” Reed Richards said out loud as he monitored the vessels sonar imaging systems.

“What is Stretch?” Ben Grimm asked his friend as he gripped the guard rail surrounding the upper deck of the ship. It was odd Ben thought, he’d piloted planes through the worst weather imaginable, even been into space but just being on a ship in clam seas turned his stomach.

“This barrier reflects the sonar as if it were a solid object but the tides still function as normal and it allows the creatures of the sea to pass through it as if it were not there, which given a little more research could be our way through,” Reed said excitedly as he turned from the instruments to face his friend “Ben why didn’t you take those sea-sickness pills I made for you?”

“You know I don’t like how they taste,” Ben replied gulping back hard.

“Yeah like a pile of nice greasy bacon, right Ben,” Johnny Storm said as he came onto the upper deck.

“Aww why’d ya have to say that matchsti…,” Johnny’s words proved the last straw for Ben’s battered belly and several of his last meals began to see the light of day.

“That was unnecessary Johnny,” Reed said to his wife’s younger brother, all while trying to suppress his own grin “what brings you up here, I thought you were trying to romance that young lady engineer below decks?”

“Oh that is still definitely a work in progress,” the young man grinned as he rubbed his right cheek “but you know who is on the line again.”

Reed sighed “this is the sixth time today.”

“Yeah but he’s still two calls behind from yesterday,” Johnny grinned, then a harder look came over his face “I just hope he isn’t beginning to give up.”

Reed nodded before turning to another console, with a few swift button presses the image of Spider-Man appeared on a monitor “Any luck today Reed?”

“I have come across some information that might eventually become a way through the barrier but its information I only came across just before your call,” Reed closed his eyes and hung his head “I know how you feel Spider-Man, how I would feel if anything were to happen to Susan. Be assured I will find a way for you to see your wife again.”

Suddenly there was a huge crack in the sky as a sonic boom shattered the silence, followed moments later by an object impacting into the ocean. As the huge waves formed by the impact buffeted the ship Reed terminated the connection to Spider-Man and grabbed his team with his extensible body, anchoring them safely to the ship.

“What the hell was that,” Ben shouted as the waves began to die down.

“I don’t know,” Reed said, unusually for him a little stunned “from its entry profile I would have said it was a meteor but deep space monitoring showed no near Earth objects.”

“Yeah and it was pretty damn quiet until it was overhead,” Johnny said as he used his heat powers to dry himself.

“Which would suggest a controlled entry until it no longer mattered,” Reed acknowledged as the water off the port side began to bubble “but I think we are about to find out just what it was.”

The surface of the water broke surprisingly gently and a white tripod emerged from the ocean “so the chance of that would be about a million to one right Reed,” Johnny joked.

“I’d say significantly higher,” Reed replied a little stunned at the sight in front of him.

“Yeah well how about we MOVE,” Ben shouted just moments before a beam lanced out from the Tripod and engulfed the ship.

Two Days Later

Susan Richards, not for the first time, wished she had gone with the rest of her family to Greenland.

Someone had to stay behind though to run the finances of Fantastic Four Inc. which had taken a large financial hit since the loss of its holdings in Europe.

She stepped out of the cab in front of Four Freedoms Plaza, paid the cabby and walked inside the building. The meeting with Norman Osborn at Oscorp had ran for far longer than she had liked and it had been a chore pretending not to know that he was secretly the Green Goblin.

She hated to admit though that beneath that brash, slimy and arrogant personality, lay a sharp and intelligent business mind, his ideas on a joint Oscorp/FF Inc. collaboration had been nothing short of genius and that made her want to have an extremely long soak in a hot bubble bath.

“Any messages Roberta?” Sue asked of the Fantastic Four’s robotic receptionist.

“Several Mrs. Richards, all from a Peter Parker but I am happy to report that Mr. Richards and the rest of the team have arrived home.”

Sue’s mood lifted immediately at the news that her family was back, even though they had only been gone for little over a month both she and Franklin had missed them terribly. Franklin especially had hated being left with a sitter instead of his Uncle Ben when she had to go out on business.

Sue took the private elevator to the top floor of the Plaza that served as the Fantastic Four’s living space, as she stepped out of the door she felt a pain in her belly which quickly faded “knew I shouldn’t have skipped lunch,” she muttered as she tried to turn on the lights but found that they didn’t work “back only a few minutes and he’s already blown the power again.”

Sue smiled at the power loss despite herself, Reed had probably come up with some new idea to get past the barrier that surrounded Europe and had rushed it into development without even considering if the Plaza’s power systems could handle it. Still the place did need redecorating she thought and it’d need it after Reed ripped all the wiring out again to upgrade it.

The emergency lighting was flickering on now and Sue walked to her son’s room to let him now that she was back, even before she reached the door she could smell something horrible, she pushed it open in a rush and to her horror found a charred body lying beside the bed. It was too large to be Franklin she realised with relief, so it must be his sitter. What sort of nightmare had she and Reed come home to.

As she moved away from Franklin’s bedroom and further into the apartment, she realised that a strong light source was coming from Reed’s lab, he was probably already working to discover who the killer was “Reed thank god you’re back,” she said excitedly as she entered the lab “have you see…”

Sue was stunned into silence as Reed, her brother Johnny and Ben turned around. Their faces were gone, gone and replaced with a blackness that seemed to cave inward.

“Your family is now mine,” a voice from behind Sue spoke “and soon you will be as well.”

Sue spun around to see how was there and came face to face with a man shaped being, its body was contained by a suit of purple and grey armour that it seemed to strain against and its face was horribly distorted. Sue’s eyes though fell to the unconscious form of her son who was held tightly in his grip.

“Forgive my appearance,” it said in a bubbling tone “the journey here was unsettling on my physical form. Here Thing finish this off for me would you while I talk to Mrs. Richards.”

The creature threw Franklin’s body toward the Thing, Sue attempted to catch him with one of her invisible force-fields but Franklin passed through it without resistance.

“Your husband was supposed to disable your powers completely,” the creature spoke as it grabbed Sue by the hair and yanked her to the ground with freakish strength, she tried kicking out but a back-hand from the creature left her dazed “he has more resistance than I would have credited to a human. Now watch as your future ends.”

The creature nodded toward the Thing who lifted Franklin from the ground by the head and squeezed.

“NNNNOOOOOOO,” Reed screamed with horror in his voice, his extensible body lashing out and hitting the creature away from Sue, who he grabbed in one swift motion and dragging her into his lab annex.

He quickly sealed the doors and turned to his wife “Sue listen to me there isn’t much time,” he was grabbing parts from the shelves and fashioning them together with inhuman speed.

“Reed was has happened, how could Ben do that,” Sue sobbed “Reed look at me,” she pleaded.

Reed turned to face her and she saw that the blackness that had replaced his face had withdrawn a little but it was still there.

“I don’t have time to explain Susan,” he said as he continued to work on the device “I can feel the aliens control over me returning, I can’t fight it for long so listen to me closely,” he snapped the last part of the device he was working on and thrust it into Sue’s hand “this should protect you from being detected by my systems,” Reed paused for a second as the door to the annex began to glow red and hammering was heard from the other side “these things have a base on Mars, you have to get SHIELD, the Avengers, anyone to destroy it,” Reed’s voice was growing more frantic by the minute “and if you have to, kill me as well.”

The Thing’s fist pounded through the door and he began to pull it apart with his hands “Goodbye my love, live free,” reaching for a hidden button, the wall of the annex opened to reveal the city outside and Reed pushed his wife through the opening.

“Torch go after her and kill her if need be,” the Martian ordered “Mister Fantastic,” it sneered “what did you give your wife.”

The blackness had now spread across Reed’s face completely again “nothing master, I only said goodbye to her,” it had taken the last of his will but Reed had managed to lie about what he had done.

“Good,” the Martian laughed “let’s hope I can reunite you two soon, in the mean time you can assist me in signalling the rest of my people.”

The Amazing Spider-Man had seen the fantasti-car returning to Four Freedoms Plaza as he had been supervising the children’s break time at the school where he worked as Peter Parker.

Now in costume he was swinging toward that famous Manhattan landmark to discover why he had not been cut-off so abruptly by Reed the last time they spoke and why he had been unable to get through to him again since.

The last thing he had expected was to see the Invisible Woman falling from an opening in the side of the building.

“You know I always like a pretty girl to fall for me but this is ridiculous,” he quipped as he grabbed Sue from the air “what the…?” he said as a fireball whizzed past them both, hitting a car parked on the street and burning it and the person inside.

“Get us out of her,” Sue screamed at him “out of her now.”

“We have to help those people,” Spider-Man said as he began to swing to the ground with Sue in his free arm.

“We can’t help them,” Sue pleaded “and if we don’t go now Johnny will do the same to us.”

Something in her voice made Spider-Man believe her, her voice and the fact that the Torch was throwing bursts of flame randomly.

Spider-Man swung Sue around to his back and quickly fastened her in place with a web-belt “I think I’m going to need both hands for this,” he muttered as he began to web away from the Plaza, the screams of the burning stinging his ears.

The chase continued through the city, the Human Torch’s flame bursts causing untold damage and starting fires as they went, Spider-Man was only half ware of the noises in the sky as he webbed away from his former friend, a task made difficult by the weight of Sue Richard’s on his back. He did wonder for a second why she wasn’t using his powers to help but that thought was soon put out of his mind as another burst of flame just missed him thanks to his spider-sense.

As they approached the west side of Manhattan and the warehouses situated there, a thought came into Spider-Man’s head “hold tight,” he shouted back to his passenger “this is going to be tricky.”

Spider-Man remembered that in this area Doctor Octopus had located one of his hideaways, one of the may located around the city, now he needed to get far enough in front of the pursuing Torch so not to be noticed going inside.

Spider-Man swung past the entry point to the hideaway, an old wooden grill located halfway up the side of a dilapidated looking warehouse, slowing slightly to let the Torch close in.

It was a risky move, considering the flame and heat the Human Torch was putting out but it paid off. Spider-Man turned suddenly swung back toward the Torch and straight past him before he could react. Spider-Man rounded the corner of the building and straight through the wooden grill before the Torch could catch up and see where they went. As he had hoped, a new grill slid into place, one that looked as old and worn as the one just broken and he and Sue were now sliding down a narrow slide-like vent, head first.

“Oh darn, I forgot about that,” Spider-Man grumbled as an electric stun field was thrown up in their path. With no way to avoid it both Spider-Man and the Invisible Woman were knocked unconscious as they hit the floor of Octopus’ base.

Outside the building the Human Torch could spot no sign of his quarry, the rubble from the vent Spider-Man had smashed through was unnoticeable on the already trash strewn streets.

“I have lost her master,” the Torch spoke into his Fantastic Four communicator “she was aided by Spider-Man.”

“No matter my pet,” the Martian responded “those two will make little difference to the overall plan. Now return to me and let the invasion begin.”

Authors Notes

It's the story I always wanted to see, how the invasion of the Pendragons Universe by the Martians began, so here we are.

Thanks to David Wheatley for the idea of having the Fantastic Four fall under the control of the invaders, as to why Sue escaped, well I just like her a lot.

Feedback is always welcome, so drop me a line at votemarvel@yahoo.co.uk and it might make me write more issues =)