(The Fantastic Four are owned by Marvel Comics.)

(The 'Fourth Of July' villains (a.k.a. the Telekinetic Trio)are created and owned by the author.)

A Freaky Fantastic Fourth

A Fantastic Four adventure told in four parts!

Written, Directed and Edited by Caleb Jones

Part Four

The Fantastic Finale!

Previously, in Freaky Fantastic Four...

The Fantastic Four were called into action once again!

While fighting their latest foes, one of the 'Fourth of July' villains who opposed them used strange mental powers to exchange their bodies.

Now Reed has Sue's beautiful feminine face and figure! And Sue Storm has become her lanky and quite elastic husband Reed!

Johnny Storm appears to be Ben Grimm, the Thing to all who see him. Meanwhile, Ben Grimm now possesses Johnny's handsome face and fiery body!

Adapting to new and very different bodies hasn't been easy.

And now their story concludes...

The four friends and teammates quickly discarded a plan of Johnny's to trick their old foe Doctor Doom to use his mind-swapping technique to better results than the last time Doom used it, taking the place of Reed Richards by stealing his body!

As Sue pointed out, there was no way to make sure that Doom would make any swaps, or that they would just wind up in still another body even if he did. Unfortunately, Reed had never developed a defense against Doom's mind-switch abilities, as they seemed to involve metaphysical aspects which Reed was unable to reconcile with the laws of the universe as he understood them.

A quick check found the magical and metaphysical expert Doctor Strange unavailable in another dimension according to info from his assistant Wong. And Professor X (and his world renown telepathic abilities) was in outer space with the X-men. So their only option remained the original method used on them as their best chance to swap back.

After a strategy meeting, it was decided to draw the villainous Telekinetic Trio out of hiding and convince their leader Mind Master to repeat, and therefore undo his prior actions. Several potential ways to trick or manipulate such a reversal of their body exchanges were acted out and rehearsed for practice. If an opportunity for a reversal presented itself, the Fantastic Four would be ready to take advantage of it.

The plan they finalized was to take their current stance that to everyone else all was well, they were who they were supposed to be, and take that impression to the public. It meant getting out of their headquarters, get out among the people of New York, and pretend to be each other well enough to convince the Mind Master his attack had either failed or worn off.

There was nothing like the stench of failure to make a villain fall into a trap!

4 JOHNNY STORM!

Johnny took Ben's advice and made an appearance as the Thing at a charity fund raiser in Central Park. He had worked with Ben Grimm long enough to accurately imitate Ben's tough guy way of speaking. It was tough ignoring the beautiful blonde reporter at the event. Then he realized that Ben might not be as smooth as he, Johnny, was with the ladies, but Ben wasn't one to shy away from them either!

Soon, Johnny had Deanna, the reporter listening intently to his every word, and he made sure she would include the key phrases Reed had given him to publicize to get the Trio back in action again.

4 REED RICHARDS!

Reed had hoped to field test his new invention to appear to be himself again, but it wasn't ready for the field just yet as it currently weighed 500 pounds. It might be miniaturized in time for the final battle, however.

At the moment, however, he was still 'trapped' in the body of his beautiful blonde wife and had to convince his foes their mind swap had failed. Sue had suggested a sure-fire way to convince the public that she was in control of her own life. There was something Reed Richards would normally never do!

Sue smiled. It was time for a shopping spree!

So Reed Richards made a very public appearance in the local mall wearing Sue's best clothes, trying on many outfits, and generously increasing his wife's already sizable clothes closet!

It actually went quite well, giving him a rare chance to pick out some clothing he enjoyed seeing Sue wear. He even stopped by Victoria's Secret to purchase a little something for the night after they were back to normal. It was the only time he had ever felt comfortable choosing sexy underwear for his wife for a gift. Of course, to the other customers and salespeople, Reed knew they would be seeing a woman shopping.

The only problem he had was in the ladies changing rooms. Reed, being an honest married man, had respectfully decided to utilize his new invisibility powers to make any woman he saw in her underwear vanish before his eyes. The only near-naked woman he wanted to see was himself in his wife's body!

More than once while changing clothes, Reed timed the end of the invisibility wrong and heard a feminine gasp or scream as one of the temporarily invisible woman in question stared into her mirror and saw no reflection of herself in a vacant changing stall!

4 SUSAN STORM-RICHARDS!

Susan Storm-Richard's mission was to make the world and, especially a certain trio of villains, believe that Reed Richards was still the occupant of the body she currently possessed. It was one thing to convince Ben and Johnny that she was herself. Reed's elastic shape-shifting powers made that act rather convincing, but acting like her husband - even while possessing his body to make should be an illusion an unwanted physical reality – would take all of her acting abilities.

And to be honest with herself, though she had dabbled in acting before joining the Fantastic Four, Sue knew she was no Katherine Hepburn. Heck, she wasn't even a Jessica Alba when it came to acting. But she DID know her husband Reed better than anyone else in the whole world! So she knew she could pull it off!

Reed had scheduled a lecture to the assembled United Nations. What better way to convince the villains Reed still occupied Reed Richards body than to give that lecture herself? Susan might not be a super-genius like Reed, but she had a near perfect memory and easily memorized the very technical lecture script.

She just hoped she could be as boring to the audience as Reed usually managed to be during such lectures...

4BENJAMIN GRIMM!

Ben had the easiest task of the four. Pretending to be his hotshot, flamboyant younger teammate would be simplicity itself! All he had to do was ogle all the pretty girls and try to get them all to go out on a date with him, that is, with Johnny Storm, AKE 'gods gift to women'. (As Johnny himself often claimed, Ben thought, with an ironic smile.)

It was a tough job, but even in the wrong body Ben Grimm was still man enough to tackle the task! And as a former college star football player, he knew how to tackle both other players on the field as well as the lovely ladies off the field.

Johnny often haunted the latest hot spot in town, 'the Spot' So Ben entered the Spot as Johnny. Music was throbbing, lights were flashing, and the place was packed with hot sexy bodies. Ben was immediately surrounded by many beautiful women.

"Well, helloooo Ladies!" Ben said to his curvaceous new friends... not forgetting to give a news photographer a shot good enough to make the celebrity page in the newspaper.

It was a tough job but someone had to do it, Ben figured...

4 The Lure...

Reed had sent messages to all the media the day before to support their publicity blitz, claiming that the Fantastic Four had broken up the 4th of July gang, and sent them running away like the incompetent rats they were. Ben had wanted to add a few stronger phrases, but the media policy was to not repeat those kind of words for the public.

The seeds of a meeting between the two teams were sown. A challenge was issued, and opportunity was presented. But would they take root...

All went exactly as planned! Soon after the F.F.'s publicity blitz began, the entertainment and news media (also alerted in advance, of course) began reporting on the social activities of the Fantastic Four. And soon after those reports hit the TV and Internet, the FF headquarters computers had recorded activity down by the waterfront of a highly illegal nature. The police were on top of it as well, but with super powered villains capable of massive damage, support was urgently requested from the Fantastic Four.

As Sherlock Holmes might say, the game was afoot!

The fiery '4' sky-signal to alert the FF to gather together to confront great danger was launched from their HQ, and automated cell phone calls were made to the four members of the Fantastic Four warning them of the Telekinetic Trio's illegal activities.

Johnny, Ben, Sue and Reed each excused themselves from their current body's activities. Reed rescheduled the hair styling Sue requested he get at the hair salon for another day, with high hopes his wife would be herself once again by then.

Sue ended her speech early after someone came in with the news that the Fantastic Four signal was flaring bright in the sky, grateful that she wouldn't have to answer all questions as Reed usually did.

Ben left the party with some understandable reluctance, as he was surrounded by half a dozen women doing their best to add Johnny Storm to their list of accomplishments. The ladies being unaware that Ben Grimm was inside the handsome body they desired kept it from being a great day for Ben, but it still was an excellent experience for the normally rock-skinned Thing.

4 The Battle Begins...

Ben Grimm arrived first, setting up a flaming perimeter around the crooks activities with his borrowed flame powers. He kept it small enough for Reed to easily go above and over it with one of Sue's force field projections while Sue could stretch her way over it. And it was at a low enough temperature for Johnny to walk through it without any damage to his currently rocky skin.

The Telekinetic Trio were still unaware of Ben's flaming barrier as they were too involve with looting the 8th National Bank to notice it. As Ben expected, Reed, Sue, and Johnny had no trouble catching up to him and the Fantastic Four were ready to 'take out the trash' as Ben so eloquently phrased it.

Following Reed's directions, they split up into two groups on either side of the bank, and all four called out for the Trio to surrender.

Naturally, the Trio refused, and began to attack the four heroes.

The strong man of their evil group took on Ben and Johnny, dodging Ben's fireballs with relative ease, and then ripping out a monument sign for a local business and slamming it over the head of the Thing. Johnny almost let out a scream as he saw the large sign coming down on him, unable to blast it with his fire powers, but he remembered at the last second that he now possessed the super tough skin of the Thing and thrust his hands upward, shattering the sign into smaller fragments around him. Unharmed, Johnny let out an exuberant shout of glee!

"Take that, you jerk!"

'OK, so it wasn't quite what Ben would have said,' he thought, but it still got the message across to Johnny's opponent.

While Ben and Johnny were fighting one foe, Reed and Sue took out the second member of the Trio, who possessed powers similar to Sue's force fields, with ease, sneaking up on him unaware as he tried to exit a side door of the bank and knocking him out cold before he could utilize his power.

The third member of the Telekinetic Trio, and the one most important to the FF, the only one who could put them back into the bodies they wanted to reside in again, was letting his associates do the battling while he tried to sneak away with several bags filled with money. But he hadn't counted on Ben and Johnny's swift defeat of their strong man. Looking behind him for pursuit, he bumped into the rocky chest of the Thing instead, the flaming Human Torch floating right behind them.

Perfect targets for his abilities! His cruel, base instinct was to use his power and disable his enemies by shifting their minds around which he did with great pleasure, and leaving his enemies confused and shocked.

This time, Ben and Johnny were expecting such an attack and remained conscious. But, as planned before the battle began, they faked being knocked out so the Mind Master would feel secure. It worked. The villain ran away with his spoils only to run into an invisible force field wall, much like a bird flying into a glass window.

Seeing the stern faces of the married half of the fantastic four in his way, he once again instinctively resorted to the same tactic that had just taken out the other two powerful members of the super group, by switching their minds!

Reed and Sue realized they were once again back to normal! Not knowing if their teammates had already encountered the foe, they also pretended to be incapacitated to let his enemy encounter the others...

Ben and Johnny sprinted after the villain. Seeing Sue and Reed down, they ran over to their friends. Reed gave a prearranged signal to Ben and Johnny and they gave him the signal back. They realized their plan had worked, and they were all back in the bodies they belonged in!

Now all they had to do was to take the final member down without risking him switching them all around yet again.

With Sue firmly back in possession of her gloriously feminine body once more, the answer was simplicity itself. The mentally powerful villain could not swap bodies without making eye contact with his victims. In full command of her fantastic abilities once again, Sue reached out with her mind and she made all four of the Fantastic Four...

---invisible---

Maintaining total silence, the Four then simply walked up to the Mind Master in a prearranged pattern (as her three male partners could not see each other while all four were invisible), and they distracted him by tossing invisible pebbles and small stones around his location.

Meanwhile, Reed stretched out an invisible fist and slugged the criminal into a rather painful state of unconsciousness.

A 4-gone Conclusion...

Sue shut down her power and the four heroes 'materialized' around the downed body of the Mind Master.

"Well done, Sue!" Reed congratulated his wife.

"Well, you were the one who knocked him out like a prizefighter, dear."

"Yeah, nice KO there, Stretch!" Ben added, slamming a rocky fist into his other hands palm for effect.

Johnny summoned the police, who used a special mental dampener Reed had invented to secure the mentally powerful criminals for transport to jail.

After they returned home, news of the arrest hit the news media. Reports of the unusual power of the leader of the Trio leaked out and dozens of victims came forth who had been switched into other bodies during the Terrible Trio's prior robberies.

Some had reported their mind exchanges to the police weeks or even months earlier and had been dismissed as kooks, while other expected to receive such a reaction from the authorities and had reluctantly attempted to continue their lives in their new and unfamiliar bodies.

All were eventually returned to their proper bodies, with the exception of a few dozen who had mutually agreed to remain in their current bodies. The switched lives of one couple, a husband and wife, later became the subject of a trilogy of novels and an Emmy winning HBO series.

The Terrible Trio were eventually tried and convicted for their crimes, and are currently serving 25 years to life sentences in maximum security prisons.

And that, as Ben Grimm might say, is the ever-lovin' end of this story!

The Fine Print...

Marvel Comics owns the Fantastic four concepts and characters in this story.

The author, Caleb Jones, owns the copyright to the Telekinetic Trio characters and names, and the rest of the story.

This story is not to be distributed or sold without permission of the author.)