Disclaimer: This is FanFiction! I own no rights to anything of Marvel or Fox.

This is self-beta'd

New 2/11/2018: Edited on Grammarly

A/N: Okay it's been more than a year since I last updated. I just want to say I'm sorry, but real life happened. It was a hard year and some life-changing events happened. I now have two nephews instead of one! Enough of that though. As you read the rest of this chapter you'll realize that I'm gone completely off the canon wagon for this fic. What I'm trying to do is hopefully tie it in with the MCU, but everything will be a mix of MCU Canon, Comic, and whatever AU plot I got in my head. And no, I'm not going to have the plot for the first or second movie in this fic. Those plots were a little flat, but most scenes will be incorporated in this story. I'm going to try my best to give it my all for this story, and I'll try to be consistent with my updates. Please don't expect miracles though on how often I will update.

If you get multiple update emails about this story sorry, I went back and edited the rest of my chapters with Grammarly and hopefully I got all of the errors I missed.

I wanted to thank everyone who followed, favorited, and reviewed my story! It makes me happy I got over 54 favorites, 15 reviews, and 66 followers! :)

Italics - thoughts

Chapter 10

5:30 a.m. Beep-beep, Beep-beep

Nicole groaned as she blindly reached for the small CASIO watch on her nightstand. Six years already and her BMT watch was still ticking. Finding her prize, she pushed a button and silenced the alarm before dropping it back on the stand.

So tired! She internally whined. Rubbing her eyes, Nicole shuffled herself out of bed and got dressed in a thin long-sleeved shirt and yoga pants. Stepping into her master bathroom, Nicole washed her faced before getting ready for the day. With a big yawn, she made her way to her art desk and grabbed the container of glitter. The herpes of the art world. Nicole grinned somewhat lazily as she stared at her revenge.

Sneaking out of her room Nicole made her way to Johnny's door passing by Ben who was on the couch sleeping. It was the only thing that could fit him until they could arrange a heavy-duty bed for him.

Standing outside his door, she tested it to see if it was locked. It wasn't. She inwardly scoffed at how cocky he was. Slowly, she opened the door and peered inside. There, Johnny lay on his side cuddling a pillow to him. She stared at him amusedly. Ka-Ching! Instant blackmail. Holding up her phone, she gleefully took a picture of him. So glad I learn how to Photoshop. Hehe, later~

She needed to find his keys. Eyeing the room, Nicole spotted them on the desk beside the bed. Concentrating, she reached out with her powers and encased the keys in a shadow ball to snatch them from the desk without a sound.

Triumphantly, she smirked at him before closing the door softly after her. Step 1 completed.

Keys in hand, Nicole forgot about what she was going to do next.

Ah ha!

Blinking, Nicole stared at the misty shadow that appeared in an image of a light bulb above her head. Not only did her powers manifested into an image corresponding to her ditzy thoughts, but it had also even made an animation of flashing blue specks popping out from it.

Well, that's new.

Deciding it was better not to contemplate the merits of being a real-life shoujo heroine, she waves a hand through the apparition to make it disappear. Her prank was a top priority, not to mention it was going to be hilarious. Though not as funny as what she originally had in mind. Walking to the elevator, Nicole wondered what else she could do with her abilities. She pondered for a moment before another idea came to mind while she absentmindedly dismisses the lightbulb again.

If she could manage this, it would make traveling so much easier. She could totally be a Heartless! Or rather she could be like a Nobody traveling through darkness.

Almost whistling, Nicole made it back to the top floor as she celebrated her mission success. Now all she had to do was wait. Just because she was now in a tentative relationship with Johnny, didn't mean she couldn't have a little fun with him as payback.

Walking past Ben, the Lao woman made her way to her room before she stopped suddenly. With an evil cackle, she walked back to Ben to plant some evidence.

One trip back to the elevator to spread more chaos, Nicole left both the set of keys on a nearby table and sprinkled some glitter on Ben's pants and was pretty generous with leaving glitter on the colossal hand and left the tub half hidden behind the couch.

Satisfied with her work, Nicole left the room. Unlocking her door, she made her way into her room only to notice her computer making a noise. Curious, she looked at the small computer she mainly used for video chat and recording. Nicole squealed when she noticed an incoming call from her good friend Scott. Yay, a friend was calling her!

"Yo Scotty! A.K.A. Monsieur Mystique, how are you? What sort of secret squirrel stuff are you doing right now that I can perhaps tease away from you?" She heard a deep chuckle as 'Scotty' laugh at her shitty attempt at Intel gathering.

"How are you, Nicole? I see that you are well or as expected from your recent adventure through space." Her friend completely ignored her jab at his 'identity' letting him know for the umpteenth time that she knew Scott wasn't his name. A man of dark skin tone in a very nice green long-sleeve shirt appeared looking around the same age as Nicole filled her computer screen. The background around him was clean and had a modern but foreign look to it. No other details were shown. It seems that he called her from his workplace.

She pouted at him. "Rude." She huffed at him. "I'm good, I'm good. Look! My eyes mutated!" She excitedly pulled down her eyelid to move closer to the camera. "I don't know if I'll change anymore, and I got these awesome shadow powers. Johnny and I have been bouncing names off of each other." Here she rolled her eyes.

"He's dead set on being the Human Torch for some reason. Me? I'm not sure. We were making fun of the names we got for everyone else. I'm been playing around with the name Umbrae. (Pronounce Um-bree) You know sort of like umbra for dark? Not too dork-ish? It's a lot better than Johnny's suggestion. Pfftt, Lady of Night. I am not a prostitute." Nicole heard another laugh as Scott's voice filtered from her speakers.

"That sounds like a splendid name, but it all depends on you. Were there any complications on you and your companion's health since you arrived back on Earth? I can send someone to check on your status." Scott's dark skin tightened in worry as he asked her. Nicole blinked at him and noticed that he was growing a beard.

"Nah, we're good." She waved him off. "Susan's a geneticist, and we got Reed here as well. I feel like I forget something though." She folded her arms and looked up at the ceiling. Her friend's lip curled up in a smile as he watched her.

It was a blessing for him to reach her. Normally they would only be able to message each other since their last meeting face to face. They had met each other while at an exchange program during college. They met and became acquainted with one another during the student orientation, and eventually became good friends. He respected her quirky personality, and she had mostly like to tease his need to have a secret identity, but at the same time respected his choice of withholding his information.

The only clue she had was that he came from a long and distinguished history, and was training to take over his father in the business. That's all. As much as she wanted, she refrained from doing any digging into his past.

Bing! "Ah! I remember!" A single black brow rose up from its natural position as the owner of said brow watched a mockery of a lightbulb swirl into view.

Nicole almost started to twitch as she saw the quirk of a smile on her friend's face. She stayed silent as she once again was treated to her powers acting up without her say so. "Stop that!" She scolded the lightbulb before flapping her hands through the image to make it go away.

"Anyway, do you think you help me with uhhh a prank?" She asked, completely ignoring his amusement at her expense.

"Oh? You need my expertise? Usually, you do not like asking for my help." His accented English distinctively displayed an excellent use of sarcasm, which was so not appreciated by the Asian and subsequently ignored.

She pouted at him. "Pleaseeeeee, oh great and awesome Scotty~ Lend me your strength and expertise! I need thy help and whatever minions you have at thy disposal!" Nicole clapped her hands together in front of her chin in a Nop position and bowed her upper body to her friend before righting herself up. She gave him the most heartbreaking pouty lip for good measure.

"…Okay." She was able to hear the slightly defeated tone in his voice. He never could resist her pout. It just goes amazing with her red cheeks. ….Oh God, she better not let Johnny know she ever had this thought.

"Yay!" She lifted her hands up in the air in victory. "So the thing I need from you is a way to transfer a virus to all things Von Douche-Bag."

Scott's eyebrows raised up at the name. Usually, only people on her good side and the extreme opposite side gets nicknames. From the name she gave the foreign leader, this is obviously one of the extremely bad ones. "…Should I ask what it was that led to Doom acquiring you as an enemy?" His tone of voice changed as he got to business.

"Let's just say he's got too many fingers in too many pies. I mean, sure I love my powers, but that doesn't mean I appreciate that stupid dictator calling the shots. With the whole space station fiasco, I'm sure he's going to make Reed and Ben's life a lot more difficult." Nicole leaned back into her seat as she thought. "He already convinced NASA not to work with us on the whole fixing Ben's orange problem. Not to mention all the emails I've been sending out to other experts for their opinions has been denied and I was told not to ever contact them again on the issue." Nicole scowled at that.

"It's only a matter of time before he starts something we can't finish. He's been a lot twitchier lately, and it's giving me the heebie-jeebies whenever he's in the Baxter Building. Luckily, all the work stuff I do is on Reed's computer. Everything else is on this one or my other laptop. By the way, I'm really glad you gave me this laptop." She shivered as she thought of something unpleasant.

"Between the looks, he gives at the 'thing' Reed and Susan have and the creepy ones he's been giving me; I rather have him busy with his company and far, far away from me. The best I can think of is to mess with his company systems. And guess who has access to his systems?"

The dark frown Scott developed lighten only slightly as he asked who. "Susan does~ and guess who knows her password? Hehehe I do. That idiot was even stupid enough to give Susan complete access to his systems." Nicole gave an evil cackle as she rubbed her hands together. Scott shot her another amused look as he too gives in to the urge to laugh. "I made a dummy account on his systems for us to play with so it can't be traced back to Susan. I even made it seem like it was him that made the account. Here look, I took a peek at his emails; there's a lot of shady stuff he has. Oooh, I think I even recognize a couple of black arms dealers on here."

"What?" Scott's flat voice called out to her over the click-clacking of the keyboard.

"Hm? Oh, I manage to get into his personal computer. You know, I'm really glad I had that TS clearance for my job and all that free time to look up stupid people on the government shit-list. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have even recognized some of these names without it…. Wow~, look at this name, U-Ulysses Klee-kla-Klaue?" She blew a raspberry in the air frustrated when the words didn't come out right. "Ulysses Klaue," Nicole spoke the words slowly as she got her muscles to work properly with her brain.

"Ugh moving on, well would you look at that." She sent a screen-shot to him. "Looks like Doom's going out of the country in two weeks. Apparently, he's meeting this guy to get supplies from him. Some metals, other stuff I don't care about, and Vibranium….. Whaaaa?! Like the stuff Captain America's shield is made out of?" While she gave the page another in-depth view, she missed the expression on her friend's face.

What Nicole didn't notice as she rechecked the screen was 'Scott's' facial expression. A look of shock, horror, and indignation appeared on his face before changing into a look of mild curiosity when Nicole glanced back at his video before looking away again.

Sounds of a mouse clicking and keys clacking were heard before she spoke up again, "Looks like a correspondence was dated to a couple of days before we launched into space." She whistled lowly, "That's a lot of money. What the hell is Doom going to do with all that Vibranium?"

"Nicole." Scott's stern voice knocked the Asian from her thinking. Looking up, Nicole saw the determined look on his face as he set down his phone.

"Thank you for the information. I'll be sure to get everything started with your little 'prank' on Doom." Nicole completely missed the emphasis Scott put on the word prank or the disdain at Doom's name. "But I'm afraid some business has come up with my father's company, and everything will need to be on hold. We'll be in contact again once we dealt with the saboteurs we have recently been made aware of."

Some angry voices appeared off-screen, and Scott turned to look at the people talking to him. Nicole didn't recognize the language, but she can understand that they were pretty angry about something.

"Well, I hope you catch whoever-"

CRASH!

"You piece of shit rock! What the hell did Baby do to you?!"

"JOHNNY!" It almost felt like the whole building was going to shake from the fury she could practically feel from her room.

Nicole's slightly guilty and elated face was plain to see as Scott, and his associates peered into the screen at her. She felt her face redden at the curious faces momentary losing their angry looks to gaze at her.

"Is there something I should know about?" An elegant eyebrow rose in sync with the question directed at her. Nicole was slightly envious of his ability to raise said single eyebrow.

She shrugged and lost some of the redness in her cheeks. "Just some payback and a little deflection of blame." She stage-whispered the next part in a mischievous voice, "Some people need a little bit of sunshine in their life, and I think glitter is a pretty good substitute for it."

CRACK!

She turned her chair slowly in the direction of her door. "Hmm, do I really care to see what they broke?"

"I am sure that Mr. Richards will need your help before something else is beyond repair." Nicole slumped her shoulders at him.

"Ugh, fine. Bye bye, Scott's dad whose name I still don't know and other people I don't know. Do you need the account stuff before I leave?"

"It would be appreciated." Some fast typing went by before the information was sent out.

"'Kay, bye. Happy hunting!" Nicole smiled and waved at the camera before moving her mouse to the end call button.

It was only a second, but Nicole thought she saw some fiercely-savage grins appeared on all faces before the video cut off. "Hmm, note to self. Don't be that guy."

Standing up, she closed her laptop before making her way to the door. Nicole wonders if she should do anything else to help escalate the chaos she sowed.

"What are you idiots think you're doing?!" a shriek was heard and a dead silence echoed through the building.

"On second thought maybe not." Bravely, Nicole walked out of her room to face the creature known as an Angry Susan.

Omake

Some shuffling sounded off-screen as a camera was turned on, recording a short young woman crouching down to look around a corner as she held the camera. "Sabaidee. 'Ello people, Nicole here and its day something-or-other since arrival back on Earth." Shouting and bangs sounded from around the corner, and the camera shifted to viewing four figures in a large open living room.

"For today's episode, we have a special treat here. We're going to be observing the great Susie Invisibilitis as she herds her pack the Fantasicles (Fan-tas-i-kles, sounds like Socrates.) Observe as how she dominates Sapien Torchis, Ghenis Thingy, and the Stretch Fantasicles himself. It should be rather interesting. Let's watch.

The camera turns back to the Fantasicles as the creature known as the 'Susie Invisibilitis' proceeded to scold the males. "As you can see the Susie Invisibilitis is normally a calm animal. She makes her home here in the Baxter building and is currently the only known specimen of the Fantasicles here that has the power of invisibility as shown in her name. Unfortunately, in order for us to see her amazing ability, we have to provoke her."

The video moved again to show Nicole winking at it. "We won't be doing the provoking though. We're fortunate enough to have the other Fantasicles do that for us. Look!" The whispered exclamation was followed by the camera moving back into position.

"Look, look over there at the Sapien Torchis. We have the not so rare ability of the Sapien Torchis and his great ability to burn his fur! He sheds his fur frequently, but has the amazing ability to regrow new ones by a special ritual dance in the Walmaritus and miraculously he has grown a new coat of fur." The viewers saw the video zoom into a closer view of the Torchis absentmindedly burning new holes in the clothes he had just bought.

"Oh? Look the Ghenis Thingy is communicating with the Stretch Fantasicles. It seems like they're about to make a run for it. What they don't know is that another special ability of the Susie Invisibilitis is that she can actually seal the room from escape using her barrier power!" Nicole whispered excited to the camera, "But let's talk more about the relationship those two older males have for each other. Now, these two go way back into their college cycle days as young bucks. First Ghenis Thingy. What you have to know about the Ghenis Thingy is that he's territorial with a few protective tendencies in the mix. He guards the herd as he feels he must guide and nurture his best bud Stretch Fantasicles." The camera shifted as Nicole slipped into the room to another hidden corner of the room. The yelling has yet to stop as the Sapien Torchis tried to posture himself against the might of the Susie Invisibilitis. The other two wiser Fantasicles members on the other hand hunch back as to not bring attention to themselves.

"Stretch Fantasicles, on the other hand, is a bit scatter-brained. Usually, he's a very smart man, but he has his moments where he becomes distracted. Especially during mating season. We might be seeing more of that later in another video about the mating dance of the Fantasicles. As the only other alpha male of the group, Stretch Fantasicles has the ability to stretch himself to great lengths and flexibilities. He uses this ability in surprisingly ingenious ways. For privacy reasons, I won't go into detail on the hygiene routines that Stretch Fantasicles has established for himself. While his powers are all well and good, it doesn't necessarily save him when he needs it. That's where Ghenis Thingy comes in with his beta instincts to protect his alpha with his incredible rocky strength."

The angle of the camera zoomed in on Reed and Ben's Face as they seemed to talk without words, but went stiff as a statue when Susan turned her sights on them. "Unfortunately for them, they won't stand a chance against the true power of the Fantasicles." The camera zoomed out to view the room's occupants again.

Johnny sat on the couch with a scowl and arms folded. He leaned back in his seat as he muttered lowly to himself. Susan was now about to converge onto Reed and Ben until suddenly she caught sight of the camera with a frown.

"Oh crikey! She spotted us!"

"Nicole, what are you doing?" The famous Susan frown became more pronounced as she walked over to Nicole.

"The Susie Invisibilitis just became more agitated! We got to run!"

"Wha- Wait! Nicole, you get back here this instant and tell me what you have on that camera!"

The Asian scattered as she ran away from the blond. "Oh, she's angry! Run! The alpha female has an amazing ability to scold you into oblivion. Stay tuned next time to the Fantasticles Article! Bye!"

The air shimmered in front of the camera before Nicole ran into a barrier and came crashing down with the camera. "Oi! That hurt." Nicole's exaggerated Lao version of Steve Irwin's accent slipped back into her normal West Coast accent. Picking up the camera, she aimed it back at herself before regaining the horrible Lao/Australian impersonation she was doing. "She did it! Did you see that? Susie Invisibilitis just used her powers on us to prevent me from escaping."

"Pftt, Nicole what are you doing?" Johnny got over his moping session as he tried to fight down the urge to laugh hysterically at the Asian.

"Nothin'." Nicole turned the camera back to herself but allowed the viewers to catch another glimpse of Susan pausing in her march over to Nicole to process this new, headache-inducing, unexpected twist of the day.

"Don't worry! What the Susie Invisibilitis and other Fantasicles don't know is that the final member Umbraeness Nobitius (Um-bree-ness No-bi-ti-us) has, you guess it… shadow powers! And I can counteract this great barrier!" Nicole was suddenly enveloped in darkness as her eyes glowed her luminescent blue.

In a flash, Nicole sank down into her shadow before the swirly black and blue blot on the floor dash across the remaining distance and zoomed right under the barrier coming out of the other side. Rising back up from the floor Nicole popped back up with the camera completely missing the last 10 seconds. "Ha! It worked!"

"?!" Everyone was speechless.

"Bye-bye! Lā k̀on!" The camera stopped recording as it was turned off.

Fin~