"Flame on!" shouted Johnny Storm as he transformed his normal body into the Human Torch. All members of the Fantastic Four turned their heads to Johnny as he coalesced the flames from the bonfire to his fiery form and extinguished it himself. The mob was surprised that they could be freed so easily but they should have known that their bonfire would be little use against a fiery being like the Human Torch.

Lila Storm used her low-level TK powers to release the other members of the FF, including Johnny, from the ropes that the mob used to bind them to the stakes. "That should do it," she said. "Now, if we only knew where the real Sue was."

"Ben, you and I will disperse this mob," Reed Richards instructed his teammate and friend, as he used his stretching powers to move into the fray.

Ben nodded, flexing his muscles within his mechanical Thing suit.

"Don't hurt them, Ben. I believe I know what is at the root of all this evil," Reed said to his long time friend.

"Aw, Reed," the Thing said, "these people couldn't hurt me even if they tried while I'm in this doohickey of yours. Need I say it? It's clobbering time!!" Ben looked back at Reed's frown. "Well, sort of. You know what I mean."

First up was Reed Richards, Mr. Fantastic, who used his flexibility to wrap some of the mob members together and fling them to the other side of the grassy plain. He did it gently and forcefully at the same exact time so as not to injure them overly so. He smiled, when he saw that most of the mob members were so frightened that the FF would fight back that they ran away to a safe haven.

"Quickly, Ben, my friend," Reed continued to say. "They seem to disperse and run for shelter when they are formidably attacked."

"I hear ya, Reed," Ben said, swinging his fists in the air, just missing the mob's heads. "Yer the strategist, not me!"

Then, Ben proceeded to use all of the indomitable strength housed within the suit to draw the mob members back. When they saw that they were justly threatened by the power of two of the FF, they backed off and soon departed.

"That seems to be the end of them, for now," Ben said. "Good riddance to bad rubbish."

"You are right, Ben my friend," Reed continued, drawing the rest of his team together. "They are gone for now. But they will be back when they gather more of their forces and contact their master. Or should I say, masters? And I fear Malice may be one of them."

Ben burst in. "Are ya sayin' that Suzie is controlling this mob? Tell me it ain't so. Ya gotta be kiddin' me!"

"Ben, I said Malice is one of the villains behind this. Not Sue."

"Run that by me again," Johnny said. "I thought Sue was Malice."

"I'm sorry but you all have me thoroughly confused," Lila said, looking for a straight answer.

"I'll handle this one," Ben said. "Ya see this big bad guy called the Hate Monger and his cohort in crime, the Psycho-Man, twisted Sue for their evil ways and turned her into Malice, Mistress of Hate."*

(* Back in Marvel's FF Vol. 1 #282 -- Russ)

Lila nodded and frowned.

"Reed, are ya tellin' me that those two clowns are back for good and they created a new Malice ta attack us?" Ben asked.

"That's exactly what I'm saying," Reed responded.

Then, the FF returned home to begin their search for Sue and the Hate Monger and Psycho-man's plans.

"Greetings, earthlings. You have an audience with Kl'rt."

The Thing was wide-eyed underneath the suit when he and the rest of the FF returned to the plaza they called home and saw a visitor in their dwelling place. "Well, well, well... if it ain't the Super-Skrull. The supreme warrior in the Skrull empire. Or at least, was the supreme warrior in that empire."

"You would do well not to mock me, Ben Grimm. But I sense that you are not truly the Thing anymore, so yours should be an easy defeat. The rest should be just as easy, given your new member and the absence of Susan Storm. Now, I can use all of the might of the Fantastic Four to defeat you and bring you to my masters."

"Them's fighting words, bunky!" Ben shouted as he charged into battle, thrusting his fists at the Super-Skrull.

"Ben, wait -- Maybe he could take us to the Hate Monger and the others and tell us where Sue is!" Reed warned, stretching his arms around Ben to catch him before the attack was properly made.

"Reed, are ya crazy?! What do ya think yer doin'? That's the Super-Skrull, for dang-blasted sakes!" Ben Grimm tried to utilize all of his superhuman strength to pull Mr. Fantastic's fingers from his rocky hide.

The Super-Skrull laughed as the FF quarreled amongst themselves. His plan, or should he say his masters' plan, was working perfectly.

"I'll handle the Super-Skrull," Johnny Storm said as he took to flight to attack the villain. He was encased in flames and hurled flame blast after flame blast as Kl'rt used his own fiery powers to combat him.

Kl'rt saw that similar powers would not work on the Human Torch, so he utilized Susan Storm's invisible force fields to cause Johnny's flames to be extinguished. He plummeted to the ground unconscious, again in his human form.

"Who's next on the agenda?" Kl'rt asked of the remaining members of the FF.

"I guess that would be me," Lila offered, walking in the lab to confront the Super-Skrull, who merely laughed this off.

"Lila, no!!" Reed warned.

"Let the kid go," Ben said. "Maybe she could succeed where we failed."

"At least I can try, Mr. Grimm," she said, as she fired her optic blasts at the Super-Skrull. He staggered back from the onslaught. He edged slowly towards the other wall. "You don't know it yet, Super-Skrull, but you're doomed because you have the powers and weaknesses of the Fantastic Four, but you can't beat me!"

"Stop it," Reed yelled at the top of his lungs as he gestured his hands in the air to stop Lila from attacking Super-Skrull. "We must hear him out. He came here for a reason. He could have easily destroyed my lab and FF Plaza but he didn't. I think he wanted to speak to us about something very important, which I think is about that hateful mob outside and the disappearance of Sue."

"You are correct, Reed Richards," Kl'rt said matter-of-factly. "If you want to see that Willie Lumpkin simpleton again, you shall meet them in the warehouse district." He pointed at the Thing. "You, Thing, shall go there alone."

"Are ya crazy?! Why should I trust a crumb like you. The place is probably booby-trapped." Ben shouted, getting ready for another attack.

"That is all. Fare you well." It was at that moment that the Super-Skrull departed.

For the next several hours, the Thing combed the city, searching for the exact warehouse that the Hate Monger and his crew had Wilhelmina Lumpkin. Basically, his technique of finding out was by forcefully entering every warehouse and asking for her whereabouts. No one knew. He was stuck as to where she really was.

On with the search, he thought.

He had one warehouse left. This had to be the one, he thought as he burst through the front doors. In the center of the room sat Miss Lumpkin on a wooden chair tied by rope. She was clad in her postal uniform. She looked to be waiting for his arrival, which, according to the Super-Skrull, she was.

He approached her and said, "Are you all right, Willie? Don't ya worry none, I'm here. I'm gonna protect ya."

"Oh, I'm fine, Ben. Just a little woozy and groggy."

"What have they been feeding ya here, drugs and truth serum? I'm bettin' it's not four square meals a day."

"Ben, please, I'm, fine. Let's just get out of here."

"I'm right ahead of ya." Using his strength, Ben Grimm broke Willie out of her shackles and he began to carry her out in the direction from whence they came. The front entrance was blocked by three new figures.

"You didn't think that we would let you both escape so easily," The Psycho-man said, as he adjusted his hate box. "Even though we practically told you where we were."

"Well, here I am, ya yahoos," the Thing said, announcing his appearance.

The Psycho-man adjusted his box to hate and fear and anger combined. He hoped that all of these conflicting emotions would cause great pain to the Thing. Ben Grimm placed Willie down as he fell to his knees. He was shaking like a leaf.