บท 56: A Help Request 2

Jack went to his house in Malibu and went to his security warehouse. He ordered the release of all his clones and wanted to create clones to wear the Iron Man armor, but he didn't have time for that.

There would be hundreds of millions of insects, and no matter how good the armors were, there was no way to eliminate all the insects. So he had to do some things first. Jack had only a few minutes at most before Johnny could die.

Jack had warned Bruce that he had to stay out for a while. He decided to create one more power with his FP. Jack had already thought about it before, but he didn't want to spend his FP on it because it wouldn't increase his power in any way.

"System, I want to create large space storage with the limitation that I have to use my magic to put things in and out of my space storage. It has to be big enough to fit 20 Iron Man armors," said Jack.

"It will cost 1 million FP because of the restriction on using your magic," replied the system.

"Well, you can create that power," said Jack excitedly.

Jack didn't think this very useful ability would cost so little. If he had known it would cost only 1 million FP, he would have created this ability before, but he didn't have much use for it before.

Jack placed the 12 Iron Man armors in the space storage and put hundreds of kilograms of food and water in it for safety, thinking about the future. He also put some expensive and modern camping tents and some cooking utensils.

After doing this, Jack went to the portal he had prepared near the Baxter Building. Jack had taken a few minutes to put everything in his space storage since he had already prepared everything in his house's warehouse.

Jack flew using the superhero suit he had made and soon found several insects fighting with Human Torch and Ben Grimm, who was a normal human now. Jack saw Valeria and Franklin again, and Franklin was using his powers to fight the bugs.

"Johnny, I've come to help. I told you it was dangerous to keep going into the Negative Zone, now Earth is in danger," said Jack.

"I know you warned us, but it's too late for lectures now. Help us kill these bugs so they don't hurt the children," said Johnny, relieved that Jack had arrived.

Jack used the Shield of Seraphim spell to protect the children and used the Bolts of Bolthakk spell to kill the bugs, who were members of the Cult of the Negative Zone. Then Jack looked around and saw no more insects.

"Magic is really useful. It seems like you've gotten stronger in these last few years, Battle Sage. Now we can rest for a bit," said Johnny.

"Not yet, Uncle Johnny. We have to find a way to close the portal to the Negative Zone. The bugs destroyed the controls, and we have to go through the portal to find a way to close it," said Valeria.

"Oh, darn! I feel like this isn't going to end well. That's why I don't like a lot of the things Reed invents. He's never around when the problem happens," said Jack, irritated.

"Kids, it's better if you leave. We'll figure out how to close this portal when we get to the Negative Zone," said Ben.

"No, Uncle Ben. We have to go through it too and try to find a way to close the portal. If this Annihilation Wave hits Earth, we'll all die," said Valeria.

Ben and Johnny knew that the children were much smarter than many adults. They had to find a way to raise the shields and close the portal to the Negative Zone, or else everyone would die.

"Darn! Reed will kill us if he finds out we took the kids to the Negative Zone," said Ben, agreeing.

Soon, they passed through the portal, and Jack entered the Negative Zone for the first time. He knew how dangerous this place was and did not agree with the Fantastic Four's idea of exploring other universes.

Jack didn't know why whoever brought him to this universe didn't close the Negative Zone as they did with other Marvel universes, the Dark Dimension, and other places with powerful beings.

Jack approached the children and started listening to what they were discussing to see if he could come up with a good idea to remotely raise the shields and close the Negative Zone portal, but he soon realized that despite studying a lot and becoming very intelligent, he wasn't as good as these kids.

Jack regretted not asking Reed to teach him some things. Of course, he didn't know if Reed would teach him, but if he did, Jack might have known a way to close the portal remotely.

The children soon realized that there was less than a 5% chance of successfully closing the portal remotely, and Bentley said there was less than a minute left before the Annihilation Wave hit. Valeria finally said that someone had to stay behind and close the portal manually.

Jack started trying to think of a way to do something with magic to stop this, but even the Mirror Dimension couldn't buy them much time. Ben said he would stay, and Johnny told the children to go back to Reed's lab on Earth.

Jack stayed behind Johnny, and Johnny pushed Ben through the portal to the lab on the other side. He looked at Jack, and Jack nodded at him, so Johnny activated a barrier, and Ben couldn't return to the Negative Zone.

"Uncle Johnny, I'll tell you the code to raise the barrier and manually close the portal. The code is 4-3-2-1. This will engage the Fail-Safe lockdown, and it will also randomize the access code," Valeria said.

"So no one, not even you, can open this portal from this side again. But Daddy must have a backdoor to open it. He'll be here soon," Valeria said sadly.

Johnny looked at Ben and the children and began saying goodbye. Jack wasn't watching this and was looking at what looked like a dark sea of bugs. There must have been hundreds of millions of bugs.

Jack knew that if this Annihilation Wave invaded Earth, as there weren't many heroes, Earth would end before the Battle of New York, unlike the comics. The portal closed before the bugs arrived.

"You didn't have to stay behind, Jack. You could have left with them. Only one person had to stay here," Johnny said, looking at the bugs, prepared for death.