The Amazing White-Spider

A black and white spiral of insanity swirls around and around as Jake and Ekaj meet physically for the first time in a long while; suddenly they stop moving, and that's when they realize they were riding around in a tiny cart on a roller coaster of depression.

Speaker: "(Cheerful hum) Next stop, Fantastic Failure Boulevard (Cheerful hum)."

Ekaj: "Is it wrong to say I'm greatly interested in what may be behind these doors?"

Jake: "Knowing you, no, it's fairly up to par... however, how the heck do we get to them?"

The normal street quickly turns into a turning hallway of the Baxter building coated in blue, silver, and white with a symbol of the ground on two walls as well as a glass ceiling with a circle centered along a rectangle, kind of like a magnifying glass looking at something.

Beyond the doors lay many broken platforms and pieces of what could be parts of their pasts or just things that bring them peace or great regret, as why else would any of these things stay around inside a freaking mental world or soul realm?

Jake: "So... where do you want to go first?"

Ekaj: "Eh, (shrugs) I don't think this place has any sense of time, so it doesn't matter."

The first door they tried to go through was a normal white door, but as the room was spinning, they actually went through a worn-down and heavily cracked door that made it seem like a rock door.

Of course, this was the thing, aka Ben Grimm's door as what other kind of person could have a rocky door other than a rocky man?

Falling through the void into a black and white cartoon hypno spiral until they gently landed on the sandy floor that felt almost exactly as if they landed on a seabed.

The duo stands up and realizes they were the exact same except Jake had black hair, white eyes, and a white suit, while Ekaj had the exact opposite, which was a bit odd, as he was the white symbiote, but as he was made up of the darker parts of Jake, it also kind of made sense.

Walking across a road that's forming around them, while walking over the place, a night sky soon fills the sky as picture frames start falling from the skies into a black lagoon around them and then bubble out of the water encased in massive white bubbles that are just barely see-through.

In the distance a massive white bubble the size of an entire street starts bubbling up as the road rumbles, but it all only happens when they walk near, and if they walked away, it'd start sinking deep down into the black lagoon along with all the portraits.

Jake nods at Ekaj, who looks very annoyed but follows along anyway, as he's both curious and has nothing better to do with his existence.

At the end of the road, it curves out just a bit as a tiny gap is left between the road and the massive street, which wasn't that hard to reach, but once they stepped foot on the land, they were forcibly pulled towards the center.

Ben: "I'm sorry."

Martin Li's figment: "It's what you're best at. Thing Smash."

Ben: "But I could never hurt her!"

Martin Li's figment: "But you can and have; she's blind, and you're a monster. It's only natural that, given enough pressure (traces his hand over Ben's shoulder as white and black veins force it upward, into a fist, and move it up and down), it's only natural someone would get hurt eventually."

The crushed woman that the fragment of Martin Li was forcing Ben to hurt must have been someone important, possibly a girlfriend, given how torn up, terrified, and regretful he seems over this false memory.

A little bit away, Ben's old human form was sitting around on a broken car hood and watched his rocky self move with eyes devoid of any life as he muttered a chant of some kind that neither of them could hear no matter how close they got.

Ekaj: "(Tips human Ben over) Must be a living form of regret. I mean, what else could this be, as this is probably the only way Ben can see how he used to look?"

Jake: "So we just have to get rid of the fragment to get rid of this darkness?"

Ekaj: "That or make things even worse, but (chuckles) not our mind."

Ekaj gets ready to strike as Jake tries to stop his other self but is far too slow, as Ekaj had at some point grabbed a jagged rock and starts violently stabbing the fragment of Li over and over again as the thing just laughed the whole time before it turned into smoke and forced itself into Ekaj.

Ekaj: "(Licks his lips) Good grub. (Burps) Hopefully there's some more."

The land rumbles as everything fades into black sand except for Ben's human self as the light comes back to his eyes and he smiles before turning into white sand, which causes a violent reaction to the black sand that turns into a vortex that sucks the duo further down into the abyss.

Deep inside the abyss, there's nothing but darkness as far as the eye can see, along with the whole place feeling as heavy as the sea, almost like they were deep underwater and were trying to find their way out of the depressed sea.

While walking through the place, they found multiple fragments of Li all talking over one another, forming a chant of some kind that was destroying the thing as whatever remained of his humanity was getting covered by a darkened version of his rocky skin.

Ben's entire arm that was scarred in reality was purely coated in darkness with just brief fragments of light that pulsed similar to veins as Ben looks up with nothing—no life, no light, no thought—coming from his eyes as brief bits of light flicker out.

Jake: "Sick 'em, boy."

Ekaj scoffed but otherwise was greatly happy over being allowed to kill the possible hundred, maybe even a thousand, versions of Li that were seemingly formed from Ben's arm.

This did not stop Ekaj, as every time he killed them, he felt a rush of excitement, almost like he just drank a hundred cups of coffee every time he killed a single one of them.

Martin Li's fragments were probably hoping to control Ekaj or corrupt him, but as he and Jake are one, their plans are foiled thanks to Jake stabilizing his other half, as every time Ekaj kills one, Jake feels great fatigue and tiredness that seems to balance Ekaj out.

It took Ekaj what was possibly hours before Ben was purged from all the energy the real Martin Li left on his arm, and with the purge of darkness from him, Ben was freed from his dark rocky prison and left in his real rocky prison.

A single white tear dropped from his face as the ripple forcibly expelled the two from him and back into the place before.

Only this time things were much, much different than before, as the room wasn't spinning anymore but now had a singular door on the walls, ceiling, and floor. The one on the floor was boarded and chained up in place.

With nothing else to do, the two did a quick, or rather what was supposed to be a quick, game, but as they were very similar in thought, the two kept playing the exact same hands over and over, again and again, until eventually Ekaj managed to win as Jake just gave up in frustration.

Opening the door on the left, it was mostly normal except it looked to be a sliding science-looking door, which was obviously Mr. Fantastic.

Except it wasn't, as it was in fact his wife's door, as the place was a massive sunny field with only white flowers as far as the eye could see; the entire fantastic family, along with their children, were playing in the fields as Reed was resting in his wife's lap, enjoying his break.

Walking closer to the family, the duo realized that this wasn't the real fantastic group, as Ben was normal as he ate probably what his rocky form needs to have in a day, while Johnny was using a grill when even Jake knows he'd take the chance to show off and probably burn them in the process over using an actual grill!

Martin Li's Fragment: "Yes. It's nice to see that after helping you come to terms with reality, you finally see the world for how it really is."

The white fragment smiled as Jake punched him as Ekaj choked him out while everyone just kept repeating the same motions.

As the fragment got closer to dying, so did the false memory as Johnny's grill started to vanish, and the real Johnny was throwing meat up and burning it with a flamethrower as he held out a plate while Ben was his normal rocky self.

The only thing that remained was the husband and wife, except they swapped places, as Ms. Fantastic was resting on her husband's lap.

Ekaj: "Why the heck is this a bad thing? Even I think it's sweet seeing how he cares for her."

Jake: "Maybe it has to do with how she doesn't think he relies enough on her."

The two just shrug over it all, as they don't know enough about them or their family to really say if Jake was right or not.

After walking around the field for a very long time, the two wondered just what the heck was going on, as they weren't getting kicked out of this place, nor were they getting sucked deeper down into the abyss.

Ekaj: "Wait. If Ben was depression, aka darkness, and Sue is happiness, aka light, then..."

Jake and Ekaj both look up and are met with a sun that looks like Martin Li, and the two wonder just how the heck they're supposed to go against the freaking sun, as they've tried using their powers, but this place seemed to negate them.

Ekaj grabbed Johnny and turned him towards the sun, which seemed to work, as after five minutes it looked to be in pain as the place was quickly consumed in darkness, and the two were forced out, greatly confusing them even more than before.

Inside the realm in between, or whatever it was, nothing changed this time as the duo opened the other door, which looked exactly the same as Sue's.

Ekaj: "I swear if this isn't Reed's, then what the heck is his door!?"

Walking through the two felt a curtain of darkness brush past them as they walked through a tiny hallway that seemed to be getting smaller and smaller until they were finally forced to crawl through everything as they exited a vent?

The duo stands up and sees Reed in a very similar dream as Sue's, except it was inside the Baxtar building, and they were all relaxing inside their home with Ben as a human watching a cartoon as he seems to talk to someone over the phone. Johnny was also watching and trying to get Ben to crack and say something he probably wouldn't normally.

Sue and Reed were reading their own books, with Reed reading something too complex for Jake or Ekaj to even try to understand the title, let alone the actual book, while Sue was reading a book that would lead to her own dream.

Ekaj broke the TV as it had the Martin Li fragment dancing around, which meant that even if Reed tried to deny it, it seemed like he enjoyed TV, even if it was just a little bit; maybe he watches possibly an hour at most a week.

Once the TV broke, everything stayed the exact same... oddly so for someone who should also be affected by the powers of Martin Li, but seeing how Reed pressed a button on a remote and the duo was forced back to the real in-between, Reed was probably the only one fine.

Maybe because of just how smart he was, maybe it's because he had greater control over himself, or maybe Martin Li could only show someone pure happiness or pure despair, and he had no control over either, and he hit Reed with happiness, which he seemed to already have except for Ben, but since he didn't go back to his normal self, he could be working on it.

The last door was held inside a massive Martin Li's hand, and from how he looked in reality, along with Martin Li's massive fragment holding onto it with great greed and desire to not have him be free, he must have some great despair.

Frantically looking around, the two see the Fantastic car and hijack it and force it right on through the door, with great fear covering Jake's face as Ekaj was over the moon for finally being able to destroy a building again!

Dropping through the closet, the two see an infinite realm of Johnny's childhood room as he looked at a picture of him and some other blood teen wearing a blue jacket, looking as happy as they could ever be, while in the distance Sue rolled her eyes and seemed to find the two annoying.

In a couple of the rooms Sue was there, seeming to try and cheer her brother up in many different ways, but Johnny wasn't moving a muscle as he just wanted to stay there in the deep dark room with his friend.

Ekaj: "You think he killed him with his powers?"

Jake: "(Slaps Ekaj upside the head) There's no way that's the case! If it was, we'd be in modern times, and he'd be way less of a showboat!"

Ekaj rolled his eyes and started walking through the different realms, as did Jake, noting it felt like going through a plastic curtain along with the sense of going through a deep puddle of water each and every time they walked through the rooms into another.

After what could only be a hundred weeks or so of moving between the different rooms, Jake and Ekaj finally meet back up again, and from the travels, Ekaj was destroying some things while Jake was trying to help the many different versions of Johnny.

Nothing they did really mattered, as they didn't find any traces of Li anywhere in these infinite rooms.

Ekaj: "Screw all this. He has to be here somewhere."

Ekaj walked over to possibly prime Johnny and started smacking his face over and over again, which did nothing other than rile Johnny up a bit, and as Ekaj didn't stop, Johnny seemed to get angry as the room got hotter until finally.

Johnny: "(Slightly demonic) STOP!"

Grabbing Ekaj's hand, Johnny started burning his wrist, but Ekaj wasn't going to back down nor stop any time soon and got ready to smack him again but was stopped by Johnny finally standing up as the whole infinite realm started burning around them till there was only one.

Johnny, covered in half his flames, took a deep breath and calmed down as he stormed out of the room, causing it to crumble around him as somewhere Martin Li's fragment screamed from the abyss as everyone woke up, with Jake opening his eyes and being welcomed to a puddle of drool.

One by one in a completely random order everyone began waking up, and Jake just had to wonder, where the heck was their son/nephew Franklin in every one of their dreams and nightmares?

Maybe because Martin had no knowledge of them, or maybe because he didn't scar the small boy; either way could work, as Jake has no clue how his powers work and doesn't really care, as he just wants to bring him down in the name of the law.

Ekaj: "Along with sipping him dry, as he has an amazing taste!"

Jake just rolls his eyes as he gets up and fills a small backpack, with their permission of course, with snacks and quick, easy foods to eat while on his journey to finding out more about Martin Li's powers and maybe stopping him if he feels confident enough.

Before leaving, Jake makes a mental note of the fire in Johnny's eyes and wonders just what he might do to Martin Li if his powers no longer affect Johnny.

The odds of him telling a total stranger are very low, but since he's been inside his mind, he might make an exception for Jake and tell him all about who the person in the picture frame might have been, along with why it made him so depressed.

And that is all for now hope you all enjoyed and until next time stay safe and peace!