Disclaimer: Fantastic Four is the property of Twentieth Century Fox and Marvel. This is only for entertainment purposes. I am not making any profit by writing this.
Wrath of Doom
Chapter 1-Vengeance
At an undisclosed location in the nation of Latveria, Victor von Doom was working on one of his latest projects—the construction of robot sentinels he called Doombots. He looked at a large portrait of his father, Ziegfried von Doom, hanging up on the wall. Victor's father was the former ruler of Latveria until he met his untimely death as the result of an assassination by an angry constituent. The Latverian government could best be described as a dictatorship, and Ziegfried was a dictator who ruled with an iron fist.
After his father's death, Victor tried his best to clear the von Doom name. Initially, all that most people saw Victor as was Ziegfried von Doom's son. Growing up, Victor had a love-hate relationship with his father. Whenever Victor misbehaved, his father would beat him until Victor begged for forgiveness. Even though he was an entirely different person than his father, a sizeable portion of the Latverian population thought that Victor was no different from Ziegfried. Perhaps it was the whole guilty by association concept.
Victor was but a young man in his early twenties when his father was assassinated. Victor picked up where his father left off and took over as dictator of Latveria. He vowed to the people that his reign would be different than his father's was. Victor went overseas and appointed a prime minister to rule in his absence. The prime minister is a young woman in her late twenties named Lucia von Bardas. She has long jet black hair, stands about five foot seven inches in height, and is quite fit.
Victor went to the Manhattan area of New York City, New York where he quickly achieved great success as the CEO of his own enterprise, Von Doom Industries. It wasn't actually Victor's first time to the United States of America. As a teenager, Victor ran away from home and his father to seek refuge in the U.S.A. He attended MIT along with Reed Richards. After graduating, he returned home to Latveria upon receiving word of his father's assassination.
Latveria is a small nation that borders Hungary, Serbia, and Romania. It has a population of no more than a half a million people. Most importantly though, it is a developing country. The Latverian people were ravaged by hunger. Living conditions were poor. There was no sewage. The water supply wasn't clean. People lived in poorly constructed, rundown shacks. Nobody had access to any medical care as there wasn't even a hospital in Latveria. However, all that changed when Victor von Doom set aside a relatively enormous proportion of his company profit to help out the people of his home country. That is when the Latverians' perspective of Victor von Doom changed. He was no longer seen as Ziegfried's son, but a great humanitarian. To show their appreciation, they constructed a mask made of a metallic alloy and sent it to him.
Back to the present though. Victor von Doom had but one thing on his mind, revenge. For the second time in a row, Victor faced his nemeses, The Fantastic Four, and came up on the short end of the stick. Victor hated Reed, Sue, Ben, and Johnny with a passion. At the top of his hit list though was Johnny. After all, Johnny had somehow managed to absorb the powers of Reed, Sue, and Ben which resulted in Johnny defeating Dr. Doom. So in spite of the fact that Johnny had the powers of Reed, Sue, and Ben, it was Johnny, not Reed, not Sue, and not Ben that was ultimately responsible for Victor's recent defeat. The mere thought of that made Victor irate. He did not take kindly to having been shown up by some punk kid.
Victor took a step backwards to marvel at his work. Standing before him in several lines was about one hundred Doombots. Victor had an evil grin on his face. Sure the Fantastic Four were able to defeat Doom the past two times they faced off, but that was only because they outnumbered him. This time things would be different. This time it would be the Fantastic Four not Victor who would be outnumbered.
"You are not the only brilliant mind of the twenty-first century Reed Richards!" Victor said emphasizing Reed's name with a tone of disgust.
Had it not been for Johnny practically single-handedly defeating Doom in Shanghai, Reed would be at the top of Doom's hit list. Reed had cost Victor so much. His space station fiasco resulted in Von Doom Industries briefly being taken over by Ned Siegel. Not to mention the amount of profit that the company lost as a result. Fortunately for Victor though, he was able to take Ned Siegel out of the equation—permanently. Thus, Victor was once again CEO of his own enterprise. His company was eventually able to get back on solid ground, but his financial contributions to Latveria were few and far between. Also, they were nowhere near the size they once were.
Then there was Sue. Before Victor, Reed, Sue, Ben, and Johnny first got their powers, Victor was going to propose to Sue up in the space station. Just as Victor was about to utter the four words that could have potentially changed his and Sue's life forever, Reed had to barge in. Now Reed and Sue are married. Now Sue is Sue Richards instead of Sue von Doom. Reed ended up getting the girl. Reed ended up with Sue.
Doom strode outside with his legion of Doombots following closely behind. He boarded a small helicopter. He soon took off into the sky towards his destination—the Baxter Building. The Doombots themselves were capable of flight due to them having jet packs in their boots.
A short time later, at the Baxter Building, Captain Frankie Raye got off the elevator at the top floor of the Baxter Building. She was flanked on either side by a male soldier. This was only her second visit to the Baxter Building. Just like the first time she visited, the Fantastic Four's holographic receptionist, Roberta, greeted them from her post at the front desk.
"Mr. or Mrs. Richards will be right with you," Roberta said.
Frankie had to admit to herself that is sounded somewhat odd to hear Sue referred to as 'Mrs. Richards.' After all, she had achieved notoriety as Sue Storm. Frankie didn't think too much more on it though as she, in addition to probably the rest of the world was happy for Reed and Sue. Frankie figured that it would probably just take a little getting used to when it came to Sue being called 'Mrs. Richards.'
"Frankie. Hi. What brings you by?" Sue asked.
"I have something important to discuss with the four of you," Frankie answered.
After orchestrating a meeting in Reed's lab via their earpiece communicators, the Fantastic Four, Frankie, and her soldier companions were soon assembled in Reed's lab. Frankie looked to her side and saw Johnny wag his eyebrows at her. She responded by rolling her eyes. From the messenger bag draped over her shoulder, Frankie pulled out a stack of satellite photos and handed them to Reed.
"Our satellites have spotted Victor and what looks like an army of robots headed our way. Their destination is unclear, but we suspect it is here in New York City," Frankie stated.
Reed thumbed through the satellite photos with Sue at his side and Ben and Johnny looking over their shoulders. Sure enough, the photos depicted Doom and his army of robots leaving Latveria and flying over the Atlantic Ocean.
"What's with the flyin' pieces of scrap metal?" Ben asked.
"Yeah. What are those things?" Sue questioned.
"I don't know." Frankie answered.
Sue, Ben, and Johnny noticed that Reed kept looking at photos of just the robots. He flipped through the photos rather excitedly and had what looked to be almost a hint of a grin on his face. They in turn looked at him with confused expressions on their faces.
"Fascinating. These robots are more advanced than anything I've ever seen before. Isn't it exciting what modern technology is capable of creating today? Whoever programmed these robots must be a genius!" Reed remarked.
Everyone else in the room stared dumbly at Reed. They didn't get what was so interesting about robots that were more than likely servants of Doom. This wasn't the first time Reed had this sort of reaction to something he found intriguing, and it certainly wouldn't be the last. Reed was probably one of the most brilliant minds of the twenty-first century, as he told General Hagar, but sometimes understanding Reed seemed like the most difficult thing in the world.
"Yeah, so anyways Frankie, do you know their ETA?" Sue inquired.
"If New York City is indeed their destination, then when taking into account their current velocity, I'd say within four hours," Frankie replied.
"So what exactly do you want us to do until then?" Johnny asked.
"Until then? No, I think you misunderstood me. We want the four of you to intercept them. If we wait until they arrive, countless lives will be in danger," Frankie said.
Reed, Sue, Ben, and Johnny all had incredulous looks on their faces. They all wondered what exactly Frankie was asking them to do. From the way it sounded, this was practically a suicide mission.
"That's just great. What are you gonna be doin' while we 'intercept' them? Cheerin' us on from the sidelines?" Ben remarked.
"Ben!" Sue exclaimed glaring at him.
"Ben's right. In theory, it's a good plan. However, the Fantasticar doesn't have any weapons. It's strictly for transportation purposes. That would mean that the only one of us who would be capable of 'intercepting' them would be Johnny, and we're not about to send him on a suicide mission," Reed stated.
Sue had never been more aroused by Reed than she was at that moment. It was just like when he stood up to General Hagar. To Sue, there was something remarkably sexy about Reed when he was standing up to people. Reed wasn't a very outgoing individual. Sue knew that. Sue also knew that the old Reed would have just let people walk all over him and not do anything about it. She was glad that the Reed before her now was taking the advice she had given him a little over two years ago to 'take charge'.
"Very well. Apparently we are done here then. I must say though that it is rather unfortunate that four superheroes are unwilling to put their lives on the line to possibly save countless others. I truly expected more from the four of you," Frankie commented.
Frankie and her two soldier companions took leave of the Fantastic Four and showed themselves to the door. Reed, Ben, and Sue looked appalled by both Frankie's actions and what she was asking them to do. However, what they didn't notice was Johnny going after Frankie.
"Frankie, wait up." Johnny called out.
Frankie motioned for her companions to go on without her. Then, she turned on her heels to face Johnny. She was furious that the Fantastic Four didn't go along with the Army's plan. At the same time though, she wasn't sure what to make of Johnny's catching up with her.
"I knew you couldn't stay away from me," Johnny stated.
Frankie scoffed. "Oh my God! You are so—"
"Charming." Johnny said.
"Full of yourself! You know, you could have called me!" Frankie exclaimed.
"I didn't want to look desperate." Johnny remarked.
This was the first time Frankie and Johnny had seen each other since Reed and Sue got married in Japan. Johnny had asked Frankie to be his wedding date.
"I'm only going to say this once, so pay close attention Johnny. I don't like you!" Frankie said jabbing her right index finger into Johnny's chest.
"Oh really? Then what was with your whole 'you could have called me!' statement?" Johnny asked making air quotes.
Frankie was at a momentary loss for words. She hated that Johnny was right. She did say that. She racked her brain trying to come up with a good explanation, but she couldn't come up with one, so she just ignored the question entirely.
"Get over yourself! You're still the same guy you were when I first met you. You're still confident, reckless, irresponsible, self-obsessed, and bordering on narcissistic," Frankie stated.
"You know what's interesting though? I may be all those things, yet you're still talking to me," Johnny said.
As if that was her cue, she turned her back on Johnny and started to walk away from him. 'Johnny can't be right, can he? I don't have feelings for him.' Frankie thought to herself. She soon felt his hand on her shoulder. She grabbed his arm and flipped him over causing him to land hard on his back. A satisfied smirk appeared on her face as she looked down at the bewildered expression on Johnny's face. She walked away from him quite pleased with herself.
"Hey kid, what are you doin' lyin' on the floor?" Ben asked.
Johnny quickly rose to his feet. Ben noticed that Johnny's cheeks were starting to turn crimson out of embarrassment. Johnny dusted himself off before responding to Ben's question.
"You remember how I told you that it was nice that you have someone?" Johnny inquired.
"Yeah," Ben replied.
"Well, I think I just found my someone," Johnny stated.
To Be Continued…
This story takes place after Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. This is mainly based off the Fantastic Four movies, but a little bit is from the cartoon Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes. In regards to Doom's back story, some of it is factual, but I also took some liberties of my own with other aspects of it. Anyways, I hope you'll take the time to leave a review. I gladly welcome any constructive criticism, but please don't flat out flame me. Thanks for reading.