1.8
Amid the ruins of his own making, Baron Vladimir seethed at the cursed horizon that lay beyond the grand balcony of his personal chambers, nestled atop the highest keep of Castle Hassenstadt. The barbarians were at the gates, their coming foretold by the growing flames that drew closer to his capital every day.

His beard was an unkempt mess, the odor of sweat and wine pluming from the strands of white hair that were clumped together wet and ungroomed. His eyes were bloodshot and dark with misery and weary rage. Sleep defied him, much like the cowards that he once referred to as subjects. Had he known that all it would take to break them was a moment of hardship and a few losses he would have taken their families as motivation. He would have taught them to fear him better. Draining what was left of his Hassenstadt 42', some of the wine escaped his lips and found a place on the collar of his voluminous robes.

"My lord," said Karadick, head bowed, cowed more than ever before. Shadows crept into his gaze as if he was still trapped in the past, facing fires that were still burning in the distance, listening to the screams that would never fall silent in his mind.

"General," said Vladimir. There wasn't much rage left for him to muster. What little left to burn had been spent as he smashed his room apart in momentary frenzies of anger and despair that trailed each loss. "How do we fare?" He knew the answer to his question. All he had to do was turn his eyes to the horizon.

"We've lost the exterior, sir. Tammenek, Raddiovik. Both cities lost. Along with all mines in the region and any forces we had left," the words came easy, as such things would to a man who had long-since buried half of his forces in the span of a month. "The 4th and 11th are all we have left."

"Infantry?" asked Vladimir. "No support."

"Doom still has his anti-air emplacements on the Carpathian Mountains. There will be no air support." Not much more needed to be said about that. The Carpathian ranges cradled much of Latveria. With it controlled, Doom effective decided who would enter and leave the conflict. This didn't just mean that he held the sky. He held the borders as well.

"Armor?"

"Ten tanks between the companies," said Karadick. "Maybe some lighter ones too."

And no more were coming since Doom blitzed the factories and spurned the workers to switch sides if only to save their own lives.

"And Hassenstadt?" asked the Baron. "These walls have held for generations. The castle has been in the hands of the Fortunovs for centuries."

There was no lie to tell. "My liege," said Karadick, choosing to no say anything at all, "we must discuss your immediate evacuation from the city." Karadick gave the skies before them, darkening suddenly as if lulled by some unnatural power. "He's almost upon us."

The sun had been banished, the light exiled by a reign of a coming storm.

A storm holding itself in the visage of Doom.

"Surrender."

The smoke from distant battlefields granted shape to his mask and hood, the flames of ruin granting his eyes an unholy glow. Eldritch soot rained from the ruinous clouds that formed the simulacrum of Doom, melting stone and poisoning the land around Hassenstadt. The crops died in moments, trees and flowers alike wilting from the virus that took hold in their roots. The Earth fell to rot and grew barren before the Baron's eyes. The aging tyrant's jaw clenched as his veins bulged. Was it not enough that Doom takes from him his land? His pride? His power? Now the whoreson had to defile the very land itself?

"Surrender," repeated the simulacrum, each thunderous utterance causing the Earth below to shudder. "Surrender and be granted clemency at the mercy of Doom. For the weak, the blind, the helpless, seek the Kylne River. Brave the journey and you have Doom's solemn oath that you will be guarded. All can be healed. All can be restored. All can be made better through submission to Doom. I seek no reparations from the poor, nor do I find pleasure in the torment of the needy. No. There is only one soul that needs suffer. One alone. Baron Vladimir Fortunov. His time has come. Yours has only begun. Surrender."

"Bastard," hissed the Baron, words unheard before the rumbling of the simulacrum.

From the direction of Tammenek, left in ruin amidst mounds of dead loyalists, Doom's forces came, falling upon the capital from the horizon like a tide of iron, sweeping the feeble defenses aside as a typhoon would winnow grass from the trees. Those who dropped their arms lived. The rest joined the fire. Grand chimeric war machines with the cannons of tanks, the hull of battleships, and some limited capacity of flight. Doom's men followed behind the bulwark of tanks and their glimmering fields of ablative shields, firing through the inside of the shield as the lancing beams of their guns flashed clear even from the highest peak of the castle.

The sky was littered with glowing streaks of viridescence, barrages of heated-rounds of Hassenstadt's few remaining anti-air spitting what little they had left against the Doombots that held the skies. Lances of raw energy cut downwards in response, giving rise to fields of fire. Flashes of light in the distance told the tale of the death knell of the last of Hassenstadt's defenses. "My liege," said Karadick, "we need to discuss your departure."

"I will not be leaving," said Vladimir, eyes narrowing at the simulacrum that bore a resemblance to his hated foe. "I'm taking my descent into the Oubliette."

"The Oublie-Baron," said Karadick, eyes widening in terror, "going alone means-"

"Yes," sighed the Baron. "But death is certain either way. I would prefer it to be on my terms." From within his robes, he produced two letters signed and sealed by the sovereign ring of Latveria. "General," said Baron Vladimir, hands shaking slightly. "My time has come. But the Fortunov line may yet rise to greater glories. Give these to Rudulfo. And Zorbra."

As Karadick extended a hand to receive the letters, the Baron gripped his arm, fingers locking tight like iron s. "Know this, General. This delivery is a final gift of mercy and forgiveness I bestow upon you," his hot breath stank from dehydration, his eyes bore down like growing wounds of madness in the mind. "You have failed me. Failed Latveria in letting Doom overcome us. But for your past deeds, and by merit of your continued loyalty, I absolve you of any sentence." That and Karadick was the only one left that he could trust. "My sons are not to return to Latveria should I fail. Tell them to seek greater glory and plot their vengeance from afar. Swear this to me."

The General gave a steady nod. "Yes, Baron."

"Good," said Vladimir. The fire of madness faded from. In its place, old age returned to its throne, as the Baron sagged in weariness. The Baron had never looked older than he did in the present moment. "Good." He glared off at the distance, glitters of hate sparking beneath his eyes at the storm-fleshed mass of tumult that was the face of Doom. "Leave now. I would like to be alone."

"Baron-"

"Leave." There was no room for argument. For the last time he ever would, Karadick gave a salute and left with a pivot. Leaving Baron Fortunov alone in the cold, a small man before the sky-painted face of a wrathful god.

Holding up his almost empty bottle of Hassenstadt 42', Vladimir looked at the visage of his adversary-arrogant bastard claiming even the sky above him-and snickered. "42' was a glorious year for my family. I thought our line was going to end then," began Vladimir, looking at the simulacrum's refracted appearance through the glass of the bottle. "When the Nazi's came, I was terrified at first. But my father saw the wisdom in acquiescing to their demands. You see, we weren't dealing with the rank and file of the Wehrmacht or the cowards that were the SS. No. Hydra was a different breed, that saw the true potential in people and places, and knew that there was a rightful fate for the deserved among that stood away from the dregs of humanity.

"I remember the first day that I met Herr Schmidt. I was barely more than a boy then. Father welcomed them into the castle with open arms and gave them a place to rest their men and sate their ardors in spite of the war. Father always seemed to know what was to come. Regardless, I remember the lesson that Herr Schmidt bestowed upon me well." Vladimir chuckled. "I daresay it made me who I was. 'Never allow the weak to dictate the place of the strong. The Fatherland learned the price of such foolishness in the aftermath of the first war. Do not fall to weakness Vladimir. Be better. Be greater. Be worthy of standing among the masters of this world's future.'"

The Baron took a final swig as he emptied the contents of the bottle into himself. "He was a brilliant man. Cut low by the dogs before his deserved time. Before his vision. But his legacy, his dream, lives on." Vladimir spat at the horizon. "What does an inhuman creature like yourself know about legacy? About sacrifice? Without my hand, Latveria will be lost. The gypsies and the impure will fester across my lands like a plague, as they already do much of Europe. Without me what glories will this nation have? It is with me that the Soviets are halted at our doorstep. It is with me that the Americans seek our aid. Ours. They need us! It is with me that Latveria can exist! I! Am! Latveria!" The Baron shouted, flinging his bottle off into the horizon in a burst of fury.

The simulacrum just repeated what it always did.

"Of course," said Vladimir, turning to walk the path of his father before him, to live up to the vision of his idol. "Of course you say nothing. There is nothing for some subhuman-"

"Your taste in wine is almost as wretched as your mistaken beliefs."

Vladimir froze. "Who-"

Behind him, Doom hovered, arms folded as his thrusters burned bright. The simulacrum repeated itself again, booming the background, eyes boring down as the physical form of Victor Von Doom did the same, two eyes of fire, two eyes of brown.

"You dare-how mad-whoreson," the Baron drew his pistol from his robes and fired. Pulling his shots rather than squeezing, the first two shots went wide while the rest fell like raindrops against Doom's kine-shields. The blunted rounds fell. The Baron's gun clicked empty. But even with his ammo dry, the Baron's capacity to hate was still present, his breath fermenting with loathing in the cold Latveria air. "Why are you here?"

Doom looked down at him as a man would a petulant child. "I often wondered what you were like, in the days and hours before I killed you," said Doom, to the Baron's confusion. "I know what expression you'll make when the light leaves your eyes-the fact that you will stain yourself with urine one last time as a lesser man-no, a child-would. Yet, in the years after I can't help but wonder what you were like just before. If you stayed weeping within your quarters? Raving furiously at the dawn and at your benefactors that just won't come? Or if you found some measure of peace." Doom drew closer. "I sincerely hope it's not the last because it will be for nothing. Whatever peace you may feel, I promise you, it will be fleeting."

The Baron spat upon Doom's shield.

A light chuckle escaped Doom. "Impudence. Quaint."

Pain exploded across the Baron's face as a firm backhand struck him. Flung back, the back of his shoulder crashed hard against the edge of stone on the side of the balcony, his shoulder sounding with a deep crack before he was defenestrated through the glass pane leading into his room. Gasping in pain, the Baron pressed down only to cry out as glass dug into him. Behind him, Doom landed on the balcony, lowered his hood, and followed the groveling Baron into his abode.

Once pristine bedsheets were stained with spilled wine, the shade of red seeping deeper than the blood of the fallen that now nourished the forsaken soil along the Kylne River. A crystal chandelier with golden rims lay smashed at the center of the room, the wood beneath it cracked with the boards folded up towards the ceiling. A thin layer of dust gave the room a second-skin of sorts; the maids and servants that once serviced this room had been expelled. Cleaning it was beneath the Baron, it seemed. Where there would have been bookshelves and desks were splinters and smashed pieces. The damage was complete but the age on the marks and the drying the paint around the wounds of the wall told that this was deal by multiple fits of rage over the course of this campaign.

"I must admit," Doom began, admiring the painting of Vladimir's father that remained hung high above his grand bed, the only thing in the room that remained unblemished, "it gives me more satisfaction than you would ever know to cause you so much torment. Your semblance to yourself has been a blessing in itself. Especially considering the divergence that I have noted in far too many other things."

"What the fu-"

A metal boot snapped through his lips. The Baron whimpered as he spat strands of bloody teeth, while some others were buried deeper into his gums. Doom scraped the stain of filth off his shoe against the red carpet.

"I wasn't finished," chided Doom, calm. Eyes still fixed on the painting of the senior Fortunov, Doom tore the portrait from the wall as a light glimmer of sorcery spark from his fingers. It hung, suspended in the air before him, levitating. "How many centuries that Latveria belonged to your ilk? Six? Six is far too many. Far too many men like you." Doom gave a look at the pitiful creature glaring at him with hateful, pained eyes. "I wonder... if I was cast here for a proper purpose, then what is this moment supposed to teach me? To educate me on tyranny? On mercy? Or forgiveness?" Doom chuckled. "No. If anything, I should reward you a quick death for reassuring my resolve. Listening to your banal little monologue, about legacy and superiority, has made one thing clear to me." Doom sank his fingers into the painting, the touch of magic bleeding from his gauntlet into the canvas as the Baron roared in impotent rage.

"Without me, Latveria is cursed," said Doom. "Cursed to suffer you. Or the likes of you. Folly is the only fate of my people with weak and cruel hands at the helm. This will not do. You will not do. You are not the master. Nor is Hydra. None are worthy of the claim. None other than Doom."

The Baron laughed, throat thick with swallowed blood. "You? You are nothing more than a demon. A usurper. You bring ruin to Latveria."

"I bring ruin to you."

"I am Latveria!"

"No," said Doom, voice hard and cold. "You are but an old man allowed beyond his station by mistake of fate and chance."

"Fate and chance? We Fortunovs have reigned for six centuries. This is our destiny. Our legacy. What legacy will you leave, monster?"

"Perfection," answered Doom, as he placed a single finger upon the portrait of the Baron's father, sorcerous patterns bursting into life. "An act that begins with the rectification of... old mistakes."

The painting began to twist and alter, the paint re-blending across the portrait as hues swirled in kaleidoscopic flourishes. Where there was a wolfish-looking raven-haired man with a thick beard clad in officer's uniform, there was now only Doom, clad in his armor, the only change being the crown upon his head. With a casual toss, he cast the painting before the kneeling Baron as he turned to leave.

"No!" cried Vladimir, clawing at the altered painting, blood spilling from his lips granting the canvas its final perfect imperfections. "No! No!" Hate blazed in his eyes, alit like dark fires swirling with dark promises and darker intentions. "You... you should kill me now, usurper. Mock me no further. But know that I-"

Doom stopped. "No. You decide nothing, Vladimir. You rule nothing. You are nothing. You will not die until Doom wills it. And Doom wills that until Hassenstadt surrenders to me. Until the castle falls to me. Until you are strangled into unconsciousness, you will not die."

The Baron's face affixed itself into a snarl. "I'll deny you-"

"You will deny me nothing," Doom said as he lifted into the air from the balcony. Turning to face the still kneeling, bleeding man that was the Baron, Doom folded his arms. "If you were going to relieve Latveria of yourself, you would have done it a week ago. We both know you don't have the fortitude nor the will for the act. You are a rat, Fortunov. As long as there is still a mote of light bleeding through, you will choose life. Even if the path leads you towards a fire." With a blast, Doom lifted off into the air, trailing far beyond as he left the wounded Baron behind him.

Wiping the blood from his chin, the Baron Vladimir Fortunov rose to his feet, a quiet rage settling into his bones for the first time. Looking down at the mocking disfigurement that Doom dealt his family portrait, the Baron lifted his boot and brought it down in a fierce snarl. "I am Baron of Latveria yet, cur," spat Vladimir, gazing down at the portrait of Doom beneath his feet. "And I promise you, you will regret leaving me alive. I will make you pay for this affront, this mockery! I will make you pay. Even if it the cost is my soul."

Spine straightening as he spat a last, glob of blood upon the print of Doom, the Baron spun to leave his room for one last time. His boots stomped down the cobblestone stairs of the keep as he descended lower and lower, the echoes of his steps like war drums roaring in his last stand.

Marching through abandoned halls and looted rooms, the Baron flung the doors to his throne room wide open. A lonely throne awaited him, sitting alone amid a room now devoid of finery. Chunks of the floor were missing, carved out to be sold, as were the curtains, the painted glass on the windows, even the golden goblets that were passed through his family for generations. All gone. He would never see them again, he was certain of that. But perhaps his sons might yet be denied such a scornful fate.

The throne, scarred and chipped of any adornments of value by greedy hands of scuttering rat traitors, was only still here was probably because of its immense weight. Wiping a smear of blood from his lip, he pressed a single crimson finger against the apex of the throne, where the tongues of twin wolves carved from whalebone were intertwined in an endless struggle. For a moment, nothing happened and a pit of cold rose from the Baron's stomach. Had his father lied to him? He allowed the wolves to taste his blood, that was the way to enter, was it not?

Then, almost too faintly, the blood trailed across the tongues of the wolves and their eyes snapped open, burst alight with hellish energy as the throne sparked with power. Veins of red opened across the chair, pulsing with energy in the same shade as the twisted crystals that were the primary export from his mines and of his nations. The veins spread and grew, the throne now almost a wound in space and time as the room folded away, the ground devouring the walls as space itself stretched as light bent and broke around him. Like an unfathomable dream, the world around him crumpled and shattered, most of the material world dissolving away, leaving but a bridge of obsidian leading to the dais upon his throne.

Vladimir blinked in wordless horror. Madness. He sat upon a throne of madness.

The sky above him was an endless vortex of crimson, clouds of vaporous blood and fire churning above in the angry sky. Light filled this realm weakly, seeping in through the wound in reality in stolen particles, snatched from the material world as slaves more than natural phenomena. "What hell is this?" gasped the Vladimir.

"This is no hell." The voice made itself known to him, spoken like a dagger carving each syllable into his mind.

"Who! Who speaks! Reveal yourself?"

"Follow the bridge," said the voice, revealing nothing more.

Left with little recourse, and no way back, the Baron capitulated to another's demands for the first time his three decades and walked along the bridge.

"Don't fall." The edges of the obsidian steps contoured into darkness and oblivion and nothing. Vladimir shuddered but carried on, making certain to stay centered on the path.

The bridge rose up, coiling like the spines of a dark serpent as it rose to the apex of a lonely peak that reached for the angry whirlwinds in the sky. Lungs burning, legs tight and sore, the Baron panted, both hands on his knees gasping for air. He climbed up the last few steps on his hands and knees.

"It's too soon for kneeling, Fortunov," came the voice. It was just ahead of him.

Lifting a weary head, sweat dripping from his beard, Vladimir came face to face with a single aged, torn page that hovered in stasis before him, held aloft on a stand of black glass, coated in coarse rivers coruscating with crystal and blood. A wordless howl came from Vladimir as his eyes wandered upon the text on the page, the scripture, the words, the sigils, whatever they were, they tore at his mind. Blood poured out from his right eye as the Baron clawed at his own face, screaming. The eye was swelling, growing too large to fit in his head. He needed to get it out. He needed to get it out!

The eye popped. Vladimir cried out in exquisite agony, his screams echoing through the dimension as he convulsed on the ground, weeping blood and tears in equal measure, suffering alone. He continued in this state for minutes. Or perhaps hours. The pain took his ability to reason a guess.

"You seek my favor, then, Fortunov? As all your ancestors have? As your father before you did?" Fighting down his whimpers and struggling against his agony, Vladimir covered one eye and got to his knees.

"Y-yes," said Vladimir. "I've come to offer myself, in exchange for my legacy."

"Come closer," beckoned the voice. Looking from the periphery of his remaining eye, Vladimir was almost certain that voice was coming from the ripped page. He was also quite certain that he must be mad by now. "Good. Now, look upon me."

Eye widening in horror, Vladimir shuddered and looked away.

"Look upon me."

Lip quivering, Vladimir faced the book. The vastness of the script drowned his mind's eye almost immediately, expanding infinitely larger than that of himself into proportions that stretched across the sky. In the pages, the ink of the words, the words themselves he could see their writhing bodies, their flayed skin and boiled flesh, their toothless mouths screaming out as one as they were all trapped within the strokes of the word, cocooned in hives of cancerous growths. "What-what is this?"

"This," thundered the voice, now coming from the sky, "this is what you're family offered me. What you have offered me. Lives. Souls. Vessels to fill with bits myself."

"What?" said Vladimir, mind barely hanging by a thread.

"I am the guardian of the Fortunov legacy," said the page, the nature of the paper itself tanned from the leather of humanity, the pain palpable from the material itself. "I am that which is made of your father, your grandfather, your great-grandfather. I am that which all Fortunov heirs come to seek in their time of need. I am a fragment. A piece of the whole. But whole enough to serve your needs."

Vladimir's lip quivered. "A fragment of what?'

"This page has no name, only a mind," said the voice. "But if reunited with my siblings, then we are the Darkhold."

"Darkhold?" said Vladimir.

"Names matters little," said the page, "only the question."

"What question?"

"What boon would you accept in exchange for your soul?" ...
A/N: Apologies for the delay again. This one was supposed to be out to days ago but I was delayed due to trips for work. Fun, not. Anyway, the sensible reader might be asking, "You know, the Baron-even though he's a Nazi-loving bastard-is right. Why doesn't Doom just kill him?" That's a great question my imaginary audience member that might be kind of patronizing towards my actual readers. I agree with you. If it was up to me, I would have fired the Baron by this point. Not even personally. Doombot glassing run. That's it. Castle ash. The end.

However, Doom doesn't think like a normal fella would. Nothing short of complete despair and utter ruin will satisfy him with the Baron, and to get to kill him twice would basically be Victor Von Doom's extended moment of therapy with himself. So, naturally, Doom wants him to lose everything and break apart before he kills him. Which leads to my favorite flaw for Dr. Doom: hubris. Hubris so goddamn terrible the Greek Gods took one at him and shuddered in pity. Letting the Baron make a pact with the Darkhold-even if he is a complete fool who doesn't know magic A from sorcery B-is a terrible and shit outcome. A ten-year-old having a tantrum is annoying. A ten-year-old psyker blessed by the powers of a dark entity, on the other hand, is a literal fucking nightmare.

It's also the only thing that makes sense to me about how the Fortunovs were able to keep power for centuries in the MCUverse when they were as horrible as portrayed in this story as in the comics. Seriously, Vladimir kills messengers like an asshole. Here he's nice enough to shoot the guys himself but in the comics, he literally has someone else do while he mocks their pleas of mercy.

Anyway, hang on to your heads folks, as the next chapter ends the Prodigal Son arc as Doom's forces make their final push on Hassenstadt while the nature of the Darkhold's boon makes itself known to the Baron. For the liberation of Latveria, there will be blood with the fate of the state as the ultimate prize. And it's a good thing too cause this chapter is coming fast so stay tuned and stay frosty. Just like Cap.

History Lesson: Doom once owned a page of the Darkhold that he used to punch into another dimension known as the Limbo. Darkhold is nasty stuff kids. It's like the Necronomicon's more generalized cousin, dealing with more than just the undead, taking ownership of sins in general. Which means there's probably a thousand pages in that bastard on spells for continued tax evasion. Damn. Now I want the book.