AUTHOR'S NOTE:Oh my goodness, the responses I received from the last chapter are awesome! It is all anger and fury, and you know what? I love it! Not in a cruel way of course, but it is precisely the emotion I wished to awaken with that chapter. Hold on to that feeling, as it will help you live through the upcoming chapters.

Many of you have sent me messages asking who I've based Dr. Vick von Doom on. Well, it may be a little complicated, but he is vaguely based on the character in the Fantastic Four movies, played by the handsome and talented Julian McMahon (Nip/Tuck anyone? Whooo!). However, in my universe, the Fantastic Four did not exist, and he simply escaped after the series of mishaps and deadly accidents he caused in New York City. The rest of his profile and abilities are based on comic-verse Dr. Doom. Like Loki, he feels rejected and unloved, and deep down he craves acceptance and power. Only difference is, he used to be human, like Barbara.

Now on to the new chapter. Happy reading!

Of Madness and Mayhem

Chapter 9

She walked the length of the tunnel, pausing to peer into the entrances on either side that gave way to large rooms where rows upon rows of robots were poised, ready to be powered up and given the order to unleash death upon their designated target. Many were already activated, and they walked to and fro, assisting their creator in the assembling and storage of other fellow creations. They moved like humans, conversed as humans, responded like humans, yet their metal faces remained void of any emotional trace. Their eyes were a piercing blue in whose depths she could see an intelligence that went beyond that of a simple programmed machine. They reasoned, they thought, they analyzed, and they acted in accordance to their surroundings. She reached the entrance at the end of the tunnel, where a large room the size of a warehouse was located. Inside, the bustle of movement and the constant barking of orders and the carrying of machinery and weapons reminded her of days long past.

The days in which she worked next to Dr. Selvig on the device to open the portal that would bring Loki's army into the world...

"Dammit" Selvig curse, as the sparks died out, leaving only a burned metal shell on top of the small platform.

Barbara barely stood, leaning against the wall to support her weak legs. She groaned as she rested her spinning head on the concrete. They had been going at it all afternoon. Trial after trial of stabilizing the engine for the Doctor's device had failed. They had tried every element in the platinum family: From Platinum itself, to Rhodium, to Ruthenium, to Palladium. Now Titanium had let them down. At least she hadn't seen her captor since her return.

"I don't get it" Barton said, arms crossed and looking at the destroyed engine as if it were an abomination "you said it was one of the most corrosion-resistant elements on the planet"

"It is!" Selvig replied "but its thermal conductivity is obviously pitiful" he said as he retrieved the small wreckage. He tossed it into the pile of other failed trials in the corner of the room.

"It's not dense enough" Barbara interjected, putting her head up "It has a high strength-to-weight ratio, but it is 45% lighter than other metals. You'll need an element dense enough to sustain bursts of heat higher than 2000°C"

"Got any more bright ideas?" Barton snapped. Barbara ignored him. Her legs threatened to give way at any second; and the throbbing ache had not subsided. She had not eaten or drank anything since she arrived at the base, causing her body to tremble with hunger and weakness.

Loki approached and stopped at the door, listening to the trio discuss their latest failure. His eyes scanned the activity before settling on Barbara. Just then, he saw her nearly fall to the floor but she caught hold of the wall to steady herself. He knew she needed tending to and sustenance or she would collapse before her purpose had been served. He curtly beckoned a woman tapping away at a computer, and the two guards serving as Barbara's escort.

"Take her to her quarters" he demanded.

Barbara almost screamed at the sound of his voice. She jumped and instantly put her back to the wall. She did not dare look up at him and barely noticed his presence by looking no higher than his boots. A woman approached her and put an arm around her shoulders as the two guards stood on either side. As she walked by Loki, he put an arm out, and wrapped it around her stomach. He pulled her close and put his lips to her ear.

"Tend to yourself, Barbara. You'll need strength for what's coming" he purred as his lips brushed the skin under her earlobe. She wanted to cringe in fear, but she managed to nod meekly in acknowledgement...

Lost in her reverie, Barbara jumped at the sound of metal hitting the floor. A muffled curse was heard, along with the whirring of machinery, the beeping of computers, and the clanging of tools. Turning towards the sounds, she was met with the sight of a cloaked figure with his back to her, standing in front of a large armor shell. Next to it hung a robotic skeleton with an innumerable amount of wires running through it, their ends plugged into a large supercomputer. The artificial soldier was simply one of many, just another robotic in the flanks of powerful and lethal Doombots that now numbered more than three thousand.

"Need a hand?" she asked, seeing Dr. Doom look down at a piece of discarded metal on the floor.

"Not in the way you think" he replied, turning his head only halfway.

Curious, she walked closer to his work station. Hiding deep within the Earth under the ghost area of Chernobyl, they went undetected by the outside world and the all-seeing eyes of S.H.I.E.L.D. The never ending tunnels that ran for miles underneath the nuclear plants that once served to further the weapons program of the U.S.S.R. were now shelter for the world's most powerful outlaw. Now reinforced with a ten-foot wide layer of concrete, the tunnels were not pierced and read by the sonars that were constantly scanning the Earth's crust for the most minimal fluctuation in energy. He wanted to disappear, and he had succeeded. And now he had become host to the most dangerous woman in the world.

When she reached him, she was surprised to see that the piece of metal that had fallen to the floor came not from the armor he was building, but from the one that was attached to his body. On the lower side of his forearm she could see reddened, bloody skin where the metal had been peeled from it. He rested his forearm on the table, and she fought the urge to wrinkle her nose at the gory sight of the aftermath of him having to mutilate himself for the sake of creating his metallic army.

"For one who kills millions of people without a thought, you still retain many of your delicate sensibilities" he quipped, observing her facial struggle. He turned once again to the exposed skin of his arm, and retrieved a syringe attached to a device that looked like a gun from his vast array of medical equipment and tools.

"Do you really need to do that?" she asked, pointing at his arm with her nose.

"Every time" he answered, and drove the needle into his raw skin. He drew in a breath and managed not to wince in the presence of his guest, gritting his teeth and pursing his lips behind his metal mask. A vial began to fill, and she observed with fascination that his blood remained liquid and red. So normal. So natural. So human.

"What's his name?" he inquired as he pulled the needle out and placed a square of gauze to the still bleeding area.

"Whose?" she answered, suddenly alert.

"Your son's"

"I don't know what you're talking about"

"Sure you do. No need to play coy with me. I see you always toying with that strip of fabric attached to your wrist. The little rattle at the end literally screams 'mommy'. You stand there playing with it and looking at the wall, but your mind is somewhere off in space, isn't it? So, what is his name?"

She looked down at the small, metal rattle attached to the silk band of emerald green that had been used to tie one of Arik's tunics. Absentmindedly, her fingers toyed with it. She remembered the time when she wrapped it around his small waist, securing the green silk tunic that was identical to the one Loki wore under his armor, gold thread and accents around the collar giving it a royal air. Loki had looked at his son with immense pride and laughed as she wrapped Arik in a small version of his leather coat. Such happy times. Now everything that had been her son's lay in ashes somewhere in Washington DC...

"Arik" she said, not realized she had spoken his name.

"He took him?" Doom's deep, raspy voice pulled her from her musings once more.

She simply nodded and raised her head as her peripheral vision caught movement. He was retrieving the vial of blood from the syringe and snapping it into a mechanical device attached to the supercomputer.

"Smart move" he said, no longer looking at her but sitting in front of the large keyboard panel. He began to type in a large strand of code. Once complete, the device clicked and whirred, and the blood in the vial began to flow through a tube that was connected into the wires hooked to the skull of the metal skeleton. She followed the trail of liquid scarlet and her eyes widened with revelation.

"They're programmed with your genetic code" she said in wonder, looking at the infrastructure of the Doombot that was almost complete.

"Correct" he replied, turning in his chair and looking at his creation with great triumph "each of these bots carries my DNA. They are not simply pieces of artificial intelligence that act on command. They are extended versions of me. They are me. I have multiplied by the thousands"

"Are they sentient?" she asked amazed.

"Intelligently, only. They have no nervous system, so they feel no pain, nor do they register human emotion. In that regard, only I remain as such"

She looked at him. It was difficult for her to register the fact that the humanoid creature covered in cold, hard metal was still a man underneath. She had seen the skin that remained untouched beneath the armor that was now a part of his physical shell. He bled. He thought. He reasoned. He felt.

"What was it like? The accident?" she asked as she once again looked at the arm he had mutilated to retrieve his blood. The bleeding had stopped and the skin was once again becoming an ashy gray that was beginning to take on the sheen and hardness of metal. Without thinking, she reached out and touched it. He hissed at the sudden touch, causing her to flinch and snatch her hand away.

"It was glorious" he spoke a second later "like a shining star reaching out towards me. It engulfed me, even as I stood protected behind the very shields I created. It was like the embrace of a gentle lover, every cell in my being melting into its warmth. It was in that moment that the secret of the universe became clear. It's a shell, and it is up to us to develop and become what we are destined to be. Was it the same for you?"

"I died" she explained as she walked around the machinery "when I awoke, I was no longer human and I did not remember my life as one before Loki walked into it. As I lay dead, I remembered being lost in the darkness. Death is cold and empty; there is no sense of time, no memories to revisit. I realized" she paused and looked straight at Doom "that I was simply ordinary. No more than an ant in a colony, an insignificant minion with no great purpose, effortlessly crushed under a boot. Easily disposed of, helpless and fragile. I was nothing. But in death I also realized that we can all rise to greatness..."

"...Become equal to the gods" they both finished in unison.

Barbara and Victor Von Doom stood still, staring at the other. Both creatures of fate. Chosen. One by destiny, the other by love.

"Do you ever" he whispered "wish to go back? To be human again? What if there was a way?"

Barbara looked to the side at the thick wall of concrete. What if?

"I wish..." she began, but was unable to finish. Her hands absentmindedly reached for the silk sash tied around her wrist. She looked down at it and her eyes filled with tears.

Arik.

"No" she corrected, straightening her shoulders and forcing her tears to dry "I am a queen. That's all I have ever known and it is all I know to have been. What my life as a human was means nothing to me. I wish only to destroy those who stand in the way of what is rightfully mine"

"Now you sound like him" Doom chuckled, returning to his computer. Without her noticing, he watched and followed Barbara as she continued her walk around the warehouse, observing the active Doombots as they stashed case upon case of weapons that others were loading into a large aircraft at the end of the room. Both the weapons and aircraft bore one name: Von Doom.

"When do we attack?" she called out to him.

"At dawn" he spoke behind her, startling her.

"Our target?" she turned and faced him, looking him dead in the eye.

"That is up to you. Would you like to finish what your husband started?"

"New York" she said, her eyes narrowing with delight at the idea.

"New York will be, but not tomorrow. First we have a matter of personal interest to take care of. Now come, and watch as we terrorize the entire planet without even setting foot out of this place"

He guided her back to his workstation, where a camera had been mounted. Barbara watched bewildered as bots tapped away at computers, others tended to Doom as he came to sit on a plush throne in front of a black curtain, the logo of his multibillion dollar company imprinted on it.

"Initiate satellite transmission" he ordered, as he placed his arms on the golden arms of the throne, and faced the camera "it is time"

Barbara stood next to the camera and crossed her arm, the other reaching out to her mouth. She ran her index finger over her lips as she observed Victor Von Doom broadcast his message of terror to the world.

"This is ridiculous" Natasha Romanoff huffed as she watched the two men and a demigod toss words back and forth. She thought of Clint who was bedridden, recovering from the arrow that had run clean through his shoulder. It was times like these when she appreciated the one-woman missions she was usually assigned. Anything else was preferred to having to hear Tony's narcissism and crude humor, Fury's barking and Thor's never ending honor and nobility. Well, at least he didn't crack jokes about her boobs and didn't bark like a territorial Rottweiler. She crossed her arms over the table and looked at Fury who was once again, well, barking.

"Is this what you really want? For another seven million people to die before you realize that taking her out is our only option?"

"She will face justice for her actions, along with Loki. But killing her will not end the madness. She cannot be contained. No human weapon is powerful enough to stop her"

"Do not underestimate us, Thor" Fury retorted "we wiped out an entire fleet of aliens with one single nuke"

"Oh god" Tony cut in "not the wormhole talk again. Quick, someone get me my smelling salts!"

"You must see what I see, Director. You focus on her but do not place your attention to Loki. He is the reason she is doing this. This is not an attempt to take over your planet, this is vengeance, no longer upon me but upon you and your warriors"

"And how do you suggest we find him? She hasn't attacked in a week and something tells me he is not even on this rock anymore"

The sound of all monitors shutting off and the immediate murmurs of the crew in the Hellicarrier interrupted the discussion between the Director and his most powerful Avenger. They turned towards the control stations, when suddenly the screens turned on again, but this time all that was shown was static. Then everyone gasped as the image of a man covered in metal from head to toe and clothed in a cloak came on all screens. His voice then rang through the entirety of the Hellicarrier's speakers.

"People of Earth. My once fellow men, women and children. Now no more than insignificant maggots that rot away in the putrefied stench of your society. Your leaders have lied to you. They have always lied. Do you not know that for regimes to rise, others must fall? Genocide is the basis of democracy. It always has been from the dawn of time. Secrets are kept from the unsuspecting populace who blindly and loyally pay their dues, struggling to survive and make a name for themselves while the fat cats sit upon the illusion they have created, laughing at those poor insignificant fools who simply go through the notions. The many serve the few. I know this, because I was once a fat cat. But then, a miracle. The illusion was shattered, my eyes were opened and I saw the light. The truth set me free. Now, I am a god. Fate granted me this gift and who am I to refuse the call? I am no messenger, I am no savior, I am no teacher. I am merely one to reveal the true face of those who hide behind their false interest in the common good. It is time to set up the regime this world needs. It will not be an illusion, there will be no false hopes and dreams. There will be only reality: Harsh and fair. One end for all, one purpose, one goal. So you see, it is the same story: Genocide and depletion. The world calls me a madman, a freak of nature, a grotesque mutation, an outcast of humanity. But the mask does not hide me, it is me. At least I show my true face, unlike those who plant their asses on your seats of power. Do you think you are safe? That your governments will raise arms to protect the dignity and fragility of their subjects, as a mother hen who guards her chicks under her wings? Do you think your heroes will save you? No. Hold your families close tonight. Make love to your wives and lovers. Tuck your children in at night. Say your prayers, whichever they may be. God bless the United States of America. God save the queen. Allah be praised. May Buddha bring you peace. Tomorrow, a new world will dawn. The gods will rise, and no theatrical clowns with fancy suits and flashy hammers will save you. Where is your god now?"

Once again, the entire control room was dead silent as the screens went blank. But this time, it was not the woman they had been pursuing who was the cause for the sudden silence.

"Not another one" Director Fury groaned.

"Fancy? My suit is just fancy? Should I take that as a compliment?" Tony looked at Natasha who ignored him and kept her eyes fixed on the blank screens.

"Is he a new threat?" Thor spoke.

"Victor von Doom" Tony informed him "self-proclaimed scientific genius and rival billionaire. Not as handsome and charming as me, of course. Thought he could beat me when he took a team with him to space to observe some solar cloud. Some freak accident happened and he was exposed to the radiation. His entire team was killed but he miraculously survived. Turned into some sort of Iron Maiden, minus the rock star appeal. Disappeared after his stocks plummeted and he tried to create a time travel machine. It didn't work and he nearly wiped out New York all over again. I swear, I'm demolishing Stark Tower and I'm building in L.A. I'll take earthquakes to aliens and science madmen any day of the week"

"Sir?" Agent Maria Hill looked expectantly at her Director who still stood in a daze.

"Did you get a lock on the feed's location?"

"No sir, the location was locked and off the grid. It was a phantom live feed" a technician answered.

"I want everything we have on this guy on my station" Fury ordered as he crossed the bridge to his control platform.

"Director, what of Barbara and Loki?" Thor called out after him.

"You and Stark do whatever you think is necessary to find them. As soon as you capture either one, Thor, you go back to Asgard. I want them out of this planet. I'm sure you can deal with them there. Stark, you and Thor will be taken to Arizona where you will have complete access to our new defense system. Agent Romanoff, remain here and stand at the ready. We may need you before sunrise"

"You mean the one where you can walk anywhere on the planet in real time? Sweet! You ready to fly, big guy? Race you there!" Tony squealed, playfully smacking Thor on the bicep before heading to the doors, Thor in tow.

Director Fury watched as his two warriors began to exit the control room and followed an agent to the landing deck.

"Stark!" he called after him.

"Yeah?"

"Don't break my toys"

Fury turned back to his screens and delved into the information on humanity's new foe. He could not shake the feeling of uneasiness that settled in the pit of his stomach. Little did he know that a large military aircraft carrying Victor von Doom, Barbara and dozens of Doombots was crossing the Atlantic and heading for a secure S.H.I.E.L.D. base hidden in the barren mountains of the desert.

It was headed for Arizona.

End of Chapter 9

Responses to guest reviews:

Vermillion: Que impresionante que no pudiste digerir la escena intima entre Loki y Karnilla. Te entiendo. Yo he sido victim de la infidelidad, asi que esa escena fue muy dificil de escribir. Leyendola otra vez, me di cuenta que desahogue mucho del enojo que todavia llevo por dentro en esa escena. No te preocupes, que esa frase la usamos tambien los Salvadoreños, y mucho! Loki en realidad esta siento un perro, y pronto tendra su merecido! ;-) Hasta la proxima, chica!

Silent Reader: Oh no, what did I do? Hang in there hunny!

RisDOLL: Aww, I wish I could answer all your questions, but I am afraid I will have to let you find out the answers as the story progresses. Like I said in a previous chapter, things are about to get very difficult for our pair. This is only the beginning. Stay strong darling! :-)

Lisa F: Thank you darling! Hope you continue to enjoy! Confusing, says you? I think you are quite right about that, says I! ;-)

Karen: Thank you and your sister, hunny! I am so glad you guys are enjoying the story! Muah! Xx