Inside his lab, Doom observed the repairs to his armour. The lab had been fully refurnished by his robotic servants, the previous chaos and mindless destruction from the Avengers replaced by his clinical order and peace.
He had removed his plate, which now resided in a small bay, and a high-powered laser burned away rent and torn metal. A similar laser had re-fused Doom's ribs in an robotic surgery suite. His flank had a dull ache now but would otherwise be indistinguishable from healthy tissue in a few days, besides a few more scars.
A hero's welcome had been prepared for him by the Latverian peasantry. They understood the evils of the Fantastic Four better than anyone, and the death of the Thing had brought great jubilation. Doom was unable to take part in the celebrations, wounded as he was, but he had declared a day of rest for the people to share in his victory. His people had stayed late in small local taverns, replaying the fight and cheering with each blow he landed.
That was yesterday, and the peaceful quiet had returned to Doomstadt. Many people were exchanging friendly wagers over which foe their master would battle next, and what brilliant method he would devise to end them.
Doom remained dour through it all. He felt a slight tang of elation, but as long as the Fantastic Four (three at this point, he mused) survived, his victory was incomplete. That was giving no mention to the Skrull threat as well. The fact that the Thing had dealt him a deadly blow irked him as well. The super heroes still remained a deadly threat, and he seethed at the slip that nearly ended his life.
Regardless, there was much work to do. Moving his attention to the nearby lab table, Doom left the automated machine to complete its work on his suit. A Petri dish bore a few small dots of green; a culture of Skrull tissue he was growing from the collected cells from his handshake with the alien Viceroy. As if Doom would deign to offer such a lackey sign of friendship! After collecting the sample, he had his gauntlet sterilized, purifying chemicals and heat removing the taint of the lesser creature from his armour.
The culture was growing well, and it would only be a few days before he had enough tissue to begin running tests. He was confident that his scientific abilities would reveal a molecular weakness in the Skrulls. Until a method could be discerned to defeat their ability to impersonate others, he was vulnerable and isolated.
One detail niggled at his mind: how were these creatures undetected before the invasion? He knew that Reed Richards had defeated their shape-changing with simple tests before, but they seemed to have improved their capability in that regard. This fact was further borne out by how many super-beings were perfectly mimicked by the invaders. As far as he knew, the Skrulls could only imitate appearance, not powers.
Of course, before there was only one Super-Skrull; not a whole legion of them.
Nevertheless, the first phase of his plan went well enough, obtaining a measure of security for himself. Now he needed allies. Mighty as Doom was, even he could not be in all places at once. Turning to the monitors on the wall, he gathered the intelligence from the small robotic drones he had left in along the east coast of the United States. The small, dragonfly sized robots, numbering in the hundreds, had been subtlety dispersed by his ship as it approached the Skrull capital ship.
He wagered that such espionage would go unnoticed by the Skrulls. With their shape changing abilities, such a form of spying would have been neglected, or even entirely unthought-of by the aliens. His drones would tap into phone towers and search for vocal patterns from hundreds of American heroes, or infiltrate internet servers and try to find clandestine meetings. Sometimes, they merely buzzed around the cities and would observe, perhaps finding a hero by random chance.
When the United States and SHIELD were in power, they would have been well prepared for that kind of electronic surveillance, often employing similar means for their own goals, and being prepared to counter it. The hegemonic alien power that ruled Earth may be unused to such electronic duplicity. Such things would be seemingly redundant when one could simply wear the face of a target's friends.
One of many robotic spies had located someone: Carol Susan Jane Danvers; Ms. Marvel. A chance conversation over the phone had detected her vocal patterns, and the small drone had begun tailing her. Doom settled into a nearby seat and interlocked his fingers in front of his face, as he was want to do when thinking.
Ms. Marvel wasn't exactly his first choice. She was brash, headstrong, and defiant. Matters weren't helped by the fact she had been present during the attack on his castle. He had captured her with the rest of the Avengers. Even when caged by the magic of the Nameless Ones, she had pestered him while he attempted to defend Latveria. He smiled when he recalled his reply to her: 'a fat cow with a whore's heart'. One of the strongest Avengers humbled in a single breath. It took skill to craft insults that weren't degenerated with simple curses.
Suffice it to say, they had not developed a relationship based on mutual-respect.
Still, she was the highest ranking avenger remaining, being the nominal team-lead of the Avengers, while Stark directed SHIELD. He instructed the drone to continue tracking her movements. With the Skrulls in power, he suspected that many of their infiltrators would have already revealed themselves. If she was taking significant efforts to conceal herself, it seemed likely enough that she was who she was.
Doom began giving orders, his voice picked up by the computer. He would need an appropriate cover. Humanitarian missions to the rest of the world would suffice. He ordered a trio of 'Doombots', his robotic doppelgängers, to lead these operations. Doom may not be able to be everywhere at once, but he could appear to be. These types of Doombots (contrasted with his 'doombots' that generally described any robot in his service) would appear to be perfect duplicates, even believing themselves to be him, until they returned to his presence.
Going over the world, Doom considered the various areas that had suffered most. Mirny, Russia would be an obvious choice after the Winter Guard and the Red Army were destroyed.
San Francisco as well. Whatever the X-Men did to provoke the aliens' second wave must have been great, as they did little to minimize damage to local area and population with their follow-up attack
South Sudan would be the last selection. It didn't bear any direct effects from the war, but international aid had been essentially eliminated during the conflict, and the needs of the poor nation had only grown.
"No way! I am NOT working with this bastard!" announced James Rhodes as he slammed a metal clad fist on the table for emphasis.
Two weeks had passed since Doom began tracking Ms. Marvel. The drone had followed her diligently until Doom was as satisfied as he could be that she was indeed hiding, and not simply drawing others into a Skrull trap. The drone had delivered her a message about seeking to meet others opposed to the new regime.
It would seem Carol was reasonably prudent as well; she had only summoned one other to join the meeting: Colonel (formally) James Rhodes, AKA Warmachine. To Doom's great irritation, once Rhodes got a hold of the drone, the tracking telemetry ceased. Though at least it demonstrated that the two weren't total fools.
A short while later, the drone began transmitting again, though its location was still hidden from Doom's sensors. Nevertheless, he could see through the cameras as the insect like drone looked around. The small meeting took place in a poorly lit basement, likely some old warehouse built in the eighties. The drone looked up from a table, and a single incandescent bulb gently waved above, providing illumination to the concrete walled room.
Doom gave the drone the command and an aperture opened on the device. A small holographic image of him from the waist up appeared on the table and the two heroes made short notes of surprise.
Since then, the meeting had not gone well. Carol at least seemed amenable to cooperation, but Rhodes was intractable.
"Damn it, Rhodey! The Skrulls are running the world now, and you want to do this petty shit?" answered Carol. She shot a masked glare at Rhode's half-flesh, half-cybernetic visage. Warmachine's faceplate was open, revealing the wounded cyborg beneath, his inorganic eye glowing an angry red.
"Yeah, maybe I do. How do we know this isn't just a Skrull trick?" Rhodes asked, leaning over the table menacingly. The large Gatling gun over his armoured shoulder rotated in sympathy with its masters' rage.
Doom did not particularly respect either hero. James Rhodes was a crippled cyborg in an obsolete version of the Iron Man armour. Tony Stark had ensured that his attack dog was never more well-equipped than it's master, and he equipped the suit with a plethora of crude projectile weapons far less advanced than his own suit.
Colonel (formally) Carol Danvers, AKA Ms. Marvel, was similarly tiresome. She had shown herself to be arrogant and disrespectful; she was little better than a jumped-up villein. Similarly to Rhodes (and very much unlike Doom), she had done very little to earn her super-human gifts, with great powers thrust upon her by mere accident.
Doom was used to being the most intelligent person in the room, but these two were little more than hooting mandrills.
As if explaining to a child, Doom spoke, "If the Skrulls wished to infiltrate whatever activities you are conducting, they could have done little worse than to pick Doom. When they could wear any face, why would they pick a hated enemy?" he said, with super-human patience.
Carol nodded as she spoke, "He's right Rhodey; they could have picked Nick Fury, or Tony Stark. Hell, they could have brought Norman Osborn and we'd be more likely to take him in," she said, leaning against a wall and crossing her arms.
Doom felt himself warm to her ever so slightly. Her diplomacy and pragmatism pleasantly surprised him.
Rhodes clinched his teeth and said, "Alright; let's say that this isn't a Skrull trick. That means this is Victor fuckin' Doom, the psychotic dictator with ambitions for world domination."
"It is Doom's moral imperative to save the world. Your efforts have failed; mine will not," replied Doom derisively.
"THIS! This the crap I'm talking about!" Rhodes shouted as he pointed accusingly at the holographic projection.
Carol returned to the table and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "I know, Rhodey. He's cooperated before when the world was at stake from someone besides him-" she said, as she looked down at the hologram. "-and he wouldn't be coming to us if he wasn't desperate for allies. Better the devil you know, and we know how to handle Doom."
"Do not presume to think I suffer from desperation," Doom said. "However, you are otherwise correct. For now, it is human against Skrull, and we shall all perish under alien boots if we do not ally." Doom pressed a few buttons on his wrist, and the holographic image flickered into a blue print of a large building.
Rhodes spoke up first, "That's the prison the Skrulls set up in Central Park. They've got God knows how many people locked up in there."
"Specifically, super humans and mutants, Colonel Rhodes. Not particularly powerful ones; the most powerful prisoners are held somewhere in high orbit, but these ones still warrant higher security," explained Doom's disembodied voice.
Leaning in to examine the blueprint, Carol squinted and said, "It's a fortress. With the people we have now, we could never take it." She cocked an eyebrow, "Do you have a plan? One that doesn't get us all killed?"
Ignoring the impertinence, Doom stated, "This facility contains one hundred and fifty super humans. I can disable the security and cause a mass release of prisoners. If you execute a diversionary attack at that moment, I expect you could free two-thirds of them."
"Is that a hard two-thirds or do we have some leeway?" Carol sneered. Evidently, she was unimpressed with a 33% casualty rate.
"That does depend on how many you can mobilize for the attack," Doom said. He had already gathered from Carol that there was some number of fighters associated with her, and was probing for more information. Unfortunately, her response was wisely cagey, as she seemed to sense his intent.
"You knock down that security, and we'll make sure we get our people out of there."
Rhodes closed his faceplate, adding, "And Doom? If this gets 'effed up and you get our people killed, I'm coming to your castle and doing what Tony should have done in the first place."
"That will all depend on you, Colonel Rhodes. Follow Doom's plan and we shall all share in victory. I will contact you with the details soon," he replied before cutting the transmission.