Doom stepped out of his drop ship and looked over the devastation of San Francisco. Numerous high rise buildings had been obliterated during the invasion, surely causing the deaths of thousands of civilians who had been packed inside them. Several battle cruisers still hung ominously over the city.
He had landed his ships near a Skrull outpost, intending to coordinate with their local forces to provide relief to the human survivors. Doom noted the aliens were all wearing fully sealed suits. Unusual, considering it was the first he had seen these used by earthbound Skrull forces
He wondered what had truly occurred here. The release of information had been spotty at best, and he hoped that he could find what had occurred while delivering humanitarian assistance.
Doom lamented the loss of life. Regardless of what occurred, Scott Summers had suffered for his defeat; his people were at the mercy of the invaders, thousands of civilians had died and his guts had been torn out by a Super-Skrull in a death match for the amusement of the aliens.
He turned his attention to his humanitarian mission.
Doom stepped out of his drop ship into the cold of Mirny. His scanners alerted him of the increased ambient radiation of the area. After Colonel Rhodes assisted the Winger Guard in defending a major nuclear missile site, the Skrulls delivered an orbital strike on the area, spreading radiation far over the country side.
Doom lamented the massive suffering unleashed on the Russian people. James Rhodes mistakenly believed that the Skrulls wished to utilize the Russian missiles against humanity. In fact, they wished to silence the few weapons that could harm the armada.
Once they realized that it was impossible to secure the missiles with ground based troops, they simply wiped the site from orbit. Despite the safety measures present, several of the missiles detonated in the intense heat, and spread sickness far and wide.
Doom turned his attention to his humanitarian mission.
Doom stepped out of his drop ship in the heat of the African desert. A governmental delegation was ready to meet him. They were fearful and mistrusting, but his mission to set up advanced water purification and irrigation systems in this region could not be dismissed.
Doom lamented the forgotten nature of this land and its people. The western wold had ignored their calls for help, paying minor lip service to the plight of Sudan.
The heroes of America were just a selfish as their country. Tony Stark or Reed Richards, inferior as they were, could have easily solved the water shortage of this whole continent. But they were slaves to their bourgeoisie desires for profit. What their patents earned them they spent on themselves, building new weapons or extravagant scientific equipment.
Even worse, T'Challa, king of nearby Wakanda, entirely ignored the atrocious plight of his neighbours, despite ruling the most wealthy and technologically advanced nation on the face of the Earth. Doom briefly wondered about the fate of Wakanda. Getting news from the isolationist ethno-state was difficult at the best of times and the war only complicated things further.
Doom turned his attention to his humanitarian mission.
It was a pleasant late summer night in New York.
Kll'Aik looked over the rampart of his guard tower towards the prison. Truth be told, he was tremendously bored. He had another three cycles before his shift was done, and they looked to remain as peaceful as all of shifts had been. And why not? The Skrull Empire ruled this planet now, and all opposition had been annihilated. No humans would be foolish enough to attack this place.
They had cleared out a large section of foliage from the 'Central Park' (as the humans called it) and erected tall energy fences around a large two story building. The prison complex had been dropped from orbit, and only needed a small amount of work to establish. Multitudes of automated cannons covered approaches and several bipedal mechs patrolled the area. With the Earth governments joined to the Empire by treaty, there were few on the planet who would oppose them.
As these thoughts passed through Kll'Aik's mind, he sensed a slight movement behind him. Before he could even turn, he felt something metallic cover his mouth and yank his head up, exposing his neck.
Terror flooded his brain, but some distant rational part of him was asking questions: why could he not see what was grappling him? Even with what felt like a hand on his face, Kll'Aik could only see a slight shimmer in the air. A fraction of a second later, he saw another slight shimmer and felt a terrible searing across his neck.
He fought to push off his attacker, as he heard a dull thud beneath him. Even lifting his arm to pull the hand from his mouth felt impossible.
Suddenly, he was falling. As his face hit the ground, he realized he couldn't lift his head or move his neck. He rolled over and felt a moment of horror as he saw that the rest of his body was on the floor, a cauterized amputation across the neck.
Doom stepped out of the shadows as he dropped the decapitated Skrull head to the floor of the guard tower. The alien's face bore a feature of utter surprise as it thudded to the ground. He had cleanly severed the head with an ultraviolet laser in the palm of his suit.
The Latverian commando armour he wore, while not as advanced as his own suit, had various technologies to make it the perfect tool for stealth. Active camouflage, ECCM, and invisible ultraviolet lasers made up a portion of the suits equipment. The design was another of Doom's brilliant innovations, built from non-Latverian parts to further mask its identity. Most of the technology was sourced from a combination of black-market AIM and Stark tech. Even the software was designed to obscure its origin.
Without the ability to trust any of his subordinates, Doom had to undertake the mission to the Skrull prison personally. Even robots could be disabled and backtracked to him. Furthermore, it would take someone with his advanced technical skills to deal with whatever alien computer systems the Skrulls utilized.
Peeking a small electronic probe over the rampart of the guard tower, Doom watched the patrolling troops. While the automated defences were impressive, the organic troops appeared lacklustre and listless, clearly confident in their victory. Their lack of vigilance would be their undoing, he grimly thought to himself.
Once a small opening appeared in the patrols, Doom leapt over the edge of guard tower and, assisted by dampened repulsor fields, landed softly on the ground. He crouched and lightly ran towards a door, moving in deliberate patterns to allow the active-camo to accommodate his movements with its light bending field.
Doom silently followed behind a pair of Skrulls who had just entered the building, managing to slip in before the security door closed. He had twenty-two minutes before Ms. Marvel, Warmachine, and however many compatriots they could gather launched an attack on the prison camp.
The alien designed building had an off-putting interior, with many green and purple hues making up the metals and lights. The two guards he was following turned and entered a cafeteria of some sort. Other aliens mingled and they spoke in their guttural language as they ate. He continued down the hall, following a path that ought to have led him to the command centre.
It took fifteen minutes for him to stealthy work his way to the small command centre. Between his stealth technology and the Skrulls general apathy, Doom had reached the room without detection. Inside a pair of Skrulls were seated beside each other, working consoles and taking in reports. A third Skrull stood to the right, facing another direction, as he looked over a bank of screens on the walls.
Doom silently took a position behind the seated aliens and raised his hands behind their green heads. He fired the palm lasers, and shots punched through the alien skulls, killing them instantly with a loud pop, and spreading sizzling green blood and brain matter on the screens.
The third Skrull turned at the unexpected sound, his brow raised quizzically.
Doom was on him in a flash, fixing one hand around the Skrull's jaw, the other grabbing the back of the alien's head. The Skrull had an expression of terrified bewilderment, his eyes wide with fear.
"Can you understand me?" hissed Doom.
"Y...yes," came the startled reply.
"Speak louder than a whisper and you die. Close the door."
The Skrull fearfully complied, slowly reaching out to tap a few keys on a nearby console. The door to the command centre slid shut with a subtle hiss.
"You have command access?" Doom asked, and the Skrull nodded. "Disable the security on the main computer
"I...I can't, they'll ex...execute me for tr...treason," stammered the alien.
He was disgusted by the Skrull's trembling cowardice, "Do as I command or you shall suffer. Greatly." He added emphasis to his threat by squeezing his captive's cranium in his hands, the servo assisted gauntlets promising to crush the green skinned head like a cantaloupe.
The Skrull finally relented and punched a few more keys on the console. "There; you have access, now you sai-" but he was cut off by his head exploding like a microwaved egg.
The Skrull died instantly to Doom's lasers; free from suffering. As promised.
He pushed the corpse away and accessed the alien computers. He plugged a data probe in the machine, and began downloading as much data as he. With the command access, it was trivial to recover the information Doom sought. He still had a full two minutes before the rest of the American heroes attacked the prison and Doom readied the security systems, including the energy barriers around the prison and holding cells, to be shut down at a single keystroke.
Waiting patiently, Doom counted down the seconds before he gave the command that crippled the prison. It was disappointingly easy, and he wondered how these creatures managed to craft an interstellar empire.
A full fifteen seconds passed before Doom heard the explosions that heralded the attack. He slipped away in the confusion as Warmachine, Ms. Marvel and two dozen other super humans wreaked havoc on the Skrulls.
Several hours later, in the in same warehouse where the attack was arranged, Carol met up with her new ally. Her fighters managed to save almost all the prisoners that were released, and the whole group managed to go to ground following the confusion. They didn't even run into any Super-Skrulls; she and Rhodey could have almost done the mission themselves when the security was shut down.
As she entered the warehouse basement, she noted that Doom wasn't wearing his typical scowling armour. Instead he wore something sleeker, clearly military in design compared to the dictator's normal getup. It was composed of almost black metal with a tri-lensed helmet.
"I wanted to thank you," she said, still not completely trusting of the villain, but thankful for his contribution to their cause.
"Doom does not require your thanks," he replied in his typically haughty manner. He didn't even look up from his data-tablet.
She couldn't stop her eyes from rolling as she crossed her arms, "You can just say 'you're welcome," she dead panned. "I'm surprised you did this yourself. Don't you have robotic minions to do your bidding?"
He looked up from the data-pad and fixed her with those expressionless lenses. "Are you so certain I am not one?"
Her eyes narrowed slightly with the realization that aside from her intuition, she in fact wasn't. After a moment she shifted her weight to one hip "You're much more arrogant in person," she chimed.
"How droll," he said, looking down again before continuing. "You are correct, however. I did this personally because, like you, I can't trust anyone until I devise a method to detect the Skrulls. Contacting you was a considerable gamble. Now I must leave."
She was torn; without him, a lot of people would be wasting away in a Skrull prison. But she knew trusting the man was foolhardy. Still, she couldn't help but ask the question:
"How can I trust you?"
He stopped and looked up at her again. "You already knew the answer to that before you accepted Doom's aid. As long as we share co-linear goals, we shall be allies. But if you become an obstacle to my plans, then I shall remove you. For now, you must put these insecurities aside, if you are to become a leader to these people who are now your responsibility."
"Aw, so you do care," she mocked, eliciting a growl of annoyance from him. For the time being, they needed each other and irritating him with no reprisal was a rare opportunity.
A moment later, he engaged his stealth device, and blended into the shadows, and Carol was left with only her thoughts and doubts.