The battle quickly flared up again after the duel.
Doom looked around. Half-a-dozen of the Super-Skrulls littered the sandy ground of the arena, but his allies were not untouched as well. Monet St Croix wasn't moving, though it wasn't immediately obvious what injured her. Doctor Nemesis was a mangled heap, and a few others, including Ava, were bleeding into the ground. Both FantomX and Psylocke were still fighting, but they sported flesh wounds as they leapt to help Anole as he frantically dodged the blows of the Avenger-Skrull. Medusa and Gorgon were locked in a desperate battle with three other Super-Skrulls.
Doom walked back to where he saw Carol kneeling beside the unmoving form of Rhodes. She had removed his face plate, and was clasping one of his hands. As he approached, he walked by the ruined form of the X-Skrull. One of his arms was blown off, and he had a trio of large wounds blasted through his torso. Liquefied metal, previously leaking from the massive exit wounds, had solidified into small heaps of slag as it mixed with the sand.
To Doom's amazement, Rhodes was still alive, though only barely. Oil and blood leaked from the various rents in his armour and his chest moved rapidly as the cyborg breathed raggedly. Gurgles manifested in his breathing, and he coughed up blood as he cleared his airway.
Carol looked back at Doom, tears in her eyes building, "You have to save him!" she begged.
He looked away over his shoulder as he answered, "He won't accept my help."
"Some...something we agree on for once," Rhodes said between coughs.
Carol turned back to her fallen friend. The dismay in her voice was obvious as she spoke, "What? No Rhodey, we can save you."
"And let that bastard...play around up here? Hell no," Rhodes answered, pointing at his head. His red cyborg eye was dim, winking as his power failed. He pulled her close as he spoke, "It's up to...to you. You have to stop him...when the time is ri-...right."
Carol looked away, tightly shutting her eyes, as a few tears managed to break free of her restraint. She looked back to Rhodes before replying, "I can't."
"What? Carol..." he said, weakly.
"He's right," she continued, sobs growing heavier. "Doom's right. Nothing we've done has ever amounted to anything-," she said between sobs. "I'm tired of fighting every day and seeing it all get worse," she said, giving a small nod as she finally controlled the tears. She continued, "He's right and I'm going to help."
Whatever last bit of will was keeping Rhodes alive seemed to have evaporated with Carol's revelation. A last, look of despair crossed his human features as he gasped one last gurgled breath, his ruby eye dimming as he passed. A moment later, Rhodes was gone.
Doom stepped forwards, resting a hand on Carol's shoulder as she gripped Rhodes' hand to her face. "Your friend was mistaken about a great many things, but he gave his life in service to a greater cause, and that is not something to grieve." Doom said, looking over his shoulder. Veranke was standing a short distance away, having finally chosen to enter the battle. "Now rest, my servant. The finale of this battle is Doom's burden to bear."
He turned back to face the Skrull Queen. Database files scrolled in the corner of his vision, though they were woefully lacking in completeness. His information on Spider-Woman was reasonably complete, and Veranke most assuredly had some form of that power at one point. Whether she still retained it was another question, and what of her other abilities? They had last battled when she was still in disguise. She had managed to overcome the sorcerous powers of the fiends he summoned, and that was something that Spider-Woman was certainly incapable of.
"A duel for the fate of Earth? Has your plan really come down to that, Doom?" she said, electrical energy crackling in her hands and arcing down her bident.
"I would have expected you to appreciate the beauty in such a thing," he answered, slowly circling.
She gave a mischievous smile before speaking, "Oh, of course I do. But I have ships and armies, and yet I know you would not be here if you didn't think it served your purposes."
"There are other factors at play-" he said, nodding. "But, it seems providence conspired to force an ultimo ratio regum."
"The Lord works in mysterious way," she replied, lifting her spear into a high-ready.
Doom halted his circle. They both waited a few moments, ensuring nothing else was to be said. The wounded and battered survivors of the previous battle had turned their attention to the two Sovereigns. As if by instinct, the lesser castes seemed to know to not interfere.
Doom fired first, launching a plasma beam from an outstretched hand. Veranke coiled under the jade blast, closing the distance. He followed up with a blast from his other hand, and she vaulted over it, twisting like a pole-vaulter. He prepared another shot, but she slashed with her spear, knocking his arm upwards and sending the particle beam into the roof. She continued the momentum, swinging the weapon in a wide arc and the spear cracked into his helmet from the side with a loud clang, electrical energy sparking into the air.
Alarms went off as his shields drained from the impact, but they had taken the brunt of the blow. Veranke stabbed at his face but he was able to side-step, converting the movement into a back kick. He caught her in the thigh, knocking her back.
Taking his chance, he fired his thrusters to close as he delivered an overhead punch. She tumbled backwards, and his energized punch passed short of her, landing harmlessly in the sand turning it into boiling glass as the energies grounded.
Veranke leapt up and delivered another combination of blows, smacking him in the face with the back haft of the bident before he had recovered. An overhead slash shortly accompanied the blow, and Doom was just able to catch the weapon by the haft.
The two struggled in that bind for a short time. He was able to slowly push back to standing, but his shields were draining fast as Veranke channelled power through the bident. He freed his right hand and fired short plasma bursts from the gauntlet. At this close she couldn't dodge the hail of dagger-like bolts, and she was struck by dozens of them.
The bolts scorched and blackened her armour, and one caught her in the brow as she turned to shield her face from the hail. Her green skin sizzled from the wound, but she wasn't letting up; she gave him an unrelenting stare as she redoubled her effort.
WARNING: ARMOUR SHIELDS AT 30%
Doom realized he was losing this bind. As hard as he could, he threw the spear to the side, but she seemed to be expecting the move and didn't lose her balance. He pushed himself laterally as hard as he could as she drew the weapon back and stabbed at him.
Too slow he realized, pain shooting through him as one the blades sliced through his flank.
ALERT: SHIELD FAILURE
ALERT: BREACH
ALERT: INTERNAL DAMAGE; PREPARING COUNTERMEASURES
Veranke had overextended herself though. Her triumphant expression was short lived as Doom grabbed the spear and delivered a mighty blow to her jaw. She crumpled into the ground, and he lifted an armoured boot to stamp down on her. She quickly rolled away, kicking up tuffs of sand as she avoided the stomp.
He watched her gracefully get to her feet a short distance away as he gritted his teeth in pain. Precisely balanced electrical fields from his armour cauterized his wound, sealing it and binding his nearly dissected kidney back together, saving him from bleeding to death.
She hadn't gotten away unwounded. Her jaw was hanging at an unnatural tilt. She grabbed it and gave a short pull, and it snapped back into place. She held her chin as she slid her jaw back and forth, testing the joint.
READYING: CRIMSON BANDS OF CYTROCK
Arcane writing scrolled past Doom's eyes. He had begun the required somatic components of the spell, and his armour brought up the relevant incantations in response to his movements. Certainly, he knew all of them off-heart, but it never hurt to have information at one's finger tips.
Scarlet ribbons of magical force flew from his hand, but Veranke made no move to avoid the bonds. Instead, the arcing bioelectricity that coronated her flared into a bright aura as she held her bident before her. As the spell raced towards her, she delivered a sharp slash, and the bonds scattered and dissipated in the air.
"You are adept at defending against the mystical arts, I see," he said, begrudgingly.
"I learned from our holy men. One of the necessities of being in the priestly caste," she answered.
At least that explained how she escaped when they fought before this invasion happened.
Again, she leapt forward like a hell cat, but this time Doom chose to charge as well. When he was just about in range of her spear, he fired his thrusters, leaping into the air. Veranke sailed under him, and he turned, firing his plasma beams at her exposed back.
At this range she couldn't dodge, and he poured the full force of his weapons on the woman. She pulled her shimmering cloak over herself, the alien alloys in it sheltering her from the maelstrom.
After a few moments, he was forced by his falling power reserves to cut his attack, and Veranke scrambled to her feet, undoing the clasp at the neck and flinging her cloak away. The ultralight materials had done their job, but now the exotic metals had fused into a brittle mass.
Retaliating, she launched cracking blasts of energy at him, and he was forced to evade as his capacitors recharged. He avoided the first and the second, but the third shot caught him in the shoulder, and his shields failed again.
Before he could recover, a fourth blast caught him.
Doom's vision went white as he felt electrical pain shoot through his whole body, followed by tingling in his limbs as his nerves protested the insult. He was totally discombobulated for a moment, struggling to regain his wits. A crunching thud told him that he landed in a heap, and he shook his head to clear his vision.
As his sense returned, he saw Veranke bearing down on him. He didn't have time to dodge, so he made the next best choice he could.
He slapped down at the blades of the bident with his left hand. Sharp pain shot up his arm as one of the blades punched through his palm. He carried the force agonizingly forward until he could grab the base of the spear tip. Despite the loss of tendons and functional tissue, the neural-links in his suit still registered his nerve impulses, and he closed a servo-boosted iron grip on the blade. Not wasting a moment, he fired his mask lasers into Veranke's forearm, searing the flesh and weakening her grip. He followed with a powered front kick, powerful enough to cave-in the chest of a normal human.
She tumbled back, losing her grip on the bident. She rolled backwards, kicking up sand and grit before catching herself and reverse shoulder-rolling back into a skidding 3-point stance. She quickly ran a hand across the large crack in her breast-plate, and realizing the state of the armour, she angrily unclipped a few straps, and the pieces fell to the ground.
With a curt motion, Doom pulled the bident from his palm, blood pouring down its blades. A moment later he hefted it and cracked the haft of the weapon over his knee. He was wounded, and in significant pain as he angrily dropped the sundered halves of the spear.
Fortunately, pain was an old friend; he welcomed its invigorating power.
Veranke's fury was obvious, and she launched a blast a searing bioelectricity from her hands. He countered with his own plasma beam from his remaining functional gauntlet. His capacitors had partially recharged, and he dumped all available power into his weapons.
Energy flared in blinding coronas, arcing into the ground and leaving streams of boiling glass. White-hot brightness filled the arena, and Doom's optics polarized in response. He felt the thrumming of his armour as he unleashed the full power of his weapons into the atomic conflagration.
To his great vexation, it appeared to be still insufficient.
The churning conflux stubbornly refused to budge as the titanic energies collided, and the bystanders retreated, ducking for cover as crackling power wildly surged, threatening a certain death for the slow-witted.
WARNING: POWER RESERVES LESS THAN 25%
Doom could not judge weather she was tiring, but ruby lights blinked in his vision as his power swiftly drained. Painfully, he began occult gestures with his injured hand. The neural links in his suit picked up the nerve impulses, and the servos excruciatingly forced his hand to obey, despite the severed tendons and shattered bones.
READYING: CRIMSON BANDS OF CYTEROK
Multitudinous tendrils shot from his left hand, flying in wide arcs towards her. Focused as she was on the blinding maelstrom of power between the two, she didn't see the magical bindings until it was too late. Pain shot up his arm as he closed his grip, and constricting bands took her, binding her limbs, and pulling her hands away.
Without the countering force of Vernake's bioelectricity, Doom's particle beam surged forward, and constrained as she was, there was little the Queen could do to defend herself. Keeping his left hand closed tight on the otherworldly bindings, he kept his plasma beam on his defenceless target until he was left on only backup power.
Veranke was still there when he cut the particle cannon, inexorably bound by the crimson bands, pulled down to her knees with her arms forced back.
He walked forwards slowly, and she didn't look up. He could see that she was still breathing despite the terrible power she had endured. Her armour was cracked and rent, and large burns could be seen where the under layers had been entirely blasted away. Impressively, her burns appeared closer to partial thickness ones, testifying to her super-human physiology. But Doom could see she was beaten, and at his mercy.
He stopped a few feet from her cruxiformed body.
"Yield."
She didn't look up, instead turning her face away, "Then the prophecy is broken...and this is the end of the Skrulls...my beloved people..." she said, bitterness and consternation weeping from her words.
"That need not be the case," he answered.
She snapped up, looking at him, "What?" she said sharply.
"I am willing to negotiate the future of your race."
"Why? After all we did?" she said, disbelievingly.
Doom gave a short nod as before he spoke, "Seventy years ago, a group of men rose up in my home continent. In their zeal for purity, they chose to levy death upon any they believed inferior, including my own people. They sought to make death their servant, and it became their master, before overcoming them and casting down their works. I do not wish to repeat their mistakes, and my new Empire shall not be founded upon death, but upon wisdom."
She said nothing, so he continued, "If you wish, your people will be allowed to leave, that they may seek another home. Or they may remain here, under my rule-" he said, releasing the magical bindings. "Though I hope it would be under our rule,"
She fell onto her hands as she was released, before painfully pushing herself back onto her knees. "What are you saying?"
"Stay here and rule at my side," he said, holding out a hand.
"How could you ever trust me?"
He tapped his chest, "We are separated by the gulf of species, but you and I share in a Majesty of spirit. It was already an impossibility for Doom to find one of an appropriate Imperial magnificence among humanity; just the same, you are the lone Sovereign amongst your people. The natural order requires Imperator and Imperatrix."
"You expect me to kneel to you?" she said.
"You already are."
"I...suppose so," she said somewhat bemusedly. She reached out to his proffered hand, before hesitating and pulling away slightly, "But how will mankind accept my people? We came here as invaders."
"There will be conditions, and reconciliation will be hard. But it is my will."
She slowly reached to his hand when a voice boomed out, "BETRAYER!"
It was Medusa
Doom turned back to face her, "How so?"
"You promised me vengeance, and now you court this alien?" she said furiously.
"I promised you blood, which you have been paid-" he said, pointing at the scalped and broken form of the Defenatrix-Skrull, "-there lies the one who killed your husband. And besides, what of your subjects? Surely, you should wish for the return of the remaining Inhumans?" he said, laying his hand on computer console on his forearm.
"What treachery is this?" she said, her mane of prehensile hair writhing.
He lifted his arm, demonstrating the small console before he spoke. "Doom now controls this fleet-" he said. His virus had finished its work, but he decided not to mention how vulnerable his control was. He was in no state to defend himself further, and if they seized the main computer, they could undo his work. "-That includes the ship 'Kykar's Justice'. It is upon this ship that the replaced captives are being held. As a reward for your service to Doom, I was going to release the Inhuman prisoners to your care..."
Doom made an exaggerated gesture, as if remembering something, before taking a sardonic tone, "In fact, considering the loss of your Lunar city, these are likely the only surviving Inhumans, now that I think of it."
"Monster...I'll-" she said through gritted teeth.
"You'll do nothing if you wish to have your subjects returned!" he ordered. A few of the other heroes they had freed from detention block had joined at Medusa's side, including the now one-armed Gorgon, and Eva who had improvised a tourniquet on her leg wound.
At the same time, the Mutants and Carol had taken Doom's side, and the tension grew.
Medusa spoke accusingly to his honour guard, "How can you let this happen?"
"They have already accepted what Doom offers. If you are wise, you will do likewise-" he raised his voice to address the gathered heroes, "All of your friends and family taken by the Skrulls can be returned. By Doom's will, all of them can remain taken,"
He gave them a few pensive moments to consider his offer, before issuing his first edict: "Kneel."
Grudgingly, and one by one, they fell to a knee before Doom.
He turned back to Queen Veranke, holding out his hand again.
"Now, where were we?"
She took the proffered hand, and he pulled her to her feet.