Chapter Thirteen
Suddenly, the projection room seemed to become darker as Victor let out one of his malicious laughs. Marilyn figured that Victor thought that what he was going to do to her was going to be so incredible an ending to her immortal life, that he was not going to say anymore words to her. As the darkness in the room increased, Victor's eyes reached an apex in their glowing the brightest green as he let out.
"PLUTONIAN ECLIPSE!"
What little light was left within the room was totally replaced by darkness, and made Marilyn feel blind and helpless. There was nothing left for her to do, but pray, and hoped her friends would heed her mental cries for help. She knew what Victor was trying to do, overwhelm her spiritual form with the strongest, purest form of dark energy. If it was anything that would immediately wound and dissolve a soul, it was darkness.
"And I thought that disgusting slug was frightening! Father, Benjamin, Johnny, Susan, can one of you please come NOW?"
Victor's laughs and chortles rang throughout the room and building.
"This is more fun than watching the souls in Limbo and Purgatory SUFFER!" He roared.
"DARKNESS RISETH!"
Surges of dark energy flowed through Marilyn like rivers of fire. It was the most painful feeling she had felt ever since her death during the last battle her and her friends fought against the one who was Doom. Like her life flashed before her eyes before her physical form died, her death and its cause repeated itself before her right then.
It was a stormy autumn Friday morning in New York City. The sky was an eerie black, and was not raining a single drop. Cold winds blew about the hustling and bustling Manhattaners as they were making their way to work. Marilyn remembered her and her father watching them along with viewing the sky that morning. Reed found it very odd how the sky possessed such a dark tone.
"It's so strange Mary. The radio along with National Weather Service reports said there was a not a threat of a storm of any sort today, or the rest of the week. Not to mention how the hue of the clouds is the most odd I have ever seen. One could swear it was night."
Mary knew that besides her, Reed could sense it as well, something was not right. During the remainder of the morning, an ominous feeling and attitude took place among not just Reed and Mary, but the rest of the Fantastic Five. There was even a chance to joke around about the situation at one point when Steely Dan's "Black Friday" pulsated out of the radio's speakers in the lab, but Marilyn did not take that opportunity. Suddenly, at noon, an all too familiar voice erupted from the ebony sky.
"DENIZENS OF NEW YORK CITY, THIS IS YOUR FUTURE LORD ADDRESSING YOU!"
The moment Reed and Marilyn heard the voice of Victor Von Doom sounding out from the clouds, they were instantly upon the rooftop of the Baxter Building as were their friends.
"AH YES, IF IT IS NOT REED RICHARDS, AND HIS GROUP OF MOTLEY FOOLS!"
The Fantastic Five had gotten so used to Dr. Doom's cruel words that they normally did not flinch at them. But this time, it was difficult for they not only had a good idea of where Doom was, but the very fact that they were amplified for the entire city to hear. Right there, it was reveal who, or actually what he was. In the middle of the Manhattan skyline, two colossal green pupil-less eyes stared back at the five heroes.
"AS YOU CAN SEE RICHARDS, I AM NOT IN A MERE, PUNY PHYSICAL FORM. BUT INSTEAD, I HAVE BECOME ONE WITH THE HEAVENS!"
"Im...impossible!" Reed tried to say without fear, but slightly flinched.
"NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE TO DOOM. ADMIT IT RICHARDS, YOU ARE AFRAID, AS YOU SHOULD BE OF DOOM."
Like Doom's voice, thunder crackled from the sky, and flashes of green lightening had begun to streak across the horizon. In the streets below, people were running amuck, screaming, as if the end of the world had arrived. Almost immediately without orders, policemen began to evacuate the natives of New York City.
"I SHALL GIVE YOU AND YOUR PATHETIC FRIENDS TWELVE HOURS TO LIVE OUT THE REST OF YOUR LIVES RICHARDS. BUT COME MIDNIGHT, IT WILL BE TIME FOR ALL OF YOU TO JOIN THE CHOIR INVISIBLE!"
"How many times have I told you, we cannot sing Doom!" Marilyn said as a way of teasing Doom about something he had said so much, it had practically become a cliche. Suddenly, a bolt of green lightening struck where Marilyn had been standing a second ago.
"I WOULD WATCH WHAT I SAID URCHIN. YOU DO NOT WANT TO DISPLEASE THE LORD." Doom said, with a couple of snickers in between.
The Fantastic Five marched back into the Baxter Building, and into a huge meeting room, where they devised how they were going to tackle Doom in his then new form.
"I would love to know how he got like that! Do you guys realize that this could be our final battle with tin face?" Johnny said in disbelief.
"You do not have to remind us lad. While I myself would like to know how Doom obtained his new power. We need to use this time to ponder over more important things, like how are we to defeat Doom if we can." Reed sternly countered.
"Father, didn't you tell me that new device we were working on earlier was supposed to emit some unusual form of energy? So unusual an energy, you said it was potentially the most powerful on the planet?" Mary asked.
"Yes, what about it Mary?"
"If it is the most powerful energy on Earth, we have nothing to lose in using that new weapon against Doom!" She continued with a gleam of hope in her eyes.
"Indeed we don't my child! To the lab, NOW!"
Reed and Mary immediately left the room and the rest of the Fantastic Five in a daze. Without hesitance, Ben, Sue, and Johnny followed their intelligent friends. Outside of the mechanics lab, Sue was able to get Reed's attention.
"Darling, what exactly is this device going to do to Doom?"
Very hurriedly, Reed told Sue.
"If I can get it completed in time Susan, this machine may be our only hope in the defeat of Doom. I can only tell you this, it is the strongest weapon in our arsenal I have ever conceived!"
Sue did not ask any more questions as she witnessed her husband and his stepdaughter enter the mechanics lab, and abruptly shut the door behind them. For a painstaking nine hours, the siblings and their best friend stood awaiting the completion of this intensely dynamic weapon Reed and Mary were trying to complete before Doom began his mass destruction of New York City. Ben, Sue, and Johnny tried their best to sit down to dinner, but it was hard with the view of the opaque skyline before them outside their window. The adjoining laughter making itself audible from the sky was not yielding either. At eleven o'clock that night, Reed and Mary emerged from the lab with what appeared to be one of the most complicated pieces of weaponry their friends had ever laid their eyes upon on a metal rolling cart. Amazingly, they did not say a word, and Ben walked over to the weapon, and picked it up with ease. The five friends headed to the rooftop, with forty-five minutes left before Doom's promised end of their lives. As soon as they were on the Baxter Building's roof, Ben place the apparatus in the center, where Reed and Mary got to work on setting it controls. The other three members watched as their two smartest members put every switch on maximum. They were not the only ones curious...
"WHAT IS THIS? A WEAPON TO BE USED AGAINST ME?"
The Fantastic Five ignored Doom as Reed and Mary made last minute adjustments.
"HOW DARE YOU DO NOT RESPOND TO I, LORD DOOM!"
Once again, silence followed the thunderous words. The flashes of lightening reached their brightest point, showing Doom's apparent anger at his sworn enemies.
"FORGET MIDNIGHT, THE AGE OF DOOM SHALL BEGIN NOW!!!!"
With those words, the lightening and wind reached their highest intensity. And like tiny trees before a hurricane, the building surrounding the Baxter Building became obliterated.
"DOOM, YOU HAVE NEVER BEEN OUR LORD, AND WILL NEVER BE OUR LORD!" Reed hollered towards the raging storm that was Doom as he flipped on the weapon's switch.
As fast as Doom unleashed the full brunt of his powers, a brilliant white beam seeped out from the machine towards Doom. Growls of frustration and pain followed.
"WHEN WILL YOU FOOLS LEARN THAT THE LIGHT SHALL NOT LAST FOREVER?! DARKNESS WILL ALWAYS PREVAIL!! DARKNESS RISETH!!!!"
An energy the Fantastic Five could not see, but could hear the effects of started taking action. Windows and concrete shattered around, causing debris to fall upon and fly over the Baxter Building. Allowing her stepfather to work the weapon, Mary shielded him and her friends with help of her powers of plasticity. She made enough room for the weapon's plasma to do its work against Doom. In order to aid that plasma, Sue and Johnny bravely left the protection of the shielding Mary. Johnny flamed on, and soared up into the starless, lightening engulfed sky, and let out a nova blast. Afflicting pain upon Doom, the nova blast was also the first light the Manhattaners had seen that day. They watched the intense battle with mixed feelings of fear, excitement, and sorrow. Was this Armageddon, the end of the world as everyone knew? Who was going to win this battle? The Fantastic Five, or the evil entity who practically had control then and there? These questions along with many others lingered in the New Yorkers' minds, as they helplessly beheld what was the most epic fight in their five beloved heroes' lives. Right after Johnny let out his nova blast, a hurricane force wind blew him into the broken window of a skyscraper, nearly cutting him up. Johnny was immediately killed. Reacting to this, his sister, Sue mentally used to her powers to throw the largest invisible force field spikes she had ever thrown at Doom. Automatically, the winds shifted direction, sending spikes back and through Sue. Despite the deaths of his wife and her brother, Reed did not move an inch from the weapon he and his stepdaughter had spent the majority of their final hours of their lives to construct. Like Reed, Doom would not give up either. The intense wind and lightening their destruction and attempts at killing off Ben, with whom they succeeded; along with Reed and Mary, who they could not eliminate...
At that point, the memories were beginning to fade in young Marilyn's mind. She vaguely recalled how Doom and his dark powers finally got to her and her father. But somehow, they along with the Creator were able to banish Victor. Marilyn tried to think back more on this, but it was hard to concentrate as she was also fending off the malignant energy trying to eat away at her. Once again, Marilyn had a memory of words her father had said that fateful day she lost her physical form.
"You do not have to remind us lad. While I myself would like to know how Doom obtained his new power. We need to use this time to ponder over more important things, like how are we to defeat Doom if we can."
Except, Marilyn replaced "Doom obtained his new power" with "we defeated Victor that day", and "like are we to defeat Doom if we can" with "will my friends EVER come?". And that was the exact thought that remained in Marilyn's mind as kept at praying for her friends' arrival on the Earthly plane.
Suddenly, the projection room seemed to become darker as Victor let out one of his malicious laughs. Marilyn figured that Victor thought that what he was going to do to her was going to be so incredible an ending to her immortal life, that he was not going to say anymore words to her. As the darkness in the room increased, Victor's eyes reached an apex in their glowing the brightest green as he let out.
"PLUTONIAN ECLIPSE!"
What little light was left within the room was totally replaced by darkness, and made Marilyn feel blind and helpless. There was nothing left for her to do, but pray, and hoped her friends would heed her mental cries for help. She knew what Victor was trying to do, overwhelm her spiritual form with the strongest, purest form of dark energy. If it was anything that would immediately wound and dissolve a soul, it was darkness.
"And I thought that disgusting slug was frightening! Father, Benjamin, Johnny, Susan, can one of you please come NOW?"
Victor's laughs and chortles rang throughout the room and building.
"This is more fun than watching the souls in Limbo and Purgatory SUFFER!" He roared.
"DARKNESS RISETH!"
Surges of dark energy flowed through Marilyn like rivers of fire. It was the most painful feeling she had felt ever since her death during the last battle her and her friends fought against the one who was Doom. Like her life flashed before her eyes before her physical form died, her death and its cause repeated itself before her right then.
It was a stormy autumn Friday morning in New York City. The sky was an eerie black, and was not raining a single drop. Cold winds blew about the hustling and bustling Manhattaners as they were making their way to work. Marilyn remembered her and her father watching them along with viewing the sky that morning. Reed found it very odd how the sky possessed such a dark tone.
"It's so strange Mary. The radio along with National Weather Service reports said there was a not a threat of a storm of any sort today, or the rest of the week. Not to mention how the hue of the clouds is the most odd I have ever seen. One could swear it was night."
Mary knew that besides her, Reed could sense it as well, something was not right. During the remainder of the morning, an ominous feeling and attitude took place among not just Reed and Mary, but the rest of the Fantastic Five. There was even a chance to joke around about the situation at one point when Steely Dan's "Black Friday" pulsated out of the radio's speakers in the lab, but Marilyn did not take that opportunity. Suddenly, at noon, an all too familiar voice erupted from the ebony sky.
"DENIZENS OF NEW YORK CITY, THIS IS YOUR FUTURE LORD ADDRESSING YOU!"
The moment Reed and Marilyn heard the voice of Victor Von Doom sounding out from the clouds, they were instantly upon the rooftop of the Baxter Building as were their friends.
"AH YES, IF IT IS NOT REED RICHARDS, AND HIS GROUP OF MOTLEY FOOLS!"
The Fantastic Five had gotten so used to Dr. Doom's cruel words that they normally did not flinch at them. But this time, it was difficult for they not only had a good idea of where Doom was, but the very fact that they were amplified for the entire city to hear. Right there, it was reveal who, or actually what he was. In the middle of the Manhattan skyline, two colossal green pupil-less eyes stared back at the five heroes.
"AS YOU CAN SEE RICHARDS, I AM NOT IN A MERE, PUNY PHYSICAL FORM. BUT INSTEAD, I HAVE BECOME ONE WITH THE HEAVENS!"
"Im...impossible!" Reed tried to say without fear, but slightly flinched.
"NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE TO DOOM. ADMIT IT RICHARDS, YOU ARE AFRAID, AS YOU SHOULD BE OF DOOM."
Like Doom's voice, thunder crackled from the sky, and flashes of green lightening had begun to streak across the horizon. In the streets below, people were running amuck, screaming, as if the end of the world had arrived. Almost immediately without orders, policemen began to evacuate the natives of New York City.
"I SHALL GIVE YOU AND YOUR PATHETIC FRIENDS TWELVE HOURS TO LIVE OUT THE REST OF YOUR LIVES RICHARDS. BUT COME MIDNIGHT, IT WILL BE TIME FOR ALL OF YOU TO JOIN THE CHOIR INVISIBLE!"
"How many times have I told you, we cannot sing Doom!" Marilyn said as a way of teasing Doom about something he had said so much, it had practically become a cliche. Suddenly, a bolt of green lightening struck where Marilyn had been standing a second ago.
"I WOULD WATCH WHAT I SAID URCHIN. YOU DO NOT WANT TO DISPLEASE THE LORD." Doom said, with a couple of snickers in between.
The Fantastic Five marched back into the Baxter Building, and into a huge meeting room, where they devised how they were going to tackle Doom in his then new form.
"I would love to know how he got like that! Do you guys realize that this could be our final battle with tin face?" Johnny said in disbelief.
"You do not have to remind us lad. While I myself would like to know how Doom obtained his new power. We need to use this time to ponder over more important things, like how are we to defeat Doom if we can." Reed sternly countered.
"Father, didn't you tell me that new device we were working on earlier was supposed to emit some unusual form of energy? So unusual an energy, you said it was potentially the most powerful on the planet?" Mary asked.
"Yes, what about it Mary?"
"If it is the most powerful energy on Earth, we have nothing to lose in using that new weapon against Doom!" She continued with a gleam of hope in her eyes.
"Indeed we don't my child! To the lab, NOW!"
Reed and Mary immediately left the room and the rest of the Fantastic Five in a daze. Without hesitance, Ben, Sue, and Johnny followed their intelligent friends. Outside of the mechanics lab, Sue was able to get Reed's attention.
"Darling, what exactly is this device going to do to Doom?"
Very hurriedly, Reed told Sue.
"If I can get it completed in time Susan, this machine may be our only hope in the defeat of Doom. I can only tell you this, it is the strongest weapon in our arsenal I have ever conceived!"
Sue did not ask any more questions as she witnessed her husband and his stepdaughter enter the mechanics lab, and abruptly shut the door behind them. For a painstaking nine hours, the siblings and their best friend stood awaiting the completion of this intensely dynamic weapon Reed and Mary were trying to complete before Doom began his mass destruction of New York City. Ben, Sue, and Johnny tried their best to sit down to dinner, but it was hard with the view of the opaque skyline before them outside their window. The adjoining laughter making itself audible from the sky was not yielding either. At eleven o'clock that night, Reed and Mary emerged from the lab with what appeared to be one of the most complicated pieces of weaponry their friends had ever laid their eyes upon on a metal rolling cart. Amazingly, they did not say a word, and Ben walked over to the weapon, and picked it up with ease. The five friends headed to the rooftop, with forty-five minutes left before Doom's promised end of their lives. As soon as they were on the Baxter Building's roof, Ben place the apparatus in the center, where Reed and Mary got to work on setting it controls. The other three members watched as their two smartest members put every switch on maximum. They were not the only ones curious...
"WHAT IS THIS? A WEAPON TO BE USED AGAINST ME?"
The Fantastic Five ignored Doom as Reed and Mary made last minute adjustments.
"HOW DARE YOU DO NOT RESPOND TO I, LORD DOOM!"
Once again, silence followed the thunderous words. The flashes of lightening reached their brightest point, showing Doom's apparent anger at his sworn enemies.
"FORGET MIDNIGHT, THE AGE OF DOOM SHALL BEGIN NOW!!!!"
With those words, the lightening and wind reached their highest intensity. And like tiny trees before a hurricane, the building surrounding the Baxter Building became obliterated.
"DOOM, YOU HAVE NEVER BEEN OUR LORD, AND WILL NEVER BE OUR LORD!" Reed hollered towards the raging storm that was Doom as he flipped on the weapon's switch.
As fast as Doom unleashed the full brunt of his powers, a brilliant white beam seeped out from the machine towards Doom. Growls of frustration and pain followed.
"WHEN WILL YOU FOOLS LEARN THAT THE LIGHT SHALL NOT LAST FOREVER?! DARKNESS WILL ALWAYS PREVAIL!! DARKNESS RISETH!!!!"
An energy the Fantastic Five could not see, but could hear the effects of started taking action. Windows and concrete shattered around, causing debris to fall upon and fly over the Baxter Building. Allowing her stepfather to work the weapon, Mary shielded him and her friends with help of her powers of plasticity. She made enough room for the weapon's plasma to do its work against Doom. In order to aid that plasma, Sue and Johnny bravely left the protection of the shielding Mary. Johnny flamed on, and soared up into the starless, lightening engulfed sky, and let out a nova blast. Afflicting pain upon Doom, the nova blast was also the first light the Manhattaners had seen that day. They watched the intense battle with mixed feelings of fear, excitement, and sorrow. Was this Armageddon, the end of the world as everyone knew? Who was going to win this battle? The Fantastic Five, or the evil entity who practically had control then and there? These questions along with many others lingered in the New Yorkers' minds, as they helplessly beheld what was the most epic fight in their five beloved heroes' lives. Right after Johnny let out his nova blast, a hurricane force wind blew him into the broken window of a skyscraper, nearly cutting him up. Johnny was immediately killed. Reacting to this, his sister, Sue mentally used to her powers to throw the largest invisible force field spikes she had ever thrown at Doom. Automatically, the winds shifted direction, sending spikes back and through Sue. Despite the deaths of his wife and her brother, Reed did not move an inch from the weapon he and his stepdaughter had spent the majority of their final hours of their lives to construct. Like Reed, Doom would not give up either. The intense wind and lightening their destruction and attempts at killing off Ben, with whom they succeeded; along with Reed and Mary, who they could not eliminate...
At that point, the memories were beginning to fade in young Marilyn's mind. She vaguely recalled how Doom and his dark powers finally got to her and her father. But somehow, they along with the Creator were able to banish Victor. Marilyn tried to think back more on this, but it was hard to concentrate as she was also fending off the malignant energy trying to eat away at her. Once again, Marilyn had a memory of words her father had said that fateful day she lost her physical form.
"You do not have to remind us lad. While I myself would like to know how Doom obtained his new power. We need to use this time to ponder over more important things, like how are we to defeat Doom if we can."
Except, Marilyn replaced "Doom obtained his new power" with "we defeated Victor that day", and "like are we to defeat Doom if we can" with "will my friends EVER come?". And that was the exact thought that remained in Marilyn's mind as kept at praying for her friends' arrival on the Earthly plane.