Pain.
That was all Victor felt when he touched that damned rock as its energies consumed his body.
Damn those pathetic excuses of heroes. If it wasn't for them, everything would have been fine… but they had to meddle in his affairs. They just couldn't keep their noses out of his business. Now, here he was, his body crackling with interdimensional energy, his suit and magicks working overtime so that his body wasn't scorched to atoms immediately.
Eventually, the flow of power stopped. Victor let out a hiss of both pain and slight relief before a flash overtook his vision. He closed his eyes as the flash consumed his body before dissipating away… It was the last thing he would see before blackness overtook everything…
Doom woke up with blurry vision, his armor feeling heavy, and the smell of smoke overwhelming his nose. He realized the smoke was coming from his very armor, no doubt still heated from the surge of the stone's energy.
Once his vision cleared, he stood up slowly, slightly grunting with effort. He brushed off any dirt on him as he saw that he was surrounded by what appeared to be a grassy field beneath some of the bluest skies he's ever seen in his life. It was practically picturesque, like a place that could only exist in dreams.
Now he was left to wonder where exactly the Norn stone took him. Who knows where he was
Speaking of the Norn stone…
He realized it was nowhere in his vicinity, let alone to be found.
"No!" He exclaimed to himself, looking all over the place and on himself to find it. He couldn't detect its energy signature with neither his tech nor his magic.
It was lost. Somehow it had slipped from his hands. All that struggle with those blasted heroes for nothing….
He clenched his fists so hard that if it weren't for his gauntlets, his nails would have drawn blood from his palms before he threw his head to the sky.
"RRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!"
His scream echoed for miles.
He walked for what felt like hours.
Beneath his boots, the grass was crushed as Doom's cape billowed in the wind. He would have simply flown, but the Norn stone's power short circuited most of his armor's systems, including his jet boosters, leaving him grounded.
He at least still had his magic, but the portals would mean precisely nothing since he had no knowledge of this world's locations. He tried portal back to Latveria, but all he got were sparks that dissipated in the air in a second before fading to nothing.
His armor was damaged, his only means of traveling to his home and back was gone, and he didn't even know where he was.
He scowled at the humiliating situation he was in.
As he continued to walk, his eyes caught notice of what looked like smoke in the far distance. A fire, perhaps? With no time to lose, he picked up his pace, arriving at the source of the smoke.
It was some type of factory, its smokestacks spewing smog and smoke into the clear blue sky, desecrating it with foul gasses and noxious chemicals. He scoffed at this sight. Such pollution would never be allowed to taint the environment of Latveria. His country's energy was as green as his cloak.
Regardless of this affront to nature, it was also the only thing that resembled modern civilization for what was no doubt miles. He headed forward, intent on finding anything that looked like a map. Every second he wasted was a second too late for Latveria. Just the thought of not returning to his home nation in time before the so-called heroes taint her with their American imperialism sickened him in ways that could not be described.
His angry scenarios were then interrupted by the sound of a whirring engine. He looked up to see what looked like a transport ship land a few meters away from him and open up the door to reveal the sound of metallic marching. A squadron of humanoid robots, far different from what he was used to, showed themselves to him. One set of robots were rotund and blue, with heads so flat and small, one would be forgiven by the assumption there was none at all. The next batch of fighters were also rotund, but orange painted with bigger heads that showcased big teeth and round eyes that glowed blue. The last set of robots resembled bodybuilders, with shiny silver and gunmetal gray painted on their chassis, a domed head showing a red visor that glowed menacingly.
The robots surrounded him on all sides, the gray ones then slightly raising their arms upwards, revealing their twin blasters on their wrists, no doubt priming them to fire if he ever did something that was considered untrustworthy.
Doom narrowed his eyes as he noticed an Egg-Pawn walk up to him, "Anomalous entity!" It said in a dull voice, "By order of Dr. Eggman, you are to be escorted to him at once for questioning!"
"Dr. Eggman?" Doom said to himself before his arm was then grabbed by the Egg-Pawn, "You are coming with us!"
Beneath his mask, he curled his lip in a snarl, "None may lay hands on Doom…" he muttered before swiping his arm out of the badnik's grip, then raising an extended finger, firing a beam at the robot's head, the beam piercing through its chassis and through several other of the metallic soldiers behind it, making their heads explode in unison.
The Latverian scoffed, lowering his arm. These robots were about as fragile as tissue paper. Even the most primitive of Stark's armors could have beaten them!
The robots began to arm themselves into attack mode, "Hostile action!" one of them said, "Engaging offensive protocols!"
Doom rolled his eyes and raised his hands, releasing an omnidirectional blast that knocked all the tin cans down in a wave of energy. The ones closest to the blast were torn apart in a shower of sparks and scrap. The Latverian began walking through the newly created pile of junk before a stray energy blast made the ears beneath his helm perk. Without a thought, he activated his shield that protected him from the blast and turned around to see a lone Egg Pawn with its gun outstretched, trembling in its knee joints.
He was not worth deactivating. Doom turned around once again only to quickly hear the sound of aircraft hovering about and landing, followed quickly by the rhythm of marching. He turned to see an entire horde of badniks of many shapes and sizes emerge from transport ships rushing towards him. A few retained the humanoid shapes he's seen before, but some of them seemed to resemble animals, specifically the Arthropoda variety.
Ladybugs on wheels, wasps with glowing stingers and missile launchers, metallic butterflies, praying manti with blades for forelimbs, even slow crawling caterpillars with nasty looking spikes on their bodies. While Doom was aware that nature was a great inspiration for mankind's ever developing fields of robotics, he questioned as to what additional purpose these ones could serve beyond being a part of disposable ranks that overwhelmed their enemy. The humanoid ones could serve many functions, but the animal ones? Not so much.
Regardless, they were in his way and anyone in Doom's way shall be destroyed.
His hands crackled with green lightning as the metallic horde inched closer. He shot out a bolt of the green lightning at a Swat-bot, the electricity arcing to several badniks behind it, short circuiting them and scorching parts of their chassis before they exploded. The other badniks paid no mind as they continued their charge at Doom.
Doom looked to the right and saw an Egg Fighter with a sword with a rotating blade like a buzzsaw. The monarch raised his armored forearm up as the robot brought the sword down, the weapon's teeth shattering like glass as Doom extended a palm at the attacker, creating a massive hole in its midsection.
The Buzz-Bombers then fired their weapons at Doom, ranging from missile launchers to laser stingers. Doom simply summoned his magic barrier and let the projectiles hit him uselessly before extending an arm out past the barrier and letting a beam emerge from his finger.
The beam made contact with a hornet-based robot where it exploded instantly. Doom extended the other hand out of his shield to make the others share a similar fate, with deceptively fast speed. One by one, the flying robots fell until there were no more.
Victor deactivated his shield, only for a Swat-bot to grapple onto him from behind. He scowled, letting a sudden burst of electricity run through his armor, short-circuiting the bot and letting it fall to the ground, smoke pouring from its joints from its internal circuits being fried.
No soon after that, Doom raised his hands and let a concussive wave emerge from his palms, either knocking down several robots or sending them flying. Then, Doom felt several metallic objects hit him from behind. He turned to see the source of the attack: One of the Mantis robots he saw earlier, which now sported an expression of fear as it was now defenseless without its bladed forelimbs.
Before Doom could get closer, another Slicer tossed its blades at Doom, who caught both of them at the same time, surprising it before Doom tossed them back at the badnik with even greater force, the blades slicing through not just the metallic insect, but also the badniks behind him. Doom then rushed towards one of the slow crawling Caterkillers, grabbing it by its unprotected head and swung it around him like a morningstar, smashing any unexpecting bots that tried to get near him, slowly depriving the robot he wielded of its spiked bits with each swing.
When the caterpillar bot was nothing but a head, he tossed it at one of the butterfly robots, knocking it out of the air. He then raised his hands and allowed his telekinesis to freeze the rest of the Butterdroids and brought them together into a sphere of bolts, metal, and sparks which he then slammed down onto the ground in a heap of trash.
It soon devolved into metallic carnage as every single robot found themselves countered perfectly by Doom, who wasn't even using improvised weapons or magic at this point. Charging Motobugs were simply backhanded away, Egg Fighters found themselves entangled with Swat-bots as they were flung around by their limbs, the impacts shattering them to metal bits, even the Slicers were opting to self-destruct instead of trying to toss their blades at Doom. Soon enough, the entire area looked like something out of a scrapyard, with the wrecks of badniks piling on each other, oil leaking out of their crumpled bodies.
He punched away at the last bot before turning and looking at the lonely Egg-Pawn he saw earlier, who hastily aimed his blaster at him before Doom narrowed his eyes at it. The bot trembled a bit before aiming its blaster at itself and pulling the trigger, obliterating its own head, leaving nothing but a sparking stump.
"Smart." Victor muttered as he began to walk away once more, heading to the factory that no doubt spawned these robots when suddenly, he felt the ground rumble, causing the trashed body parts of the badniks beneath him to shake from the quake.
Doom turned to the source of the rumbling: A gigantic Motobug the size of a house barreling its way towards him at full speeds!
Most would scream in fear at this sight, but Doom's response was to simply leap out of the way of the deceptively fast giant, watching as its wheel crushed the scrap metal beneath it like a monster truck flattening a pile of junk cars in an arena.
The gigantic insect-bot drove some more before making a sharp turn, kicking up the dirt and soil it drove on like a tidal wave. It made yet another charge at Victor, who dodged it once again with a simple sidestep.
"Pathetic," he thought aloud, "yet another moronic machine."
The behemoth Motobug then braked and did a hard swerve, narrowing its optics at Doom before charging once more. As Victor prepared for yet another predictable attack, the ladybug-bot then allowed missile launchers to emerge from its sides and fire enough missiles to bust a hole in an aircraft carrier straight towards Doom.
In slight surprise, Doom raised his arms and let his shield do the work in protecting him from the blasts, but this was all a part of the robots plan, for when the smoke and dust cleared, the Motobug was right on top of Doom, who had just let his shield down!
Before Doom knew it, he had a giant wheel grinding on top of him, mixing with the dirt as the horrid sounds of screeching tires filled his ears. Then, just as soon as it happened, the giant badnik drove off of him, driving a considerable distance away before turning to see if Doom had survived.
It saw a gauntlet emerge from the crater it made while drifting, shortly after, the rest of Doom's body got up, showing that his armor had tire marks and some parts of his cloak had been torn, but beyond that, he was unharmed and was positively furious.
Doom grit his teeth beneath his helm as he saw the Motobug burn rubber and prepare for another charge. The nerve of this machine… Using a smokescreen to make him look like a fool! He raised an open palm that crackled with green energy. The Motobug then charged forward as the Latverian shouted at the top of his lungs.
"NONE MAY LAY HANDS ON DOOM!"
From the monarch's palm, emerged a big beam of energy. The Motobug's optics widened seeing the beam before it collided with its face, piercing through its hull like a white-hot knife through butter, its internal components exploding as the beam exited out from its other side, eventually colliding with the top of a factory watchtower, obliterating it to a smoldering ruin.
The supervillain then let out one last hiss of frustration before lowering his hand, observing what remained of the giant motobug rolling forward to him before collapsing with a heavy thud, whatever bits of sheet metal it had left falling apart on impact.
Doom then brushed off any bits of dust, dirt, and tire marks on his being, gazing upon it to ensure nothing was too damaged beyond what was seen from his initial arrival here. He was still irritated, however, and whoever this 'Eggman' was, he would have much to answer for.
"Well, then…"
A voice pierced the sounds of the crackling and sparking flames of the giant motobug. Doom turned around to see what looked like a round hovercraft with its top half open to reveal its rotund rider with a red outfit adorned with white highlights and gold buckles; his mustache as big as his pink nose, with his eyes being covered by a pair of round glasses, a pair of goggles repetitively laying on his bald head.
He was accompanied by a few individuals. The first were rather dim looking robots, one round and red, the other blocky and yellow. The next was a far more menacing android, built to resemble some sort of anthropomorphized animal, but with no mouth and what looked like a jet turbine in its chest. Red eyes adorned a simple black screen, sharp claws primed and ready to strike. Its metal sheen of blue and chrome shone menacingly in the sun as it stared down at Doom, its brow shaped to resemble an angry expression.
Finally, there was by far the most interesting one: What resembled a little girl in a black dress with black shoes, and eyes that shone an intimidating red contrasting her unnaturally pale skin. Her short white hair resembled a swirl, which was dashed with a bright red streak that if one were to look closely, resembled wireframes. Were it not for the subtle discrepancies and the fact that she was hovering next to the rotund man's craft, she could have easily passed off as a normal human girl.
Doom stared at this unusual posse with a curious gaze that was hidden beneath his mask. It didn't take a supergenius like him to figure out that these were the leaders of this robotic squad sent to destroy him. The mustached man finished his sentence as he stared at Victor, a curious, if rather angered, gaze beneath his glasses.
"... what do we have here?"
