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"Victor?" Reed's voice cracked as he stared at the armored figure. "Victor Von Doom? What are you doing here?"
Tony's HUD was already analyzing the intruder's tech. "Hold up, where'd you get my arc reactor designs? That power signature is way too close to my work."
The figure's eyes blazed through his metal mask. When he spoke, every word dripped with contempt. "STOLE? You dare accuse DOOM of common thievery? FOOL! DOOM has no need of your crude machinations! Any simpleton could construct such pedestrian armor. Trinkets like yours, DOOM has fashioned and discarded as inadequate prototypes years past!"
He turned that terrible gaze on Reed, his voice dropping to something far more dangerous. "But you, Richards... you took what was MINE. MY capital funded your pathetic venture into the cosmos. When your incompetence led to that catastrophic failure, it damaged Latveria's standing among the nations. Yet when you emerged from that cosmic storm with abilities beyond mortal ken—" His voice began to rise like a symphony of fury. "Did you answer DOOM's summons? Did you share the secrets of your transformation with the one whose wealth made it possible?"
Reed's jaw worked silently. "Victor, we were new at—"
"SILENCE!" Doom's gauntlet struck a control console, showering the lab in sparks. "Official diplomatic entreaties from the sovereign ruler of Latveria! Formal demands for audience! ALL IGNORED! You made DOOM appear weak before his subjects!"
His masked visage turned toward Sue, something infinitely darker entering his tone. "You stole DOOM's investment, DOOM's prestige, DOOM's rightful inheritance of power... and the one treasure that should have graced DOOM's throne."
Sue stepped forward. "Victor, what happened to you? This isn't who you were at Empire State."
"Have you learned nothing from DOOM's words, woman?" Doom's voice carried the chill of Latverian winters. "You have all betrayed DOOM. Most grievously you, Susan Storm. DOOM would have elevated you to royalty, made you a queen among nations. Instead, you play at heroics in these colorful costumes."
"That's enough!" Johnny's flames roared to life, bathing the lab in orange light. "Nobody talks to my sister like that! Flame on!"
He unleashed everything, a red-hot inferno that could melt steel. But Doom stood unmoved as a perfect energy sphere materialized around him. The flames washed over it uselessly.
"Parlor tricks," Doom said with bored contempt.
Rogue and Domino bolted toward Jay's chamber, but Doom casually raised his gauntlet. Twin energy beams forced both women to dive behind overturned equipment.
Steve's shield sliced through the air, intercepting the blasts, but the impact launched him backward into a wall hard enough to crack concrete.
"That's it!" Tony's suit screamed to full combat readiness. "Nobody messes with an American on American soil on my watch!"
Iron Man and the Human Torch attacked together, repulsors and superheated plasma creating a deadly light show. But Doom's barrier absorbed it all without a flicker.
Reed stretched across the chaos toward Ben. "You all right?"
"Been better, Stretch," the Thing rumbled, rolling his shoulders. "But I ain't down yet."
Hank's fingers flew over the cosmic radiation controls, sweat beading on his blue fur. "The containment field is fluctuating! If the radiation levels destabilize—"
"Johnny!" Sue shouted. "Sustained burn on his barrier and don't let up!"
Johnny poured his flames into a concentrated stream while Sue wove force fields around both the fire and Doom's armor. Not a barrier but a cage. The heat had nowhere to go but inward.
Doom's armor began glowing cherry-red as the temperature spiked. "Ingenious, Susan. But ultimately futile."
He spread his arms wide, energy crackling between his gauntlets. "DOOM SHALL NOT BE CONFINED!"
The explosion shattered Sue's construct and sent her tumbling across the lab. But the effort had cost him, warning lights flickered across his armor's systems.
Reed struck like an octopus, his form flowing around Doom from six angles. "Now! Everyone, now!"
"It's clobberin' time!" Ben charged forward.
His granite fist connected with Doom's chest just as Steve's shield ricocheted off his helmet. Tony's repulsors fired point-blank, the combined assault driving the armored dictator to one knee.
"This ends here, Victor," Reed said through clenched teeth, his limbs constricting around Doom. "Surrender, and maybe we can help you."
Doom's response was laughter- cold, bitter, and absolutely terrifying. "You never did comprehend the depth of your inadequacy, Richards. DOOM always has... contingencies."
Green energy erupted from his armor, an omnidirectional shockwave that hit like a train. Reed's grip shattered, Ben went tumbling, and Tony's suit was swatted aside.
As his enemies struggled to their feet, Doom placed a small device on Iron Man's suit. The EMP pulse turned Tony's armor into expensive deadweight.
"Fascinating technology, Stark. Regrettably vulnerable to electromagnetic interference."
A blade extended from his wrist. When Reed stretched toward him again, the edge sliced through his arm like butter.
Reed's scream echoed through the lab as he clutched the wound.
"Reed!" Sue's voice cracked with terror.
But Doom was already at the cosmic ray apparatus, his armored hand closing around the primary control. "If DOOM cannot possess these gifts," he declared with the finality of a death sentence, "then NONE shall benefit from them!"
The dial spun to maximum.
Jay's chamber erupted in blinding radiance as cosmic energy poured forth. The unconscious man convulsed as raw power cascaded over him.
"Sweet mother of Darwin, no!" Hank roared from his console. "Those radiation levels at that intensity, with his injuries, are going to kill him! Or transform him into something that should never exist!"
Domino threw herself toward the deadly beam, hoping to shield Jay. But the floor beneath her, which was weakened by explosions, chose that moment to collapse. She plummeted into darkness.
"Son of a bitch!" her voice echoed from below. "I couldn't even-"
Rogue watched Jay's body jerk and spasm in the chamber, the metal shard still bleeding in his abdomen. Her friends were down, the villain was winning, and someone she cared about was dying.
"Forgive me, sugar," she whispered, pulling off her gloves.
Her bare palm touched Ben's shoulder first. Strength and durability flooded into her as her skin took on granite texture. Sue came next as an invisible force field shimmering around her. Then Johnny, flames erupting from her arms. Finally Reed, her left arm stretching like taffy.
She was all of them now, their powers layered through her system. The agony was indescribable, every cell screaming as conflicting energies tried to tear her apart.
"Victor!" Her voice was a chorus now. "This ends now!"
What followed was less a fight than a force of nature unleashed. Rogue moved like lightning, stretching invisible, flaming limbs that struck from impossible angles while force fields contained destruction. She fought with Ben's instincts, Sue's precision, Johnny's courage, and Reed's calculation all at once.
She became a human storm, bending around Doom's energy blasts and striking back with flame-wreathed invisible fists that dented his armor. When he tried to fly, she wrapped elastic arms around his legs and yanked him down. When he fired missiles, she turned invisible and let them pass through the force field decoys.
But Doom adapted to her assault, using the lab as a weapon, turning tables into projectiles, overloading power conduits, and even collapsing ceiling sections.
"You are impressive," he admitted as his armor sparked from accumulated damage. "But you lack DOOM's greatest gift! His INTELLIGENCE!"
Through it all, Jay convulsed in the tank. Steve lay unconscious. Tony's suit was scrap metal. The Fantastic Four were down. Hank desperately tried reaching Professor Xavier while maintaining what control he had left.
Rogue's borrowed powers were cooking her from the inside. But before her body gave out, she managed one final act. Moving with Johnny's speed, backed by Sue's force fields, powered by Ben's strength, and guided by Reed's flexibility, she drove her fist through Doom's faceplate and chest armor.
Then she collapsed, her skin fading to pale as the stolen abilities drained away, leaving her gasping on the debris-strewn floor.
Doom stood amid the wreckage, armor sparking and failing. Blood ran from behind his shattered mask, but his voice carried satisfaction. "At last, I claim what was always—"
THWACK
Something struck his exposed face with sniper-bullet velocity. A quarter, twenty-five cents of American currency, moving so fast it punched through flesh like an armor-piercing round. Blood sprayed as his nose shattered, sending him staggering in blind agony.
In that moment of disorientation, he stumbled directly into the cosmic radiation beam.
Raw energy hit him with solar flare force. His scream could have shattered glass as cosmic fire began remaking his cellular structure. Only a fraction of radiation continued to Jay's chamber while Doom was absorbing the rest with his unwilling flesh.
Hank saw his chance. If the madman wanted cosmic radiation, the Beast would give him everything. Every dial spun to maximum. Every safety protocol disabled. The laboratory's entire cosmic energy reserve poured into the monster who had threatened their friend.
When the terrible light faded and their fuel was exhausted, the heroes slowly regained consciousness. What greeted them would fuel nightmares for life.
Victor Von Doom still stood, but no longer recognizably human. His once-magnificent armor hung in melted, twisted rags. Where his face had been was now scar tissue, exposed bone, and burn marks.
He was alive, but transformed into darkest nightmare.
But Jay commanded their attention now. The young man lay absolutely motionless in his chamber, terribly quiet.
Reed crawled to the chamber on hands and knees, his wounded arm leaving a crimson trail. "Jay?" he whispered hoarsely. "Jay, please... respond if you can hear me."
The silence stretched like a held breath.
No movement.
In the distance, sirens wailed as emergency responders finally reached the devastated Baxter Building.
But in that moment, all that mattered was the question none dared voice
Was he even still alive?
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