Post by DiscipleofBob on Feb 8, 2016 23:55:24 GMT -5
Fantastic Four #11:
Latveria
By Adrini and DiscipleofBob
Latveria
By Adrini and DiscipleofBob
Victor ran through village cobblestone streets that were somehow familiar despite never seeing them before, or not knowing where he was running from or where he going. All he knew was that someone, or something, was after his life. Nothing else mattered, not the swirling green vortex that made up the sky, or that the cobblestone streets twisted and turned in four dimensions, sometimes turning upside-down to where the ground was above and the sky was below, sometimes spiraling into even more impossible shapes even Escher would have trouble navigating, and yet he ran.
He couldn't stop himself from looking back. Each time he did so, the vague shadow would become less vague, becoming more defined in shape, growing in size, and getting closer. At this rate it would soon catch up to him.
When Victor forced his gaze on the path ahead, the figure was directly in front of him. It grabbed Victor by the throat and lifted him off the ground in one hand. It was no longer a shadow, but an imposing humanoid that towered over Victor, completely covered from head to toe in overlapping armor. Its face in particular was covered by a hideous iron mask.
"What do you want from me?!" Victor heard himself call out. The armor did not respond, instead dropping Victor Von Doom, who fell upward into the swirling vortex in the sky.
Victor's eyes snapped open. He awoke in a cold sweat just in time to hear the last of his night terror screams echo off the ship cabin walls. Lucia quietly entered the room, always at hand when she was needed.
"The dreams again?" she asked. Victor nodded. "I wish I knew what to do about dreams."
"It's been... a stressful few weeks to say the least. Nightmares are to be expected. They'll fade eventually," Victor had to tell himself to calm down, though he couldn’t be sure if he'd ever get a decent night's rest again.
Lucia nodded. "We'll be docking in Latveria soon. The good news is we won't be bothered by the international media circus or Interpol here. The bad news is our arrival here isn't exactly... welcome, so we may need to keep a low profile."
"How low are we talking?"
"We'll be heading as far as possible up the Kline River until we reach Latveria's borders. From there we take a rowboat to shore and hike to Hassenstadt. The freighter will camouflage itself and wait for our return, should need to escape quickly," Lucia explained.
"Just what have you gotten me into?" Victor asked suspiciously. "I need treatment and a place to lie low, and you're telling me we're fugitives before entering the country?"
"Fugitives? No. Officially you won't be in Latveria either. If all goes according to plan, no one should ever know you're here," Lucia explained. "I reached out to some contacts. If you're going to make a full recovery without plastic surgery, you're going to need the best of the best. And it just so happens that the best of the best surgeons is in Latveria as well."
"The best surgeon in the world is a Latverian?" Victor asked with some skepticism.
"Well, no. He's just on sort of a Doctors Without Borders program."
"Latveria has closed borders though."
"Emphasis on the Without Borders part. He doesn't exactly have a private Latverian practice."
Victor sighed, suddenly realizing all the trouble this whole ordeal would take. "And you're sure this doctor you have in mind will be able to fix my injuries?"
"If anyone can."
The lights on the freighter were extinguished by necessity once they entered Latverian waters. Victor stepped out onto the deck of the boat with a little guidance for Lucia so he didn't lose his balance in the darkness. Once he was outside, he could see perfectly again. They were at the shore of the river, in the middle of the Latverian wilderness. The sky was clear and filled with the light of a billion stars. A full moon was rising over the Balkan mountains, illuminating a castle of tall spires sitting on top of the highest peak like a gargoyle overlooking the countryside. Beyond the forest of pine trees, the vaguest of lights from the skyline could be seen to at least mark the path.
"Welcome to the jewel of the Balkans," said Lucia. Supposedly Victor had been born here, but it was when he was all too young. Any memories he had of the country were too distant to be recalled, only that leaving for American shores had been an ordeal, and that his mother had sacrificed everything so he could leave. "Let's go."
The ship seemed to be abandoned. "Where is the rest of the crew? I haven't seen them for the entire voyage."
"Per my instructions, they are under strict orders to not be present where you are. I know how self-conscious you're feeling about your injuries. I didn't want to upset you."
Victor wanted to protest, but he couldn't disagree with Lucia's assessment. In building up his own name on his company, he'd acquired an unhealthy amount of vanity over the years, so much so even he was aware of it. Of course the past few weeks had been humbling, but the last thing Victor wanted was for anyone to see his bandaged face with pity the way Lucia or Reed had, or disgust the way Sue did.
There were two crew members to help lower the lifeboat, and by their uniforms they appeared to be the captain and first mate. It was odd that this task had been relegated to who should have been the most important men on the ship. "Safe journeys," the captain said as he prepared the lifeboat.
Lucia nodded. "You have my instructions."
"Once you are ashore we will take the Vernard to cover, weigh anchor, and set up camouflage. You will find us at the agreed upon location."
"Very good. Come, Victor," Lucia helped Victor into the boat and the two sailors lowered it into the water. They quietly rowed to shore, and the stillness of the river's waters made Victor picture nightmares lurking beneath its surface. The night landscape straight out of the gothic horror tales of old didn't help his anxiety.
They reached the shore unassailed, however. Lucia brought the boat ashore, refusing to let Victor help, and took it just beyond the treeline, where there was a dug hole the perfect shape to store the canoe, as well as a camouflaged blanket to drape over it.
"Do you mean to say you had all this prepared in advance as well?" Victor asked with some suspicion.
"A matter of convenience, Victor. We're merely taking advantage of an existing smuggling route," Lucia said as she finished covering the camouflaged tarp with leaves and branches.
"And just how many smugglers do you know personally, Miss Von Bardas?"
Lucia glanced up in slight surprise. "I would've thought you'd figured it out by now. The ship we were on? With some slight crew alterations, that captain on that ship is the one who originally smuggled you out of Latveria when you were a child."
Victor had never imagined the ship Lucia would commission would share such a distant part of his history. While Lucia finished hiding the boat, Victor could only gaze out onto the water at the fading silhouette of the ship, just before it erupted into flames.
He fell backward, more out of shock than the actual explosion, though he could feel the hot air from the flames blowing against his face. "LUCIA!"
Upon seeing the explosion Lucia cursed in Latverian's native dialect. "Dreadknights! Victor, we have to leave now!"
"We need to help them!" Victor protested.
"They knew the risks and accepted them. If we go back now, we die with them. Come on!" Lucia tugged at Victor's arm, while he watched as black shadows swooped in from the night sky. Victor expected jets or maybe paratroopers. What he didn't expect to see where the silhouettes of lance-wielding knights riding winged stallions, breathing jets of flame onto the deck of the ship.
Gunfire soon followed, as the crew of the Zefiro Star fought back. The black riders started to swoop down and pick off survivors one by one. Along with the unholy screeching of the riders, Victor could barely make out the last cries of the ship's crew.
"For Doom!"
Victor realized that these men were willing to fight and die on his behalf. He presumed they were just mercenaries or smugglers helping them for the money, but there they were putting their lives on the line against terrifying adversaries for his sake. He couldn't understand why. He didn't even know their names. "Lucia, what the hell is going on here?!"
"I'll explain later! Right now we need to focus on getting to Hassenstadt and finding shelter!" Lucia said as she continued to pull Victor through the forest towards the city.
Sneaking into the city was another ordeal. The roads to Hassenstadt were barricaded, presumably indefinitely. Only military vehicles were being allowed in or out. An iron wall topped with barbed wire separated the city from the surrounding forest, periodically broken up by towers equipped with spotlights and lookout nests.
"Is this a city or a prison?" Victor whispered to Lucia, who only signaled for him to be quiet.
Victor could only trust that Lucia had a plan as she approached a military truck on the side of the road. Its driver was smoking a cigarette leaning against the hood. "Torvalt?" Lucia quietly called out.
"Miss Von Bardas," the man presumably called Torvalt replied. "I was worried you might not show. The Dreadknights are out in force tonight."
"I was hoping for less of a welcome, but things are what they are. Is everything still prepared?"
Boris nodded. "You will have some unpleasant company I'm afraid. Just stay towards the back and keep your heads down until we're past the checkpoint." He opened the driver's cabin and tossed two coarse blankets to Lucia. "Here, wrap yourselves in these."
Victor glanced into the back of the truck. Peasant women in simple ragged clothing sat along the side, not daring to even raise their heads. Victor noticed the chains wrapped around their legs, preventing any of them from escaping their fate. Victor quickly turned to Lucia. "What the hell is this?! What are you making me part of?"
Lucia pulled Victor to the side, doing her best to make sure the girls and the driver were out of earshot. "I'm sorry for this indignity. It's the only way I could get you safely into the city."
"If you think that I'm going to let these innocent women be bound in chains just to cross a border into some fascist regime-"
"These women were bound for their destination before we even left America," Lucia said quickly and quietly. "They would still have this fate even if we had never come in the first place. If not them, then others would suffer in their place. I'm sorry, but right now there is nothing we can do about it except get you into the city."
"All this just to see some doctor? Tell me what's really going on!"
"I will. I promise. Just not here. Not yet. Every second we waste now is another chance for the Dreadknights to find us, and until we get where we need to be, it's not safe to speak in the open. Please, just trust me," Lucia pleaded.
Victor hesitated. All of his life, Lucia had only worked for Victor. She never had any goals of her own, seeking only to further Victor's position and help him realize his dreams. More than once she'd put her life on the line to protect his, and so she'd earned Victor's unwavering trust. "My faith in you is starting to wane. Make sure I don't regret this," Victor ordered as he warily stepped up into the truck. He hid his bandaged face from the peasants, who kept their heads down and said nothing as Victor and Lucia climbed to the back.
They say on the filthy floor in silence. The peasant girls stayed completely quiet, not even daring to cough as the truck headed down the dirt road. Without windows, Victor and Lucia could only stare out the back and watch the wilderness of Latveria pass into the shadows of the night.
The truck slowed to a stop, and just outside Victor could hear the muffled conversation between the border guard and the truck driver. He feared they had been sold out, but kept quiet. His paranoia magnified every sound a hundred fold, like the footsteps in the dirt circling the vehicle. The guard stood at the back of the truck and pointed his flashlight in. Victor turned his face and wrapped the cloak tighter around him.
"Prince Zorba has very specific tastes," Torvalt said to the guard.
"More already?" the guard sighed.
Torvalt shrugged. "I just deliver the goods to the castle and pray not to cross any of the royal family."
The guard lowered his flashlight. He'd seen more than he'd wanted to. "Very well then, move along. Safe journey. I've heard that dissidents are active tonight."
"I will hurry then. If I lose my cargo, my head will go with it," Torvalt bid farewell and the truck was once again on its way into the city.
At the soonest opportunity, the truck pulled into a side street, and after Torvalt checked for prying eyes, he motioned for his two smuggled passengers to exit, helping both of them down. "What about them?" Victor immediately asked about the girls.
Torvalt shook his head. "I'm sorry, but as I said before, if I don't deliver them to the castle, the Dreadknights will come for me and my family next.
Victor cast a glance inside the truck, and as if she could read his mind, Lucia spoke, "We aren't in a position to help them now. Even if we freed them here, we don't have the means to keep that many hidden and safe."
"What's going to happen to them?"
"Honestly? I don't know. I don't ask, because I don't want to know," Torvalt replied as he got back in his truck and drove off on his regular route.
"Let's go," Lucia said as she led Victor down the back streets of Hassenstadt. Victor said nothing, but even the regret he felt in leaving those women to their fate was overshadowed by the strange, supernatural familiarity the streets of Hassenstadt gave him.
They were simultaneously completely new to him, yet still fresh in his mind. These were the same streets and buildings from his recurring nightmares that had grown more frequent to the point where they were every night without fail. Part of him was dreading when the starry sky would fill with swirling green smoke, when the buildings around him would suddenly erupt in hellish flames, or when the cobblestones beneath his feet would fall away into an infinite abyss.
He was still a stranger to these streets. He had no way of knowing which turns to take or even the vaguest idea of where they were headed. "Do you know where to go?"
"Vaguely. I've been gone from Latveria as long as you have."
"But you do have contacts here. Contacts who don't go through any official channels I assume." Lucia did not reply. Some things were starting to piece together. Latveria had always been only the place of his birth. Victor had never given it much of a thought, especially since the country was one that denied outside contact. Lucia had occasionally spoken of coming back to the old country, but Victor's rise to prominence had occupied both of their lives to this point.
As they traveled through the streets, a few young women passed by. They had such fear that he was once again reminded of his facial injuries. "I can't stroll around in public like this," he quietly complained.
"You're right. Someone may be able to point us out," Lucia agreed, although for different reasons. Fortunately there was a small abandoned cart selling trinkets and carvings. She took two masks out and gave one to Victor. "Masks have been a common tradition in Latveria for centuries. This should preserve your propriety and your anonymity."
Victor hesitantly took the mask. Images of the iron mask in his nightmares swam to the surface. He compared it with the wood-carved mask in his hand. Thankfully, it was completely different, a simple trinket that fit over his face snugly, and bore simple decorative carvings indicative of the region.
While he was adjusting to seeing the world through its lifeless, wooden eyes, a clatter drew his attention. Further down the street, an older woman was trying to pick herself off the ground. Two large men in military uniforms and bronze masks stood over her. "Watch where you're going!"
"Ugh, what is this? Vinegar? All over my uniform!" the other guard tried to shake off the contents of the broken glass bottle that had spilled all over his jacket. "I have to report on duty within the hour!"
"I... I am sorry," the woman frantically apologized.
"You're sorry?! I'm the one who will get a uniform violation for this!" He grabbed the woman by her long, tangled hair and pulled her off the ground. "Am I to suffer for your stupidity then?!"
Victor's blood started to boil. He stepped towards them, but Lucia's hand on his shoulder stopped him. "Leave them! We can't afford to draw attention!" she warned.
"I don't care! I'm not just going to stand by and watch this sort of thing any longer," Victor shot back as he stomped toward them. "Stop!"
The guard with free hands quickly reached for his side arm and pointed it at Victor. "You'll keep on walking if you know what's good for you, leper!" The pistol briefly gave Victor pause, but he'd already resolved to step in and that's what he was about to do.
A glowing barb of pure energy pierced the guard's hand, surprising Victor as much as him. He screamed in pain and dropped the gun. Before either of the soldiers could discern what was happening, four men and women with submachine guns and knives descended from their hidden perches in the darkened windows. Following shortly after was a woman with no weapon, but her hands glowed with the same bright light that pierced the soldiers.
"Victory or Doom!" the sudden arrivals shouted out as they gunned down one guard. The woman with the glowing hands threw energy darts like knives at the one holding the peasant. They barely had time to scream before they crumpled to the street.
Even as the rebels cheered, the unarmed woman started giving orders. "All right, let's clear out before the Dreadknights show up. You two, make sure she gets home safe."
"Samanta Dunbar?" Victor heard Lucia call out as she removed her mask.
The commander jerked around, still running on adrenaline and on the lookout for potential attackers. She relaxed some when she saw Lucia's face. "Von Bardas?"
The two briefly hugged as Victor stood speechless. "I wasn't sure if you'd be able to make it inside the city. Fortunov's men are out in force tonight."
"Are we compromised?"
"I can't be sure. Vladimir has ways of getting shadows to tell him their secrets. We must be careful. Two of our safehouses have been compromised this week alone, but I know where we will be safe," she explained quickly before turning to Victor, "And this is the great Victor Von Doom? Not exactly what I was expecting."
"What exactly were you expecting?" Victor asked cautiously.
Samanta didn't answer, instead keeping an eye on the dark skies above. "Come on, we must hurry. You can rest once we get off the streets."
Beneath the streets of Latveria, catacombs from ages past sprawled in every direction, connecting old sewer tunnels to village basements via secret passageways. The routes weren't ever officially mapped out. Only favorite routes and hiding places were passed on from one generation to the next by word of mouth. The Latverian Army ruled the streets, and its Dreadknights prowled the skies, but here Commander Samanta Dunbar could organize her literal underground movement.
"How bad is it?" she asked as she poured wine from a dusty bottle for her and Lucia. By the time they had arrived safely, it was morning. As impatient as Victor was for answers, a long day of evading troops, being smuggled across the border, and dealing with regular nightmares had left Victor exhausted to the point where he couldn't even argue against getting some rest.
Lucia graciously accepted the glass. The perks of living in basements included old, musty treasures such as wine from a forgotten cellar. "Bad enough that we need the Doctor. He's the best surgeon in the world and the only one who'd be willing to work off the books."
"So you're willing to come all the way here and take my best medic to fix a few scars? If you want my opinion, a few scars would do you some good. Build character. Right now I have real wounded that need attending."
"This is more than just 'a few scars.' The incident changed Victor in ways I can't begin to understand, and I doubt most modern medicine would have much better luck," Lucia took a swig before continuing more authoritatively, "Who introduced your cause to the Doctor in the first place? Who paid to smuggle him across the Latverian border into the city? Besides, would I be here if I had any other choice?"
Samanta couldn't disagree. "No, I suppose not. Though just entering the country these days is a borderline suicide mission. Getting out will be impossible."
"You let me worry about that. Right now, we just need to see the Doctor."
"I can't," Samanta said as she sat down, choosing her words carefully before explaining, "Circumstances have changed since our last communication. He made a house call a while back. We were skirmishing with some of Fortunov's men in the city square. It took longer than we expected, and a Dreadknight showed up. It attacked. There was an explosion. I lost two good men, and more were injured. A kid got hurt in the crossfire. He insisted on making a house call rather than risk moving the kid. He was captured. We think it might have been a trap all along."
Lucia grimaced as she listened to the tale. Losing men was bad enough, but they had no one with medical knowledge before she'd smuggled the Doctor into the country. He was irreplaceable not just as the medic for Samanta's resistance movement, but as the last hope for Victor to recover both physically and mentally. "Was he executed?"
Samanta shook her head. "No, at least not not publicly. Last I heard he was taken to Castle Fortunov. So either he's defected over to the royal family, or he's rotting in a dungeon cell between torture sessions."
"We have to..." Lucia started before being interrupted.
"Look, if I had the means to storm the castle or even infiltrate it I would have done so already. Unfortunately, the Latverian Resistance's influence ends when the city limits ends and the mountains begin."
"Fine then. Let's go over what the resistance does have available. Give me every detail. If we have to, we'll storm the castle with a wheelbarrow and a holocaust cloak." Lucia's words caused Samanta to pause sipping her wine. She stared back quizically. "American media reference. Don't worry about it."
Both were too entrenched in their planning to notice Victor sitting on the top step nearby listening in. Ragtag rebels. Masked soldiers. 'Dreadknights.' Latveria was simultaneously nothing like Victor pictured it, yet somehow everything he expected it to be. What he thought were childish nightmares were closer to the truth than he could care to admit. And there was a lot more to this story than simply this doctor that Lucia had such faith in, but he couldn't get a straight answer from anyone without some form of interruption. It didn't help that everywhere he went within the base he could feel the stares of everyone he passed on the back of his neck, and hear them whispering his name cautiously. It made him just as self-conscious whenever he caught a glimpse of his scarred, bandaged face in a mirror.
He needed some fresh air to clear his head. Victor headed upstairs to bar, seemingly abandoned from the outside, being used for the Resistance's activities. Unsatisfied with the general common area being crowded, he kept ascending the stairs, if only to see how far they went.
A low hum started to fill his ears. It took a moment for him to realize the sound of working electronics, something that was easily taken for granted back in the States. Victor hadn't realized how much he had missed it. At the top of the stairs was a single door that he'd have thought would lead to an attic.
He opened it and peeked inside. Light filtered in through the cracks of boarded windows. The stairs continued up in a spiral hexagon around the inside wall of the building to wooden rafters and the still gears of a long defunct clock tower. But while the clockwork mechanisms were inert, other machines were alive. Large cables snaked around the floor and walls, connected to a series of electronic displays haphazardly set up around the room. Printed on several pieces of equipment was the logo of his company.
Despite his attempts to discreetly peak in, the old wooden door creaked loudly, drawing the attention of the room's sole occupant, a scrawny teenager, about Johnny's age Victor guessed, with long black spiky hair and thick glasses. "Can I help you?" the young man asked before getting a good look at who it was. "Wait, you're Victor Von Doom, yes?" As a reflex, Victor turned away to hide his face. "Yes, they told me you would be arriving! Though they warned me of your injuries and said I shouldn't talk about them. Um... oops," the youth said, quickly realizing his mistake.
"I'm apparently very popular here," Victor said with a grimace.
"Well, of course! Look around you! If it weren't for your company sending us technology, we would have been wiped out a long time ago!" the youth said excitedly as he pulled out a few old magazines with Victor's face on the cover. "I've been following your career my whole life! It's been my dream to one day leave this cursed country and work for your company!" Victor had to at least credit the young man on his enthusiasm. "Oh, sorry. I've been rude again. You can call me Narx. Everyone does."
"Narx?" Victor thought the name strange, even for an Eastern European country, but he'd never been in a position to really comment on the eccentricities of others' names.
"It is a nickname I had as a schoolboy. After a while, it stuck."
The setup in the room was like a museum for Victor. Prototypes from multiple generations were hooked up to work as one, including an experimental generator that never hit the public market. Of course, 'arming rebels in a foreign country' never appeared on any of the financial reports. "These were provided from my company?"
"Smuggled in. I've tried to make the best use of it, but we can't exactly call tech support here."
"Actually, I'm impressed that you managed to get this much to work at all. Many of these components weren't even designed to be compatible with one another."
"Praise from Victor Von Doom. I must be dreaming," he gushed as his pale skin turned just a little bit redder. "What can I say? I'm one of the only people in Latveria who even knows how to use a keyboard."
"Otherwise, you'd be on the first boat out of the country, right?" Victor assmed.
Narx nodded. "Sadly, I am the only one here who even knows how to use a keyboard. And therefore the only one who can make contact outside the country without the use of couriers or pigeons."
"I'm surprised you can run an operation like this without being detected by the authorities. You can get a signal across the world with just this?"
"On a good day. I have to bounce the signal off of other satellites, which aren't always available. I even occasionally piggy backed off of your space station before that no longer became an option. That was a dark day for us. I was just glad to hear you survived."
"You knew I was on the station? That was supposed to be kept secret."
"Well, yes, but like I said, I was relaying my signal off of your station," Narx chose his words carefully. "I... may have gotten access to some files I wasn't supposed to. Not that I ever intended to!"
A sudden thought occurred to Victor. "Were you relaying your signal the day of the crash?" Narx nodded. "You were monitoring the rest of the station when it malfunctioned. You may have gotten information that was otherwise lost. Is there any way you can pull up that data?"
"I don't know if you'd find anything useful, but I'd be happy to. It might... uh... take some time though. Commander Dunbar has me devoting all resources to other operations at the moment, and as advanced as the equipment is, I'm afraid it's still rather slow."
"Whatever you can do, whenever you can do it," Victor breathed a sigh of relief. Perhaps he wouldn't need to wait to investigate the crash after all. His internal celebration was interrupted by the sound of scrambling movement downstairs. "What's going on?"
"I don't know. We aren't under attack, are we?" Narx left his position and looked down to the common room. No one was taking up combat positions or rushing to the armory, fortunately. "What's going on, Klaus?"
The rebel looked up somberly and answered, "They're holding an execution in the square. They're calling for the head of Victor Von Doom in exchange for their lives!"
Victor bolted down the stairs and ran for the door, pushing anyone who obstructed him out of his way. Lucia only just arrived upstairs to see Victor run out the front door and with the rest of the crowd. "Victor, no!" she shouted, but whether Victor was too far away or he'd simply chosen not to listen anymore, he was out of reach.
Victor didn't need to know his way through the streets of Latveria. All he had to do was follow the crowd. He wasn't the only one to wear a mask either. Judging by the people around him, they were relatively common among even the peasantry of Latveria. He could easily blend in with the crowd without being noticed.
He followed the commotion to a large village square, at the center of which was a large marble fountain. Beaten, bound, and bent over the fountains' waters were the victims, soon to be executed. There were four, and although Victor only recognized the Captain and the First Mate, he could tell all four were from the Zefiro Star. A few armed soldiers kept a perimeter between the victims and the general populace, but the main figure in charge was a Dreadknight.
Victor had never seen one up close until now, but there could be no mistaking what he, or rather it, was. While the soldiers had standard military uniforms, the Dreadknight was clad in black plate-mail from head to toe. A horned, demonic, skull mask covered his entire head. Even his eyes were solitary glowing orbs set in the black pits in his eye sockets. No part of his body was remotely visible, and Victor couldn't even be sure he was human. In his hand was a black lance as long as it was, and from his shoulders a long, cape hid his movements. Standing nearby was his mount, a jet-black beast that only slightly resembled a horse, with elongated fangs, glowing red eyes, and long, leathery black gargoyle wings.
The Dreadknight spoke in a deep, commanding voice that echoed over the murmurs or the cowering peasants surrounding him. "These men are thieves, smugglers, and treasoners against the rightful ruler of Latveria. They have allowed two persons into this great city who seek to aid the insurrectionists and defy his majesty's just will, undermining the law and order of this great nation." The Dreadknight lifted his arm and on signal, soldiers unsheathed their knives and pressed them against the victims' throats. "Let their blood staining your waters be a warning to you all! If anyone is caught sheltering the one known as Victor Von Doom, then you will share their fate!"
Victor looked around, seeing if anyone from the Resistance would interfere. No doubt there were at least some mingled among the crowd, but no one was moving. Perhaps ambushing two soldiers in a dark alley in the dead of night was different than an armed contingent in public during the day, or perhaps the Dreadknight commanded just that much fear.
"Commence the execution," the Dreadknight commanded.
"STOP!" Victor yelled out as he broke free of the crowd and stepped forward.
The Dreadknight whipped his lance around and pointed it at the interloper. "Who dares?!"
With one swift movement, Victor ripped the mask off his face along with the bandages, allowing everyone there to see his scarred face. "My name is Victor Von Doom, and I command that you cease this at once!"
The name of Victor Von Doom sent ripples through the murmuring crowd. Some wondered if he was really the man he claimed to be. Others expressed shock and horror at his disfigured face. As much as it hurt him to be seen in such an exposed, freakish state, Victor stared down the Dreadknight who had the rest of the crowd cowering in fear. "Your word has no power here, Von Doom! Continue with the execution!"
"I SAID STOP!" Victor yelled with an outstretched arm as an arc of green flame erupted from it like napalm. Everyone was too stunned by the display of power to react as it engulfed the Dreadknight. In seconds, he had collapsed to the ground, reduced to a blackened husk of armor.
Everything that happened next was a blur for Victor as he tried to comprehend what he had just done. The soldiers, too stunned to react, were overpowered by their captives. The crowd became a vicious mob and charged. The soldiers fired back but could only do so much. Their reinforcements arrived in the form of additional Dreadknights atop their winged mounts, firing bolts of black lightning from their lances into the crowd.
The last thing Victor remembered was the butt of a rifle bashing him in the face before everything went dark.
To be continued...