CHAPTER 88

A/N: Don't know if I will be able to post today so I figure I should just drop a chapter since I missed yesterday's.

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Doom and Magneto looked at the beaten, broken and battered man as he lay dying on the floor.

The numerous holes on his body were still trying to heal themselves but they were reopened by a flex of Magneto's will.

Doom scowled as he saw the man's hand healing. The man who laid at his feet had cut off his arm during their first confrontation much to Doom's rage and shame. And although he had wiped off the shame of defeat with the glory of victory, the rage still remained. 

He was Doom. 

He was supposed to revel in his enemies defeat as they laid begging at his boots but he just couldn't accept this outcome. The man who bested him was not this weakling. 

He refused to believe that the man who made him flee in retreat and cut off his arm as spoil could be taken down this easily. What then was the proof? 

What was the proof that he lost an arm to a worthy foe and not just some fool? 

Where was the validation for that claim? 

Doom refused to accept his loss to someone who couldn't even put up any single fight. 

He managed to calm himself down lest he did something stupid and with a flex of his hand, the transfigured chains grew small sharp barbed spikes and tore his thick skin as they wrapped all around his body. 

"Find solace in the fact that you would be remembered by Doom as one of those who fell at his feet." Doom squeezed his hands and felt as the chains which were now covering the whole of the mutant's body crushed his bones, spine, and skull. 

Doom waved his hands and felt the last breath of life leave his heart confirming the death of the man named Draul. 

He turned to look at the man who did him a little favor as they both had the same goals. 

"With this I believe our cooperation is-?!"

An ominous air blew through the mansion so much so that Doom and even the magically inept Magneto felt it. 

Something was wrong. 

Immediately they both snapped their heads to look at the last participant in the room.

The man who they both felt dead was getting up in a slowly ominous way. There was no urgency in his gait for someone who just magically escaped death. 

The two men immediately erected barriers around themselves and got ready for any confrontation with the still waking Draul. 

Magneto being the opportunist and realist that he was, used his connection to the various amounts of metals in Draul's body and manipulated them to skewer his heart. 

It seemed to work as Draul staggered and started coughing blood. 

He wanted to push it more and rid the earth of this man but he felt a wave of something and immediately he lost control of all the metal he had stored in Draul's body. 

Tap. Tap. 

The sound of walking echoed through the destroyed room as the two men looked at the man who was dragging himself forward – one step at a time. 

Magic circles appeared around Doom's hands while metals orbited around Magneto's form. 

"You know, all I really wanted was just a little peace and quiet. Just for a little while." Draul stopped when he was a few feet away from them and spoke, sounding really genuine about the words coming out of his mouth which creeped the other men in the room. 

"If you had waited a week, hell even a few more days, then we'd be cool. Would've thanked you for the reprieve, truly." For the first time, Draul looked at both of them in the eyes with clarity. 

"But you just had to ruin Christmas." He sighed as if it was truly a loss or some kind of unfortunate choice. 

"Quit the rambling, fool. Doom grows tired of the words of a weakling." Doom had had enough of the dismissal the man was showing him and made to strike. 

The roof of the house crumbled and was transfigured into a ball of spike that fell down at amazing speed to Draul. 

The man in question didn't move a muscle to show that he was concerned about the danger falling on him literally. 

Doom and Magneto almost had a smirk wiped off their face but unfortunately, it didn't completely form as they watched the man's eyes shine red before lasers came out. 

They had made to block the attack they perceived was aimed at them but could only stand more shocked as the lasers, as if having a mind of their own, changed their directions at precise angles, making sharp turns before going upwards and skewering the spiked ball. 

That action of Draul sparked the tension and immediately, the house devolved into a mad frenzy of promised death. 

Magneto tried controlling the metal in Draul's body once more but it felt like something around Draul was preventing his influence making him abandon that path and used the metals around him, sending them hurtling at Draul. 

Eric Lensherr was a man of few fears. There were not enough bane things on the earth that would produce such primal emotions in him but the scene in front of him made the all too unfamiliar emotion flash through him. 

Everything he had sent at Draul were stopped a few inches around him with him still having that bored calm look on his face. 

What he was doing was eerily similar to Magneto's electromagnetic fields and Magneto would know as no one could sense such fields as clearly as he could. 

That application of power rang warning bells in the head of the two smart men. Of course they've seen Draul use multiple abilities but he was always restricted to them. All their information had said that those were the only abilities he had which could be attributed to the experiments he went through. 

Culturing of X-genes had been going on for almost a century and there had been few successes of the subject having multiple X-factors. 

But this? 

The omnidirectional beams had been a big newsflash and now this? 

There had been no mention of him having the ability to manipulate any kind of field. 

A thought flashed through Doom's head and the danger and importance of the man before him skyrocketed. 

Working in tandem with Magneto, he sent a force blast, while Magneto did the same, at Draul which worked as it pushed the man and flung him backwards destroying a part of the house in the process but who cares? Not them. 

They didn't know why but the bland look on Draul's face had been sending them the wrong signal ever since he woke up. Even now, the way he got up from the ground with a small look of surprise on his face before it faded away did nothing to assure them. 

Draul on his part, looked at his ruined shirt and ripped it off, showing his impressive musculature to the two men. 

His body started looking like cracked clay as thin crack marks appeared all over him. But different from how it was before, the marks on his body now had some sort of direction to it. It wasn't as random as it once was. 

His eyes were already blood red as his mouth bent into a small imperceptible smile. 

Without waiting for anything else to happen, Doom brought his two hands together as green energy and yellow magic matrix joined together. The result of his actions were the ground under Draul's feet disappearing, making him fall into the deep burrow and green chains bursting out from the sides of the wall and striking Draul. 

Draul reached the bottom of the hole as the chains of energy struck him repeatedly before binding him to the floor. 

Above him was a metal construct that was of the same size as the hole in length and circumference that was heading towards him, intending to squash him against two hard choices. 

Still the blank expression did not leave his face. 

But he had to do something. Getting squashed by such a huge thing wouldn't do him any good.

'What to do?'

With a small exertion of force, he broke the restraints keeping him aground with ease. The metal was already near him and there was not much space for maneuvering or doing much about it. 

He braced himself as the metal was a few inches above his head and stretched his hands upward to hold it. 

He felt like he was holding up three trucks a few seconds ago only for it to be increased to five as the influence of Magneto increased the weight of the metal due to the force the metal master was exerting on it. 

Draul's senses alerted him of what Doom was doing – another spell – but he didn't have the luxury to care about it as he thought of what to do with the metal block he was holding. 

An idea came to his mind which he immediately implemented. 

He charged a huge amount of electricity through the block which disrupted Magneto's influence for a brief second which the metal master gained back but that brief second was Draul needed as he, using the metal as a medium, molded the electricity around the block to the top of it. 

All it took was a flashing second for a ball of electricity to form near Magneto and another fraction of said second for it to detonate at close range which sent the metal and magic masters flying and crashing into the rubble of the destroyed house. 

With Magneto's influence gone, the metal black floated above Draul's hand before flying out of the hole. Draul tore a piece of the metal off and made a flat board which he controlled to bring him out of the hole Doom created. 

The moment he landed, his sense alerted him of something behind him which prompted him to move his neck sideways, avoiding the overhead slash that Doom sent. 

He hadn't brought his neck back to its former position when high pitched sounds hit his ears. He glared at the irritation as his lasers shot out and destroyed the eight devices Doom had dropped. 

Magneto appeared above him with metals that were contorting in shape before spewing out like tentacles as each of them made their way to him.

He dodged between tentacles while sending attacks of his own and at the same time keeping a low head for Doom's strikes. 

Both of his adversaries were masters of their field and were terrifying enemies to face on their own, talk less of facing them together, but he held his own. 

This did not faze him a bit. Not a single bit. 

Compared to what he saw between the veil,… that thing, that maniacal smile, nothing else had any worth. 

The moment Doom crushed his bones he died. But only because 'it' allowed it. 

It did all that just to see his face. To it, all he was going through, even this very moment, was all a joke. 

He couldn't remember what it said but he could very well remember the presence and that smile. 

'Entertain me!' was all that it wanted. 

He couldn't even be angry at himself or at such a being because only he knew how grateful he was to it since it decided to give him a new life in a new universe. He couldn't even be angry at Doom and Magneto for long because to his knowledge and that thing, none of them mattered. 

At the broad spectrum of things, they were all the same with tiny differences. 

They were all in the same game, just different levels. Dealing with the same hell, just different devils. And oh, his devils were just built differently. 

His house compound had been completely destroyed and he was thankful of the fact that none of the others were here. This wasn't a fight that they could participate in. 

He created multiple orbs around his body and sent them at the ones Doom had created while he sent out ice to meet Magneto's. 

He jumped up as he felt the lines under the earth start rising up due to the metal masters influence but didn't lose his composure even as he was airborne. He twirled to dodged Doom's magic blast and drew electricity around his finger tips in a fraction of a second and sent what was reminiscent of a lightning bolt at Magneto. 

Magneto tried using his force field but the change was too much as it burned through and struck the metal master, sending him a few meters away from the epicenter as he shrieked in agony.

Doom not wasting time, invoked a high tier space displacement spell that affected an area rather than a single target. He wasn't strong enough yet in his mastery to create an illusory dimension but he could perform a much simpler space displacement. 

If he were to be facing a Master of the Arts then such a spell would have been redundant as they could sense when magic is used and re-orientate their senses with magic, but a mutant being like Draul would find it almost impossible since he couldn't use magic. 

Magic truly was the antithesis to all. 

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