CHAPTER 73

Doom was strong, that much was clear to anyone who was watching our fight.

He would have won if he were fighting anyone else… but me.

The only thing I had to watch out for from Doom's attacks were the shockwaves it produced.

It was like I was the Thing and Wolverine put together with a dash of Weapon X.

I was both a walking tank and an artillery unit. I could dish out as much as I could take in. 

Doom figured this out early on and engaged me in close combat as he drew out a long sword from… somewhere. 

He swung at me with the blade which I dodged and the moment he tried to take to the air for the aerial advantage I froze his legs before a laser beam blasted him into the ground. 

I could see something flickering on and off which I had earlier identified as a field of sorts. Just as I could take on a lot of attacks from Doom and still be okay, so could he from me. 

Physically, I was way stronger than Doom, but the numbers of devices he had on him which he could pull mid-battle were too many that it decreased my physical advantage by a lot so we were both in a stalemate: Doom didn't want me to send out long ranged attacks so he chose close combat and used a weapon and I didn't want him in the air to use long range attacks so I welcomed his sword with a bo staff of mine. 

Doom had the edge since whatever metal his weapon was made out of was legit stuff as it kept breaking my ice constructs, forcing me to constantly reinforce which wasn't a problem to me in this state. 

I thrust forward with my bo staff which he tried to counter by jumping backwards but was in for a surprise as the bo staff grew in length with bursting speeds and slammed into his chest. 

However it turned out that Doom was ahead of me in thinking as I was suddenly hit from two sides with a constant barrage of sonic waves. 

"Due to ice being solid, do you know that it conducts sound waves better that the human body? A brute like you wouldn't know something as simple as that." Doom said as he walked towards me. 

'Of course I know, you bastard!' The pain I was feeling was the most intense I'd felt, but there was something to it that just made it worse. It was like all the nerve sensations in my body was heightened and afterwards they were all been slammed by hammers. 

It was like that screeching sound that was produced when you scratch two steel together, but multiply that by a thousand and throw it inside someone's body – that's how I felt. 

All the sound around me was amplified that all I could get was the static of what Doom was saying which somehow was clear in my head. 

"You should be grateful and feel honored that you were able to push Doom this far, but like all other adversaries Doom has faced, you are destined to fall at Doom's feet… defeated."

That was all he said before he rammed the blade through the middle of my chest, breaking through my icy exterior as the blade vibrated with what I could recall as a plasma coating. 

I couldn't move a single finger of my body as the after effect of the sound waves left my nerves in a constant state of flux, wriggling and spasm as I tried to get them to send whatever signal they could to my brain. 

Doom like the very arrogant villain he was only spared me a look before he walked away and took to the air and flew towards where the others were. 

My body was still vibrating as I laid there on the floor without being able to pull out the sword from my chest to fully heat it. 

I managed to close my eyes and tried to absorb whatever energy or try to learn what kind of frequency my body was vibrating in order to adapt to it. 

I could have canceled the cold energy running through my body but what Doom said made me pause. Since ice could conduct sound better than human flesh, if I were to change back it would mean losing a lot of the vibration running through me. 

I laid there for a few seconds as I immersed myself in the feeling I was getting and tried to connect to it. All I needed to do was have my body synchronize with the vibrations still coursing through it then I would be able to create such phenomenon within myself at a later date and also project them if I knew how they worked. 

I was in hurry since I didn't trust Doom not to pull a shit move and fuck up everything for everyone. 

My eyes were still closed when my fingers twitched. I couldn't help but smile as the familiar sensation of having back my bodily control. It took me ten seconds before I could stand and I immediately dispersed my frosty exterior and exhaled as the last of any of the leftover vibrating energy quickly left. 

I first of all burned whatever blood was on the ground and on the blade, this was Doom so I wasn't taking a chance, before I popped the stiff joints of my neck and ran for a while before I took a long and high jumped with was followed by bursts of explosion from my feet. Seeing that I wasn't still fast enough I let myself free fall and created an ice board and surfed o the ground leaving behind me a trail on frozen ground. I still wasn't fast enough so with both hands stretched behind my back I pumped out huge flames from them that acted as propulsion. 

I was on Doom after a few seconds which he seemed to notice and turned to me with surprise on his face. 

"How did…? Regeneration?!" He hissed out. 

"Surprise motherfucker!" What he received was punch to his stomach that sent him upwards but this time I was prepared. 

Using ice to create a lifting up platform, I sped on the tracks with my snowboard with flames shooting behind me and made my way to the airborne Doom who was finally getting back to his senses. 

"YOU WILL PAY!!!" He lost it as he clasped his hands together and formed a beam of green energy around his hands but I wasn't having it as I fired exploding javelin at him which thankfully stopped whatever it was that he was doing. 

With a few burst of flames I reached where he was and pulled out the sword he stabbed me with and swung it at his head. 

Unfortunately he was able to react at the last second as used both of his hands to block the slash, breaking parts of his already damaged armor. 

He crashed into the ground with a resounding boom. When he stood up, his entire form was bloodied as blood gushed out from his mouth and the different cuts in his body. There was also some pieces of metal piercing his skin. 

A part of his helmet fell off, making his disfigured wrathful expression visible to me. 

"Doom will make you rue this day mutant." I wasn't interested in his villain speech and rushed at his wanting to end this episode once and for all but it seemed like the universe wanted to pull one on by all means possible as two doom bots appeared out of nowhere and pulled him before diving to the lake. 

He was smart to do that because he knew I would have shot him down and outright chased after him if he took to the air so he made the water play. 

It was a brilliant move… but. 

SPLASH! 

I jumped inside the lake and without even bothering with covering myself with ice, I controlled the water around me and used it to torpedo me way towards the speeding Doom. I could control ice, what made you think I couldn't control water as well? While it was nowhere as strong as my Cryokinesis, it was way easier to control. Hydrokinesis and Cryokinesis went hand in hand but like it's frozen counterpart, it was harder to generate in its neutral form but was easier to control when there was a small body of water in range. 

Doom's bot were putting all they could in getting away so I was having a hard time catching up to them quickly. I was so focused on Doom getting away that I forgot that I had been underwater for far longer than what was possible for a seasoned swimmer. 

Due to the waves and heaviness of being underwater, it was hard to get an accurate shot at them but I was getting closer. 

The chase continued for a while until I was right behind Doom who was downright panicking. He shot some explosives at me which I effortlessly dodged but the shockwaves still pushed me back a bit. 

I didn't know how far we had gone but I was getting angrier as the chase went on so without thinking much I pushed in as much energy that I used in creating my orbs of destruction into my eyes that all I saw was red for a brief moment before I looked and saw blood and then an explosion that pushed me backwards for a few hundred meters before I stopped. 

I searched around the area for Doom but I didn't see anything. I was about to blast the whole place undersea to dust before I saw the glow of metallic silver. I swam towards it and saw the amputated arm of Doom. 

"Fuck!"

I cursed as I held the arm but that turned out to be wrong as I suddenly started feeling a little dizzy which made me realize that I had been breathing under water for more than 15 minutes. It didn't take me a second to form an ice ball and shot towards the direction from whence I came. 

Doom getting away rubbed me the wrong way. Doom was… Doom was someone that if you couldn't kill him the first chance you get, you wouldn't be able to get another. He was like a super powered version of Batman mixed with the Joker – the Batman who Laughs. But instead of laughing, he was an emo egoist with brains too big for one person. 

I shook my head, ridding myself of such thoughts as I surfaced from the water and started surfing towards when Clint and the others were. 

The others were surprised to see me, especially the Calamity Four, as they looked at the amputated arm of Doom in my hands. 

"I-is he d-dead?" Susan asked me with a shaking voice. If it was before, maybe like thirty minutes ago, then I would have asked why she sounded worried for him, but then again when I remember the super hero hypocrisy that was abound in this verse as well as the one next-reality, the only answer I could give her was ignoring her, them, altogether. 

"How is he?" I asked Steve while looking at the still knocked out Clint. 

"He's alright. She said it's just mild concussion and two broken ribs and a fracture on his shoulder blade due to the impact. He'll be in top shape in a few weeks to a month at most."

I sighed in relief at that since I was already expecting the worst. I turned to look at Bucky who had a bandage covering the stab wound on his leg. 

"You good Bucks?" I asked him to which he just grunted.

"I'm fine. And besides, she's got a real degree unlike a certain quack I know, so that's a plus."

"You know I have a real degree right?" I asked him with a raised brow and a small smile on my face. 

He was about to answer but the look he gave indicating behind me made me turn around only to be grabbed by the collar by the visor wearing boy. 

"What did you do to her?! She isn't waking up! What did you do?" He screamed at my face as the surroundings became eerily quiet as I looked at the scowling boy. 

"I'll only tell you once…. Hands. Off." I stressed out the words as a serious expression clouded my face. 

"What did yo- wha..?"

He couldn't react before my hands held his visor and broke it which instantly caused his lasers to crash into my hands but I didn't back down but held his face even as the lasers blasted into my hands. 

I could feel the heat from it and knew that if he could release something twice as hot as this then he'd be able to burn me in my base state since my heat resistance was already high… but what about him? 

Scott screamed out as the heat from my hand burned his face. 

"Draul stop, you're hurting him!" I cooled my hands as I heard Steve's shout. I looked at Scott who was still held up by my hands and I could see the shivering on his body. He was just a kid. A little cocky, but still a youngling. 

He already had his eyes closed when my hands started burning him but the heat still did a number on him. I looked around and saw both Logan and Beast growling, both only a breath away from attacking me. Ororo looked conflicted but I could tell she would have attacked me the moment the others moved. 

Sigh.

All this fight had been feeding my anger and the poor sap took the brunt of it. 

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A/N: All I would say is that I have a reason for making Doom escape. It would be to easy a death for someone of Doom's character if Draul was to do away with him for just one chapter.

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