"Valeria..." Dr. Doom said softly. "Daughter, come here."
"Yes, Father." Valeria spoke monotonously, walking forward as if she were in a trance. She strolled past the many Doombots and warriors that she had tied down using her energy-manipulating abilities, locking her gaze on Dr. Doom.
"Valeria, don't do it!" Reed, her real father yelled, though his daughter ignored him. "Valeria..." he whispered. "No..."
However, there was one person that Valeria did not use her powers to restrain; her brother, Franklin.
"Valeria." Franklin spoke her name, grabbing her by the hand in an attempt to stop her. "Valeria, don't. He's not-"
"Unhand me, Brother." Valeria spoke with malice in her voice, using her energy projection abilities to hold him down in one place. He tried to move, but he couldn't get through her power.
Everyone began shouting her name, hoping that their voices would snap her out of this trance, but it was to no avail.
Slowly, the presumed daughter of Doom walked forward with her hand extended as her 'father' stood in place with his hand outstretched toward her. Soon enough, their fingertips touched, causing Valeria to seemingly lose all control of her body and convulse.
"Sister!" Franklin yelled! "Let go of her!" He screamed, but Doom ignored his request.
"This is her destiny, boy. Now watch, as I can finally achieve my life's goal..." As Doom said this, he interlocked his fingers with Valeria's before using her abilities combined with his own to create a portal.
"Mother... I have finally returned for you." Dr. Doom uttered, watching as demons began pouring out of the portal like roaches. Since they were so simple-minded, Doom didn't need any sort of pre-planted spells to gain control over their minds, having them line up behind him so as to not kill his future servants.
This was his goal, ever since Valeria was conceived. He received a prophecy that the daughter of his sworn enemy would be the key to unlocking the ability to save his mother from the depths of hell and give him everything he'd ever wished for.
He was the sole reason why Sue was unable to give birth to Valeria after she was conceived naturally by her and Reed. Doom manipulated her pregnancy because he predicted how Reed would react and he knew how this reaction would make Sue act. He knew she would ask him for help.
Just as he predicted. Sue Richards called him and asked him if there was any way he could save her daughter and he agreed. And so, Victor appeared before them on her due date and performed his sorcery to ensure a successful childbirth.
Once Valeria was born, he cast a spell on her, a spell attached to the young girl's name itself. She became his familiar, giving him minor control over her mind and actions, while also giving him the ability to see through her eyes. He also cast a sort of spell on Sue while she was vulnerable, though he needed Valeria's power in order to fully take advantage of the spell on her. That is why Doom was always one step ahead of everyone, he basically had his own mole within the family in Valeria.
For years, Dr. Doom waited for Valeria to reach the age at which her powers would manifest themselves, however, the prophecy spoke of her powers manifesting only under a certain condition. He needed to break her heart.
He knew that if he played his cards right, her father would inform her of the truth. This, combined with the war he caused in Wakanda would be more than enough stress to draw her powers out.
However, this was only but a fraction of his plan.
There was still one thing that Doom wanted more than anything...
To take everything from Reed Richards.
He truly hated the man with every fiber of his being. Reed had everything that Dr. Doom had ever wanted ever since the two had met.
Reed was considered the smartest man on the planet, not Doom.
Reed was loved by millions, not Doom.
Reed was married to Sue Richards, his one true love, Doom was not.
Reed had a family... Doom did not.
However, with this plan, he would have everything he'd ever wanted. He'd force Sue to marry him, he'd have Valeria as his daughter, and he'd be able to recover his mother after she was banished to hell. Outside of having the family he wanted, he'd have the most powerful army in the world, using Wakandans and Atlanteans as his servants while using their technology and weapons for himself.
He'd have everything.
"Now, my love. Come to me..." Doom said, using Valeria's abilities combined with his to finally activate that love spell on Sue Richards. Like a puppet, she stood up on her feet and began walking toward Dr. Doom.
"Sue?" Reed spoke with a shakey, scared voice as his wife began to walk away from him. "Sue!" He cried out helplessly, watching his wife leave him for his rival.
"Sis! Hey, snap out of it!" Johnny yelled, trying his best to remove himself from his restraints, but to no avail.
"Your wife..." Doom spoke, looking to Reed. "... and your sister..." Doom said as he looked at Johnny.
"She is mine now. As is your precious Valeria. This is my family now." Doom spoke, having a disgusting grin beneath his slashed mask.
"She'll never truly love you!" Johnny shouted, still trying to remove himself from Valeria's restraints. "You've always been jealous of her love for Reed! You'll never have that! Stop or I'll-"
"You'll what, Johnny?" Doom spoke as Sue approached him, grabbing Doom's hand and standing next to him before placing a kiss on his neck.
Reed could do nothing but watch as his wife was stolen from him against his will. He was the smartest man in the world, but beating Doom was impossible without strength, strength that he did not possess.
"Mom..." Franklin whispered, looking on with horrified eyes as his mother was stolen from him. Sue didn't even look at him. In her mind, that wasn't even her son.
"She is not your mother anymore, boy." Doom taunted. "Speaking of mother... let's go find her. Shall we?" Doom spoke to both his wife and his daughter, receiving lifeless nods from both.
"Yes, Father."
"Yes, my love."
Doom began to turn around, preparing to sick his demons and Doombots on everyone, however, Ben Grimm's words stopped him in his tracks.
"No!" He shouted before somehow gaining enough strength to lift himself back up on his feet, freeing himself from the Doom-Valeria restraints.
Doom turned around slowly, looking at Ben with his eyebrows furrowed beneath his sliced mask. "Ben, I always respected you out of everyone in what was once that family. However, I am warning you. I have become more powerful than you could possibly imagine now that my daughter and I have become one. Take one more step and I will kill you."
Hearing those words meant nothing to Ben. Though not by blood, his sister and niece were about to be taken from him. He wasn't about to let that happen. "If I die savin' my family, so be it!" The Thing yelled before taking a single step forward.
However, a single step was all that he was allowed to take. Using his hand interlocked with Valeria's Dr. Doom stopped Ben in place and began to lift him in the air. "I warned you. My power is greater than anything in this universe. Perhaps a demonstration is needed."
"Ben!"
"Uncle Ben!"
"Victor, stop!"
"Mr. Grimm!"
Everyone cried out to the rocky hero, though their words meant nothing to Doom, he wasn't going to stop.
Soon, Doom began simultaneously crushing and pulling Ben's body apart using his sorcery combined with Valeria's incredible energy-manipulating abilities, muting those beneath Ben. All that was heard was stone breaking and clattering against itself and Ben Grimm's agonizing cries. He was practically being tortured to death, feeling every rock in his body being reduced to dust as his screams of anguish continued.
"Uncle Ben!" Franklin shouted. "UNCLE BEEEEEN!"
As those screams left Franklin's mouth, Ben's cries ceased and the sounds of rock being reduced to grains were heard by all. Doom lowered his hand and pieces of rock fell all around Franklin, and all he could do was watch with horrified eyes.
Everyone was dead silent, afraid to even make a sound or move a muscle as they could share the same fate as Ben Grimm. Spider-Man felt something inside of him break. Yet again, another member of his family was erased from his life. He wasn't part of the family for long, but it hurt all the same.
"BEN!" Johnny was devastated. He and Ben would bicker with each other all the time, but that was because they were so close. They were best friends, they were brothers. Now his brother was gone.
"No... No, he..." Reed was speechless. Ben wasn't his blood brother but he considered him one. That man would do anything for his family, yet all Reed could do was watch as he was tortured to death right in front of him.
Doom glared at everyone with cold, emotionless eyes. He felt no sympathy for them, despite them all being close at one point in time. They were nothing more than pawns for him now. "Let that be a warning to you all. I will be back soon with my mother and we will discuss how each of you will serve my army." Doom spoke, turning around toward his portal to hell once again.
'Uncle Ben...' Franklin thought to himself, remembering the many memories he shared with his uncle. "You were always there... You always protected us, you said you'd give your life for us, but..." Franklin was only eleven years old. This was his first time ever experiencing the death of a loved one. He was struggling to rationalize it. 'You're actually... gone.'
As those words left the boy's mind, it was as if something deep inside of him had snapped. Something within him, something that was hidden for years was finally ready to manifest itself for all to see. A power so great, even Doom would be unable to fight back.
"NO!" Franklin shouted, causing the Earth to tremble and Doom to once again stop and turn nothing but his head as he looked at the boy. "I WON'T WATCH THIS ANYMORE!" Franklin erupted before screaming like a madman as a blue, silverish aura began to form around his body, along with his eyes shining that same color.
Everyone looked at the boy, not even saying a word as they could feel the powerful energy resonating off of him. Doom's eyes widened, this wasn't something that was in any prophecy he'd read, this wasn't part of the plan.
"I'LL KILL YOU! I'LL KILL YOU! NO, I'LL MAKE YOU WISH YOU WERE DEAD!" Franklin shouted before bending reality itself removing the restraints from around his friends and family, along with the remaining army. His mother and sister were broken from their trance, and the demons pouring in through the portal, along with the Doombots were immediately erased from reality.
Spider-Man, thinking quickly, grabbed both Sue and Valeria and moved them back to their rightful family to get them away from whatever was about to happen to Doom. Sue and Reed both hugged their daughter tightly as she began to finally show emotion after being free from Doom's spell. Both Johnny and Spider-Man stood behind her, rubbing her back to comfort her.
Spider-Man's lenses were wide as he looked at the eleven-year-old in front of him, still continuing to power up.
"What!? Impossible!" Doom shouted, trying to use his powers to stop the boy, but they weren't even activating. Franklin, unknowingly and through his rage, used his reality-bending powers to reduce Dr. Doom into nothing more than a man, not a god.
Franklin closed his fist, and in a similar fashion to how Dr. Doom killed his uncle, Franklin crushed Dr. Doom's bones, flesh, and organs in on themselves, generating an agonizing scream. Before Doom could die, Franklin bent reality to keep Doom alive, repeating the process over and over and over again.
It was Euphoric for the child, watching his uncle's murderer screech in agony over and over again. Watching as Dr.Doom nearly died just to be restored again with the intent of crushing him repeatedly.
The adults where horrified, never having seen so much hate, so much fury being released from a child as young as eleven years old. He wasn't the same Franklin Richards as before, this single event changed him.
The torture went on for a while until Franklin let out one last scream, popping Doom out of existence.
Franklin fell to his knees and began to scream and cry from the stress. His family, Spider-Man included, ran over to him to comfort him. Franklin ran into his mother's arms, holding her tightly as he wept.
Valeria, however, did not comfort him. She stood in the same spot, looking down at what was left of Ben Grimm on the ground before falling to her knees. 'I- I killed Uncle Ben...' She thought to herself, holding onto her head with wide eyes.
The Wakandan and Atlantean warriors looked on before looking at each other and how little of them remained.
Everything happened so fast, no one could even comprehend what had just happened. Reed, holding his son, needed to know what happened to Doom. "Franklin, where is Doom? Is he..." Reed was afraid of the ramifications of his eleven-year-old boy having already taken a life, however, Franklin revealed that this was not the case.
"He isn't dead... I created a world where he will live alone forever." Franklin explained through his river of tears, not having a real explanation due to only having the intelligence of an eleven-year-old and minimal understanding of his abilities.
Doom was in fact in his own world of sorts, he was sent to a pocket dimension that Franklin had created, one where time doesn't exist and does exist simultaneously. Every moment feels like forever but also feels like an instant. Doom would do nothing but lose his mind and suffer from his own crippling isolation as he existed in this plane for eternity, but at the same time, for no time at all.
It was ironic, Doom wanted to create a portal to hell to find his mother. However, in the end, he was sent to his own personal hell, banished to be alone for all eternity.
Reed held his son tightly. "It's okay... it's over." He told Franklin, who was still crying uncontrollably.
There was a moment of silence for everyone who'd fallen during this battle. Almost a thousand of Wakandans and Atlanteans combined had lost their lives as their corpses littered the ground. What was once a beautiful, lush, and green field was now stained by the blood of the Wakandan-Atlantean army.
Shuri and T'Challa tried comforting their people, as did Namor with his. The Richards family comforted Franklin, though one member of the family was still not present. Valeria stood alone, still unmoving.
Seeing this, Spider-Man walked over to her, retracted his mask, and got on one knee in front of her. He didn't know what to say to her. She was ten years old and played a hand in killing her uncle, it was far too complicated for him to find the right things to say.
"Uncle Eren..." She whispered, calling him that for the first time after knowing each other. "Am I a monster?" She asked him.
Her saying this broke the boy's heart. It reminded him of himself back when he lost his mother and killed Fisk. Eren shook his head. "No, Valeria. You aren't. No one thinks that."
Valeria began erupting into tears, "But everyone's gonna hate me. It's not my fault, I swear! It was as if I was trapped in my own brain, having no control over my own body. All I could do was watch." She could barely speak due to how hard she was crying. Eren hugged her tightly, she hugged him back as she cried on his shoulder. "I know it wasn't your fault. No one hates you, Valeria. We all still love you, I promise." Eren told her, causing her to cry even more.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." She whimpered.
"It's okay, Valeria. I'm sorry too." Eren told her, rubbing her back to comfort her as tears of his own fell down his cheeks.
'Damn it.' Eren thought to himself, thinking of the many things he could've done differently to prevent Ben's death.
It wasn't just him, but everyone thought the same thing. Blaming themselves for what happened.
Even Franklin thought about it, looking down at his own hands and wishing he could've done what he did sooner. He didn't tell anyone, but he'd been trying this whole time to use his powers to bring Ben back to life, as well as all the others, but it wasn't working...
He could bend reality all he wanted, but he couldn't bring a soul back from the dead.