"Even now you fail to learn the lesson that would be crystal clear to any truly balanced mind," T'Challa replied. "You possessed the power of nearly all Realities, ensconced yourself as God Emperor Doom and emblazoned upon Multiversal Reality NOT a better infinitely eternal Multiversal Order but instead a stark, singular, merely planet sized exercise of self congratulation. Even when you had power unconquerable? You did not create Planet Perfect; which you claim to seek to create here and now on THIS Earth. You did not even attempt to manifest any of the lofty ideals and allegedly concrete superiorities that you believe elevate you ever above all other beings who have, are, and will ever be born to everything crafted by THE ONE ABOVE ALL. God, demon, angel, alien, mutant, human ,Inhuman, or whatever they may be.
Instead? In truly barbaric, blood soaked, Roman Caesar style? You created a planet sized Roman gladiator arena and named it Battleworld.
And now. Even ten years after Battleworld, your megalomaniacal psychosis prevents you from grasping and accepting that it was I who bested you on Battleworld. Not the other way around."
"Your lack of sanity is manifest, T'Challa. You were laid battered, broken and beaten. Humbled, humiliated, sprawled helpless. Prostrate. Bleeding. At the feet of Doom. I looked down upon you with disdain."
"Doom. You had power incalculable yet you not only couldn't bring peace joy and harmony to every being you brought into Battleworld, you couldn't grant peace to yourself nor could you even keep the loyalty of Doctor Strange. Even at your pinnacle, I knew that you knew that you weren't my equal...that's why you didn't and couldn't vanquish me INSTANTLY in our battle."
"Surely even you, T'Challa, know that...were our positions reversed, and you were granted power incalculable and I granted the massive but limited powers of The Infinity Gauntlet that you wielded against me...that you would not have defeated me at all...much less instantly... were we to fall to combat."
"Doom. I would not have accepted power incalculable." T'Challa clarified.
"You are UNWORTHY of such power and its concomitant incalculable responsibilities," Doom asserted. "Doom and Doom alone was born worthy of both and much more."
"If you were born worthy of such, then why did you admit to Reed that you knew that he would do better than you would do, were he to be in possession of the power that you had? If you truly believed that you and you alone were worthy of infinite power and the concomitant infinity responsibility, then how could I craft the stratagem that wrested both from you?
You are, however, correct that I would ever reject infinite power.
I would not need unending puissance to achieve the goals that you failed to achieve. You and I would not have fallen to combat...beneficially for you, for I would have thoroughly trounced you inside of a boxing round...because I would have prevented such from the outset. How? I would have succeeded where you failed. I would have succeeded in bringing peace, prosperity, happiness, joy, safety and all the good things that a King is beholden to bring to and protect for his subjects. Not because this King...this Emperor...is above his people, or because he is intrinsically superior to them in every regard. He is their King, their Emperor... not their MASTER. He is not constructed from manifestly and vastly superior material than his subjects could ever hope to be spun from. Nor would a truly worthy Emperor King craft any form of overseer's relationship with his people...benevolent overseer or not... as you have with your Latverians. This is why many Latverians may fear you, may have faith in your abilities...but they will never genuinely trust you. Because you will never do what a truly worthy Emperor King would do, and that is: ensure that he is of, from and ever in conjunction with his people.
I do not need power incalculable to achieve the imminently calculable. Such an urge for incalculable power to overcome the calculable challenge is the proof of incalculable inadequacy on your part. I knew this about you before you knew this about yourself. It was I who strategized the means to defeat you. Reed worried that my gambit with The Infinity Gauntlet would result in my eradication. I assured him that you are...even in the extremis of Battleworld...incapable of eradicating me. And I further assured Reed both that I would buy him the time he needed with The Molecule Man and that when I was done with you that you...Doom...would be put by me in a position to fall to the psychological machinations and truth that Reed would bring down upon you. That is why you failed with me. Even when you knew you were being manipulated, that the entire uprising of Battleworld was the result of my planning, that the whole world being engulfed in uprisings against you in your own words: '...reeks of machination...' you still fell to me. I reminded you of your own words and proved to you right then and there that even with your God Emperor enhanced intellect and cunning, you were neither superior to nor a match for the intellect or cunning of a Panther.
"What is this threat awaiting my General, Panther?" Doom cut into T'Challa's monologue.
"There is a reality wherein you and Dracula fell into battle..."
"I have bested Dracula several times. He is a minor irritant at best."
"...but this Dracula managed to turn his Universe's Doom before he was killed."
"And you have this Vampire Doom waiting for my General."
"He can only be brought into phase with our reality if your Doom Crystal is activated."
"If this Vampire Doom were to gorge itself on the fresh blood of my loyal soldiers, greatly increasing its powers, what...besides me...would halt this Vampire Doom from wreaking havoc upon our reality?"
"There is a reason that no Vampire has ever dared to approach the borders of Wakanda. No vampire is a threat to our reality as long as Wakanda exists."
"And what if a Vampire saw to it that Wakanda ceased to exist?"
"Vampires have tried. They are no longer with us. All other vampires who assay such a task will join their predecessors in suffering an annihilation that is so utterly complete that even The One Below All would be impressed."
"...'even The One Below All would be impressed"? Your statement is redolent of the heedless megalomania and insecurity that you accuse me of, T'Challa."
"My statement is not a statement of hubris, but literally a quote."
"Are you contending that The One Below All told you that It would be 'impressed' by a form of complete annihilation that you could unleash? You are pathetic beyond..."
"Your General is about to activate your Crystal, as you instructed him to do."
With a gesture, Doom halted his General and prevented the horrific unleashing of Vampire Doom upon his unsuspecting forces.
"T'Challa. Why did you limit your comments to my General? As I allowed you to see, I have more than one minion at work for me."
"Your General's fate is the only fate that had some flex in it; the possibility of several outcomes at this point in time."
"There is ever only one outcome to any situation whenever Doom is involved: the outcome that Doom requires. Lucia, Kristoff, and The Red Ghost will triumph and successfully achieve the goals that I have set before them. And in so doing? Prove yet again that the intellect, foresight and stratagems of Doom has no superior, peer or nemesis. Most especially not you, T'Challa. Even an intellect as compromised as yours is grasps the fact that one can have no chance at victory if one doesn't properly assess and respond to the threat , threats and/or challenges befalling one. You have such a poor grasp of DOOM because you cannot conceive nor perceive of the gulf separating Doom from you who are lesser. You have been so lost to reason as to assert that I'm megalomaniac...when Wakanda is infamous for hubris that literally no other being from Earth would demean itself by entertaining the thought of, much less acting upon such hubris and condescenion toward non-Wakandans as Wakandans infamously engage in. You even once accused me of such tawdriness as racism. Doom does not engage in such faulty behavior, nor does Doom lie. You, however, have lied to numerous colleagues and even lovers of yours. How is your Monica Lynne doing, these days? Wanting to be around you less and less, I trust?"
"Doom. You are the worst kind of elitist and the worst kind of racist. You racially discriminate against anyone not belonging to what you deem to be The Master Race: The Race of Doom. Of which you are the sole member. This leads you to a mandatorily lonely existence. Not just alone, not solitary, not just hermetic...lonely. I am certain that you have faced and eventually will engage in the inevitable for you: you will engage in one of the most telltale examples of inexcusable personal flaw, and weakness of character driven by colossal inner hurt masked as one of the ultimate exercise of hubris which is: to pursue authentic immortality [ not just proof against death from old age which can be acquired by proper understanding of and prevention ofthe deterioration of the fidelity of the DNA helix; I'm speaking of actual authentic immortality ] and literally create a mate who you genetically crafted to possess the attributes you wish, and of course whom you saddle with enslavement via a combination of mystic domination and genetically engineered obedience and complete submission to you. You will create a mate because no other living being, shade or spirit could possibly beviewed by you as your equal. But even this endeavor of yours proved hollow, didn't it Doom? Because you couldn't fool yourself. You esteem yourself overly much and are incapable of reduction of your own self regard as innately superior to both truthful and sane levels. However much you esteem yourself, and however much you excuse and justify your own predations as the inevitable conflict between you the superior and deserved Master of all you survey and all others who are your inferior and whom you deem to be born to be your subjects...you cannot remove from yourself the desire and need for companionship. That's why you usurped Reed Richards' family on Battleworld.
But this same unquenchable desire and need for companionship is poisoned at its core by the simultaneous absolute conviction that whosoever you meet or construct is inevitably inferior to you and therefore at some point inevitably unworthy of whatever attentions you lavish upon her. Or it. Or her/it. Isn't that right, Doom?
And that's why you failed with Reed Richards' family, even before my schemes and strategies ignited the fires of freedom and rebellion across the entirety of Battleworld and heralded your fall.
Your other minions? Lucia, Krystoff, Ivan? Will find that your most meticulous and well executed planning will not be able to forestall the sound thrashing that each will befall, as they fail to do as you command. But the failure isn't truly theirs; the failure is yours and yours alone. In the coming months and years, I will instruct you in the realities of the superiority of the Wakandan mind."
Doom dismissed T'Challa's response. "Lucia, Krystoff and Ivan will achieve their goals in what for them is admirable fashion, and you have no authentic way to gainsay, deflect, corrupt or defeat them. Make no mistake of that; and make no mistake of this: I perceive what you are actually attempting and find your actions to be lacking in efficacy, imagination and refined strategy."
"You made similarly grand pronouncements of my ineffectualness on Battleword," T'Challa observed.
Doom continued unabated:"You are using an oblique truth to feebly attempt to avoid my question to you. Which means you have given me the answer that I expected: You wanted to see if Doom would save his General. "
"Yes," T'Challa confirmed.
"And if I did not? What would you have done, besides watch in fear and wonder as two beings ever better than you...two Dooms...battle as only Dooms may battle, so that you may then swoop upon the injured victor as the jackal, the hyenas, swarm upon an injured lion? And still be thoroughly defeated?"
"I have already defeated you, Doom. Literally in every encounter that we have had. The fact that you think otherwise, yet my Wakanda is independent of your power and I yet live, is not only proof of how wrong you are but also indicative of how your narcissistic megalomania has reached the nigh incalculable [ for you nonWakandans ] depth breadth and scope of Rayo's Number.
But to answer your question: We would have done nothing. We would have left you Dooms free to Doom yourselves."
"And so," intoned Doom. "The true game begins."
"The true game began long ago," T'Challa responded from the other side of his comm link to Doom. "But your lack of imagination and limited intellect resulting in your relentless predictability...while disappointing and periodically serving the purpose of what amounts to a lack of mentally stimulating and nourishing amusement... simply prevented you from recognizing what Vinyaga vyo Paka..."Cat's Toy"...really is. You were my Cat's Toy years ago on Battleworld, and you were my Cat's Toy again. Just now. When I put you in MRIC Check.
Your move, Doom."
"As I said, T'Challa...you stratagems are both pathetic and predictable. While you were droning on in one of yoru interminable monologues, I already made my move."
T'Challa stared impassively into the menacing metal face plate of Doom. " I told Shuri you would say that. Word for word. I will do you the kindness of letting you know that I have already made my move countering your Täuschung Doom...your Doom Deception...and returning you to MRIC Check.
As I stated previously: Your move, Doom."
Doom looked at the new configuration of the MRIC, and knew that he had at last found the worthy adversary that he craved...
...and in some barely existing, completely denied and unacknowledged Planck star sized speck of near nothing in his soul? Feared.
