FREEDOM GENOCIDE

Part Three: Strike for Order

the 67^th tale of agc

written and created by Mark Bousquet

2201 / OCTOBER

SKRULLOS 2 - VOG CITY

"Ride, Angelux! For Doom!"

Witness the death of a dream.

For 200 years the Skrulls had lived as an Empire in pieces. Ever since the day Galactus had come to Skrullos, the Skrulls had been forced to scatter across the Everything, living as a vagabond Empire. If it weren't for their ability to shape-shift, they likely would have been left behind by the Shi'ar and Kree, but the Skrulls proved themselves resourceful and of value, especially in the early days of the Eternal War, when they provided nearly all of the initial intelligence reports concerning Thanos.

And now, as they finally began to build a new world, as they finally were taking the first steps out from under the Skrull Refugee Act, 200 years of dreams were being flushed in the screaming banshee attack of the Angelux.

"Ride, Angelux!" Bruunhilde yelled at the incoming Angelux riders. Three large teleportation gates - the spoils of Doom's defeat of Kang the Conqueror - were opened across the plains outside Vog City, allowing the Angelux army to ride through. The "city" was little more than a large space ship at the center, surrounded by plain pre-fab buildings in various states of construction. Bruunhilde stood at the center of the three gates, already caught up in the rush of battle, watching her troops go to war for Doom.

Before her, nearly a million Skrulls screamed in sheer terror. This first strike for Order was a massive planetary assault, designed by Doom to hammer the Asgardian Council directly. Thanos was always one to attack the edges, to look for the weakest points and attack there. Not Doom. Doom's attack, while at the weakest member of the Council, was a direct assault on Asgard's interests. After years of playing games, this felt right to Bruunhilde. No more hiding in shadows or attacking under the cover of night. This was the way an army should operate.

A celebration called Skrull Unification Day had been underway when they arrived, making it easier for the Angelux to do their duty. The winged steeds of the Angelux covered the scared Skrulls like a swarm of bees. Performing their orders with near-flawless execution, the Regiments of the Angelux covered Vog City - some took to the air, some stayed on the ground, and some were moving to line the outer rim of the city, keeping Skrulls from fleeing.

'It's like watching rabid flies descend on a rotting herd of cattle,' Bruunhilde thought to herself. 'We have become a force of nature.'

Across the rocky ground, Bruunhilde noted that the Hellcat Regiment had arrived, screaming like banshees.

'Hellcat!' she called telepathically through their helmet-links. 'Take your Regiment and assault the stage. Emperor Vog and his Cabinet are seated upon the central platform! Capture Vog,' she stressed, 'and do what you will with the rest!'

'Understood, Bruunhilde!' Hellcat replied.

Hellcat called to her Regiment, "Attack the platform! Bruunhilde has given to us the honor of capturing Emperor Vog!"

"And the rest?" Attumidunn asked from across the Regiment.

Hellcat glared at her lieutenant. "We are to do with them what we will. Capture those who surrender, kill those who run! Lieutenant Attumidunn, take the left half of the Regiment and ride high. The rest ride with me, my Angelux!"

Attumidunn repeated the order for the Angelux nearest her and the Regiment split into two formations. Toomi pulled hard on the reigns of her winged steed Froegarth and led half of the Regiment into the air as Hellcat drove the other half hard below them.

Toomi's mind momentarily turned to her situation. She'd undergone the Ceremony of Dark Angels to kill Doom. Her soul belonged to Hellstrom for one year, but she was under no oath to pledge her loyalty to him. Yet here she was, fighting for the Army of Doom against the Skrulls. Sure, Bruunhilde had allowed her to capture Skrulls instead of killing them, but that didn't change the fact that she was here fighting against the Skrulls. She dug her boots hard into Froegarth's side. 'How could I be so stupid?' she asked herself. Hellstrom and Bruunhilde were trapping her, putting her in situations to turn her to their side. But why? Just to do it? Was there something deeper?

"Aaaaaargh!"

An Angelux rider near her screamed in agony as the rider's horse erupted in flame. Woman and beast dropped like a stone feather, moving wildly from side to side but dropping hard. Toomi felt something inside her erupt as the beast slammed into the ground, throwing the enflamed rider into a group of Skrull soldiers that blasted her eagerly with their plasma guns.

Rage consumed her in that instant, and her hand reached for the blaster at her side, intent on killing all of those Skrulls. If it wasn't for the teachings of Beta Ray Bill, she certainly would have. His voice came back to her then, and for an instant she was once again a pre-teen studying alongside the Orphans. "Always be wary of rage in the midst of battle," Bill had said. "Surrendering to it pushes aside Reason, and you must hold onto Reason as long as you can."

Loosening her grip on the blaster, Toomi checked Hellcat's position and found that they were falling behind because of the mass of Angelux, horses, and Skrulls in the way.

That left her in the lead. Soon they would be at the front of the Angelux attack. Pride, that dangerous trait that had caused her to become an Angelux in the first place reared up inside her yet again. Of all the hundreds of thousands of Angelux, it was her that rode at the front of the attack. It was her that was in charge of capturing the leader of the Skrull people.

Her.

At the front.

Leading the charge.

It all felt too right to be denied.

Not 100 yards in front of her she could see the platform that was their target. She could make out the Emperor trying to scurry off the stage, but most of the Cabinet members and VIPs on the stage were more concerned with their own health than his, apparently. There were a few Skrulls that stood at the front of the platform – some kind of guardsman unit it looked like – but nothing the Angelux couldn’t handle, Toomi believed. The result was that Vog was trapped on the stage, unable to scamper away to safety.

Which made him hers.

"Attack formation Zed-Alpha-12!" Attumidunn roared to her troops, causing the flanks to shoot out wide and a double column to come up behind her. "Capture everyone on that stage you can!" she roared. "Those are the most elite of all Skrulls, worth more alive than dead!" She paused, then added, "Vog is mine! Aiiiiiieeeeeeee!"

The Angelux around her answered her banshee scream with one of their own and they were close enough now to the platform to draw the attention of those on the stage.

Almost ashamed at herself, Toomi saw the look of terror on the eyes of the government elite and smiled. She locked eyes with Vog and saw in his eyes the recognition that she was his death.

So focused on the Emperor was she that she didn't see a large hand shoot up from below to knock her winged horse off-stride. Angered, she jerked the reigns back, spinning the horse and allowing her to look down. Below her a group of male soldiers were busy sending fireballs out towards the approaching Angelux, or were extending their arms out over the crowd to protect them. She couldn't believe what she was seeing.

Super Skrulls.

She quickly relayed the information back to Bruunhilde across their telepathic link. 'Repeat!' Bruunhilde ordered, obviously surprised.

'I count sixteen of them around the stage,' Toomi quickly counted, 'and another three already in the crowd.'

'Take them down!' Bruunhilde shouted.

'We should capture them for Doom to study!' Toomi countered.

'Put them down!' Bruunhilde ordered back.

A fireball blasted beneath her horse's hooves at that moment, causing Froegarth to rear up wildly. Toomi thought, 'They're trying to kill me.' It was one of those statements that was obvious once uttered she realized, scolding herself. This was war. They had no way of knowing that she didn't want to fight them. She was the aggressor here, the invading army. Before she'd even realized what she was doing, her hand was on her blaster, then pointing towards the Super Skrulls, then firing down upon them.

The shots bounced off, reflected by invisible shields the Super Skrulls were erecting.

"Attack with long range weaponry!" Toomi ordered. "High rate of attack!" She knew from the time spent with Skrull 4 that if the Super Skrulls were erecting the invisible force barriers that would keep them from projecting fire from behind the shield.

The Angelux around her reigned their horses in and began raining plasma fire and arrows down on the Super Skrulls. As Toomi figured, they were immediately put into a defensive position and their fireball attacks slowed. The panic behind the Super Skrulls was causing the Emperor to push further and further away from his bodyguards. He was still trapped on the stage, however, as the government personnel in front of him bottlenecked at the stairs. The jump down, she could see, was easily twenty feet in the air and few of the Skrulls were risking the leap to safety. 'If I land this horse on that stage, however,' Toomi thought to herself, 'they're likely to jump off.'

Kicking Froegarth hard in the side, Toomi looped around to the rear of her half-regiment, calling twenty Angelux to her.

"You five," she marked out the individuals, yelling above the roar of battle below them, "will ride over the top of our formation and touch down on the stage! Engage the Super Skrulls directly. The next five will follow the same arc after the first quintet has landed. Attack the Super Skrulls that have turned to fight your sisters and cut them down from behind. The rest of you ring the back of the stage, away from the crowd. Capture the leaders as they jump to flee."

Attumidunn looked into their ionic-energized eyes to see if they understood, but nearly half the faces returned her gaze with blank or dazed expressions. She instantly thought of her first impression of Angelica, back when Angelica had first come to live on Asgard. Without thinking twice, her hand reached out and slapped the Angelux nearest her across the face hard. "Repeat your orders!"

The girl touched her face, mumbled something incoherently.

Attumidunn let her rage loose. "I will not die because of your stupidity, girl!" She looked around, met each of them in the eye, cooled her rage slightly. "This is what you've trained for, what you've all trained for. This is no time to be frightened. We have been given the honor of capturing the leader of the Skrull people. Months ago you were insipid, spoiled party girls, looking for the next high, the next thrill." Toomi felt a chill encapsulate her body as her words began to take effect, and the girls seemed to draw their steeds closer to her. "Now, you are Angelux. Warriors in a great Army of Doom. Forget the chaos below. Steel your heart from the fear you feel. The danger that awaits you? That is your purpose in life now. The first step of conquering a people is to conquer the fear inside you."

Toomi met the eyes of the girl whose face she slapped. "Repeat my orders."

The girl repeated Toomi's orders nearly word-for-word.

Attumidunn reached a hand out to clasp the girl on the shoulder, then turned to the rest of this small group. "Let us ride, Angelux! Aiiiiieeeeeeee!"

CHRONOPOLIS - TELEPORT STAGING AREA

Daimon Hellstrom stood beside Doom in the eerie calm of Chronopolis, watching the events on Skrullos 2 unfold before them on a three story high monitor. The two men stood on a balcony overlooking the silver, green, and yellow castle's grounds, nearly halfway up the giant monitor. Hellstrom's entire body was electrified in anticipation. Below them, watching the screen with great interest, were three hundred thousand demon troops that Hellstrom had culled from the Earth Underworld.

All that kept them from Skrullos 2 was the signal from Doom.

"The Angelux fight well," Daimon commented, to which Doom only grunted an affirmation.

It was an extraordinary treat for Hellstrom to watch Doom in action. This was certainly a leader worth emulating.

He thought back to his days as a younger man, tormented by his heritage and role in the world. It was that similarity he found with Attumidunn. The girl was clearly one destined to rule - there was too much power, too much prestige in her lineage to be anything but great. She was, after all, the daughter of the Atlantean warlord Attuma and Luna, the Celestial Madonna, which made her the granddaughter of Quicksilver and Crystal, which made her the great-granddaughter of Magneto.

It was a lineage of arrogance and power, of isolation and frustration, of dreams and desperation.

Bruunhilde believed his interest in Attumidunn was sexual. Bruunhilde was, without debate, one of the finest leaders in battle he had ever seen, but that specialized intellect did not translate out to the larger world.

She was wrong. He smiled. Not that he would turn Attumidunn away, of course, should the Atlantean hybrid find her way to his bed, but that was not his primary interest in her.

It was just that there were larger issues at hand than simple lust, and greater destinies for Attumidunn than becoming his plaything.

He looked back to Doom and thought about all that he would do for Attumidunn's rise to power. He wondered if either of them realized just how much she would learn from him.

VOG CITY - THE PLATFORM

Like most Skrulls, Minister of Defense Jakool had never seen the Angelux in person, let alone been victim to one of their raids.

Like few Skrulls, however, Jakool knew just how deadly they could be. Since being named as the Minister of Defense for Skrullos 2 - a position he was in no way actually qualified for - he had tried to study potential foes. He knew they were in trouble and in a fit of duty that surprised him, Jakool moved to stand beside Emperor Vog.

The Minister of Defense would not let his Emperor die alone.

Jakool looked to the Super Skrulls before him as they fought back against the oncoming horde. He didn't know if it was fortuitous or not that they had been on the stage when the attack hit. As he had told Vog this morning, they were not fully adjusted to their powers yet. Jakool looked to them and saw them faltering already.

Not that it mattered, he knew. There were too many Angelux for fifty Super Skrulls at full-strength, let alone twenty whose powers were 80% at best.

Everything was moving in slow motion and he found himself oddly prescient. He could see the battle unfolding before him and he knew what the Angelux were going to do before they did it. The same went for the million panicking Skrulls that had come here to celebrate their unification, and found themselves once again the victims.

His eyes went to the sky, but saw no assistance coming. The Asgardian Council had made certain to protect Skrullos 2 by ordering a Kree and Shi'ar blockade of the planet, but that was no defense against teleportation.

Kree being Kree, and Shi'ar being Shi'ar, they would send no help.

It was up to the Skrulls alone to fight this battle, Jakool knew, and that was not a fight they were in any position to win.

A group of five Angelux riders landed on the platform between himself and the Super Skrulls, and he knew then the dream of a unified homeworld was over. The stage that had been hastily erected was too high for them to jump off of without risking injury, and the Skrulls that were on the stage were bottlenecking at the stairway at stage left. Jakool and Vog would be the last two Skrulls off the stage under the current conditions.

There had to be something they could-

The nightmare-grey winged steed landed with the sound of thunder. Jakool was suddenly paralyzed as the Angelux slashed viciously at the Super Skrull that had rushed to face her with a longsword. The Super Skrull shot a ball of flames up at the young, aqua-skinned woman, but a round shield went up hard and fast, blocking the attack. The Super Skrull sent an elastic arm under the horse to attack the beautiful rider from the other side, and Jakool found himself fearing for the rider's safety.

It was a thought quickly displaced.

The rider slashed down with her sword, severing the elastic arm. The Super Skrull was too stunned to scream or react, and stood still as the Angelux stabbed him in the shoulder with a small dagger. Jakool watched the soldier's body shudder, then turn completely elastic as it fell to the ground, silent but twitching.

Beside him, Vog screamed and dropped to his knees.

Jakool barely noticed. The Angelux approached slowly, her black, red, and gold armor, aqua skin, and blonde hair matted with sweat and blood. The nostrils of the winged steed flared angrily and Jakool saw the rider's arm muscles flex, holding the horse at bay. Each step of the giant mare was a thunderclap in Jakool's ear.

'So this is what Death looks like,' he thought, grabbing Vog's robe in his left hand.

Clack! Clack! Clack-clack-clack! Each hoof was a hammer of the gods, crushing Jakool's dream for a unified Skrull race.

By the time the Angelux had reached Jakool, the point of her longsword stabbing into his chest, the Minister of Defense, a man who had been little more than a lowly priest two months previous, had made his peace with the Everything.

"Name and rank," the Angelux said to him.

The words came out choked and weak, and Jakool scolded himself for becoming, at this, the moment of his demise, the living embodiment of the Skrull caricature that the Kree and Shi'ar had been laughing over for millenia: weak, pitiful, begging for mercy.

The Angelux looked down at the whimpering Vog beside him. "That is the ruler of your people." It was a statement, not a question.

Jakool nodded.

The Angelux rider removed her helmet. Though her words were for Vog, her eyes stayed locked on Jakool. "I am Lieutenant Attumidunn, second-in-command of the Hellcat Regiment of the Angelux division, Army of Doom. If you want to save your people from genocide, you will surrender the Skrull Empire to me at once."

Straightening his posture, Jakool let Vog's robes fall from his grip. He met Attumidunn's eyes and nodded. "We surrender. We … we place ourselves at the mercy of … of the Army of Doom."

Attumidunn returned her helmet to her head roughly and nodded solemnly. The Skrull Empire was, for the moment, hers.

Deep in her heart she felt the old Toomi break free as she realized with cold certainty that this was what she was born to do.

EPILOGUE ONE

CHRONOPOLIS - TELEPORT STAGING AREA

The demon hordes of Hellstrom were gone, replaced by returning Angelux, shouting loudly of their glorious victory. Doom stood above them, unnoticed by their glee, watching and saying little.

"Doom," Bruunhilde announced behind him, pushing a whimpering Skrull forward. "The Angelux present to you Emperor Vog, ruler of the Skrull people."

At that, Doom turned, and stared into the Angelux leader's eyes. "No, Bruunhilde, you are wrong. The era of Vog has passed. Doom now leads the Skrull." He nodded to the ex-Emperor. "Look to the giant screen before me, Vog, and watch as the demon hordes of the Earth underworld run roughshod over your planet. By dawn, all of Skrullos 2 will be enslaved. Or dead." Doom turned his gaze back to Bruunhilde. "Take him to the Communications Room and wait my arrival."

EPILOGUE TWO

CHRONOPOLIS - LOWER DUNGEONS

Forty-five Skrull elites were marched through the corridors of Chronopolis, the Lower Dungeons their destination. The honor of leading their defeated march was given to Hellcat, by right of the glory of her Regiment. Patsy Walker had informed Bruunhilde truthfully that the glory belonged to Attumidunn, but the ex-Valkyrie waved her words off. It was the Hellcat Regiment that conquered the Skrull Empire and the glory rightly belonged to the leader of that regiment. Attumidunn's personal glory would come in the following days, but Bruunhilde would grant the young Lieutenant the right to escort the rear of the column.

Attumidunn walked tall through the halls of Chronopolis, feeling her own pride swell immensely as other generals in the Army of Doom emerged from rooms to watch them pass. Set, Ikaris, Pluto, Hela … all of them nodding their respect to her as she passed. Forty-five members of the Skrull elite captured at her command, and soon everyone would know it.

"What will become of us?" Jakool asked as Attumidunn pushed him into the mass cell.

She didn't reply. For the moment, if not longer, her self-importance and the ever-vigilant eyes of Hellcat placed her above talking to cattle.

EPILOGUE THREE

ASGARD - THOR ODINSON HALL OF PEACE

The Council sat in session, watching with shocked hearts as Emperor Vog spoke to them, his face filling the screen as he read from a prepared statement.

"As our sun lapped at the horizon of Skrullos 2, the Skrull Empire was … was conquered by the Army of Doom. In my hands I hold the Articles of Surrender. I will now sign them," he said, and his hand moved weakly to scrawl his signature across the parchment. "In accordance with all recognized laws, the Skrull Empire is now ruled ... is now ruled by Doom." Vog wiped his sweating brow with the sweating palm of his hand, doing no good. "In accordance with the regulations of the Alliance Treaty, which state that none of the five races may remain as a voting member of the Asgardian Council after it has been conquered, it is my duty to inform you that the recognized Skrull Empire no longer exists." Vog swallowed hard, then read the last line of the paper. "So swears Doom."

The Council watched silently as the camera panned back, revealing Doom and Bruunhilde standing to each side of him.

Without a word, the greatest Valkyrie who ever lived drew her sword and ran it through the heart of Emperor Vog, slaying him where he stood.

As the communication was disconnected, all eyes turned to Skrull 4 and watched in silent reverence as tears began to slowly descend across his face. For all his recent moves to empower his people, he was reduced, yet again, to weakness.

FREEDOM GENOCIDE concluded.

Each hoof was a hammer of the gods, crushing Jakool's dream for a unified Skrull race.

Y G G D R A S I L

comments to bousquet22@earthlink.net

Mark Bousquet

17 May 2003

Northern Bear Productions