The outside of the Latverian Embassy was surprisingly drab and practical looking. The only color came from the mostly green Latverian flags draped across it.
"Okay," Mayhem said as they landed in an alley, "this is as far as we go. If we walk up to the property line with you it could set Doom off."
"So I'm noticing a lot of other people are sulking around the general area," Luz replied.
"Keeping the ESP up? Good," Mayhem noted. "Yeah, we've got the Fam here," she continued and had some kind of hand signal. In the opposite alley, four more kids crawled out from behind various structures and buildings. One had the same build as Mayhem but was dressed in a Spider-Man costume that had the ratio of blue to white shifted around a bit, with bracelets made of some kind of cartridge around her wrists. A much younger girl with long red hair and a domino mask came out from behind her. The mask was red but from the neck down she was dressed as Spider-Man, but with light blue where the red would normally be. Behind her was a boy who couldn't be more than ten in a red costume with a blue cowl and limbs with yellow eye lenses, and bringing up the rear was a young man who looked a little older than Hunter with blue skin dressed in a red leather costume with a horned cowl and what Luz could only describe as a pointy, armored tabloid over his torso.
"You've met my sisters," Mayhem continued. "And you can probably guess who Spider-Boy is based on my description of the family, the guy dressed like a more flamboyant version of Daredevil is my Uncle Ben's kid. There's a long story for why he looks like that but I don't have time to go over it right now... Speaking of Daredevil, our depressed Catholic third Godfather is in the next alley over—" Mayhem's speech was interrupted by her cousin signing something... That didn't look like ASL... "Okay, Dark Devil says Daredevil wants to know if a three-tone heartbeat is normal for you two."
"Yes," Amity replied,
"Also your heartbeats are in perfect synch," Mayhem continued as she signed back.
"With all the snuggling we do they'd better be," Luz replied while taking Amity's hand.
"Anyway, the rest of the martial arts club is around, as are Pei's dad, his ex, and her partner in crime-fighting... Unfortunately, Mayor Cage is a little too busy quote, 'going Mike Haggar,' end quote on the Maggia... Whatever that means, to drop everything to help which kind of sucks because he supposedly got away with beating the absolute crap out of Doom in his own palace a while back," Mayhem lectured, "And Kid Arachnid's team should be here any minute now."
"Please don't call me that," the young Spider-Man said.
"I can't call you Spider-Man, it's weird," Mayhem insisted. "And you won't let me use your real name."
"Pete said to keep that genie in the bottle as long as I can," the black-suited web-slinger defended.
"That's um, that's a lot of people here just to help us if things go bad," Luz noted.
"The Superhero community takes care of each other," the young Spider-Man replied.
"And you guys are part of the community now," Mayhem continued.
"...Also the crime rate's been down lately, a lot of us street-level types haven't had as much to do," the younger Spider-Man answered.
"That too," Mayhem finished.
"Well um, we probably shouldn't delay any longer," Amity said. "If we're late, he's..."
"Wait, Amity, hold your breath," Luz said and conjured a couple of invisibility glyph combos. Once invisible, they quickly rushed to the front gate of the embassy and were very careful when they finally breathed so that returning to visibility would look like they had teleported. That way, they wouldn't be seen walking out of an alley.
It apparently worked as one of the guards at the gate started. Before there could be any further reaction, Luz pulled out the parchment she'd been given yesterday. "Um, hello? I was given this invitation to have tea with Doctor Doom for some reason."
After passing the parchment through the gate where several tests were done to verify it was legitimate, they were let in and led into the building.
The inside was much more vibrantly decorated than the outside. Maybe a little too much, to be honest, it was a little garish. Especially as the... Embassy worker had decided to give them something of a tour, gesturing to various paintings that Luz suspected were highly embellished.
"Lord Doom's first victory over the Fantastic Four," described one painting that... Luz was reasonably certain that wasn't how the infamous first encounter between the tyrant and the first family of the superhero community went at all. She doubted that the Thing had ever been that small and that such a stereotypical expression of Idiocy had ever graced the face of Dr. Richards.
"Lord Doom's daring rescue of the soul of his department mother from the clutches of Mephisto," was Doom standing triumphant in a hellish landscape while enshrouded in hell light.
"Didn't Doctor Strange help him with that?" Luz asked, which earned her a glare from her guide.
"Lord Doom graciously granting monetary compensation to Luke Cage after the completion of a job," described a painting of Doom handing a key to a musclebound black man dressed in a flamboyant yellow costume.
"Is that the mayor Cage April mentioned?" Amity whispered.
"I think so," Luz replied quietly.
"...This smells like Belos all over again," Amity muttered.
"Well, I don't think anyone who lived through a genocide is gonna turn around and do it himself but, kinda," Luz admitted. Doom was bad news, but you couldn't really blame him for conquering his home country after being one of the few survivors of an attempted purge of Romani by the previous regime.
"And finally our most recent addition, this painting commemorates Lord Doom's victory over the Drusselsteinian Lawn Gnome invasion earlier this month," the guide gestured to a painting that depicted Doom's standing triumphantly above a pile of what looked for all the world like lawn gnomes.
"...Okay, I have questions," Luz asked. This one had her stumped.
"It's a long complicated story," came a voice that was deep but cold, each word carefully enunciated to remove any trace of an accent. The fact that this new person had snuck up on them was concerning, since Luz still had her ESP up, and Amity's body language suggested that her empathic abilities hadn't noticed him either. "Though one that will have to wait until our business is concluded."
Turning around they were greeted by a man clad in titanium armor and a matching steel mask with a face roughly shaped and framed by rivets.
"Um, hello, Doctor Doom, sir," Luz greeted awkwardly.
A large door behind Doom opened on its own, revealing what appeared to be some kind of office. "Please, come in." Doom then looked past them to their guide. "You are dismissed."
The guide saluted and left and then Luz and Amity followed Doom into the office, where they were seated around a desk. A door hidden seamlessly in the wall opened and in stepped a woman dressed in a traditional maid's outfit. She was carrying a fancy-looking tea set on a silver tray. She sat the tray down and began distributing cups but just as she prepared to fill Luz's cup Luz stopped her. "Him first."
The maid froze at that.
"Him first," Luz repeated. "Doom's reputation proceeds him, we've had bad experiences already with one masked dictator, and personally I'm sick of being manipulated by people who think I'm dumb," Luz continued, her mind turning to Belos, Adegast, and a few others. "We're not drinking anything unless he drinks first."
The maid stood frozen, clearly unsure of what to do until Doom said "Helga, do pour me a cup."
With nerves that Luz wouldn't have needed her ESP to feel, the maid placed a cup before Doom and filled it with steaming hot tea. Dark and... Was that jasmine?
The maid then averted her eyes as Doom removed his mask... Luz was a little disappointed. With all the talk of how horribly scarred Doom was beneath his mask, you'd expect something grotesque like exposed muscle or at least something like Freddy Krueger but, no. Judging from what Luz had learned in her healing track classes those scars were mostly surface level. Between advances in cosmetic surgery and the fact that he was the second most powerful sorcerer on Earth, you'd think he would have been able to get that fixed years ago.
Regardless, Luz made it a point to maintain eye contact as he downed the entire, steaming hot cup in one gulp before replacing his mask. "Are you satisfied?"
"More or less," Luz agreed.
The maid, now clearly terrified, continued pouring tea at that. "Milk?" She asked with a shaky voice. "Sugar?"
"I prefer it straight," Amity replied.
"Lactose intolerant," Luz answered.
...That and it was entirely possible that if Doom wanted to drug or poison them it would be in the milk or sugar. He'd drunk the tea straight, after all.
"That will be all, Helga... And take the rest of the afternoon off," Doom said. The maid nodded in thanks and then left the room a little too quickly, closing the hidden door behind her.
Luz and Amity briefly glanced at each other before lifting their tea cups. As the tea was still steaming hot, blowing on it before sipping was normal, and if they blew on the hot tea hard and fast enough to whistle—and thus, learn the trick that Katya had taught them, that she'd learned from Raine, for changing a drink's chemical composition—well who would care? Not like Doom couldn't use something he'd built a resistance to, either.
Once Luz was sure it was safe, she took a sip of the tea and then asked. "So how do you even know who I am?"
Doom chuckled at that, though there was no mirth to it. "Child, did you truly believe that no one would notice the birth of an Elder God? I dare say every hedgewitch and apprentice sorcerer in the galaxy knows of you."
"Well that's just great," Luz deadpanned.
"But as for how I know who you are... Well, you'd be surprised just how much you can learn about someone by checking public records and entering a few terms into an internet search engine," Doom finished.
"...That's disappointingly mundane," Luz replied.
"Would you feel better if I said I also employed the use of a magic mirror for divination?" Doom asked.
"Did you?" She asked.
Doom didn't answer but instead continued his explanation: "What I found intrigued me... A young minority girl, an outcast in the places that should have been her home, scarred by the loss of a loving parent at a young age. Brilliant, but whose talents were undervalued, and with a thirst for power and recognition..." That's not how Luz would have put it. "I can sympathize. As a young man of Roma heritage, I was often rejected in whatever community I found myself in. It shames me to say that there were times I had to live down to certain stereotypes just to be able to survive. Things improved, of course, after I managed to make my way to the United States but I dare say that my genius was not appreciated and my pursuit of occult knowledge was found offputting." He let it hang there for a second before continuing. "Of course, once I knew who, I had to figure out what: Your powers are unlike those of the Elder Gods of Earth and even your extraterrestrial heritage can only explain so much, so I turned to more supernatural sources of knowledge... And what a surprise it was when I turned to the Lesser Key of Solomon's collection of knowledge brokers."
"Wait, that's real?" Luz asked.
"Yes and no," Doom replied. "The history of those books of occult knowledge is a fabrication by their anonymous true author, I have found no evidence that any knowledge of the summoning rituals detailed existed at any point in ancient Isreal. Additionally, half of the wind spirits detailed in the Ars Theurgia and a third of the angels detailed in the Ars Paulina do not appear to truly exist. The Ars Geotia is most accurate, but the nature, history, and temperament of some of those demons and where their talents lie are not always faithfully recorded. This brings us back to my attempt to divine your nature: What little I could learn remotely on my own was strikingly familiar to a dark secret I discovered while studying the supernatural wildlife of the African savanna—"
"Giraffes?" Luz asked. She suddenly had a sinking suspicion of where this was going.
"...Yes," Doom confirmed. "I am not certain as to howtheir nature as Elderspawn has been so thoroughly obscured, but as my ranged divinations noticed just the barest hint of similarity between your power and theirs I summoned forth the keeper of occult knowledge who'd enlightened me to their true nature years ago: Supposedly a demon who builds houses and grants familiars, whom is quick to betray those who attempt to seal a deal with a sacrifice, I dare say that... Well, the appearance is reasonably close, I'll give the author credit for that, but this being is another Elderspawn rather than a true demon and his temperament is much more mild."
Some gears clicked in Luz's head. "Wait, are you saying that—"
"You can imagine how surprised I was when he identified you not by the nature of your power," Doom continued, "but as a frequent patron of his library and the lover of one of his most hardworking employees."
Amity had taken another sip of tea at the worst possible time and began to choke. Luz tended to her girlfriend's distress and after patting her on the back a few times she turned back to Doom. "So you're telling me that Malphas of the Ars Geotia and Malphas, dorky hippy head librarian, are the same guy?"
"Apparently so," Doom confirmed. "Now, he was somewhat irritable on this summoning, something about a Star Child turning people into puppets and how there were only three adults left in town to take care of an entire school full of teenagers, but he did prescribe a few theories... Regardless, the facts remain: You have a great deal of potential, as a goddess of life, death, and magic, that it would be a shame to waste. I can help you with that."
"Thank you but I think I have enough mentors right now, sir," Luz replied.
"You have ignorant fools afraid of their own power," Doom continued. "Like Strange, I have studied the sorceries of Kamar Taj, and like Rasputina, I have mastered the magicks of limbo. Unlike them, I have studied the witcheries of my bloodline and countless others, deciphered the foul secrets of the Darkhold and the eldritch mysteries of the Kitab al-Azif. I have studied every form of occultism from the soul-preserving arts of the Egyptian Funerary Cults to the chi-fueled alchemy of the Taoist Philosophers and from the divinations and exorcisms of Onmyōdō to the spirit conjuring and necromancy employed by the Bokor of Haiti and New Orleans. I've even traveled deep into the heart of the Carpathian Mountains and stolen the black arts taught at the Scholomance. You will never find a more knowledgeable mentor, one who can grant you the power, and with it the recognition, that you've always desired, than Doom."
"That might be true," Luz said, "but... You say you, what, relate to me? I can see it but... You don't know me. Yeah, I wanted to be a witch, but it was never about power. I just wanted to be like Azura, to have cool magic and be taken seriously and have friends and be loved and... I have that. I'm a witch with cool magic, people take me seriously, and I have lots of friends who love me: What you're offering isn't what I wanted, and even if it was I've already got it." Amity took Luz's hand. As a show of politeness, they finished their tea. "I thank you for the kind offer but, I have to decline. If that's all, we should probably get out of your hair."
The two witches stood up and attempted to leave only to find the door out of the office barred itself as they did.
"I apologize," Doom said, "but you don't have a say in the matter: It would be a crime to squander your potential. You'll come around after the first few months."
Luz sighed and transformed into her Titan-self. "Look's like we're doing this."
"Can we go one week without fighting a bad guy?" Amity agreed and she summoned Dulzura and with her the Uru armor of a Valkyrie.
With extended hands, their staves materialized and they took battle stances. This was a bluff, of course, actually fighting Doom in the Latverian Embassy would cause one heck of an international incident and Luz wasn't exactly in the mood to get into a fight with the United States government over appeasing Doom when the ink on her friend's refugee paperwork was still wet, but Doom wasn't exactly used to people standing up to him, other than a handful, so maybe, hopefully, the fact that they weren't going to cave would make him back down.
Otherwise, they could probably break that door down and make a break for it.
"Your friends aren't as well hidden as they think they are," Doom replied. "The assortment of undertrained children and washed-up has-beens who served as your honor guard. Even if you were foolish enough to attack me here, and they foolish enough to invade, they can't help you and they know it. Nor are you able to defeat me, for all of your power, you lack the knowledge and experience to wield it. No, the only way out of this room that won't bring down far worse consequences for you, Luz Noceda, is to bend the knee."
"Just like Belos?" Amity asked.
"No, he was more subtle," Luz replied.
Luz was about to just blast down the door, Doom's threats not deterring her from the plan, when she felt someone on the other side. Moments later, someone began pounding on it. "Lord Doom," came the voice of the man who'd served as their guide earlier. "There's an incident at the gate." Doom glared at Luz, somehow radiating smugness despite his mask concealing everything but his eyes. "It's... He's just standing there at the gate, sir... The Mutant, Magneto!" Doom's body language changed immediately.