First Contact: failed

[Black Bolt]

(Illuminati only please)

Cries of pain, cries of terror, cries of uncertainty, cries of worry and fear were all that emanated from the great hall of the nondescript building of no real merit or measure. As the great Blackagar Boltagon, leader and scion of the Inhumans, god king to an entire people of gods in and of themselves; threw forth the newest and least improved attempt of the Skrulls at making a functioning useful Super Skrull. The cries that the other shock troops of Skrulls had made were ones he'd never be able to mirror, and didn't particularly care to.He stood among a mountain of skrull bodies, all broken and beaten and utterly defeated, their twisted and maimed green forms like a mound of emerald mashed flesh that he stood atop, Black Bolt, king of the mountain.

He grabbed the last of the Skrulls by his throat, twisting his head sickeningly until it was completely ripped from his shoulders like some kind of green pointed earred screw.

It looked like he had won and the Skrulls had lost an entire army, or a small one, and a super skrull. He pressed a button on the device reed had given him, a communicator to signal the other Illuminati, he was pound for pound one of the more powerful members, and he was exhausted from his encounter, he could only wonder how they'd fared.

As he pressed his back against the solid wall, sliding down it to a sitting position, resting his arms on his bent knees he couldn't help but realize it had in fact been an Illuminati meeting that had been the ruse to summon him to this building. This being one of the many nondescript unassuming land ventures owned by a sister company to Stark Industries specifically for the purposes of Illuminati meetings.

The Skrulls were the only people who knew concretely of the Illuminati, and given that they'd just thrown a few hundred of them at Black Bolt in a trap, it was obvious who their attacker was. Black bolt just hoped he was in time to warn his friends and compatriots of the danger they were in.

[Doctor Strange]

It had been a good while since the last Illuminati meeting. That one would be called now did not seem so particular to the Master of the Mystic Arts, but that it would be stressed as one of dire importance did. Additionally, that he would be requested upon to come in person and not as an astral guise was the kicker.

Nonetheless, despite Stephen’s better judgment, he decided to indulge his Illuminati brethren.

That decision would win his eternal ire.

“By the hoary @#$&ing hosts!!”

Thus shouted the Sorcerer Supreme as he most narrowly evaded a plasma blast of some type from one of his many attackers.

Skrulls. Lots and lots of.. Skrulls. Now that’s one thing the good doctor would have never expected on a Saturday morning.

One in particular was getting a little bit too fresh for the good doctor’s comfort. The wanton green man launched himself up towards Strange, bulky hands pitting forward as if to try to punch him.

“Oh dear,” Stephen dully muttered, “Let’s ascend as the angels do, old friend.” The comment was to his Cape of Levitation, and while some might find it odd to speak to ‘inanimate’ objects, the command was necessary for the cloak to work its magic and speed Stephen up higher towards the clouds, leaving the skrull in question swiping at nothing. As Stephen’s steely gaze met the Skrull’s look of frustration, Stephen’s gloved fingers wound forward in movements reminiscent of knitting. “Crimson Bands of Cyttorak!” [/b]

Flashing and weaving in the air around the skrull were the red bands that wrapped around the alien being and held him in place in the air, and though the skrull wailed in every sense of the word against the magical binding, it stayed put. “Not even Baron Mordo could get out of that one,” Strange informed the skrull as he began to descend towards the muddled fray below, “I’d advise you to give up and enjoy the show.”

It wasn’t going to be pretty. That much, Stephen was certain of. The skrull fleet itself was massive and unrelenting, and woe as Stephen was to do it, he found he had little choice. He whirled overhead of the green beasts, his cloak ruffling and flapping from the speed of it as he chanted, “Seven Suns of Cinnibus!” The spell itself channeled an energy blast from his fingertips which was, as one might imagine, as hot as the seven suns of Cinnibus combined. Channeling the beam to strike the skrulls and not devastate the surrounding landscape was a tricky task, but not one a Sorcerer Supreme need worry about too much, naturally.

Stephen’s spell carved a deep line through the array of skrull shock troops, nearly obliterating them completely as their bodies cooked for all of a nanosecond before they disappeared into ashes. Such a massive loss of life was not one Stephen liked to be the agent of but if this was a Skrull invasion of earth, it was a paltry sum compared to what was likely going to happen next. He landed neatly on his feet and whirled to see those skrull forces that stood on the fringe of the actual attack begin to barrel towards him.

“Bolts of Bedevilment!”

Thin bolts of lightning began to channel between his fingers as the energy crackled and then ruptured forth from the palm of his hand, the spell’s magic striking the skrulls clean across their torsos. It did not seem to stop them initially, but Stephen’s eyes narrowed as he amplified the spell, the bolts burrowing holes clean through their chests seeming to do the trick.

“That seems to be all of them,” he considered as he looked up to the Skrull still suspended in mid air, but he couldn’t help but feel that something was off.

And that something happened to grab him by the back of his cloak and raise him up into the air.

“Good evening, doctor,” he heard in a voice that was identical to his own. “Good bye, doctor.”

Stephen could feel something hot begin to form in the air around him and his eyes widened at the realization of this. The spell that could be his salvation sat on the tip of his tongue and then shot forward as he flailed a hand backwards. “Aid me now, Winds of Watoomb!”

A massive gust curled forth from his fingers, spiraling from the flat of his palm to the chest of his assailant, forcibly sending his doppelganger flying backwards. That his former captor had such a strong hold on his cloak, that went flying along with him, but that was not his concern for now. He turned, clasping onto his amulet of Agamotto as he glared at his captor, who was just now getting up from the blast and had a look in his eye that Stephen didn’t quite like.

“I do hope that you’ve enjoyed your masquerade,” Strange offered, “But I’m afraid this dance is over.” Stephen’s hands raised in front of he amulet and began to circle around one another as a prism of light began to emanate from the center of it. “Vishanti, hear me! Agamotto, guide me! Grant me the Light of your All-Seeing Eye!”

A cone of light emitted from Stephen’s amulet and swallowed up the doppelganger in front of him, immediately revealing the guise that was hidden underneath. Mottled green skin, bugged out eyes.. he would be considered quite handsome on the Skrull homeworld, Stephen mused. But the skrull himself was not entertained, its fingers reaching out for Stephen as the doctor merely increased the frequency of Agamotto’s Light, cleansing the Earth of its foul soul for good.

He sighed once it was done. “And that’s that,” he muttered, “Give me the Dread Dormammu over skrulls any day..” He sighed as he wandered over and plucked his cloak from where it lay, allowing it to sit properly back on its place at his shoulders.

“Hm..” He looked into the building that he had been asked to come to. Was he the only fool of this ruse? “Wouldn’t that be embarrassing,” he thought to himself as his feet crunched against gravel and the ashes of skrull bodies. Warily, he placed his hand against the door and pushed it open, only to see the figure of Black Bolt resting against a wall.

“Black Bolt,” Stephen greeted, caution obvious in his tone. It could have been another trap, loathe as he was to think it. The doctor looked around the dark building, and saw the pile of broken skrull bodies that no doubt the king of the Inhumans had created. “Shades of the Seraphim,” he marveled as he made his way towards the other. “…And the others? Reed? Tony? Charles? Namor?”

From the looks of things, the others hadn't made it yet. Or wouldn't be making it, at all.

This did not bode well.