2 [ Gus ] Change comes from reflection.

Looking into a camera linked to a screen, I could see that physically I appeared to be a very fit young guy in his late teens, with pale white skin. I didn’t seem to have any body hair, but I did have the start of some stubble on my head. Which was not quite long enough for me to see the color of it.

But I could see the color of my dark blue eyes, which most likely were not from Doom’s Eastern European Latverian heritage. So at least I could tell that mom would most likely be a white woman.

I would guess that the mom would most likely not be any sort of alien since Doom would want a human heir, not someone who could be denounced as only half terrestrial.

So not a mutant or inhuman either, the activation of their powers was unpredictable and all too often would result in a nonhuman appearance. Which again would be a problem for an heir.

And somehow I didn’t think he would collect anything from a teen or a child, that would be way too skeevy for such a proud man.

A perfect example of the kind of woman I would be looking for would in fact be the Invisible woman.

Mature, human, with inheritable powers as proven by her son. But I don’t think having a child by his worst enemy, slash, rival’s wife genes would have been the kind of victory over Reed Richards that Doom would have tried for.

It would be so wrong, just way too wrong, even for him.

She-Hulk. Captain Marvel, the older one. The Scarlet Witch, post mutant origin. In fact, the Scarlet Witch would be a great explanation of how I got here. I could see her powers activating to give one of her children a soul taken from somewhere else rather than leave me as a wind up meat puppet for Doom’s twisted sense of duty.

But if I inherited her powers. How the heck would I activate her “Hexes” which were one of the most cheesy power sets in the Marvel universe? “Hexes” which did whatever the writer needed them to do, and then somehow would not be able to let her do the exact same thing when they needed them to be less useful the next time around. All at the whim of the needs of that issue’s plot line.

Since I had some more time to kill, I decided to go looking for answers by breaking into the machine which had made me.

It proved to have quite a few security features, including several self destruction mechanisms, but they proved to be no challenge for a Doom. Instead, it was merely very time consuming for a Doom working with their bare hands while butt naked and hungry in a buried storage unit in the middle of nowhere.

I had time to have the Matrix Forge finish printing my mask, a bowl of vitamin enriched gelatinous soup, some basic tools, and clothes before setting it back to the work of making the next piece of my armor before I broke past the final security program.

Oh... Dam him to hell.

I was not the first in the G series.

There had been a Greta before me who had been aged to twenty four years old and then had been turned back into growth stock when she turned out not to be needed. And as soon as I left the creche another sibling would be started to eventually replace me.

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All of us from the creche units were to be grown from a fixed sequence of genes from an unknown female, and a genetic arrangement of one half of one of many possible arrangements of Doom’s. Each one of us that could be generated by this module would be slightly different. But all of us would have the same mother and father. Being made and then unmade unless activated according to the Heir protocols. With some of us being sent out to challenge for the throne of Latveria, while others would be dissolved back into the vat. Never even being awakened.

Monstrous… I would ask how dare he. But he would. Doom would dare anything.

Screw your plans Vic. The only question now was, do I disable this machine to stop the creation of a younger sibling? One that most likely would be born as another puppet for Doom if I didn’t get back to them before their twelve years in the vat were up?

...I guess that at the very least I should shut it down for now, although I will not destroy it.

There are no clues in the creche from who the mother’s gene sequence came from. But I copied the gene code into a printed cell phone like device for storage until I can examine it more closely later on. For now, I had to wait for my armor to finish and ponder the possibilities.

The gene from a male super could have worked to pair up with Dooms. He could have used his or the other father’s x gene and not the male y to make a girl. But I don’t think Doom would have risked the awkward conversation if that ever came out.

I smiled to myself, at least that had eliminated half of the super powered population on Earth.

But then it didn’t have to be a hero's DNA, did it? There were plenty of healthy villainous women out there as well. Some of which had even gotten their powers from Doom. Titania and a friend of hers, Volcana I think. Their powers would be a known factor for him to examine and confirm they would be passed on to a child.

If he was willing to have pro wrestlers for two of his baby mommas. I think that those two did before he recruited them on what may have been a whim.

When my suit was perhaps halfway built I realized this reproduction unit was missing something that would not be easy to create with the Matrix Forge, or at least hard to hook up to anything. A toilet.

It looked like I would have to leave my metal womb entirely unless I wanted to use some form of sealable Tupperware.

Or hope the robot would clean up the mess, but I was going to make a mess on the floor, even if technically I was a newborn.

First I disabled the mechanism that would have sealed up the exit behind me, trapping me outside.

Then the backup mechanism, and its backup. Chill the hell out Vic, like you could have kept out one of your kids if they really wanted back in.

Then I stepped outside to an exit concealed in a hillside somewhere in a rather dry land with vegetation that I recognized as being from North America. In the mid-western portion of the central plains. Idaho perhaps?

By checking the phone I had made which did so much more than a normal phone. I determined that I was in fact in the state of Idaho. One of the few states without its own super team from the 50 states initiative. Right in the middle of the small portion of the Yellowstone National Park that was in this state.

Hmm, I guess if I wasn’t going to be Latverian by birth then... I would still be Latverian, Doom had set up legal statutes so that by Latverian law all of his children were Latverian citizens regardless of where they had been born, but at least I could at claim to be American born in my own mind.

Always ten steps ahead my dad… well, more like a few dozen steps.

Standing there looking at my phone, I heard a few loose stones clatter down the hillside behind me just in time for me to look over my shoulder and see the mountain lion as it screamed and leaped off of the top of the cliff I had emerged from.

Oh yeah. A narrative universe. Here comes the drama.

Throwing up my hands I could feel but not see the flat square barrier that it slammed into with a squished up face before it dropped down to the ground. Springing back to its feet and looking in all directions in complete bafflement. It finally gave the area an offended look before it began slinking off.

It hadn’t seen me standing there after it had hit the invisible wall. Looking down at my hands, I couldn’t see me either.

…I guess that answers who my bio mom is.

What the hell did you do Victor Von Doom?

I began to pace back and forth while I freaked out a bit. This set of powers was so… Iconic that the connection would be obvious to anyone. What was I supposed to do? Claim to be the result of Susan Richards, nee Storm having a one night stand and giving me up for adoption before she hooked up with Reed ‘Super genius who could check out my story in ways I can’t see coming’ Richards?

Or claim to be some kind of reversed gender clone in order to not give up using these sweet powers…

Actually, that might not be that bad of an idea.