7 [Gus] The first lesson a revolutionary must learn is that he is a doomed man.

I guess I should have expected it.

A big guy in armor. Egotistically declaring himself the ruler of half a continent. Right after Girl Hulk and Horus declared themselves Dooms in public and on the same day some guy calling himself Iron Tsar started flying around Moscow in half assed looking black Doctor Doom armor.

Heck, I had even thrown in a Doom pun.

So yeah. Within an hour people on the internet were calling it, and even the mainstream media had caught up by the following morning.

America had yet another one of the Doom kids.

By morning I was being called a terrorist on most major news networks. Fox News had worst things to call me.

Mess with rich people’s money and these things happen.

Estimations put the pipeline at nearly a year behind on construction and Roxxon was calling on Reed Richards to help undo the damage a spawn of his lifelong enemy had performed. Richards had so far declined to respond.

On the other hand, the independent News and social media…

Turns out the worst criticism most people had was for taking it too easy on the Copstapo. I had only hospitalized “several” of them and no deaths.

After returning to my creche for the night, I decided that I needed to lay low. Built up some assets, and even establish an identity for when I wasn’t in the Apex armor.

For that, I needed a last name to go with Gus. While Cuckoo sounded appropriate it lacked a certain style. I wanted something with a mechanical feel to it, like an engine or a clock.

Gears. Gus Gears. A nice old school golden age of comics alliterative name. After a few moments of hacking and both the federal and state governments had an entire history of records for my new identity.

The Matrix Forgesoon produced an Idaho state driver’s license, a social security card in a clear plastic sleeve, and a black credit card.

By nine in the morning, I was sound asleep in a single room in the Boise Marriott with a ‘Do not disturb’ sign on the door. I had been concerned about checking in while looking younger than my now official age of twenty years, but midnight shift people at the end of their night and about to go home didn’t give a damn.

The credit card cleared, I didn’t ask for any special arrangements, and I left the front desk guy, James by his name tag, alone after he handed me the door card. For James, I was the perfect customer.

I was more than ready for my first ever decadently long hot shower, and a good night, or days, sleep.

What I got was a whole three hours before I was woken up by the warding rune I had painted in my blood on the inside of the door. There was also one on the glass of the window as well even though it wasn’t made to open.

Doom hadn’t given me a lot of practical skills at magic, But I got the feeling he felt relying on it was beneath him and his progeny. But I still had a lot of academic knowledge of magic stuffed in my head, mostly along the lines of things to watch out for.

But the list of Runes stood out as something I could put into practice immediately. They weren't all that useful in a “Kill things with fire.” kind of way, but if you had the time, and the paranoia, to set them up in advance…

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Priceless.

As the still healing cut I had made on my fingertip flared up in pain, I narrowly opened my eyes to see the reflection of the door in the mirror soundlessly open and close. With no one there to open or close it.

The many possibilities began to run through my head, but this was a time to act, not think.

I wrapped myself up in an invisible field along with my bedsheet and threw myself into the air and off to one side by launching myself at an angle from a rising cylinder of force. I didn’t want the intruder to see which way I went by watching how the mattress decompressed without my weight.

It didn’t matter. I still found myself wrapped up in someone else’s force field as soon as my feet hit the ground… which had made footprints appear in the carpeting damn it. As I stood there helplessly trying to push the force field away from me with my own, I dropped the invisibility and physically backed the force field up with my arms and legs straining at the barrier around me.

Then a woman wearing a form fitting but not skin tight suit of silver armor appeared in front of me.

She stared at me from behind a full face helm while aiming a multiphasic energy rifle at my face for a moment, before shouldering her weapon and pulling her helmet free to reveal a head of tightly braided golden blond hair, a dark tan, two bright blue eyes, and a severely annoyed look.

“Hello, little brother. Help me convince myself not to kill you right now.”

I grimaced. “Ah… please don’t kill me? Greta?” She had the same powers as me, the same coloring other than having been out in the sun way too much, and looked like she was several years older than me, although she would have to have twelve years on me. But who else could she be?

Of course, this universe wasn't going to waste a child of the Invisible Woman and Doctor Doom by quietly dissolving and then literally flushing her down the drain. Not when it could pull off a dramatic reveal.

At least it wasn’t Sue.

My predecessor rolled her eyes.

“I picked my own name, but why don’t you call me… Argent” She made quotation marks with her fingers “Apex.” She released the force construct from around me and I took a step back to regain my balance before I pointed over at the pile of clothes I had been wearing the night before over where I had left them loosely draped over a chair and gave her an inquiring look.

She waved her hand at the chair and it scooted across the room. “Please do, pale looked good on me, you just look ill.”

I pulled on my undies, followed up with my pants, “Well excuse me, the first time I got out in the sun I had a mountain lion jump at me, and then I had to move fast to stop a war crime. I haven’t had time to get a tan.”

She opened her mouth for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah, I can agree with the war crime thing, but the armor and the name, that was a mistake.”

Grimacing, she waved hands around in front of her. “Once you pick a name, you’re, well, Doomed to have an interesting life. And all of you doing it means I’m going to get dragged into it no matter what I do. But what the hell possessed you to declare yourself the ruler of half the country, are you trying to become someone’s villain of the week? Big and bold is not our powerset, we’re supposed to be unseen.”

Greta, or Argent, began pacing back and forth in the fairly small hotel room, I would have to remember to get a suite if family dropping by was going to be a recurring thing.

“I’ve kept my head down, made myself some armor for when someone came after me, faked my death in case Doom ever checked the creche, and then just focused on making myself really, really rich. Legitimately.”

She stopped to wave a finger at me. “I made a life for myself, started a company, traveled, and stayed the hell out of the Hero slash Villain game. Life was good. I even had a plan to rescue you when you turned twenty four. But then you popped out early and had to start something that could drag me, and my family into it.”

I blinked, “Wait, family?”

She crossed her arms. “Yeah, congrats, you’re an Uncle. So let’s try to work on a way of not making her an orphan.”