Doctor Doom Taunts Reed Richards

Victor von Doom waited. He monitored the traffic from the Baxter Building. He waited for the dark of night, when the only light burning was in Reed Richards' lab. When Richards was all alone. When the night would be creeping in on him, and not even Hank Pym or Tony Stark was chatting with him.

The armored figure had seated himself on his throne, the wooden shield with the stylized D prominent on it above his cowled head. The cameras caught his every gesture. The holoprojectors warmed up.

With a thought, Doom interrupted Richards' traffic. Every monitor in Richard's lab flashed white, and filled with the armored face of Doctor Doom. Before him, the hacked cameras in Reed Richard's lab were fed to the holoprojectors, forming a slightly blue, almost transparent simulacrum of his enemy.

Scarred lips pulled back from Doom's teeth, though Reed Richards could not see it. Richards was thinner than normal. He had not shaved, had not cut his hair. He looked like a ghost, a dead man walking. Already defeated.

"Victor," Reed said thickly.

"I have come to congratulate you on your divorce," Doom said, his voice thick with mockery. "All those years ago, I wondered how long the charade of your marriage would last. How long Susan would stand being your breeder. Or tolerate your arrogance."

Reed Richards did not respond. There were bags under his eyes, deep lines in his face. Lank, greasy hair fell almost into his eyes.

"Is that all this is, Victor?" Mr. Fantastic said. "Because if all you've done is come to gloat over the failure of my marriage, I have work to do."

Doom's laugh was dark and bitter as the last dregs of coffee in Reed Richard's cup. Despite himself, it cut through his numbness and sent a shiver down his spine. There was evil in that laughter.

"Fool!" Doom barked. "Do you think anyone could love you? The scales have fallen from the eyes of the world! I have come to delight in your destruction. For years, you relied on her! Susan Storm was the crutch to your entire pathetic existence!"

"Unlike you, eh Victor?" Reed said, and his own smirk was ugly to see. "We all know about your marriages."

"DOOM NEEDS NO ONE!" the armored figure shouted. "He is complete unto himself! Doom has stared into the hearts of dying universes and wrested the power cosmic from alien gods!"

"Yes you have," Reed said, nodding. He stretched out an arm and tapped a control. Then another. "You know, Victor, I'm glad you reminded me of that. Because I was talking to Sue today—about when we're sharing custody with the kids, how to handle holidays—and she told me that I need to put myself out there. Find a woman for me."

"Bah!" Doom scoffed. "You are not some hopeless romantic, Richards, for all that you are a fool. You of anyone should know that such a quest is meaningless. No woman born could love you!"

Reed Richards' smile was thin-lipped.

"Born?" he said. "Perhaps not. Made, however—"

Mister Fantastic pressed a button.

The power cosmic does not reside within the cells of the body. It binds ot the aura, the soul. Its manifestations are nearly infinited. Flight, telepathy, immortality, energy projection and manipulation are all common among its users. One of the more advanced and complicated powers is transmutation—the rearrangement of molecules into different configurations, the shift of elements from one to another.

And even when cosmic power is stolen, even when it is ripped away, a trace, a memory of it remains indelibly on the soul.

Cosmic rays were a very primitive, raw form of cosmic power.

Reed Richards had studied them extensively.

Doctor Doom had protections both scientific and mystic. His body, mind, and spirit were warded from all conceivable assaults from without. He had never needed any defense from within.

Mister Fantastic shielded his eyes from the light that burst from Doom's form. At a genetic level, the monarch of Latveria's DNA unwound and rewound. Chromosones shifted. The anatomy changed to reflect the new reality implied by that form. Ancient scars undone as a face that had never known the explosive or burning touch of another suddenly found itself smooth and soft, with pouty lips and large, dark eyes.

"What have you done to me!?" Doctor Doom said, the voice high-pitched and feminine.

Reed Richards smiled smugly. Then he did something that he would never have done if he wasn't both divorced and eager to get one over on his former foeman.

"I've made you the woman you were always meant to be—Victoria," Mister Fantastic said with a grint. Doom stared down at her armor, unaffected by her transformation, but suddenly ill-fitting, the chestpiece so cramped, the hips not wide enough. She watched in horror as Reed Richards pulled down his pants and let his penis fall into view.

The head wobbled between his knees.

"If you'd like to discuss the matter," he said cockily. "I'd be happy to take you out on a date."

"DAMN YOU, RICHARDS!!!" Doom roared and unleashed a blast from his gauntlet that seared through the holographic head and struck a door at the end of the hall.

Yet her eyes could not evade the swaying, hypnotic motion of that fantastic prick.