Some days ago
"So you are telling me they cancelled my interview, Victor von Doom's interview? because they want to interview this Fantastic Four?" Victor asks incredulously.
"Boss, people are calling them heroes. It is all over the news," Leonard, Victor's assistant, informs him as he turns on the TV.
"So, Mr. Reed, can you tell me about these powers that you used to save all these firefighters?" A reporter asks.
"Even we guys don't know exactly…"
"It's all this fool Reed's fault! If he hadn't messed up his calculations, then the mission would have been successful, and I wouldn't have suffered the loss of billions of dollars!" Victor yells in rage as he throws the glass of whiskey he was drinking to the ground.
"Boss, not just me but even the rest of the people from Latveria believe in you. It is only because of your financial aid and grace that I was able to study and get such a good position in your company, so I don't believe that you will be defeated here," Leonard says in admiration.
"Defeat? Who, me? This is just a small roadblock. I, Victor, have not come this far just to fail this easily," Victor says with a smirk. "Arrange a meeting with the shareholders. Even those fools must know that this is just a small setback for the company, nothing more."
"Are you going to reveal the Doom Bots to the board and military, Boss?" Leonard asks in excitement as he looks at the corner where multiple metal masks and robotic body parts were kept.
"They are still not finished, and even if they were, I wouldn't disclose it to them. They don't deserve access to my personal inventions for their military ventures," Victor asserts.
***
After the Meeting
"Pathetic monkeys, with their small, pea-sized brains! Don't they realise that their banks have raked in this much profit for all these years because of me? And now they want to shut down my company? My Victor Von Doom's life's work?" Victor yells in rage after returning to his office from the board meeting.
"AAAH!" He slams the wall in frustration.
He looks shocked at the concrete wall that got dented from his punch.
More shocking were his knuckles, which almost looked metallic.
After the outburst, Victor's anger dissipates. He promptly arranges a private meeting with his personal doctor at the clinic within his von Doom Building.
***
"So what's the prognosis?"
"Your tissue, your organs, your entire biophysical structure is metamorphosing into some kind of organometallic alloy. It's unlike anything I have ever seen or heard of before. Stronger than titanium or carbon steel, even harder than diamonds."
"Like the shields that Reed said would protect us in that space mission," Victor says, touching the metal.
Sigh
"How long?" Victor asks the doctor.
"With the rate it is progressing, the infection will be completed in 2-3 weeks. I am afraid I will have to inform the CDC and quarantine you," the doctor says as he reaches for his mobile phone.
"CDC? Quarantine? I, Victor von Doom, am the face of a billion-dollar company. No one can know about this," Victor says, blocking the doctor from reaching his phone.
"I am sorry, Victor, but it is my code. This can be infectious, it could be deadly. I will have to warn the CDC," the doctor says seriously.
"Then I am sorry too, Doctor," Victor says with a cruel grin.
Snap
"Huh." Victor looks at the broken neck of the doctor in his hand in surprise, shocked by his own strength.
He releases the dead doctor to the floor and wipes his hand on his shirt.
This incident reminded him of his home country, as it was not the first time he had taken a life, albeit it was not so easy that time.
"Leonard, I need you to clean up my personal clinic and be discreet," Victor says on the phone, unconcerned about this incident leaking, as the whole building was under his strict gaze, and nothing could happen here without him knowing.
***
Now in his bedroom, Victor looks in the mirror at the metallic scar on his face in disgust.
"How did it all go wrong?" He says as he touches the scar. "I was so close. Just a few more years, and I would have bought off all the noble leaders of my home country. Then I, Victor, would have saved my enslaved people of Latveria," Victor says impassionately. "But with the company shutting down and my loans, it will take several more years for me to come up with such a large amount of money again," Victor says in irritation.
"It is all that Ned's fault. He is their representative, by his tone of voice in the meeting I know that he must have turned all the banks against me. And that little shit Lucas, even if I can't find any evidence, my intuition tells me that he must also be behind this. But the biggest culprit is definitely that smug Reed, who destroyed everything!" Victor snarls. "I will show them. I will show them all. No one makes a fool of Victor von Doom and gets away with it!," Victor yells angrily.
Suddenly, the lights start blinking and sparks come out of his hands.
Victor looks on in fascination as he channels electricity through his hands. He closes his fists, and suddenly, the lights of the whole room go out.
"Interesting," Victor says with a smile. "Is this a sign from you, Mother?" he asks with intrigue.
He opens the vault in his room and takes out a box, opening it to reveal an old golden pendant inside.
Taking it out, he holds it in his hands. This belonged to his mother, one of the only things he had to remember her by.
"You should not have listened to that old fool of a father. Following the rules of ordinary men and running after money your whole life—look where it has brought you, Victor," he says, looking again in the mirror at his throbbing metallic scar on his face. A sign that his body is changing rapidly.
"No more. I will not allow lesser men to control my actions anymore. It is time for the old Victor to die and be reborn," he says in utmost seriousness as he puts on the pendant. "Beware, my enemies, as your Doom is upon you!"
***
"Victor, what are you doing here, and so late at night?" Ned asks in surprise as he finds Victor inside the bank's underground basement while he was going home.
"You must have enjoyed the benefits that von Doom Industries provided you for all these years, haven't you, Ned?" Doom asks as he walks towards him.
"Is this about the bank's decision at the meeting?" Ned asks in exasperation.
"Did you not tremble with remorse as you betrayed ME? as you laid waste to MY Empire?!" Doom asks angrily, getting near him as the lights in the whole basement flicker.
"It was nothing personal, Victor. It was the bank's decision, you know how it is, this is just business," Ned says with a calm smile.
"For me, however, it is deeply personal," Doom says as he extends his hands towards Ned.
ZAP
In just a second, a beam of electricity passes straight through Ned's chest from Doom's hand, burning a hole through him and killing him instantly.
Thud
His lifeless body falls to the ground.
"In your next life, may you be wise enough to avoid Doom's wrath," Doom says, looking down at Ned's dead body apathetically.
Doom wasn't worried about someone finding out about his involvement in this man's death, as all the electronic equipment in the area had been disabled by his powers. And also Leonard was very experienced in handling dead bodies because of his experiences in Latveria.
"Now, the so called 'Fantastic Four' shall face their reckoning," Doom says with a smirk.
***
The Next Day inside a Restaurant
"So you are telling me that Reed is postponing the completion of the machine because he wants to spend more time with Susan?" Ben asks, cramming a bunch of pancakes into his mouth with his rocky hands.
"All I am saying is that it is a possibility. They don't have any problems in their day-to-day life like yours, so they might not be in such a hurry. I am just sympathetic to your plight, Ben. If you want, you can also ask him yourself and see how he responds," Victor says with fake sympathy.
"Thanks for paying for the pancakes, Victor. You are a good guy," Ben says thoughtfully as he gets up. "And you should get that scar of yours checked. Honestly, it creeps me out," Ben says as he walks away.
Doom looks at Ben's retreating back as his expression turns to that of hate.
***
Later in the Evening
Doom arrives at the top floor of the Baxter Building. His spies among Reed's staff had arranged for miniature cameras to be placed there days ago, enabling him to observe Reed's activities.
He had just observed how Lucas brought Susan out, and then Ben had arrived to argue and fight with Reed before storming off angrily.
In his emotional state, Reed had then decided to test the machine on himself.
And just as Reed had exited the machine, Doom arrived.
"Victor, what are you doing here?" Reed asks in shock as Victor approaches him.
"Behold, Dr. Richards, this is another monument to your failure," Doom says with a wide smile.
"What are y-" Reed stops mid-sentence.
The right side of his face starts to droop, try as he might, he isn't able to lift it up, and soon his whole right body falls to the ground as if melted rubber.
"Oh, look at the genius of Dr. Reed. Not feeling so good are you now, Mr. Fantastic?" Doom says aloud sarcastically.
"H-help me, I-I can complete the machine," Reed says as he tries to hold his rubbery face.
"Fear not, Reed, for your design merely requires the genius of my touch—a tweak here, a robust power source there. Rest assured, I shall not falter where you have stumbled," Doom declares with a sardonic smile
"Leonard, bring Mr. Ben here to the top floor of the Baxter Building," Doom instructs into his phone.
***
"So, you can cure me through Reed's machine? But Reed said it's not ready yet," Ben says apprehensively.
"Do you want your body back or not?" Doom asks impatiently.
Ben thinks about Laurie, his ex-fiancée, and then about the beautiful blind girl he met today, and gives a firm nod.
"Excellent," Doom says with a wide smile.
***
"Victor, Victor? The machine was successful, Victor!" Ben says in excitement as he crawls out of the machine in his normal body.
"Yes, the machine was definitely successful," Doom says as he steps in front of Ben.
"Victor? What happened to you?" Ben asks in shock as he looks at Victor's face which is covered in multiple metallic scars.
"I just accelerated the transformation process by absorbing more of those cosmic rays. This is but a small price to pay for Power," Doom says with a laugh.
"But your face is full of scars now," Ben says, creeped out.
"Silence!" Doom backhands Ben, and he is thrown against the wall, falling unconscious.
"Now that the fool has quieted down, let's proceed to the next part of the plan," Doom says with a smile as he shifts a big machine to the side.
"What do you think, Dr. Richards?" Doom asks, revealing a fully frozen Reed behind the machine.
"Don't look at me like that, Dr. Richards. This is just Chemistry 101. If you rapidly cool rubber, it becomes rigid," Doom says with a smirk as he twists Reed's finger, but it doesn't bend and is instead fragile like a normal human's finger now.
"D-oo-m," Reed struggles to speak.
"No, call me Doctor Doom. After all, we are both Doctors, aren't we?" Doctor Doom says with a smirk.
Before he can speak any further, he hears the door to the terrace open. He looks up to see two familiar people enter.
"Johnny"
"And Susan"
"Victor?" Both Susan and Johnny exclaim.
"Well, you both took your sweet time. I was starting to get impatient," Doctor Doom says with a chuckle.
"What happened to your face?" Johnny asks. "It looks hideous!"
"What have you done to Reed, Victor?" Susan asks, seeing Reed frozen.
Doom's expression hardens as he walks over to a nearby table and picks up a mask. It is one of the Doombot face masks that he had engineered.
"I am no longer Victor," he proclaims. "He was a weak man, manipulated by society. I am a new being, granted powers beyond the norm. I am destined to rule, to ascend to Godhood!" With a dramatic flair, he places the metal mask over his face. It clasps together with a hiss, sealing his features behind cold steel.
"Now, no one will see the old me. I will forge my own destiny, for I possess the ultimate power, as I am Doctor Doom!"