"You little bastards! I told you half an hour ago I wanted a full search of Germany’s Black Forest!"

"Uhh, master, we have been unable to locate a "Black Forest" on any map that we have of Germany." A doom-bot replied in a mechanical voice.

"Don’t get lippy with me, bizatch! Just do what I tell you!" The bot hurried in the other direction to escape his master’s wrath. Scowling (as best as one can when one’s face is covered by a steel mask) Dr.Doom turned to find another hapless victim to terrorize.

The doom-bot had ended up in the kitchen of his master’s villa in the Hawaiian Islands. There, Maia, Dr.Doom’s…wait a second-just what the hell DID she do, anyway? Well, whatever it was, she was currently making coffee. She rushed by the doom-bot, apparently he wasn’t important enough to talk to.

Maia stepped out of the kitchen and scanned the living room for Dr.Doom. [Hey, that rhymes!] She rushed over as she spotted him yelling at a maid. Something about the "lemony freshness" of the bathrooms.

"Here’s your latte, Vicky." She said, handing over the frothy cup to the person she had just addressed.

"I told you not to call me thhhhaaat!!" He whined, before taking the offered beverage. "Wait, who the hell are you?!"

"I’m your personal secretary."

"Oh." There was an awkward silence. Dr.Doom looked from side to side. "What the hell do you do?"

"Oh, that’s easy! I…uh…and, well, I…um…"He waved a hand negligently

"Nevermind, you’re fired. I expect you off the premises immediately or I will kill you in the most painful way possible. Good day." He stormed off as she stood there, stunned. Slowly making her way out of the room towards Dr.Doom’s secret underground laboratory to clear out her office, she caught the last vestiges of his rant "…You! Jump off a building! You! Stand there and look evil!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Step by slow step, Maia made her way away from her place of employment for the last three years. No one would hire her now, not when she’d been fired by someone as prestigious as Dr.Doom was. How dare he fire her, anyway?! She’d slaved away as his personal secretary for three years of her life just to be DUMPED!? Well, she wasn’t going to stand for it! Dr.Doom would rue the day he crossed paths with the over-dramatic Maia Iuliana! But how to carry out her revenge?

She mulled over ideas as she made her way through the park surrounding Dr.Doom’s secret lair. Inspiration hit her so suddenly, it caused her to lose her grip on the box of personal items from her office she was carrying, which consisted mostly of paperweights and spider-man dolls. Said items spilled all over the pavement as Maia struck a pose with one index finger in the air and the other hand on her hip.

"I know! I’ll blackmail him! There’s gotta’ be some dirt on Victor, SOMEWHERE! Something to get him in trouble with the law...maybe even thrown in JAIL! Hehehehehe, you’re so clever Maia!" Grinning wickedly to herself, she quickly ran back up the path to D.O.O.M. (Den of an ominous man) Slipping in through a window into the foyer, she crept stealthily towards the door for Dr.Doom’s shady underground factory. Unfortunately, she was hampered in her venture by a doom-bot.

"Ah, there you are. The master is to be informed that we have located the Dragon’s eye. He can now use it to commence his nefarious plans for world domination." Maia wasn’t listening, she threw the ‘bot an impatient glance.

"Look, number," She read the inscription on his chest, "143. That’s really very interesting, but I’m kind of busy, so could you come back later?" The ‘bot looked around uncertainly.

"But, the master said-" Maia cut him off.

"Thank you, number 143! Go clean the fireplaces or something." and with that she hurried over to the door and slid through it before the doom-bot could detain her any longer. The latter scratched its mechanical head in confusion, then shrugged.

"Oh well, I’ll just radio the master and have another bot bring the dragon’s eye down..."

Maia tiptoed down the narrow steps that opened up into a large, dimly lit space that resembled the inside of a warehouse. She somersaulted across the floor to hide behind some nearby crates. Congratulating herself for that feat, and about to get up to wander around in search of incriminating evidence, she was stopped by the sound of voices, one being her former employer.

"You! Hook that wire into the frequency modulator! Number 562, step up the reactor power input three more points![1]" The ’bot in question looked uncertain.

"Master, there is no reactor power input. In fact, we’re not even sure what this...machine does." It gestured towards a large...uh...thing that took up the center of the room. It appeared to be a confection of string, cardboard, and aluminum foil. Dr.Doom growled from behind his mask.

"Don’t talk back to me, just do as I say!!" The ‘bot rolled it’s mechanized eyes and went to ‘step up the reactor power input’. A ‘bot passed Maia and gave her a baffled glance, but shook it’s head in unconcern. She watched from behind the crates as it handed a small red jewel to Dr.Doom. Upon taking it, he held it up to the light and laughed maniacally.

"With the power from this stone I shall turn the world into a wasteland of ice and snow-" This statement caused Maia’s shoulders to sag in disappointment.

"This will never work, he’s too nice a guy. I mean, how am I supposed to get the low-down on a guy who’s concerned about global warming?" she muttered to herself.

"-and then I shall scorch the earth with the fires of my wrath! The Fantastic Four will be no more! Ha! I’m destined to be a poet! MWAHAHAHAHAHA!" He placed the jewel underneath a fishbowl that sat on top of a foil-wrapped cardboard box. A hole had been cut into the bottom of the bowl, and a vacuum cleaner tube inserted through it. "Begin the extraction!" Dr.Doom shouted.

Maia slumped back against the crates in defeat, and promptly caused them to topple over with a loud ‘CRASH!’. "...oops."

A furious Dr.Doom stormed over to her. "You whore! I thought I fired you!? NEVER interrupt me in the middle of a rant!" He lifted her by the hair and threw her blindly--right into his ‘extraction device’. "NOOO!!" He shouted as the cardboard caved in under her weight. This caused the fishbowl, er, containment unit to slide off and the jewel landed on Maia’s chest. She picked it up and inspected it closely.

"It’s so beautiful, but what does it mean??" Maia questioned with awe in her tone. Dr.Doom whispered something in her ear.

"Oh yeah! Um, uh," she attempted to implant the gem in her chest. "Damn it." After a brief struggle, during which Dr.Doom’s assistance was required, a doom-bot walked by with a sign that read, "Please excuse the technical difficulties."

"There!" Maia exclaimed in success. She flailed her arms melodramatically, and began to hover five feet in the air. "Whoa! What the--?!" She didn’t have time to finish because an incredible burning pain was shooting up and down the left side of her body. It was mirrored on her right side by an icy frost. The origin of both tortures emanated from the gem in the middle of her chest and spread to every nerve ending in her body. Her voice went hoarse from screaming.

Dr.Doom had seen a multitude of things in his experiences, but few compared to the sight of his ex-…uh...ex-…ex-employee, floating in the air, her writhing body glowing in shades of red and blue. Immense energy suddenly burst forth from her and when his dilated pupils readjusted to the drastic change in light, she was very obviously no longer the same person. Half of her body blazed red, orange flames licking up her body and her hair itself an inferno that torched upwards towards the sky. The corresponding half was frozen over. Stiff blue hair draped well past her shoulders, encased in a thin sheen of ice. Her skin was pale and Doom would bet his Spidey boxers that if he reached out and touched it (without his metal gloves, of course) he’d get frostbite. Her face was twisted into a furious snarl and where her eyes had once been were glowing red pits. An unearthly voice found it’s way out of her throat.

"I have lain dormant long enough!! The world shall fear the wrath I will wreak upon its inhabitants. Tremble before the might of Draca!!" The creature raised its left arm and red energy began to gather in its palm. Then, suddenly, said energy dissipated and the creature’s figure dropped slightly. The red glow of its eyes flickered, briefly revealing Maia’s warm brown irises, before returning to their previous state. Draca screamed in frustration, then shot out of the nearest window into the night sky, a streak of blue and white marking her exit.

Victor Von Doom’s jaw slammed shut with a creak of metal hinges and he cleared his throat, "Well, back to the drawing board, I suppose."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Drip. Drip. DripDrip. Drip Drip Drip Drip. Maia slowly cracked open the lid of one eye. She sat up and fought a wave of nausea, pressing the heel of one hand against her forehead. The source of the dripping became apparent as she discovered that it was raining. It was merely a drip, and not a downpour, because she was underneath the eave of a seemingly abandoned building. A cursory glance around her revealed that nearby there was a dock. She thought she could make out a small boat tied to it. Unfortunately, her legs did not want to cooperate with her brain’s order to walk, so she was forced to crawl the distance to what appeared to be her only viable option. She had to get home. She’d eat something, take a nice warm bath, and figure all this out when she had an extra two hundred dollars she could fork over to a psychiatrist.

Her legs, however, weren’t the only things working properly. She’d misjudged the width of the dock and crawled to close to the edge. With her slow reaction time, she’d been unable to prevent herself from slipping over the edge. Prepared for a lonely, unacknowledged death at sea, she was (to say the least) a bit surprised when a sure grip encircled her arm and her body jerked as it’s momentum was halted. Her savior grunted with effort as she was heaved on to the dock and she caught a glimpse of waist length hair before it was pushed back by its owner.

"Crawling off of docks is a bad habit, but then so is wandering around at night saving people who crawl off of docks, so who am I to criticize, ne?" Maia’s teeth chattered in response, and the speaker sighed. He hefted her onto his shoulder and entered the very abandoned building she’d awoken next to. Once inside, he laid her on the floor. "My name’s Todd. I guess you can stay here for the night, whoever owns this place hasn’t seemed to mind me taking up residence." he snickered. Todd left her sight briefly, and when he returned, he had a blanket with him. He spread it over her and then sat down nearby. " ‘Night." It didn’t take long for her to fall asleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next time Maia awoke, she was alone. Actually, she wouldn’t have been sure the whole thing hadn’t been a dream, if not for the reality of the fact that she was covered by a blanket; INSIDE the building. Then again, maybe in her delirium she had only imagined her fall from the dock. All of it was giving her an awful headache. And there was still the matter of the very REAL gem embedded in her chest.