[Doom stands in front of the Odyssey Pool.]
“When you first came to me, you were a boy.”
“By come to me, I of course mean when I had you taken.”
“It was never my intention that you would survive the Pool, Destructo Boy. I needed a Guinee Pig. Before I dared to use it on Scissors or anyone, I wanted to make sure that it worked. There’re always trials in these matters.”
“Nothing is ever completed in the first attempt.”
“I knew that when I dipped Destructo Boy into the Odyssey Pool that one of two things would happen; I would’ve bet with certainty, in fact. The first is that you would’ve changed as intended. You would’ve exited the pool with whatever more powerful version of you existed.”
“If that was good, then so be it.”
“I believed it wouldn’t be.”
“Or you would’ve perished. You would’ve come to the surface as a floating lifeless corpse, devoid of change – except in one area, of course. You’d be deceased.”
[He takes a seat on the ledge of the walkway, hanging his legs over the edge.]
“Neither of those things happened.”
“Exactly how you went in is exactly how you came out. There was no noticeable change. You hadn’t gotten darker or angrier. Your resolve hadn’t been tested. Your mentality hadn’t changed. You seemed precisely the same. That, by my calculations, was not possible.”
“I couldn’t dream of such a scenario.”
“For the past few weeks, I’ve been working under the assumption that I for once was mistaken.”
[He lowers his head shamefully.]
“I believed that nothing had changed.”
“I thought… however mistakenly, that Destructo Boy went in as Destructo Boy and came out as Destructo Boy.”
“It has since dawned on me that despite my hypothesis on the outcome, it isn’t particularly true.”
“Two weeks ago, when you broke into my lab and destroyed my equipment, you showed a different side of yourself. I tested this side when I invited you back this week, and I expected you not to come. I expected that you’d be too afraid and stay away.”
“Like a child, I thought you’d be too terrified to come back.”
“I was wrong.”
[Dooms head rises.]
“Instead of cowering in fear like the boy you once were, you came back to my lab alongside your father as a man.”
“The Odyssey Pool worked.”
“I just didn’t see how until now. It changed the part of you that was the weakest and made it the strongest. It turned you from a boy to a man. It made you into what you are today.”
“You’re not a failure.”
“You’re my biggest success.”
“But any creation of mine, big or small, it matters not towards what must happen in the end. You see, Destructo Man, everyone does the same.”
[He laughs.]
“All will fall before Doom.”
“Boy or man.”
“Man or boy.”
“That appears… true.”