Author's Notes: Welp, time to finally hop back on the horse! This is the next segment in the Maturation universe, with the first two fics being A Strange Feeling and Under an Alien Sky, both of which are (currently) on neosaiyanangel's account. This chapter is set before both of the previously mentioned fics. Strap down and enjoy the ride!

Mama Lipsky, or to those in the know, Mama Elle, was known to the world at large as Matilda Edith Lipsky. She was an elderly woman, small and bent over from apparent osteoporosis, but in otherwise amazing health. She was also as temperamental as the most cliché crotchety old woman, but only among a select few people. To the world in general, she was genial and a bit neurotic about her son, but that was far from unexpected.

Inside her own mind, however, she was more than bit crotchety. She was blatantly pissed off! Mostly at herself, but a good portion of her anger was reserved for her wayward son. She just didn't know where she went wrong with her boy. "Drew, I'm sure you're misunderstanding what I meant!"

She'd made sure he was optimally cared for emotionally. "Nngh, I don't think so, Mother."

He had never wanted for food when he was a growing boy, unlike she had back in the Union... Especially during the war! "Oh, you most certainly are misunderstanding! After all, plenty of women have careers and children!"

The neighborhood where they lived was suitably average, and situated right in the middle of one of the most scientifically dense areas of the United States! "But... Mother, I think that's just too many..."

The independence she had given him was enough for him to grow into his own man, though she'd made sure he was suitably close to his dear mother. "Nonsense, Drewbie! I would have had more, but I was just too busy to be able to give another baby enough attention to let them grow up big and strong like you. By the time I had the chance, I was just too old!"

So why was he suddenly so rebelliously willful? So willing to dispute her will? "And I'm not too old, Mother?" His tone, to her barely concealed irritation, took on a note she hadn't heard from him before: exasperation.

"You're barely forty-three, Drew!" Mama Elle countered, her tone taking on some exasperation of her own.

"Barely..." Drakken gasped, and she could easily picture his mouth working ineffectually, something that was far too common for the greatest disappointment of her life... And her only real hope. "For the last time, I am not going to make my, erm, 'partner' go through something that traumatic!" The blue disappointment had the gaul to sound irritated with her... Now, if he'd just listen for a few minutes...!

"Drewbie, you're breaking your poor old mother's heart!" She would have made a show of clasping her hands, but the fact that he was talking to her via her old audio-only phone made the motion moot. "All I want is a good, strong set of grandbabies to spoil and love! Are you really going to deny your own mother that?!"

"Nnnnngh…" The emphasis on her having birthed him seemed to play at some of the kinked, convoluted strings in his head. "Mother, I am not denying you any grandbabies! Just, I just think that asking u-.. Er, rather, me and whoever I end up with - if I do end up with someone - for eight children is a bit much."

He was as see-through as a Global Justice undercover agent. Mama Elle decided not to press the obviousness of his relationship status, instead opting to keep pressing the beleaguered mother point. "How could you do this to me?! You promised that I would get adorable little babies to coddle and love!" And train to do her will. She would definitely need a different approach when doing that, if her boy's upstartiness and failures was any indication.

Of course... Yes, now that her mother wasn't around, yes, she could use proper techniques... She shook her head as she realized she'd paused a little longer than she should have, and finished in a rush, hoping Drakken mistook the pause as her looking for the right words, "Are you going to let your poor mother down?" That should do it.

"Well, I, I…" She heard him growl in frustration, then suddenly he cried, "Apparently I am!"

Mama found her mouth opening and closing wordlessly. Did he just… That worthless, spineless, ridiculous little boy! How dare he speak back to her! "Drewbie…!"

"No! Don't you, 'Drewbie!' me, Mother!" Drakken snarled at her. She recoiled from her receiver, shocked at the virulent spite in his voice. "I can't believe you! You… You demanding harpie! After all the effort I've gone through to try and make you happy, and you still aren't even slightly appeased?! Haven't you been proud, or pleased, or anything besides disappointed in me?"

No, never. "Absolutely! I-.."

"Don't lie to me!" he growled. "Don't you... You had better not even think of lying to me about this! I have tried, for years I've tried, so, so damn hard, to make you proud!" Mama Elle blinked, the exceedingly rare, if mild, curse silencing her long enough to continue with his rant, "I even kept my failures quiet when I could have used some support. And still you can't even be proud of me for saving the entire goddamn planet!"

What kind of villain would be proud of something like that? "I don't understand, Drewbie. Why are you brea-.."

"Breaking your heart? Aren't I always breaking your heart?" he snarked. The sarcasm was unfamiliar coming from him. The heaviness of it affected Mama Elle slightly, but she quickly dismissed it as some kind of gas. After all, it wouldn't do to have emotions for a waste. "It's amazing you even have any heart left!"

"Andrew Theodore Percival Lipsky! How dare you talk to your mother that way…!" She was losing the argument. It was obvious at this point that the feelings he was expressing were rather deeply rooted. Where in the world he got those things was beyond her.

"I'll dare to talk to you however I want, please and thank you!" Drakken snipped. Ah yes, there was the last clue. Now she knew what little hussy had gotten into her weak son's head. "If you can't understand why it just isn't feasible for anyone I would end up with to have six or more children with me, then you're a, a... An old fool of a woman! That would be nearly six years of being pregnant all by itself, let alone caring for all those children."

Damn, someone had explained it to him. She'd been hoping to ride that cluelessness until he'd had at least a couple of children. "Now, now, you know I would help out with them."

"You could barely handle me in your prime!" Prime that was wasted on him. "Why do you think having several grandchildren when you're even older would be easier!?"

"It wouldn't be easy," she allowed, "but I know I could handle caring for all of my adorable little-.."

"You're just repeating yourself now!"

"Because you won't listen!"

There was a pregnant pause, both of them unwilling to say anything. Finally, Drakken said, "I think that we're done here." He said it with such finality that she almost believed him.

"We are not-.."

The phone clicked and went dead.

It took her a full minute to truly comprehend all that had just happened, the incessant buzzing of the off-hook tone finally piercing through her disbelief.

Her stupid, rebellious son had disobeyed her.

He was shacking up with that redheaded heroine that she could have sworn he'd hated with a passion.

She was not going to get her desired manipulable grandchildren without a fight.

Well... Fine. Yes, it was fine. She was patient. That was something she'd learned when she was young, even before she'd taken her father's place as an Avtoritet in the Pasternak Bratva. And even then, the Russian mafia had only been a mere stepping stone for her.

Mama Elle set the receiver back into its cradle, with perhaps a little more force than necessary. It had been a while, but she could fight. This was something that was worth fighting for. She still had her contract, written up with very specific language. That other hussy, the super powered freak show… Just thinking about the lost opportunity made Mama Elle's blood boil! She had been outsmarted; she hadn't known the woman had been in the underworld before joining the villainous underground! She had always thought the woman had taken the familiar superhero-cum-villain route, but, no, she'd first gone into true crime. And had been good enough that she'd made allies that still respected her!

A simple oversight, but one that could very well have been fatal, and one which made the loss even more grating! What was worse, of course, was the clear fact that her extraterrestrially modified metabolism had also fought off the effects of the miniaturized compliance chip. Not too surprising, since they were more fragile than the full size units, but it was the principle of the thing. The woman that she was certain was Drakken's new paramore would be much easier to corral.

Unfortunately, her son was proving much harder to control than he ever had before. When he'd been younger, it had been easy. He had only ever had one long term girlfriend - if you could call six months long term - and the redheaded surgeon-to-be had been difficult to deal with. Ultimately, with the help of his closest friend, she'd ultimately succeeded in pointing him in the direction of her choosing. In fact, those friends had been easily... Distracted, and easy to use against him in the end! Those stubborn geeks at his precious little school, so book smart, but hardly smart enough in life to realize simple manipulation when they saw it...!

Perhaps getting him out of that school hadn't been the best idea in the long run. He'd stayed there for another full semester, after all, even after she'd managed to alienate his friends. She'd used subtle and obvious as mud hints to that damn Chink to get him to turn the others against Drakken… She hadn't realized their potential, her hatred of Possibles having clouded her judgment, or that it would turn the boy into an even bigger disappointment in the long run. But hindsight is, as always, twenty-twenty.

And that redheaded slut that was crushing on him over his preference in books? He was obviously her rebound after breaking up with that oaf of a marine. She'd seen it, but Drakken, her stupid boy, hadn't listened! And then the woman had the temerity to send dear Alexi away with a broken wrist? How she'd ignored his charms, she still didn't know. The man had been a beautiful example of the Soviet Union's finest athletes; strong jaw, cleft chin, lovely, stylish straw colored hair, piercing grey eyes... Hell, she'd tried him out a few times herself! But that woman had denied him, all because she was already interested in Drakken, of all boys?

Oh, that woman had been a challenge, she had to admit! The girl, Mama Elle knew, had been in love with Drakken. But, once she'd finally slipped all the right triggers in place, pushed Drakken at just the right time to set those triggers off, she'd been set to get her out of Drakken's life. Then it took just a little influence to the right person, all to make sure the freshman girl got an invitation to a mixer that was normally reserved for sophomores and higher.

She would probably be unable to do that now. Mama Elle wouldn't have the time considering how far into school the girl was, and that was setting aside the phone call. Besides which, she doubted that his current little toy would fall for it anyway; she was a GJ jackboot, after all! They may be morons, but over the last few years, they'd become well trained morons, enough so to spot even competent manipulation. Back then, however, they hadn't been as well trained, and had been unable to spot the manipulation used against the child of one of their highest ranking agents.

And while it was true her misbegotten son had persisted in going to that never to be sufficiently damned institution, she's persevered in getting him away from it. Just the right few drops of copper sulphate in the wrong place took care of that. And it had given him at least a modicum of extranormal power, and a large dose of hope for her.

Unfortunately, she was now stuck with the quandary that was Drakken. A quandary, she admitted grudgingly, which was becoming more and more opaque to her with each passing day. At one time, he'd been subdued, easily manipulated. Willing to do whatever she hinted at. Now, he was becoming willful, perhaps even... Independent.

She frowned, briefly hoping the thought would just go away. But looking at things in that damnably clear hindsight, she couldn't. And with that same glance backwards through her past, she realized that, maybe, she had been just a tad hasty in her machinations. Maybe…

She shook her head out of the past, concentrating on the present. It was true that Drakken was getting old. The lack of any inheritor for if he had ever managed to conquer the world had set off alarm bells years before. It was pure inadequacy that had prevented Drakken from even threatening to have any children...

She would have to do something with this new redhead. Ironically, the daughter of the one she'd chased away before. And, if she was wrong, and she was just a friend of Drakken's, well... She was still Mama Elle! She had resources. And time. All the time in the world, in fact! And now, she would dedicate all of it to bringing Drakken back to heel and tame the red headed tramp!

Besides, if world conquest was easy, someone would have managed it already...