Evox, now revealed to be Venjix, stares down Dr.K. Trepidation so thick it hangs in the air like a soupy mist.

He steps closer. Practically leaning over the genius who created him.

For a second they just lock eyes. Dr.K says nothing, doesn't even flinch. Just stares at him, looking up, but her emotionless gaze makes it so Venjix might as well be a foot tall.

A defeated sigh leaves her slightly pursed lips.

Venjix laughs victoriously.

But then Dr.K just says.

"I'm sorry."

Venjix is taken aback.

But she continues.

"I made you at a time where I was more scared, and more angry than any child has a right to be. After everything done to me I was disillusioned and furious. And I channeled all of that rage inside of you.

You hate humanity because I hated humanity. Your rage is mine, and I never programmed you with the ability to heal from it.

I'm not sorry I made you. I'm sorry I made you like that."

Venjix pauses. And in that breathless moment nothing dare move.

Then, he laughs. A dark jovial laugh from the darkest depths of his artificial soul.

With one hand he grabs Dr.K by the throat. His crimson eyes beaming light.

"You really think I can't see right through this charade?" He asks her. "Well, I, Venjix, destroyer of mankind, don't take l kindly to being used."

"What…do…you…?" Dr.K choked too hard to continue the rest of her question but the antipode of life itself answers nonetheless.

"You aren't apologizing to me, not really." Venjix explains. "You are apologizing to yourself. You are simply using me as a vessel to release all of your guilt."

"You're… wrong…" she gasps with her final breath.

Her oxygen gone, a weightlessness falls over her. Her vision dims.

Just before darkness fully consumes her, a sudden rush of life fills her starving lungs.

Not a lot, but enough to keep herself conscious.

"Maybe that would've been the case had this conversation happened all those years ago," Dr.K spoke. "But I've changed since then. I've grown up. I have a family. For the first time in my life I'm not alone "

Her steely eyes stare right through the virus.

"And you'll never have that. You'll never get the chance to move on, to become more than a personification of my darkest time. And for that I'm truly sorry."

His grip tightens again, hard enough she suspects he might simply crush her windpipe.

"Kill… me… " she wheezes. Her breath reeks of self hate. "I… deserve… to… pay…"

But all Venjix did was drop her to the ground.

Dr.K watchs the machine, hapless and confused as she pulls burning air into her lungs.

"I would rather you live and bear witness to me burning the world to cinder," Venjix said with his back turned to Dr.K.

In a flash of purple like he was gone, leaving one of the smartest people in the multiverse sobbing on the ground.