Chapter 3 - Shikadi

The first thought that broke Billy's unconscious state was the sharp tension burning in his shoulder. Hissing against the pain, he gingerly walked fingers over his offending left appendage and felt the tell-tale misplacement. Great, so the corporate tool had dislocated his shoulder – third time running.

Can't he wait until I have health insurance that actually covers anything? he thought dizzily. Does he have any idea how hard it is to get insurance when you keep being thrown against brick walls? And ow. Ow.

Weakly, Billy pressed his right palm against a cold forbidding surface and propped himself up against the wall – which was equally as cold and hard. The darkness thing got a little old so, finally, he was brave enough to open his eyes.

Iron bars, smirking thickset man in a flabby uniform, Spartan decoration scheme...a very unfortunate conclusion. For some reason, this struck Doctor Horrible as strange. Unthinkable. You never heard about Bad Horse being hobbled in a stable, after all. Or Fake Thomas Jefferson padded up in an asylum. That would be just...weird.

"Do I get a phone call?" he gritted while attempting to snap his shoulder back into place.

The guard glanced back over at him, dropping a yawn into his hand. "You have a lawyer?"

"Well no. Villains don't need lawyers. And besides, what lawyer do you know who isn't applying to the Henchmen Union anyway?"

"You're got a point there," the guard conceded. "Alright. Do you have any friends to call?"

Dr Horrible straightened his back against the wall and immediately wished it hadn't. He winced. "They're not friends. They're henchmen. Totally...different."

"Isn't that a bit..."

"Superior? Evil?"

"More like really lonely. You're like a hermit with an evil complex. You need help. You ever considered seeing someone? Because you need to."

"Right. Well this has been fun. Could you get me a doctor? Captain Hammer dislocated my shoulder. Again."

"Again?" The guard lifted an eyebrow. "You a glutton for punishment or something?"

Billy crossed his arms and scowled. "I...just want...social change."

A dime skipped and jumped its way across the floor. For a moment, Bill contemplated it before focusing back on his tormentor. The guard now had his back to him, sorting through paperwork and what looked like sudoku puzzle books. It took two minutes for the guard to explain in a mutter, "That's all the change I got. Keep it."

Billy waited a while before slamming his shoulder into the concrete wall. He preferred to think that he grunted in a tough manly fashion, although his ears rang with a high-pitched protest that may or may not have resembled the call of a disembowelled hyena. A crunch, some writhing and a thick pop later, he was lying back on the floor where he started. But it felt good. Good in a way that would have been entirely improved by morphine.

"You think you can handle a visitor?" the guard queried from his post. "Or are you still auditioning for the opera?"

Penny? You shouldn't be here. Please be here. Please don't...

His girlfriend entered the room. This should have been worrying, but a delirious happiness flooded Billy. He jumped to his feet, preparing to spill it all – from the midnight meat hamburger runs to the slight matter of a certain botched heist –

"Thank you, officer." Her voice sounded stuffy and flat. "I just wanted to see the person who ruined the opening."

Knots formed themselves all the way down Billy's throat straight to his intestines. Reflexively petting his still twinging shoulder, he opened his mouth. A strangled noise emerged. He tried again. In the distance, he could hear hyenas.

"I have nothing to say to you," Penny snapped at him, stripy shadows crossing her face.

Doctor Horrible paced towards her. "And yet here you are. Using a redundant sentence, by the way. For the record, I didn't ruin anything. It was Captain Hammer who did the ruining. Did you listen to that speech? And they get free soup. Great. That's helpful. I'd like to see him serving up slop in a soup kitchen."

She took a step back, shaking her head. Hair fell across her face. Her lips moved, cut in half by one of the bars. Billy tilted his head to one side and frowned. What...? Moving barely half an inch to one side, Penny mouthed words slowly and deliberately at him.

Stay. Away. From. The. Wall.

Glancing at the wall behind him, and seeing some suspicious brown stains around the toilet, Billy shrugged. Okay.

STAY. AWAY. WALL.

He figured she was using capital letters now. The wide and frantic movements of her lips brought her the closest to shouting without actually making a sound. Kind of like when you're in a chat room and no one will voice call you because your profile picture is too sexual-predator-creepy or something, so you have to use capital letters to shout obscenities. Not that this was a familiar experience. In the last twenty-four months, anyway. And he had shaved the moustache.

Penny click-clacked out of view. He watched her go, nibbling on the tip of one of the glove fingers. After he tasted grit, this habit was quickly discarded. Or rather, he ripped off the glove and started in on his nails. Then his hand got really cold he resumed his comfort gnawing on the glove.

Stay away from the wall? He'd been trying to stay away from walls ever since Captain Hammer had decided he should get up close and personal with them. Do or do not – because trying is for losers. And good guys. Because the result is what matters, not how you get there. Clearly.

Billy cast his eyes around the cell.

Most of the time, anyway...

Dim moonlight snuck in from somewhere. Blinded, Dr Horrible attempted to pull his goggles over his eyes, except lying unconscious on one's face had turned the surrounding hair into sticky tentacles that refused to release his goggles – without undue pain in his hair follicles. Quite simply, it meant tearing out hair, and he didn't exactly want to be seen moulting.

He watched the wall. The wall watched him.

The concrete creaked out a laugh.

He threw a boot across the cell and regretted it.

Mostly because it bounced back and hit his shoulder. But shoes shouldn't do that. Boomerangs did that, not boots. Although...there was rubber on the soles, but that was no reason for the shoes to ignore the laws of any realism and bounce back an entire distance of five metres. Unless the Earth's gravitational field had disappeared over night and everyone outside the police station had been seconded off to the moon to begin a life of mining and...floral possibilities...this could not happen.

Billy threw his boot again. It wedged itself where the wall meet the floor.

"Well that's helpful," he muttered.

The boot had betrayed him for the LAST TIME –

It flew violently back at him. Along with chunks of concrete, glass and metal, accompanied by a whining discharged pop. He ducked belatedly. Any speech he had planned for his traitorous boot disappeared in a cloud of dust.

"Still in one piece, Horrible?" a voice demanded from somewhere overhead. "Come on. Someone's bound to notice the big hole in the side of the police station, even if you haven't."

Five sharp talons dug into the soft flesh behind his elbow of his bad arm and yanked him up. Billy gnawed into his lip to keep from making embarrassing noises. A few might have escaped his mouth.

"I need to put my boot back on..." he protested.

Diamantes twinkled at him through the haze. "Were you that desperate to get at a sock? Don't you know they have toys for that? Leave the boot. On second thought, leave the sock as well. I am not touching that."

"...Conflict Diamond?"

"Eh, you didn't press the buzzer. No points for you. Now stop thinking and start squealing."

Conflict Diamond pulled him over the edge of the building. Foot and hand-holds were burnt into the bricks, allowing a quick easy climb down to the alley below. This was was a crazy happenstance – helpful, but mostly crazy. The bricks became slippery at the bottom, that possibly could have resulted in an undignified fall to the ground and then being saved by the quick hands of Moist. That would have been entirely unwanted physical contact. If it had happened, that is. Which it did not, because it didn't end up on YouTube.

"Moist!" He may have sounded hysterical. "My evil moisture buddy!"

"Did they give him morphine or something?" Moist asked Conflict Diamond.

The not-henchman, not-villain dragged her long nails on the bricks. "He'd be seeing the little green fairy by now. Instead I ended up rescuing the One-Shoed Bandit."

Moist looked concerned. "You lost a boot? That's bad, isn't it? Can't they use that to find what size shoe you are? And then go around putting the boot on until it fits?"

"I'm not Cinderella, Moist," Billy said irritably. "And besides, in a city this large, what's the chance of no one else having the same shoe size?"

"Your foot is kind of small," Moist said dubiously.

Conflict Diamond stuck two fingers into her mouth and blew hard. An excruciating whistle later, a solid vehicle shot into the alley. It was bulky, yet stream-lined, and the windows were so dark you could study the stars off the reflections. The purple bodywork – and matching neon light stripes – could only mean one thing.

The Purple Pimp stuck his head out the window and gestured. Shouts of alarm overhead were just the right incentive to get into a car with a weird looking guy wearing a hat. Billy found himself flattened up against the door on the other side, with someone in his lap. Someone who smelled very nice if he just stuck his nose into her neck...

"Penny, how did...the wall...you..wha?"

"You should let your woman plan your heists, Dr H," the Pimp suggested.

Conflict Diamond leaped into the middle of the back seat, followed by what appeared to be Pink Pummeller wearing flip-flops. Moist turned around from the front. "You okay, Doc?"

"What – of course I'll be okay," he said. "Once this...excuse for a getaway car is moving. This does move, doesn't it?"

Conflict Diamond slapped his knee. "Leave the witticisms for me, Horrible. They look bad on your lips."

Once the last limb was tucked inside, the Pimp Mobile lurched off down the alley, leaving stomachs, kidneys and other assorted organs back by the police station wall. Or would have, if the vehicle's shell wasn't reinforced with some mysterious element that was known by some theorists and largely unknown by anyone with something better to do with their life than ponder the structure of cars owned by has-been villains.

Billy preferred to leave it in the realm of "mysterious" and "unknown".

Other things, not so much.

"Penny, you...are you alright?" he demanded. "You might be a little mad, but it'd be better if you were mad instead of hurt and mad, because then that..that would really suck balls."

Kisses are a useful tool – conveying one's love, bartering physical contact for some of grandma's money and...of course...shutting up babbling evil scientists. This was of no particular concern to Doctor Horrible, mainly because he was fairly certain it was the first use, since he had clearly finished his stream of consciousness before his girlfriend kissed him.

Verbally, anyway.

"Are you alright?" Penny asked. "When he threw you against the wall, it sounded really bad. I wanted to go check on you, but I didn't want to, you know, compromise your identity."

Moist cleared his throat. "What she means, Doc, is that she was trying to get us out the back door."

This was news to Billy. "There was a back door?"

Purple Pimp snickered, before flinging the steering wheel wide to the right. The car followed immediately. The passengers – a little after that. Slightly painful, made even worse by the fact that a certain left shoulder went careening against the side of the car hard enough to pop it out and right back in.

"Did you guys hear a hyena?" Moist voiced from the front.

"Was there a reason you tried to redecorate the back seat with our brain matter?" Conflict Diamond growled, leaning forward to pinch the Pimp's ear.

"I shouldn't have paid my rent for next month, I'm going to die..." Pink Pummeller mumbled.

Purple Pimp pointed out the flashing blue and red lights behind them. "The pigs are on us. And get your claws out of my ear, Conflict, it's new you know!"

She let go very quickly. The sirens increased in volume while the traffic light up ahead began to change. The Pimp Mobile began hopping forward, groaning, coughing and possibly swearing. It lumbered through the intersection.

"That looked a lot like a red light," Billy pointed out.

"Still green!" Pink Pummeller said.

"Amber – and shut the hell up!" Pimp shouted back. "What does it matter if we break another damn law? You know how many I've broken just tonight? I had to double park to pick up some of your homies and then I had to cross an unbroken line right in front of the police station. SO DON'T TALK TO ME ABOUT RUNNING A RED LIGHT."

Moist held up a hand. "You said it was amber."

Doctor Horrible rolled his eyes and looked sideways to Conflict Diamond for support. She was looking at Penny instead. "You can't get any decent lackeys these days, can you?"

"I don't know, they seem okay to me," Penny said, smiling.

A police car screamed in front of them. Purple Pimp swore and sent the car leaping off down a side street. He demanded, "Conflict, you packing anything?"

"Depends. Do I get to keep one of your ears?"

"Can you help us?" Penny entreated.

Conflict Diamond sighed. "Only coz you asked nicely. And you're cute in that top."

She elbowed her way into Pink Pummeller's lap, extracting a squeak of indignation and ignoring any ensuing protests. The bullet-proof glass slid down for her. Conflict Diamond stuck a hand out the window and squinted. She bit her lip. She wriggled. Pink P tried very hard to sink into the seat and into obscurity. Results were varied.

Precious moments passed – and then Conflict Diamond laughed into the wind. Thin lines of crimson laser shot out from her extended fingers, slashing the tyres of a pursuing police car. It spun out and blocked the path of another car, but still one more escaped, swerving all over the road behind them. Conflict Diamond hissed, "These Shikadi are toast!"

Pink Pummeller stared up at her. Okay, so he got stuck on the cleavage for a moment. Then he was staring at her face. He asked, not quite believing, "You play Commander Keen?"

"Who doesn't?!" she bellowed, stabbing her hand through the air outside.

Squirming up against the seat, he managed breathlessly, "Have you ever finished The Armageddon Machine?"

"Yeah. Piss easy. Move out of my way!"

Pink Pummeller slipped down the seat so fast he almost ended up limbo dancing under the seat in front. Limbo dancing brought to mind a night not three years ago involving tequila, a pink fluffy teddy bear and...something about an alien spaceship. He blinked up at the woman kneeling on him as she lasered the entire road, bursting water mains and searing through street lights.

He gulped. "So I was wondering..."

"I prefer women," Conflict Diamond told him, and kneed down hard between his thighs.

Pink Pummeller barely shifted precious parts of himself out of the way.

"Oh," he said.

The last cop car's bonnet exploded into white sparks. Conflict Diamond nodded, then turned back to her more geographically convenient victim. "Pink P, you lure the space bombs onto the generator. That'show you finish the last level of The Armageddon Machine."

With that, she wrenched open the door and whizzed onto the pavement. The door slammed shut behind her.

"Is that safe?" Doctor Horrible said into the confused silence.

"No, but she told me she's had a lot of practice," Penny answered lightly.

Pink Pummeller's eyes were glued to the rear window, and this was not a problem which he wished to rectify. He breathed, "I hope my grandmother likes her."

Purple Pimp cleared his throat. "A little zip-it!"

"Are we interrupting your zen?" That was Moist.

"No. I can't hear the police scanner over this racket. So zip-it!"

Twenty minutes later, after dispatching Pink Pummeller off to his flat, the Pimp Mobile rolled up to Billy and Moist's apartment block. The sirens sounded comfortably distant, although the red light over the pawn broker thirty metres down the road caused some momentary panic for at least two members of the getaway party. Never mind that those two happened to live on that street.

Shaking out his shoulder, Billy tried hard not to look at his girlfriend. He didn't think she was mad. If she was really mad, she'd have left him in jail, which would be less-than-awesome. Extremely un-awesome, in fact.

Moist made to slide out of the car, but Purple Pimp grabbed his arm and jerked a thumb over at the two other passengers, now standing on the pavement. Moist dutifully sank back into the seat.

"Billy, I wish you had told me," was Penny's first pronouncement, standing in a mixture shadows and a convenient shade of red light across her eyes. That kind of thing only happened in bad horror movies, especially the sinfully re-watchable kind starring Alec Baldwin.

Billy stuck his hands into his pants pockets. An uncomfortable rip somewhere down below reminded him of his torn pants, something he had forgotten about in all the excitement of taking a room of media representatives hostage, having one's own ass handed to them by a common household tool and then losing a boot. That last one really smarted.

He kept his eyes down. "I just wanted to get it right...and I can't even do that!"

"It looked right to me...up to the point where the Freeze Ray died."

She didn't seem mad. That was good.

"It needs work," Billy said glumly.

Penny quickly squeezed her arms around him and kissed his cheek. Drawing back, she fixed her smile on him. "Can I help you get it working?"

"Penny, I...I..."

"Look, I know why you lied to me. Again." She shook her head. "So this is going to stop. I'm yours if you want me. Hench-woman, soundboard, girlfriend and maybe...maybe something more one day."

Billy kissed her because, you know, it was the right response and nothing to do with lacking a sufficient answer that comprised of words that actually existed in an English dictionary. Penny's lip gloss smelled really good. Kind of like boysenberry, but without the bitterness. He only stopped kissing her when Purple Pimp made an extremely inappropriate suggestion.

Billy wasn't quite letting go of Penny just yet. He held her at arm's length and promised right to her, "I won't ever not tell you something about my evil plans ever again."

"Great!" Penny grinned. "I'm going to let you get some sleep first, though."

"By myself?"

"Yes, by yourself. But tomorrow, you can come by my place. I have some ideas for your application to the ELE."

Glancing over at the Pimp Mobile, and suffering a mild coughing attack, Billy asked hopelessly, "You think they'll take me even after this?"

"Everything happens, Billy. And, together, we're going to make sure it happens."

Purple Pimp tapped the side of his car impatiently. He didn't need to tell Moist to get moving, but didn't seem particularly fazed when Penny sat back in the car and asked for a ride home.

Moist and Billy stood in the red-tinged shadows for a moment.

"I should get her a present," Billy muttered.

"What did you have in mind, Doc?"

Sixteen hours later, a washing machine accompanied by a wannabe villain were sitting in Penny's kitchenette. Penny bit her lip and didn't say a word.

"You don't like it?" Billy clenched his fingers to stop them from shaking. "I just thought – you said doing laundry was one of your favourite things...and it's one of my favourite things, so why-why not bring the washer to you?"

At last, she offered a tiny smile and explained, "I like going to the laundromat with you Billy. That's what makes it fun. And besides, if everyone owned a washing machine, do you know how bad that would be for the environment? It's better if a lot of people use just a few."

That...went differently in his head.

Two hours after this, Doctor Horrible and a henchman were attempting to wheel a washing machine up a flight of stairs in a dark building. The elevator may have been easier for all concerned, but it wasn't exactly discreet.

"That's a bummer," Moist said when he heard the explanation. "But bringing it here? I don't get that."

Billy stopped to adjust his goggles, and noticed the running shoes on his feet. He had yet to find another pair of boots, so he was pretty much stuck with those. And they had bright green laces, which added further insult to injury. At the thought, he rotated his left arm in its socket just to make sure. Penny had suggested he get it checked out, but Billy had plans for a Healing Ray that he probably shouldn't test on anyone but a mutated rabbit.

The machine slipped down a step. Moist muttered his apologies and then added what sounded like his new catchphrase, the one that went "slip slop slide" or something. They resumed their long trek up the stairs, although they soon reached the level they wanted.

"What was with that catchphrase anyways?" Dr Horrible asked him.

Moist's shoulders slumped. "A skin cancer awareness campaign in Australia."

"Really? You didn't think anyone would notice?"

"You didn't."

"Australia..." Billy mused. "I was going to give that to Penny when – never mind."

"Nice beach front property."

"Think so?"

It took far longer than was necessary to install the washing machine into the rather empty laundry room buried within the headquarters of the Evil League of Evil. That might have had something to do with the power socket being behind the door – which was just useless, but somehow just the right kind of diabolical.

Then again, a laundry room without any appliances was diabolical itself.

"You really think Bad Horse needs a washer?" Moist asked.

Billy didn't have an answer for that one. He flipped the on-switch. Nothing happened. He flicked it backwards and forwards a few times. Great, just great. Not that he had a real reason for bringing a washing machine to the Evil League of Evil, considering that he'd probably never get in now.

The lights dimmed, then exploded. There were several loud bangs from down the hall.

They exchanged glances, then hurried outside. What looked like a thick line of balls of smoke streamed out of a room not two doors down. Villain and henchman spent a minute or so having a panicked discussion with their eyes, before Doctor Horrible peered into the hazy gap of the double-doorway.

On first inspection, it looked like any normal evil conference room, except with a layer of gritty smoke lurking near the ceiling. Once his eyes adjusted, Billy noticed a good deal of ash. In fact, there was a pile of ash for every seat, and even a larger pile on the floor at the end of the table.

His mouth felt very dry. "Moist, did I just – "

" – wipe out the entire Evil League of Evil?" Moist finished. "Yeah."

"Huh," said Dr Horrible.

"Was this some diabolical plan you had or did it just kind of happen?"

Choosing not to answer that, Dr Horrible kicked the pile of ash on the floor – presumably it was the remains of Bad Horse – and stood there, gazing down the table at his friend...ahem...henchman.

The silence didn't have much awe to it, so the lone villain at the League's table decided to change that. Elongating each syllable, he announced, "Doctor Horrible is here."

At last.

Moist gulped. "Dude, that is totally badass."

AN: So ends this fic. It's been a hoot to write. Now I'm going to run away before all the ELE fans pelt me with hate mail!!

2AN: I should make this semi-clear as many are fully-confused. There is no explanation as to what just happened, because it is presently unknown to the characters within this story. What did happen will be discovered at another time.