Eggs, orange juice, milk... no, there was still half a carton left. Bread, sulphuric acid, soap...

Doctor Horrible shook his head in exaperation. It was his turn to do the shopping that week, a menial, but necessary chore, yet one that he'd greatly prefer to his current predicament.

One would think that simply being accepted into the Evil League of Evil would make life simpler, but this too came with certain requirement: an evil lair, evil minions, evil deeds of increasingly unprecedented evil... His evil lair was currently under construction, so he still lived with Moist-- and suspected, as well, that as soon as he'd move, Moist would come live with him-- and he found that evil deeds came easier to him these days. Shocking people, horrifying them, victimising them-- a dam had been lifted since what he considered his first true act of evil (and he won't think of it, but it sealed his fate, marked his transformation from a bumbling science-boy to Doctor Horrible) and this all came to him naturally now. No hesitation. No doubt. Like someone thrown in the deep end that finally learned to swim and wonders why he couldn't understand the simple motions before.

But no, the true difficulty came with his second task: finding a henchman.

He never quite realised before how the Henchmen's Union was quite so full of... losers.

One after another, wanna-be villain rejects traipsied through his lab, stared up at him and his gigantic chair in awe and aggressively failed to impress him. At least twenty more of these dolts were gathered outside his lab door, shuffling nervously in the apartment he shared with Moist and eagerly waiting their turn. The current interviewee was a slight-bodied blonde who, apart from falling within society's standards of beauty, had no redeeming features what-so-ever.

"So, tell me the most evil thing you've ever done," Doctor Horrible said, grasping his chin in a meditative fashion. He was dignified and imposing and no matter what Moist said, the chair did not make him look ridiculous. If anything, the clipboard he was holding with his other hand contributed to his professional appearence, even if it contained only his shopping list.

"Well," the blonde chewed on her lower lip nervosly, "I stole a briefcase full of money. From a bus stop."

"I see." He pursed his lips slightly. The blonde's eyes shifted nervously from side to side.

"Well, okay, um, it wasn't full of money," she admitted. "But there was money in it! And, and I didn't return it to its owner!"

"Return it?" Doctor Horrible raised an eyebrow.

"Okay, I didn't actually steal steal it, it was just kinda... left there... and there was nobody around..." She trailed off pathetically.

Doctor Horrible sighed. "Are you even in the Henchmen's Union?" he asked, not even trying to hide his exasperation.

"...No. Just a fan. Sorry." She was sheepish.

"It will take me approximately three point two seconds to reach and grab my Death Ray," Doctor Horrible intoned blandly. "I predict it will take you less to reach the door."

He was right. It took her less than two point nine seconds to exit not only the lab, but the apartment as well.

Too bad. After today, his standards had been lowered so much, he might have hired her, if she'd been in the Union. The Evil League of Evil did not look kindly upon non-union minions.

"Next!" he said in an appropriately booming voice, as his roommate ushured the next candidate in. A tall brunette (Women, why was it always women? He never had so many females surrounding him before he was in the League--something in his gut wrenched, as he remembered why his interest in pursuing romance had disappeared so suddenly) shuffled in and straightened her ridiculous tube top before sitting on the small stool in front of his chair.

"Before we start, I'd like to see your Henchmen's Union card," he said right up front.

"Uh..." The woman's eyes darted all over the case and it was clear to see she was just another "fan".

"Alright, that's it," Doctor Horrible threw his clipboard to the side and got up. "Out! Interviews are over! Everybody out!"

"Hey!" the woman shrieked in protest while outraged muttering floated from the rest of the candidates (but not anything louder than a mutter, this was Doctor Horrible, after all, and you all know what he did to that girl--).

"Thank you for coming! Moist, show them the door!" He motioned for the brunette woman to leave, but she remained where she was, uncertain if she should stand up for herself or do as the homocidal villain asked. She was obviously not a very heavy thinker.

As the crowd started inching towards the door, one person shuffled against the motion and broke away, dashing into the lab and stopping right between Doctor Horrible and the clueless woman. Another woman (Great, another fan, where's my Sting Ray?), this one shorter and slimmer and a great deal flatter in certain areas, but with slightly darker hair than the brunette. Darker-brunette pointed an accusatory finger at Doctor Horrible.

"You can't do that!" she shouted in a thick Slavic (Italian? German? What was that, anyway?) accent. "I have been waiting since seven in the morning to be interviewed, do you have any idea how early I had to wake up to get here? Your stupid big city has public transport that sucks!" As she ranted, her accent got thicker and, well, Doctor Horrible really wasn't in a position to judge, but... sillier. It was kind of funny to listen to her, actually. Like she was speaking with a mouth full of molasses. "It should be wiped off the MAP!" she yelled finally, then crossed her arms and stared up at him (because yes, she was shorter than even him), silently fuming.

"You have some interesting ideas," he replied finally, unsure why he was trying to placate her. He was evil, what did he care about a small, silly-voiced woman? "But unless you're with the Henchmen's Union, I--"

He stopped as she furiously jammed her hand in her hoodie's pocket and took out a card, which she shoved in his face. True enough, it testified that the woman-- whose ID picture was terrible, he noted-- was a member of the Henchmen's Union.

"Well, that changes things," he admitted, taking the card and inspecting it closer. It seemed legit.

"Hey, wait!" the other brunette protested shrilly. "What about me?"

"Oh. Right." Doctor Horrible turned to darker-brunette and pointed to lighter-brunette (he really ought to learn darker-brunette's name. He couldn't just call her that. He was evil, not rude). "Consider this your interview. Dispose of that one."

"Defenestrate her?" darker-brunette asked with an appropriately diabolical grin. Lighter-brunette did not seem to understand the word, because she wasn't very alarmed at this, although she did seem slightly worried at the manner in which darker-brunette was cracking her joints.

"Door is fine," Doctor Horrible replied in a calm and collected voice, even as inside he was jubilating.

Darker-brunette nodded resolutely, turned to lighter-brunette and, with an almost audible 'whomp' sound, grabbed lighter-brunette by the hair and started dragging her towards the door, accompanied by shrieks and deftly avoiding lighter-brunette's lacquered nails, which surely could have drawn blood.

Moist watched all this from next to the laboratory door, not sure if he should have been concerned or titillated.

Doctor Horrible finally inspected the card closer and learned that his new henchwoman's name was Mila. Probably like that Jovovich woman. Oh, wait no, it was "Merciless Mila". A little to hokey for a villain name, but adequate enough for a lackey.

Mila returned from the door dusting off her clothes, just in case lighter-brunette had gotten glitter all over her, and looked at Doctor Horrible for approval.

"You're in," he nodded stoically. Mila let out a whoop for joy.

Finally, later, when he brought her the paperwork that needed to be filled before she could officially become his minion, he learned a little more about her.

"I'm from Romania, actually," she explained, gesturing like she meant to convey something, but the meaning being lost at the first cultural barrier along the way. She looked down at the paper and frowned slightly when she noticed the corners were wet.

"Ah, yes, Eastern Europe," Doctor Horrible nodded from across the table. He'd taken his goggles off and was enjoying a nice cup of tea that Mila had made for him. "Some of the most memorable bag guys in bad guy history come from there."

"Eh," Mila shrugged non-comittally. "They came here because this country is easily impressed. The standards for evil back home are quite... con-vul-ted?" she said, testing out the word. She wasn't sure it sounded right.

"Convoluted?" Doctor Horrible raised an eyebrow.

"That word," she nodded. "I mean, it's hard to break away from the every-day badness and become truly extraordinary."

"Really? What's the most evil thing you've done?" Moist asked, sitting at the table between Mila and Doctor Horrible and smiling nervously at the former.

"Kidnapped a lawyer-woman," Mila replied cheerily. "It was a big case, on the TV for a whole year!"

"Really?" Doctor Horrible looked between Moist and Mila, clearly impressed. "Wow, that's... that's really, you know..."

"Evil," Moist nodded, he too clearly impressed.

"Alright, alright, it was on OTV," Mila admitted. The two men looked at her uncomprehendingly, spurring her to explain, "OTV is to television what kids playing doctor is to frontier medicine."

"Oh." Doctor Horrible leaned back, slightly disappointed.

"Well, at least you got on TV," Moist offered optimistically.

"Yes, and at least the Titanic passangers got a nice swim," she snorted. "No, no, I've put that Elodia debacle behind me now. Luckily, it gave me just enough evil hours that I could join the Henchmen's Union, here in America."

"Which reminds me," Doctor Horrible disppeared into the lab and reappeared with a piece of paper. "Your first task as my henchman."

Mila took the piece of paper and looked at it, puzzled.

"This is?..."

"My shopping list," Doctor Horrible nodded smugly. Mila looked about to groan. "Hey, evil is messy and some of that mess comes from doing chores. Because chores are... evil!" He mentally cringed at his lame delivery.

"Alright," she sighed, looking over the list. "Do I hold up the check-out clerk, or..."

"Money's on the fridge," Doctor Horrible said quickly. "In the bag with the dollar sign."

"Well, alright," Mila shrugged and trotted off to do the shopping.

Moist and Doctor Horrible watched her go in silence.

"She's nice," Moist commented at some point.

"Evil, Moist. She's evil," Doctor Horrible corrected. In his line of business, being evil was better than being nice. "Now let's get back to designing my evil lair. I'm thinking of calling it... Doctor Horrible's Outpost of Evil!... No? Needs work?"

Author's note: There are two in-jokes here that anyone Romanian might catch right away: "Merciless Mila" is one, because "Mila" means "mercy". The next is about Elodia, a woman who disappeared over one year ago and still has not been found. The case was followed (is still being followed) in a comically obsessive fashion by OTV, known in many circles as ZeroTV and the question "Where's Elodia?" has turned into a real-life meme. Hey, it's funny from where I'm sitting!