The Cumin Saga (PG-13) [Part 3 of 9]
Title: The Cumin Saga: The Coin Wash Menace
Author: hypercaz
Rating: PG-13, for language
Pairing/Characters: Moist, Penny, Dr Horrible, Billy/Penny, Johnny Snow, Captain Hammer, Splendour, Professor Normal, Purple Pimp
Genre: humour/action/drama/angst/general/pie
Word count: 5672
Summary: 5th in the Cumin Doesn't Quack universe (i.e. Billy and Penny began dating a few weeks before the webisodes).
Three heroes, one villain and one henchman take on the undead to rescue Penny.
AN: minor crossover still present. :D This chapter completes the first third of the story.
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I deserve to get in. You know I do. But killing? Really?
Hourglass says she knows a kid in Iowa that grows up to become president. That’d be big.
I’m not gonna kill a little kid.
Smother an old lady.
Do I even know you?
- Dr Horrible & Moist, Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Coin Wash Menace
ACT III - Do I Even Know You?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Purple Pimp slammed the first two knuckles on his right hand into the intricate device positioned between his wobbling knees and the stiff, coiled legs of the hero beside him. High-pitched static roared through the cabin, rendering everyone but the perpetrator deaf. A moment later, police chatter began its usual run through the scanner. Captain Hammer smushed himself further against the passenger door in an attempt to either bend the car's frame permanently out of shape or to put more air between him and the driver.
“What the fuck, seriously,” the Pimp narrated as he listened to the shouts of various law enforcement officers.
“Uh, what are they saying?” Moist asked, leaning over from the back seat.
“Armageddon. The Easter bunny isn't real. I see dead people.” The Purple Pimp idly used the tip of one finger to shift the wheel sideways, which somehow translated into the whole vehicle charging like a bull around a corner. He yawned. “When was Horrible going to tell everyone that Professor Fucking Normal was back?”
Moist blinked. Then he shrugged. It wasn't exactly a secret that Professor Normal had been (and obviously still was) a necrophiliac. The simple deduction was one that anyone could make. Moist pointed out an intersection up ahead but the Pimp Mobile was already swinging towards the right direction.
“Are you afraid of him?” Splendour questioned through clenched teeth.
Deep, gouges from her nails bit angrily into the arm of Johnny Snow beside her, but he was too busy holding in the unwise chicken kebabs he'd had for lunch to complain. His face was slack enough that the minute lines of stress he carried on his face were smoothed out. Purple Pimp turned bodily in the driver's seat to stare back at Wanda. Various pedestrians leapt out of headlights until Moist grabbed the steering wheel.
“Do you have any idea what Normal will do to me if he finds out I supported Doctor Horrible?” Purple Pimp demanded. “I wouldn't be seeing dead people, bitch, I'd be a dead person.”
Apparently remembering his duties as a licence-carrying motorist, he batted Moist's arm away, flicked beads of moisture off the wheel and resumed tearing up tar. Captain Hammer thought this would be the perfect moment to start his comeback. “But that would be a good thing. Too long have villains terrified the good citizens of this city and too long they have suffered in ignorance because I have been banned from giving interviews...”
“Hammer, shut up,” Wanda ordered.
“He's got a point,” Johnny said sullenly, also regaining himself. “We shouldn't be feeling sorry for this dude and we shouldn't be helping the moisture guy.”
“Johnny, shut up,” she reiterated. “If you say another word about why we should not be helping people, I will tell the Guild just how bad you are at this and they will permanently apprentice you to Hammer.”
Johnny ducked his head so that his tattered brown mane fell around his face. He was probably hoping to make it look like he was hiding a scowl, but Moist was able to make out a pout behind the curtain of the hero's hair.
Purple Pimp flicked two fingers of an eyebrow and murmured to Moist, “Conflict Diamond's sister?”
“Not that I know of,” Moist replied, squinting as the sickly throb returned behind his face. “But, um, you never know, right?”
Tires squealed, metal buckled and a bin went flying from the bonnet to the boot. The twin clangs were evidence of that. Moist discovered that he could in fact hold in his wayward power, though it required a complicated system of making his face collapse inwards without triggering a sneeze. He also discovered that he would have preferred an airbag to the lap of the only woman in attendance. The glare was enough of a warning for him. He slipped to the floor very quickly.
“Oh fuck,” the Pimp announced.
Splendour sighed. “What now?”
The handbrake growled as it was ripped skywards. Purple Pimp whistled between his front teeth. “We'll have to park here.”
“You parked in garbage,” Captain Hammer felt compelled to point out, wrinkling his nose though no one else could discern any smells.
“That's one of the things that can't hurt you,” Johnny reminded him.
“I haven't tried touching garbage yet. I didn't even do that before. Unless you count Doctor...”
Wanda shot up a hand on the right side of her face, shielding herself against any further comments from her team mates. She smiled tightly. “Traffic?”
“Kind of,” Moist answered, massaging his burning sinuses as he peered out the windshield. “Do mutant zombies count? I mean, they are taking up the road.”
Purple Pimp made circles out of his thumbs and forefingers and slammed them over his onyx eyes as he scanned the seething mass of dead people roaming the road. He grumbled a few choice obscenities before noting hopefully, “Ah, I see one knee cap that is slightly less decomposed than the other ones on offer...”
Splendour paused, gauged the happy expression on the chauffeur’s face, then managed, “Gross.”
“Some of us can't regenerate our lost body parts,” Pimp told her, scowling. “Is that your power, sweeeetie?”
“I can't believe I'm going to say this, but can you go back to calling me bitch?”
Multiple outbursts may have occurred if Moist hadn't chosen that moment to lunge over and worked on the door in the backseat. His hand slid right off the handle, but on the second attempt he drew the moisture back up to his personal naval storage tanks (this seriously couldn't be good for his health in the long run) and opened the door a crack. This fostered a brief whiff of escape.
Panicked, Johnny performed a tackle worthy of Thomas Sullivan Magnum and lugged Moist back in with his arms around the henchman's waist.
“I'm going - Penny needs me,” Moist snapped.
“Penny?” chorused the heroes.
The Pimp's hands slipped from his face and swung back around to support his neck. The corners of his lips drooped, but a rogue light appeared in the depths of his eyes. “Well, Moist, I'd like to say it's been nice knowing you, but it really hasn't. Same to you hero-people. And Johnny Snow, you will be paying for the scrapes to my car. If we live, that is.”
“What?” Wanda asked incredulously, catching on to where this was going.
“Obviously, I'm about to get my fucking head knocked off my shoulders in Moist's crazy attempt to rescue that fine, fine woman,” Purple Pimp explained for the benefit of anyone not currently inhabiting his thought plane. “Can you just wait a second while I straighten up the Pimp Mobile? I do not want another damn parking ticket. I'm evil but I'm not swimming in the dough.”
Two minutes later, five silhouettes hit the wall behind the car. These shadows melted to give away for the very solid, very vulnerable flesh-and-bone creatures who marched through the red lighting that pervaded the district towards the horde of undead.
“Are you going to be okay, Hammer?” Wanda probed discreetly.
The hero's chin elevated by about four feet and he said importantly, “You see this hair? Not a single strand will be out of place by the time we find this Penny. And if my hair isn't perfect, then everyone else will be dead but I'll have time to comb it before I do something about everyone else being...well, you know.”
Shaking her head, the heroine turned on Johnny. “I'm putting a lot of faith in that beam of yours. You need to freeze them before I hit them or I'm going to bounce instead of them shattering.”
“I love you and I think you're amazing,” Snow blurted.
“No, Johnny, I don't care if you...huh? You what?”
Johnny Snow decided that he shouldn't repeat his declaration of love and marched ahead with the Pimp who was sporting enough not to jostle the Ice Beam. Well, not more than once anyway. Wanda thought very briefly of how many times she'd heard the L word from a guy and inwardly sighed. She kind of hoped they wouldn't survive the onslaught, because the awkward factor was going to ruin the team's dynamics.
“Moist, can you use your power?” she said out loud.
“Well, uh, I guess you should define 'use',” Moist responded unsmilingly.
“Aim with only a short margin of error?”
“Uh, no,” he admitted.
Wanda utilised a wobbly grin. “We'll be fine. Good luck, everyone.”
“Luck?” the Purple Pimp chortled. “We need a fucking miracle. Now shut up so I can concentrate.”
He drew elongated pistols from his belt and dragged the bright purple barrels over each opposing arm, making them whirl as if they were old fashioned revolvers. They were his own design and, despite the six-shooter appearance, they were semi-automatic. He nonchalantly fired one into the air. Several dozen pairs of eyes and many more dozens of empty eye-sockets swivelled over.
“Okay, you can take the first few hundred on your side,” Moist muttered.
“That's mighty kind of you, Moist,” the Pimp drawled and started blasting.
The zombies took some offence to having lead rip through masses of belching organs and softened cartilage - as anyone would if they were alive, dead, undead or something in between. Naturally, they expressed their displeasure by forming a roaring pack of outstretched arms and thundering legs. Splendour sprang off the road as though it were a trampoline and sailed through the air with some serious hang time.
Johnny Snow managed to arrange his priorities so that protection ranked over adoration. A jagged line of ice cracked from his weapon, freezing the front line in their tracks. Some of the zombies behind them crashed through their compatriots and crumpled onto the road before scrambling back up. Splendour showed the remaining ice sculptures exactly what she thought of them with two sure feet.
Meanwhile, Captain Hammer picked up multiple zombies by either the scruffs of their necks or any other available hand hold. He tossed one or two backwards so that Moist had to duck, but generally the hero seemed to be clearing a path as he waded forward.
Blam-blam-blam. The Pimp's contribution involved him running ahead alongside the corporate tool and leaping around to guard Hammer's back with precise, painful pings from his weapons. If anyone hadn't been too busy to look closely, they would have wondered how someone as stocky as the Pimp could move so damn fast. A neighbour peering out from a nearby window may have thought so, but it is likely they too were occupied with the epic battle as a whole. Or they were checking the weather. Either one.
By this point, Moist realised he hadn't moved by so much as an inch. And, well, the whole thing was his idea, so it occurred to him that he should do something.
Moist held out his hand and sneezed. Nothing happened. If at first you don't succeed, try not to look too embarrassed while your companions are kicking undead butt. He actually had no idea why he'd thought it would work. Nothing ever worked out for Moist, not since his father had left him alone and Billy had left him alone and -
A jet stream of phlegm-like liquid burst from his palm and burrowed through the midsection of four zombies who were in line. Beaming down at his fingers for a moment, Moist surged up to the heroes, keeping pace with Johnny Snow. Where the ice missed, room-temperature water made up for it by turning a potential brain-eater into a sodden mess.
“Holy shit, this is fun!” exclaimed the Pimp, whipping his right arm 180 degrees over to his left to deliver a double-shot defence against one lipless zombie.
Wanda fell from the heavens to crush the moaning menace on his blind right, reducing it to frigid slivers. “I don't quite...agree!”
Both heroine and not-hero hit the tarmac as Captain Hammer threw a punch too close to their heads. Happily, Hammer managed to decapitate only those who no longer used their synapses for normal things like coveting a neighbour's donkey instead of their brains. Splendour was the first up, performing a levitation-aided kick to smack up the chin of a nearby zombie. Its head flopped backwards but failed to shatter. Two hands searched for Wanda's skull.
“JOHNNY!” she growled.
“Need help, bitch?” the Pimp enquired, spraying bullets over the squishy neck of her assailant.
Moist and Johnny caught up in time for the latter to start smashing his useless Ice Beam over the zombie's knees, felling the headless corpse completely. Johnny swung the device around in a perfect batter's stance, mostly hitting air but once or twice hitting an actual member of the deceased, who collapsed into a quivering pool of refuse.
“Did you have to get the fucking kneecaps?” howled Purple Pimp, but he was grinning like the mad man he undoubtedly was.
Then there were five human beings, standing at an intersection in the dimmest patch of road. The red street lights burned ever on around them. No one stirred. Moist swallowed profusely, working moisture back into his mouth. The glugginess in his face had subsided completely, but he didn't feel...empty yet, and sporadic drops of moisture still lazily peeked from the tips of his fingers. He shrugged off his jacket and tossed it to the side. Shivers skittered down his arms.
Captain Hammer held up one gloved hand, his eyes slowly wending from side to side. “It's too quiet, which means we're about to have a little more company. Of the dead variety. And they won't be capable of begging for mercy, which is exactly what we want.”
“Is it?” Wanda asked dryly.
“How're the hands, Hammer?” Pimp prompted, smirking.
Horror widened Captain Hammer's eyes and he glanced down at his hands, shaking them thoroughly. He bit his lip and a moan of belated pain snuck past the adrenalin. Johnny Snow cleared his throat. “Don't listen to him, okay. One, he's one of the bad guys - who isn't killing us right now - and two, you're taking out ten times more zombie things than any of us are.”
Wanda and Moist exchanged blinks and, as a result, both missed the hopeful baby blues that Johnny Snow turned towards his beloved. He was not to find out if his attempt at maturity had won the heart of the fair maiden, because Purple Pimp hacked back a large gob of spit. “Zombies approaching. Again. Isn't that just lovely?”
Approximately thirty metres away, the steps leading up to the door of Moist's apartment block swam in bloody light. Twenty metres away, a tightly-packed mass of zombies started shuffling forward in organised lines. The cream of the crop possessed many intact limbs, swivelling eyeballs and extra sharp nails. One even wore a hot pink cap with the words 'Cabbages and Condoms' emblazoned on the front.
“Almost there,” Wanda commented, stretching her arms over her head.
“Still no cigar,” Johnny groused as he inspected his useless beam. “I uh...uh...might have to hang back.”
“Or not,” said Moist, indicating the horde sneaking up behind them.
Snow's eyes hardened and his wrinkles etched deep lines of determination. He hefted the Ice Beam. “Three bases loaded. Home run. As for you, henchman - you're our long range weapon now.”
“Oh shut the fuck up and let's get Penny,” the Pimp said and barrelled ahead.
Where one sheep goes, the others follow. Moist immediately wished he hadn't thought of his analogy, particularly when he thought he heard a zombie baaaa up ahead. Flashing two palms out wide on both sides, he realised how easy it was to release the pent up accumulation of moisture and anguish of years past. Deafened to moans, groans or shouts of triumph, he watched his companions. Purple Pimp, lacking a patch of his moustache and gleefully shouting, worked in tandem with the heroes almost instinctively...until Johnny clipped him with his self-styled bat, which forced a wide shot to take out the nearby light.
One step forward, two steps forward...Moist felt his knees sinking, felt his pace slowing.
His tongue suddenly detached from the roof of his mouth and it hurt. This was the first real warning, though the second was far more concerning. Every last non-essential drop of moisture expunged itself from the henchman and he fell to his knees, gasping. Sucking hard on his tortured tongue in an attempt to kickstart saliva, and failing at it, Moist mused in defeat, “Well that sucks.”
Nails tore through them hem of the neck of his shirt, then into the malleable flesh behind his head. Moist walked frantically in mid-air for a few moments before he realised that a heroine had come to his rescue.
“Not bad for your first fight,” Wanda shouted down at him. “You're a natural. You'll have a place in the Guild when all this is over.”
“Uh, do you mean that?”
“Maybe! But let's rescue your friend first.”
Moist's face came into contact with the door to his block. He threw out a hand and slapped the buzzer. Remarkably, the door gave and he fell forward. Four others tumbled in after him and a loud thump echoed as wood met frame once more. Moist peered up through the gloom, spotting the single light bulb hanging from the ceiling first, and the peppery brown, slightly windswept head of his landlady sticking out of her room second.
“Is that you, Moist?” she bellowed nasally.
He flinched guiltily. “Uh, about last month's rent - ”
“Yes, we'll get to that - but first, a noise complaint. You haven't made this much of a racket since your horrible little friend was around. Ooh is that Captain Hammer? If I'd've known you brought that stud I'd have worn more than this filthy dressing gown. Rent under my door tomorrow. If you're alive. If you're dead, could you at least send a friend to finish the payments?”
Her head whisked back out of sight. Momentarily stunned, the rescuers attempted to get to their feet. Johnny gallantly held out a hand for Wanda, who eyed him cautiously before accepting the offer. She covered the approaching awkwardness by observing, “The Ice Beam is sparking again, Johnny. Do you think it will work?”
“Where is this Professor Normal?” Clearly, Hammer's priorities were set. “I need to introduce his face to my fists. I'll even let one of you hold him down.”
Purple Pimp leaned against a wall and blew out of a breath. “Alright, fuckers, I can't go any further. If Normal sees me, or whatever, then I'll have some epic issues after all of this.”
“That's okay,” Moist said, nodding at him. “You've done heaps, man. If you ever need a henchman, I can recommend a few.”
“I can only recommend one,” Pimp countered blandly, sliding to the floor where he flicked out a motoring magazine from his tattered coat and began reading avidly.
Unsure how to take the compliment, Moist pushed the indigo villain from his mind and turned to his original helpers. He shrugged helplessly then pointed out the door. Captain Hammer slipped fingers behind his ears to ensure that his hair was not wayward, as promised. Johnny Snow copied the action one-handed, for whatever reason.
Wanda Plenn held out her hand for Moist's keys, which she interned in the door. Glancing back at her companions, she pulled on the knob.
At first, Moist could only see the wheely chair thrust into the corner and Penny as its occupant, held fast with cable ties looped around the dexterous points on each limb. Her usually neat hair frizzled like an aura around her head and her knuckles were white, though her green eyes were thin and aimed directly at the man holding her daughter hostage.
Professor Normal stood just beyond the radius of spitting distance, one arm straight against his side and the other jostling Bille against him. His struggle to contain his prisoner and to school his usual countenance resulted in him waving side to side as though in some sort of ethereal breeze. Normal wrinkled his nose distastefully when Billie called out, “Mos! Bad man.”
“I see I need not introduce you two,” Normal began leisurely. “But this is an introduction the Guild would surely never pass up. This is the progeny of Doctor Horrible.”
“You mean someone saw him naked?” Captain Hammer asked, genuinely horrified.
Johnny snorted with laughter, then choked it off. Wanda threw a less-than-pleased look at Moist who didn't even bother to affect an air of innocence. He was way past that now.
“Penny, are you okay?” he asked.
Her lips twitched. “No. Not really. Moist, please do something.”
“Do something?” echoed Professor Normal, whose lips cracked painfully upwards. “His actions do not factor into my plans anymore. He contacted the ELE, as I required, and soon Doctor Horrible will fall prey to his biggest weakness...love.”
“All you need is love,” Johnny Snow added, which invoked frowns from various parties, especially the heroine beside him.
Moist consciously chafed his dry palms together. By unspoken mutual agreement, the would-be rescuers stood their ground in a loose line in front of the door. The heat on Moist's back could have been from three death glares, but he hoped it was because he was inside insulated walls. Regardless of whether or not his power was fuelled, he raised a hand and curled his fingertips forward.
“Right, we got through the mutant zombies,” Moist said carefully. “So it's just you against four of us.”
Professor Normal's gaze alighted behind the henchman and his smile broadened. “While I am not surprised that the Guild has sent representatives to retrieve me, I do find it spectacularly odd that you should choose to work with the head of the Henchman's Union - a useless, disgusting specimen whose claim to greatness was snivelling at the feet of that imposter.”
Hammer unfroze and swung up his fists. “We're here to arrest you and take you to a padded room which we'd usually reserve for Fake Thomas Jefferson, but he's been dead for five years and that's how you'll be...in five years.”
“Oh do be quiet and stand against the wall or something equally as useful,” Normal instructed. “I will snap this child's neck if you come any closer.”
“Don't you dare,” Penny warned.
Meekly obeying the villain, Captain Hammer linked his hands together to keep them from swinging. His face tore between righteously motivated and hopelessly indignant.
“Dammit, an impasse,” Splendour breathed. “Johnny, is your...”
“Sort of.”
“Fire!” she commanded.
Penny's eyes saucered. “Wait, no - ”
Swinging around on the chair, Penny jerked forward but the wheels caught on the floor and she tipped sideways. Her eyes remained open but unfocused and her lips pursed and unpursed very gradually. Moist forgot all sense and hurried to her side, brushing tangled red hair off her face. He looked up to see the immobile statue of Professor Normal and briefly enjoyed the surprise chiselled between the electronic sideburns. Billie's terror was also still evident, mouth frozen wide open. Moist studied his 'niece' long enough to discern the tiny icicles on her eyelashes before he stood up and advanced on Johnny Snow.
“I had to do it,” Johnny deflected, which is as far as the fight went because the door smacked open.
Filing in were numerous henchmen that Moist recognised, all of them looking at the floor or the walls and doing little else. At the head of the mob was the acknowledged leader of the Evil League of Evil, adorned in a sheen of red material and masked by goggles that the media paraded on their front pages. A nasty angular device was draped over one arm and bore the boastful engraved words “Death Ray”.
Hammer cracked fists together and spread his feet apart to lower his centre of gravity. He tilted his head to the side to catch one half of his face in the shadow from the overhead light. Johnny swished the Ice Beam behind his back and kept it there, smiling vacantly. Moist quickly put himself between the heroes and his old friend, though Wanda moved forward, balancing on the balls of her feet.
“He was holding her hostage,” Moist explained hurriedly. “We couldn't, you know, do anything because of that. Penny's okay, though.”
Empty lenses turned towards him. “Why would that stop me from firing the Death Ray? She's just collateral.”
Moist's heart skipped several beats and an overwhelming wave of hot tingles swarmed from head to toe. He started speaking the words before he realised they weren't even his own. “Man...do I even know you?”
“Be quiet, minion.”
Not 'evil moisture buddy'. Not even 'that guy who used to be my right-hand-man'. Minion. Moist recalled with regret how he'd once admonished Billy for calling him anything else. He started when he felt Wanda's hand on his elbow, her touch quietly drawing him back towards the heroes.
“Now would be a good time to have a Freeze Ray,” Captain Hammer announced loudly and aimed a huge wink at his off-sider.
“It's an Ice...well, you make a good point, my esteemed colleague,” Johnny Snow acknowledged and flourished his weapon in front of him.
He pulled the trigger. The mechanism stalled. A tiny drop of cold, but clearly not frozen, water hit the floor. Johnny again hid the Ice Beam behind his back, but this time he wasn't smiling.
“Oh look, my supposed arch nemeses,” Doctor Horrible observed. “Even when you're trying, you still fail to accomplish anything. And how many schools have let you give aspiring talks to, Captain Hammer? How many since you ran off like a little girl at Duly Park? And Johnny Snow...my, you're still stuck on a rudimentary Ice Beam. Have you managed to fix the de-icing process? We wouldn't want our hostage here to shatter into...more pieces than is necessary.”
Moist couldn't stop himself looking sideways at Billie's perpetually wide eyes, dread singing through his veins. He hadn't even thought about that - what if Snow's beam couldn't reverse the process? Penny would kill him.
Wanda slapped his stomach, forcing Moist to look forward again. The heroine herself directed a hard gaze at the villain and henchmen blocking the exit. Creased lines wended across her forehead and, for a moment, recognition seemed to dawn, but she shook it off and defended, “They're heroes. At least they try to do something for the world.”
“What about social change?” Moist piped up desperately.
Half of Doctor Horrible's face translated into a cold smirk. “Change? Why would I change anything? I've made the whole world kneel and that's how it will stay.”
“Billie is your daughter,” Moist threw at him bitterly, uncaring when the clustered henchmen all looked up abruptly at the revelation. “And you don't even care. I don't know you and I don't think anyone else should either. It's not right. When I tell Penny...”
“Please,” the Doctor's bored voice interrupted. “I don't have time for this. And neither do any of you.”
He indicated the topic of the conversation. Water had begun to trickle down Professor Normal, dampening his clothes, creating patches in embarrassing places. Seizing the opportunity (once his relief had subsided), Moist lurched forward and pried thawing Billie the moment she starting drawing breath. Horrible unconcernedly kept his Death Ray level at the Professor, whose calculating eyes were the only part of him moving, even when the ice was completely gone.
“No other soliloquies?” baited Dr. Horrible. “Good. Take him to headquarters. Oh - and bring our new friends here too.”
Doctor Horrible snapped his fingers in Penny's general direction and a gaggle of henchmen departed with her prone body. Then the fingers aimed towards the still stunned heroes, though the intention was obviously not them.
“You won't get her!” Moist shouted, curling his arm around Billie.
“Daddy,” she gasped.
Moist hesitated. Billy was his friend and he couldn't exactly hurt him in front of his friend's child...but Moist wasn't the put-out henchman anymore. He had a real power, one that was now announcing itself by warming his nose and cheeks. Moist held up a hand and drew a breath, murmuring to Splendour, “The window in my bedroom is broken so just get Captain Hammer to pull the bit of wood out. You can escape that way.”
“What about you?” she whispered back.
“I need to get Penny back.”
Mucus thundered out of Moist's core from his outstretched limb and the blast radius encased not only Horrible but the henchmen around him. Moist kept the flow pouring out, but already some of his enemies were rising. It was futile, but white anger crept in around the edges of Moist's vision and he knew he couldn't stop. Not now.
Wanda shouted at her companions who started through the side door. She touched Billie's back and said quickly, “Let me take her. Trust me, Moist. From one hero to another.”
“Right,” he rasped. “But don't let anything happen to her, okay? Penny would never forgive me.”
“Can we go now?” Hammer interjected from the doorway. “These guys aren't looking too happy. And I'd rather not share the lift to St Peter with them, even if they're going straight back down to hell.”
“Yeah, because that would be the most awkward thing about being dead!” exclaimed Johnny's voice.
Clutching Billie to her, Splendour saluted Moist and sped out of sight. Moist heard wood cracking, and he saw the Death Ray rise through the torrent towards him. He held his breath and charged.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Purple, red and sunny yellow filtered through the sleep that crusted his eyelids. Moist wrenched them apart and took in his surroundings. He knew this car. He knew the driver. And apparently Purple Pimp had found his hat again, because that was all Moist could see of him as the villain grappled with his steering wheel and kept his swearing to a minimum. Red was the disappearing lights that illuminated Moist's neighbourhood at night, and yellow was the cheerful v-neck shirt that Penny wore down past her waist.
“Penny, what...” he began, bewildered. He was alive, which was great - but this wasn't a total improvement.
She leaned over through the darkening cabin and disclosed, “I think we're being taken to the Evil League of Evil.”
“But...”
“Where's Billie?” she demanded urgently.
“She's safe,” Moist promised, rubbing one eye vigorously to clear his vision. “I gave her to some heroes to look after. I trust them. It's um...Splendour, Johnny Snow and Captain Hammer.”
A sharp intake of breath. “Why would you do that?! You can't leave - why did you - Billie shouldn't be with him!”
The car veered right abruptly and Moist struck out hands either side for purchase. Judging by the ache in his arms and the lack of sliding, his power was still out. He smiled assuringly at his friend. “I'm sorry, I don't...he's alright. He's not as gungho, I think...”
“I didn't think you'd bring Captain Hammer,” Penny contemplated. “This changes everything.”
“Well, yeah, it was a surprise to me too.”
“He's not Captain Hammer.”
Silence filled the vehicle; even the Purple Pimp had no complaints to make, though it was possibly due to the fact that the traffic lights were all dutifully green for him. Moist waited a few more moments before asking slowly, “Uh, who is he then?”
Penny leaned back in her seat and she peered out the window, her face alternating between lit and shadowed. “He's a clone or a mutant zombie. I'm not sure which. I know that's not the original Captain Hammer. I know because I saw him die.”
“So...” Moist trailed off, running through the past few hours in his mind.
“Professor Normal has an agent right with my daughter,” Penny finished.
“Pen, if I'd known...” Moist groaned, but a hand rested over his knee.
The touch said everything that words didn't - she forgave him. Moist's shoulders slumped and he breathed evenly. Penny withdrew her hand and asked, “How well do you trust Splendour and Johnny Snow?”
“Actually, more than I did a few hours ago.”
“We need to tell Billy,” she decided. “He'll do something.”
Moist almost didn't have the heart to tell her, but he knew from experience with bandaids that you had to do it quickly, before the hairs on your legs got too attached to the adhesive.
“I don't think he's Billy anymore,” Moist began and then recounted his story with as few subjective adjectives as he could.
Five minutes later, they were being roughly shown the door. Except they were being thrown in, instead of out, which wasn't optimal. Not one bit.
Author: hypercaz
Rating: PG-13, for language
Pairing/Characters: Moist, Penny, Dr Horrible, Billy/Penny, Johnny Snow, Captain Hammer, Splendour, Professor Normal, Purple Pimp
Genre: humour/action/drama/angst/general/pie
Word count: 5672
Summary: 5th in the Cumin Doesn't Quack universe (i.e. Billy and Penny began dating a few weeks before the webisodes).
Three heroes, one villain and one henchman take on the undead to rescue Penny.
AN: minor crossover still present. :D This chapter completes the first third of the story.
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I deserve to get in. You know I do. But killing? Really?
Hourglass says she knows a kid in Iowa that grows up to become president. That’d be big.
I’m not gonna kill a little kid.
Smother an old lady.
Do I even know you?
- Dr Horrible & Moist, Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
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The Coin Wash Menace
ACT III - Do I Even Know You?
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Purple Pimp slammed the first two knuckles on his right hand into the intricate device positioned between his wobbling knees and the stiff, coiled legs of the hero beside him. High-pitched static roared through the cabin, rendering everyone but the perpetrator deaf. A moment later, police chatter began its usual run through the scanner. Captain Hammer smushed himself further against the passenger door in an attempt to either bend the car's frame permanently out of shape or to put more air between him and the driver.
“What the fuck, seriously,” the Pimp narrated as he listened to the shouts of various law enforcement officers.
“Uh, what are they saying?” Moist asked, leaning over from the back seat.
“Armageddon. The Easter bunny isn't real. I see dead people.” The Purple Pimp idly used the tip of one finger to shift the wheel sideways, which somehow translated into the whole vehicle charging like a bull around a corner. He yawned. “When was Horrible going to tell everyone that Professor Fucking Normal was back?”
Moist blinked. Then he shrugged. It wasn't exactly a secret that Professor Normal had been (and obviously still was) a necrophiliac. The simple deduction was one that anyone could make. Moist pointed out an intersection up ahead but the Pimp Mobile was already swinging towards the right direction.
“Are you afraid of him?” Splendour questioned through clenched teeth.
Deep, gouges from her nails bit angrily into the arm of Johnny Snow beside her, but he was too busy holding in the unwise chicken kebabs he'd had for lunch to complain. His face was slack enough that the minute lines of stress he carried on his face were smoothed out. Purple Pimp turned bodily in the driver's seat to stare back at Wanda. Various pedestrians leapt out of headlights until Moist grabbed the steering wheel.
“Do you have any idea what Normal will do to me if he finds out I supported Doctor Horrible?” Purple Pimp demanded. “I wouldn't be seeing dead people, bitch, I'd be a dead person.”
Apparently remembering his duties as a licence-carrying motorist, he batted Moist's arm away, flicked beads of moisture off the wheel and resumed tearing up tar. Captain Hammer thought this would be the perfect moment to start his comeback. “But that would be a good thing. Too long have villains terrified the good citizens of this city and too long they have suffered in ignorance because I have been banned from giving interviews...”
“Hammer, shut up,” Wanda ordered.
“He's got a point,” Johnny said sullenly, also regaining himself. “We shouldn't be feeling sorry for this dude and we shouldn't be helping the moisture guy.”
“Johnny, shut up,” she reiterated. “If you say another word about why we should not be helping people, I will tell the Guild just how bad you are at this and they will permanently apprentice you to Hammer.”
Johnny ducked his head so that his tattered brown mane fell around his face. He was probably hoping to make it look like he was hiding a scowl, but Moist was able to make out a pout behind the curtain of the hero's hair.
Purple Pimp flicked two fingers of an eyebrow and murmured to Moist, “Conflict Diamond's sister?”
“Not that I know of,” Moist replied, squinting as the sickly throb returned behind his face. “But, um, you never know, right?”
Tires squealed, metal buckled and a bin went flying from the bonnet to the boot. The twin clangs were evidence of that. Moist discovered that he could in fact hold in his wayward power, though it required a complicated system of making his face collapse inwards without triggering a sneeze. He also discovered that he would have preferred an airbag to the lap of the only woman in attendance. The glare was enough of a warning for him. He slipped to the floor very quickly.
“Oh fuck,” the Pimp announced.
Splendour sighed. “What now?”
The handbrake growled as it was ripped skywards. Purple Pimp whistled between his front teeth. “We'll have to park here.”
“You parked in garbage,” Captain Hammer felt compelled to point out, wrinkling his nose though no one else could discern any smells.
“That's one of the things that can't hurt you,” Johnny reminded him.
“I haven't tried touching garbage yet. I didn't even do that before. Unless you count Doctor...”
Wanda shot up a hand on the right side of her face, shielding herself against any further comments from her team mates. She smiled tightly. “Traffic?”
“Kind of,” Moist answered, massaging his burning sinuses as he peered out the windshield. “Do mutant zombies count? I mean, they are taking up the road.”
Purple Pimp made circles out of his thumbs and forefingers and slammed them over his onyx eyes as he scanned the seething mass of dead people roaming the road. He grumbled a few choice obscenities before noting hopefully, “Ah, I see one knee cap that is slightly less decomposed than the other ones on offer...”
Splendour paused, gauged the happy expression on the chauffeur’s face, then managed, “Gross.”
“Some of us can't regenerate our lost body parts,” Pimp told her, scowling. “Is that your power, sweeeetie?”
“I can't believe I'm going to say this, but can you go back to calling me bitch?”
Multiple outbursts may have occurred if Moist hadn't chosen that moment to lunge over and worked on the door in the backseat. His hand slid right off the handle, but on the second attempt he drew the moisture back up to his personal naval storage tanks (this seriously couldn't be good for his health in the long run) and opened the door a crack. This fostered a brief whiff of escape.
Panicked, Johnny performed a tackle worthy of Thomas Sullivan Magnum and lugged Moist back in with his arms around the henchman's waist.
“I'm going - Penny needs me,” Moist snapped.
“Penny?” chorused the heroes.
The Pimp's hands slipped from his face and swung back around to support his neck. The corners of his lips drooped, but a rogue light appeared in the depths of his eyes. “Well, Moist, I'd like to say it's been nice knowing you, but it really hasn't. Same to you hero-people. And Johnny Snow, you will be paying for the scrapes to my car. If we live, that is.”
“What?” Wanda asked incredulously, catching on to where this was going.
“Obviously, I'm about to get my fucking head knocked off my shoulders in Moist's crazy attempt to rescue that fine, fine woman,” Purple Pimp explained for the benefit of anyone not currently inhabiting his thought plane. “Can you just wait a second while I straighten up the Pimp Mobile? I do not want another damn parking ticket. I'm evil but I'm not swimming in the dough.”
Two minutes later, five silhouettes hit the wall behind the car. These shadows melted to give away for the very solid, very vulnerable flesh-and-bone creatures who marched through the red lighting that pervaded the district towards the horde of undead.
“Are you going to be okay, Hammer?” Wanda probed discreetly.
The hero's chin elevated by about four feet and he said importantly, “You see this hair? Not a single strand will be out of place by the time we find this Penny. And if my hair isn't perfect, then everyone else will be dead but I'll have time to comb it before I do something about everyone else being...well, you know.”
Shaking her head, the heroine turned on Johnny. “I'm putting a lot of faith in that beam of yours. You need to freeze them before I hit them or I'm going to bounce instead of them shattering.”
“I love you and I think you're amazing,” Snow blurted.
“No, Johnny, I don't care if you...huh? You what?”
Johnny Snow decided that he shouldn't repeat his declaration of love and marched ahead with the Pimp who was sporting enough not to jostle the Ice Beam. Well, not more than once anyway. Wanda thought very briefly of how many times she'd heard the L word from a guy and inwardly sighed. She kind of hoped they wouldn't survive the onslaught, because the awkward factor was going to ruin the team's dynamics.
“Moist, can you use your power?” she said out loud.
“Well, uh, I guess you should define 'use',” Moist responded unsmilingly.
“Aim with only a short margin of error?”
“Uh, no,” he admitted.
Wanda utilised a wobbly grin. “We'll be fine. Good luck, everyone.”
“Luck?” the Purple Pimp chortled. “We need a fucking miracle. Now shut up so I can concentrate.”
He drew elongated pistols from his belt and dragged the bright purple barrels over each opposing arm, making them whirl as if they were old fashioned revolvers. They were his own design and, despite the six-shooter appearance, they were semi-automatic. He nonchalantly fired one into the air. Several dozen pairs of eyes and many more dozens of empty eye-sockets swivelled over.
“Okay, you can take the first few hundred on your side,” Moist muttered.
“That's mighty kind of you, Moist,” the Pimp drawled and started blasting.
The zombies took some offence to having lead rip through masses of belching organs and softened cartilage - as anyone would if they were alive, dead, undead or something in between. Naturally, they expressed their displeasure by forming a roaring pack of outstretched arms and thundering legs. Splendour sprang off the road as though it were a trampoline and sailed through the air with some serious hang time.
Johnny Snow managed to arrange his priorities so that protection ranked over adoration. A jagged line of ice cracked from his weapon, freezing the front line in their tracks. Some of the zombies behind them crashed through their compatriots and crumpled onto the road before scrambling back up. Splendour showed the remaining ice sculptures exactly what she thought of them with two sure feet.
Meanwhile, Captain Hammer picked up multiple zombies by either the scruffs of their necks or any other available hand hold. He tossed one or two backwards so that Moist had to duck, but generally the hero seemed to be clearing a path as he waded forward.
Blam-blam-blam. The Pimp's contribution involved him running ahead alongside the corporate tool and leaping around to guard Hammer's back with precise, painful pings from his weapons. If anyone hadn't been too busy to look closely, they would have wondered how someone as stocky as the Pimp could move so damn fast. A neighbour peering out from a nearby window may have thought so, but it is likely they too were occupied with the epic battle as a whole. Or they were checking the weather. Either one.
By this point, Moist realised he hadn't moved by so much as an inch. And, well, the whole thing was his idea, so it occurred to him that he should do something.
Moist held out his hand and sneezed. Nothing happened. If at first you don't succeed, try not to look too embarrassed while your companions are kicking undead butt. He actually had no idea why he'd thought it would work. Nothing ever worked out for Moist, not since his father had left him alone and Billy had left him alone and -
A jet stream of phlegm-like liquid burst from his palm and burrowed through the midsection of four zombies who were in line. Beaming down at his fingers for a moment, Moist surged up to the heroes, keeping pace with Johnny Snow. Where the ice missed, room-temperature water made up for it by turning a potential brain-eater into a sodden mess.
“Holy shit, this is fun!” exclaimed the Pimp, whipping his right arm 180 degrees over to his left to deliver a double-shot defence against one lipless zombie.
Wanda fell from the heavens to crush the moaning menace on his blind right, reducing it to frigid slivers. “I don't quite...agree!”
Both heroine and not-hero hit the tarmac as Captain Hammer threw a punch too close to their heads. Happily, Hammer managed to decapitate only those who no longer used their synapses for normal things like coveting a neighbour's donkey instead of their brains. Splendour was the first up, performing a levitation-aided kick to smack up the chin of a nearby zombie. Its head flopped backwards but failed to shatter. Two hands searched for Wanda's skull.
“JOHNNY!” she growled.
“Need help, bitch?” the Pimp enquired, spraying bullets over the squishy neck of her assailant.
Moist and Johnny caught up in time for the latter to start smashing his useless Ice Beam over the zombie's knees, felling the headless corpse completely. Johnny swung the device around in a perfect batter's stance, mostly hitting air but once or twice hitting an actual member of the deceased, who collapsed into a quivering pool of refuse.
“Did you have to get the fucking kneecaps?” howled Purple Pimp, but he was grinning like the mad man he undoubtedly was.
Then there were five human beings, standing at an intersection in the dimmest patch of road. The red street lights burned ever on around them. No one stirred. Moist swallowed profusely, working moisture back into his mouth. The glugginess in his face had subsided completely, but he didn't feel...empty yet, and sporadic drops of moisture still lazily peeked from the tips of his fingers. He shrugged off his jacket and tossed it to the side. Shivers skittered down his arms.
Captain Hammer held up one gloved hand, his eyes slowly wending from side to side. “It's too quiet, which means we're about to have a little more company. Of the dead variety. And they won't be capable of begging for mercy, which is exactly what we want.”
“Is it?” Wanda asked dryly.
“How're the hands, Hammer?” Pimp prompted, smirking.
Horror widened Captain Hammer's eyes and he glanced down at his hands, shaking them thoroughly. He bit his lip and a moan of belated pain snuck past the adrenalin. Johnny Snow cleared his throat. “Don't listen to him, okay. One, he's one of the bad guys - who isn't killing us right now - and two, you're taking out ten times more zombie things than any of us are.”
Wanda and Moist exchanged blinks and, as a result, both missed the hopeful baby blues that Johnny Snow turned towards his beloved. He was not to find out if his attempt at maturity had won the heart of the fair maiden, because Purple Pimp hacked back a large gob of spit. “Zombies approaching. Again. Isn't that just lovely?”
Approximately thirty metres away, the steps leading up to the door of Moist's apartment block swam in bloody light. Twenty metres away, a tightly-packed mass of zombies started shuffling forward in organised lines. The cream of the crop possessed many intact limbs, swivelling eyeballs and extra sharp nails. One even wore a hot pink cap with the words 'Cabbages and Condoms' emblazoned on the front.
“Almost there,” Wanda commented, stretching her arms over her head.
“Still no cigar,” Johnny groused as he inspected his useless beam. “I uh...uh...might have to hang back.”
“Or not,” said Moist, indicating the horde sneaking up behind them.
Snow's eyes hardened and his wrinkles etched deep lines of determination. He hefted the Ice Beam. “Three bases loaded. Home run. As for you, henchman - you're our long range weapon now.”
“Oh shut the fuck up and let's get Penny,” the Pimp said and barrelled ahead.
Where one sheep goes, the others follow. Moist immediately wished he hadn't thought of his analogy, particularly when he thought he heard a zombie baaaa up ahead. Flashing two palms out wide on both sides, he realised how easy it was to release the pent up accumulation of moisture and anguish of years past. Deafened to moans, groans or shouts of triumph, he watched his companions. Purple Pimp, lacking a patch of his moustache and gleefully shouting, worked in tandem with the heroes almost instinctively...until Johnny clipped him with his self-styled bat, which forced a wide shot to take out the nearby light.
One step forward, two steps forward...Moist felt his knees sinking, felt his pace slowing.
His tongue suddenly detached from the roof of his mouth and it hurt. This was the first real warning, though the second was far more concerning. Every last non-essential drop of moisture expunged itself from the henchman and he fell to his knees, gasping. Sucking hard on his tortured tongue in an attempt to kickstart saliva, and failing at it, Moist mused in defeat, “Well that sucks.”
Nails tore through them hem of the neck of his shirt, then into the malleable flesh behind his head. Moist walked frantically in mid-air for a few moments before he realised that a heroine had come to his rescue.
“Not bad for your first fight,” Wanda shouted down at him. “You're a natural. You'll have a place in the Guild when all this is over.”
“Uh, do you mean that?”
“Maybe! But let's rescue your friend first.”
Moist's face came into contact with the door to his block. He threw out a hand and slapped the buzzer. Remarkably, the door gave and he fell forward. Four others tumbled in after him and a loud thump echoed as wood met frame once more. Moist peered up through the gloom, spotting the single light bulb hanging from the ceiling first, and the peppery brown, slightly windswept head of his landlady sticking out of her room second.
“Is that you, Moist?” she bellowed nasally.
He flinched guiltily. “Uh, about last month's rent - ”
“Yes, we'll get to that - but first, a noise complaint. You haven't made this much of a racket since your horrible little friend was around. Ooh is that Captain Hammer? If I'd've known you brought that stud I'd have worn more than this filthy dressing gown. Rent under my door tomorrow. If you're alive. If you're dead, could you at least send a friend to finish the payments?”
Her head whisked back out of sight. Momentarily stunned, the rescuers attempted to get to their feet. Johnny gallantly held out a hand for Wanda, who eyed him cautiously before accepting the offer. She covered the approaching awkwardness by observing, “The Ice Beam is sparking again, Johnny. Do you think it will work?”
“Where is this Professor Normal?” Clearly, Hammer's priorities were set. “I need to introduce his face to my fists. I'll even let one of you hold him down.”
Purple Pimp leaned against a wall and blew out of a breath. “Alright, fuckers, I can't go any further. If Normal sees me, or whatever, then I'll have some epic issues after all of this.”
“That's okay,” Moist said, nodding at him. “You've done heaps, man. If you ever need a henchman, I can recommend a few.”
“I can only recommend one,” Pimp countered blandly, sliding to the floor where he flicked out a motoring magazine from his tattered coat and began reading avidly.
Unsure how to take the compliment, Moist pushed the indigo villain from his mind and turned to his original helpers. He shrugged helplessly then pointed out the door. Captain Hammer slipped fingers behind his ears to ensure that his hair was not wayward, as promised. Johnny Snow copied the action one-handed, for whatever reason.
Wanda Plenn held out her hand for Moist's keys, which she interned in the door. Glancing back at her companions, she pulled on the knob.
At first, Moist could only see the wheely chair thrust into the corner and Penny as its occupant, held fast with cable ties looped around the dexterous points on each limb. Her usually neat hair frizzled like an aura around her head and her knuckles were white, though her green eyes were thin and aimed directly at the man holding her daughter hostage.
Professor Normal stood just beyond the radius of spitting distance, one arm straight against his side and the other jostling Bille against him. His struggle to contain his prisoner and to school his usual countenance resulted in him waving side to side as though in some sort of ethereal breeze. Normal wrinkled his nose distastefully when Billie called out, “Mos! Bad man.”
“I see I need not introduce you two,” Normal began leisurely. “But this is an introduction the Guild would surely never pass up. This is the progeny of Doctor Horrible.”
“You mean someone saw him naked?” Captain Hammer asked, genuinely horrified.
Johnny snorted with laughter, then choked it off. Wanda threw a less-than-pleased look at Moist who didn't even bother to affect an air of innocence. He was way past that now.
“Penny, are you okay?” he asked.
Her lips twitched. “No. Not really. Moist, please do something.”
“Do something?” echoed Professor Normal, whose lips cracked painfully upwards. “His actions do not factor into my plans anymore. He contacted the ELE, as I required, and soon Doctor Horrible will fall prey to his biggest weakness...love.”
“All you need is love,” Johnny Snow added, which invoked frowns from various parties, especially the heroine beside him.
Moist consciously chafed his dry palms together. By unspoken mutual agreement, the would-be rescuers stood their ground in a loose line in front of the door. The heat on Moist's back could have been from three death glares, but he hoped it was because he was inside insulated walls. Regardless of whether or not his power was fuelled, he raised a hand and curled his fingertips forward.
“Right, we got through the mutant zombies,” Moist said carefully. “So it's just you against four of us.”
Professor Normal's gaze alighted behind the henchman and his smile broadened. “While I am not surprised that the Guild has sent representatives to retrieve me, I do find it spectacularly odd that you should choose to work with the head of the Henchman's Union - a useless, disgusting specimen whose claim to greatness was snivelling at the feet of that imposter.”
Hammer unfroze and swung up his fists. “We're here to arrest you and take you to a padded room which we'd usually reserve for Fake Thomas Jefferson, but he's been dead for five years and that's how you'll be...in five years.”
“Oh do be quiet and stand against the wall or something equally as useful,” Normal instructed. “I will snap this child's neck if you come any closer.”
“Don't you dare,” Penny warned.
Meekly obeying the villain, Captain Hammer linked his hands together to keep them from swinging. His face tore between righteously motivated and hopelessly indignant.
“Dammit, an impasse,” Splendour breathed. “Johnny, is your...”
“Sort of.”
“Fire!” she commanded.
Penny's eyes saucered. “Wait, no - ”
Swinging around on the chair, Penny jerked forward but the wheels caught on the floor and she tipped sideways. Her eyes remained open but unfocused and her lips pursed and unpursed very gradually. Moist forgot all sense and hurried to her side, brushing tangled red hair off her face. He looked up to see the immobile statue of Professor Normal and briefly enjoyed the surprise chiselled between the electronic sideburns. Billie's terror was also still evident, mouth frozen wide open. Moist studied his 'niece' long enough to discern the tiny icicles on her eyelashes before he stood up and advanced on Johnny Snow.
“I had to do it,” Johnny deflected, which is as far as the fight went because the door smacked open.
Filing in were numerous henchmen that Moist recognised, all of them looking at the floor or the walls and doing little else. At the head of the mob was the acknowledged leader of the Evil League of Evil, adorned in a sheen of red material and masked by goggles that the media paraded on their front pages. A nasty angular device was draped over one arm and bore the boastful engraved words “Death Ray”.
Hammer cracked fists together and spread his feet apart to lower his centre of gravity. He tilted his head to the side to catch one half of his face in the shadow from the overhead light. Johnny swished the Ice Beam behind his back and kept it there, smiling vacantly. Moist quickly put himself between the heroes and his old friend, though Wanda moved forward, balancing on the balls of her feet.
“He was holding her hostage,” Moist explained hurriedly. “We couldn't, you know, do anything because of that. Penny's okay, though.”
Empty lenses turned towards him. “Why would that stop me from firing the Death Ray? She's just collateral.”
Moist's heart skipped several beats and an overwhelming wave of hot tingles swarmed from head to toe. He started speaking the words before he realised they weren't even his own. “Man...do I even know you?”
“Be quiet, minion.”
Not 'evil moisture buddy'. Not even 'that guy who used to be my right-hand-man'. Minion. Moist recalled with regret how he'd once admonished Billy for calling him anything else. He started when he felt Wanda's hand on his elbow, her touch quietly drawing him back towards the heroes.
“Now would be a good time to have a Freeze Ray,” Captain Hammer announced loudly and aimed a huge wink at his off-sider.
“It's an Ice...well, you make a good point, my esteemed colleague,” Johnny Snow acknowledged and flourished his weapon in front of him.
He pulled the trigger. The mechanism stalled. A tiny drop of cold, but clearly not frozen, water hit the floor. Johnny again hid the Ice Beam behind his back, but this time he wasn't smiling.
“Oh look, my supposed arch nemeses,” Doctor Horrible observed. “Even when you're trying, you still fail to accomplish anything. And how many schools have let you give aspiring talks to, Captain Hammer? How many since you ran off like a little girl at Duly Park? And Johnny Snow...my, you're still stuck on a rudimentary Ice Beam. Have you managed to fix the de-icing process? We wouldn't want our hostage here to shatter into...more pieces than is necessary.”
Moist couldn't stop himself looking sideways at Billie's perpetually wide eyes, dread singing through his veins. He hadn't even thought about that - what if Snow's beam couldn't reverse the process? Penny would kill him.
Wanda slapped his stomach, forcing Moist to look forward again. The heroine herself directed a hard gaze at the villain and henchmen blocking the exit. Creased lines wended across her forehead and, for a moment, recognition seemed to dawn, but she shook it off and defended, “They're heroes. At least they try to do something for the world.”
“What about social change?” Moist piped up desperately.
Half of Doctor Horrible's face translated into a cold smirk. “Change? Why would I change anything? I've made the whole world kneel and that's how it will stay.”
“Billie is your daughter,” Moist threw at him bitterly, uncaring when the clustered henchmen all looked up abruptly at the revelation. “And you don't even care. I don't know you and I don't think anyone else should either. It's not right. When I tell Penny...”
“Please,” the Doctor's bored voice interrupted. “I don't have time for this. And neither do any of you.”
He indicated the topic of the conversation. Water had begun to trickle down Professor Normal, dampening his clothes, creating patches in embarrassing places. Seizing the opportunity (once his relief had subsided), Moist lurched forward and pried thawing Billie the moment she starting drawing breath. Horrible unconcernedly kept his Death Ray level at the Professor, whose calculating eyes were the only part of him moving, even when the ice was completely gone.
“No other soliloquies?” baited Dr. Horrible. “Good. Take him to headquarters. Oh - and bring our new friends here too.”
Doctor Horrible snapped his fingers in Penny's general direction and a gaggle of henchmen departed with her prone body. Then the fingers aimed towards the still stunned heroes, though the intention was obviously not them.
“You won't get her!” Moist shouted, curling his arm around Billie.
“Daddy,” she gasped.
Moist hesitated. Billy was his friend and he couldn't exactly hurt him in front of his friend's child...but Moist wasn't the put-out henchman anymore. He had a real power, one that was now announcing itself by warming his nose and cheeks. Moist held up a hand and drew a breath, murmuring to Splendour, “The window in my bedroom is broken so just get Captain Hammer to pull the bit of wood out. You can escape that way.”
“What about you?” she whispered back.
“I need to get Penny back.”
Mucus thundered out of Moist's core from his outstretched limb and the blast radius encased not only Horrible but the henchmen around him. Moist kept the flow pouring out, but already some of his enemies were rising. It was futile, but white anger crept in around the edges of Moist's vision and he knew he couldn't stop. Not now.
Wanda shouted at her companions who started through the side door. She touched Billie's back and said quickly, “Let me take her. Trust me, Moist. From one hero to another.”
“Right,” he rasped. “But don't let anything happen to her, okay? Penny would never forgive me.”
“Can we go now?” Hammer interjected from the doorway. “These guys aren't looking too happy. And I'd rather not share the lift to St Peter with them, even if they're going straight back down to hell.”
“Yeah, because that would be the most awkward thing about being dead!” exclaimed Johnny's voice.
Clutching Billie to her, Splendour saluted Moist and sped out of sight. Moist heard wood cracking, and he saw the Death Ray rise through the torrent towards him. He held his breath and charged.
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Purple, red and sunny yellow filtered through the sleep that crusted his eyelids. Moist wrenched them apart and took in his surroundings. He knew this car. He knew the driver. And apparently Purple Pimp had found his hat again, because that was all Moist could see of him as the villain grappled with his steering wheel and kept his swearing to a minimum. Red was the disappearing lights that illuminated Moist's neighbourhood at night, and yellow was the cheerful v-neck shirt that Penny wore down past her waist.
“Penny, what...” he began, bewildered. He was alive, which was great - but this wasn't a total improvement.
She leaned over through the darkening cabin and disclosed, “I think we're being taken to the Evil League of Evil.”
“But...”
“Where's Billie?” she demanded urgently.
“She's safe,” Moist promised, rubbing one eye vigorously to clear his vision. “I gave her to some heroes to look after. I trust them. It's um...Splendour, Johnny Snow and Captain Hammer.”
A sharp intake of breath. “Why would you do that?! You can't leave - why did you - Billie shouldn't be with him!”
The car veered right abruptly and Moist struck out hands either side for purchase. Judging by the ache in his arms and the lack of sliding, his power was still out. He smiled assuringly at his friend. “I'm sorry, I don't...he's alright. He's not as gungho, I think...”
“I didn't think you'd bring Captain Hammer,” Penny contemplated. “This changes everything.”
“Well, yeah, it was a surprise to me too.”
“He's not Captain Hammer.”
Silence filled the vehicle; even the Purple Pimp had no complaints to make, though it was possibly due to the fact that the traffic lights were all dutifully green for him. Moist waited a few more moments before asking slowly, “Uh, who is he then?”
Penny leaned back in her seat and she peered out the window, her face alternating between lit and shadowed. “He's a clone or a mutant zombie. I'm not sure which. I know that's not the original Captain Hammer. I know because I saw him die.”
“So...” Moist trailed off, running through the past few hours in his mind.
“Professor Normal has an agent right with my daughter,” Penny finished.
“Pen, if I'd known...” Moist groaned, but a hand rested over his knee.
The touch said everything that words didn't - she forgave him. Moist's shoulders slumped and he breathed evenly. Penny withdrew her hand and asked, “How well do you trust Splendour and Johnny Snow?”
“Actually, more than I did a few hours ago.”
“We need to tell Billy,” she decided. “He'll do something.”
Moist almost didn't have the heart to tell her, but he knew from experience with bandaids that you had to do it quickly, before the hairs on your legs got too attached to the adhesive.
“I don't think he's Billy anymore,” Moist began and then recounted his story with as few subjective adjectives as he could.
Five minutes later, they were being roughly shown the door. Except they were being thrown in, instead of out, which wasn't optimal. Not one bit.