The Cumin Saga (PG-13) [Part 5 of 9]
Title: The Cumin Saga: Attack of the Mutant Zombies
Author: hypercaz
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/Characters: Moist, Penny, Johnny Snow, Captain Hammer's clone, Splendour, Pink/The Pummeller
Genre: drama/action/a smattering of humour
Word count: 5500
Summary: 5th in the Cumin Doesn't Quack universe (i.e. Billy and Penny began dating a few weeks before the webisodes).
Professor Normal's mutant zombies get a taste for the ELE headquarters. Nom.
AN: Minor x-over. Has no actual bearing on this fanfic.
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Hey, I know you.
Hello. You know me? Cool. I mean, yeah. You do. Do you?
- Penny and Dr. Horrible, Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
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Attack of the Mutant Zombies
ACT II - I Think I'm a Clone Now
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The faux manor house crowning the peak of the hill had probably once been grand and the venue of great, classy parties. No living soul would bother with such affairs there now - the cracked walls were grey-washed from passing traffic, the front door had been completely walled in with ill-fitting red bricks, the windows varied between barred or completely boarded up and the current inhabitants were generally considered to be the most evil people in Los Angeles, if not the world.
The garden wasn't too cluttered, actually. Probably because any trees that would have dropped leaves had been removed so no one could sneak up on the Evil League of Evil's headquarters. The lawn required no maintenance, owing to the fact that grass abhorred the place entirely and all that was left was dirt and cigarette butts. And possibly the occasional piece of bone. Let's not dwell on that.
The driveway - simple, boring, unfailing concrete - slightly wound its way down to the gnarled and spiky black fence that ran the entire perimeter. If this was not enough to deter any hero, then the four feet of electrified wires on top of the fence certainly did the job.
Presently, the gate was under siege. Not from devout religious beings, not from solicitors, not from daring journalists attached to current affairs programmes and certainly not any members from the somewhat scattered, very depleted Heroes Guild.
The zombies were twenty deep from the fence to the middle of the road. Their numbers were growing by the minute. A yahoo with a YouTube account sat astride his parked moped, camera phone focused on the scene. He was imagining view hits, thumbs ups and maybe some more subscribers.
The zombies were imagining brains, brains and maybe some more brains.
Chiefly, their objective was to enter the property and restore Professor Normal to his throne. But they were not capable of deducing this.
Smoothly, the well-oiled and well-surveillanced gate swung open at the command of the true genius behind the demise of the ELE.
Uninvited guests began to pour into the grounds. Their rising moans and grunts seemed an appropriate soundtrack for the ELE's headquarters but worst of all - they were answered by others from within the house.
Professor Normal, peering out of a window in the attic, could not have been more pleased.
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Penny ducked just in time for her companion to smash through the slippery exposed skull of the zombie in front of them. She recovered quickly, took a moment to brush a fragment of dead skin off her shirt, and barely managed to dance out of reach of arms that flailed from the wall as though stuck there separately.
“They're in the walls - stay in the middle of the corridor!” Penny instructed.
The Pummeller mournfully shook brain matter off his prized gloves, then looked up at her with horror. “Have you got a plan? You do have a plan, don't you? None of this will work if you don't...”
“Padraic!” Penny interrupted, spinning around to face him. “It's okay. You don't have to think too hard. Just... help me rescue Moist from Gemini.”
“Oh,” he said, then barrelled down Penny's left to punch through the weathered wall to KO another vagrant pair of limbs.
Penny remained unflinching. “Oh?”
“Gemini really isn't cool with Moist. We'll be taking him home in bits and pieces. Penny - watch out!”
She hit the floor, skimming a millimetre or so of skin off her palms. Thickset and imbibed with superior strength, The Pummeller unleashed padded gloved fury on the three or so members of the undead who had tried to sneak up on Penny. She had always played up his ability in the press releases rather than his personality because he really could not comprehend turning his fists on puppies or children. Zombies, however, appeared not to share that immunity.
A pair of hands tore through the wall at ankle height and grappled with The Pummeller before he tripped and fell. Zombie No. 477 collapsed on top of him, suckling up from the shoulder pads peeking out through a hole in The Pummeller's shirt to his exposed jaw. The hands of a so-called villain latched around its neck and wrenched the head clean off with a disgusting squelch.
Penny gasped as more zombies hurried down both ends of the corridor. “Padraic...”
“I'd really like to hear your plan now, Penny!” he exclaimed.
A sickly pale, writhing pile of the undead buried Padraic until all Penny could see were brown boxing gloves bursting up towards freedom. Mindful of her own peril, she put her back to her friend and held up her fists in a weak imitation of his already unoriginal stance. Penny dropped when the first one lurched towards her and swung her shoe into its ankles. It fell on top of her and she cried out as her already sore arm twisted beneath her. Gritting her teeth, she used her free hard to wrench out her assailant's jaw bone when it tried to crunch down on her. She punctured its face with the jagged edge of the bone until it slid sideways onto the floor. She forced herself to keep her eyes open as she garrotted it.
Panting, she looked up at the line of zombies and saw her death.
A stream of soupy liquid burst across her assailants. They dutifully fell about, some losing their motor skills completely. Moist leaped from head to head, flattening the sopping mess beneath his sneakers. One shoe was completely missing its laces, while the other was splattered with dark red blood over the toes. Penny felt a multitude of things - relief to see him alive, pride to know he had come so far in two days and...certainty that he had not killed Gemini. She knew Moist. She knew more about him than Billy - and she could admit that now.
Penny mouthed his name, but found her voice absent. She leaped up and hugged him in lieu of words. Moist awkwardly patted her back. “Sorry I took so long. I uh... had to dodge a few bullets. Nothing major, though.”
The Pummeller looped his large muscled arm around the pair of of them and sniffled. Moist rolled his eyes and slipped easily from their grasp. Mucus-y flecks sprayed from his hands as he patted his drying clothes down.
“You're alive!” Padraic said with a grin. “Did you inherit a power too or something?”
“Or something,” Moist replied. He managed a grin of his own, but lost it soon enough. “Pen, we have got to get out of here.”
Penny thought briefly of blue eyes brighter than Moist's then shook the image away. “I completely agree. Any ideas?”
The Henchman Union's leader's face bunched to one side as he considered. He scratched at his slowly re-moistening scalp before an idea alighted on his face. “The side entrance?”
“Too many zombies,” Penny countered, peering down the eerily empty corridor. She trusted the zombies' absence no more than she did her boyfri...whatever he was.
“How about I smash a hole in the wall?” The Pummeller suggested.
Moist shrugged. “Works for me.”
Gayly, Padraic buried two fists in the nearest wall, threw out a zombie which Moist disintegrated with a single burst, then burrowed through. Penny sprang in after him and blinked away the sudden light that performed an onslaught on her eyes. They had passed through the hidden passageway in the wall all the way through to a small room that accommodated no more than six mini-chandeliers,
seven mirrors that managed to dwarf the bulky Padraic and multi-coloured gems embedded wherever there wasn't a decoration or a painting of a tall, elegant Hispanic woman with silver eyes and identical cuts on both cheeks.
“Moist, is that you?” asked the subject of the portraits as she rose from a red settee with crystal legs. Her dress was a strapless, ruby affair that matched the satin of her furniture and she appeared to flow from the upholstery. “Where have you been? I've been waiting for thirty minutes for someone to tell me what is going on. Perdón, but we fired you didn't we?”
Penny recognised the woman as Courtesan - as beautiful and hard as a diamond, with perfect lines for her neck and calves. Frowning as the villainess looked them up and down with a slow sneer curling her pretty lips, Penny remembered her previous misgivings over Courtesan's appointment to the ELE. But she had pressed Billy to take on the knife expert for the League's image.
“Actually, I quit,” Moist said quietly.
“That's not important right now,” Penny cut in, stepping out in front of her companions. Her heels snapped the highly polished and highly reflective floorboards simultaneously as she stopped within a pace of Courtesan. “Professor Normal is back.”
Courtesan sighed and sank back onto the settee, leaning back as she threw her hand over her face. “Oh dear. That man is so terribly smart.”
Penny stared at her. She heard the unmistakeable groaning and shuffling out in the corridor and wondered how she could impress upon Courtesan the seriousness of the situation without actually letting a zombie bite her. The Pummeller muttered to himself and began to strike out at the heads and arms that started thrusting through the hole he had made.
“Okay,” said Penny. “I don't care if you stay. You can probably look after yourself. Because that is exactly what Doctor Horrible is doing right now. Are you coming with us or would you like to, I don't know, swoon for the zombies too?”
“You little puta,” snarled Courtesan. “You spread your legs for a man with a pathetic evil laugh and think you can order me about. Were you really so stupid that you did not ask for payment?”
The slap stung Penny's raw palm when she delivered it, and errant pricks of numbed pain sprinkled over her skin afterwards. Courtesan covered up the fading mark on her face with a delicately placed hand. Her sneer dissolved into an indignant, open-mouthed expression.
Moist chuckled. “Way to go, Penny!”
“Can we go now?” demanded The Pummeller over his shoulder. An arm was flailing around his neck like a tentacle, so he ripped it off and started hitting the zombie with its own ashen limb.
Penny indicated the wall behind Courtesan. “Is this an exterior wall?”
“How should I know?” Courtesan sniffed.
“You know what?” Penny, though a good three inches shorter even with her shoes, stared down the villainess with blazing green eyes. “I don't need your help. Padraic, please make an exit for us. Moist, make sure Professor Normal's toys don't follow.”
Moist shot into the hole at will, tapping The Pummeller's shoulder as he did so. The latter turned, appraised the wall behind Courtesan's prized settee, raised his fists and ran full tilt towards freedom. The hole he left could have fit a small truck. Not entirely stealthy, but it suited Penny just fine. She shouldered past Courtesan and called for Moist. Her friend left backwards, showering the floor with slippery liquid to cover their escape. Courtesan latched onto his arm and skidded onto the dirt outside.
All four of them stared at what awaited them.
“That... kind of sucks, right,” Penny supplied for everyone too stunned to think up an expletive. “I think we have a bigger problem than we just did.”
“It's been nice knowing you guys,” Moist said.
Though they inhabited a small pocket of zombie-free soil, there were hordes between them and the gate. And many hollow eyes had turned in the direction of noise and brains.
Courtesan slipped her fingers down her sides before whipping out jewel-laden daggers that were impossible to have hidden anywhere in her dress, though she must have managed. She snapped, “Speak for yourself!”
“We'll have to try at least,” Penny said aside to Moist.
He held up both hands, looking over at her with a half-smile half-grimace. “Oh, hey, I'm not saying we can't. I've kind of been in this situation before. I'm just saying... it's been nice.”
“Hah!” Padraic exclaimed, wiping his gloves against his trousers. “This mob is about to get pummelled!”
“I like the sound of that plan,” Penny said.
“So we're just going to do it, huh?” Moist asked, raising his eyebrows.
Penny smiled. “Sure, let's do it.”
Penny was the first to start running. Moist and The Pummeller followed instantly, though it only took a few moans behind Courtesan to send her chasing after her companions. The zombies were already charging back with equal reactive force. Some lopped sideways as they were hammered with balls of sweaty liquid and others fell to pieces after a few simple slashes of Courtesan's blades.
“The gate just shut!” Penny shouted.
“Oh, that's helpful,” Moist muttered and thrust out the heel of his palm in the gate's direction, but only a dribble of his power dropped to the earth.
They formed a triangle of zombie-free space, which Moist pushed Penny into. She wanted to argue that she was just as useful as he was in his current powerless state, but she did not want to offend him, or impinge on his new sense of purpose. Because she liked it. She liked seeing someone become who they were meant to be.
Then who I am supposed to be? she thought. Shouldn't I figure that out before I die?
Her protective perimeter shuffled forward, but the rotting rain pressed back. The Pummeller clubbed through two skulls in one blow, but there were five other skulls queuing up for him. Courtesan attempted to batter her own way out of the triangle, but she reluctantly moved back closer to Penny when her efforts came to nothing. Moist was already there, his fingers dripping with slime that certainly did not come from his powers. The source turned out to be the very vulnerable and foul eyeballs that he was jabbing into in an attempt to blind the oncoming wave.
“Billie...” Penny whispered, thinking that she would never be able to wrest her daughter from Captain Hammer after all...
Then something extraordinary happened.
A bolt of blue fell from the sky. When it hit the ground beside her, Penny realised she was looking at a woman in colourful attire with dark brown hair pinned behind her ears. The troublesome, out-of-reach-anyhow gate then flew over their heads and smacked into the building, taking out the wall and any hapless zombies that were close enough to be crushed.
“The arm on that guy!” the woman - Splendour, Penny remembered from a tabloid (the sort a mother reads while waiting for her underthings to stop tumbling) - crowed. “Hi Moist.”
“Uh, thanks, good timing,” Moist said. He suddenly looked far more worried about the appearance of the heroine than he had at the sight of the zombies.
The reason became more apparent when the broad-chested clone of Captain Hammer barrelled in after the gate, zombies flapping off in every other direction. The path he'd made soon re-filled with more of the insatiable undead. Penny glared up at him. “What is he doing here?!”
She heard Moist mutter aside to Padraic and Courtesan, “This is probably going to get really awkward. Can you guys keep the zombies occupied?”
“Mind if I make my own little escape route?” Courtesan snorted.
“Aw come on,” The Pummeller whined, but grinned as he threw a pile of zombies over to one side. “Help me look good in front of everyone. I don't get to do it very often.”
The villainess gave a shrill giggle that seemed highly inappropriate and whirled back into action, a trail of destruction in her wake as she circled the unfolding drama. Padraic's ensuing smile would have been infectious if the situation had not been so dire. Penny was aware of that, aware of the death around them, but she could only see little blue eyes and a faded pink sock and suddenly nothing else mattered except making Hammer pay. She started raining slaps, scratches and kicks all over the hero which definitely hurt her more than he did him, but he hopped back, gaping at her.
A slopping sound that had nothing to do with Moist's exhausted powers echoed across the desolate not-lawn as the head of the Henchman's Union punched right through a zombie's head. He whirled around to Splendour who was eyeing the scene with disbelief. Moist said, “Slight problem with Captain Hammer. That's not... him. Not exactly. Kind of like a copy.”
“What?! Come on, that's crazy!” Splendour triple-somersaulted and her feet sank into a zombie's abdomen. She nearly fell over with it. “I don't have time for this. Copy or not, he's going to clear a gauntlet. Ready?”
Captain Hammer grabbed Penny by both shoulders and lifted her as one of Courtesan's victims went flying into her path. Still holding her struggling limbs away from his precious face, he informed everyone, “As a matter of fact, there is a hammer on this shirt and no one would be foolish enough to steal my logo. I have lawyers for that. Failing that, my hands can get dirty convincing them otherwise. Don't do chemistry, kids, because you never know when you might create the next plague of undead monstrosities.”
“What have you done with my daughter?!” Penny shouted at him.
“What is she talking about?” Captain Hammer moved her to one side so he could see the zombie he was aiming his boot at. It impaled itself on his leg, gnashed about for a bit, then fell apart as Splendour careened past. “I didn't even touch the poop factory.”
Moist had seemingly regained some of his powers because Penny found the clone's grip on her suddenly slippery and she hit the ground, knocking her friend over. A zombie fell across them and Mist struggled against it until Penny threw both of them off her. She jumped to her feet and tried to get back at Captain Hammer, but the superheroine swooped in to block her. Splendour forced out between quick breaths, “She thinks... you're a clone or something, which is crazy but...”
Captain Hammer's arms, which had still been raised in the air, dropped to his sides. His expression became blank and a zombie crawled in under his legs. Neither entity seemed to take any notice of each other and more zombies began to crowd in around the bulky hero.
“Hammer? Are you alright?” Splendour demanded, but did not get any closer, her eyes wide.
“Professor Normal controls him - he's not going to help us!” Penny half-screamed at her.
Moist took hold of her shoulders, which were still trembling and sore from Captain Hammer's touch, and threw her at Splendour. “Get her out of here. But make sure you come back to help us out, huh?”
Penny struggled, but the heroine latched an arm around her waist and suddenly the ground fell away. The protests lodged themselves halfway up Penny's throat, but Splendour already had her on the road. The brightly-dressed woman gave her a little push and then performed a patronising shooing motion. “Okay there, Penny, is it? I just lost a friend of mine and I'm not in the habit of losing my own life. But I feel inclined to help Moist out, so can you keep yourself out of trouble while I save his butt?”
The streak of blue slammed back onto the other side of the sea of waggling limbs and rejoined the fray. The sun bounced sharply off Courtesan's blades as she hacked her way ahead, followed by torn brown boxing gloves.
Penny watched helplessly as the four moved towards the gap where the gate had once been. The unsettled roiling in her stomach could not have been food related, because she had not eaten for almost a day, and it felt worse than when she'd held the Stun Ray on Professor Normal only for the device to whimper instead of firing. It was like swallowing a ball of pure guilt wrapped up in decaying flesh. No side of garlic.
“That was so cool!” piped up a voice behind her. “Did your brain get eaten?”
Moped abandoned by the gutter, a teenager wearing a faux leather bomber jacket, ridiculously big black frames without any glass in them and holding a phone no larger than his fist was watching the scene with rapt attention. The camera made redundant flashing noises, no doubt capturing everyone's faces. This would not do. Penny snatched his phone and crunched it under her peeling, but still very solid heels. The boy ran off, apparently deciding that his dignity was worth more than a piece of technology. He even left his glasses when they fell off.
She swung around frantically and saw the hill beyond filled with truly dead zombies and ones still having a go at life. No heroes. No villains. No clones. Panic turned her vision grey.
“You okay?” Moist asked from beside her.
Penny was too tired to throw her arms around him again, so merely leaned against him. He put his arms around her shoulders and said softly, “I'm sure the Doc got out in time.”
“I just want to see Billie - my daughter,” she clarified, in case he thought she meant someone else. Someone they didn't know.
Moist said nothing, but he squeezed her shoulder and very gently led her away after the shadows of their equally worn out companions.
Unfortunately, even if a taxi had dared to come near the zombies, none of our hapless “heroes” would have been able to pay for one.
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Johnny Snow stared at the collection of heroes, villains and what-have-yous filling the hallway outside Wanda's apartment and merely stepped aside. Asking questions probably seemed like a moot point. Penny pestered him with questions of her own until he pointed mutely at the couch where Billie was propped up against cushions, her mouth opened wide in a yawn.
“So this is what's left of the Heroes Guild and the Evil League of Evil,” Wanda said a little while later, looking at them all from her position at the espresso machine. “And they all fit into my living room.”
“And the head of the Henchman's Union,” Moist added from his patch of floor beside the couch.
Wanda clamped down hard on her smile, instead frowning into the steam rising off her beloved appliance. “You too. Seriously, though, can someone explain about Hammer? He may be denser than his muscles, but even that wouldn't make him run towards Professor Normal like an adoring puppy. Plus, he was with us for a while... we should have noticed something.”
“Can I go back to hating him now?” Johnny Snow asked, his face shrouded in confusion. “It was weird thinking of him as someone I didn't want to smack. But I guess being a clone would explain how less douche-y he was.”
“And he was able to feel pain,” Splendour mused.
“That too,” Johnny conceded, draping himself luxuriously over his half of the couch.
Everyone's eyes gravitated towards her eventually, so Penny told her story in as little detail as possible, but she could not avoid the looks they gave her.
“This is why you leave the evil stuff to your precious Doctor Horrible,” Courtesan pitted at her, smiling maliciously in a way that deepened her pinky finger-length scars, before pressing a shivering caress over a tear in her beautiful dress. Penny noticed that she was busier worrying the tear to reveal more of her tan leg than with trying to keep the dress from being ruined any further.
The Pummeller, given the happy position of a fold-out chair next to the armchair that Courtesan had appropriated, stared openly then coughed awkwardly into his glove. “That's not really nice, Courtesan.”
“Why would I waste my breath being nice to anyone?” Courtesan demanded, hooking her leg up over the other in a very poor imitation of crossing the limbs.
“You could be nice to me,” he sulked. “I always brought you that horchata stuff when you asked me to and - and I carried you most of the way here!”
The villainess smiled, leaning over to pat his thigh. “I haven't insulted you in the past few minutes, have I?”
“These Shikadi are toast,” he whispered, testing it out.
She winked slowly, deliberately, just for him, then whispered back, “MS-DOS games are wonderful, aren't they?”
The Pummeller did his best not to criticise her behaviour after that, preferring to stare at her with a dreamy look on his face, much to Penny's disapproval. All previous thoughts of rifling through Wanda Plenn's fridge for lettuce and bread were quickly dropped.
But she still thought it was kind of cute. The Pummeller was a destructive force, but Padraic Jones had very little luck in his personal life. And just because she wasn't happy didn't mean he couldn't be...
Keep your head up, Penny, she told herself. You've been happy with nothing before.
But that had been a very different kind of 'nothing'. She'd barely made her rent five years ago but she'd had... someone. The room warped as moisture beneath her eyes began to heat up. Penny gathered yawning Billie into her arms and escaped into Splendour's tiny, poky bedroom. Moist leaped up from his position on the floor, preparing to follow.
“Let her go,” Splendour cautioned him. “She needs a couple of minutes. I know that look.”
“She'll need a century,” chortled Courtesan, who then turned her radiant smile back on The Pummeller. “I'm sorry, guapo. I will try to behave myself. Unless you'd like me to be naughty...”
The Pummeller's Adam's Apple jogged up and down for a several moments.
“I'm going to need a couple of minutes to myself to keep from throwing up,” Johnny Snow grumbled.
Wanda snorted into her freshly-brewed mug of coffee. “I may have to join you. And Courtesan, no one asked you to join us. I don't even know why I let you into my apartment.” Her eyes alighted on Moist as he ceased pacing nearby and made his way for the door. “Wait, Moist, it hasn't been enough time - ”
“Yeah, you're right,” he said over his shoulder. “There's not a heap of time though. And if you want to know what we're supposed to do next, then we need her.”
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Moist joined her on the fire escape, probably a good while after he'd first spotted her there. Whereas she kept against the wall, legs crossed to better stay away from the sharp drop, he preferred to hang his legs over the edge, leaning forward against the bars of the railing to look down. The sliver of sunshine that fell across the fire escape and Penny's arms felt amazing. She shifted Billie from one side of her lap into some of the sun and her daughter murmured in her sleep, unaffected by the change in light. Penny drew her fingers slowly through Billie's dusty blonde hair, trying to smile, but finding it hard to curve her lips over her gritted teeth. After a while, Moist broke the silence. “I'm sorry, Pen.”
“I know,” she responded, pulling the sleeve over her spare hand to wipe at her eyes. “I guess I just don't want to accept that Billy's not there for me because if I do...”
Moist reached into his jacket pocket and produced a crisp, dry handkerchief. He could not hide the grin as he handed it over with a flourish. The cloth dented loosely between Penny's fingers as she stared at it, then she dampened it at the corner of her eyes. She passed it back to Moist and watched the wet fabric dry within moments. He flicked his fingers over the edge of the fire escape and a tiny blob of moisture sprang away into empty space, presumably hitting the pavement below.
“You taught me to not give up,” Moist said, tapping his knees as he swung his legs. “You're always so positive about stuff - but let me teach you when to let go. I know it sucks but... sometimes you have to, you know?”
“You let go of him so long ago,” Penny pointed out, looking at him grimly.
His sigh seemed to echo in the empty space inside her. “I regret that. Maybe if I'd been there for the Doc... but right now there are other things to worry about. Let it go, Pen. Even if it's just for now.”
She straightened, wriggling her shoulders against the concrete behind her. “Right. Now we need to have an actual plan.”
“Well, uh, if you think about it, this all happened because of a plan of yours,” he reminded her.
“Thanks, Moist,” Penny muttered. “I needed to remember that.”
He shook his head a few too many times. “Well, I didn't... okay, so maybe I meant it. Sorry. But we'll fix it, Pen. It's not like uh... it's not like we'll get help. From him.”
Billie's hair felt tangled beneath her absent teasing, so Penny busied herself with straightening out the soft strands without waking her daughter. The girl slept on, her small lips in a straight line, though there was a slight nick downwards at one corner. Penny hoped Billie was not dreaming of her namesake. Penny couldn't... couldn't comfort her daughter when it still disturbed her so much. What were they without Bi... that man? Where could they go from here?
“Fine, that's fine,” Penny spoke up, voice flat. “If he's too busy or whatever for me, then I'll just have to... do something on my own. I don't know if I can. Things don't work when I'm alone.”
Moist cleared his throat. “You did alright living in a separate building across town for ages. And there's... me. You've been more of a friend to to me than Doctor Horrible ever was. He only let me hang around because I got his mail.”
“I bet that wasn't true,” Penny assured. “Not like... now. Now I don't know. But I do know you're my friend and that counts for something.”
“Not to mention you've got the last remaining people in LA who can fight zombies nearby,” he pointed out, grinning.
Their mingled laughs filled the fire escape. Penny knew hers sounded a tad shrill, but it didn't matter. The sunshine was suddenly inside her, filling her with that old familiar friend - hope. She gasped for breath, which dislodged Billie's head from her lap. Her daughter blinked up at them and smiled. “Mos?”
“Hey, Billie,” Moist replied, leaning over to speak to her face to face. “Miss me?”
“Yup!” she exclaimed, sitting up to swipe at his nose.
Moist darted expertly back. He kicked off one of his shoes and rolled off the dirty, smelly, very-off-white sock then presented it for Billie. Delightedly, she scooped it up and began to pet it. Penny pulled a face - the expression hurt a little, but it felt good regardless. She told Moist, “I just want to be alone with Billie here for a little while. But I promise when I come in, I'll have a plan.”
“Just make sure you do it before we all kill each other, huh?” the hero joked before sliding back through the window. The 'hero' label suited him.
Penny smiled after him, then held her daughter close. Billie pecked her lips against her mother's cheek and Penny duly repaid the kiss. Together, they watched the sirens whiz by below and the occasional looter running past with a television set.
There wasn't a lot of time. It was time enough for Penny Claybourne.
Her eyes may have reflected the mayhem below, but inside... there was only quiet.
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Various Author's Notes
Dedicated to SOSKate88 and ArielsLament.
I am so incredibly sorry everyone but - I made a Commander Keen reference in this chapter. My bad! If you don't understand why I made reference to it, please re-read The League is Watching. :)
I feel I should apologise about the huge delay. Whoops. I shouldn't even be posting this, because I have a mountain of uni stuff to do.
I swore to myself I'd never give any of the characters in this fandom full names, but sometimes an occasion calls for it. I also think 'Padraic' is a hilarious, somewhat appropriate name for The Pummeller. :) And I'm very fond of 'Claybourne' as Penny's last name.
Author: hypercaz
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/Characters: Moist, Penny, Johnny Snow, Captain Hammer's clone, Splendour, Pink/The Pummeller
Genre: drama/action/a smattering of humour
Word count: 5500
Summary: 5th in the Cumin Doesn't Quack universe (i.e. Billy and Penny began dating a few weeks before the webisodes).
Professor Normal's mutant zombies get a taste for the ELE headquarters. Nom.
AN: Minor x-over. Has no actual bearing on this fanfic.
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Hey, I know you.
Hello. You know me? Cool. I mean, yeah. You do. Do you?
- Penny and Dr. Horrible, Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
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Attack of the Mutant Zombies
ACT II - I Think I'm a Clone Now
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The faux manor house crowning the peak of the hill had probably once been grand and the venue of great, classy parties. No living soul would bother with such affairs there now - the cracked walls were grey-washed from passing traffic, the front door had been completely walled in with ill-fitting red bricks, the windows varied between barred or completely boarded up and the current inhabitants were generally considered to be the most evil people in Los Angeles, if not the world.
The garden wasn't too cluttered, actually. Probably because any trees that would have dropped leaves had been removed so no one could sneak up on the Evil League of Evil's headquarters. The lawn required no maintenance, owing to the fact that grass abhorred the place entirely and all that was left was dirt and cigarette butts. And possibly the occasional piece of bone. Let's not dwell on that.
The driveway - simple, boring, unfailing concrete - slightly wound its way down to the gnarled and spiky black fence that ran the entire perimeter. If this was not enough to deter any hero, then the four feet of electrified wires on top of the fence certainly did the job.
Presently, the gate was under siege. Not from devout religious beings, not from solicitors, not from daring journalists attached to current affairs programmes and certainly not any members from the somewhat scattered, very depleted Heroes Guild.
The zombies were twenty deep from the fence to the middle of the road. Their numbers were growing by the minute. A yahoo with a YouTube account sat astride his parked moped, camera phone focused on the scene. He was imagining view hits, thumbs ups and maybe some more subscribers.
The zombies were imagining brains, brains and maybe some more brains.
Chiefly, their objective was to enter the property and restore Professor Normal to his throne. But they were not capable of deducing this.
Smoothly, the well-oiled and well-surveillanced gate swung open at the command of the true genius behind the demise of the ELE.
Uninvited guests began to pour into the grounds. Their rising moans and grunts seemed an appropriate soundtrack for the ELE's headquarters but worst of all - they were answered by others from within the house.
Professor Normal, peering out of a window in the attic, could not have been more pleased.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Penny ducked just in time for her companion to smash through the slippery exposed skull of the zombie in front of them. She recovered quickly, took a moment to brush a fragment of dead skin off her shirt, and barely managed to dance out of reach of arms that flailed from the wall as though stuck there separately.
“They're in the walls - stay in the middle of the corridor!” Penny instructed.
The Pummeller mournfully shook brain matter off his prized gloves, then looked up at her with horror. “Have you got a plan? You do have a plan, don't you? None of this will work if you don't...”
“Padraic!” Penny interrupted, spinning around to face him. “It's okay. You don't have to think too hard. Just... help me rescue Moist from Gemini.”
“Oh,” he said, then barrelled down Penny's left to punch through the weathered wall to KO another vagrant pair of limbs.
Penny remained unflinching. “Oh?”
“Gemini really isn't cool with Moist. We'll be taking him home in bits and pieces. Penny - watch out!”
She hit the floor, skimming a millimetre or so of skin off her palms. Thickset and imbibed with superior strength, The Pummeller unleashed padded gloved fury on the three or so members of the undead who had tried to sneak up on Penny. She had always played up his ability in the press releases rather than his personality because he really could not comprehend turning his fists on puppies or children. Zombies, however, appeared not to share that immunity.
A pair of hands tore through the wall at ankle height and grappled with The Pummeller before he tripped and fell. Zombie No. 477 collapsed on top of him, suckling up from the shoulder pads peeking out through a hole in The Pummeller's shirt to his exposed jaw. The hands of a so-called villain latched around its neck and wrenched the head clean off with a disgusting squelch.
Penny gasped as more zombies hurried down both ends of the corridor. “Padraic...”
“I'd really like to hear your plan now, Penny!” he exclaimed.
A sickly pale, writhing pile of the undead buried Padraic until all Penny could see were brown boxing gloves bursting up towards freedom. Mindful of her own peril, she put her back to her friend and held up her fists in a weak imitation of his already unoriginal stance. Penny dropped when the first one lurched towards her and swung her shoe into its ankles. It fell on top of her and she cried out as her already sore arm twisted beneath her. Gritting her teeth, she used her free hard to wrench out her assailant's jaw bone when it tried to crunch down on her. She punctured its face with the jagged edge of the bone until it slid sideways onto the floor. She forced herself to keep her eyes open as she garrotted it.
Panting, she looked up at the line of zombies and saw her death.
A stream of soupy liquid burst across her assailants. They dutifully fell about, some losing their motor skills completely. Moist leaped from head to head, flattening the sopping mess beneath his sneakers. One shoe was completely missing its laces, while the other was splattered with dark red blood over the toes. Penny felt a multitude of things - relief to see him alive, pride to know he had come so far in two days and...certainty that he had not killed Gemini. She knew Moist. She knew more about him than Billy - and she could admit that now.
Penny mouthed his name, but found her voice absent. She leaped up and hugged him in lieu of words. Moist awkwardly patted her back. “Sorry I took so long. I uh... had to dodge a few bullets. Nothing major, though.”
The Pummeller looped his large muscled arm around the pair of of them and sniffled. Moist rolled his eyes and slipped easily from their grasp. Mucus-y flecks sprayed from his hands as he patted his drying clothes down.
“You're alive!” Padraic said with a grin. “Did you inherit a power too or something?”
“Or something,” Moist replied. He managed a grin of his own, but lost it soon enough. “Pen, we have got to get out of here.”
Penny thought briefly of blue eyes brighter than Moist's then shook the image away. “I completely agree. Any ideas?”
The Henchman Union's leader's face bunched to one side as he considered. He scratched at his slowly re-moistening scalp before an idea alighted on his face. “The side entrance?”
“Too many zombies,” Penny countered, peering down the eerily empty corridor. She trusted the zombies' absence no more than she did her boyfri...whatever he was.
“How about I smash a hole in the wall?” The Pummeller suggested.
Moist shrugged. “Works for me.”
Gayly, Padraic buried two fists in the nearest wall, threw out a zombie which Moist disintegrated with a single burst, then burrowed through. Penny sprang in after him and blinked away the sudden light that performed an onslaught on her eyes. They had passed through the hidden passageway in the wall all the way through to a small room that accommodated no more than six mini-chandeliers,
seven mirrors that managed to dwarf the bulky Padraic and multi-coloured gems embedded wherever there wasn't a decoration or a painting of a tall, elegant Hispanic woman with silver eyes and identical cuts on both cheeks.
“Moist, is that you?” asked the subject of the portraits as she rose from a red settee with crystal legs. Her dress was a strapless, ruby affair that matched the satin of her furniture and she appeared to flow from the upholstery. “Where have you been? I've been waiting for thirty minutes for someone to tell me what is going on. Perdón, but we fired you didn't we?”
Penny recognised the woman as Courtesan - as beautiful and hard as a diamond, with perfect lines for her neck and calves. Frowning as the villainess looked them up and down with a slow sneer curling her pretty lips, Penny remembered her previous misgivings over Courtesan's appointment to the ELE. But she had pressed Billy to take on the knife expert for the League's image.
“Actually, I quit,” Moist said quietly.
“That's not important right now,” Penny cut in, stepping out in front of her companions. Her heels snapped the highly polished and highly reflective floorboards simultaneously as she stopped within a pace of Courtesan. “Professor Normal is back.”
Courtesan sighed and sank back onto the settee, leaning back as she threw her hand over her face. “Oh dear. That man is so terribly smart.”
Penny stared at her. She heard the unmistakeable groaning and shuffling out in the corridor and wondered how she could impress upon Courtesan the seriousness of the situation without actually letting a zombie bite her. The Pummeller muttered to himself and began to strike out at the heads and arms that started thrusting through the hole he had made.
“Okay,” said Penny. “I don't care if you stay. You can probably look after yourself. Because that is exactly what Doctor Horrible is doing right now. Are you coming with us or would you like to, I don't know, swoon for the zombies too?”
“You little puta,” snarled Courtesan. “You spread your legs for a man with a pathetic evil laugh and think you can order me about. Were you really so stupid that you did not ask for payment?”
The slap stung Penny's raw palm when she delivered it, and errant pricks of numbed pain sprinkled over her skin afterwards. Courtesan covered up the fading mark on her face with a delicately placed hand. Her sneer dissolved into an indignant, open-mouthed expression.
Moist chuckled. “Way to go, Penny!”
“Can we go now?” demanded The Pummeller over his shoulder. An arm was flailing around his neck like a tentacle, so he ripped it off and started hitting the zombie with its own ashen limb.
Penny indicated the wall behind Courtesan. “Is this an exterior wall?”
“How should I know?” Courtesan sniffed.
“You know what?” Penny, though a good three inches shorter even with her shoes, stared down the villainess with blazing green eyes. “I don't need your help. Padraic, please make an exit for us. Moist, make sure Professor Normal's toys don't follow.”
Moist shot into the hole at will, tapping The Pummeller's shoulder as he did so. The latter turned, appraised the wall behind Courtesan's prized settee, raised his fists and ran full tilt towards freedom. The hole he left could have fit a small truck. Not entirely stealthy, but it suited Penny just fine. She shouldered past Courtesan and called for Moist. Her friend left backwards, showering the floor with slippery liquid to cover their escape. Courtesan latched onto his arm and skidded onto the dirt outside.
All four of them stared at what awaited them.
“That... kind of sucks, right,” Penny supplied for everyone too stunned to think up an expletive. “I think we have a bigger problem than we just did.”
“It's been nice knowing you guys,” Moist said.
Though they inhabited a small pocket of zombie-free soil, there were hordes between them and the gate. And many hollow eyes had turned in the direction of noise and brains.
Courtesan slipped her fingers down her sides before whipping out jewel-laden daggers that were impossible to have hidden anywhere in her dress, though she must have managed. She snapped, “Speak for yourself!”
“We'll have to try at least,” Penny said aside to Moist.
He held up both hands, looking over at her with a half-smile half-grimace. “Oh, hey, I'm not saying we can't. I've kind of been in this situation before. I'm just saying... it's been nice.”
“Hah!” Padraic exclaimed, wiping his gloves against his trousers. “This mob is about to get pummelled!”
“I like the sound of that plan,” Penny said.
“So we're just going to do it, huh?” Moist asked, raising his eyebrows.
Penny smiled. “Sure, let's do it.”
Penny was the first to start running. Moist and The Pummeller followed instantly, though it only took a few moans behind Courtesan to send her chasing after her companions. The zombies were already charging back with equal reactive force. Some lopped sideways as they were hammered with balls of sweaty liquid and others fell to pieces after a few simple slashes of Courtesan's blades.
“The gate just shut!” Penny shouted.
“Oh, that's helpful,” Moist muttered and thrust out the heel of his palm in the gate's direction, but only a dribble of his power dropped to the earth.
They formed a triangle of zombie-free space, which Moist pushed Penny into. She wanted to argue that she was just as useful as he was in his current powerless state, but she did not want to offend him, or impinge on his new sense of purpose. Because she liked it. She liked seeing someone become who they were meant to be.
Then who I am supposed to be? she thought. Shouldn't I figure that out before I die?
Her protective perimeter shuffled forward, but the rotting rain pressed back. The Pummeller clubbed through two skulls in one blow, but there were five other skulls queuing up for him. Courtesan attempted to batter her own way out of the triangle, but she reluctantly moved back closer to Penny when her efforts came to nothing. Moist was already there, his fingers dripping with slime that certainly did not come from his powers. The source turned out to be the very vulnerable and foul eyeballs that he was jabbing into in an attempt to blind the oncoming wave.
“Billie...” Penny whispered, thinking that she would never be able to wrest her daughter from Captain Hammer after all...
Then something extraordinary happened.
A bolt of blue fell from the sky. When it hit the ground beside her, Penny realised she was looking at a woman in colourful attire with dark brown hair pinned behind her ears. The troublesome, out-of-reach-anyhow gate then flew over their heads and smacked into the building, taking out the wall and any hapless zombies that were close enough to be crushed.
“The arm on that guy!” the woman - Splendour, Penny remembered from a tabloid (the sort a mother reads while waiting for her underthings to stop tumbling) - crowed. “Hi Moist.”
“Uh, thanks, good timing,” Moist said. He suddenly looked far more worried about the appearance of the heroine than he had at the sight of the zombies.
The reason became more apparent when the broad-chested clone of Captain Hammer barrelled in after the gate, zombies flapping off in every other direction. The path he'd made soon re-filled with more of the insatiable undead. Penny glared up at him. “What is he doing here?!”
She heard Moist mutter aside to Padraic and Courtesan, “This is probably going to get really awkward. Can you guys keep the zombies occupied?”
“Mind if I make my own little escape route?” Courtesan snorted.
“Aw come on,” The Pummeller whined, but grinned as he threw a pile of zombies over to one side. “Help me look good in front of everyone. I don't get to do it very often.”
The villainess gave a shrill giggle that seemed highly inappropriate and whirled back into action, a trail of destruction in her wake as she circled the unfolding drama. Padraic's ensuing smile would have been infectious if the situation had not been so dire. Penny was aware of that, aware of the death around them, but she could only see little blue eyes and a faded pink sock and suddenly nothing else mattered except making Hammer pay. She started raining slaps, scratches and kicks all over the hero which definitely hurt her more than he did him, but he hopped back, gaping at her.
A slopping sound that had nothing to do with Moist's exhausted powers echoed across the desolate not-lawn as the head of the Henchman's Union punched right through a zombie's head. He whirled around to Splendour who was eyeing the scene with disbelief. Moist said, “Slight problem with Captain Hammer. That's not... him. Not exactly. Kind of like a copy.”
“What?! Come on, that's crazy!” Splendour triple-somersaulted and her feet sank into a zombie's abdomen. She nearly fell over with it. “I don't have time for this. Copy or not, he's going to clear a gauntlet. Ready?”
Captain Hammer grabbed Penny by both shoulders and lifted her as one of Courtesan's victims went flying into her path. Still holding her struggling limbs away from his precious face, he informed everyone, “As a matter of fact, there is a hammer on this shirt and no one would be foolish enough to steal my logo. I have lawyers for that. Failing that, my hands can get dirty convincing them otherwise. Don't do chemistry, kids, because you never know when you might create the next plague of undead monstrosities.”
“What have you done with my daughter?!” Penny shouted at him.
“What is she talking about?” Captain Hammer moved her to one side so he could see the zombie he was aiming his boot at. It impaled itself on his leg, gnashed about for a bit, then fell apart as Splendour careened past. “I didn't even touch the poop factory.”
Moist had seemingly regained some of his powers because Penny found the clone's grip on her suddenly slippery and she hit the ground, knocking her friend over. A zombie fell across them and Mist struggled against it until Penny threw both of them off her. She jumped to her feet and tried to get back at Captain Hammer, but the superheroine swooped in to block her. Splendour forced out between quick breaths, “She thinks... you're a clone or something, which is crazy but...”
Captain Hammer's arms, which had still been raised in the air, dropped to his sides. His expression became blank and a zombie crawled in under his legs. Neither entity seemed to take any notice of each other and more zombies began to crowd in around the bulky hero.
“Hammer? Are you alright?” Splendour demanded, but did not get any closer, her eyes wide.
“Professor Normal controls him - he's not going to help us!” Penny half-screamed at her.
Moist took hold of her shoulders, which were still trembling and sore from Captain Hammer's touch, and threw her at Splendour. “Get her out of here. But make sure you come back to help us out, huh?”
Penny struggled, but the heroine latched an arm around her waist and suddenly the ground fell away. The protests lodged themselves halfway up Penny's throat, but Splendour already had her on the road. The brightly-dressed woman gave her a little push and then performed a patronising shooing motion. “Okay there, Penny, is it? I just lost a friend of mine and I'm not in the habit of losing my own life. But I feel inclined to help Moist out, so can you keep yourself out of trouble while I save his butt?”
The streak of blue slammed back onto the other side of the sea of waggling limbs and rejoined the fray. The sun bounced sharply off Courtesan's blades as she hacked her way ahead, followed by torn brown boxing gloves.
Penny watched helplessly as the four moved towards the gap where the gate had once been. The unsettled roiling in her stomach could not have been food related, because she had not eaten for almost a day, and it felt worse than when she'd held the Stun Ray on Professor Normal only for the device to whimper instead of firing. It was like swallowing a ball of pure guilt wrapped up in decaying flesh. No side of garlic.
“That was so cool!” piped up a voice behind her. “Did your brain get eaten?”
Moped abandoned by the gutter, a teenager wearing a faux leather bomber jacket, ridiculously big black frames without any glass in them and holding a phone no larger than his fist was watching the scene with rapt attention. The camera made redundant flashing noises, no doubt capturing everyone's faces. This would not do. Penny snatched his phone and crunched it under her peeling, but still very solid heels. The boy ran off, apparently deciding that his dignity was worth more than a piece of technology. He even left his glasses when they fell off.
She swung around frantically and saw the hill beyond filled with truly dead zombies and ones still having a go at life. No heroes. No villains. No clones. Panic turned her vision grey.
“You okay?” Moist asked from beside her.
Penny was too tired to throw her arms around him again, so merely leaned against him. He put his arms around her shoulders and said softly, “I'm sure the Doc got out in time.”
“I just want to see Billie - my daughter,” she clarified, in case he thought she meant someone else. Someone they didn't know.
Moist said nothing, but he squeezed her shoulder and very gently led her away after the shadows of their equally worn out companions.
Unfortunately, even if a taxi had dared to come near the zombies, none of our hapless “heroes” would have been able to pay for one.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Johnny Snow stared at the collection of heroes, villains and what-have-yous filling the hallway outside Wanda's apartment and merely stepped aside. Asking questions probably seemed like a moot point. Penny pestered him with questions of her own until he pointed mutely at the couch where Billie was propped up against cushions, her mouth opened wide in a yawn.
“So this is what's left of the Heroes Guild and the Evil League of Evil,” Wanda said a little while later, looking at them all from her position at the espresso machine. “And they all fit into my living room.”
“And the head of the Henchman's Union,” Moist added from his patch of floor beside the couch.
Wanda clamped down hard on her smile, instead frowning into the steam rising off her beloved appliance. “You too. Seriously, though, can someone explain about Hammer? He may be denser than his muscles, but even that wouldn't make him run towards Professor Normal like an adoring puppy. Plus, he was with us for a while... we should have noticed something.”
“Can I go back to hating him now?” Johnny Snow asked, his face shrouded in confusion. “It was weird thinking of him as someone I didn't want to smack. But I guess being a clone would explain how less douche-y he was.”
“And he was able to feel pain,” Splendour mused.
“That too,” Johnny conceded, draping himself luxuriously over his half of the couch.
Everyone's eyes gravitated towards her eventually, so Penny told her story in as little detail as possible, but she could not avoid the looks they gave her.
“This is why you leave the evil stuff to your precious Doctor Horrible,” Courtesan pitted at her, smiling maliciously in a way that deepened her pinky finger-length scars, before pressing a shivering caress over a tear in her beautiful dress. Penny noticed that she was busier worrying the tear to reveal more of her tan leg than with trying to keep the dress from being ruined any further.
The Pummeller, given the happy position of a fold-out chair next to the armchair that Courtesan had appropriated, stared openly then coughed awkwardly into his glove. “That's not really nice, Courtesan.”
“Why would I waste my breath being nice to anyone?” Courtesan demanded, hooking her leg up over the other in a very poor imitation of crossing the limbs.
“You could be nice to me,” he sulked. “I always brought you that horchata stuff when you asked me to and - and I carried you most of the way here!”
The villainess smiled, leaning over to pat his thigh. “I haven't insulted you in the past few minutes, have I?”
“These Shikadi are toast,” he whispered, testing it out.
She winked slowly, deliberately, just for him, then whispered back, “MS-DOS games are wonderful, aren't they?”
The Pummeller did his best not to criticise her behaviour after that, preferring to stare at her with a dreamy look on his face, much to Penny's disapproval. All previous thoughts of rifling through Wanda Plenn's fridge for lettuce and bread were quickly dropped.
But she still thought it was kind of cute. The Pummeller was a destructive force, but Padraic Jones had very little luck in his personal life. And just because she wasn't happy didn't mean he couldn't be...
Keep your head up, Penny, she told herself. You've been happy with nothing before.
But that had been a very different kind of 'nothing'. She'd barely made her rent five years ago but she'd had... someone. The room warped as moisture beneath her eyes began to heat up. Penny gathered yawning Billie into her arms and escaped into Splendour's tiny, poky bedroom. Moist leaped up from his position on the floor, preparing to follow.
“Let her go,” Splendour cautioned him. “She needs a couple of minutes. I know that look.”
“She'll need a century,” chortled Courtesan, who then turned her radiant smile back on The Pummeller. “I'm sorry, guapo. I will try to behave myself. Unless you'd like me to be naughty...”
The Pummeller's Adam's Apple jogged up and down for a several moments.
“I'm going to need a couple of minutes to myself to keep from throwing up,” Johnny Snow grumbled.
Wanda snorted into her freshly-brewed mug of coffee. “I may have to join you. And Courtesan, no one asked you to join us. I don't even know why I let you into my apartment.” Her eyes alighted on Moist as he ceased pacing nearby and made his way for the door. “Wait, Moist, it hasn't been enough time - ”
“Yeah, you're right,” he said over his shoulder. “There's not a heap of time though. And if you want to know what we're supposed to do next, then we need her.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Moist joined her on the fire escape, probably a good while after he'd first spotted her there. Whereas she kept against the wall, legs crossed to better stay away from the sharp drop, he preferred to hang his legs over the edge, leaning forward against the bars of the railing to look down. The sliver of sunshine that fell across the fire escape and Penny's arms felt amazing. She shifted Billie from one side of her lap into some of the sun and her daughter murmured in her sleep, unaffected by the change in light. Penny drew her fingers slowly through Billie's dusty blonde hair, trying to smile, but finding it hard to curve her lips over her gritted teeth. After a while, Moist broke the silence. “I'm sorry, Pen.”
“I know,” she responded, pulling the sleeve over her spare hand to wipe at her eyes. “I guess I just don't want to accept that Billy's not there for me because if I do...”
Moist reached into his jacket pocket and produced a crisp, dry handkerchief. He could not hide the grin as he handed it over with a flourish. The cloth dented loosely between Penny's fingers as she stared at it, then she dampened it at the corner of her eyes. She passed it back to Moist and watched the wet fabric dry within moments. He flicked his fingers over the edge of the fire escape and a tiny blob of moisture sprang away into empty space, presumably hitting the pavement below.
“You taught me to not give up,” Moist said, tapping his knees as he swung his legs. “You're always so positive about stuff - but let me teach you when to let go. I know it sucks but... sometimes you have to, you know?”
“You let go of him so long ago,” Penny pointed out, looking at him grimly.
His sigh seemed to echo in the empty space inside her. “I regret that. Maybe if I'd been there for the Doc... but right now there are other things to worry about. Let it go, Pen. Even if it's just for now.”
She straightened, wriggling her shoulders against the concrete behind her. “Right. Now we need to have an actual plan.”
“Well, uh, if you think about it, this all happened because of a plan of yours,” he reminded her.
“Thanks, Moist,” Penny muttered. “I needed to remember that.”
He shook his head a few too many times. “Well, I didn't... okay, so maybe I meant it. Sorry. But we'll fix it, Pen. It's not like uh... it's not like we'll get help. From him.”
Billie's hair felt tangled beneath her absent teasing, so Penny busied herself with straightening out the soft strands without waking her daughter. The girl slept on, her small lips in a straight line, though there was a slight nick downwards at one corner. Penny hoped Billie was not dreaming of her namesake. Penny couldn't... couldn't comfort her daughter when it still disturbed her so much. What were they without Bi... that man? Where could they go from here?
“Fine, that's fine,” Penny spoke up, voice flat. “If he's too busy or whatever for me, then I'll just have to... do something on my own. I don't know if I can. Things don't work when I'm alone.”
Moist cleared his throat. “You did alright living in a separate building across town for ages. And there's... me. You've been more of a friend to to me than Doctor Horrible ever was. He only let me hang around because I got his mail.”
“I bet that wasn't true,” Penny assured. “Not like... now. Now I don't know. But I do know you're my friend and that counts for something.”
“Not to mention you've got the last remaining people in LA who can fight zombies nearby,” he pointed out, grinning.
Their mingled laughs filled the fire escape. Penny knew hers sounded a tad shrill, but it didn't matter. The sunshine was suddenly inside her, filling her with that old familiar friend - hope. She gasped for breath, which dislodged Billie's head from her lap. Her daughter blinked up at them and smiled. “Mos?”
“Hey, Billie,” Moist replied, leaning over to speak to her face to face. “Miss me?”
“Yup!” she exclaimed, sitting up to swipe at his nose.
Moist darted expertly back. He kicked off one of his shoes and rolled off the dirty, smelly, very-off-white sock then presented it for Billie. Delightedly, she scooped it up and began to pet it. Penny pulled a face - the expression hurt a little, but it felt good regardless. She told Moist, “I just want to be alone with Billie here for a little while. But I promise when I come in, I'll have a plan.”
“Just make sure you do it before we all kill each other, huh?” the hero joked before sliding back through the window. The 'hero' label suited him.
Penny smiled after him, then held her daughter close. Billie pecked her lips against her mother's cheek and Penny duly repaid the kiss. Together, they watched the sirens whiz by below and the occasional looter running past with a television set.
There wasn't a lot of time. It was time enough for Penny Claybourne.
Her eyes may have reflected the mayhem below, but inside... there was only quiet.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Various Author's Notes
Dedicated to SOSKate88 and ArielsLament.
I am so incredibly sorry everyone but - I made a Commander Keen reference in this chapter. My bad! If you don't understand why I made reference to it, please re-read The League is Watching. :)
I feel I should apologise about the huge delay. Whoops. I shouldn't even be posting this, because I have a mountain of uni stuff to do.
I swore to myself I'd never give any of the characters in this fandom full names, but sometimes an occasion calls for it. I also think 'Padraic' is a hilarious, somewhat appropriate name for The Pummeller. :) And I'm very fond of 'Claybourne' as Penny's last name.