Chapter 4

The glass of juice crashed to the floor with a clatter that was pretty loud for something so small, and a tidal wave of slightly warm Ribena and splintered glass spread over the carpet.

"Damn it!"

Horrible's hands had been shaking violently ever since he had woken up Tuesday morning. It was even worse than the time he had been force fed twenty Lucozade tablets in seventh grade, followed by three bottles of Mountain Dew and a packet of M and M's.

He sincerely hoped that he wouldn't be in need of a stomach pump this time.

Muttering curses under his breath, the good (bad?) Doctor got to work mopping up the mess, a job unbefitting to someone at the pinnacle of their evil career, but Moist was still out and maids were bloody expensive. Unfortunately, his hands seemed to want to do some kind of jazz square, and soon a pool of red was swirling amongst the purple of the berry drink, and making a rather ugly stain on his brand new beige carpet.

"Oh crap." moaned Dr Horrible, clutching his hand, which was now spouting blood like a scarlet Niagara. He stumbled towards the kitchen, casting around for something to stem the flow.

"Plasters, plasters, where did I put those plasters?" Horrible muttered, throwing open the cupboard doors, searching for their rather large medi-kit full of water-proof bandages. They kept a lot of water-proof bandages for several reasons: one, Moist couldn't use the normal ones, for obvious reasons. Two, in a state of constant sogginess, it was expected that was Moist was going to drop things. A lot. And finally, Horrible carried out most of his experiments in their apartment. Suffice to say that keeping enough padded bandages to re-wrap the entire kingdom of Tutankhamen was probably a VERY good idea. Dr Horrible had a lot of explosives and a lot of ideas (many of which weren't legal and could land a man in hospital, or in a very deep hole).

After much searching, cursing, and spattering of internal juices onto the sparkling work surfaces, Horrible eventually found the first aid box. He was just wrapping his hand in the white linen whilst trying to get his burning slice of toast out of the toaster with a fork (don't try that at home), when his cell went off somewhere near the oven.

"They pick their times!" he muttered, abandoning his toast to the inevitable doom of cremation to grab his blaring mobile. It took him several attempts to flip it open, between his jittery fingers and well-bandaged hand.

"Dr Horrible," came the low, unmistakable voice of Professor Normal "I need you down here as soon as possible to get to work on the Resurrect-Ohm-Meter."

"Of course, of course!" he replied, trying to keep his voice steady. He had to keep calm, it was going to be fine, nobody was going to find out-

"It appears that our secrecy had been compromised, and the LAPD appear to have some idea as to what we are planning to do-"

Oh crapbag! Horrible almost dropped his phone as his hands made an involuntary jerk. They knew, they had figured out what he was going to do, he was screwed! He knew that it had been a bad idea from the start, why oh why did he ever suggest it to himself? He should just come clean, tell the ELE at the meeting, and hope that Bad Horse spared his most of his face, then leg it like there was no-

"-should all be fine, but we'd better get started sooner rather than later. I expect you here shortly."

"B-b-u-" the phone cut out just as he began to stammer his confession. He stood in silence for a moment. He racked his brains, but he was pretty sure that, during his moment of blind panic, that Normal hadn't accused him of anything. He only said that the LAPD knew about the machine. Which, in all fairness, was still his fault (stupid blog; he kept forgetting that they subscribed to him). They didn't know.

They didn't know!

Horrible let out a shaky sigh of relief. They hadn't noticed that the blue prints had gone missing, or the notes. He was okay; he just had to play it cool. Find the information, get the components, it should be plain sailing. He didn't know how long it would take, he just had to hope that Moist planned on staying at Switch's for a few weeks. His revised plan meant that it would be both easier, and harder in a way, to achieve his goal, and he could really do without Moist being around; the guy would probably freak out if he found out, or get Horrible carted of to the loony bin. Anyway, he had enough trouble with his, er, present company without adding Moist into the equation too.

He hurried back into the living room, which was littered with bits of scrap metal, glass, and an assortment of containers. In fact, the only space on his floor that wasn't covered in junk was the spot that had now become a congealed mess of Ribena, blood, shards and polyester fibers. It took him five whole minutes to navigate his way to his front door, snatching up his goggles on his way, which were dangling on the end of a rather bent STOP sign. He shunted the door open with a loud "Humph!" and toppled into the corridor.

"You alright sonny?"

Dr Horrible's heart pounded in his throat for a moment, but he calmed down when he saw who the voice belonged to; it was only old Miss Maury, who was blind as a bat and so deaf that you could probably hold a rave in the next room and she wouldn't hear a thing. She squinted down at the young Doctor from behind her jam-jar glasses, taking in his red lab coat and askew goggles.

The get-ups you saw young folk in these days.

"You took quite a tumble there laddy. William, isn't it m'dear?"

"Billy, actually." he corrected her, attempting to ram his glove on over his bandage.

"You kids and your nick-names." she sniffed disapprovingly. "Back in my day, we called each other by our birth names. No 'Billy's' or 'Sam's' or 'Jo's' back then. Proper English, like it should be."

"Right…" said Horrible, clambering to his feet. With a jolt of horror, he realized that the door was still ajar. He hastened to shut it properly, but even Miss Maury could see the mess from her vantage point.

"My my, your house is a complete tip!" she shook her head with distaste, jowls aquiver. "An organized room leads to an organized mind! Remember that!" and with those final words of wisdom, she trotted back off down the hall, cooing to her fat ginger tabby, Mr. Whiskers. Billy waited until he heard her door slam shut before he raced down the stairs and into the LA sunlight.

Horrible reached the subway in record time; he was so high on adrenalin that he had managed to run the ten blocks without collapsing in a dead feint, like he had done on the twelve occasions he had been forced to run cross-country in gym class during middle school. He pulled out his wallet, scooped up some dollar bills and tried to get them into the ticket machine, but he couldn't hold them steady.

"Just take them!" he cried with frustration "Eat them, you government-fuelling machine!" the thing still refused to take his cash, so Horrible vented his fury by kneeing it. It only occurred to him after he had purchased the bloody ticket (which had cost him $2.50 and possibly a kneecap) that he really ought not to of paid; he was evil, after all, and evil people do not pay to ride the subway.

Sigh...

The officer at the turnstile regarded the Doctor with great suspicion as he hobbled onto the tram. The middle-aged man fingered a pistol underneath his uniform; this guy looked like he could be an evil genius, and there was not going to be an exploding tram on his watch. Horrible noticed none of this, still cursing his stupidity, muttering "You are in the ELE. You DO NOT pay…" under his breath and wincing as he put weight on his injured limb. Luckily for him, a rather chubby woman had got lodged in a turnstile, so he was saved from the inconvenience of having a bullet put through his head on top of an achy knee.

The journey seemed faster this time, (as they always do when you don't want to get to where you're going) and in no time at all he was stood in front of the entrance to the ELE. The place looked even more eerily sinister than usual. It might have been because of the storm clouds brewing overhead, but it was probably more to do with the fact that Horrible was dreading that someone might find out about his Ultimate Plan Mark II and turn him into a rotten cabbage. The laboratory was located in the manor basement, near the tunnel that led to the nuclear warfare plant. Dr Horrible descended the stairs two at a time, until he reached two steel reinforced doors. A metal plaque was stuck onto the side of the wall:

DANGER

DO NOT ENTER

UNSAFE EXPERIMENTS UNDERWAY

RESIDENT SCIENTISTS: PROF. NORMAL

A sticky note was plastered just underneath Normal's name, which read 'and also Dr Horrible, the newbie'. Horrible swallowed once, his palms leaking from inside his gloves, his breathing shallow and fast. If he wasn't careful, he was going to start hyperventilating and pass out, like he did the first time Penny came to the launderettes. His ears still burned at the memory; fainting at the sight of someone isn't considered a very macho thing. He really should have juggled a washing machine, or stripped off his t-shirt, which is what all the men on those surfer programmes seem to do whenever there are any girls around…

Actually, come to think of it, keeling over was probably the most impressive thing he could've managed. He supposed he could have made her a really cool weapon using Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, but girls don't tend to find that romantic.

The doors opened with a metallic 'whoosh!' that sounded like something off of the Starship Enterprise, and Horrible found himself in the now-familiar dimly lit lab. Somewhere near the furthest tables, the Doctor could hear the mechanical click of Normal's steel hand, along with the odd muttered formula that carried across the din of the many whirring machines. Billy made his way towards the back of the lab, adjusting his goggles. Scrap metal littered the floor, but in a large space to the left of the room, a huge wire framework stretched towards the high ceiling like the claw of some beast. Normal was knelt beside it, consulting a diagram whilst he fixed the glass panels of the soon-to-be tank into place.

"Ah, you're here." he said, not looking up from his work. "Hold this for me for a moment." Normal thrust one of the green tinted plates at Dr Horrible whilst he welded some rivets into place.

"I trust that you've been looking into a way to house the power source?"

"Y-yes," stammered Horrible, trying (and failing) to keep his cool. He let out a breath. Keep calm, that was what his doctor had said, and don't let anything phase you. Don't think about the negative outcomes, focus on the positives, and nothing will go wrong. He'd tried that a million times, but it never bloody worked. No, wait. Think positive, think positive…

"Yes, I looked into that." his voice was steadier, more even. Horrible smiled a little. "We need to use a material that can withstand extreme temperatures, as low as absolute zero, and possibly as high as two thousand degrees Celsius, so I would suggest using nickel inner plates with a carbon fiber or polycarbonate outer layer, and place a layer of hyperdiamond between the two to stop us from having our hands fried off when we touch it. That should also hold the inner workings and stop the military from damaging it. The pipes, gears et cetera should be made from tungsten and carbon, with liquid sodium passing over them to keep them cool."

"Good, good," nodded Normal "that shouldn't be too problematic to obtain. We should work on the completing the container, and I will give you some further instructions when we've finished and had afternoon tea."

The rest of Horrible's time building the weird container (which looked a bit like those tanks that were in Avatar), was pretty uneventful, except from when Horrible almost did a reenactment of the medieval guillotine. Fortunately, Professor Normal's reactions were pretty good, and nobody lost their head, although Normal told the Doctor that he'd lose something else if he wasn't more careful.

As the Professor was pouring tea into two pink floral cups for their afternoon tea, he watched Horrible carefully. The man was fiddling with a chocolate digestive, crumbling it into pieces before shoving it into his mouth. Normal sighed; Horrible was too inexperienced, and to be honest, a bit of a doof. He wasn't, in his opinion, real ELE material. When he had almost beheaded Normal, instead of laughing raucously like all of the other callous, murder-loving folk in the building, he apologized again and again, like he'd done something wrong. The guy was just too, well, nice.

But he was all he had, and there was no WAY he was letting Jefferson back down to the lab to give him a hand. He would rather avoid having a kumquat growing out of his left nostril, thank you very much.

"So, Dr Horrible," he said, stirring his drink with his pinky finger, "how are you finding membership in the ELE? It is to your liking I presume?"

"Oh it's great; I'm making real progress with my, er, evil schemes and stuff. Getting a lot of work done, overthrowing the government plans and all that…" Normal frowned at the man sat in front of him, who, mistaking his look for a glare, stuttered and stared at the floor in a nervous silence. Bah, this guy still ought to be singing soprano in the church choir.

Meanwhile, Horrible was wondering if Normal was going to kill him there and then, or wait until he was in some deserted alley.

The latter he supposed; there would be no one to hear his girly screams…

"Well, I'd better tell you about the plans for tonight." said Normal in an almost bored voice.

"Wait, tonight?" Horrible looked shocked. "As in, carry out a heist, for an important piece of equipment for the machine? Without months of meticulous planning?"

"Tonight is as good as any other night," said Normal simply "and I would like to get this 'domination' thing out of the way as soon as possible. I find that it gets in the way of my piano recitals." he regarded Horrible for a moment, who looked like he wanted to protest. When he said nothing, Normal continued.

"I think we should start by getting one of the components for the primary generator." he said, unrolling a shopping list. On the list there was stuff like Bran Flakes and mangoes, but also the sort of thing that you probably weren't going to find at your usual Wal-Mart store; like plutonium, for instance.

"Right," said Normal, pointing a finger to an item on the list that's name was so long that it fell onto two lines "we are going to want to start with that. It's a highly unstable uranium and ununhexium compound, perfect for regenerating molecules. It steals all nearby protons and neutrons you see, it's pretty much the klepto of the chemical world." a building plan was next to the list on the table. Horrible leaned over as far as he dared, taking in the information on the sheet. To his surprise, he found that he already knew the building.

"Ah yes," nodded Normal, clocking what the Doctor was peering at "it's being housed in a disused warehouse downtown. They plan on moving it to Soviet Russia next Wednesday, we really are quite fortunate that its here, with so little protection. The government are very trusting…or foolish."

Normal wrapped up their meeting and dismissed his evil accomplice, organizing to meet him up later at the warehouse. All the way home, Horrible could only think one thought:

"How the HELL am I gonna pull this off?"

He said the words aloud as he reached his scabby apartment block (which smelt strongly of beets at that moment), but no flash of inspiration hit him. He knew that he was going to have to get the compound first, but there wasn't enough time to go down now; he'd never get back to meet the Professor without looking like he'd run a marathon. It was at times like this that he wished that he had a twin; an eviler twin, who could help him out with this sort of crap. But that would be no use. Normal would be able to trace the plan back to him; he would know that it was he, Dr Horrible, who had organized the theft. Furthermore, evil twins are either born or made, and Horrible simply didn't have the time to clone himself. Plus they tended to get mega annoying after a while…

The door opened with a click. There was only one other course of action. But although it would point the finger of blame about as far away from him as was possible, it could go horrifically wrong, seeing as though Horrible wouldn't there to supervise. He also hadn't planned on carrying out the Epic Revenge Sequence 'till later, when he would be certain that it would have maximum effect. There were no other alternatives though. He was just going to have to-

"No, no, no, no, no, no! Look what you've done; you've got crumbs all over the carpet!"

Sat on his couch, feet up (with his boots on too!), eating HIS potato chips was none other than Captain Hammer. The guy was surrounded by empty packets of food and, (gasp!) two half eaten, melting tubs of Death by Chocolate ice cream.

"Hey Doctor!" he said, cramming another handful of cheesy, processed goodness into his large maw. The ex-hero was looking a lot perkier than he had been about five days ago. It looked like he was well on his way to becoming World's Number One Git again.

Ordinarily, Horrible would have gone feral; in his opinion, melting a tub of decent Ben and Jerry's warranted capital punishment. But, sadly, he would have to refrain from throttling the tool for now. Corpses tend to suck at carrying out you're dirty work.

"For goodness sake," said Dr Horrible in exasperation, trying not to leap on the ice cream murderer. If this worked, and he still had his sanity intact by the end of it, it would be a miracle. "Stop eating my food and get up. We've got work to do, and if you expect me to uphold my end of the bargain, you'll do EXACTLY what I say." Horrible scrambled over the junk heap and into his bedroom. From under his mattress, he pulled out a small silver box, which contained a series of needles and vials.

"We've got a lot less time to prepare for the first stage of my plan than I thought, so you're gonna have to listen and try not piss it up." Hammer watched intently as his nemesis placed the box and several papers onto the cluttered coffee table. All those diagrams looked like a bunch of squiggles to him. They'd look cooler if they had lots of pretty highlighter all over them…

"Right," said Horrible, carefully taking a teeny amount of fluid out of one of the vials. "I'm just going to check how you react to the serum; it'll give you a boost in strength, so you might feel a bit weird for a moment…" without hesitation, he drove the needle into Hammer's arm, with a little more force than was necessary.

"YEOWCH!" One moment, Horrible was watching Hammer rub his arm (wit no satisfaction whatsoever; well, ok maybe a bit) and then suddenly, the Doctor felt himself being lifted off of his feet and slammed into the wall. Captain Hammer had him around the throat, and was slowly squeezing the air out of him.

"Ah ha!" he cried, relishing in his new found strength. It felt so good to be special and uba strong again. This possibly called for a musical number! "Did you expect me to do whatever you said, Dr Horrible? I planned for you to give me the strengthy potion thing, and then I was going to leave, but not before choking you like-"

Unfortunately for Hammer, the evil mastermind hadn't been a complete dolt. He had expected some sort of trouble from Hammer when he first gave him his strength back, and had hidden the antidote up his sleeve. So whilst Hammer had been contemplating his victory, Horrible had been stabbing him repeatedly with the Strength Reducing Serum. Which, luckily for Horrible, wasn't as faulty as his Freeze Ray.

"Wha-wha-wha?" garbled Hammer as Horrible (with some effort, as he was still a weedy little spec) pushed the great lump off of him, massaging his neck. Really, he should have thought to of put on some kind of neck shield on too.

"This is- this is why you are gonn-gonna cooperate with me." wheezed the Doctor, coughing a bit like a demented sea-lion. "The strength serum CAN be reversed, and it isn't permanent. So if you want to be Mr. Muscle again, you are going to have to follow my instructions."

Hammer frowned and nodded. Oh darn, it looked like he was going to have to work with Mr. Einstein bossy bum after all. "So what's you're plan then?" he asked resignedly.

Horrible laughed. "Like I'm going to tell you. You just do what I say, that's all you need to know." he shuffled through the tottering pile of papers (and there seemed to be enough there to explain the disappearances of the rainforests), pulling out building plans and some illustrations of a weird cube structure.

"Listen up," said Horrible, clicking his figures at the now zoned-out Captain, "because we've only got three hours to get this straight. And if you mess it up, I know that something won't be you're Hammer anymore…"