//------------------------------// // A Brand New Day // Story: Dr. Horrible's Equestrian Story // by Terrasora //------------------------------// He sat in front of a computer. He simply stared at it for a time, wiping a gloved finger through the dust and grime, tracing the cracked screen, the camera that had long since broken. No more blog. He had given that up. That was from a different life. One where he wasn’t stained in her blood. But old habits die hard. “It’s almost done,” he whispered to his own reflection. “Almost. Just a bit more.” The man in the screen was haggard. He would inspire none of the terror that Dr. Horrible did. The goggles rested on his head, his sandy hair was as untidy as ever, the scarlet coat he had taken up was in pristine condition. But it wasn’t Horrible. It was hurt. It was broken. It was Billy. It was disgusting. *** The henchman held up a white bag, a green dollar sign clearly painted on the side. Not very subtle, but it was expected from a member of the Evil League of Evil. “Where do ya wan’ dis, boss?” said the henchman in a pretended idiot’s accent. “Put it with the rest,” commanded Dr. Horrible. He brandished the death ray on his forearm. “And don’t you lose a single pen— coin. Not. One. Coin.” The nameless henchman nodded profusely and scurried out of the bank, to the armored van that waited outside. Dr. Horrible scanned the bank lobby. It was the same everywhere. A squat, grey building, some windows, a carpet covered by cowering civilians that had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. The guard who had been reading a newspaper, unconscious. The officer who had reached for his firearm, dead. The boss stepped over these bodies, hardly paying them any attention. He walked to the counter, looking over the wood at the cowering teller. She was a youngish woman, brown hair, unremarkable if not slightly cute. “You know who I am.” It wasn’t a question. The bank teller nodded in terror. “Good,” said Dr. Horrible. “Take me to your vault.” The teller was shaking. She couldn’t get to her feet. Sirens sounded in the distance. Dr. Horrible sighed and squatted down next to the teller, lifting her chin with the barrel of his death ray. “Stand up. And take me to the vault.” “I… I don’t have the key.” The woman began to sob. “I can’t open it.” Dr. Horrible shook his head sadly. He looked down at the woman’s name tag. A siren sounded in the distance. “Dear Vanessa. Dear, dear Vanessa. That’s not what I said at all. I just want you to take me to the vault. Can you do that for me?” The teller nodded and shakily got to her feet. Dr. Horrible gestured with his death ray. Vanessa flinched before making her way behind the counter, leading Dr. Horrible to the back of the bank. Two minions filed in behind them, each cradling a rather large automatic weapon. The vault was unremarkable. There was no needlessly large steel door opened by an impossibly heavy wheel. It was just a door. Admittedly, it was 4-inch-thick steel door opened by an electronic keypad, that opened to a slightly thinner steel shutter that needed a key to open, but it was a door nonetheless. “Most kind of you, Vanessa.” Dr. Horrible hefted his death ray. “You know what this is.” It wasn’t a question. The woman nodded, her shaking growing stronger as she stared down the bright red and silver machine. “Of course you do. But you don’t know how it works.” He roughly brushed a bit of dust off of the death ray. “I won’t bore you with the exact detail. There are two settings. One for organic, called Death, and one for inorganic, called Destruction. I fire it and things disappear.” Dr. Horrible pointed the ray at his minion and fired. The rather large automatic weapon vanished, replaced by a scattering of pink dust. “Go replace that,” said Dr. Horrible. The minion scurried away. The villain turned and hefted his weapon again, this time at the inches of solid metal. He fired once. A jagged hole appeared in the middle of the door, a gap big enough to step through. “You,” said Dr. Horrible to his minion, “escort Ms. Vanessa back to the lobby where she can cower in peace.” The minion nodded, roughly pushing the bank teller forward. Dr. Horrible stepped into the vault, a wide room filled with hundreds of small drawers. He flung his death ray to the side, where it landed with a satisfying thud. He rubbed his forearm, trying to clean it of the residue left behind by that weapon, of the explosion, of Captain Hammer crying in pain, of the wound, of the blood that came from-- Dr. Horrible clamped down on that thought. That would be addressed shortly. Not yet. But shortly. With a sigh, the figure in red surveyed the room. “What kind of bank actually has a vault like this?” he wondered aloud. “And this whole ‘Cash for Gold and Jewels’. Seriously, it’s like they’re begging to be robbed.” Dr. Horrible shook his head, reaching for one of the drawers. Locked. Another sigh from the villain. He trekked over to his death ray, making sure that it was still set to ‘inorganic.’ It was, as per usual. He fired at the drawers, sending up sprays of jewelry. Dr. Horrible opened up his own bag, shoving fist after fist of shining objects into it. “Not this,” he muttered to himself. “Not that. No. No. No.” At each rejection, he’d throw a golden piece into his obviously marked bag. “No. No. No!” The bag was heavy at that point. Dr. Horrible was panting. He put the bag down, allowing himself to slide to the floor. “It’s not here,” he mumbled. “Damn it. Damn it.” He rubbed at his face with his gloved hands. “It’s not here.” A glint caught his eye. A pink stone, polished bright. Dr. Horrible stared for a moment. “That’s… that’s…” He scrambled towards the stone. Bright pink, irregular, shaped almost like a butterfly. “It’s perfect.” “Freeze, Doctor!” shouted a voice from the demolished door. “Don’t move or I’ll put you on ice!” Dr. Horrible nearly groaned. He turned, finding himself face to face with a man in a light-blue parka. His hair was snow-white and he carried a bright blue raygun. A snowflake was emblazoned across his chest. “I really don’t want to deal with this, Johnny,” said Dr. Horrible. Johnny Snow hefted his freeze ray. “What Dr. Horrible, does your blood run cold at the sight of your Arch Nemesis? Do you have no ice in your veins?” “For the last time, I don’t have an Arch Nemesis. And it definitely wouldn’t be you.” Dr. Horrible rolled his eyes. “You can’t even make a good pun.” Johnny Snow reeled back slightly. “That was cold, Doc. But this is it, I’m bringing you back to the freezer once and for all!” “Seriously, you’ve even made up your own term for prison! It’s embarrassing!” Dr. Horrible pulled a box out of his pocket. He turned it in his hands, fiddling with it, adjusting it for the stone. The hero tried to get a look at the box. “What’s that?” “You wouldn’t get it,” muttered Dr. Horrible. “Not with your icebox of a head.” “You don’t know that!” Johnny Snow sounded hurt. The villain looked up. He smirked. It was the closest he’d been to a genuine smile in a long time. “It’s a way out, Johnny.” “Out of what?” “This cold world.” A police officer, curly hair, slightly overweight, stumbled into the vault. He lifted his handgun. “Freeze!” he shouted, even as his finger pulled at the trigger. The stone entered the box with a click. Three shots resounded through the room. The first went wide, missing Dr. Horrible completely. The second hit him in the gut. The third, part of a second later, hit him in the shoulder. The villain felt himself fall. Worse yet, Dr. Horrible felt his fingers go slack. The black box fell to the floor. “What are you doing?!” shouted Johnny Snow. He pushed the officer away. “You can’t just shoot like that!” Dr. Horrible heard the words through a haze. Everything was blurry. The pain began, a wave beginning in his abdomen and in his shoulder. The box. It was clear. Everything else was blurry. He reached out, but the box seemed impossibly far away. Another try. Dr. Horrible nearly laughed. Silly Billy. That arm has a bullet in it. He reached out with his other arm. That one actually worked. The edges of Dr. Horrible’s vision tinged black. He was vaguely aware of some kind of buzzing, of Johnny Snow crouching over him. “Oh god,” said Johnny Snow. “Ohgodohgodohgodohgod. There’s so much blood. I didn’t know there’d be so much blood.” Dr. Horrible clutched at the box. He pressed at it blindly until something gave. Johnny Snow watched as Dr. Horrible disappeared. No flash, no sound, simply disappearing as though the world had blinked. Johnny and the police officer stared at the spot on the floor. The only evidence that Dr. Horrible had even been there was a pool of blood and a little black box. *** “Hahaha...haha..ha,” Dr. Horrible clutched at his stomach, hardly able to feel anything. Something screamed. Sounded like a girl. The villain couldn’t quite tell by that point. “Worked,” he whispered as his everything grew dimmer and dimmer. “Worked, worked… worked. She’ll… She’ll be here… Penn--” The world grew dark. *** “What… what is it?” “We were hoping you’d be able to answer that question.” Twilight Sparkle stood at the edge of a hospital bed. The creature, the Biped as Twilight decided to call it, was laying uncomfortably its talons draping off of the mattress and onto the floor. “You’re saying that it just appeared in the middle of our bank?” asked the unicorn. Mayor Mare nodded. “Exactly that. Nearly gave Roseluck a heart attack as well. That is, until it passed out. Speaking of which, we found these things in the creature’s wounds.” She gestured to a side table. A small plastic bag sat there, filled with what looked like two metallic mushrooms. Twilight held the bag with her magic, observing it against the hospital's lights. “And these were inside of the Biped?” Another nod. “We only took them out because we wouldn’t have been able to stop the bleeding otherwise. Is that what it’s called? A Biped?” “No idea. It looks like some form of primeape, but those haven’t been anywhere near Ponyville in eons. Is there anything else you feel should be mentioned? Mayor Mare thought for a few moments. “Roseluck swears that she heard it say something.” Twilight’s ears pricked up. “It can talk? In Equush?” “She wasn’t sure about that, but it definitely sounded like it.” The unicorn turned again, appraising the Biped. Sandy yellow mane, a pair of goggles like the ones Pinkie Pie wore on occasion, bandages heavily wrapped around what would have been its shoulder. Whatever it was, it was asleep. Twilight walked to the other side of the bed. “It might be best to get Fluttershy. She knows more about animals than most anyone in Equestri-- What’s this?” The unicorn levitated the Biped’s paw, staring at an extension of silver and red. Mayor Mare turned to look at it. “Part of his paw?” “I don’t think so. It looks mechanical, but not like any kind of mechanism I’ve seen. But this Biped has it. ” She looked at the prone figure of Dr. Horrible. “Where did you come from?” *** “This is what we found, sir.” A man, dressed in a stereotypical cowboy suit bowed down before a horse, offering up a small black box. Bad Horse neighed. “No, the police didn’t see us take it. But… but we don’t know what it does.” Bad Horse nickered, shaking his head at his subordinate’s idiocy. “Of course sir. We’ll have the finest minds in the Evil League of Evil working on it day and night. We’ll find Dr. Horrible.” Another dismissive whinny from Bad Horse. The minion backed away slowly, having long since gotten used to treating a horse with respect. The Thoroughbred of Sin glanced down at the box, noting the bright pink stone that vaguely resembled a butterfly. Bad Horse snorted. If anyone could peer into this horse’s mind they would find only the blackest thoughts.