Professor Normal blinked slowly, staring through the three inch pane of glass. The subject had been standing on the other side, slouched, emaciated, clutching that black box in his hand. He had pressed the button.
And the world had blinked.
“Interesting,” muttered Professor Normal. “How positively abnormal. Bob, go in there and check for radiation.”
Bob nodded and glanced around the room. No hazmat suit to be found. No protection against radiation at all, really. He turned back towards the villain. Professor Normal gestured towards the opposite room. The minion saluted sharply and exited through the door, reappearing a moment late, holding a geiger counter, on the other side of the window. Bob stood there, worriedly staring at his counter. The needle twitched a bit, but never crossed into a dangerous zone. Breathing a sigh of relief, Bob gave the all-clear sign.
Professor Normal crossed into the room. The only difference lay in the now missing superhero.
“He’s gone,” marvelled the villain. “Not a trace of him.”
“Er… sir?” asked Bob. Professor Normal turned towards his minion. Bob was strangely pale beneath, his eyes fixed on some point on the floor.
“What?” asked the villain. “What are you looking… oh.”
An arm lay on the floor, blood still flowing from the open wound. It had been severed cleanly, almost exactly at the shoulder. The hero’s short sleeve, tattered from his stay at the Evil League of Evil still lay on top of the arm.
Professor Normal walked over to the arm, calmly plucking it off of the floor and inspecting it.
“How fascinating.” He threw the appendage at Bob, the panicked minion turning even paler as he caught it.
“Study that, Bob.”
“I--” Bob swallowed, trying to keep his bile down, “--I’ll get my best men on this.”
“No,” said Professor Normal with a smile. “I want you to study it. Personally. Take blood and tissue samples, Bob. I don’t want you separated from this arm for a moment. Unlike our subject.” The Professor laughed.
Bob nodded, holding the arm delicately as he walked back outside. Professor Normal made to follow, smiling to himself, when a pink sparkle caught his eye. The stone lay in a corner of the room, a few feet away from where he arm had landed. Professor Normal walked over to it, holding it up to the light.
“You’re still here, are you?” he asked the stone. “How interesting.”
***
“This isn’t it.” Dr. Horrible turned over the piece of metal in his hands before tossing it aside.
“No, this won’t work either.” He stepped back from his desk, breathing in sharply, his gloved hands resting behind his head. “Shit. Shit.”
The human let out a breath, then turned back to the mangled monitor laying on his work station. He stabbed his hands into it, bringing out circuits and resistors, enough to jury rig a flashlight or something, but it wasn’t enough! What good was a flashlight when he wanted to tear through dimensions? What good was a flashlight if it didn’t get him any closer to Penny!
Billy froze, the name ringing in his ears. Penny. Kind, beautiful Penny, trying to make a difference, trying so hard to do something great, to do something selfless for the sheer sake of helping others. Cold, lifeless Penny, dead in his hands by his first death ray, the one that Dr. Horrible hadn’t fired.
But he did.
He fired the ray, he was the hero, he was… together with Penny. Captain Hammer took the shot with a defective death ray, a shot intended for Dr. Horrible but it failed. The ray backfired, exploding, scratching the hero’s hand and sending him running somewhere. The metal shrapnel hit Penny, right in the chest.
Dr. Horrible clutched at his workbench, his knuckles turning white with the force of his grip. He was shaking under the strength of his memories, breathing heavily as everything came crashing in his mind, threatening to crush Billy.
The villain held the girl as she died by the hero’s hand. No, wrong. His weapon, hidden as a statue, snuck in by him, put into place, pointed at the hero. He had done his monologue, followed the script, he was a villain, evil, horrible.
Fire.
Fire.
He fired. Right into Penny’s heart. The villain killed the girl. Like he was supposed to. Read the script, play the part. Be horrible.
Dr. Horrible loosened his grip on his desk, taking a moment to rub at his eyes. “Alright,” he muttered to himself, “I can do this.”
Applejack walked down into the laboratory, a mug of cider precariously balanced on her head.
“You sure that you don’t want anything? Twi’s got plenty more cider upstairs; she’s a bit of a drinker. Not as heavy as Dash or Pinkie, but she’s certainly got a few more mugs worth.”
The villain didn’t respond, hardly even turning as he snapped his goggles into place. AJ shrugged and situated herself back onto the couch.
Dr. Horrible brought his hands together in front of him, almost seeming to pray as he surveyed the gutted machine. Most of the monitor would be useless to him, that much was evident. This technology was years behind what he was used to. It certainly didn’t help that the only monitors the hospital was willing to part with were broken down.
But not everything here is useless, Dr. Horrible thought to himself as he drove his hands back into the monitor. I just have to keep remembering that.
He spent the next few minutes trying to find those useful parts, finessing them out of their place with a surgeon’s precision, a task that required a surgeon’s focu--
“You’re pretty good at that,” said Applejack from the corner of the room.
Dr. Horrible visibly cringed. He turned towards the disturbance. “Can you not talk right now. I’m doing some very delicate work.”
“It looks like you’re rippin’ the guts outta that there machine.”
Dr. Horrible narrowed his eyes, the effect perhaps diminished by his buggy goggles. “Delicate. Work.”
Applejack shrugged. “Alright. Sorry ‘bout the interruption, then.”
The villain turned back towards his work. The pony sipped at her drink.
Dr. Horrible tore at his machine for a few more minutes, throwing aside useless objects and carefully storing anything that could possibly be used. There wasn’t much. Circuits, resistors, transistors, random bits of wiring, things that one could find at their local Radio Shack. But nowhere near what Dr. Horrible would need.
He stepped aside again, his eyes closed behind his goggles, his hands pressed firmly together.
Okay. Okay. I can work with this. There’s… there’s a way out of this. I know there is. I just have to think for a bit and find it. I can… I can…
The door to the library burst open, the door slamming against the wall a split second before two sets of hooves pounded down the stairs.
Twilight Sparkle led the way, Pinkie close on her heels, nuts and bolts flying out of the pink mare’s mane.
“Doctor!” shouted Twilight. “There’s another one!” The old train engine slammed into the floor, a cloud of dust rising up from the stone.
Dr. Horrible turned, angrily taking off his goggles. “Do none of you understand the meaning of delicate work?”
“Nope!” shouted Pinkie happily. “Does it mean that the work’s easy to break? How are you supposed to break work, silly?”
The villain turned towards Pinkie Pie, his eyes narrowed, an insult on the tip of his tongue, poised to wipe the ever-present grin from her face. He paused. Then he turned towards Twilight.
“Another?” he asked. “Another what?”
***
Dr. Horrible looked down at the hospital bed. A man lay in it, a bandage firmly tied around a stump of an arm. His eyes were closed, his breathing steady, but he was thin, starved, obviously far weaker than the last time that Dr. Horrible had seen him.
“Do you know him?” asked Nurse Redheart.
Dr. Horrible couldn’t hear her. The blood was raging in his ears, his gloved hands working open and closed. His mouth was dry, so very dry, as if he hadn’t drank anything in days.
“Doctor?” asked the nurse forcefully. Dr. Horrible turned. “Do you know him?”
Dr. Horrible’s voice came out quietly, ragged and dry. “I don’t want to be in here.”
“What?”
“I… I…” Dr. Horrible turned suddenly, storming towards the exit.
“Doctor, wait!” shouted the nurse. She trotted after Dr. Horrible as he roughly shoved his way into the hall and past the three mares waiting outside.
Twilight jumped to her hooves. “Doctor?”
Dr. Horrible hurried past them, his vision clouded, his breath coming out in ragged pants. He made it out of the hospital before Twilight teleported in front of him.
“Doctor,” she said worriedly. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t want to go in there,” muttered Dr. Horrible. “I’ll kill him. I swear to whatever you believe in, I’ll kill him with my own hands.”
“Whoah there sugarcube,” cut in Applejack. “Where’s this coming from?”
“I’ll kill him. Don’t make me go back in there.”
“Ain’t nopony gonna make you do anything, Doctor.”
“Dr. Horrible,” began Nurse Redheart, “why are you threatening to kill one of my patients?”
“It’s… Nothing.” Dr. Horrible turned away, side-stepping around Twilight. “Leave me alone. I have to go work.”
Twilight stepped with him, cutting off his path of escape. “Who is he, Doctor?”
Dr. Horrible glared down at the unicorn. There was nothing but concern in her violet eyes. “He’s a hero,” he spat out vehemently. Dr. Horrible stepped around Twilight again, but the unicorn blocked his path.
“And you think that you’re a villain,” said Twilight.
“I am a villain! I’m Dr. Horrible! I hold the highest degree in evil!”
“And who’s the hero?”
Dr. Horrible felt his jaw tighten. “That’s…” He took a deep breath to steady himself. “Captain Hammer. That’s his name.” A white-hot fury spread up through Dr. Horrible’s neck. He stepped aside, roughly pushing his way past Twilight. “Now leave me alone!”
Twilight let him pass this time. The human stormed back towards the library.
“Pinkie, Applejack,” said Twilight, “go with him. I’ll stay here at the hospital and see if I don’t have any spells to wake up ‘Captain Hammer’.”
Pinkie gave a quick salute before she and Applejack trotted off to join the human.
***
Dr. Horrible walked through the streets of Ponyville, dozens of eyes fixed upon him. Ponies stopped in the streets to stare, some hung out of there windows. A few tried for tentative waves, but the human ignored them all.
He’s here, thought Dr. Horrible. Why is he here? How the hell did he follow me here?! Last I heard, he was little more than a sniveling wreck over that little burn he got. And now he’s here?
He slammed his fist onto a nearby wall, the sharp pain shooting through his arm and into his shoulder and stomach. “WHY?!” he shouted.
“Doctor?” asked a tentatively bright voice.
“You alright there?” asked another.
Dr. Horrible turned, seeing Applejack and Pinkie Pie through a haze. “Go away,” he said quietly.
“I have to get back to the library.”
“You’re going the wrong way, sugarcube.”
The villain turned a bit more. The giant oak tree, visible from almost any point in town, was towards his back. “Yeah. Yeah, I knew that.” He set off shakily towards it, closely flanked by the two mares.
“Is there anything you wanna talk about?” asked Applejack.
“We’re good at talking,” assured Pinkie. “We do a lot of it.”
“No talking. Just walk.”
“Can I sing?” asked Pinkie. “I’ve been writing a song to cheer ponies up and it’s still a work in progress, but it might work a little bit.”
“No singing.”
Pinkie nodded sadly. “... Okay.”
They walked on in silence, no singing, no talking. They came to the entrance of Golden Oaks library before long, entering Twilight’s home and wordlessly heading downstairs.
Dr. Horrible stepped towards his workbench, lifting and turning the pieces in his hands. Nothing new came from the monitor. He turned towards the engine, his hands working quickly and numbly, unscrewing and prying and tearing until the engine came undone. There were a few more parts to add to his collection, things that he could use. But not for a trans-dimensional transporter.
“Useless,” he whispered. “Absolutely useless.” Dr. Horrible quietly slid to his knees, resting his forehead on his workbench.
“I’m useless.”
***
Twilight Sparkle stood over Captain Hammer. She held her horn over him, a purple field running over the human's comatose body. The magic dispersed after running over him a few times.
"Anything we have to worry about?" asked Nurse Redheart.
Twilight shook her head. "Nothing but the obvious. Blood loss, missing appendage, shock, malnutrition. He's not in very good shape. But I'd like to run one more test."
The unicorn turned back towards the human, firmly planted against the hospital floor. Her magic flared one more time, forming an ellipse around his body. The ellipse tightened, slowly approaching the body.
A bright flash exploded in the middle of the room, a white glow that blinded Nurse Redheart and threw long, black shadows on the wall. It lasted only a moment, but completely disoriented the two ponies. Twilight recovered first, shaking the stars out of her eyes. She stared at Captain Hammer's motionless form, then broke out into a grin, happily bouncing around the room.
"Yesyesyesyesyesyesyes!"
Nurse Redheart blinked, a red glow still clouding her eyes. "Twilight what in the name of Tartarus did you just do?!"
"It's magic!" shouted the unicorn gleefully. "He has magic around him! Very very very powerful magic!" Twilight stopped bouncing, quickly rushing forwards and grabbing Nurse Redheart's shoulders. "Did he have anything with him? Something that Dr. Horrible didn't have?"
The nurse raised an eyebrow. "I don't think I should tell you, considering your last reaction to something that a human patient carried."
"So he did have something."
Nurse Redheart glared at Twilight, then sighed. "Fine. I'll show you, but you need to Pinkie Promise not to do anything to take the thing away from the patient."
Twilight Sparkle's face drooped in slight disappointment, but brightened just as quickly. "Okay. Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye." She did the accompanying movements.
"The full thing," said Redheart.
"The full thing?" asked Twilight dismally.
"Yup."
The unicorn let out a small sigh, then recited with far less enthusiasm: "Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye. If to Redheart I should lie, I better kiss my flank goodbye." She silently thanked Celestia that there were no movements to that last line.
Nurse Redheart nodded, satisfied. She trotted out of the room, returning a moment later, clutching a small black box in her teeth. She placed it on the bed stand before speaking. "He had this. And that's it."
Twilight levitated the box, turning it and inspecting every inch. "A black box... is this what he was looking for?" Her horn flared, the same ellipse flaring around the box and approaching it. Nurse Redheart braced herself.
There was no flash this time. The magic passed through the box and dissipated.
Twilight blinked. "I... don't understand. There's no magic in this. Then... how?" She turned over the box again, then held it in her hooves. There was an indentation in the box, vaguely butterfly shaped.
"I don't understand," she repeated.