tampered | Log; Ongoing

Log; Ongoing

When; Sunday the 29th, afternoon
Rating; PG-13 for violence?
Characters; Dr. Horrible

horrible_phd and Captain Hammer

horrible_protag
Summary; Everyone knew this had to happen eventually. Dr. Horrible looks suspicious, Captain Hammer steps (leaps?) in, things escalate from there.
Log;

Dr. Horrible was actually feeling pretty good about how things were going. The last curse had been kind of annoying for it's length, but it hadn't involved being murdered, and none of his students had blown each other up during their lab practicals, so the only really bad thing was how far behind in his work it had put him. Still, it was as good a day as any to get on with his research for ARTEMIS, so he gathered up his equipment and headed for the elevator.

His research for ARTEMIS. He contemplated the phrase as he rode the damned annoying elevator up to the lobby. A secret society (or semi-secret, at least) of which he was a card-carrying member. Well, not that they had cards. But maybe he could make one anyway. It wasn't exactly the Evil League of Evil, but he hadn't had to jump through hoops to get in, and he didn't think Carl would have been willing to join anything with "evil" in the name, especially not twice, so maybe it was all for the best. And if things worked out well he could go home and...well, he would deal with that when it came to it.

He made his way to Misery Square and set his stuff up on a bench off to the side with a good view of the fountain, since that's where people tended to show up. It was possible no new arrivals would appear that day, but it was nice weather and he would at least be able to get some baseline readings. He set up his equipment, which had a satisfying number of antennas and blinking lights, and began fiddling with the knobs and dials. No one asked what he was doing, which was vaguely annoying because he wanted to share the brilliance of his ideas, but at least it meant no distractions. And just in case the wrongs sort of person tried to distract him, he had concealed a Stun Ray under the bench.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Captain Hammer was doing his usual daily rounds of the City. He had missed the past three days for the obvious reason of being cursed. Although, the curse itself wasn't too bad; he made a fantastic teacher, at least. Not that that was of any surprise.

As he neared the fountain, the first thing he saw were a bunch of blinking things with odd sorts of shapes, and noises. The second thing he saw was the lab coat adorning the person surrounded by the machines. "Horrible," he muttered darkly. He strut over there, unnoticed by the doctor until the last moment when he laid his hand on his shoulder. "Working on some homework, Doctor?"

Dr. Horrible was absorbed in his work, but vaguely aware of someone coming up behind him. He hoped it was Carl, though there was something wrong about the gait. When the hand landed on his shoulder and the all-too-familiar voice spoke in his ear, he couldn't help but flinch. It was pretty much a conditioned response.

"As a matter of fact, I am very busy with something important," he said, rising as a way of shaking off Captain Hammer's touch. "So, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to get back to it." There. That was standing up to him, at least literally.

Belatedly he realized that he'd put himself out of reach of his Stun Ray.

He noticed the flinch, and he smirked, clearly having demonstrated his being the alpha in their little 'relationship'. Not like that was hard to tell, what with how their past interactions had ended- i.e. a bruised Doctor Horrible with a bruised ego, but it still felt good.

"Oh? Important like what, I wonder." He easily let his hand slide off, but ready for anything that he might throw at him. "Perhaps like destroying something of great importance, no doubt!" He got closer to him, possibly too close for comfort. "And these machines do what, exactly?"

"Don't touch that," he said automatically, even though Captain Hammer had shown no sign of actually doing so. He made a movement as though backing up. He didn't like looking as if he was intimidated, but it allowed him to knock a small EMF reader off the bench, giving him an excuse to crouch down and fumble around beneath it.

"I'm not trying to destroy anything. If I was trying to destroy anything there would be a lot more actual destruction. These are all pieces of sensory equipment, but I doubt your tiny mind could even begin to grasp the basics of their functioning." There it was, the handle of his Stun Ray. He tightened his grip and prepared to spring up.

Saying to not touch it was practically screaming that he had something to hide, he would definitely be watching the equipment more carefully now, if he wasn't already. Although, the backing up was a good sign. A good sign indeed.

The crouching, though, was decidedly not. He strained to see what was going on down there, what he could possibly be doing. A trap door? A secret lever of some sort? "Sensory equipment? Hah! For what purpose would you need all of that?"

"Like you even care. You just want an excuse to mess with me, as if you ever really needed one." He pulled out the Stun Ray and pointed it at Captain Hammer. "But not this time." This time, there was no one standing in the way, no one trying to interfere in what was by now a very personal fight.

He considered pulling the trigger while he has a split second's advantage on his side, but he wasn't not sure it would do much to Hammer, even with all the recent work he'd been doing on it. Better if Captain Hammer just backed down, though that wasn't terribly likely.

Edited 2009-03-30 04:12 (UTC)

Well now! This was more like the Horrible back home, that's for sure. Use his little ray, would he? Not like it ever worked before. Even so, pointing it right at his face? Hah! That couldn't be allowed. Not at all.

Sadly, for Doctor Horrible, the gun was usually held with two hands. That gave him a noticed advantage. One that he would continue to take advantage of until the ends of time. He reached around under the gun, and grabbed his shirt; quite forcefully, pulling him up. "You think pulling out your little stop pistol will save you, Doctor?" He laughed, short, and mocking. He'd probably even get upset at the fact he'd called the ray by the wrong name.

Ok, this was not the scenario he had envisioned. His feet were not quite in contact with the ground anymore, which was very awkward. But he was still holding the weapon.

"It's not a st--" he began, annoyed, and then, for perhaps the first time, Dr. Horrible shut up. Shut up and pulled the trigger, aiming as best he could for the back of Captain Hammer's shoulder. He would've crossed his fingers if he could have--instead, he attempted to cross his toes inside his boots. Please let it actually do something this time...

This was different. Usually he'd start rambling about who-knows-what and the correct terminology of something he didn't care about. Just out-and-out pulling the trigger? That was different.

Captain Hammer didn't like when things went differently. He felt something almost whizzing by his shoulder, not that he could tell what. Not that it mattered. He had fired at him. Mister Play Nice was over.

Which was him, of course, and he hadn't actually changed his name, he was just playing nice, so it was- Well. Nevermind, that could wait for another time.

Before Horrible could realize that it hadn't really done all that much to him, Hammer decided to take advantage of their positioning. "Nice try, bad guy." As he solidly punched Doctor Horrible in the face, he contemplated maybe having a catch-phrase like that from now on.

Well, that hadn't gone very well. He'd been hoping for at least a twitch. Captain Hammer was saying something that might have rhymed, but Dr Horrible was a little two busy getting punched in the face to pay much attention. He dropped the Stun Ray but couldn't hear it fall over the ringing in his ears. As far as he could tell, his nose wasn't broken and he still had all his teeth, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been, but he was feeling a little woozy.

He turned his head as much as he could, considering he was still being held up by the front of his lab coat. He couldn't see any bystanders, which might be good since Hammer wouldn't feel the need to show off to an audience, but was probably actually really bad. Captain Hammer had already declared the intention to kill him--at least he assumed that's what the whole "lacy curtains" thing had been about, it was hard to tell sometimes--and without anyone around to intervene, there wasn't much to stop him.

Not that he couldn't fight his own battles, but, well, actually he couldn't really fight, certainly without a weapon that worked. And, in general, the people here seemed more predisposed towards stopping fights than snapping pictures of them. He tried to think of something to say that would delay him getting punched again, but he wasn't about to give Hammer the satisfaction of surrendering either, so eventually he ended up just saying "ow."

As the ray dropped, he took a step forward onto it, smirking as he heard the satisfying crunch of it beneath his foot. "Oh, so sorry Doctor. Is this too inconvenient for you?" Luckily for Horrible, Hammer knew that the dead didn't stay dead here, thus rendering killing to be useless. After all, he'd just paint a bad reputation for him here in the City if he did away with him. However a few more punches couldn't hurt. No flying teeth or anything. Just think of them as physical reminders. And oh, is that him 'accidentally' tripping near some of the equipment? Yeah. Yeah it is.

Oh, those were not good crunching sounds. Not at all. Still, they were coming from things that were not his body, which was important. Captain Hammer didn't seem to be killing him, so all he could really do was try to roll with the punches and hope Hammer got bored soon.

"You. Really. Are. Insane. Even you must...uhnf...want to get out..ow..of here. This time that's all--" But of course it was silly to try to explain.

He paused momentarily. "This time that's all? This time, that's all?" He laughed again, this time a little more coldly. "Oh, Doctor, trust me, you won't be winning any conflict between us any time soon. Because unless there's a 'stupid, weak villains can suddenly win against amazing strength, good looks, and superiority' curse. I-" He raised him higher, continuing "will be," threw him down onto the ground, "the ultimate victor." He smashed another piece of fallen equipment beneath his foot, which might have happened to be right next to his arm, not-so-coincidentally grazing his shoulder a bit.

"You're calling me stupid?" he wheezed--and then realized that saying that was, in fact, pretty damn stupid.

This was the point where Dr. Horrible had to choose between between making a run for it or playing dead until Captain Hammer got distracted by something shiny. He rolled under the bench. It was squishy, but he managed. Not that Hammer couldn't probably lift the bench off, even if it was stone, but it did make him feel a little more secure. And he didn't think running for it was actually much of an option. Maybe crawling for it.

He was saying that he was weak, but stupid worked also. Those were practically synonymous anyway.

Although it was very tempting to just bend the bench in two- over his head, of course- it wouldn't do at all after that fuss he'd made over the destruction of public property. So he just stared at Horrible for a while, making him uncomortable, "I see nothing wrong with that statement."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Log; Ongoing

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject