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Fall 2007
Billy sat slumped at one of the restaurant tables, idly spinning the paper umbrella in his drink, and trying not to stare too hard at the slightly crumpled piece of paper on the table in front of him. "I thought I really had a shot at it this year," he said.
"Hey man, I thought you did great," said Moist. He reached over to give his friend a sympathetic pat on the shoulder, leaving a very noticeable wet spot on Billy's oversized hoodie. "If it were up to me, I would have totally accepted your application to join the Evil League of Evil."
Billy let the umbrella slip out of his fingers and sighed. He could tell he was blinking too much, a sure sign he was agitated. "I just don't know what I did wrong. I mean, I built four different ray guns this year, two of which worked. I picked up a superhero nemesis. I blew up every single parking meter in the city at the same time, an act which will severely cut down on the city's parking options and public funding resources for the next several months. That has to count for something, doesn't it?"
Moist slid the letter over the table towards him. "They do point out that you didn't actually kill anyone in the explosions."
"What? Well, no. I don't want to actually *kill* anyone! That would be very uncreative, and unproductive, and just generally ... ungood. I just want to break down the current corrupt society and rebuild it with a better one." He twirled the straw in his drink. "But I would settle for just maiming Captain Hammer, if he wasn't so completely impervious to pain."
Moist nodded. "That's what happens when you get hit with a hammer-shaped alien meteorite covered in gamma radiation while carrying a bag of tools from Home Depot, I guess. You get all kinds of neat superpowers. And a corporate sponsor."
Billy picked up his drink and took a sip. "Do you think that'd help me? The sponsor, I mean, not the meteorite. I hear Wal-Mart's pretty evil; maybe they're aligned with the League."
"Woah, woah, woah," said Moist, "let's not go crazy here. Besides, I brought you to this restaurant to get your mind off the League for a bit." He folded up the letter, and tucked it in the pocket of Billy's hoodie.
"So they really cook the food right on your table?" Billy asked, pointing to the grill spread out in front of them. He wiped the moisture off the end of the letter and pushed it the rest of the way into his pocket.
"Oh yeah," Moist said. "There's supposed to be a whole show of cooking it and everything. I've heard that it was so good, Conflict Diamond tried to rob it last month."
"Really?" said Billy, a whole lot more interested now. "She's pretty picky about her targets. And they cook... what? Japanese food?"
"Swedish, actually."
Billy raised an eyebrow at him. "Swedish?"
Moist nodded. "Well, the chef is, at least. The food is Japanese. I just know that this place was recommended in last month's Henchmen Union newsletter."
"For their evilness, or the quality of their food?"
Moist paused. "You know, I can't remember."
A waitress slid up to the table to ask for their food orders, and they quickly skimmed through the menu and picked the first thing that looked good: the grilled chicken with vegetables, and some chocolate cake for dessert. The waitress wrote down their orders, started the heat for the table grill, and left.
It didn't take very long for a chef to emerge from the kitchen, pushing a cart covered with cooking utensils and uncooked food towards their table. Billy wondered how the man could see what was going on; his eyes were almost entirely obscured by huge blond eyebrows, which matched the poofy tufts of blond hair sticking out from underneath his white hat. "Urndy skurned hurh dee oh børk børk børk," the man sang to himself.
Billy had the distinct feeling that he'd seen the man somewhere before, but he just couldn't think where. On TV? Out shopping? At the bar downtown where all the wannabe supervillains hung out? It was annoying that he couldn't put his finger on it.
The chef parked the cart next to their table and took his place behind the warm grill. "[Good evening. I'll be your chef tonight. You've ordered the chicken, correct?]"
Billy and Moist both took a double take at the chef's heavy Swedish accent. "Err, sorry, what?" asked Billy.
"[Your dinner]," said the chef. "[You ordered the chicken?] Chikee?"
"Oh yes, chicken," Billy said. "That's us."
"[Oh good, then we can start]," he said. He grabbed a couple pots off his cart, banged them together noisily a couple times, and then threw them over his shoulder, where they hit a couple at a nearby table. The woman glared at him, but the Swedish Chef paid no attention to her. The chef pulled chunks of raw chicken meat off the cart and threw them on the grill, where they started to hiss with the heat.
"[Tonight, we're going to grill chicken for you in a delightful teriyaki sauce,]" he said. "[Now we're going to start off by making sure this is nice and flat, so it cooks faster.]"
Billy edged his chair back from the table as the chef pulled out a comically oversized mallet and began pounding the meat flat. Bits of chicken splattered against his sweatshirt and the side of Moist's face, where it slid down his damp skin.
"I, I think that's enough," said Billy, starting to get twitchy again. The chef looked somewhat disappointed, but stowed the hammer back on his cart.
Again, there was something naggingly familiar about the overkill cooking, but he couldn't quite figure out what it was.
As the chicken was more than flat against the grill, the chef pulled out a large bottle of sauce. "[This is the finest Swedish teriyaki,]" he said, "[taken directly from my Grandmother's secret recipe.]" He flipped the bottle upside down and squirted liberally. Sauce poured out on to the table grill, completely dousing the chicken, and lighting the part closest to Moist on fire. He let out a mangled cry, and pushed his chair a foot back from the table.
"[Nothing to worry about; it's better if it's on fire now than later,]" said the Swedish Chef, blithely ignoring the flames. He finished emptying the bottle of sauce and then tossed it over his shoulder, where it hit the same couple as before. Billy noticed the angry woman start to rise from her seat, but the man next to her convinced her to calm down and stay seated. She glared at their table through the teriyaki sauce dripping from her hair. Billy wanted to shrink down out of sight in his seat.
Hmm, shrinking. He made a mental note to start working on plans for a shrink ray later, and see if that would work on Captain Hammer.
Having run out of sauce, and ignoring Moist's attempts to put out the flames without getting his "moisture" all over the food, the chef pulled out a metal spatula to flip the chicken. The meat flew high in the air, dangerously close to the ceiling, before landing back on the grill with a messy splat, which lit more of it on fire.
"[Aaah. You see how nicely it's browning? This is going to be a lovely dinner,]" he said, moving the chicken around in the mess of teriyaki sauce on the grill. "[Do you have any requests about how dark to make the meat?]"
Billy had a hard time making out the question through the accent. "Uh, no. Anything's fine."
The chef nodded, and hummed a little to himself as he worked the chicken on the grill. Moist slowly slid his chair back towards the table while keeping a wary eye on the flames. He leaned in towards Billy. "Do you think that's safe?" he asked quietly.
"I don't know. I only hope it's edible at the end," Billy said. His forehead creased in thought. "But I keep getting the feeling I've seen the chef somewhere before. Does he look familiar to you too?"
Moist shock his head. "No, not me. The union newsletter only had pictures of the tables."
"Hmm. I guess I'll keep trying to work it out on my own."
"[And now,]" said the chef, pulling their attention back to the grill in front of them, "[we're going to do the fun part. It's time to cut up the chicken.]"
A pulled a sharp knife from off the cart, looked at it, and tossed it back on the tray. He picked up a much larger knife, but tossed it too.
"[No, I think we're going to do something really special tonight,]" he said.
Reaching down to the bottom level of his cart, he pulled out an axe.
"Now hold on!" said the woman, finally getting up and stalking over to their table. "I have put up with your throwing items at me tonight, but you are *not* throwing that over your shoulder at my table. And who uses an axe to cut up chicken?"
The Swedish Chef shrank back a bit under her attack. "[But it does such a nice job of mincing the chicken meat...]"
Seeing the axe finally made things click for Billy. "Oh! He's that minor supervillain who used to terrorize a variety show back in the 70s." He pointed at the chef. "You're the Svenske Kochen!"
The chef panicked at the accusation and started flailing around, dropping the axe on the floor. The woman screamed, and leapt backwards to avoid the sharp blade. She grabbed her purse and her husband and stormed out of the restaurant.
"[I don't know what you're talking about,]" said the chef. Beads of sweat started to form above his bushy eyebrows.
"No, I'm sure of it." Billy rose to his feet. "I recognize your face now. I think you even managed to get into the Swedish Supervillain Syndicate for a while. But what are you doing here in LA?"
The Swedish Chef froze, sweated uncomfortably, and then bolted for the door.
"Wait!" yelled Billy, but it was too late. The man had already made it out through the door and out onto the street beyond.
"We have to go after him," Billy said to Moist.
"What? Are you crazy?" Moist said. "What about dinner?"
"Our chef just ran out. I don't think dinner is going to get finished." He looked at the chicken, parts of which were still on fire and starting to turn a rather unappealing shade of charcoal black. "But I approve of your choice of restaurant."
"Oh, thanks," said Moist.
"To the Horriblemobile!" said Billy. He headed for the door out.
"I really wish you would stop calling my car that," said Moist, following his friend out of the restaurant. "It's not that bad. And I don't see you buying your own car."
Billy ignored the barb and made a beeline for the car. The chef was still fleeing down the street, but with his head start, there was no way that someone as unathletic as Billy was going to catch him.
This required special tools.
Moist fished his keys out of his pocket and popped the trunk. Billy grabbed a large, oddly lumpy duffel bag and headed for the darkness of a nearby alley.
Off went the oversized hoodie. On went the white coat and goggles. Zipping the duffel bag back up and throwing it over his shoulder, Dr Horrible stepped out of the alley.
He threw the duffel bag of clothing back in Moist's trunk and started to poke through the different ray guns he'd stowed in there.
"Transmatter ray: no, doesn't work right yet. Transmorgrifier ray: probably no good. Transmigration ray, entirely inappropriate to the situation at hand. Aha!" He pulled out a smaller ray gun and attached it to his wrist. "A regular old laser beam. Can't go wrong with the old favourite."
"How're you going to stop him with that? asked Moist. "Don't tell me you can hit him from way over here."
Dr Horrible smirked. "Don't need to." He raised his arm and fired off a laser blast. It missed the chef by a mile -- but hit a building in front of him. People screamed as part of a second storey wall crashed to the ground, dropping a load of debris on the road. The Swedish Chef let out an eep and stopped dead in his tracks, looking around for the cause of the attack.
"Nice," said Moist.
"Thanks," said Dr Horrible. He started jogging down the street to catch up with the flailing chef. The chef turned around to see an armed supervillain with a laser heading his way and panicked more. He started trying to climb over the debris.
"No, wait!" said Dr Horrible, starting to pant a bit. He decided that really should visit the gym at some point in his life if he wanted to keep up with the physical demands of supervillainy. "I just want to talk to you!"
The chef slipped off the debris, and tumbled back down to the ground. He flailed more and started rummaging in the pockets of his apron. Dr Horrible has almost closed the gap between them when the chef pulled out a whistle. He blew it, and a high pitch noise blasted out. The Chef then leaned back against the debris.
Dr Horrible finally caught up to the chef. "I just want to talk to you," he said, somewhat out of breath. He really needed to get out of his lair more often. "I admire your work in Sweden. What brings you to the US?"
The chef sighed. "[I'm old. I'm tired of the supervillain business. I just want to cook for people now, even if they don't appreciate my methods. I wanted to start again, far away from Sweden.]"
It took Billy a few moments to parse the chef's words through his accent, but he finally nodded. "I see. But why would you want to give up being a supervillain? There's nothing better than--"
A sudden skittering noise cut him off. Another one joined it, and then another, until a whole group of lobster popped out from around the chef. They were the strangest lobsters Dr Horrible had ever seen. There were all fitted with lobster-sized sombreros, and had small gun belts wrapped around their thoraxes, with tiny pistols holstered in them.
Even more surprising was how the lobsters started yelling things at him in Spanish.
The Lobster Banditos formed a protective circle around the chef and drew their guns. Dr Horrible levelled his wrist laser at them, trying to decide which lobster to aim for. Behind them, the chef pulled himself back up to his feet, looked from Dr Horrible to the lobsters and back, and fled.
Dr Horrible debated following the chef, but decided against it. He'd learned what he wanted to know; it would be better to deal with these lobsters and then actually get some lunch. His stomach rumbled under his white lab coat at the very thought of it.
Fried lobster seemed pretty good right about then.
One of the lobsters let out a cry and launched itself at him. Its tiny bullets missed his arm, but the lobster took a swipe at him and grazed his arm with its claw. Dr Horrible let out a yelp at the surprise pinch. The lobster hit the ground, and scuttled back to join its friends.
Dr Horrible clenched his fingers around the trigger in his palm, and fired a laser blast into the middle of the group. The lobsters yelled, and used all eight of their legs to fling themselves away from it. One of the banditos unholstered its guns and fired at the Doctor's chest. The tiny bullets bounced off the Captain Hammer-level protective padding inside his coat. Dr Horrible dropped to his knees and fired a blast at the lobster.
The beam hit the lobster right in the thorax, and it collapsed to the ground. The other lobsters let out a cry, dropped their guns, and scuttled over to their fallen friend. It reached up to salute them, and then its claw fell unmovingly to the ground.
Devastated by the sight of their fallen comrade, the other lobster banditos started retreating, shaking their claws in anger at Dr Horrible. They swore revenge on him, still using their amazingly good Spanish, and disappeared back into the rocks.
Dr Horrible bent down to examine the ex-lobster as Moist ran up, looking even sweatier and more out of breath than usual. "How goes it, Doc?" he asked.
"Well," Dr Horrible said, looking up at his friend, "I got an answer out of the Svenske Kochen, but he got away. I guess that about evens out."
"Good to hear," Moist said. He frowned. "But I guess this means that lunch is a no-go."
Dr Horrible stood up, picking up the bandito by the claw. "Do you like lobster?"
Moist eyed it up. "Think I'll pass."
Dr Horrible kneeled back down. He placed the fallen lobster bandito in a crevice in the debris, and covered it with rocks. He pushed himself back up to his feet, and started pulling the laser of his wrist.
"How about I get changed, and we go grab lunch at the equally evil McDonalds?"
Moist slapped him on the back. "I like that plan."
As they headed back to Moist's car, Dr Horrible tried to ignore the growing wet spot on the back of his white jacket under Moist's hand. One of these days he was going to go out and find a good, cheap laundromat to keep his costume clean.
But right now, he needed some normal food.