Dr Horrible's footsteps echoed throughout the otherwise silent room- the walls of the building only helping the noise to reverberate further. The floorboards groaned under his weight as the villain approached the still figure before him. The figure he had stilled himself.

The death ray- his new, praised, polished weapon- hummed with power in his hands, already warmed up from his previous firings. The faint smell of charred wood and smoke was beginning to slowly fill the building- merely the aftermath of its damages... Though, compared to what it would do next, a couple of burnt floors would be the least of anyone's worries...

Quietly, under his breath, he spoke to himself, close enough now to meet Captain Hammer eye to empty, frozen eye,

"It's gonna be bloody, head up Billy Buddy, there's no time for mercy..."

This was it. He, Dr Horrible, was a mere aim and trigger press away from everything he ever could have dreamed of. His arch nemesis would be dead and gone, he'd be accepted into the ELE...

And sure, Penny being available again would be a nice bonus, too, he supposed. Two birds with one stone. If luck would have it. It'd be a nice thought, anyways.

Everything was on the line, here... Fate was at his fingertips... Just an aim and trigger press away...

"Here goes, no mercy..."

He hesitated... No... Not hesitated- he downright cringed as he raised his weapon. Any second now, the trigger would be pulled. Warm blood would assault his hands, face, and clothes with the violence of a spray of the sea. He'd look like a walking crime scene.

Because he would be.

There'd be metaphorical and literal blood on his hands.

He would take a life. Probably his first of many lives.

"... Here goes, no..."

... No. He was no killer. As potent as his anger was at that detestable Captain Hammer- as much as his conscious barked and bayed for any act of vengeance- murder was far too much.

The League wouldn't like that. He knew they wouldn't like that. And they knew they were probably watching his every move right now. Studying his hesitation. Studying the way he tilted his gun away, turning his head and gritting his teeth, ashamed of how far he would have gone.

Was a life really worth his ticket to the League? Admittedly, Hammer's life wouldn't even be worth a cheap, greasy drive-through meal, though that was no excuse to kill him...

A rather unpleasant sound echoed faintly behind the villain in that moment. A whirring, which decreased in pitch and volume, accompanied by a few spastic clicking noises. The blue glow which had emanated from the freeze ray he had worked so hard over the past few days to perfect slowly faded away.

"That's... Not a good sound..." Was all Billy managed to breathe, the words admittedly lined with a nervous edge. If the freeze ray was powering itself down... Then its effects would stop working soon after.

And if its effects stopped working soon after...

Horrible managed to dodge the fist with mere millimeters of distance to spare, managing to lock eyes with the triumphant, and now most assuredly unfrozen hero before him. Clearly disappointed the punch resulted in nothing but a lackluster near miss, Captain Hammer instead- in an act of pure, unadulterated genius- decided instead to grab onto the ray gun's frame, attempting to grapple it away from the Doctor.

"A death ray-" He grunted, eyes flickering from the duct tape label to meet his nemesis eye to eye, "Seems like Doctor Horrible's moving up, huh?"

"Let go of it, you idiot-!" Unlike his freeze ray, which he had spent several weeks upon- adjusting and editing its design- Horrible's death ray was... Flawed, to put it simply. Manhandling a flawed invention wasn't typically the best course of action.

Of course, the chances of Captain Hammer even bothering to listen to a single syllable that came from his mouth was slim to none; he knew this. It came as a surprise to no one when the hardheaded hero refused such simple instruction,

"You're slower than you look, Doctor-" He chided, giving the weapon a sharp tug towards his chest- strong enough to pull Horrible along with it. Gritting his teeth, he tugged back in response,

"You don't know what you're doing, you halfwit! Just put it d-"

"Oh, I know what I'm doing alright." The larger male interrupted, his inhumanely powerful grip tightening on the device, "I'm defeating you. I'm keeping all these dirty street people safe. I'm saving the day, like I always do. And you-"

Placing one large, calloused hand against Horrible's forehead, he pushed him backward, managing to pry the weapon from the Doctor's grip.

"Can't-"

The weapon was raised high above his head- like a game of keep-away on school grounds. Of course, Billy couldn't reach that high even if he wanted to humiliate himself to try. And, likewise, nothing he spoke would reach the hero's ears, either.

"Stop me-!"

Now, when one creates an invention on their own, they tend to remember what the building process was... What parts and pieces went into it, how it operates, that sort of thing.

Despite it being a prototype, Horrible knew everything about the ray gun as if someone etched it into his skull. It mimicked his freeze ray in a good few ways; a device to stop whatever it's ray hit from moving, destroying and splitting whatever molecules it came in contact with like acid, disintegrating whatever remained in its path for a good few feet or so.

The freezing capability was only possible with the help of wonderflorium, a rare material that was still under discovery by most scientists. A lot of its properties were left unknown, save for a good few. Any self-respecting villain could tell you off the back of their hand the most important one:

Dangerous when bounced.

So when Captain Hammer used all his force to throw the weapon as far as possible across the room, Billy barely managed to get out a gasp before the reaction began accordingly.

A powerful wave ripped through the building- and, if he were to guess, probably outside of it, too- flinging both Horrible and his adversary against the wall, a violent thud symbolizing the time in which they came into contact with a solid surface.

The death ray itself wasn't built for such pressure, and with a loud crack, it had split itself apart. Shrapnel, steel, and other bits of his hastily built invention rocketed throughout the large room with a dangerously large radius.

Doctor Horrible was just beginning to identify the pain that came with being thrown into a wall, too, before a sharp strike of agony ripped through his left shoulder.

The response to the overlapping pain was admittedly a bit delayed- out of shock, most presumably. Typically, one wouldn't be expecting such violent pain in such a short amount of time.

Then he did realize. And once he did realize, he couldn't help but let out a loud howl of torment. Captain Hammer had done a real number on him plenty of times. But at the moment, it felt as though nothing could compare to what utter hell burned at his shoulder.

A particularly sharp piece of metal had rocketed at him, clipping the topmost part of his shoulder- though it wasn't high enough to avoid physical contact entirely, as evident by the fact that it had lodged itself into his flesh. It wasn't too deep- Billy could have pulled it out if he wished. Though, at the moment, it was difficult to consider doing anything at all when one was staring at a sharp shard of something, covered in their own blood.

Wasn't it worse to pull a weapon loose? Didn't it only cause more blood to spill? He couldn't quite remember if that were to apply in this scenario, but reaching a quavering hand, this fact- if it was one- went completely disregarded.

The steel piece was pried loose from his flesh- not without a sharp, biting sensation, and another hiss of pain, but nonetheless, it was out. And dropping it to the ground, the Doctor resorted instead to gripping to the injury with his hand- hoping to stop the flow of blood, potentially.

This would absolutely ruin his lab coat... Not that the matter was the most urgent one at hand- but he didn't want to flee the scene of the crime looking like... Well... A crime scene.

Still in some form of shock, the villain scanned his surroundings; a couple of terrified onlookers who hadn't the sense to flee earlier, shrapnel littering the walls like some morbid decoration, the pathetic Captain Hammer whining on the floor...

Distantly, the sound of sirens hit his ears... That was his cue to leave. The ELE wouldn't be pleased with the results of the evening- not that the thought even once flickered in his mind... Not when pain gnawed on it like a savage beast, replacing any remaining ideas with his inborn fight or flight responses.

And considering he had nothing to fight with, it only left one option.

Fumbling across the stage, down its wooden steps, and through the auditorium hall, the Doctor flung open the entrance doors- or, the exit doors, in his case.

Fresh air lapped at his face like a dog- though Billy didn't acknowledge this much, choosing instead to focus on the soft blue and red lights making its way steadily to the building's exact location.

Gripping to his shoulder tightly, nails pressing deep enough into the injured flesh to draw even more blood, he ran- the opposite direction, of course. They wouldn't know to speed after him when the trouble started inside the building...

Sticky residue stained his hand and the upper-left half of his clothing a dark mahogany shade... But at the very least, the blood was his own...