11: A Case of Do or Die
Previously on And When Two Villains Woo, the Malevolent Med-Student had just teleported Candystriper into his secret lab, but she has just used her newly acquired robot arm to blast her way out again! Will her escape draw the notice of rogue superhero John Cute? Will the Malevolent Med-Student learn how to manipulate the thrudanium in order to achieve immortality? Is the professional working relationship between Mal-Med and Candystriper, already somewhat in disrepair, now entirely irreparable? What about Sam Superlative and Meg Atomic? What about Professor Cthulhu? Why are there so many questions? We’ll get to them all eventually, but first a short commercial word:
The Malevolent Med-Student would’ve stared at the gaping hole in the secret lab ceiling for an hour, trying to puzzle out what exactly what he had said or what subtle cue he had missed which had so upset his wayward henchwoman, but he quickly snapped to his senses. One advantage of being an experienced supervillain is that one rapidly learns to develop a keen sense of threat-analysis. Not quite a spider-sense, this is more of an awareness of the situation around one at all times, just so one can answer the basic question: “Am I in immediate danger, where from, and how bad?” The Malevolent Med-Student’s threat analysis was off the charts.
John Cute would realize what had happened, if he didn’t already. He surely had the place bugged and wired. If smashing right through the blamed ceiling and leaving a gaping hole didn’t draw his attention, then he was a grade-A moron. At a minimum he would demand to know how Candystriper had gotten there in the first place. Worst case:
“I’m dead,” the Malevolent Med-Student said to himself. “I am most assuredly dead. I’ve got to get out!”
Unfortunately his escape options were limited. He couldn’t fly, so going out the hole Candystriper had left wasn’t immediately an option. The door through which John Cute came in was code-locked and solid metal besides. There had to be something. Anything!
He had to improvise. He hated improvising. The Malevolent Med-Student grabbed the thrudanium block and a string of floss, whipped it around in a circle until it whizzed like a small yo-yo, and then, calculating mathematical numbers rapidly in his head, aimed it right at a pen that happened to be lying in just such a way so part of it hung off the table and part of it stayed on. The pen, crackling for an infinitesimal nanosecond’s worth of thrudanic power, snapped through the air and struck the code-locked lab entrance door with a decently loud thwack!
The Malevolent Med-Student was already diving for cover. The nice thing about fully stocked secret labs such as the one he’d been provided was that it had an abundance of places to do this, such as a good sturdy stainless steel table bolted to the floor. The Malevolent Med-Student scrambled underneath it and covered his head.
A terrific explosion rent the secret lab. When the debris stopped falling and the dust settled, the Malevolent Med-Student slowly crept out from under the table. Sure enough, just as he’d hoped, the lab door now lay in two jagged pieces on the ground.
"Yes!” the Malevolent Med-Student exulted. “It worked! Of course John Cute will be arriving at any moment now so we mustn’t delay! Time to go, Candystriper!”
In the glory of the escape, he had momentarily forgotten that he no longer had a henchwoman. “Oh,” he said heavily. “Right. Yes. Well. It’s just me then. No point to a departing monologue, I suppose.” He shrugged and walked out, carrying the thrudanium on its floss string with him.
John Cute was doing a flyby for a charitable organization (he’d forgotten which, he’d done so many he could do it on autopilot now) when his phone lit up with alerts. Even the kid noticed. “Mr. Cute, sir, your phone’s going off funny.”
“Ah, so it is,” he said, “Well, Tommy-“
“Ryan, sir-”
“Right, whatever, well, sorry to cut the visit short, but there’s an emergency!” He dashed off down the hospital corridor, out the door, and into the sky. Thunder cracked over the city. John Cute was heading for the lab, and he was blazing mad.
He was even madder when he got there. The place was a wreck, a jagged hole in the ground opening into an even bigger hole filled with debris, and no sign of the Malevolent Med-Student whatsoever. No sign of the thrudanium either. John Cute swore and punched a hole in a nearby steel beam. “I’m going to kill him,” he said, nearly shaking in fury. “I am going to kill him.”
Wanting to commit murder on villains- a proud part of our superhero heritage since 1938.