5: Hello and Goodbye

An Edison City Supervillain RomCom

Previously on And When Two Villains Woo, the Malevolent Medstudent’s henchwoman Candystriper had been abducted by an alien named Rosie Flurnazoid enraged over the lost ending of an Earth television vampire romance show, so enraged that she’s threatened Candystriper’s very life; meanwhile the Malevolent Med-Student has been kidnapped by possibly-rogue hero John Cute and is now plummeting towards the ground? Will the Malevolent Med-Student and his henchwoman Candystriper survive? Before we find out, a word from our sponsor!

The Malevolent Med-Student plunged towards a parking lot. He wondered for a fleeting second whether he should try to aim his landing towards an unoccupied space or a spot with a car in it, and which would cause the most chaos for the people in the area. It was the duty of a supervillain to die as defiantly and/or as annoyingly as possible, he felt, although when it came to the point he really really really didn’t want to die-

Which was why he felt a surge of immense relief when John Cute dived in and caught him at the absolute last possible second. The Malevolent Med-Student barely noticed the cheers of the passers-by who’d happened to witness the amazing rescue; he was so grateful just to have survived. Then all at once he was dangling in air again, an iron hand holding him firmly by the scruff of his prison uniform.

“My name’s John,” the man holding him said, in an astonishingly matter-of-fact voice. “John Cute. You should know that could’ve gone differently. I could’ve caught you at a slightly different angle and you would be paralyzed for life. I could’ve not caught you at all. The only reason it didn’t is because I need you. I’ve got your thrudanium. You’re going to use it to make me immortal. You don’t, I drop you again and this time I don’t catch you.”

He paused for a fraction of a second. “Or maybe I drop your sidekick.”

A cape in the Malevolent Med-Student’s position might’ve gasped “No! You wouldn’t!” in hopes of appealing to his captor’s good side. The Malevolent Med-Student felt himself more realistic. He was absolutely sure that this John Cute, whoever he was, would indeed do what he’d said. That being the case, he wasn’t going to waste time on pointless questions.

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll assist you. Obviously I can’t work from up here; I assume you have a laboratory set up for me?”

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Meanwhile, Candystriper was up in an alien spaceship on the point of death as Rosie Flurnazoid vented her wrath. Tentacles waving, although one still remained closing around Candystriper’s neck, the towering squid-like being raved about how the foolish Earth authorities had canceled her beloved show. “Now we’ll never know how it ended! I’ll worry over it for the rest of my days! Do you know how long the lifespan of my species is?”

Candystriper didn’t, nor did she care. What she did know was that one of Rosie’s three eyes had just come within reach of her right boot. A plan came to mind, or at least the concept of a plan, which in this limited circumstance was enough. Candystriper summoned all her remaining strength and kicked Rosie Flurnazoid right in her leftmost eyeball.

The alien squid reeled back in agony, dropping the henchwoman. Candystriper hit the floor, leaped to her feet, and ran for it.

She didn’t get far. Under the circumstances she hadn’t had time to get a look at the area; now she nearly ran right into a large console before she stopped and looked frantically around. She was standing in a large circular control room lined with banks of blinking panels and lights. Above her stretched a transparent dome and beyond that she saw black sky dotted with a few stars and an oddly familiar blue-green ball.

Candystriper froze. Until that moment it hadn’t quite registered that she was in outer space. It’d been at the back of her mind, sure; waking up on an unfamiliar floor and then nearly being attacked by an alien, one tends to assume one isn’t in Kansas anymore. But here was the Earth itself, floating above her, incontrovertible proof. “Holy shoot!” she exclaimed. “I’m in outer space!”

“Kill!” Rosie Flurnazoid shouted, waving her tentacles in fury. “Kill her! Fire!”

A pair of combat robots unfolded from the sides of the control room and leveled their guns at Candystriper. She looked frantically around. Within her reach was a panel with several blinky lights and at least one button. Candystriper hit the button with all her might. Luckily, or perhaps not, it was the teleport button.

As mauve and violet light flashed around her, Candystriper couldn’t resist making a particularly unpleasant gesture at the aliens. The meaning was lost on them, she knew, given that as aliens they would be unfamiliar with Earth hand signals. On the other hand, it gave her at least a small sense of satisfaction, and given that she was teleporting from an alien vessel to who knew where with no idea of where her boss the Malevolent Med-Student might be, Candystriper felt like she needed that.

Read the Next Episode.

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