Previously on Dawn of the Super Surgeon, Constance the Angel and Vicky, a representative of the other side, fought for the soul of the Malevolent Med-Student until Constance summoned the superhero Doctor Speed who successfully averted the Malevolent Med-Student’s attempt to shoot Mr. Superlative with the Pharma-Death Beam! Which is a lot, yes. The main thing is that Mal-Med and his loyal henchwoman Candystriper are now fleeing rapidly from the scene! A quick reminder: this serial and all others can be found below at the Edison City Index!
And now, the adventure continues!
“Wheeeeee!” Candystriper yelled from her place in the Side-Effect Car alongside the Malpracticycle, as she and the Malevolent Med-Student buzzed down the streets of Edison City. She wasn’t in the mood to stop and think over what had just happened; she was relieved, exultant, and also just having a whole lot of fun. It wasn’t every day you went up against someone like Mr. Superlative and walked away, after all. “Let’s do it again, sir!” she yelled.
“Let’s not!” the Malevolent Med-Student yelled back. He was distinctly not in the mood for fun, let alone any sort of “Wheeeee!”. He was, in fact, thinking very hard. The problem, as he could see it, was obvious. He knew he really should, all things considered, become a hero. He’d actually enjoyed saving that civilian from the Rogue Jaywalker, now that he thought about it. It would give him a certain moral legitimacy, not to mention save him no end of trouble with the Edison City police, maybe even the federal government people and their ridiculously-acronymed agency. On the other hand, he had to admit it, a certain part of him also enjoyed the sheer thrill of being the bad guy. The whole mustache-twirling (metaphorical in his case, but still), evil-laughing, diabolical-plot hatching of it all….wouldn’t he miss it? He wasn’t really psychotic like John Cute or Cthulhu, was he? He just fulfilled a certain societal role, and was it really fair to ask him to suppress an entire side of himself-
At that moment he gasped in delight. “Eureka!” he said.
“I whatta?” Candystriper replied.
“I meant, I’ve had an idea! Quickly, Candystriper! We’ve got to commandeer a laboratory!”
It didn’t take terribly long; the Edison City University was only a few blocks away, and from there all they had to do was get inside the science wing. It wasn’t quite as well equipped with all the specialized equipment in the Malevolent Med-Student’s hideout, but for his purposes it would do. “Candystriper, pipette that solution!”
“I’m pipetting, I’m pippetting already! Yeesh!”
A few well-chosen chemicals later, a dash of thychronite exposure (“It’s lucky they have a thychronite generator here or I don’t know what I’d have done”), and a final pippetting by Candystriper (“Woohoo!”), and the result of their work lay before them: a flask containing a liquid the exact color of a pear well on its way to rotting.
“No way I’m drinking that,” said Candystriper.
“I, however…” said the Malevolent Med-Student, and before he could change his mind, grabbed the potion and downed it at one go. He gave a nauseous sort of twitch and collapsed. Then, all at once, to Candystriper’s horror, he split in two.
Before she could scream or run or do anything about it, both halves resolved themselves: one into what looked just like the original Malevolent Med-Student, and one into what looked almost like him, but…shorter.
“Hello there!” the second one said, bounding to his feet. “Super Surgeon, at your service!”
“Excellent,” the Malevolent Med-Student said weakly. “It worked.”
Candystriper gasped. “What did you do?”
“It’s simple, really,” the Malevolent Med-Student said. “I synthesized a molecular-haliosynthetic compound which reacted upon and materialized the posicoethical side of my inherent casuality.”
He paused. She blinked. He sighed. “I cloned off my good side. That way he can go save civilians and do all the hero business and I can do what I was doing before. There. Moral dilemma solved.”
“Your….ooooooh. Way cool, boss. Way cool.”
“Quite, Candystriper. Quite.” He turned to the Super Surgeon. “Run along now, go do heroics or something, there’s a good clone.”
“Sir!” the Super Surgeon said, then saluted and swept away dramatically. Candystriper watched him going.
“Question,” she said. “If he’s good, and you’re, well, you, wouldn’t he, like, want to come back and fight you?”
“No,” the Malevolent Med-Student said, getting to his feet and, for the first time since the encounter with Mr. Superlative, smiling. “That was the point of the thychronite generator. I stabilized the ethical matrix, y’see. He can’t attack me. It won’t even occur to him. As I said, moral dilemma: solved.”
He broke out into a triumphant laugh that echoed down the halls of the Edison City University science wing. Candystriper nodded and laughed along, although deep down inside she wasn’t entirely convinced. But hey, she thought, maybe the guy was right. Maybe everything was all good now and they could go back to the way it was before. That was what she wanted, right?
Right?
Read the Next Episode.
Note: Inspirations include The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, as well as the thematically similar but more hilarious story arc from Calvin and Hobbes involving the ethicator. It’s also a little bit the fault of E.B. Howard : I thought I’d try planning this out with the whole pinch point thing that she mentioned in a recent update, and that meant I had to work out which was the antagonist and which was the protagonist in this serial, and suddenly I wondered what if they were the same person?
So. That’s where we are. In the immortal words of Candystriper, wheeee!
Wheee!
Quite pleased to have this be my fault. :D I loved this C&H arc. Also, though Super-Surgeon may (theoretically) not want to fight Mal-Meddie, I have to wonder if his worse half will be as thoughtful...