A/N: Why am I uploading the first chapter now? The truth of this is, I just wanted to post Fake TJ's alleged plans before the presidential inauguration actually took place. There's more to come, though—you better believe it! And my apologies as to Horrible's occasional bipolarity. This kind of stuff can make one moody. Any well-thought-out and constructive criticism would make me much obliged… and the masses singing my praises, well, they're pretty awesome, too.

Disclaimer: All belongs to Mutant Enemy. Tie Die, Horrible, even the League! Even some quotes! I own nothing but my own words.

Oh, and buy the DVD. Seriously. It's a good idea.

Tie Die growled to herself as she saw the man in a crimson lab coat and dark, slightly rusted goggles take his seat slowly at the table along with the rest of the League, in the presence of Bad Horse himself. Who did this villain think he was? As he had entered, she found herself nearly entranced by the way he walked, with… not regality, no. But a sort of seriousness, as if this moment meant more than just an opportunity, or even the payoff of his life's work. She scowled. It had taken her months— years— to join the League, herself. So many failed attempts, so many lives taken. And this, this poser waltzed right in among people like Dead Bowie and Fake Thomas Jefferson after committing a simple murder! And not a particularly well-executed one at that. Her cousin (one of the lesser members of the League, undercover as one of Captain Hammer's fangirls) had told her the story. He had failed to kill his nemesis and when he finally did "off" someone, he ran to her like he was about to cry. The wimp. Even carried her body to the stretcher, like he was posing for a sculpture or something, singing all the while.

Yes, singing.

He was doing it now, too, like he was ending some verse about how tragic his life was. Please. But he finally paused, cleared his throat, and Bad Horse whinnied, signifying a start to the meeting.

Professor Normal took it from there. "Greetings, evil-doers, villains, members of the Fury--"

Leika punched his arm. "Come off it, Normal," she said softly and sharply at the same time, the way she always spoke. She turned to the new villain, seated at the end. "Doctor Horrible. Greetings. We have heard much."

Tie Die blew a raspberry through her lips and everyone turned to Bad Horse, expecting the noise to have come from the Thoroughbred of Sin, who often made such insightful remarks. She felt her cheeks turning red as the horse snorted a negative.

She had to keep her mouth shut—if this Horrible turned out to be popular with the villains, she could quite possibly be kicked out of the League. And of the few who had been weeded from the League in the past… She frowned to keep her mood what it should be. A villainess feels no fear.

But Leika was talking again now, about the evil Doctor and how good he must be to get in the League and how things went around here and yadda yadda yadda. She picked at her mask, bored. But suddenly she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"Tie Die?"

She almost—but not quite—jumped in her seat. Fury Leika was touching her.

"Yes?"

"Why don't you tell Dr. Horrible a little about the League?"

Tie Die thought for a moment, then fixated her glance at the doctor, whose goggles and blood-red coat almost gave the creepy impression of otherworldliness. "We kill. And pillage. And plunder. And kill some more."

The man spoke for the first time, flatly. "Just chaos? No anarchy? No social reform?"

She wanted to snort. "No, just evil. No social reform in the least."

Snakebite interrupted with her trademark accent. No one knew from where she came, but she always pronounced vowels as e's and hissed her s's, in accordance with traditional supervillain-theme form. "Okay, yes, hippies, if we're quite finished with talk of politics, we have a League to run and evil to do."

"Yes," Fake Thomas Jefferson said, taking out a rolled parchment and spreading it across the table in front of them all. "Now, according to all of our sources, the presidential inauguration will take place here. If we fix the podium with--"

"Not you, too!" Snakebite screeched. "Get over your grudge against other politicians! You are never going to get reelected! Let us simply go back to the days of traditional evil, yes?"

"Wait a minute!" Professor Normal said. "We can't live in the past. The future of evil is now!"

Tie Die shook her head and put it in her hands, feeling another headache coming. If she could just live until the end of the meeting…

XXXMAKETHEWHOLEWORLDKNEELANDIWONTFEELXXX

She sighed as the others in the League finally left the conference room, another dead end for the world set in place. Pushing herself out of her chair with a groan, she stood and began to follow them, stopping by the door to switch off the lights as she went.

Gasping, she saw Dr. Horrible standing behind her in the now-deserted room.

He held up his hands in surrender, showing he meant her no harm. "Tie Die, right?"

She regained control of herself. "Yeah. Horrible?"

"Right."

There was an uncomfortable silence in the room as Tie Die started to think. Finally, she held up a finger. "Look, 'Doctor,' I don't know who you think you are, but I am not going to start to treat you like a full-blown member of the League just because everyone says you are. I have worked too hard for too long to be intimidated by a, by a henchman playing dress-up!

"So listen, buddy," she saw how his shoulders slumped at the sarcastic title of friendship, "I know you didn't kill that woman, so if you--" His head snapped up, and another moment of silence, this one tense, stretched between them. She made herself continue. "--If you think you can bully me around, you've… got another thing coming!" she ended lamely.

He took a breath, and pulled his goggles to his forehead to speak to her more directly, fiddling with them. She noticed how the area around his eyes was lined with red, presumably from the goggles, in the shape of a raccoon's mask. She also stopped short when she saw his piercing blue eyes, intently searching her own mask, as well as the dark sags beneath his eyes. Somehow, he seemed less alien. More human.

Horrible blinked. "Tie Die, did you mean what you seemed to, about social reform?" She started to answer but was cut off. "Because, that's, you know, why I wanted to join the League in the first place. Don't you guys have… anything to do with politics?"

"Not really," Tie Die said, "Just evil."

He squinted. "You know, no offense, but you do look sort of like a hippie. Do you not like--"

She turned away. "Look, Doctor Horrible, this isn't the place for anarchy. Why don't you just go back to your lab or whatever and work on your doomsday devices?"

"No, I—no doomsday. I don't want the world to end. I just… want to rule it."

"Good luck." She laughed bitterly. Before the man had a chance to answer, Tie Die spun around and stepped away, down the hallway. She could hear him sputtering but ignored him.

Once she had gotten a satisfactory length away from the villain, she breathed deeply, leaning against the wall and sliding down it, closing her eyes. The day had been so long.

A dull, quiet thud pounded against her head. She snapped her eyes open tiredly. Not something else! She pulled herself up and followed the sound back to the hallway in front of the conference room, peeking around the corner.

Horrible was pounding his head against the wall, muttering, "Stupid, stupid, stupid Billy. Stupid!" over and over, a word with each pound, clanging his goggles on the plastered-stone wall. She heard a giggle and realized it was her own.

Horrible must have heard it, too, for he stood up suddenly, adjusting his goggles and looking to her corner. Unwilling to look embarrassed, Tie Die stepped all the way out, crossing her arms and raising her eyebrows.

"Um. Hi. Just, ah, fixing my goggles. Heh. Too… loose."