Vaudevillain

The top hatted villain hadn’t gotten very far. With a broken rocket boot, Dr. Zlo had crashed right into the ground next to the Gustaf Tower as it launched. Approximo yelped and jumped down into the crater he’d made, turning into a rock as he did. Dr. Zlo fired his shrink ray at the flames, somehow shrinking them as they got close.

Heat washed over Approximo as he waited for the fire to pass. His rocky skin grew hot and the hero wondered if his friends were alright. Finally, the flames subsided, allowing Approximo to revet back to his form.

Unfortunately, he’d forgotten that his appendages had been shrunken. Approximo tripped on his now tiny feet, kicking up dust before he found a bypass in the form of a foot shaped rock. It was terrible balance, but it let the hero escape his self-made crater.

Once he stood, Approximo took stock of the situation. Players were now filing into the plaza, making a beeline for Dr. Zlo. The villain stood by cackling loudly.

“You’re too late, heroes! Your paltry attempts to stop me are in vain, as I’ve finally made it to the tower! Now, tremble in fear as my shrink ray reduces your oh so proud wonder into an ornament fit for a toy!”

The villain pointed his shrink ray and fired. However, because the tower’s owner had launched it into space, the ray struck nothing.

Dr. Zlo frowned. He fired again. Again he struck nothing.

“Blasted thing!” Dr. Zlo cursed. “You choose now of all times to fail?”

Dr. Zlo tried once more before the players reached him. “Ah, I see you’ll have to forgive my earlier bluster. I do believe someone has broken my machine.”

“No matter,” the villain said. “I shall have plenty of time to fix it while you are distracted.”

Dr. Zlo snapped his fingers. A whistling sound fell from the sky, landing to reveal a bevy of mechanical pods that were quickly sending waves of Jacques.

“F*ck,” one of the players said. “This f*cker triggered the f*cking horde fight!”

The players turned to look at Dylan, who raised an eyebrow.

“You f*cking idiot,” the player said. “Now we’ll have to spend f*cking forever f*cking killing these f*cking Jacques before we f*cking even get to the f*cking boss fight.”

Dylan wondered if the player had some kind of nervous tic or if he just liked using the swear word. Because that was way too many for one sentence.

“Complain to him later,” another player said. “Don’t forget your position.”

“Yeah f*cking yeah,” the player answered.

The group of players turned as one, taking positions similar to raiding groups Dylan had seen in other MMO’s. Bulky heroes stood in front to protect the others while heroes with crowd control powers pulled the minions together. Then, heroes with heavy firepower blasted the groups, turning them all to dust.

“Five seconds to rotation,” one of the players near Dylan said.

The players continued fighting for those five seconds, then stopped as one. At that point, Dr. Zlo again snapped his fingers.

“I should have known the conventional wouldn’t have stopped you,” the villain said. “So how about the unconventional!”

The pods around the villain sprang up on two feet, Jacques still filing from their doors. Dylan realized the pods were each a factory, producing hordes of Jacques to stall the players. As he watched, three of the pods came together while the others moved in a ring to protect them.

“It’s Lug types!” the player near Dylan said.

The group changed positions. This time, the crowed control and firepower heroes blasted the Jacques while the heavy hitter heroes ran toward the Lugs walking out of the new factory. Strength met strength, stopping the minions in their tracks.

“Mop up!” the player shouted.

Dylan saw players that had been hanging back jump into the fray. These heroes seemed to be high damage single target types. They moved through the locked down Jacques, destroying the factories as they went.

“Nuisances!” Dr. Zlo shouted.

“Egghead time!” the player shouted.

Dylan saw more factories come together, but before he could watch more his messenger pinged.

Candequeen:

Where you at?

Superfan39526:

In the middle of this hero crowd.

Candequeen:

Well get outta there and meet us at the base of the tower.

Dylan closed the messenger and moved, only remembering then that he’d changed his feet so he could climb. He stumbled a moment before catching himself.

“Oh, my hands are back,” the player said.

Seeing that his shrunken appendages had reverted, Dylan shifted back to normal feet and made his way out of the crowd. Players gave him looks as he moved, none of the happy.

“Those players do not like me for some reason,” Dylan said as he found his friends.

“They don’t like any of us,” Jack said.

“Yeah, dude. Someone called Dream a c*nt.” Riptide said. His usually happy face was plastered in an angry scowl.

“Let it go, Rip,” Dream said. “You can’t let what people say on the internet get to you.”

“Anyway,” Oro said. “Our fight was a bust. I don’t think we were ready for a zombie cyborg.”

“I don’t think anyone ever is,” Jack said. “But the question is what we do now. Can we even take Dr. Zlo down with this crowd?”

“They’d hate us if we did,” Dream said.

“Dudes, who cares what they think. We were here first,” Riptide said.

“No reason to start a fight when we can just find another Dr. Zlo quest,” Dylan said.

“I’m with Riptide on this one,” Jack said. “Who cares what they think. We were at the plaza before them and were stalling the villains while they took their sweet time.”

“I say we try to finish the quest,” Oro said. “We’ll get some parts for a pet and can decide what to do next.”

“If you’re sure,” Dylan said.

“What are they going to do? Insult us to death?” Jack asked.

“Okay, then we should look to separate Dr. Zlo from his shrink ray,” Dylan said. “Once he loses that he’ll retreat.”

“Right on, dude,” Riptide said. “Time to set the stage on fire!”

The player activated his power, his hands glowing red hot.

“Gotta get through the minions first,” Jack said.

“That’s not a problem,” Of a Kind said. “The Jacques fall to small arms and we have plenty of heavy hitters.”

Dylan looked over at the crowd of fighting minions. “I have an idea.”

Before anyone could ask, Dylan transformed his body into that of a Lugs. Mechanical muscles expanded, growing him to make him tower over his friends.

“Now, Mirror Mirror can copy me,” the hero said.

“Oh, I’m picking up what your putting down,” Jack said.

“I have set nothing down?” Dylan said, trying his best to look clueless.

Oro chuckled. “You are going to be able to milk that for so long.”

Dylan scrunched his face in confusion, doing his best not to break character. “I see no cows nearby? Unless you were talking about a human’s, but I’ve been told it is rude to make comments toward such a thing.”

“I f*ckin’ hate you,” Sweet Dream said. “That is by far the worst one!”

Jack rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I say you went a bit too far there bud.”

“Dudes, we should probably hurry,” Riptide said, interrupting. “The others are starting to thin the herd.”

Sweet Dream narrowed her eyes. “You better not be continuing this line of puns.”

Riptide looked confused. “What puns? I wasn’t listening.”

“Good,” Sweet Dream said. “Now, what say we break some toys?”

“Careful, your villain is coming through,” Jack said.

Mirror Mirror used her power to match Dylan. “I think I’m allowed to feel a bit villainous after what we went through.”

“Touche,” Jack answered.

The player turned to Dylan. “Right, now forward!”

“You got it,” Approximo said. The hero turned and lumbered toward Dr. Zlo, a mirrored copy of himself by his side.

The two shapeshifted heroes made quick work of the smaller Jacques that got in the way, their large hands and legs freely kicking them to the side. Gameset and Of a Kind flanked behind them, firing at anything getting past. Firestarter brought up the rear, burning the air behind him to keep them from being swarmed.

They reached Dr. Zlo shortly, the villain still trying to get the shrink way to work on a missing Gustaf Tower. The villain scowled as he saw them approach. “How did you get through my minions?”

“Dude, it’s not hard,” Firestarter said. “They burn like everything else.”

“Indeed,” Dr. Zlo said with a frown. “No matter, you cannot stop my genius!”

The villain aimed the shrink ray at the group. Dylan moved forward, shifting back to himself. The beam flew over his head harmlessly.

Gameset took aim with her rifle, firing at Dr. Zlo’s hand. The bullet pinged off the villain’s protective shields but was enough to startle him. His next shot again went wide, this time striking one of the nearby factories. It continued to work, chugging out action figure sized Jacques.

Of a Kind followed up with his pistols, doing his best to keep the villain on his toes. However, once the initial shock had worn off, continued bullets were barely even a minor nuisance. Dr. Zlo sneered, bringing his shrink ray to bear, but that was when Firestarter and Mirror Mirror struck. The heroine had shifted to match the punk rocker, both working together to contain a massive fireball.

Dr. Zlo’s eyes went wide as they tossed it at him. In a panic, he fired the beam at the ball. It shrank to the size of a marble, but still hit. The shield around Dr. Zlo cracked as heat tried to get through, giving Gameset an opening. With practiced precision, she aimed her rifle at the crack and fired. The bullet pierced through, reaching Dr. Zlo’s shoulder. The villain jerked from the force of the blow, spinning in place.

The shrink ray fell to the ground, and Approximo rushed for it. He shifted his hands into vines once more, letting the elongated fingers wrap and pull the device to him.

“No!” Dr. Zlo shouted.

“Surrender,” Approximo said once the gun was out of the way.

“Ha! Fools!” Dr. Zlo answered. “You might have bested me today, but this isn’t the last you’ll see of Dr. Zlo!”

With that, the villain pressed a button under his tie. The villain vanished, his cackling laughter echoing in their ears.

“And that’s that,” Approximo said.

“You f*cking f*ckers!” a familiar voice shouted.