Vaudevillain

Dr. Zlo kept his eyes on the screen as Riptide surfed up the stairs of the building towards Merla. It was finally time for the two players to hold their rematch.

"This is gonna be great!" Dr. Zlo cheered. "Two powerhouses meet, and only one survives!"

Mabel sipped her tea. "Who do you think will win, hon?"

"Riptide, of course," Dr. Zlo answered.

Mabel smiled. "Care to put money on it?"

"Why, Mabel. Betting against your employer? If I were a more unhinged villain, I'd have you ejected out an airlock."

"Which is why it's a good thing you aren't, hon. And I would hate for Suitor to ruin his new suit. Isn't that right, Suitor?"

The mind-controlled villain-turned-janitor-turned-servant nodded as Mabel's control exerted itself.

"Now, Mabel, don't get too overeager. I would hate to lose a fine creation such as yourself."

Cass caught Dr. Zlo's attention with a quick wave, "Boss, it's starting!"

Riptide grunted as he pulled his board to a stop in front of Merla.

"Sup, dude. You ready for some action?"

Merla started signing, building up energy. "Ready when you are, surf bum."

"Haha. Harsh, dude."

Riptide twisted his board to face Merla, firing lasers in her direction. The heroine responded with a shield that sent the red lines of death ricocheting away. She dropped the shield and dove behind a row of chairs, signing a new spell as she landed. Tendrils of light erupted from below and raced toward Riptide.

The villain slammed on the gas, lurching forward to avoid the spell. The tendrils reacted to his movement, jerking toward him as he flew. Grinning in excitement, Riptide crouched low and pulled his board right into a tendril's path. The two raced at each other like charging trains, neither giving any indication of stopping. At the last second, Riptide twisted to the left, bringing his surfboard spiraling around Merla's attack and escaping.

The tendril slowed down to twist around and follow, extending Riptide's lead against the attack. He used the split-second of time to find Merla. The heroine was kneeling behind the row of chairs, still signing. The two noticed each other at the same time, Merla stopping her attack to prepare a shield while Riptide pulled out his disintegration gun and hip-fired a shot.

The blue beam of energy flew towards Merla's feet. The magician jumped up and lept over the row of chairs in time to escape. Riptide adjusted his aim and fired off another shot, only for Merla to block it with a conjured shield. The surfer tried to pop off a third attack, but his speed took him too close to the window.

Riptide abandoned his assault to pull his board parallel to the windows, giving Merla time to recover. She darted towards the stairs, hands never stopping their casting. Riptide pulled his board around to follow.

"Dude, you're getting good at spell weaving!" the surfer complimented.

Merla didn't respond, all her energy going into maintaining concentration. Missing one sign would mean a fizzled spell or worse, the spell would change. Randomness in fights like these was never good. It meant the fight could swing towards either side.

Riptide caught up to Merla as she reached the stairs. Two lasers lanced toward the heroine, who caught both beams with a rebound spell. The red energy returned to Riptide, who once again twisted out of the way. His dodge brought his board between Merla and his line of sight, and the heroine used the chance to leap over the stair's railing and onto the ground floor.

Momentarily confused at Merla's disappearance after he came out of the spin, Riptide first readied himself for an invisible attack. When nothing came after a few seconds, Riptide realized he'd been tricked.

"Oh, dude! Running away is not cool!"

Riptide surfed down the stairs chasing after Merla, alert for any surprise attacks, but Merla was already out the door. She exited on the opposite side of the fight against Victoria and Chemster, her feet pounding on the pavement as she ran to the cruise ship. Riptide blasted out of the wrong set of doors, right into the cloud of smoke Chemster created.

"Oh, dude! This reeks!" the villain shouted. He quickly surfed above the cloud, sucking in large lungfuls of air as he escaped.

"What in the world, dudes," Riptide yelled.

"Did you defeat our foe?" Chemster yelled from the smoke.

"Not yet! She ran away somewhere."

"Well, go find her! We've got this covered."

"You got it, dude!"

Riptide surfed off in search of his foe, leaving Victoria and Chemster alone once again. Despite how often the two argued, both villains complemented each other rather well. Chemster held a power similar to mad science but focused solely on gases and liquids, while Victoria's power made the villain a robot and had upgraded the ability to shift into mechanical constructs later on. Immune to the typical hangups of organic beings, like breathing, Victoria could fight indefinitely in Chemster's various gases.

It was the same plan they went with many times before. Chemster donned his mask and lobbed his gas grenades into enemies while Victoria rushed forward. The grenades would explode, debuffing the enemy heroes with stamina depletion, health draining, and various other effects. As an added bonus, the gas masked Victoria's entrance and granted the element of surprise. The first three heroes didn't know what hit them.

The others recovered quickly enough, most activating their various powers to halt or slow Chemster's gases. That had been when Riptide interrupted. The slightly longer pause gave some of the heroes a chance to escape from the cloud of gas, emerging to find Chemster waiting for them.

The chemical villain stared down the two heroes who emerged from the gas. Both showed no obvious sign of their powers, so Chemster loaded one of his generic acid bombs and fired. The soft whump of a grenade launcher signaled the attack, and the two heroes darted out of the way as fast as they could. One was too slow.

The bomb landed a few feet away from the heroes, exploding and launching a wave of acid at the two. The first was far enough away to avoid the attack, but the second fell as the acid splashed his feet.

"F*ck, I'm crippled!" the hero yelled. He rolled to the side, searching for Chemster.

The villain wasn't about to give the two heroes a fighting chance. He loaded another grenade into his launcher and fired. To his surprise, the grenade stopped at the height of its arc and fell to the ground. It exploded harmlessly far in front of the heroes.

Chemster deduced one of the heroes activated their power, but which hero? And what type of power? He needed more data. This time, Chemster loaded a cluster grenade that would explode early on, one of the Professor's designs. The hero still on his feet charged forward, gaining speed as he covered ground. Chemster hastily fired the grenade at the enemy and studied the result.

The grenade split almost as soon as it left the launcher, changing from one explosive to a hundred tiny ones that spread out around the area. The hero on the ground raised a hand and squeezed. A cluster of explosive pellets halted their momentum and fell to the ground in front of the charging hero. Chemster mentally noted the result. It looked like the downed hero could halt momentum while the other seemed to build it up.

In that case, why didn't the hero stop the acid? It was possible the hero couldn't stop tiny objects, or liquids. Chemster tested the hypothesis by pulling out another weapon, his acid sprayer. With a quick aim down the sights and the pulling of a trigger, Chemster sent a fine stream of acid at the charging hero.

And as the villain theorized, the hero dodged out of the way of the attack instead of letting the other hero stop the spray. That meant Chemster had a chance. He idly aimed the sprayer at the hero, who was now trying to spiral closer to Chemster while building momentum. Chemster followed the hero, trying to lead his shots as he pulled out another gas grenade.

Chemster dropped the grenades at his feet, letting the hissing of his sprayer mask the release of his colorless weapon. This grenade held a slowly debilitating gas that drained health. All Chemster needed to do was avoid the hero while the gas did its work.

The sound of wind and a wince of pain alerted Chemster. He whirled around to find the downed hero standing and making his way toward the fight. Another wince of pain followed the sound of the wind. Chemster noticed the hero made a swiping motion at the same time.

He'd been fooled! The striking hero couldn't stop the momentum of attacks; he had some form of telekinesis. Cursing, Chemster swung his sprayer to finish off the tricky hero.

The feeling of something shoving his shoulder threw off his aim, and the wince of pain that followed signified the damage. Chemster looked at his health, only ten percent. He whirled to find the other hero already behind him.

"I've been had," the villain said.

"Sorry, dude. But you should know better than to face off two versus one."

Chemster smirked, "It was worth it to show off to Overlord Zlo."

The villain yelled over to his partner, "Victoria! I leave the rest to you!"

A fist crashed into Chemster, and the villain saw the last of his health pool deplete. The death screen appeared in front of him, and Chemster soon found himself standing near a corner store in Cartis. The villain smiled and checked his wristband. As the five minutes counted down, he wondered if his final surprise caught those two off guard.

Chemster knew that he wasn't the best at surviving PVP battles, especially since his power granted nothing in the way of durability. His character primarily debuffed, which was why he left most of the fighting to Victoria. But even then, the two players couldn't contend with every hero that appeared, and sometimes certain powersets got the drop on them. That was when Chemster got the bright idea to create a dead man's switch. Once the villain fell, a trigger linked to chemicals lined throughout his suit created a vast gaseous explosion. Those inside the gas would find their vision disoriented and their stamina depleting over time. Victoria would then clean up the remaining heroes, as her power made sure she wasn't affected.

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