Vaudevillain

Merla started the fight by casting her capture spell. Tendrils of light shot out like spider's thread and raced toward Riptide. The other heroes who arrived attacked simultaneously, and the small corridor filled with all manner of color. A rainbow blast of energy from one hero flew at Riptide, followed closely by three icicles shot from the hero beside him. On the left and right of Merla, two heroes unleashed a hail of gunfire from conjured weapons that circled the player's backs like wings on an angel.

Riptide immediately surfed back into the hole he came from and dropped a blue-white sphere as he did.

"Run, dude!" he shouted at Bubble.

The villain didn't need telling twice, activating her power and blowing a door inward. She dove through it, letting the attacks from the heroes fly by harmlessly. Another quick use of her ability blew the floor inward, letting Bubble fall into the cabin below. From there, she dashed through the door and started making for the engine room.

Merla's net continued to chase Riptide in an attempt to grab him before he escaped, but his shout warned Merla of impending danger.

"Form a shield!" she yelled as the sphere dropped.

The heroes halted their assault, forming shields of ice and energy, and not a moment too soon. Riptide's newest weapon exploded, blasting pressurized salt water like an uncontrolled fire hose. Merla flinched instinctively as a wall of water crashed into her shield. As the wave receded, she cursed. Riptide was nowhere to be found.

"Dr. Zlo keeps giving that man new toys," she complained.

As the water drained into the cabin on the side, Merla gathered the heroes near her. "Okay!" she stared. "We know he's heading for the engine room. What's the plan?"

Merla looked over at the player and frowned a bit. She hadn't paid attention to it before, but this player overdid it on the sex appeal. They had to be a guy in real life because Merla didn't want to accept that the character in front of her could be a woman.

Despite having ice powers, the player was dressed in a one-piece swimsuit. Or maybe it was more like a leotard. Either way, the heroine had made sure that it covered only her torso, and barely even that. There was even a cleavage window. The only thing Merla could compliment was the player's hair, which was a short pixie cut instead of the shoulder-length hair expected on costumes like that.

Once, just once, Merla would like to see a male character with ice powers dressed like this. She shoved the complaint-slash-fantasy aside; the heroes were starting to rush to the engine room. Merla followed behind, keeping her hands at the ready to whip off a spell if she saw even a hint of Riptide's rashguard.

The floor below them exploded upward, spraying the two ahead in wood and sending them flying.

"F*ck!" Merla cursed in surprise. She looked below to see the villain from before, her hand lowering as she turned to run.

"Stop her!" Merla yelled. She cast her capture spell once again, letting the thin tendrils snake down. Bubble blasted through a side wall, escaping Merla's tendrils as she leaped out of sight.

The two heroes next to her jumped into the hole at the same time, landing in a roll together like they choreographed it. Merla suspected these two were twins or something. Why else did they make their characters exactly alike? Both used some sort of energy projection, like Hardlight, but focused it entirely on creating guns. They could control their created weapons in a range around them, giving them options to shoot at impossible angles. Not that they were all that good at hitting anything outside of their visual range.

Both heroes had determined to make themselves look as close to a pop-punk character as possible. The two heroes had long bangs, parted on opposite sides to let others tell them apart. But other than that, both dressed in the same striped t-shirt, plaid button-down, and skinny jeans. Merla wondered if their favorite band was Green Day; their old music had recently been making a comeback.

She watched as the two ran out of sight to chase that villain down. Merla let them go, instead turning to collect the two heroes who were hit by the surprise attack. Spook appeared behind her, making her jump in surprise.

"Jesus! I thought you had left," she said.

"I was staying back. I don't want to waste a death before it's needed."

"Good call. I think the engine room is only a few floors away now. We'll be able to stop Riptide there. He won't be able to run away this time."

Spook nodded and helped the ice hero up. Once they recovered, the players rushed through the hall and into the ship's engine room.

They made it before the villains appeared.

"Great," Merla said. "We can set up defenses." She turned to the ice hero. "Can you freeze off parts of this area? I know that one villain can blast through them, but as long as we slow them down, other heroes will arrive, and we'll eventually take them out."

"I can only make so much ice," the hero replied in a sultry voice. "But if I shift into cryo form, I could do it. But that only lasts about a minute."

"I can't set barriers up either," the rainbow hero said. He was dressed conservatively, like a monk secluded from the world. The soft brown robe draped over his body gave him a round appearance, despite his visibly toned arms. "My energy is chaos incarnate, and I spent many years mastering its effects."

"Okay, then everyone set up near a door. Riptide will get in here soon, and when he does, I want us to unleash everything we've got."

Riptide surfed through the cruise ship, somewhat lost. He'd gone up a level to escape the ambush, but the layout of the place kept turning him around. Not to mention the groups of heroes he kept encountering. Fighting them was fun, but whenever he took longer than ten seconds, another hero would appear. Riptide couldn't deal with that many heroes at once.

So each time too many arrived, he surfed away on his board. That, combined with his natural tendency to get turned around, meant he wasn't exactly sure where things were at the moment. The maps and signs pointing things out helped, but heroes kept showing up when he started getting close to the engine room.

Man, Merla was making this hard. He'd expected a little bit of resistance but not this amount (the villain didn't once think his lack of planning is what made things difficult). Bubble was a huge help, though. Since the villain kept fighting inside the ship, Riptide just had to follow the sounds of battle to find his ally. Once they joined forces, it would be easier to fight.

He arrived to find her crouched behind an upturned dining table, two heroes with a halo of pistols firing into the sturdy epoxy. Riptide surfed in on his board, attracting the heroes' attention as he blasted them with lasers. A laser singed the hero on the left, burning a small hole into his shirt.

Riptide surfed over to Bubble, "Sup, dude."

"Why did you move to my position?" the woman demanded. "Now, you can't give me covering fire while I prepare."

"Relax, dude," Riptide replied. He pulled out his disintegrator and one of his seanades. "We'll finish these two off fast and get to the engine room."

Before Bubble could reply, Riptide threw the seanade over the table and popped up with his gun. The sphere landed a few feet in front of the singed hero, who promptly ran forward and punted the seanade back. Riptide's eyes widened as the explosive shot up toward the ceiling.

"Nevermind, dude. We're going now!" Riptide grabbed Bubble's hand and slammed his foot on the gas. Bubble winced at the rough treatment, seeing her health bar deplete by a tick.

The two gun heroes turned to blast Riptide out of the sky, but the villain's seanade exploded before the two could get a bead on him. Water flew everywhere, dousing the entire area with seawater. The spray of water had the added effect of masking both villains, and Riptide turned the corner without the heroes shooting him out of the sky.

"You need to work on your tactics," Bubble complained.

"It's all good, dude. We can still make it."

Bubble only grunted.

Riptide made a few more turns until Bubble started to point him in the right direction. Soon, the two villains reached one of the doors to the engine.

"Yeah, let's go, dude!" Riptide cheered.

Bubble almost pounded her head into the wall. There went their element of surprise.

"Heroes are definitely waiting inside. How are we going to take an engine and get out of here?"

Riptide paused, placing a hand under his helmet to think. After a few seconds, he said, "Sink the ship?"

"Can you breathe underwater?"

"No, but I can surf the engine up."

Bubble sighed. She wished the Professor was here. He'd be able to come up with a better plan. Instead, she was dealing with someone who definitely didn't plan ahead in anything. Except, her character was a soldier, and this man was already a part of Dr. Zlo's group. That meant she had to obey his orders like a good soldier.

"Fine, lead the way."

"Heck yeah, dude," Riptide replied. The man pulled out four seanades and crouched low on his board. "We're going in hot, so don't get burned!"

Riptide slammed on the gas, shooting his surfboard forward like a bullet. Unprepared for the burst of speed, Bubble fell on the ground in front of the door, which turned out to be a lucky thing, as heroes were inside waiting.

A veritable snowstorm of ice whizzed through the air at Riptide, but the surfer only turned his board parallel to the attack and surfed it. Bubble's eyes widened. She didn't know his power could do that!

Rainbow energy followed the ice, wrapping around the snowstorm like a blanket. Riptide chose that moment to throw his seanades, at the same time pulling out his disintegrator. He surfed over the encroaching energy and twisted to ride the ceiling before storing his surfboard and falling. Bubble stared in amazement as the player grabbed his board only a few feet from the ground and surfed behind a layer of pipes.

The seanades exploded a second later, unleashing their torrential water over the engine room. That brought Bubble out of her daze. What if Riptide broke the engine!

She sprang to her feet and dashed into the room, searching for the required material.

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