Vaudevillain

"What is this!" Dr. Zlo shouted as he entered the room.

The two Jacques froze, slowly turning to see Dr. Zlo standing in the door. The third Jacques, the one without arms, still attempted to open the refrigerator door. At least until one of the other Jacques smacked it to get its attention.

"Someone explain what is going on here," Dr. Zlo demanded. "Or someone will get hurt."

The Jacques looked between them, silent conversation playing out. Then, the armless Jacques stepped toward Dr. Zlo and nodded at the fridge. The other two Jacques mimed eating and drinking, then gestured upstairs.

Curious, Dr. Zlo marched out of the room and up the stairs, where he found more of his minions standing in a line outside one of the rooms.

"Out of the way!" the villain remarked, shoving a Jacques aside. The minion fell to the ground, hand over its forehead as if fainting. Dr. Zlo ignored it.

Inside the room stood the group of Jacques that helped Dr. Zlo win the race. To reward their loyalty, the villain had given each minion a large medal. It seemed like the praise went straight to the Jacques' heads, as they were now commanding all the other Jacques. The medaled Jacques lounged on top of a line of seat cushions fashioned to look like a couch. Dr. Zlo glanced over at the couch behind his minions, wondering what in the world was going on in their heads.

"That's the ones from earlier, boss!" Cass pointed.

Dr. Zlo turned to look at Jacques serving up ice to the medaled minions. As the villain watched, one of the Jacques gingerly picked up an ice cube and then mimed eating it. The cube fell down to the floor, where it joined a myriad of others in various states of liquid. Another group of Jacques held fans out in front of the rewarded minions. The big metal ones, nothing simple like a foldout fan. Of course, that didn't stop the group of Jacques from waving it back and forth.

"Right! Stop this at once!" Dr. Zlo commanded. Inwardly, Dylan shook his head. Somehow the Jacques got it into their heads to reenact some old scene of a lounging ruler. The cushions must have been the long bed chair things rulers rested on, the fans were giant palm leaves, and the ice must have been something like grapes or olives. It was all too silly.

The medaled Jacques scoffed at Dr. Zlo, turning their heads dismissively and commanding the surrounding minions to continue. Dr. Zlo blasted the closest Jacques with his laser. The minion jerked back, a hole appearing in its head before vanishing and leaving behind a suit. All movement ground to a halt.

"Good," Dr. Zlo said. "Next time I command you to stop, you listen. Understood?"

The Jacques all shook their heads violently.

Dr. Zlo nodded, "Let it be known I do not tolerate disobedience, no matter how favorable I looked upon you earlier. Now, clean this up. Or else Brunhilde will have something to say about your tomfoolery."

With that, Dr. Zlo made a heel turn out the door, smacking one of the Jacques with a cane on the way out. The sound of several hands working followed after as Cass jogged up next to his boss.

"Remind me to research the Jacques intelligence later on," Dr. Zlo said. "I don't remember designing them for disloyalty."

"Eh, those few medaled ones have been around a while, boss," Cass answered. "They're bound to get a few ideas in their heads at some point."

"Indeed," Dr. Zlo said.

Dylan decided then and there he needed a way to upgrade his minions. He couldn't have intelligent Jacques running around the place. Still, it wouldn't be a good idea to recycle Jacques on the regular. Dr. Zlo shouldn't waste a good minion if he didn't have to. Minion death was strictly in the field or for making an example.

The player opened up his menu, touching the Phlebotinium in his inventory and bringing up the expanded list of powers. The list scrolled on and on, but this time Dylan knew what he wanted to look for. He typed upgrade into the search bar, letting the game narrow his choices before selecting the one he liked the best.

Mad Science - Always Improving

A Mad Scientist's work is never done! Your inventions could always use new bits, bobs, thingamajigs, and whatchamacallits added on. This addition to your Mad Science power allows for just that! Highlight one of your inventions and type in a list of upgrades! Your ability will then tell you exactly what you need to make the next best gadget!

Dylan selected the choice before he could second-guess himself. There were a plethora of other upgrade choices, ones that allowed for changes on the fly to ones that worked if mixed with different powers, but Dylan didn't want to get bogged down in all the decisions. Some people might find it fun to plan out their build to the letter for maximum effectiveness, but Dylan wasn't that kind of player.

With his new ability picked, Dylan decided to try and get the rest of his upgrades done before he got off. A message stopped him.

JackOLeen:

You get all that deciding out of the way yet?

Remember we got the game in fifteen.

Right, Dylan remembered now. The group had scheduled another tabletop session tonight.

Superfan39526:

Yeah, thanks for the reminder.

I'll just pick the rest of my new powers later.

JackOLeen:

Oooooh

Can I help? I want to see what crazy stuff Mad Science can do.

Superfan39526:

Of course.

I'll take all the help I can get.

There are so many choices my head is spinning.

JackOLeen:

I hear ya.

Well, I'll talk to you soon then.

Gonna prep some stuff for tonight before we play.

Superfan39526:

Got an idea in mind?

JackOLeen:

Something yeah.

Gotta see if our DM is fine with it though.

See ya!

Dylan closed his messenger, logging out of the game himself. But not before turning to Cass and issuing a few orders for the Jacques. Now that Quartet was gone, it was his other minions' job to keep them in line.

Cass nodded dutifully as Dylan logged out.

The light of his apartment bedroom greeted Dylan as he removed the VIS and set it to the side. Taking a moment, Dylan stretched out his muscles, making sure to move his body a bit before heading over to his desktop machine.

As he logged in, Dylan noticed he had a few new emails in the notification bar. Clicking on them revealed a few email messages from Vert. One was another legal email, making sure the contracts were satisfactory, while the second was an email from the lead in charge of the next expansion.

Hey Dylan!

Excited to have you working with us for this new expansion! We're sure it's going to be a good one! The team and I love your Dr. Zlo character and can't wait to get started. I've already got a few ideas in mind if you don't have any. What do you say to Dr. Zlo making a giant mech, complete with his signature top hat? We have other ideas in mind too. Just let us know what you want to go with! I've CC'd you the list of our other senior leads for the project, so they can see our correspondence. So be sure to include them!

Pete Johnson

Lead Designer

Vert

A strange feeling grew in Dylan's gut. This was it; Dr. Zlo would officially be canon in World of Supers. It was an odd feeling for sure, a mix of excitement and dread. Dylan's experience with Very hadn't been the best, and he was concerned something would go wrong. On the other hand, the company had been more than willing to cooperate with Dylan during the process.

Well, nothing to it but to do it, Dylan supposed. Plus, it was still a game. If it wasn't fun, Dylan could just quit. Even if leaving meant he wouldn't see any of his wacky minions again.

Dylan quickly wrote up an email for Pete before jumping into his game with Jack.

Hi Pete,

I did have an idea in mind for Dr. Zlo's big idea. What do you think about using a shrink ray to shrink the moon and steal it? To me, that seems like the ultimate in classic villainy. I've even got something of an idea for a lead-up. I've created a group of minions I call Zlobots. They're copies of my character in every way except for the powers. We could use them for a series of crime sprees that steal the materials needed for the shrink ray. Players can piece together the whole idea as they go along until it culminates into a final battle on my space station near the moon.

Let me know what you think,

Dylan

Email finished, Dylan sent it off and readied himself to play his barbarian.

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