Vaudevillain

Dylan looked over at Cass, taking in the minion's pained face. He almost rolled his eyes at the sight. It wasn't like Dr. Zlo would actually die. The villain was only a character. He'd be back in a flash, respawned by the game. There was no reason for Cass to have that look. But, it was also a good ending for Dr. Zlo, so maybe it wasn't all bad.

A villain was destined to lose these kinds of fights, and it seemed fitting that Dr. Zlo would die to his own invention. Yes, Dylan decided that it might be a good idea to end the character of Dr. Zlo. He still had to explore the hero side of World of Supers, and Dylan had never enjoyed stories with open-ended arcs. They tended to fall flat after a while.

Dylan closed his eyes. Yes, this would be the end of Dr. Zlo, criminal mastermind. After a grand battle against the entire heroes guild, the villain would fall to his own invention, dying because he couldn't bear to see his most loyal minion fall to a hero. All things said and done, it was a fitting end.

"Ride the wave!" Riptide shouted, forcing Dylan to open his eyes once more. Dr. Zlo's companion had surfed over to the death ray at the last moment and placed his board on top of the laser. As it fired, Riptide flew out with it, Sweet Dream riding behind him.

"What are you doing, fool!" Dr. Zlo shouted.

"Saving you, dude!" Riptide answered as he leaned down to grab Dr. Zlo's arm. The villain activated the rockets on the end of his board, Dylan belatedly realizing it was the invention he'd made for his friend when they'd first met. The burst of speed put Riptide in front of the laser, giving the villain enough time to pull his friend up onto the surfboard.

"H*ll yeah!" Riptide cheered. "That was awesome!"

"We're not done!" Sweet Dream said, pointing to the hero.

Sure enough, the hero was on course to intercept the laser, his one last attempt to stop the attack.

"Oh no you don't. Be a dear and sit still for a second, would ya?" the minion said.

The hero froze in place, breaking free a millisecond later as Mabel collapsed from the strain.

But a millisecond was all Sweet Dream needed.

The woman had equipped the chocolate blaster Dr. Zlo made for her a while ago. Activating her power, she fired the rest of her chocolate in a spray at the hero, all of it heading straight toward his mouth. A tiny bit of chocolate splashed against the hero's face, sending him into a trance long enough for the laser to pass by. The three villains shot by with it, Riptide's momentum carrying them along until he stopped halfway between Skyline and the moon.

Riptide cheered in excitement, "Dream, you did it! My girlfriend did it, you guys! Woohoo!"

"Shut up, you dork," Sweet Dream said. But not even she could keep the smile off her face as she watched the beam travel straight at the moon.

Dylan was speechless. He'd honestly doubted the plan would work. It was mostly a way for the man to release the pent-up stress he'd had with Vert. But here he was, the victor against the heroes guild.

The red laser arrived at the moon a moment later, striking the surface and scattering across the ground. It looked as if the red beam was a spreading virus, corrupting the surrounding area with its ominous red glow. Then, the moon split with a mighty crack! And Dylan watched as a piece of the moon broke away.

"That's it?" Sweet Dream complained. "Seems a bit under–"

The following explosion of color silenced the woman as the entire moon split into a rainbow of debris.

"Haha! Awesome dude!" Riptide shouted.

The death ray had spread throughout the entirety of the moon, making sure to trace every piece of the moon before detonating. Once complete, the ray broke the moon apart into as many pieces as it could, creating a dust cloud that refracted the light of the sun. The rainbow exploded outward, bits of the moon falling to the planet like hail. The smaller pieces burned up in the atmosphere, but the larger bits of the moon stayed together long enough to strike the various cities around the planet, causing untold destruction for anyone unlucky enough to sit in its path.

"Wait, what's that?" Sweet Dream asked, pointing at a piece of the moon that hadn't broken to pieces.

"Is that the phlebotinium core?" Dylan questioned.

The three friends looked at the glowing piece of material plummeting towards the planet, completely unscathed from the death ray's attack and plunging straight down.

"Holy sh*t, dudes," Riptide said. "That looks like something that killed the dinosaurs."

"You are so f*cking annoying!" Matt shouted as he struck Rough for what felt like the billionth time. "Just break already so I can fight someone else!"

Rough grinned at the complaint, "Maybe you aren't as strong as you thought."

Matt grunted in frustration as the player took another disintegration blast. The player knew he was running out of time too. Any second now, Dr. Zlo's weapon would activate.

A green canister appeared between Rough and Valiant, exploding into a cloud of toxic gas. The hero quickly jumped away, swinging his shield around to stop the gas from reaching him. Rough disappeared in the gas, his form obscured.

Chemster landed inside the gas, handing a mask to his temporary teammate just in case. "I don't know if rock people breathe or not."

"Much obliged," Rough answered.

"Can people stop interrupting for one second!" Valiant complained.

But the hero realized the cloud obscured his foe's vision as much as his and instantly turned to run at Dr. Zlo, only to see another villain in his way. Valiant scoffed once he saw who it was. There was no way Killswitch could stop him.

Killswitch paled as Valiant ran at him. He knew as well as Valiant that the player's powers wouldn't work on non-tech. Luckily, there was someone else in the area that Killswitch could affect. The villain turned to Ixzay, deactivating the player's gear right as Gemini struck. Bullets finally struck the hero, taking him out of the fight.

"Aw, you f*cker," Valiant complained. He struck Killswitch with a disintegration blast, finishing the villain off.

Now, Matt was the only one left, and he was going to make sure Dr. Zlo failed.

It was too bad his enemies had other plans.

Gemini appeared in front of Valiant, firing into the hero with dual weapons. Valiant brought his shield up and absorbed the blow, then responded with his own attack. Gemini dodged out of the way, the two players jumping to the side to put Valiant between them.

"Let's see how you deal with a pincer attack," one of the villains said.

Valiant scoffed, "You think that's going to stop me?"

But Gemini had stalled Valiant long enough for Chemster and Rough to emerge from the smoke, and the hero was now stuck facing four villains at once.

"D*mnit," Matt swore. "Where are the rest of the Trollstompers? They can't all be that bad?"

"Doesn't matter. You're out of time," Rough said.

The red beam of the death ray washed over the roof, pulling everyone's attention to the final showdown. They watched as Riptide saved Dr. Zlo, then gaped as Sweet Dream halted the hero long enough for the beam to fly past. Matt's chat blew up, the stream in awe at the resulting explosion of color.

Matt followed the moon debris as it fell to the planet, the falling stars from Dr. Zlo's deadly wish. The glint in the distance caught his eye, and Matt saw the gigantic chunk of phlebotinium falling toward the planet.

And then the world went black.

Dylan Jarringly took the VIS helmet off as he was forcibly ejected out of World of Supers. An error message was waiting for him as he looked at his computer.

"Did we just crash the game?" Dylan asked himself.

The man quickly jumped onto Netchat, opening up a call with his other friends.

"Dude!" Riptide shouted. "We just crashed the game! This is awesome!"

"I didn't expect things to work that well," Dextra said.

"Me either," Dylan replied. "I was sure that Superiorman knockoff would get us."

"Oh, that fight was epic!" Shizuka laughed. "We have got to do that again!"

"Man, I missed out on all the fun, it seems," Oro said. "I got stuck fighting that Valiant guy."

"Dude! He's going to be so pissed!" Riptide laughed.

"Well, now what?" Dylan asked.

"Now, we make a video of it," Sweet Dream said gleefully. "I'm going to edit the shit out of this thing. Heck, I might try to make it one of my class projects. This was so cool!"

"Yeah!" Riptide agreed. "You stopped that hero with your chocolate! That was awesome Carol!"

"Wait, your name is Carol?" Jack asked.

"Caroline," Sweet Dream answered.

"Ha! No wonder you're Sweet Dream," Shizuka laughed.

"I don't get it?" Jack questioned.

"Sweet Caroline?" Shizuka asked. "Don't tell me you've never heard the song!"

"It's a classic," Dylan chimed in. "Here, I'll send it to you later."

"Send me the footage you got first!" Sweet Dream exclaimed. "I gotta get started on this while I've got inspiration. That explosion was awesome!!!"

The following week was a whirlwind for Dylan. Menagerie had somehow taken out the entire World of Supers server with their death ray, something Dylan never thought possible. Players flocked to forums to complain about the sudden outage. Vert responded with news about an unexpected error with the new expansion.

The game was reverted, and all players were given a small gift for their troubles. Though no one was quite happy about receiving a simple pet after getting booted from the game. But, no one thought much of it. Vert was a pioneer in new technology; there were bound to be errors.

And then the footage of Menagerie's assault reached the player's eyes.

At first, it was only Matt's and a few other streamer's videos, the unedited footage showing Dr. Zlo's laser destroying the moon seconds before the game crashed. Players quickly speculated that Menagerie broke the game, and once Menagerie released their video, everyone was making the assumption.

Speculations flew across the forums like dodgeballs, with all manner of theories bouncing around. Vert's heroes guild was never made to be destroyed, and losing the moon caused some error. A death ray was never supposed to be possible, and its activation crashed the game. The giant chunk of phlebotinium was supposed to be destroyed by the death ray, and its survival crashed the game. These theories and many others crossed the forums, though no one could say the real reason.

That was until a whistleblower from the company leaked a conversation log between the head of IT and a series of departments.

It turned out that the head had assumed his underlings would stop Menagerie before they could fire the death ray and had been furious when they weren't. The replies stated that the director of IT himself said not to do anything unless other procedures were taken, and they were only following orders. The head responded with fury and demanded the server be shut down and reset, or everyone would be fired.

With their jobs on the line, the workers were forced to comply, shutting down the server right after Dr. Zlo's immense success.

This, understandably, made many gamers angry. The hardcore roleplayers were upset that Vert could just stop any changes they didn't like. Though, they were upset about that before. The grinders and those who enjoyed the story were upset that the company shut down the server, as a death ray had to have taken forever to grind out, and depriving anyone of that was terrible. The casual players were also upset, mainly because many of them had heard of Dr. Zlo and his antics and disliked the company's heavy-handed response.

Journalists quickly ran with the stories, crafting shocking clickbait headlines that drew people from outside the game. Soon, the news had spread to others who never even played the game, and Dylan started hearing conversations about it at work.

In an attempt to quell the outrage, Vert quickly made a statement that their reset was not intended to prevent Dr. Zlo's antics, as player agency was something they valued highly. Of course, no one bought the lines as Vert also copyright claimed every video they could find showing the moon's destruction.

But the internet does not forget, and Vert soon found themselves unable to keep up with the mass sharing of the video and the news that Vert had tried to erase their mistake. Many players started to quit World of Supers, moving to early access games that, while not as developed as World of Supers, offered similar experiences.

Finally, in an attempt to appease their dwindling playerbase, Vert released a statement that they'd removed their head of IT and replaced him with someone more understanding. They then assured the players that server resets like this wouldn't happen again. The company even acknowledged Menagerie's petition and promised to work with the players to craft a better experience.

But the damage had been done, and while a few came back to the game, many moved on to other games.

Of course, Dylan ignored most of the drama. Sure, Thomas and Jack had made sure to keep him up to date, but Dylan was already onto his next scheme. Dr. Zlo was always coming up with a new plan, and Dylan's primary reason for playing hadn't changed.

Being Dr. Zlo was fun. That's all there was to it.

"So, now that you've effectively taken over the world," Jack asked in a call one day. "What's next?"

"Probably a few small-time crimes for now," Dylan said. "I've got a lot of crazy gadgets bouncing around in my head."

"You want a partner for them?" the woman asked.

"I'd never refuse an extra hand," Dylan replied.

"Great!" Jack said. "Because do I have an idea for you!"

The two talked well into the night, discussing the next grand plan for Dr. Zlo.

After all, a villain's work was never done.

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