Vaudevillain

Dylan had made it past the fence and into Haven City. Roosevelt had done a good job of defeating the guards and holding the hero at bay. It was sad that he had to leave him behind but plush teddy bears of doom were not fitting for an evil mastermind. Well, maybe if the plush teddy bears had mind control eyes to brainwash the kids of famous politicians or something. But that wasn't Dr. Zlo's style.

His first outing as Dr. Zlo revealed some things. First, Dylan played the character like a Bond villain instead of a cartoonish character. Not a bad thing, as spy villains were always the type to take over the world with grand plans. But Dylan had been thinking of a sillier kind of evil.

He would have to find a way to make Dr. Zlo more defeatable but he could think about that later. Right now Dylan had to get out of the public eye. He was still labeled as a villain, which meant any police in the area would attack him on sight. As he rounded the street corner Dylan ducked into a local corner store.

Inside an NPC stood patiently behind the counter, not reacting at all to Dylan peeking through the glass door to see if anyone pursued him. Luckily no one had, it seemed he was safe for now. He brought his hands into the pockets of his suitcoat and felt something cold.

He pulled out a gleaming ruby gemstone. He had forgotten all about it during the battle but while running he made sure to grab anything that looked expensive. He wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth. "Hey, do you buy these?" He said to the shopkeeper.

"Of course," The NPC replied. Dylan placed all the stolen goods on the counter. Good thing Vert didn't lean into the realism aspect, finding a buyer in the city would be a pain. Plus if sellers didn't buy every item inventories would get filled up with all sorts of junk until they could find a buyer.

Transaction completed, Dylan bought a few random items from the store and walked out with well over a thousand dollars. That was probably enough to buy the his and her rings for the GB gun. Dylan ducked back through an alley to keep out of sight. As he walked down he noticed his logbook was flashing.

Opening it up showed a message.

"Neat," Dylan said aloud.

DemarX:

How do you not know what phlebotinium is? I thought you were a super nerd!

Superfan39526:

I am? Phlebotinium isn't something that appears in super stories.

DemarX:

Don't you read forums? Or talk about the tropes with people online?

Superfan39526:

Nah I'd rather enjoy the content than argue about who's best.

DemarX:

Typical. So you've never heard the term?

How about handwavium?

Superfan39526:

No.

DemarX:

Unobtanium?

Superfan39526:

That was in that movie with the blue aliens right?

DemarX:

Okay you aren't completely clueless

Still, how do you not know about phlebotinium

There's an entire Tvtropes article on it

Superfan39526:

So what is it?

DemarX:

It’s a name for things like kryptonite

If it drives the plot forward

Or some villain uses it for a scheme

Its phlebotinium

Superfan39526:

So like vibranium?

DemarX:

Yeah

Or nanotechnology

Or magic crystals

Anything that can be used to handwave an explanation

Superfan39526:

But what is it in the game?

DemarX:

Oh

You can only find it at like super secret research stations

Both the heroes and villains have them around the cities

Sometimes they'll sell the stuff

I heard you can use it for some crazy stuff

Why do you need it?

Superfan39526:

The gun I wanna make needs it

DemarX:

See this is why you needed a simpler power

Superfan39526:

Eh I already made me a giant walking teddy bear and some gadgets out of cloth, chemicals, and batteries

Doesn't seem that bad

DemarX:

WAIT WHAT

You made that giant bear??

Superfan39526:

Yeah?

DemarX:

Dude the hero you faced is one of the top streamers going for the raid position

He even set it up to stream in first person for people to watch

Then uploads it as a VOD later on

Thousands of people saw that bear and the villain

WAIT

You're that goofy looking mustached man???

WHAT ARE YOU DOING

Superfan39526:

Playing the game for fun?

You know

Like I said I would?

DemarX:

Why didn't you sneak into the city or something?

You set this guy back a lot

He's pissed

Superfan39526:

Eh he'll get over it

It’s a game

Anyways thanks for the info

I gotta find a base in the city now

Look for a trainyard and stuff

DemarX:

Yeah good luck with that

Tell me when you die and get griefed by this guy

You can make a hero and we'll go around kicking butt together

Superfan39526:

Oh ye of little faith

THE MIGHTY DR. ZLO WILL NOT FALL TO SOME CHEAP SIDEKICK

DemarX:

LOL

Wait sidekick?

Superfan36526:

Yeah the dude had some other hero with him

Some Adam West knockoff

What's with that anyways lol

DemarX:

Oh dude its so cool

So Vert wanted a more authentic super experience

So they took a ton of chatbots and had them read comic characters from different eras.

They then used the chatbots AI as the base for the NPC characters

That's why we get these super silly heroes and villains with these crazy serious ones

Superfan39526:

Oh that's sweet

DemarX:

YEAH

My mentor leader guy is this dark knight type

but like

the gritty one that doesn't mind killing

its sick

Superfan39526:

Guess you're lucky you didn't get the goofy ones

DemarX:

For real

Some aren't bad

Like the wisecracking ones are fine

But its crazy seeing the older ones

I swear I see THWACKS and POWS whenever they punch

Superfan39526:

LOL

I'd love that

DemarX:

Well good thing you got one near ya then

Anyways I'm going on another mission

Cya

Superfan39526:

Yeah okay cya

Dylan closed the chat window and checked the time. It was just past dinner. He'd been playing most of the day. "That can't be healthy." He said. He logged out of the game.

A soon as he disconnected he heard his stomach growl. "Okay, I gotta set more alarms for this thing. Can't be playing when I need to eat."

Dylan walked to his kitchen and pulled out some leftover chicken strips from the fridge. Tossing them in the microwave, Dylan let them cook while he walked over to his study room. A desk that hugged two walls held his work computer and scattered plans he hadn't put away. On a shelf above sat binders full of various papers all related to his field. At the far end of his desk sat a three-foot-long sketchpad of graphing paper. Dylan tore off a sheet and walked back into the kitchen. He needed to make some plans.

He placed the sheet down on his coffee table in the living room and went back to grab his chicken strips. On the way back he snagged a pen from a mug on the countertop and sat down.

"Alright," He said aloud. "The first scheme is to kidnap the mayor's son, make him the mayor's daughter, tie him to the railroad tracks, and ransom him for money."

He jotted down the scheme in list form on the paper with his right hand. His left absentmindedly reached for a chicken strip and brought it up to get munched.

"That means three important factors." Dylan sectioned off the graphing paper and split the bottom into three even sections. He wrote in small letters "1, 2, 3" in the top left corner of each section. "Now which is most important?"

Obviously it was the gun. If Dylan didn't have the gun he wouldn't be able to transform the mayor's son which meant the plan would go bust right there. Well, it didn't have to go bust, but Dylan wanted to stay true to the classics as best he could. That meant the kidnapee had to be female. So in large letters, Dylan wrote out, "GB gun" at the top of the first section.

Second was the trainyard. Or anywhere with train tracks. You couldn't tie someone to the train tracks if there weren't any tracks. He wrote "tracks" in the second section. Lastly, Dylan wrote "Mayor's son" in the final section. Granted, Dylan couldn't do the scheme correctly without all three factors but he knew the Mayor had a son while he had nothing on the other two.

"Alright, gun first." Dylan chomped another chicken strip and drew a tree diagram under GB gun. On the left, he wrote phlebotinium and the right rings.

"I need both to make the gun and it sounds like getting the phlebotinium will be harder."

The rings were easy. He'd find a jewelry store and buy them. But he had no clue where to start on the phlebotinium. John had said it would be stored in secret research facilities.

Under the phlebotinium (which got shortened to PHB for quick reference) Dylan drew another branch. If he wanted to find the material, he would need his own information network. That or find a way to produce it himself. Maybe he could find a scientist and kidnap them? Or he could try and type the material into his mad science tab and see what happened.

He had a feeling it wouldn't work. That would make the power way too good. No way would John be insulting his choice of power if that was the case. That left another kidnapping or information network.

Dylan scratched out the branch with kidnapping after a few minutes of thinking. He was already doing one kidnapping and he wanted to try out different things. So he needed an information network.

He could try and do it like Sherlock Holmes, enlist the homeless population in the city to find information. No, that wasn't mad-sciencey enough. He could use his power to make spies but he could run out of money if the rings were too expensive. Plus the current UI made it difficult to mass-produce items.

But… He could make a factory that would produce the spies. And one that made minions! He could set himself up like a power ranger villain. Make a lot of weak minions with some slightly stronger monster of the week variants. Make them all wear formal attire and he could get a theme going. Themes were important in establishing a villain brand after all.

"Okay," Dylan said. "The first thing we'll do is find a base of operations to make a minion factory. That done, we'll get the rings and start looking for the secret facilities. Get the PHB and make the gun, find or make a trainyard, then kidnap the mayor's son and ransom him."

Dylan looked down at his draft paper and nodded. The plan looked solid. With that done he placed his plate in the sink and went into his office to clean up a bit. Once finished, he grabbed some tape from his junk drawer and stuck the plan to a bedroom wall. He set more alarms to notify him of mealtimes and jumped back into the game.

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