Vaudevillain

The stairs led down into a simple hallway, exposing Dr. Zlo to concrete and not much else. Pale, fluorescent lights dotted the ceiling, washing the hallway with its sallow glow. The corridor's end held a sturdy metal door, a symbol of a double helix emblazoned on its side.

"I thought there would be guns?" Cass questioned.

The mouse rolled its eyes and squeaked, gesturing a paw towards the wall as it did. Dr. Zlo opened his inventory and pulled out a metal cube he got back when he still had the disassembler. He tossed it in front of him, watching the walls as the metal bounced away. Hidden panels flush with the concrete opened up, revealing sleek rifles of smooth material.

The guns fired at the metal, turning the cube into a puddle. "It seems the guns are in the wall and react to movement," Dr. Zlo answered. Cass stiffened, doing his best to keep still. Mabel rolled her eyes.

"How do we get past, boss?" Cass asked.

"An excellent question. I think we should use…" Dr. Zlo rummaged through his inventory again, moving his hand as if he was searching through a pile of inventions. "This!"

The villainous doctor pulled out his hacking machine. The smartphone-sized device glinted in the light and whirred to life after a quick press of buttons. Dr. Zlo held the device up to where he remembered the guns appearing. "Drat, these walls are stopping my ingenious device from targeting the turrets," Dr. Zlo cursed.

Cass gulped, then readied himself. "I can take a step forward, boss. So you can target the guns."

"Don't be silly, Cass," the doctor scoffed. "Who would make my martinis if you got hurt? No, I have a better idea."

Dr. Zlo turned to his other minion, "Mabel, go find that janitor. I think he would do nicely as our trap catcher."

Mabel smiled demurely at her leader, "You got it, hon."

She came back moments later with the janitor, a rather impressive looking young man for someone who cleaned halls all day, at least in Dr. Zlo's opinion. The blue coveralls, while baggy, did nothing to hide the man's athletic figure, and the windswept brown hair helped complete the look. Dylan felt like this man would look more at home in a boy band or on some sports team. He walked into the area stiffly, Mabel's mind control hard at work keeping him around.

"I-I shouldn't be down here," the janitor started. "T-they told me I should never come down here."

"A first time for everything!" Dr. Zlo answered. "Just like it's my first time using a hostage as a trap checker. It's quite exciting. Mabel, if you'd do the honors?"

"Alright, dear. Walk ahead of Mabel for a second and make sure nothing's going to hurt us."

The janitor stiffened, and Dr. Zlo aimed his hacking device. Once the young man took a few steps forward, the walls opened once again. Dr. Zlo quickly aimed the device at one of the turrets, smiling in glee as he saw the entire system was linked together. It would take a minute to hack into the system, but Dr. Zlo had all the time in the world. After all, his distraction had kept anyone of importance from discovering his true intentions.

"Taste the might of my sound cannon!" shouted the Zlobots.

Waves of sound erupted from the three's instruments, flying up toward Singularity. The chrome villain responded with a barrage of bullets, which all three Zlobots dodged by dancing out of the way. Quartet stood nearby, doing his best to lure Singularity away from his leader.

"Over here~" the minion intoned.

John paid the minion no mind and kept shooting at the Zlobots. He knew one of them would be the real Dylan, though he was amazed at how well the decoys matched his movements. Maybe the others weren't real at all, and just an illusory image meant to trick others. Too bad John was smarter than that.

An explosion rocked the villain's chassis, and Singularity's rain of metal stopped abruptly. Four women dressed as cheerleaders had stacked up and worked together to throw a fifth cheerleader into the air. The Shizuka clone had pulled out a throwing knife with a talisman attached to the end and whipped it up at the copter's blades. She prepared another as she fell, sending it straight toward the cockpit.

Singularity dodged by veering to the side. Hatches opened on the back of the helicopter as he retaliated, launching four missiles in the clone's direction. Clone Shizuka made a quick hand sign, puffing away in a smoke cloud and reappearing at Quartet's side. The singer jumped in surprise as she arrived, cutting off his next words.

However, she needn't have worried about dodging because Psy-ops had his gun trained on the missiles as soon as they were unleashed. The amount of destruction those missiles could cause if they hit the ground was more than the hero was willing to deal with. Four quick shots, aided by psychometry, impacted into the missiles right in their detonators.

The explosion pushed against Yuppie's barrier, but the force couldn't break the shield. The Zlobots weren't as lucky, getting driven to the ground from the blast. Not wanting more missiles, Psy-ops turned his gun upward and fired a shot right into John. The bullet pinged harmlessly against the villain's armor, and the villain didn't even notice it. But it allowed the hero to use his magnetism power. Now he had a link to use if he needed it.

"What's wrong, Dylan? Come fly up here already!" John taunted. "Or did you not make enough tech for your clones?"

"Ha! I don't need to resort to such simple measures! In fact, I don't need to fight you at all! Jacques, plan Omega!"

The three Zlobots all dashed over to the remaining minions, who were grouping up in the middle of the field.

"Oh no you don't!" Singularity yelled, firing off another spray of bullets.

The Zlobots danced out of the way, their Dance-o-trons keeping them in the boogieing mood. Frustrated, Singularity unleashed another barrage of rockets, only for Psy-ops to stop the missiles early once again.

"I've got the citizens out!" Fursation shouted over the explosion.

"Great! Can you bring that copter down?" Yuppie yelled back.

"I'll see what I can do."

Fursation reached inside his inventory, pulling out an eagle plushie and a piece of stone. Suddenly, his body started to shift. The grey fur retreated to brown feathers, the color of sand, dirt, and clay. The wolf paws morphed into bird claws, which immediately dug into the soft field below. A beak formed where Fursation's mouth was, hooking down to a razor-sharp point. Finally, wings sprouted from the hero's back, flapping twice to spread out fully.

The hero crouched down and leaped into the air, beating his wings to launch into the sky. Singularity hadn't noticed the change, too busy trying to kill the Zlobots. So when Fursation kicked the side of the cockpit, it came as a complete surprise.

"What the sh*t!" John cursed.

Most of Singularity's body had transformed to make the helicopter. Still, the developers knew how difficult it was for the human body to adapt to large changes. So instead of a complete transformation, John's torso planted itself in the cockpit, and the villain used the controls to fly around. It took a bit of practice, but he'd finally gotten the hang of it. Of course, a hero striking into the cockpit like a small meteor changed things.

Singularity released the controls, sending the helicopter careening across the sky. Fursation followed, wings pumping to keep up.

"F*cking go fight someone else!" John yelled at the hero. "This fight is mine! I'm the one who's going to teach him a lesson!"

"You got some serious problems," Fursation muttered. He kicked again at the copter, striking the stabilizer and sending Singularity into a spiral downward. He crashed into the field goal at the end of the field, shearing off the top and sending it flying. The metal sailed straight at the final group of retreating civilians, and for a second, Psy-ops feared the worst.

Then, one of the teachers crackled with lightning. She pointed at the falling metal and unleashed a blast of electricity so strong it knocked the pole back into the sky and straight into the river. Psy-ops watched as the electricity covered the woman, somehow changing her clothes into a bright red uniform with a double helix symbol pasted on the front. The other teachers followed suit, their various suits and dresses falling away to reveal the same red jumpsuit.

The NPC heroes rushed to the field, the electricity woman jumping up next to Psy-ops. "Thanks to you, we limited casualties to a minimum," she started. "I'm Electri."

"Psy-ops," the hero said, taking the woman's offered hand. "And we were only doing our job."

"Still, it takes courage to face against two villains with a small team like yours. I commend you on lasting this long. But not to worry, the Helixers are now here to help."

"Uh, thanks," Psy-ops replied. He never could get over how arrogant some of the NPC heroes sounded.

Electri turned back to the field, watching over her teammates as they split into groups. One side went after the Zlobots and their minions, while the other dealt with Singularity. The latter villain had already shifted back into a humanoid form, kicking the last bits of dirt from the crash off his body.

"Fine," the chrome villain conceded. "I knew that others would come, which is why I paid good money to get something special."

The villain turned to look at the Zlobots, yelling past the approaching heroes, "You should feel lucky! I got the idea from one of your videos!"

With that announced, Singularity's body shifted, becoming blockier. Just when the man hit 8-bit resolution, the body opened to reveal a gaping chasm. Singularity bent down, grabbing a pile of dirt and shoving it into the maw. His torso chomped down, crushing the material to paste and then molding it. A light ding sounded as the process finished, revealing a moth shaped robot.

Psy-ops stared, confused. There was no way a little thing like that would be such a big deal. And then he saw the moth land on the ground. Straining his eyes, Psy-ops watched as the moth opened a mouth of geared teeth and chomped down on the dirt. In less than a second, the robot had eaten its weight in earth, and Psy-ops could see the body swelling. Suddenly, the body popped in a shower of sparks.

No, not sparks, smaller moths! So many Psy-ops couldn't count them. Immediately, the smaller moths cannibalized the remains of their mother and went to work eating more dirt. In seconds, the creatures grew and swelled, and Psy-ops realized what was going on. This villain had made self-replicating bots, and they multiplied aggressively.

Before the villain could create more, Psy-ops pulled out his strongest explosive and linked it to the villain. With the smooth motion of a baseball player, Psy-ops threw the grenade straight at Singularity. The 8-bit villain saw the object sail towards him and jumped out of the way to avoid it. To his surprise, the object followed, curving in midair to match his jump.

Psy-ops's grenade exploded, sending force and plasma directly at Singularity. The villain's armor quickly evaporated, forcing Singularity to eat the helicopter for armor. But the grenade still burned, so the villain used the missile launcher, then the disassembler. Finally, the grenade stopped, leaving John barely standing.

The same couldn't be said for the field around him. The plasma scorched all the grass in the area and even burned away the layer of topsoil nearby. The force of the blast had sent the closest heroes flying, and the replicating moths crumpled under the assault.

"Nice try," Singularity breathed. "But I ain't about to go down that easy."

With that, the villain grabbed another clump of dirt and went to work making more robots.

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