Vaudevillain

JackOLeen:

Everyone in position?

Surfsup28:

Yeah, dude.

Superfan39526:

So how do we keep forgetting to grab communicators?

JackOLeen:

General lackadaisical attitude, lassie-faire approach to games, a general disinterest for anything not a quest. Take your pick.

OroJackson:

Superfan39526:

Hold on. I think the ceremony is starting.

Dylan looked out from his vantage point at the incoming group of guards. Tourists had lined up just outside the area, blocked off by a ring of tower guards, to see a older man come walking out of a side door. In one hand, he carried a set of keys and in the other a lantern. Dylan assumed this was the chief guard, if only because he was the one who had the keys. Four guardsmen stood at attention in the middle of the road, the chief guard walking toward them. A voice shouted, loud and impossible to understand in the throng of tourists.

The guards slapped their weapons, moving in unison to let the chief guard stand in the middle of them. He handed the keys off to one of the guards and shouted. The group moved forward as one toward a set of large double doors.

Dylan looked around, hoping to catch a glimpse of Dr. Zlo before the fighting started. There seemed to be no sign of the titular villain, though Dylan did spot a number of Jacques hiding about the crowd. In fact, one pair had been waylaid by Leroy and Ron, the former talking the Jacques ear off. Literally. The Jacques kept pulling his fake ear off his face in a vain attempt at silencing Leroy.

About halfway through the guards walking, a voice shouted.

“Ye gods, people paid good money to see this? Where’s the pizazz, the panache, the performance!”

The crowd looked around, wondering where the voice came from.

“Why, you would think tradition might have a bit more excitement to it after hanging around for so long. But no, it seems dullness is a prominent disease.”

A spotlight shone from above. Dylan looked up to see a shadow flying thorough the air.

“But do not worry! For I am here to provide you with some spice in your life! And don’t worry, the payment is something you can easily afford!”

Dr. Zlo appeared under the spotlight, sporting his telltale top hat and monocle. In his hands rested the villain’s shrink ray, the barrel glowing dangerously.

A box appeared.

Dr. Zlo has come! The villain is after something in the Tower of Londinium! Will you join in the fight to defend one of the city’s greatest cultural assets?

Dylan selected yes and watched as the hubbub of the world fell away. The NPCs were still around, but the background noise had been replaced with a menacing tone. The streets leading away from the tower also faded, as if the cameraman had taken it out of focus.

It was time. One of the many pipes crawling across the wall started to warp. The copper metal shifted and grew thick, forming a torso, then appendages, then a head. Approximo stood and pointed at Dr. Zlo.

“So we meet again villain! This time you shall answer for your crimes!”

Dr. Zlo laughed. “Ha! Not if I can help it. You might have surprised me last time, but this time you shall be no match for my newest inventions! Jacques! Distract them!”

The Jacques, all except for the two next to Leroy and Ron, lurched toward Approximo. The hero straightened, transforming his arm into one of the guardsmen’s weapons. His arm spiraled out, becoming a hollow pipe ready for shooting. Approximo steadied his arm as tubes started to grow, connecting to his back which now held a large steam tank. The alien hero smirked as the Jacques screeched to a halt.

“Goodbye,” the hero said.

A blast of steam erupted from Approximo’s arm and struck the nearest Jacques. The minion fell over in a heap, vanishing a moment later in motes of light. A fireball appeared a moment later, Firestarter moving out of the crowd to quell the Jacques. Of a Kind followed, forgoing his more destructive weapons for simple pistols. Jacques fell in heaps, the minor minions unable to fight back. Gameset stepped out a moment later, pushing past NPCs to punch through a Jacques’s mask.

Dr. Zlo stomped a rocket boot in frustration. “You idiots, you only need to buy time! Why do you always rush straight to them! Take a hostage! Or twenty! Throw stones at them!”

Lightbulbs seemed to go off in the Jacques’s heads. Groups of five turned, some grabbing nearby stones while others rushed at the NPCs.

“Prox, crowd control,” Of a Kind said.

Approximo nodded and dove forward, changing his body. Stone started to wrap around the hero’s skin as he expanded to become a wall. A wall that landed directly between the NPCs and the Jacques. The Jacques shook their fist in frustration. One punched the wall, only to jump around in pain from their damaged fist.

Of a Kind and Firestarter continued to strike the Jacques while Gameset waited. The tower’s guardsmen had joined in to help as well, the group firing in lines at the Jacques.

Dr. Zlo pointed his shrink ray at the guards and fired. A plume of steam erupted, meeting the beam and scattering it. The chief warden walked forward, lantern in hand. Several pipes ran from the device to chief guard’s back, revealing a large tank that hadn’t been there recently.

The lantern hissed as the chief guard pointed it upward and lifted the flap. The fire inside roared as a pressurized mist erupted from the machine in an angry cloud toward Dr. Zlo. The villain laughed and dodged out of the way, the spotlight still on him.

“You’ll have to do better than that!” he cackled. “But to be fair, even your best won’t be enough to fell the great Dr. Zlo! For you see, my new inventions shall wipe the floor with you!”

Dr. Zlo bowed as a droning noise shook the battlefield. Everyone looked up to see a set of five blimps descending from above. From the blimps came swarms of hatbots, their bowler hat lids trimmed to razor edges. Four of the blimps set themselves up at the corners of the tower, with the fifth moving to sit over the middle.

“Good luck heroes! In ten minutes time the tower will be mine!”

The hatbots fell on the guardsmen as Dr. Zlo flew away toward the central blimp. Approximo, seeing that there were no longer any NPCs around, transformed back, steam gun in hand. Of a Kind moved next to him.

“I see mirrors on the bottom of those blimps,” he said.

Approximo nodded. “Do you think he’s trying to use the mirrors to direct his shrink ray?”

“Probably to expand it,” Of a Kind said. “Get the whole tower in one go. We need a way to get those blimps.”

The groups messages pinged.

JackOLeen:

Prox, get back here I got an idea for the blimps.

“Well, you heard her,” Of a Kind said. “We’ll keep the drones off everyone. Firestarter should make it easy.”

Approximo nodded and sprinted away. He met up with Gameset down the street, the woman watching the copy of her ahead.

“So,” she said as Approximo got close. “Since Mirror Mirror isn’t bound by the laws of physics, I’m thinking you transform into stairs, ladders, and anything else that’ll get us into the air. She’ll match the movement, putting her right where we need her.”

“That’s awesome,” Approximo said. “You’re awesome.”

Jack smiled. “Compliments later. Right now we’ve got a villain to beat.”

Approximo nodded and scanned the area. He spied a set of steps on a nearby street and went to work. An arm transformed, creating the first building blocks for Gameset to climb. A wall on the other arm followed, which Dylan used as a pivot to swing himself up and create more stairs. He got high enough to let Gameset stand on a roof. He pulled himself up by transforming into more tall pipes and letting Gameset pull him up.

All the while, Mirror Mirror copied the movements, slowly getting into position near one of the blimps. Firestarter and Of a Kind did their best as distractions, but eventually the swarms of hatbots noticed the floating hero. They moved in to assault, forcing Gameset to pay more attention to the fight than the climb.

Precise punches and kicks flew out, each one taking a drone with them. Dylan worked hard, transforming what he could into easily scalable pieces for Jack. Finally, Mirror Mirror was next to one of the blimps.

Dr. Zlo’s voice crackled to life from a speaker on the blimp. “So, you’ve managed to reach one of my inventions. I should expect nothing less from tenacious heroes such as yourselves. It’s such a shame that you have to fall here. I had so much more in store for you!”

The blimp near Mirror Mirror turned along with the mirror attached to it. A beam of light arced from the central blimp, bouncing off the mirror. Gameset threw herself to the side, letting Mirror Mirror dodge the strike but throwing her off Dylan’s platform.

The hero thought fast, shifting an arm into some pipes for the heroine to catch. Dylan continued to shift, turning himself into a long jungle gym for Gameset to move around.

“Go gettem,” he said.

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