Vaudevillain

They landed in a heap. Or more of a tumble. Truthfully, Dylan’s head was spinning too much to get an accurate description of what happened.

The flight itself went well, it was easy enough to fly when all you had to do was keep straight. But as Jack had brought up, none of them knew how to stop.

“Pull the brake!”

“Which one’s the brake!”

“Dude! That was the steering!”

“Sorry!”

“Sh*t! Watch out!”

And that was when Dylan’s wing clipped the side of a building, sending the lot of them spinning out of control toward the ground. The player tried to course correct, but only succeeded in causing more trouble. The world became a blur of gray ground and blue sky before eventually becoming a pile of limbs.

Oro’s muffled voice brought Dylan out of his recollections. “Where did you learn to drive?”

He was using Of a Kind’s voice. Dylan responded in kind with Approximo. “I am sorry, friend. It is the first time I have flown.”

“Dude, did anyone get the number of that building?” Firestarter said with a laugh. “Because I don’t think we have insurance.”

“Get up guys!” Gameset said quickly. “Our crash brought some attention.”

Approximo stood, shifting out of the mess of twisted flying machines. CEOverlord’s minions gathered around them, their sharpened office supplies ready to cut them down. Gameset had already pulled a hunting rifle out of her pack and was in the process of systematically shooting weapons out of hands. Of a Kind copied stun grenades, tossing them into the crowd to deafening effectiveness.

“Firestarter, Mirror Mirror, get going!” Gameset shouted. “Remember to meet up in the coliseum!”

“You got it, dude!” the hero said.

“We shall endeavor to bring justice to the villains!” Mirror Mirror said.

Of a Kind opened a path. Firestarter and Mirror Mirror ran, sprinting down the winding streets and out of sight.

“Right, Approximo get us on the roof,” Gameset said.

“Okay!” the hero answered.

Dylan grabbed his friends and shifted his legs into lamp posts. The three shot up in moments, landing on the roof and gaining a moment of reprieve.

“Okay, where to, Aces?” Gameset asked.

“North,” Of a Kind answered, pointing in the direction. “First place to be is a Piazza with a million steps.”

“What heights this Piazza must reach,” Approximo said as they set off. “A million is such a large number.”

“He’s exaggerating,” Gameset said.

“I’m not,” Of a Kind said. “Apparently it was built by some hero big into non-euclidean geometry. The whole thing twists in on itself.”

“How fun!” Approximo said.

“We won’t be able to linger, Prox,” Gameset said.

“Not to worry, I shall visit during my vacation,” Approximo answered.

The heroes hopped building after building, Approximo sometimes shifting to become a makeshift bridge for the others as they avoided gray mass of minions below. Dylan was surprised, this CEOverlord must have been planning for a while if they had enough minions to block entire streets. A part of him felt a bit bad for moving to interrupt it, but another part argued that as a hero, he should do what he could to stop hostile takeovers of a city.

Plus, it wasn’t any fun if your grand plan worked perfectly. Most of the fun came in improvising.

They arrived at the Piazza without issue, the minions below either too imperceptive or didn’t care enough to look on the roof for any stragglers. In fact, the minions seemed bent on moving in one direction. Where, Dylan couldn’t say.

The Piazza Milioni, or Square of Millions according to the box that appeared, held a number of currently panicked civilians. Surprisingly, most of the civilians were safe, and it was easy to see why at first glance.

“Who told you these stairs were non-euclidean?” Dylan asked, breaking character for a moment. “These are clearly based on M.C. Escher.”

The three heroes stood on the edge of the Piazza, a twisting mess of stairs leading down into a courtyard below. The civilians currently sat in the courtyard, CEOverlord’s minions all around them on the stairs. Except as Dylan watched, each step the minions took brought them in a direction away from the courtyard below. What seemed to be a step down would bring a minion to the left, and if they tried to backtrack the minion found themselves upside down under a completely different set of stairs.

“My head hurts,” Jack said. “Who thought this would be a good idea?”

Oro was the only one who stayed in character. “It’s saving the civilians. We won’t have to worry about them at least. Now, help me find out first villain.”

Jack fell back into the conversation, grateful for the distraction. “What are we looking for?”

“A villain named Turvy should be here,” Of a Kind said. “Intel says they like stealing from a nearby store.”

The hero scanned the Piazza. “There, that one.”

The others turned to see a Greco-Roman inspired building across the way. The pillars, usually white under most circumstances, were painted in various swirls of color, no doubt for the various parade celebrations.

“Great, how are we getting over there?” Gameset asked. “If you didn’t notice, the only way is the one in front of us. And I don’t think we have the time to navigate this black hole of stairs.”

“As long as Prox can make us a bridge we’ll be fine,” Of a Kind said. “The weird field messing with the stairs is only active up to a point. All we have to do is go over.”

“I can do that,” Approximo said. With his vantage point on the roof, the hero was able to shift into a particularly long wall that let them traverse over the mess of stairs below.

Of a Kind stopped in front of the building and turned. “Okay, according to my contacts, Turvy likes showing up when someone makes friends with the owner of this place. The villain likes to accost them.”

“Why?” Approximo asked.

“Turvy is something of a Scoody villain,” Of a Kind said. “They try to scare away customers so the store owner has to sell his property cheap.”

“What a vile villain,” Approximo said. “Interfering with these good people.”

“Which is why we’re going to bait him into the coliseum,” Of a Kind said.

“Prox, I think you’d be best for making friends with this store owner,” Gameset said. “You’ve got the best personality out of the three of us.”

“No, friends, you are equally as friendly as I,” Approximo said. “Do not trade your height for these bad thoughts.”

“What?” Of a Kind asked.

“I think he’s saying we shouldn’t sell ourselves short,” Gameset said.

“Yes!” Of a Kind exclaimed. “I do not wish for you to sell pieces of yourself.”

“Another expression, Prox,” Of a Kind said. “But outside of your personality, you’re also the best at protecting. You can shift into a big wall to block attacks and such.”

“You make sense,” Approximo said. “Very well I shall talk to this store owner.”

Without further ado, Approximo walked into the store with a hearty, “Hello there! I am here to make friends and possibly purchase many of your fine goods!”

An old man turned to look toward the door. He was old, wrinkled worse than a raisin and hair that had returned from the afterlife to haunt the man’s head. The wisps of hair floated every which way in the small breeze from the door before settling into thin lines.

“Ah, so nice to see a new face,” the old man said. His voice, unlike his hair, seemed very much alive and well. A booming voice better suited to a wrestling announcer greeted Approximo. “Welcome to Gio’s Souvenirs and Haberdashery. Are you looking for anything in particular?”

“Not as such,” Approximo said, walking up to the counter. The hero’s eyes darted around as he walked, taking in the various items on display. Dylan couldn’t help but feel he was in some kind of tourist shop. One of the ones a visitor to a city might find on the street corner.

Tacky models of the various sights in Aeterna littered the shelves, placed in haphazard lines. Shirts with, ‘I heart Aeterna,’ sat in racks, along with various other slogans. Past the shirts were the tchotchkes, which were somehow worse than souvenir trinkets. At least souvenir trinkets had the decency to look like something you’d put in a living room.

Dylan grabbed one of the tchotchkes, a rendition of the Piazza outside. It looked to be carved out of soap. He sniffed it. It smelled like it was carved out of soap too.

“This looks delightful!” Dylan said as his character. “Whoever made this has such charm!”

“Made it myself!” Gio said, puffing his chest out in pride. “Carved it out of a soft stone someone gave me the other day! Told me it had magical powers!”

“Truly?” Approximo asked. “What powers, exactly?”

“Holding it close to your chest lets you feel your hearbeat,” Gio answered. “Very useful.”

“It sounds it,” Approximo said. Dylan did his best to act impressed. “You must be a great master craftsman to carve this.”

“I get by,” Gio said, though his tone sounded nothing like the humble words. “Is that all you’re wanting for today?”

“To be honest,” Approximo said. “I would love to learn more about your process here. I have a number of friends who would love to purchase items like these.”

“Is that so!” Gio said with excitement. “It seems like business is going to pick up again, then! Been too long. Too long indeed!”

Dylan looked around. Those words were exactly the kind of thing said before a villain showed up to ruin the fun. Sure enough, a portion of the store suddenly twisted sideways into a door. A striped costume walked out of it, Dylan unable to tell which side was up.

“So, you still haven’t given up, have you?” the villain said with a sigh. “No matter. It is only a matter of time before you’re store is mine.”

“You again!” Gio shouted. “Get out! You’ll never get my store from me, villain!”

Approximo reacted at those words. “Villain?”

“He wants my store, he does!” Gio shouted. “Well, he ain’t gonna get it! Not if I have anything to say about it!”

A prompt appeared in Dylan’s vision.

Assist Gio in repelling the villains Turvy?

Yes

No

“Got it,” Dylan said.

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