Vaudevillain

The teams gathered. Various villains readied themselves, Dr. Zlo among them. Jack, in her Ms. Tama guise, sauntered up next to him.

“Your ace in the hole is ready,” she whispered in his ear.

“Excellent,” Dr. Zlo answered, his grin stretched across his face. “The heroes won’t know what hit them.”

Ms. Tama tittered. “They never do.”

“Quite right.” Dr. Zlo turned to his minion. “Cass!”

“Yeah, boss?”

“Ready, the dirigible!”

Thunder boomed across the room as Dr. Zlo’s invention inserted its gravitas. Cass bowed and rushed off, the other villains looking on curiously.

“Yes, I know what you’re thinking!” Dr. Zlo exclaimed. “Another invention from the great Dr. Zlo? Will he ever stop? Of course not, my fellow ne’er-do-wells!”

The walls shifted, gears turning and grinding, opening up to show the shining city of heroes. Along with a familiar vessel.

“I have upgraded my powerful flying machine! No longer does it contain its previous weaknesses! No! The Zloppelin is now a speeding mass of death, ready to rain fire down upon those perfidious heroes!”

The villains cheered.

“Yes, come! Join me in our assault!”

With that, Dr. Zlo strode toward his invention. A ramp from the Zloppelin extended, connecting to Skyline. The villains followed, excited. As they filed in, a line of Jacques bowed, each unique in its own way. One tripped, causing a cascade of tumbling minions like dominoes. Dr. Zlo ignored it.

He instead chose to march forward and focus on the screens in front of him. Behind him lay his personal morality machine, primed and ready to convert only the best heroes into the most dastardly villains.

Video feeds came to life, cameras recording the various fights and transmitting them to the teams above. Each of his companions had a similar setup, though none of their vehicles could dare to match the majesty of his Zloppelin.

Ms. Tama sauntered in behind, the other villains in tow.

“Right!” Dr. Zlo announced. “Our primary goal is to find my sickeningly nice coounterpart and toss him or whatever his item of importance is into the machine! Which means, my fellow villains!”

Dr. Zlo paused, savoring the moment. Everyone leaned in.

“It’s time to cause chaos!”

The villain turned and slammed his fist onto a large red button. The Zloppelin disconnected from Skyline and a number of tubes opened up. Jacques, packed tight as sardines, lay inside, ready to deploy.

And deploy they did. In moments, black streaks rocketed down to the city below, landing helter skelter without rhyme or reason. The Zloppelin moved with it, spiraling out under the city to spread as many Jacques as possible across the town.

Four other flying contraptions rocketed out, each one making a beeline for the heroes. None went for their heroic mirror matches, however. Everyone had agreed that while the idea sounded fun, it had also been used too much and was therefore rather boring.

Only Dr. Zlo would be forced against his heroic counterpart, but even that wouldn’t be in the traditional sense. No, both Dylan and Oro had decided to start their combat with a bit of grand strategy. Each side would attempt to capture and convert the other team, and once both sides had thoroughly mixed, then the two stars would clash.

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Riptide, his first companion, flew his surfboard-themed vessel toward Saccharine’s last known location. Sweet Dream piloted a licorice cargo plane toward the Ninja. Dextra commanded a sleek, black, futuristic thing that felt more at home in space toward Cowabunga. Finally, Shizuka flew a kite-powered vehicle toward Mr. Black’s fortified position.

“Now, my foe, which will you help first?” Dr. Zlo mused.

Riptide whooped as he surfed his giant surfboard down toward Saccharine’s last known location. The villains with him stumbled, unprepared for his exuberant moves.

“Oh, sorry dudes!” he laughed. “Seems we’re experiencing a bit of tubular turbulence!”

A couple of the villains groaned, which only made Riptide laugh harder.

This was great! He was about to go toe to toe, challenged in fun and exciting ways! Maybe he’d end up finding another weird physics bug like he’d done before.

Or maybe he’d get turned and would have to fight Dr. Zlo in the final battle! Or maybe he’d turn Saccharine and they’d come up with an evil combo move that took down everyone in one shot!

So many possibilities!

Skyscrapers grew in the distance as Riptide surfed toward the ground. According to the video feeds, Saccharine had moved toward an open field with more heroes and was setting up what looked to be makeshift anti air defenses.

“Oh, dude this is gonna be sweet!” the villain laughed. He swerved his large surfboard toward the field, ready to take the fight to his girlfriend’s heroic parallel.

As he did so, he turned to everyone in his transport. “Alright dudes! Which of you can survive a fall?”

About half the villains raised their hands. Riptide laughed. “Right on! So here’s what we’re going to do! When I say go, jump out of here and rally at the field! Our goal is to take Saccharine down and shove her Dr. Zlo’s awesome machine!”

“What about the rest of us?” someone else asked.

“Dudes, you’ve got the important part! I need you guys to stealth it up! See those shuttles there?” Riptide pointed to some emergency pods built into his giant surfboard.

The villains nodded.

“Right, dudes. You’re gonna take those and start looking for Saccharine’s special item! Which was, uh…”

“A gold medal,” someone said.

“Right, thanks dude! You’re in charge of finding that. If you get it, toss it into one of the machines and we’ve got this in the bag!”

The villains cheered.

“Right, everyone ready?” Riptide asked.

“Isn’t this too simple?” A villain interjected.

“Nah, dude. Simple’s what we need. Too many people out and about right now for there to be any kind of crazy plans! Better for everyone to squad it up and plan that way!” Riptide said.

“But what if they have defenses and stuff?” another villain pointed out.

“You’ll figure it out!” Riptide laughed. “Now come on, let’s have some fun!”

The villain whooped and took a sharp turn on his board, pulling up to the edge of the field but going no closer.

“Right, stealth squad get going!” Riptide said.

The villains nodded, though some looked a bit put out at the lackadaisical nature of their ‘leader’. Riptide didn’t care, they knew what they were signing up for with this!

Pods from the back of the giant surfboard launched, shooting the villains out into the streets. Riptide surfed forward before the heroes could react, cheering as he went.

“Alright dudes! Let’s go get the drop on ‘em!”

Another round of groans circled the room, but the villains moved. They fell just in time, as Riptide felt his newly crafted vehicle shake as Saccharine’s makeshift defenses started to pelt them.

Jawbreaker cannonballs and hard candied grapeshot peppered the hull until Riptide surfed it out of the way.

“Battlestations, dudes!” the villain shouted.

Shark minions roared their approval, rushing over to pixelated computer stations. Many were new, as Riptide didn’t want to use the originals Dr. Zlo had made for him at the beginning. Some, however, were still with him. Lieutenants that he wouldn’t give up for the world.

“Right, fire away!”

A cheering roar answered him, and the minions started to shoot back with fishbone torpedoes and seasalt buckshot. The first few salvos landed, but Saccharine quickly erected a sugar bubble shield that slowed the incoming projectiles while somehow letting hers fire at the usual speed.

“Dude, no way!” Riptide laughed as he surfed around.

By this time, his skydiving villains finally hit the ground, only to be met with a wall of ready heroes. Spells, lasers, and various weapons flew back and forth, the two sides quickly making a chaotic scene.

“Aw, heck yeah dudes! Look at that sweet scene!” Riptide said, focusing what cameras he could on the show.

Villains erected barriers of darkness and heroes responded with lasers of light. Then things would shift and the darkness twisted into glowing red constructs punching against the defenses of the heroes. A green hand answered, blocking the incoming constructs and slamming them to the ground.

At the same time, Riptide continued to rain fire down upon his enemies, but Saccharine’s strange powers held him off. At the same time, she was stuck trying to hit Riptide’s ridiculously agile surfboard as the villain manipulated it like a familiar limb.

The villain continued to hold a smile to his face the whole while, excited for the next trick to come.

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