Vaudevillain

Dr. Zlo started the fight with a bang, releasing a large robotic beast from a bay underneath his zeppelin.

“Behold, my Robolion! Fight this fiendish contraption for my entertainment or suffer the consequences!”

The robot beast roared, its metallic mane shining in the light. Only Approximo and the other players gave it any notice, however. The NPCs had more important things to do.

Now that the candle had been snuffed out, Gloom was back on the warpath. With a cackle she moved away from the coliseum, declaring loudly that all the light in the world would soon vanish. Turvy used his powers to collect Gio, the old shopkeeper now free from Approximo’s grasp. The two followed behind Gloom, the older man struggling and arguing like a disgruntled child.

Gameset pulled both the sign and the statue from her inventory, placing it on the ground next to her as the lion roared. The six NPC burglars jumped in a scramble, grabbing and pulling their quarry away from the coliseum. Mirror Mirror and Firestarter’s NPCs left as well, the two heroes releasing the items that called them.

Dr. Zlo’s laser suddenly whipped around toward the retreating NPCs.

“Stop right there unless you want to be fried chickens!” the villain shouted.

“Ouch, that one was dumb,” Gameset said to Approximo.

“I do not understand, does the laser turn them into chickens before frying them?” Approximo asked.

A blinding red light assaulted everyone’s eyes as the laser blasted a beam toward the retreating NPCs. It struck the three sign burglars first, somehow missing the burglars completely and vaporizing the sign. The three criminals turned, an appalled look on their faces.

“That was for our pensions it was!” the vacant one shouted.

“Yeah! Boss was going to invest wit’ it and get us a big payout!” the large one shouted in his deep voice.

The last burglar, likely the boss, pointed up at Dr. Zlo’s laser. “I oughta slug ya for such an act! But I’m merciful. I’ll let ya go if you get me something of equal value!”

“You dare try to bargain for your lives with me? Dr. Zlo?!” the villain above shouted. “For that you shall pay! Fire the laser again!”

The beam shot once more, this time moving past the burglars and hitting Brickhead right in the forehead. His square head somehow blunted the blow, deflecting the red laser toward Latroc, who jumped over it with ease.

“Watch where you’re firing zat thing!” the villain shouted.

“Yeah! You could get yourself hurt trying to tangle with us!” Brickhead added.

“You fools! It is you trying to tangle with I!” Dr. Zlo shouted. “And for that, you shall pay a thousandfold! But, not before I punish the others trying to escape!”

The laser pointed at Gloom, the woman almost out of the coliseum. The red beam lanced in her direction with the intent to vaporize. Gloom turned with a mad look in her eye.

“All light shall fall before the night! For I am Gloom!”

With a swiping motion, Gloom crafted a shield of pure darkness that completely absorbed the laser.

“Now feast your eyes on my powers!” the woman cackled. She threw her hands to the ground and pulled. Shadows appeared underneath her, forming into shadowy caricatures of a person. They bent and wobbled strangely, as if someone was trying to stand a gummy worm on end.

“Go, my darklings!” she yelled. “Show them all that Gloom is superior!”

“You dare call yourself superior in my presence?” Dr. Zlo shouted. “You shall soon learn—Hey! Get back here and let me monologue at you!”

Gloom hadn’t bothered to stick around after summoning her minions. More important matters were on her mind, matters of candlelight and dark rooms. Dr. Zlo, not one to be ignored, commanded his zeppelin to chase her down, but not before releasing a number of other robotic beasts.

A crocodile, a rhino, an elephant, and a bear all landed in the coliseum, each turning toward another villain group. The villains in question were already on the move, running out of the coliseum toward their respective quest goals.

“So, what happens now?” Gameset asked.

“So the way this normally goes is that people pick either run or fight,” Of a Kind explained. “If they run, Dr. Zlo will give chase and periodically release both minions and those robot animals. If you stay and fight, he does the same but with more monologuing. What we did was manipulate multiple different groups into the stadium, tricking the game into thinking there were multiple runners. It only happens in groups that don’t have cohesion and I know a few have tried it out to see how difficult it is to solo. Apparently each of the animals has enough power to act as a raid boss on its own.”

“Seems unbalanced,” Mirror Mirror said. “Why make this one so much harder than the one in Londinium?”

“It’s a shortcut to the space station,” Of a Kind said. “The winners get to skip the rest of the quests and head straight up to the final battle. But the catch is that they’ll be shrunken at the start.”

“So it’s not meant to be fair,” Gameset said.

“Yep,” Of a Kind said.

“So how is releasing a bunch of robotic animals going to stop CEOverlord?” Nomsky asked.

“As far as I can tell, those minions are attacking the whole city, heroes and villains,” Of a Kind said. “My bet is they’ll attack Dr. Zlo’s minions, pulling him into the fight as well.”

The hero gave a wicked smile. “The best part is that this event scales with the number of players. And if Dr. Zlo thinks the whole city is out to get him…”

“Then he’ll release enough minions and robots to fight the whole city,” Gameset finished.

“Awesome, dude!” Firestarter said.

“So what’s our next step?” Approximo asked.

Of a Kind pointed to the lion. The animal stood nearby, waiting patiently as it looked up to where Dr. Zlo used to be. “So the best part of all of this is that as long as one of the bosses is alive, the event doesn’t end. Dr. Zlo will just keep summoning minions. All we have to do is keep them alive until this attack is repelled.”

“Dude, that’s so evil!” Firestarter laughed. “Who knew that heroes would pit villains against each other?”

“Almost everyone who reads a comic book,” Of a Kind answered.

Dylan nodded in agreement. “Comics are filled with all kinds of supervillains getting tricked into fighting each other. It’s usually after they work together to beat the hero but not always.”

“Well, whatever the case, I want to watch all this nonsense go down,” Gameset said. She pointed to the lion. “Do we need someone to guard this?”

“Dudes!” Firestarter said. “We should try to ride it!”

“You’re crazy,” Nomsky said with a laugh. “No way you can ride that.”

“Great, now you challenged him,” Mirror Mirror said.

Firestarter swaggered forward. “Dude, I can totally learn to ride a lion bareback.”

“Your funeral then,” Nomsky chuckled. “I’m going to go back and check on my base. I doubt it fell in the short amount of time it took to get here but I want to make sure.”

“Cool thanks for the help,” Of a Kind said.

Nomsky waved a hand in response as he flew off into the sky.

“I hope he knows that’s going to trigger Dr. Zlo going after him as well with something,” Gameset said.

“I’m sure he does,” Approximo said. “Anyway, what’s the plan to watch all this going down?”

“Well, as long as we don’t leave the coliseum we should be fine,” Of a Kind said. He pointed to the edge of the stadium. “That should be high enough to see most everything going on.”

“Heck yeah, dude, let’s picnic on the walls!” Firestarter said.

“None of us brought any food, blankets, or chairs,” Mirror Mirror pointed out.

“That won’t stop me from trying,” Firestarter laughed. “Come on, let’s get a look at the chaos.”

The five friends moved toward the walls, Dylan using Approximo’s powers to craft a series of stairs for them to climb. When they reached the top of the city, the sight of a zeppelin, a woman shrouded in darkness, two robotic animals, and a walking skyscraper greeted them.

“Wait, is that CEOverlord’s base or something?” Gameset asked as she sat down next to Dylan.

“Looks like it,” he answered. “Wait, hold on. It’s doing something.”

The group watched as the top of the villain’s skyscraper base spun around and shrank down into the body of the building below. The sides of the skyscraper folded, extending into arms as Dr. Zlo’s zeppelin pointed at it with its gigantic laser. A robotic head popped out of the top a moment later, much to everyone’s excitement.

“Dude! Did he make a giant mecha skyscraper?” Firestarter laughed. “That’s so cool!”

“He even added a sword on the back!” Gameset said merrily. “Now we just need Dr. Zlo to grow one of his monster animals for a real kaiju fight!”

“Better yet, get all the animals to climb on each other and form their own giant mech,” Of a Kind said. “Go full on mech versus mech!”

Jack looked over to Dylan. “What do you think Dr. Zlo will do?”

“Well, I know what I would do here,” Dylan said.