Vaudevillain

Riptide surfed on his board as fast as he could, passing by the heroes in waiting as he pushed through them in his search for Saccharine. Many tried to take him down, but Riptide was too fast for them. He zipped past as if he was a bolt of lighting.

All the while, he kept his eyes peeled for Saccharine. There was no telling exactly where the hero would be, though Riptide knew his foe would certainly be in the thick of it. Mostly because every villain in his group would be gunning for the hero.

And so Riptide surfed toward the largest concentrations of players. His minions ran behind him, shark teeth glinting in the sunlight. They fell behind once the villain reached the first of the large groups, but that was alright. His minions were always meant to be a distraction.

Through sheer luck, Riptide found his foe on the first try, something that had him laughing in excitement.

“Ready or not, dude!” he roared. “Here I come!”

He pushed his modified surfboard to the limit, twisting and turning over the throng of players to reach the hero that had placed themself in the thick of it. Then, once he spotted bubblegum pink, Riptide let loose a warcry.

“Surf’s up, dude!”

He retrieved his blaster from his inventory and fired, getting the heroine’s attention as it struck a candy coated piece of clothing. Bubbles of energy ate away at the sugar.

“Ready for some cavaties?” he taunted.

“Everyone knows the only sugars I have are the healthy kind!” Saccharine shot back.

“Right on!” Riptide laughed, even as he swerved away from a retaliatory strike. He answered with more blasts from his blaster.

Saccharine pulled out candy apple maul from behind their back, swinging it into the beam and breaking it to pieces. This time, the weapon didn’t even sizzle.

Then suddenly the hero’s off hand held a stretchy piece of marshmallow tied to a sticky mess of what looked like popcorn. With a grunt, Saccharine twirled the ball overhead, the marshmallow stretching out like elastic.

Riptide moved to the side and fired, but Saccharine stepped to the side. They kept up the back and forth for a short time, the duo performing a dance that no one wanted to interrupt.

Except, Saccharine’s marshmallow flail started to spin faster and faster as time went on. In fact, the weapon was now spinning so fast that it started outright dispersing Riptide’s blaster attacks.

“Dude, what the heck!” the villain laughed. “Your candy is so not fair!”

“Says the vile cretin attacking our fair city!” Saccharine lashed back.

“Fair enough, dude,” the villain said. “But come on, you should totally join our side! We have cookies!”

“Your attempt at sweet bribery cannot stop the sugary heart of heroism that beats inside me!” The hero yelled. And with that, the marshmallow flail launched itself from their fingers, blasting a tornado of force straight at Riptide.

“Oh crap!” the hero shouted before dodging to the side.

Except Saccharine used to opening to push forward. Powerful legs dug into the ground before leaping, kicking up a dust cloud that obscured everything. Then, a moment later the sugary hero flew from the cloud with their arms wide in a lariat ready to take Riptide down.

Riptide kept his cool, spinning his board to meet Saccharine head on. Except, instead of the sharp crack from breaking metal, Saccharine only heard heady laughter.

“Good try, dude!” Riptide said, spinning around. “But I know how to roll with the punches!”

Yes, Riptide had surfed over the attack with his power, and now he was in the perfect position to strike against Saccharine.

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He stowed his blaster and revealed his newest weapon, a long harpoon gun that shot whole tridents. “Right, dude! Say hello to the fishes!”

There was a thunk as Riptide pulled the trigger, pressurized power sending the trident thwipping through the air to impale Saccharine in the back.

The hero cried out as the blow punched through candy shell armor and into the soft caramel of underlayered protection.

“H*ll yeah, dude!” the villain cheered. “That’ll teach you to copy Sweet Dream!”

Saccharine grunted as they turned toward their foe. The caramel underarmor had done it’s job, slowing the blow, but it couldn’t stop the whole attack.

“And don’t worry about that numbing feeling, dude!” Riptide said cheerfully. “I made sure to use exactly the right amount of pufferfish poison! You’ll be down in no time and ready for converting!”

Saccharine grunted, moving into a fighting stance. “If you think for one second that I would join you—.”

“That’s the best part, dude! Dr. Zlo’s machine will make sure you don’t have a choice!” Riptide interrupted.

He surfed forward, still ready to act. He knew how crafty heroes were when the chips were down.

He still didn’t expect Saccharine’s next move.

“You know,” the hero said, arms reaching into pockets. “I usually try not to use this.”

Riptide stopped, the hairs on his neck standing up. That was not a good sign. Not a good sign at all. Quickly, he readied himself to retreat.

Saccharine removed a small pouch and opened it. Inside sat a single piece of candy. They picked it up deftly between two fingers. “This here, is what people call a circus peanut, widely considered one of the worst candies. Usually, it consists of ninety-two percent sugar.”

The heroine cradled the burnt orange nugget in her hand, her voice soft as she stood. “This peanut contains, if you can believe it, one hundred and forty three percent sugar. And not just simple sugars. No, these are complex sugars that only Dr. Dobro was able to coax out of cocoa shamans during his adventures in the underground chocolate mines of Peru. One bite of this will supercharge my power to the maximum.”

Saccharine’s gaze bore into Riptide. “Enough power to lay you flat before you can blink.”

“Dude, gnarly,” Riptide said, utterly ruining the moment.

The heroine didn’t pause, or stutter, or stop. Saccharine simply brought the peanut up to her mouth. “I hate using this kind of power. It makes me feel like I lost something, you know? That I couldn’t stop things with my own ability. But then Dr. Dobro said that using the power of others is a power of its own.”

And with that, she bit down on the peanut.

Riptide had already moved, but not toward the hero. No, the villain was genre savvy enough to know that sticking around when a magical girl starts waxing poetic about friendship is grounds for an immediate loss. And therefore he’d already booked it when he said gnarly. Not that Saccharine seemed to care.

It became apparent why shortly. Smoke suddenly poured off the heroine, as if she had jsut gotten out of the bath. Her hair, which had previously stayed in perfect form behind her, started thrashing wildly as the wind seemed to pick up. Small pebbles started to float, and sparks popped randomly around the heroine.

Then, with a mighty roar, Saccharine jumped. A crater now lay where she once stood, a solitary shoe print sitting right in the middle.

Saccharine herself appeared next to Riptide, surprising the villain with her instant movement.

“Sweeeets…” she wound up.

“Dude!” Riptide shouted, quickly activating a button on his board.

“Hammer!!!” The heroine roared. A gemstone candy hammer formed in her hands, spikes shooting off in wild growths until the whole weapon was larger than both the hero and villain combined.

“How is that fair, dude!” Riptide shouted as the hammer swung his direction.

“Fair is for sports and competition, not assaulting heroic cities!” Saccharine shot back. She roared a battle cry as the hammer crashed down.

Riptide attempted to surf the blow, but Saccharine’s weapon was too large, by the time his board reached the edge of the weapon, the hammer was already on a collision course with the ground.

“Ah man, wipeout,” Riptide complained.

There was a flash of light as the hammer crashed into the ground. Candy splintered off in a hundred directions, embedding into buildings, villains, and heroes alike. Breathing heavily, Saccharine lifted the hammer, letting it shrink to reveal a broken surfboard lying shattered.

“Anyone else!” the heroine growled.

And if this was anything other than a game event, those words might have stopped everyone in their tracks. Instead it only got everyone fired up.

“Get her!” shouted the surrounding villains. “Once she’s on our side we’ll have nothing to fear!”

Saccharine sighed and brandished her hammer. “Fine. Come on then!”

Off in the distance, Riptide breathed a sigh of relief. “Dude, that was too close. Good thing I asked Dr. Zlo for one of his teleporter things.”

“Glad to see you boss,” one of his shark minions said. “We got another board ready for you.”

“Sweet,” Riptide said. He grabbed it as he walked. The teleporter had deposited him back in Skyline, safely away from all the fighting. Now, he had a different job, one much better suited to his set of skills.

“Right, Dextra got all the coordinates, right?”

“Everyone except Dr. Dobro’s himself,” the minion answered.

“Well dude, it wouldn’t be fun if his was that easy to find!” Riptide cheered.

He pushed open the hangar doors. “See you later dude!”

With that, Riptide jumped back into the fray, ready to find all those special items and throw them into Dr. Zlo’s morality machine.