Vaudevillain

Chapter 239: Moon Landing

"Four more days, dude," Riptide said as Dylan logged into World of Supers. "You excited?"

Dylan looked over to see his friend sitting with Sweet Dream at the Skyline Caf, a steaming drink in his hands. The two had been waiting for the others to get on to start their moon assault. Though Sweet Dream and Riptide weren't needed for this portion of the plan, they still wanted to hang around for updates.

After discussing everything, the group had settled on letting Shizuka deposit the minion factories, as her stealth abilities made her the perfect infiltrator. Bart would be the one driving the spaceship Jack had designed since his power upgraded everything he drove. His two companions would go along for the ride with the steampunk four. Just in case anything went wrong and the team needed to fight.

"Of course," Dylan answered. He pulled up a chair and ordered an iced coffee from the waiter NPC. "We're about to pull off the biggest crime this planet has ever seen! Why wouldn't I be excited?"

"Because what are we going to do after this?" Sweet Dream sipped her smoothie. "You can't exactly escalate once you take over the world."

"Maybe that's why the stories never have it happen," Dylan said. "Unless the world's a dystopia."

"Yeah, dude. But by then, it's already happened," Riptide said.

"So," Sweet Dream said, changing the subject. "Since we're all waiting for Shizuka to come back, what can we expect for the upcoming patch?"

Dylan smiled. "Well, I convinced the devs to use a Zlobot as the main villain instead of the actual Dr. Zlo. It took a bit of work, but eventually, I brought them around."

"Dude, sweet," Riptide said. "How'd you do it?"

"I basically mentioned that I would still like to play my character while the event goes on and that the others were able to in earlier patches. Therefore, it would make sense that the villain is a Zlobot that acts like Dr. Zlo while the real Dr. Zlo is off somewhere else, planning more ridiculous plots. Honestly, I think they were happy to let it happen. Probably because they didn't want to limit my freedoms."

Sweet Dream snorted, "Too late for that."

"Well, it's not like the developers are responsible for everything," Dylan said. "I don't blame them for being accomodating. It's mostly the corporate side I'm worried about. Vert seems to be split along lines or something."

"Classic case of a quickly expanding business, dude," Riptide said.

Dylan raised an eyebrow, prompting his friend to continue.

"Alright, so the VIS was way more popular than they expected, giving them a huge amount of sales. But businesses can't seem to take the success they had and sit on it. Instead, they have to invest their money and grow the business. So these dudes use all those profits to network and expand, which means they gotta hire new talent. Well, they want the best talent, so they hire people from other companies. But these new leaders are used to working in places that are already established. Vert's still growing, which means they gotta deal with all those growing pains. And dudes, business aren't good at dealing with changes."

"So Vert's a mess because it's expanding too quickly?" Sweet Dream questioned.

"Yeah, dudes!"

"I guess?" Dylan said. "But the hardware side is doing fine, it seems. It's mostly the game that's all sorts of crazy."

"Then maybe they don't care about the game now that the hardware is selling," Sweet Dream stated. She took another drink of her smoothie, "It would make sense. But enough complaining. What new stuff are we going to see?"

Dylan smiled. "Okay, so the Zlobot is going to be up in this giant space station shaped like a train station. Inside there will be a ton of dioramas with spaces for landmarks from each city. As the patch starts, the Zlobot will send out drones to capture the landmarks. He'll try to do it with small groups first, one or two squads of Jacques. As time goes on and people thwart him, the assaults will get more and more powerful. I'm talking top hat tanks, laser drones, the works. Once the armies succeed, they'll shrink the target down and transport it back to the station to sit in their cases. Players will then have to search for the space station's location and enlist the help of various scientists in order to build a device that unshrinks the items. They can choose to either infiltrate the station and avoid the guards or assault it head-on. And at the end, they'll fight the Zlobot in a giant floating head of Dr. Zlo."

"A giant floating head," Sweet Dream deadpanned.

Dylan nodded, a smirk on his face. "Yeah, because his ego's just that large. It all went to his head, see?"

"Riptide is rubbing off on you," Sweet Dream said. "But I will admit the premise does sound fun. And pretty wacky."

"Dude, it sounds awesome!" Riptide laughed. "I'm sad we can't be a part of it!"

"Whatch y'all nerds talking about?" Shizuka asked, spinning a chair up to the table.

"Just Dr. Zlo's next expansion," Sweet Dream said.

"Oh, getting all the juicy bits before it starts?" Shizuka asked.

"I'm just telling them the overall premise," Dylan replied.

"Cool. So where are all the other nerds?"

"I'd rather you call me a gentleman," The professor said, stepping behind Shizuka. "Or at least a genius."

Shizuka looked up at the tweed-jacketed villain, "Oh hey, look who's ego decided to show up! Let's hope all that hot air doesn't shake the spaceship."

"Pff, nothing can go wrong with Bart driving," Leatherface said as he walked inside. Bart and Fleshgrabber walked behind him, the three friends waving hello to the others in the room.

"Jack's waiting at the ship," Dylan said to the others. "She messaged me that she wanted to add a few things to the vehicle 'just in case.'"

"Well, alrighty tighty," Shizuka said, jumping from her seat. "Let's get this show on the road!"

"How's everything looking?" Jack asked over the intercom.

"Same as it looked five minutes ago," Shizuka sighed. "No one told me that it would take so long to get to the moon."

"Well, Skyline doesn't have to rotate around the planet like the moon does," The Professor said. "WE just happened to start the plan when it was furthest away."

"It's just so booooooring," Shizuka groaned. "I need some action. I can't stay cooped up in this place."

"Well, lucky for you then," Bart said. "We're coming up on the moon now."

"Yes! Finally!" Shizuka cheered. "We got the stuff?"

"If by stuff you mean the factories, yes," The Professor answered. "They're in the back with Victoria. She's making sure they don't get jostled."

"Good good," Shizuka said. She pushed past the back seats and up into the cockpit to see the incoming moon.

"It looks rather simple," she said.

"It's a moon," Bart replied. "What did you expect? Rings?"

"Something more exciting than a gray ball," Shizuka answered. "I mean look at it!"

The ninja gestured out the window at the floating planetoid. As she stated, the moon was a gray ball pockmarked with craters on its surface.

"Hey now, the heroes do have a guild here," Bart answered. "That's got to count for something."

"I guess," Shizuka huffed. "Where is this building anyway?"

"Over there," Bart pointed.

Shizuka turned to see a gray-white complex of buildings rotating into view. Each building connected to the others through a circular tube, making sure nothing was exposed to the open air. Well, except for the giant crater next to the buildings. There, a domed shield covered the area, and Shizuka saw various flashes of light appear inside.

"What is that?" the ninja asked.

"Some persistent quest for the heroes," Bart answered. "Apparently, the game spawns random types of enemies for people to fight. It's supposed to be because the heroes are guarding something, but no one knows what it is."

"That," Shizuka said. "Sounds awesome. Maybe I should've made a hero?"

"And miss out on this?" Bart gestured to the factories. "We're about to stick it to Vert, man!"

Shizuka smiled, "Okaay, you're right. I couldn't leave something like this alone."

"Make sure that the moon doesn't have detectors or anything," The Professor said.

"Not a problem," Bart answered. "Jack made some upgrades for that purpose."

Bart flipped a switch on the control panel, and Shizuka whistled in appreciation as the walls around them vanished.

"Invisibility. Nice," she commented.

"It only makes the ship invisible," Bart explained. "But it masks us from other signals as well. The only way someone should see us is if they can spot our figures in the sky."

"Unlikely," The Professor answered.

"Well, let's get down there!" Shizuka whooped. "I've got some factories to set and some enemies to kill!"

"Just the factories," The Professor said. "We have to extract you too, you know. The moon blocks teleporters somehow."

"And yet it lets those monsters teleport in," Bart muttered. "Kinda stupid if you ask me."

"No need to be so down about it, chum," Shizuka said, laying a hand on Bart's shoulder. "I'll be sure to bring you a conga line of enemies to shoot."

Bart rolled his eyes as he touched down on the moon's surface. Though, to be honest, it might be fun to make a daring escape with this suped-up vehicle.