Vaudevillain

Chapter 145: Pieces Coming Together

Dextra Black stood at the foot of his destroyed skyscraper, looking at the surrounding chaos. Menagerie recruits passed by the building, making their way in groups toward more respawn points. Locking down the areas with sticky traps was a good idea, but Dextra knew that they would need something else to truly stop the enemy. The villain was sure that many heroes had powers that could render the traps ineffective, like super strength or powerful telekinesis.

However, it wasn't the main issue to think about at the moment. Right now, Dextra was scouring through his power to find hints of the Trollstompers. So far, the player had only revealed the group's leader, a hero named Valiant, but the more Dextra searched, the more he found. Things like the faction's size, common locations, and other tactical data poured in as the villain kept up contact with other players.

The constant searching had finally given Dextra something of a map, and what it revealed confused the man behind the avatar. Trollstompers had splintered a third of their group into small squads and deposited them around the edges of the city. Dextra couldn't think of a reason for the faction to split their forces so small, not when Menagerie had grouped up to fight.

This battle revealed to Thomas just how difficult it was to lead a group of players with such a varied set of powers. It was like commanding an entire army of irregular troops in strategy games. That is to say; things were a touch chaotic at the best of times. Often, Thomas received information about some downright insane maneuver three players had done inside their own group, taking out both the enemy and their teammates.

The player resolved to structure their fighting force better in the future, but for now, he needed to worry about the squads. There had to be a reason for splitting up, but it wasn't like Thomas could afford to send anyone to scout other than groups already on the job. The man would have to leave it all up to Shizuka, Rampart, and whoever they had taken with them. In the meantime, Dextra would command the army here. The player called Hans to his side and started walking toward a group of players in the distance.

Dextra's communicator buzzed from an incoming call. Still walking, the player picked up the receiver and spoke, "Dextra here."

"Hello, my malicious companion," Dr. Zlo said on the other line. "I'd like you to know that I am only a few minutes away from Haven, and I'm bringing reinforcements. How much longer until we set off our bomb?"

Thomas groaned; he'd completely forgotten. With everything else going on, the player had put the entire reason for coming to Haven in the back of his mind. Hastily, the man pulled up Dextra's power and found what he needed.

"Ah, Dr. Zlo. Always a pleasure. According to my calculations, your explosive should have already fired. I believe something has gone wrong with the device."

"It must have been these meddling heroes," Dr. Zlo muttered. "I must make them rue the day they dared to cross Dr. Zlo! Criminal mastermind."

"I'm afraid it won't be that easy," Dextra replied.

"Nothing evil ever is," Dr. Zlo rebutted. "However, once we detonate my device, we can all call it a day."

Once again, Thomas groaned. He shouldn't have forgotten about the bomb, considering it was the whole reason Menagerie was in Haven City. When the enemy faction had attacked, the player entirely focused on them instead of continuing the plan. If Dr. Zlo's bomb had gone off, Menagerie could treat the event as a success and recruit everyone who helped out. Instead, everyone ended up focusing on the external threat because it threw off the planned method.

Dextra was supposed to be better than that, and Thomas's voice was tinged with regret as he replied to Dr. Zlo, "I'll make sure to secure the bomb location."

Silence greeted Thomas on the other line, and the player thought Dr. Zlo had cut the connection for a second. Then, the villain replied, "Out of character for a second. You okay?"

"Just beating myself up that I forgot about the bomb," Thomas replied. "Dextra's supposed to be smarter than that."

"It's not like we've lost the bomb or anything," Dylan said. "We can still set it off and complete the whole event."

"I know. But I'm regretting that I talked you into grabbing the others. We could have finished this if I remembered."

"Let's fix it then," Dylan replied. "Dextra informs Dr. Zlo someone sabotaged his bomb. We tell the players that Dr. Zlo himself is coming to handle matters personally. Anyone who wants to stop him should head to the bomb's location. I can arrive in my Zloppelin, and you can get the detonator. You make your way to the bomb to fix it while I keep the heroes off you. If they beat you, they win, and we finish the event. If they don't, you detonate the bomb, and we win."

Thomas thought about it. "You're right. This is salvageable. Okay, I'll get Shizuka to bring me the detonator. You let me know when you get here, and we can make the announcement."

"You got it," Dylan said. "But give me a couple more minutes. If I'm going to make an entrance, I'm going to do it right."

Thomas chuckled, "I'll be waiting with bated breath."

Psy-Ops and Shizuka were still on the outskirts of Haven city, heading to meet up with the others, when the ninja's communicator buzzed.

"Hard-boiled ninja Shizuka, the woman who works alone, at your service," the player answered.

"Shizuka, I need you to come back to me and bring the bomb's detonator," Dextra said over the phone. "Dr. Zlo is about to arrive, and he's given us a new plan with some updated orders. Someone has sabotaged his bomb, and he needs us to repair it."

"You got it, Dex," Shizuka responded.

Psy-Ops looked over at his temporary teammate. "What's up?"

The ninja started performing a set of stretches, "Dex needs me back in the city. Something about Dr. Zlo coming."

Psy-Ops nodded, "Got it. They need all of us?"

"Dex didn't say," Shizuka replied. "But if you think you can keep up, I'll let you tag along."

Psy-Ops's communicator buzzed at that moment.

"Yeah?" the player asked.

"Hey guys," Fursation said. "I chased that gator man to some pipe leading into Haven city. I think it's a sewer tunnel or something."

"You chase him inside?" Psy-Ops heard Yuppie ask.

"I can't do it without transforming," Fursation said. "Only my wolf form could fit into this pipe. But if I sat around and transformed, gator boy would take me out."

Psy-Ops looked over at Shizuka, "What do you think? Should Fursation keep chasing?"

Shizuka raised an eyebrow, "Dunno why you're asking me that."

"You're part of Menagerie, even if you are a villain," Psy-Ops replied. "I wanted to know if we'd lose our chance to join if we go after the guy."

"Oh. Nah," Shizuka said. "You guys are pretty much in, I think. If Rampsty doesn't give you a glowing recommendation, I will. You guys are some good fun."

"Gee, thanks," Psy-Ops replied. He'd stuck around the ninja long enough to know that anything she found fun wasn't in anyone's definition of the word.

Psy-Ops spoke into his communicator, "I'll join up with you, Fur. There has to be something important in that pipe if the gator ran to it. Maybe we can find the Trollstomper's secret base or something."

"Alright, let me message you the coordinates," Fursation replied. "It shouldn't be too far from where you all are."

Psy-Ops opened his messages and copied the sent coordinates, entering them into his map a second later.

"Before you go," Shizuka said.

Psy-Ops turned to catch a small black box tossed at him.

"Here," Shizuka said. "Have a spare communicator. If you get any info, call me up."

Psy-Ops looked down at the black communicator, then back at the ninja. "Got it."

With that, Shizuka flicked a salute and dashed back toward the city. Psy-Ops watched until the woman conjured a group of clones that tossed her onto the roof of a nearby building, then turned to make his own dash toward Fursation. It was time to find out what their opponents were up to.

Isaac rubbed his forehead as he watched the ensuing chaos in Haven City. He was on high alert, so much so that he'd foisted off his trainees to another developer to "learn the ropes." Really, the man just needed them out of his hair for a second. Dr. Zlo's event kept making the AI alert him, which did nothing to help the man's already stressed mood.

The players hadn't done anything that needed Vert's intervention, yet. However, the preventative bug-finder kept reaching warning levels, mainly from all the zany interactions between players. Like the sticky traps Menagerie came up with. The idea of it wasn't technically out of bounds, but it skirted the edge of problematic. Because of it, the AI kept sending email after email to Isaac's terminal.

It wasn't like the IT worker didn't understand. No, Isaac knew that if someone found a way to lock down spawn points, it would be a huge bug. He just wished the AI didn't warn him about it every time Menagerie made a new trap. The email had gotten old the second time it entered his inbox, let alone the twelfth. Isaac wanted to blame the players for the emails, but he knew it wasn't their fault.

Not for the first time, Isaac grumbled about the ridiculous balancing and the issues it caused. The sticky traps were the natural result of players trying to work their way around a problem. In this case, it was the lack of a death penalty. Well, more the absence of a penalty that stopped players from jumping right back into the fight.

Honestly, Isaac knew he shouldn't be mad at his coworkers. He hadn't even noticed the issue the lax penalty caused until this event. Before factions were a thing, the loss of reputation between players was all that mattered. Therefore it made sense to penalize a player with a loss of reputation. But the advent of factions gave players other incentives to fight for, like land.

Now the lax death penalty meant that players could throw themselves into the meat grinder with minimal losses. After all, what was a drop in reputation compared to losing their resource location? The creation of factions had shifted the important things around, and no one at Vert noticed the issue until now.

Issac sighed. Well, now the developers knew about the issue, and everything should get patched up in a hotfix after a day or so. Until then, players would have to keep finding inventive ways to limit respawns, fighting until they got bored or had to leave. And Isaac would keep having to watch as his list of emails grew longer.

The IT worker's eyes started to glaze over as he watched the incoming emails until one marked high-importance brought his attention back.

"Oh, not again," the man grumbled. "I thought we fixed this damn issue already."

Isaac slapped his VIS over his head, sharply pressing the on switch as he continued to grumble.