Vaudevillain

Chapter 110: Meet and Greets

Psy-Ops and his friends arrived in Haven City the day before Dr. Zlo's announced plan.

"Wow, this seems pretty crowded," Yuppie said.

"You're right," Fursation replied.

The three friends stood just inside Haven City's residential district, one of the three meeting places in the announcement video. The players had lightly discussed whether to head to Thenapolis or Cartis instead, but all three wanted to see the place Dr. Zlo started his reign. Right now, the three were heading towards Dr. Zlo's mansion in the hopes of finding him before the event.

"So, what do you think Menagerie will do?" Psy-Ops asked as he walked.

"With this event?" Yuppie asked.

"Yeah."

"I bet we'll have to stop some giant doomsday device," Fursation said. "That's a staple in these situations."

"Well, duh. But how it's done is the important question," Yuppie replied. "Is the weapon a giant robot heroes take down and villains protect? Are we going to be searching the city for a bomb? Or maybe it'll be something else we can't even predict."

"Knowing Dr. Zlo and what he's done in the past, I think it'll have a theme," Psy-Ops said.

"The question then is, what kind of theme?" Yuppie asked.

Fursation did a small hop over a crack in the sidewalk, "He's got a top hat and a monocle. So whatever he does will be themed in that direction, right?"

"But there's all the others too," Yuppie countered. "Sweet Dream did a candy-themed assault, and none of them had a theme when it came to the spaceship."

"Yeah, but I saw that as more of a, 'can we do this?' kind of thing," Psy-Ops answered.

"True," Fursation replied. "Well, whatever it is, I can't wait."

Psy-Ops agreed. Whatever Dr. Zlo did, it would be exciting.

The three players arrived at Dr. Zlo's mansion a few minutes later since all three decided to take the scenic route instead of heading straight over.

"Is it just me, or is this place not a mansion?" Psy-Ops said.

"It's not just you," Yuppie said.

"Jesus, this place is tacky," Fursation commented.

The three friends looked up at a gated stack of cream-colored apartment buildings. Small balconies jutted out below each set of glass doors, and Psy-Ops saw all manner of random items sitting around. His eyes tracked down to the building's feet, taking in the militant rows of apartments as he did. An awning that reminded Psy-Ops of tacky hotels sat over a set of revolving doors.

"Someone renovated," Yuppie quipped.

"I don't think this is Dr. Zlo's doing," Fursation replied. "It doesn't fit anything he's done so far."

"You got that right," someone said on the other side of the gates.

Psy-Ops looked at the opening gates to see a woman in white and brown tights greeting them.

The woman waved, "Hey there, I'm Airstrike. I'm guessing you're here to see the mansion?"

"That's right," Yuppie said, clearing his throat with a loud cough. Psy-Ops rolled his eyes. Yuppie was going to try and impress another girl with some terrible manners.

"You're not the first," Airstrike said. "But we bought this land fair and square once Dr. Zlo's claim on it ran out. Welcome to one of the many housing quarters of Haven is Place on Earth, or the HPE for short."

"A city-specific guild?" Fursation asked.

Airstrike nodded, "Right. We made sure to get as much of the residential area as we could since it's the closest to the other districts. And the cheapest, according to Dally."

"Are you looking for more heroes?" Yuppie asked.

"We'll take anyone. The faction roles let us blacklist villains from specific areas and vice versa. That way, the minions that guard the place attack on sight. It's a pretty cool mechanic. We've already had a couple of fights with the villains."

"In that case," Yuppie said, swaggering forward, "you'll need one of the best heroes out there to help out."

"Uh, sure? Go talk to Dally at the water tower. That's where we recruit others."

Yuppie waggled his eyebrows, the fact that his helmet hid his face utterly lost on him, "What say you take me?"

"Oh, uh," Airstrike said. Her eyes flicked to Psy-Ops, who took the cue.

"Yup, you know we're here to do Dr. Zlo's event. And I'm not up to join some faction we don't know."

"I'm sure we can get to know each other," Yuppie said to Airstrike.

"Oh, look at the time!" the heroine replied. "I have somewhere to be. See you later!"

Airstrike jumped into the air and took off flying. Psy-Ops and Fursation stared at their friend for a half-second, then burst out laughing.

"Shush," Yuppie said.

Fursation spoke first, his sentence interspersed with laughter, "Jesus Yup, do you pff want to sound like a haha sleaze bag? Why is it you get this way every time there's a girl?"

Yuppie turned and yelled at his friend, "I do not!"

"Do too." Fursation puffed up his chest, "Look at me, I'm such a bad*ss hero. All the women will want me once I turn on my charm."

"You gotta admit, Yup," Psy-Ops chuckled, "You always do this, and it always fails."

"I'm just waiting for the right person," Yuppie argued.

"Yeah, someone who can tolerate your terrible flirting."

"Let's just find where to meet for the event," Yuppie fumed.

"Lead the way, Cassanova," Fursation bowed.

Yuppie groaned and took off into the air.

"He has got to stop doing that," Psy-Ops said.

"I know," Fursation replied. "You'd think after all the teasing we give him he'd stop."

"Maybe it's a nervous tic," Psy-Ops said.

"Whatever it is, I hope he doesn't act this way later."

Psy-Ops made a face, "I don't think we could stop him if he does."

Fursation turned to Psy-Ops, "Agree to deny any knowledge of the man if he gets on someone's bad side?"

Psy-Ops offered his hand, which Fursation shook.

"Agreed," the psychic hero said.

Dextra sat at the top of his tower in Haven City, putting the final touches on the event.

"I'm glad we could reach an agreement, my esteemed friends," Dextra said to the others in the room.

"Hard to say no, really," a player said.

"Yeah, the chance to raise reputation and rebuild a city sounds great," another said.

"And if we succeed in stopping the wave, we still get a win," the final player said.

The four players in the room were in discussion about Menagerie's current event. Something Dextra had done in all three cities. He knew that if he didn't negotiate with the other factions popping up in Haven, Menagerie wouldn't survive after its recruitment. That wasn't to say Dextra talked to everyone, some groups refused to speak, and others weren't people Dextra wanted to associate with in the long term.

It was amazing how easy negotiating was when you held all the cards, not that any of the others knew that. Superintelligence let Dextra collect information about all the top guilds in the city, which in turn allowed the player to devise a strategy. For example, these three players right now were the top three guilds in Haven at the moment. The HPE and Chump Change sat in the residential and factory districts, respectively, and both wanted a bit more in the space department. In turn, Wynn's Winners were in the Harbor district and wanted to demolish the surrounding area to crush an upstart guild that muscled in through a dirty trick by the leader.

With the information collected, it had been easy to get the three guilds to turn a blind eye to Dr. Zlo's event to remove the smaller factions around them. For the first time, Dextra truly felt like a supervillain. Manipulating the masses into going along with Menagerie's plans, and liking it, gave him a sense of satisfaction he'd never felt. It was like winning a playoff game and securing a new job at the same time, combined with the smug certainty that you came out on top.

"We plan to start our event tomorrow," Dextra said. "Anyone wearing a white or black wristband is participating in the event, and anyone with a glowing red band has been disqualified and is considered attack-on-sight. Anyone without a wristband is fair game for both heroes and villains. With that said, here are yours."

Dextra pulled out three wristbands and handed them to Hans, who walked over and placed a wristband in each player's hand.

"I'll have to remember this idea," one of the players said. The leader of the HPE, Dally, if Dextra remembered right. "This will be great if we ever want to plan our own event."

"Indeed," the leader of Wynn's Winners said. The titular Wynn himself, according to Dextra's power.

"You'll have to sell me the recipe," the leader of Chump Change said.

"I'll talk to Jack and see what she thinks," Dextra said. He clapped his hands, "With that done, how about something to drink?"

Murmurs of agreement passed around the room, and Dextra had Hans pour out some drinks.

"To our success!" the villain said, toasting the glass.

The others followed, drinking their respective beverages. Dextra smiled; it was all coming to a head now.

Dr. Zlo rested in Skyline. Mabel and Cass by his side as he watched the Jacques load materials onto his new invention. The giant zeppelin rested beside the city, tied down with strong cables by Jacques and construction bots. Creating the thing had been something of a pain, but the result was worth it.

Dr. Zlo tried to use helium at first, but it required a ridiculous amount of the material, and it wasn't practical to use. Besides, the cost of that amount of helium was hundreds of millions of dollars, and since Menagerie hadn't used the money exploit yet, purchasing that much was impossible. Eventually, Dr. Zlo settled on using his levitation generators.

Dr. Zlo's aerial assault zeppelin of doom! Outfitted with a variety of weapons to deal with enemies and strengthened to resist blows from the stronger heroes, the Zloppelin will rain terror down on unsuspecting cities! To add his own personal touch, Dr. Zlo made sure to make the Zloppelin dressed in the finest of materials fit for any conquering weapon. A series of levitation generators rest inside the ship's structure instead of helium.

Night Flight - Led Zeppelin (1 song)

Steel Beams (100)

Levitation Generators (5)

White Canvas (10000 sq m)

Black Canvas (25000 sq m)

Laser (500)

BB Gun (500)

Bow Tie (1)

Propeller (3)

Engine (1)

Sciencium (50 g) or Alienite (4 g)

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