Vaudevillain

Chapter 96: The Earth Rises

The thing before them stretched upward like a muddy fountain. It was shaped like a man, though only just. It looked like something made of soft putty, and every step it took forward warped its body in strange ways. The head squished in all the wrong places as it lumbered, contorting into faces of anger. Oro noticed a few trees hadn't fallen and grew out like hair, giving the creature an emerald and gold afro. It towered over the trees, twice as tall as its surroundings.

"How do we beat something like that?" Rampart complained.

"If I had enough time, I could take it down," Merla said.

"You've never shot anything that big before."

"I've never needed to either. It will probably take up my entire mana pool, so I need some time to recharge and more time to cast the spell."

"Leave it to me, dude," Riptide said. He slammed the gas pedal on his surfboard and shot out toward the giant like a speeding bullet.

"Wait, you idiot!" Sweet Dream yelled, but it was too late. The surfer had already charged ahead.

"D*mn it," the woman cursed. "We need everyone if we want to keep that thing occupied. I'm useless against that thing."

"Then stay here and keep any squirrels off Merla," Rampart said. "We'll go after Riptide."

"Got it," Sweet Dream replied.

"I'll need two minutes to recharge and probably another two to prepare the spell."

"We'll buy five then," Rampart said. "Come on guys."

Rampart dashed after Riptide, Oro and Dr. Zlo not far behind. Riptide flitted around like a fly, firing blast after blast from his surfboard. But all his efforts only produced a few marks on the giant's body, and they disappeared moments later as the dirt squished together as it walked.

"How do we even hold that back?" Oro asked.

"Let's see how this abomination fares against my genius!" Dr. Zlo shouted. The villain flew over to the giant's legs and unpinned one of his buttons. Oro watched as Dr. Zlo threw his button bomb at the monster's foot. The explosion blasted off bits of dirt, creating a small hole.

"We need more firepower than that!" Oro yelled.

Dr. Zlo grabbed the rest of his buttons and threw the entire lot at the hole. A cluster of explosions shook the area, and the giant's foot broke apart. It fell to its knees with a crash, knocking up a cloud of dirt and damaging the trees around it. Rampart threw up a barrier around him to keep his vision clear while Oro kept charging ahead through the cloud.

"No creation is greater than my intellect!" Dr. Zlo shouted triumphantly.

"Watch out!" Rampart yelled.

Dr. Zlo turned to find a muddy fist coming right for him. Rampart readied himself to fight with a man down but was surprised to see the villain out of harm's way. One minute he hovered in the path of the fist, and the next, he was a few meters away from the strike.

"Riptide, the giant's regenerating!" Rampart yelled.

Riptide turned to look at the giant's foot. Mud was starting to reform around the leg, shaping itself into a new foot. "Got it, dude!" Riptide yelled. The surfer pulled out his disintegrator gun and went to work, blasting chunks of mud away from the creature as it tried to pull itself together. Dr. Zlo joined him shortly after, adding his own laser strikes to the barrage.

"Oro! Can you get on top of it?" Rampart yelled.

Oro barreled through the dust cloud and arrived at the feet of the giant. He placed a hand on the monster and checked to see if it could hold his weight. His hand sunk into the muddy body, forcing Oro to pull it free with a squelching noise.

"I'll sink in it if I try to climb it!" Oro yelled.

"Then try and find a way to stall it with Zlo and Riptide!"

"What are you going to do?"

"This!"

Rampart activated his barriers above the giant's unbroken foot. For a second, Oro was confused. Then Rampart started to spin his barriers. Rampart's makeshift saws dug into the giant's foot, sending dirt and foliage flying.

"Remind me to never spar with you," Oro joked.

"Go help out already!"

Nodding, Oro dashed over to the mud monster's other foot. Dr. Zlo and Riptide were firing into the crawling pieces of mud, desperately trying to stop it from reforming. Laser blasts and disintegration beams ate into the marching mud but only succeeded in stalling the advance. But there was more mud than the two could deal with at one time.

Oro went to work, grabbing at globs of mud and tossing them away. But as soon as he started, he knew it wouldn't be enough. It was like trying to bail a sinking ship with a bucket. They needed another approach.

"We can't keep this up!" he yelled to Rampart.

"I've almost got this foot severed! Hold on for another second!"

Gritting his teeth, Oro grabbed fistfuls of mud and tossed them away, not bothering to look where they landed. Dr. Zlo and Riptide aimed their disintegration beams at the closest mud balls, breaking them to atoms with each blast.

"Got it!" Rampart yelled.

Oro stopped and looked over. Rampart had succeeded in severing the giant's other foot with his barrier. Three more appeared moments later, enclosing the mud inside and preventing it from rejoining. Oro breathed a sigh of relief and stopped digging. Mud flowed around his feet back toward the giant.

"I can hold this for thirty seconds," Rampart said. "Then I'll have to refresh the barriers. We need another idea to stop this thing!"

"Watch out, dude!" Riptide yelled.

The surfer stamped down on the gas, rocketing his board straight at Rampart. The hero looked up to see a muddy wall coming down on him. No, not a wall, a hand. Hurriedly, Rampart formed a barrier to deflect the strike, but it shattered immediately when the fist connected.

The barrier did pause the attack, which gave Riptide enough time to surf over and yank Rampart onto his surfboard.

"Thanks," the hero said.

"Anytime, dude," Riptide replied.

"Can you keep dodging while I focus on my barriers?"

"Totally."

"Good. Oro, Zlo! We need a way to distract it when I recycle my barriers!"

"I have an idea!" Dr. Zlo said. He reached into his inventory and grabbed one of his self destruct patches. The villain flew down to the reforming mud and dropped the patch inside.

"What was that?" Oro said.

"A timed explosive. I use them to keep meddling heroes away from my grand inventions."

Turning to Rampart, Dr. Zlo yelled, "let me know when you have ten seconds left!"

"That's about now!" Rampart replied.

Eyes widening, Dr. Zlo activated a detonator and flew off. Oro took the hint and booked it away from the foot. Ten seconds later, the area around the giant exploded, sending mud everywhere. Dr. Zlo cackled madly at the explosion.

"That will teach you to interfere with my plans, you overgrown mudball!"

At the same time, Rampart switched out his barriers. Some of the mud escaped, but he kept most of it inside his walls.

"Alright, let's keep this up!" The monk cheered.

Unable to walk on two legs, the giant resided itself to crawl. Periodically, it tried to reform its feet, but each time Dr. Zlo's explosives and Rampart barriers would prevent it from fully regenerating. Riptide flew around with Rampart in tow, dodging the strikes from the monster. Oro did his best to keep up, but his power wasn't built to take on a giant made of mud.

It looked as if their plan would work. A minute went by like this, Rampart and Dr. Zlo slowing the giant while Merla charged. But then the monster changed tactics. Instead of swiping at Riptide like a man swats a fly, the giant drove a hand into the ground and upended a group of trees. The wood flew into the air, a slapdash shotgun blast heading straight at Riptide and Rampart.

The surfer tried dodging the attack, but there were too many trees. Unable to evade, Rampart pulled up a barrier to block the scattered debris. His shimmering wall broke under the weight of the strike, forcing Rampart to put up another wall.

But the giant wasn't done. It brought another muddy fist to bear, swinging with all its might at the pinned players. Desperate, Rampart formed all his barriers in front of the fist, but each one only held for a fraction for a second before breaking.

"It's no use," the monk said.

"Well, see ya later then, dude," Riptide said.

Rampart looked at the man quizzically. Riptide grabbed Rampart's shoulders and shoved the hero off the board.

"Tuck and roll!" the surfer yelled as Rampart fell.

Moments later, the giant's fist smashed into Riptide, splintering his surfboard and reducing the player's health to zero.

Rampart took Riptide's advice and curled into a ball. He didn't expect to survive at a fall from this height, but if he did, it meant he could recover. Rampart wasn't about to let Riptide's sacrifice go to waste.

As the ground rushed toward him, Rampart braced himself and closed his eyes. But instead of smashing into packed earth, Rampart felt a pair of hands grab him. Confused, Rampart opened his eyes to find Shizuka looking at him.

"You're late," was all he could say.

"A ninja is never late," Shizuka started. "Nor is she early. She arrives exactly when she needs to."

"Save the quotes for later!" Nikola yelled. "We gotta deal with this thing!"

"Oh, go use your electricity already," Shizuka said.

She jumped off Nikola's rocket scooter with Rampart in tow. The hero panicked for a second, then noticed they were descending at an even pace. He looked up to see a cloth parachute coming from behind the ninja.

Shizuka waggled her eyebrows, "Neat, huh? Jack's able to make me all sorts of new goodies."

"Got anything that will stall that mud monster?" Rampart questioned.

Shizuka shook her head, "If this was before the patch, I could try and make enough clones to take it down. But I'm limited now, so I'm straight out of luck."

"Crap."

"Oh, don't worry your head. We still have Nikola."

Rampart wasn't quite so sure. He hadn't seen Nikola fight, and the player seemed a little out of place compared to everyone else. Though, the rest of this group was so eclectic that Rampart chalked it up to Nikola being less extroverted.

The monk turned his head to look at Nikola, eager to see what made Shizuka trust the villain so much.

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