Chapter 7: A Good Villain Plans

Dylan had made it past the fence and into Haven City. Roosevelt had done a good job of defeating the guards and holding the hero at bay. It was sad that he had to leave him behind, but plush teddy bears of doom were not fitting for an evil mastermind. Well, maybe if the plush teddy bears had mind control eyes to brainwash the kids of famous politicians or something. But that wasn't Dr. Zlo's style. His first outing as Dr. Zlo revealed some things. First, Dylan played the character like a Bond villain instead of a cartoonish character. Not a bad thing, as spy villains were always the type to take over the world with grand plans. But Dylan had been thinking of a sillier kind of evil. He would have to find a way to make Dr. Zlo more defeatable, but he could think about that later. Right now, ow Dylan had to get out of the public eye. He was still labeled as a villain, which meant any police in the area would attack him on sight. As he rounded the street corner, ner Dylan ducked into a local corner store. On, side, an NPC stood patiently behind the counter, not reacting at all to Dylan peeking through the glass door to see if anyone pursued him. Luckily, no one had, and it seemed he was safe for now. He brought his hands into the pockets osuit coat and felt something cold. He pulled out a gleaming ruby gemstone. He had forgotten all about it during the battle, but while running, he made sure to grab anything that looked expensive. He wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth. "Hey, do you buy these?" He said to the shopkeeper. "Of course," The NPC replied. Dylan placed all the stolen goods on the counter. Good thing Vert didn't lean into the realism aspect, finding a buyer in the city would be a pain. Plus, if sellers didn't buy every it, em inventories would get filled up with all sorts of junk until they could find a buyer. Transaction completed, Dylan bought a few random items from the store and walked out with well over a thousand dollars. That was probably enough to buy the his and her rings for the GB gun. Dylan ducked back through an alley to keep out of sight. As he walked down, he noticed his logbook was flashing. Opening it up showed a message. "Neat," Dylan said aloud. His friends' list pinged with a message. It looked like John had finished his mission. DemarX: How do you not know what phlebotinium is? I thought you were a super nerd! Superfan39526: I am? Phlebotinium isn't something that appears in super stories. DemarX: Don't you read forums or talk about the tropes with people online? Superfan39526: Nah, I'd rather enjoy the content than argue about who's best. DemarX: Typical. So you've never heard the term? How about handwavium? Superfan39526: No. DemarX: Unobtanium? Superfan39526: That was in that movie with the blue alien, right? DemarX: Ok, ay you aren't completely clueless. Still, how do you not know about phlebotinium There's an entire Tropes article on it. Superfan39526: So what is it? DemarX: It's a name for things like kryptonite. If it drives the plot forward Or some villain uses it for a scheme. Its phlebotinium Superfan39526: So like vibranium? DemarX: Yeah Or nanotechnology Or magic crystals Anything that can be used to handwave an explanation Superfan39526: But what is it in the game? DemarX: Oh You can only find it at like super secret research stations. Both the heroes and villains have them around the cities. Sometimes they'll sell the stuff. I heard you can use it for some crazy stuff. Why do you need it? Superfan39526: The gun I wanna make needs it. DemarX: See, this is why you needed a simpler power. Superfan39526: Eh, I already made myself a giant walking teddy bear and some gadgets out of cloth, chemicals, and batteries. Doesn't seem that bad. DemarX: WAIT WHAT You made that giant bear?? Superfan39526: Yeah? DemarX: Dude, the hero you faced is one of the top streamers going for the raid position.n He even set it up to stream in first person for people to watch Then uploads it as a VOD later on. Thousands of people saw that bear and the villager. WAIT You're that goofy-looking mustached man??? WHAT ARE YOU DOING Superfan39526: Playing the game for fun? You know Like I said, I would? DemarX: Why didn't you sneak into the city or something? You set this guy back a lot. He's pissed Superfan39526: E, he'll get over it. iIt'sIts a game Any, thanks for the info I gotta find a base in the ci.ty now. Look, train yard and stuff. Demar, X: Yeah, good luck with that Tell me when you die and get griefed by this guy. You can make a hero and we'll go around kicking bu.tt together. Superfan39526: Oh ye of little faith THE MIGHTY DR. ZLO WILL NOT FALL TO SOME CHEAP SIDEKICK DemarX: LOL Wait sidekick? Superfan36526: Yeah, the dude had some other hero with him. Some Adam West knock-off. What's with that anyways lol. DemarX: Oh, dude, it's so cool. So Vert wanted a more authentic super experience. So they took a ton of chatbots and had them read comic characters from different eras. They then use the chatbot AI as the base for the NPC character. That's why we get these super silly heroes and villains alongside the crazy serious ones. **Superfan39526:** Haha, that's sweet! **DemarX:** YEAH! My mentor leader guy is this dark knight type. He’s all brooding and intense, but then we have this goofy sidekick who can't stop cracking jokes. It makes for some hilarious moments, especially when they clash over how to handle a situation. It’s like the perfect balance of light and dark! But the gritty one that doesn't mind killing. its sick Superfan39526: Guess you're lucky you didn't get the goofy one. DemarX: For real Some aren't bad Like the wisecracking ones are fine But it's crazy seeing the older ones. I swear I see THWACKS and POWS whenever thpunchnch Superfan39526: LOL I'd love that. DemarX: "Good thing you got one near you, then. Ahem, I'm going on another mission. Cya!" **Superfan39526:** "Yeah, okay, cya!" Dylan closed the chat window and checked the time. It was just past dinner. He'd been playing most of the day. "That can't be healthy," he said. He logged out of the game, feeling a mix of guilt and satisfaction. Stretching his arms, he resolved to step away from the screen and maybe grab a bite to eat. It was time to reconnect with reality, even if just for a little while. A soon as hedecidedd he heard his stomach growl. "Okay, I gotta set more alarms for this thing. Can't be playing when I need to eat." Dylan walked to his kitchen and pulled out some leftover chicken strips from the fridge. Tossing them in the microwave, Dylan let them cook while he walked over to his study room. A desk that hugged two walls held his work computer and scattered plans he hadn't put away. On a shelf above sat binders full of various, various, all related to his field. At the far end of his desk sat a three-foot-long sketchpad of graphing paper. Dylan tore off a sheet and walked back into the kitchen. He needed to make some plans. He placed the sheet down on his coffee table in the living room and went back to grab his chicken strips. On the way back, he snagged a pen from a mug on the countertop and sat down. "Alright," He said aloud. "The first scheme is to kidnap the mayor's son, make him the mayor's daughter, tie him to the railroad tracks, and ransom him for money." He jotted down the scheme information on the paper with his right hand. His left hand absentmindedly reached for a chicken strip and brought it up to get munched. "That means three important factors." Dylan sectioned off the graphing paper and split the bottom into three even sections. He wrote in small letters "1, 2, 3" in the top left corner of each section. "Now, which is most important?"It was the gun. If Dylan didn't have the gun, he wouldn't be able to transform the mayor's so, which meant the plan would go bust right there. Well, it didn't have to go bust, but Dylan wanted to stay true to the classics as best he could. That meant the kidnapee had to be female. So in large letters, Dylan wrote out, "GB gun" at the top of the first section. Second was the train yard. Or anywhere with train tracks. You couldn't tie someone to the train tracks if there weren't any tracks. He wrote "tracks" in the second section. Lastly, Dylan wrote "Mayor's son" in the final section. Granted, Dylan couldn't do the scheme correctly without all the facts, but he knew the Mayor had a son while he had nothing on the other two. "Alright, gun first." Dylan chomped another chicken strip and drew a tree diagram under GB gun. On the left, he wrote phlebot,iniu,m, and the right rings. "I need both to make th,e gun, and it sounds like getting the phlebotinium will be harder." The rings were easy. He'd find a jewelry store and buy them. But he had no clue where to start on the phlebotinium. John had said it would be stored in secret research facilities. Under the phlebotinium (which got shortened to PHB for quick reference), Dylan drew another branch. If he wanted to find the material, he would use his information network. That or find a way to produce it himself. Maybe he could find a scientist and kidnap them? Or he could try and type the material into his mad science tab and see what happened. He had a feeling it wouldn't work. That would make the power way too good. No way would John be insulting his choice of power if that were the case. That left another kidnapping or information network. Dylan scratched out the branch with kidnapping after a few minutes of thinking. He was already doing one kidnapping, and he wanted to try out different things. So he needed an information network. He could try and do it like Sherlock Holmes, enlist the homeless population in the city to find information. No, that wasn't mad-sciencey enough. He could use his power to make spies, but he could run out of money if the rings were too expensive. P, the current UI made it difficult to mass-produce items. He could make a factory that would produce the spies. And one that made minions! He could set himself up like a Power Ranger villain. Make a lot of weak minions with some slightly stronger monster-of-the-week variants. Make them all wear formal attire, and he could get a theme going. Themes were important in establishing a villain brand after all. "Okay," Dylan said. "The first thing we'll do is find a base of operations to make a minion factory. That done, we'll get the rings and start looking for the secret facilities. Get the PHB and make the gun, find or make a trainyard, then kidnap the mayor's son and ransom him." Dylan looked down at his draft paper and nodded. The plan looked solid. With that done, he placed his plate in the sink and went into his office to clean up a bit. Once finished, he grabbed some tape from his junk drawer and stuck the plan to a bedroom wall. He set more alarms to notify him of mealtimes and jumped back into the game.