Vaudevillain
Chapter 4: Clothes Make the Villain

First things first, Dylan wanted to look the part. Right now he was dressed in a bland grey hoodie, which clashed with his evil villain mustache and angular face. He needed a suit, one that said, "I'm here to conquer the world!" A hoodie couldn't say that. At most it said, "I'm stealing your purse and getting caught by the cops later."

Dylan pulled up his map and turned on the GPS function. He entered "clothing store" into the search box and watched as multiple points appeared on the map. The closest was a thrift store a few blocks away but there was no way he could replace the right suit in there. Though it would be a good spot for materials.

He finally found a suit store he could reach in the financial district. He selected the marker and watched as an arrow appeared at the top of his vision. It showed a direction and a number of meters. Dylan started walked along, following the arrow. Once the number counted to zero the arrow changed direction.

He found himself in front of a large fence. It was a lot like the metal fences he saw on baseball fields as a child. Except these were much thicker than the thin chains that prevented stray balls from hitting the audience. Behind the fence stood policemen in riot gear. The road ahead passed through an opening in the fence and NPCs walked through it with no trouble.

Dylan followed along with the others but before he passed through the fence a voice called out.

"Don' cross here."

Dylan turned to the voice to see a homeless man laying on the sidewalk.

"Sorry?" Dylan said.

"You don' wanna cross here. Them guards 'ill catch ya." The hobo elaborated.

"Why's that? I haven't done anything."

"You's one of them villains. I ken tell. They ken tell too. Snatch ya right off the ground and put ya in chains."

Another message appeared in front of Dylan.

All players are marked as either hero or villain. Normal citizens around the world do not react to this marker. However, each side has various non-player characters that can tell if one is a hero or villain. Those not on the NPC's side will be treated as hostile. It is possible to mask this marker with a secret identity. These identities can be forged by certain NPCs around the world.

When defeating someone from the opposing side (NPC or Player) the Player gains reputation. You can replace your reputation in your character tab.

The icon of a person flashed when Dylan closed the message. He pulled up the image of his character and saw that under his name flashed the words "reputation," followed by a letter. Another message appeared.

Reputation is how famous (or infamous) a player is and is also a measure of strength in the game. All players start at reputation grade F (threat to a neighborhood) and can work their way up by performing acts according to their morality. Dying or failing to complete the performed acts causes a loss of reputation.

Dylan dismissed the message and pressed "reputation" on his character sheet. A list appeared before him.

Reputation ranks:

F - a threat to a neighborhood

E - a threat to a city

D - a threat to a large city

C - a threat to a small nation

B - a threat to a large nation

A - a threat to nations around the world

S - a true threat to all around the world

He closed all the messages and looked back at the homeless man. "Where can I cross then? I need to replace a suit."

"The Khaum ken get ya 'cross. Or ya can replace one o' tha holes in tha fences."

Dylan thanked the man and walked off. It looked like replaceing a suit would be harder than he thought. Or would it? He had a superpower for this, didn't he?

Dylan opened his mad science page and typed in "suit".

Suit

Shirt (1)

Pants (1)

Jacket (1)

Needle (1)

Dye (Black, Blue, or Brown)

"John's gonna hate that I can do this," Dylan said.

Which reminded him, he needed to add John. He brought up the settings and went into the friends list. He selected add friend and put DemarX into the box. Once that was done he closed it out and decided to make his way to the thrift shop.

With the GPS destination changed, Dylan made his way over to the thrift store. Along the way, he decided to play around with his mad science power a bit. He wanted to see how flexible the power was. He typed "villainous suit" into the search bar. He laughed at the message that appeared.

Villainous Suit

Candy taken from a child (1)

Kicked dog (1)

Bottled villainous laugh (1)

Villainous scheme (1)

Shirt (1)

Pants (1)

Jacket (1)

Needle (1)

Dye (any color)

It was truly mad science. How would he even bottle his villainous laugh in the first place? He played around with the interface until he reached the thrift store. There were even a few ideas he typed in that didn't sound too hard to make.

Dylan made his way into the drab thrift store and pulled the required materials he needed off the racks of clothing. Once done, he walked up to the counter and paid for the items. He debated about stealing them (he was a villain after all) but figured Dr. Zlo would replace robbing a thrift store beneath him. Besides, it was only ten of his starting total of one hundred dollars.

Once the items were purchased Dylan stored them in his inventory, which involved a simple process of opening his character sheet and placing the items in the inventory slots. The various materials phased into the sheet and became icons on the screen. He could pull them back out by grabbing them and could bring up a list of options by tapping the item. One of the options listed was "combine".

Selecting it brought up a new screen for Dylan to add items. He added all the purchased items and pressed the combine tab. After a short processing time, the items were consumed and his inventory sported a brand new black suit. Dylan quickly equipped it and watched as the hoodie on his character faded out to be replaced by a single-breasted modern suit jacket with a shawl lapel. His shirt became a white button-down and his pants were black flat front pants that were cuffed at the bottom.

"Dangit I forgot the shoes," Dylan said to himself. One quick purchase from the thrift store later and Dylan had a pair of black Oxford dress shoes.

Outfit completed, Dylan decided it was time to check the quest tab. He opened up the page and switched from the logbook to quests.

Make your name known!

As a fledgling villain, you have no reputation to speak of. Make your name known by robbing a store!

"Really?" Dylan sighed. A store was so mundane, and totally beneath his character. Dr. Zlo was a villain's villain. Petty crimes like store robbery weren't his style. The stuff he did needed to be flashy. How were people supposed to know how evil he was if he stuck to small crimes out of the gate?

Dylan dismissed the quest window. It looked like it was up to him to create his own quests, ones more suited to his character. He thought back to all the stories he'd read. He could try doing a bank robbery, mix it up by going the phantom thief route, and announce his intentions. Or he could try and make a large army of some kind to dominate the city. Both could work, but neither gave him the name recognition he wanted.

His mind thought back to early villains from old cartoons. He remembered an old cartoon from the nineteen sixties where the villain tied women to train tracks. The heroes and villains in that cartoon were bumbling, not something Dylan wanted Dr. Zlo to be. But the idea of kidnapping someone and tying them down reminded him of a Bond villain. Both sounded like classic villainy.

"Right, let's do that then," He said to himself. "We'll kidnap the Mayor's daughter for ransom and tie her to the train tracks!"

Plan in hand, Dylan made his way back to his home base to plan. But something nagged at him. The back of his brain was trying to tell him something, except he couldn't put a finger on it. He was still thinking about it when he made his way into his home base.

The place was a dingy one room shack that held a mottled bed and a cracked TV. As he sat on the bed his butt hit the remote laying under the covers and turned the TV on.

"Mayor Briggs and his son Tyler are proud to announce the expansion of the hero's guild to include rookie heroes. They will be working closely with our established heroes to better our society!" The reporter onscreen looped the words like a broken record. Annoyed, Dylan jumped up and stormed over to turn off the television.

On the third loop around Dylan's brain finally connected the correct neurons. "Wait a minute, the Mayor doesn’t have a daughter! I can't kidnap his daughter if he doesn't have one!"

Storming back over to the bed, Dylan sat down, accidentally hitting the power button on the remote once more. He grumbled as he tried to brainstorm other plans. He had really liked the idea earlier. It sounded like a lot of fun to start with the old iconic villainy and work his way up. But it wouldn't feel right to kidnap the Mayor's son for the scheme.

A lightbulb went off in his head. "I got it!" Dylan jumped off his ratty bed once more. "If the Mayor doesn't have a daughter I'll make one!"

He opened up his mad science tab. "Let's see, should I go robot daughter or evil clone? No, maybe a mind-altering ray gun and use a doll as his daughter. No, it wouldn't do any good to have a fake tied to the train tracks. Clone the son and use the ray gun? No that's too convoluted, it'll never work like that. I need as little moving parts as possible if I want to plan out how to be defeated as well."

The gear at the top right flashed. Distracted from his ramblings, Dylan opened up the tab to see a notification on his friends list. It looked like John had gotten on and answered him.

DemarX:

Dude this is so cool.

IM ON THE FRIGGIN' MOON

Superfan39526:

Wait what?

There's a city on the moon?

DemarX:

Not a city

JUST THE ENTIRE FRIGGIN' GLOBAL HEROES GUILD

Superfan39526:

WHAT THE HECK?

DemarX:

YEAH DUDE THIS IS SICK

I GOT LUCKY WITH MY START

GOT PLACED IN SENTINAL CITY

THE BIG WALLED ONE

TURNS OUT THE PERSON I'M APPRENTICED UNDER IS PART OF THE GLOBAL GUILD

I GOT ACCESS TO ALL SORTS OF COOL SH*T

Wait there's a filter for swear words?

Lame

Superfan39526:

That sounds awesome

I'm in Haven City

DemarX:

Yeah this is awesome

There's this shapeshifter guy up here too

Turned into a giant dinosaur while fighting

Oh Haven City isn't bad

Easy to get a good foothold I've heard

But yeah I can see the whole planet from here

AN ENTIRE FREAKING PLANET

How big do they think this game's gonna be?

Superfan39526:

Maybe their flexing?

Look at how much power we have.

Can code an entire planet in.

DemarX:

Ya maybe

Anyways I gotta go

Bossman wants to send me on a mission

Superfan39526:

Aight see ya

Dylan closed the friends tab and went back to thinking about his scheme.

"Shapeshifting huh? Now that gives me an idea."