Vaudevillain

John looked at Dylan, "Of course I want to do your heist. But we have to make sure we don't lose our progress while we do it." John reasoned.

"I've told you a thousand times I don't care about that," Dylan retorted.

"Well, you should. Especially if you're going to start uploading all your antics."

"Or what?"

"Jesus Dylan, do you want griefers? You've already gotten a bit of attention online. It's a miracle you haven't been messed with already. You're lucky Haven City is one of the more uninteresting places in the game."

"So what, I stick around with you and build up a giant fortress until nothing can touch me? The alien invasion will be over by then, John."

"I'm just trying to think about the future."

"No, you're thinking about yourself."

As soon as he said it, Dylan realized it was true. Anger in his voice, he growled, "You didn't want to join me until after you saw the clip of me online. Before, it was you trying to get me to follow you."

His mind went back to all the years they'd played games together. It wasn't something he noticed then, but now it seemed obvious. He was always the one following John to a new game. It was John who told him who to play and what build to go. And it was also John who got angry when he didn't follow that route.

He'd accepted it all before, games with friends were something he did to be social. Besides, Dylan wasn't a confrontational person. It had always been easier to back down first when something happened. He never felt the need to defend his position since he didn't have the same conviction John had.

Well, now that wasn't the case. Perhaps it took playing a villain, but Dylan didn't want to roll over like he had all the other times. Dylan liked Dr. Zlo. He liked the character a lot more than he thought he would. Most of the time, he lost interest in his ideas after he'd finished a quest or two. But Dr. Zlo was fun, and the type of goofy stereotype that made playing him even more fun. The times he hadn't been in character felt drab to him, like watching an old video.

"You started doing the same thing when you joined. Immediately grabbing the reigns and leading everyone like you always do."

John backed away a bit from the anger in Dylan's voice. He tried to make an excuse. "Nah, man. I just wanted to play together."

"Sure. Fine. Then let me do this my way."

"And what way is that."

"The zany, 'I'm playing a character who is off the rails,' way. I'm going to act like Dr. Zlo, I'm going to make mistakes doing it, and it will be glorious. My genius will be unmatched!" Dylan stepped on a chair and pointed to the sky.

John stared at his friend, not understanding. "But if you do that, you'll lose rep!"

Dylan couldn't believe him. "Not everything's about rep, John! How many times do we have to argue this!" This was what, the third or fourth time John had talked about how vital rep was? He sounded like a broken record, stuck on the one talking point. Plus, John knew Dylan didn't care about rep, so why keep bringing it up?

"But you have views! Online! If you get your rep up to A, I bet you'd get a call from Vert!" John defended weakly.

It was the wrong thing to say. "So that's what this is about! You only made this villain character so you could get noticed!"

John stepped forward now, anger growing as well. "I made this character to play with you! It's not my fault you don't have a plan."

"I had a plan. Not like you asked for it." Dylan stepped forward confrontationally.

"Oh, like the hacking idea would have worked. And mentioning you could hack the spaceship isn't a plan!" John followed suit.

"It's better than what you would have done. What, were we going to build up this entire mansion until it became a flying fortress?"

"It's a better idea than trying to hack the thing!" John and Dylan were in each other's faces now.

"What you want to do isn't a heist, dumb*ss!"

Surfsup stepped between the two and turned to Dylan. "Hey man, chill out for a second. Take a breath. This isn't something you should be yelling here. I think Dream and I have heard a bit too much already."

Dylan looked over to see Sweet Dream awkwardly standing behind the new mermaid minion. The Jacques were there with her, cowering behind the chairs with hands over their heads.

Surfsup turned to John, "You should calm down too. Dream and I joined up because we wanted to join in on the fun. We can work around this whole, 'other villain,' thing when it happens. Besides dude, it isn't like we don't have other bases. I don't mind using mine next if this one falls to pieces. Besides, it's only a game."

John frowned. "You're on his side, then?"

"Nah, dude. I'm not on anyone's side. I'm just telling you why I'm here."

John glared at Surfsup, who shrugged with practiced nonchalance.

"Fine, I see how it is. Have fun with your new friends, Dylan." John logged out.

The three stood in silence for a while. Dylan staring at the space where John used to be while Surfsup and Sweet Dream looked at each other.

"Well, that was awkward," Sweet Dream said.

Dylan snorted. She didn't know the half of it. He couldn't believe he'd gotten into such a heated argument with John.

"You okay, dude?" Surfsup asked.

"Yeah. I'll be fine. We've argued like this before." John had always been one to get angry quickly, but it had never been directed straight at Dylan like that. It was often a fit of general anger at his build, an odd spell on the Hotbar, or how the other player hacked. This was the first time Dylan felt like John was angry at him specifically. And he wasn't sure why.

"You know," Surfsup started. "I did join up to hang out and do some crazy sh*t. This whole base building thing has been really boring."

"I had some fun," Sweet Dream said. "But I was the one here when the aliens invaded. And I hate to say it after you had the whole argument, but you do need some sort of defense set up. Just in case."

"I know," said Dylan. "I wasn't really arguing against that. I just realized that he was trying to make everything go his way again. I didn't want to go along with it this time, felt like if I did, I would get stuck in that basement crafting things for him. I hadn't acted as Dr. Zlo in a while."

Surfsup clapped his friend on the back, "You can act more like your in-game character if you want to dude."

Sweet Dream nodded in agreement. "I thought it was a bit odd at first, but it was fun watching you act out during that warehouse fight. You really should do more of that. And who knows, it might be fun doing some of it with you."

"Yeah dude. And I'm sure your friend will come back after he cools down again. You're friends, after all."

"Okay, thanks a lot, guys."

"No problem, dude."

Dylan rolled his shoulders to release the tension that built with his argument. Now relaxed, the man decided to act out his character a bit. "Jacques!"

The minions all turned.

"Stop ogling our new minion and follow me! We're going to do some remodeling!"

The Jacques all scrambled to their feet and followed Dr. Zlo to the elevator.

"Wait!" The doctor said. Each Jacques froze in place. "Grab some shovels, and as many other items as you can carry!"

"Damn it, Dylan," John cursed as he removed his helmet. Why couldn't his friend see that he needed better defenses? Didn't he know how many views that video of him online had? Well over a million. There weren't even a million players in World of Supers! And the idiot wanted to make an entire channel of him acting out his character.

If he didn't get some form of protection in place, Dylan was going to find his entire mansion burned to the ground. All his machines would get smashed to pieces, and his character would be killed until everything he owned was destroyed. And it wasn't like John didn't know what he was talking about, he'd played many games of Cavecraft where players grouped up to raid others for fun. Sandbox games like these were filled with those types of players, and John was sure there would be plenty of them in a small game like this. People in online games weren't nice people after all.

At the moment, his friend had been lucky. The other cities in World of Supers were filled with crazy powerful supervillains that kept a lot of the general populace occupied. Like how Sentinel City had constant monsters spawning from an unknown artifact, or how Treetop held mutants under the canopy. Haven City was tame by comparison, housing a simple gang as the dominant player, and some villain roleplayer had already destroyed that.

Why couldn't Dylan see that? Angry, John opened up a stream. Maybe watching someone else having fun would calm him down. One stream in particular caught his eye.

It was that one streamer, Matt-att. The one Dylan faced all the way back when he started the game. He was playing his new character, a hero with a fascinating power. John watched as Matt-att reduced some villain's base to rubble.

"Yeah! Take that f*cker!" Yelled the streamer, the auto-censoring from World of Supers lightly masking his swear. "That's what you get for messing with me!"

The chat window scrolled down the screen, joining in on the elation. A random fan subscribed to the channel while John watched.

"Thanks, 69Problems for the sub," Matt said, "What power did you pick for this character? Well sixty-nine, call it something like an absorption disintegration power. I'm not revealing any more than that."

John watched as the streamer grabbed the edge of the villain's remaining hideout. The piece of stone in Matt's right hand started to break down into little pieces. The building shook violently, breaking down until the only thing left in the player's hand was sand. The disintegration process continued along the side of the building, reducing the base to nothing more than wooden frames and glass windows.

Dylan wouldn't stand a chance against a guy like this. That mansion of his would fall to pieces the minute Matt-att went after him. But with a little work, no one would be able to get in, especially since Dylan had one of the more flexible powers. Combine that with John's tech assimilation and they could be unstoppable.

"Yeah, I can see chat and subs now guys," Matt said, breaking John out of his train of thought. "Someone came out with an app that allows you to see the chat as an overlay through your games. So now you can finally enjoy the greatness that is World of Supers live and in-person."

That gave John an idea. He wondered if Matt-att was still upset over Dylan beating him. With quick hands, John logged into his stream account and paid the $10 subscription fee. A few seconds later, his question was answered.

"Yeah, I'm still pissed at that troll. You say he's trying to steal one of the alien motherships? I wonder, chat, you think we should go show him what it really means to get trolled?"

Agreements from others filled the chatlog. John watched the stream until he was sure Matt-att would show up in Haven City. There, now Dylan would see just how important it was to make ample defenses. And when his friend realized the error of his ways, John would be there to help him get back on his feet. And who knows, if they got popular enough, John could find an actual job at a game studio instead of stupid IT support.