The Perfect Run

Ryan had been shot at more times than he could count.

Unlike Psychos or special cases like Augustus, all of the courier’s abilities, from his save point to the time stop, derived from a single unifying power. It was only through training and experimentation that Ryan discovered its multiple applications. In particular, it took him years of looping to realize he had an enhanced sense of timing.

The more he experienced a situation, the better Ryan became at predicting and reacting to it. If someone used a martial arts move once, he would subtly anticipate it next time anybody else tried it; the courier could predict when one would toss a smoke bomb to the ground, and catch it before being consciously aware of it. This made learning physical skills almost trivial.

It wasn’t all-powerful, since there were situations when even the fastest reflexes couldn’t make a difference—like getting beheaded by an invisible blade or hit by a laser as fast as light. Lacking any superspeed, Ryan couldn’t truly ‘dodge’ bullets or artillery.

But he could predict someone’s line of fire before they pressed the trigger. His body would then subtly shift, projectiles would miss, and give people the illusion that he could dodge even bullets. Combined with the time stop, the courier seemed impossible to hit from the point of view of outsiders.

So when Vulcan attacked him with her cannon arm, Ryan paused time for a split second and dodged out of the line of fire. A dense shell blasted the orphanage’s wall behind them, collapsing cinder blocks and opening a path towards what seemed to be a kitchen. The trapped pets behind the fence panicked, some frenzied cats managing to escape by climbing.

“Vulcan, it’s an orphanage!” Atom Cat shouted, but before he could rush to Ryan’s help, the Meta-Gang flanked him. The hero avoided a deadly punch from Mosquito and a small fireball from Mongrel; Atom Cat’s movements were chaotic, showcasing his lack of formal training, but his natural agility made up for it.

To her credit, Vulcan froze for a split second, vaguely ashamed. Instead of assaulting Ryan with heavy artillery and risk destroying the shelter, she switched to hand-to-hand combat. Mini-turbo reactors activated on the mechanical suit’s back in short bursts, causing the five-meter tall metal monster to move at the speed of a racing car.

Showing extreme agility honed over countless loops, Ryan backflipped to dodge a giant fist to the face, and then a stomp. “I have to hand it to you,” the courier began, before switching the meaning of his sentence, “because you can’t reach it!”

Vulcan’s attacks grew more frenzied, and when she no longer had the orphanage in her line of fire, she switched to heavy weaponry. Her mech’s shoulders opened to reveal minigun turrets, firing hundreds of pellets at Ryan. The courier used a mix of time stop and timing to avoid the attacks, trying to circle the machine and find a hatch for the cockpit.

Psyshock, meanwhile, threw away his overcoat, hat, and sunglasses, revealing his true self to the world. He had long shed his flesh, replaced with thousands of black wires which he usually shaped into a facsimile of a humanoid form. The only organ that survived his mutation was his skull, which left his bio-mechanical brain exposed. His neon eyes reminded Ryan of two bright torchlights.

Psyshock reshaped his wires to form eight elongated arms, turning himself into a horrific mockery of a spider. While Vulcan occupied Ryan and Atom Cat fought his cronies, the Psycho leaped over the area in a single bound, going straight for the orphanage.

Realizing this, Ryan decided to dump Vulcan and pursue Psyshock, but the Genius didn’t let him. Her hand lunged at the courier, big enough to crush him whole, while her miniguns provided suppressing fire.

In spite of her fearsome armor, Ryan could tell that Vulcan didn’t have much direct combat experience. Her movements were clumsy, and while her weapons aimed true, there was no foresight involved, no human cunning or improvisation; she probably outsourced control to a basic AI. Her armor was also clearly a prototype designed to fight a big and aerial target, instead of an agile and stylish gentleman.

In short, Vulcan had brought a Wyvern-buster to a Quicksave fight.

Vulcan could have won if she had carpet-bombed the area from above, but instead, she chose to announce her presence and make the battle close and personal. Ryan could sense a desire to prove herself in a fight, perhaps to outshine Wyvern.

Girl’s got issues.

Stopping time for ten seconds, Ryan moved to the armor’s left, dodging her hand and bullets. Then, he carefully punched the elbow joint with Fisty, aiming to maximize pressure damage. When time resumed, the recoil applied in full, and the mech’s arm shattered at the elbow point. The forearm fell to the ground, electrical jolts coming out of the damaged parts.

As he guessed when he first observed it at the Armory, much like medieval armor, Vulcan paid for her suit’s enhanced mobility with weakness in the joints.

“What’s this?” Ryan mused. “A short-circuit?”

“You aren’t funny, Romano!” Vulcan complained through her armor’s loudspeakers, clearly jealous of his peerless wit. “You think you are, but you aren’t!”

“Come on, don’t be small-minded.” As she retaliated with another volley of bullets, Ryan froze time and rushed to the orphanage, Psyshock having vanished through the hole Vulcan made in the wall.

Meanwhile, Atom Cat fared little better. Mosquito had taken flight like the insect he was, diving down to try and impale the hero with his stinger. While Atom Cat could easily dodge, Mongrel limited his movements. The strange Psycho flickering in and out of existence, propelling himself with short bursts of wind while attempting to hit the hero with his hand tool. Sometimes, he threw a fireball here and there, small fires starting all over the wasteland park.

Fireballs, limited invisibility, air conditioning... Ryan recognized these powers as those from knock-off Elixirs sold by Dynamis. Mongrel must have drunk a cocktail of them. Since the powers gained were but a shadow of those of true Elixirs, his body managed to handle more than two at the cost of his mental faculties.

Still, even if forced on the defensive, Atom Cat fought hard to regain the initiative in this two-on-one fight. He attempted to punch Mongrel, his hands shining with crimson energy, but in spite of his bestial snarls, the Psycho remained careful not to give his foe any opening.

When time resumed, Ryan had managed to reach the orphanage, only to backtrack when a dozen wires came out of the hole and threatened to catch him in a net.

Psyshock emerged from the hole, having grabbed four kids with his tentacle arms; Sarah, her friend, and two twin girls no older than eight. His cold alien eyes glanced at Ryan with disdain while one of his wires was making its way inside one of the twins’ nose, traces of blood and fur all over his body.

throwing

way of Ryan’s line of fire,

exploited to send a tentacle at him. Suffering from his time stop's cooldown, the courier couldn’t freeze the clock as the arm hit him with the speed of a

the opportunity to tackle him from the side, throwing the hero through the pen’s fence. Dogs and

had connected to; needles appeared at the end of his wires, for an

his intrusive telepathy—no matter its physical limitations—hadn’t caused Ryan to

attention to Ryan and instead raised her armor’s last functional hand at Psyshock. “Drop

way, woman,” Psyshock replied dismissively, positioning his hostages to protect himself from Vulcan's weaponry. Meanwhile, Mongrel moved towards the pen to finish off Atom Cat while Mosquito flew in circles above them. Some dogs who had remained behind instead of fleeing barked angrily at the Genomes present, but were too afraid to

streams at Psyshock. The Genius was very careful not to hit the kids, instead, cutting through

Ryan stopped time, cut the wires closest to him with his knives, and then rushed towards the children. With a swift swing, he severed the wires holding the twins and caught them while

but quickly fell to the ground. Psychock answered by sending his wires in all directions, targeting both Ryan and Vulcan with a rain of tentacles. The courier fled while

shelter’s remaining dogs found the courage to try and bite Mongrel when he approached. With a bestial snarl, the Psycho raised both hands, channeling a fireball through the right and a swirling vortex of wind with the left. The combination created a torrent of flames which

to grab his head with his hand. The Psycho’s body turned red,

to blow air, yet the blast annihilated him without leaving a trace. Clothes, skin, even the tool he carried; they

Atom Cat had

froze, as if an idea crossed his

detonating on impact and propelling him against his own

modulate the strength of his explosions and

spot, one child despondent, and the other crying in fear. “It’s okay, you’re safe,” Ryan tried to console them, brushing their black hair with his hands, “Heroes are

keep the mecha anchored to the ground while desperately trying to find a way inside the pilot cockpit. He looked

before, that despicable bastard used his captives as human shields, preventing the Augusti from using her weapons in close

them, but this caught the criminal’s attention. “A teleportation power?” the Psycho hissed at Ryan. “You

your case, you will go out the way of the

the skull in the frozen time. His fist gored

better than to give any telepath a chance to fight back.

in a mess of wires and brain matter, dragging Sarah and the other kid down with him. Ryan

heroic,” Ryan said, putting Sarah on the ground while Vulcan did the same with her charge. “Little girl, can you take your friend and move away? The big bot is waiting for you to go to

to safety. Vulcan remained silent, watching the children get out of the way with grim vigilance. Ryan couldn’t tell if it was regret, longing, or something

far away, Vulcan attempted to fire

blinding Vulcan before she could open fire. Atom Cat, meanwhile, attempted to punch Mosquito

the battlefield, followed by a

tiniest animal to Vulcan herself, as a gigantic flying

sixty-foot long white-scaled lizard, with an elongated neck, dragonfly wings, and golden eyes. Her claws could cut through steel,

Wyvern.

on Vulcan, stomping her mech underfoot with such force, it created a mini-crater below. If Ryan hadn’t damaged her cameras, the Augusti might have been able to fly away, but now Wyvern kept her pinned to

fly away. The dragon, quicker, raised her

SQUASH!

hit flattened the insectoid like a smear on the ground, his limbs

to the ground, smashing the miniguns. The Augusti attempted to activate

the reactor, Wyvy!” Ryan shouted at her, knowing the danger. “Extract the cockpit!

Wyvern’s assault turned almost surgical in its execution, the dragon carefully extracting the human within with her claws without damaging the rest of the suit. Before the disheveled Augusti could react, Wyvern tossed her to the ground and Atom Cat moved to restrain

mech, but thankfully, Vulcan had the foresight to install fail-safes in her armor’s fusion reactor. The city wouldn’t die an atomic

silence. Only the child whom Psyshock had connected to remained despondent, her twin trying to wake

he had spent enough loops studying medicine and biology to give her a check-up. While intrusive, Psyshock’s orifice invasion usually didn’t damage the subject’s key areas of the brain; the poor

she okay?” Sarah asked Ryan, the euphoria

he said, using his trench coat to remove the blood from his patient’s nose. “But she will

the doogies,” one of the children said, looking in horror at the

are going to have a long, long conversation,” she said, her powerful voice more that

to kidnap children!” Atom