The Perfect Run

From Friday the 13th to Candyman, Ryan had seen all the slasher movies.

He had acted in a few too, either as the relentless terminator during his brief Punisher phase, or as the lonely target pursued by malevolent Psychos. He still looked back fondly on that run where he escaped the Centipede with only his boxers on. Good times.

So the current situation was nothing extraordinary. Night Terror was just Freddy Krueger, except he could attack people while they were awake. Pluto was Death from Final Destination. The Vamp was a trap; literal death by sex. As for Sparrow… she didn’t fit any box.

Perhaps she would be the final girl? The assassin was a bit old for the role, but Ryan was nothing if not open-minded.

Anyway, he and Atom Cat had managed to escape through the woods, eventually moving far enough that Sparrow could no longer target them with lasers. The duo followed a hiking path down a wooded valley, surrounded by lush green ferns, verdant trees, orchids, and cascading water. Ryan recognized the area as the Valle Delle Ferriere, a natural reserve pre-war.

Unfortunately, the courier sensed Pluto’s power active on his person. His heartbeat raced unnaturally, his fingers twitched with tension, and he almost tripped on a rock at one point. They had put distance between the Augusti Underboss and themselves, but she wouldn’t relent.

“If we continue south, we should reach the rendezvous point with Shortie.” Ryan checked his phone, trying to contact the Soviet Supreme without avail. “Something is jamming my cell phone.”

“Probably Vulcan’s tech,” Atom Cat said. “Cut your phone off, they might be able to track it down.”

Good point, and it would spare Ryan more messages from Lucky Girl. “How far do you think Night Pajama’s range extends?”

“I don’t know,” Atom Cat admitted, checking Ryan’s neck. Red marks marred his skin where the Bloodstream hallucination had choked him. “Are you okay? I admit I was quite scared when I saw you freak out like a man possessed.”

Aww, he cared! Though after putting Ryan through such a scare, Night Pajama would suffer the Luigi treatment. “Continue south, I will go east.”

“You want us to split?”

That was a big no-no in slasher movies, but the courier was no helpless teenager. “Cruella can only target one person at once, and she’s focusing on me. I will lead her into a trap. If you escape, we’ve won.”

Also, Ryan couldn’t risk having the Killer Seven track them to the rendezvous point. Risking his own life was one thing, endangering Len’s was another.

Felix immediately protested, “I’m not leaving you to die, Ryan.”

“Trust me, Kitten,” the courier said, while grabbing a revolver in each hand. He would have taken a dose of Rampage too, if he didn’t worry Pluto’s power might worsen the side-effects. “I do better without teams.”

“But—”

“Do I have to shoot you too?”

The Kitten finally understood it was time to let the adults do their thing. “Okay,” Felix said, though he clearly didn’t like it. “Okay, I will trust you. But don’t you dare die for me.”

“God forbid, your sister would nag me in the afterlife if I did. Now go.”

With one last glance, Atom Kitten followed the hiking trail south, while the courier moved east.

Ryan strolled through the woods, even as he sensed Pluto’s invisible pressure growing stronger. He passed before the mossy ruins of houses and mills, and eventually followed a path following a tumbling river. He soon reached a wide area, with woods on one side, and a small waterfall on the other. A river coursed through a path of whetstone, which allowed one to step from one side to the other.

Leaves bristled as shadows approached. Ryan raised his guns, as multiple figures seemed to surround him; with the darkness, he couldn’t see clearly.

And yet… as a sweet, delicious perfume filled the air, the courier couldn’t help but relax. The tension in his body seemed to vanish, as an invisible voice told him to relax.

Slowly, a figure emerged from the bushes; she was the most beautiful sight the courier had seen in his entire life, in all his runs combined. A gorgeous redhead with a curvaceous body, and perfect skin; even her few freckles only enhanced her appeal. Her lips were red as blood, her eyes shining emeralds. Her red jacket seemed like a forbidden frontier, the promise of untold pleasure to whoever could get past it.

When he saw her, Ryan immediately wanted to drop everything, slam her against a tree, and give her the Full Romano Special.

“Hey,” the Vamp said with a warm, lovely smile, revealing her empty hands. Even her voice aroused the courier. “It’s okay. You’re safe. My poor boy, you must have been so scared, all alone in the woods.”

“Are you an angel?” By now, Ryan’s pop culture-infested subconscious was in full control of his body. “They're the most beautiful creatures in the universe.”

“I can be your angel if you want,” the redhead said, putting a hand on her jacket’s zipper. “Just throw your weapons away, and… I’ll show you heaven.”

Who was Jasmine again? This was the perfect waifu. The romance endgame, the true ending.

But as Ryan was about to turn this horror movie into a porno, he realized one problem with this scenario.

“Gingers can’t go to heaven,” he said, “they don’t have souls.”

“What?”

And then he shot her.

The bullet impacted the killer’s chest and tossed her back against a tree, but didn’t shed blood. Oh, come on, what kind of supervillain wore a bulletproof vest nowadays? Ryan knew he should have aimed for the head!

shot me!” Vamp protested in shock.

like a maniac. “I know your game, succubus! Each of

as if he were mad, before fleeing behind a tree to avoid getting shot. Damn, this always happened when he tried to blow off stress! “Richie,

he reloaded his guns.

matter,” the ginger devil replied from behind her cover, “a

to surround Ryan from all sides. “Dear

could harm him like the real ones, but they died like the originals too. They

engaged the clowns, Vamp left her hiding spot and moved around bushes like a stalking lion, her hands now letting out some kind of colored smoke. Lethal pheromones, most

However, unlike Bloodstream’s ghost before, when time resumed, the clowns returned

slaughtered his way through the clowns. “I killed thousands of them! I even

air. One that filled him with anxiety and

“Riri.”

turned around, and

the waterfall,

Ryan asked, though intellectually, he knew this was all in

crimson tears while letting out an ear-piercing shriek, and

by the sight, that the illusion had closed the gap before he could aim. She used one arm to push him against a tree, and the other to try and stab him with a knife. The courier had to drop one of his guns to catch her hand and keep the

but Ryan himself. “You’re still in that bed, and this

it made him lose focus for an instant. Night Terror’s blade instantly hit Ryan’s thigh, though the courier managed to deviate the attack

hiding spot. “You should have taken the easy way out, jackass,” she told Ryan as her pheromone-charged hand

with a scowl

nightmarish, twisted version of Len,

“There you are.”

the paralyzed Night Terror away, and shot him twice in

and caused her to trip on the whetstones, nearly falling into the waterfall nearby. One hand on his thigh wound, Ryan

Vamp pleaded while raising her hands in surrender, her scent filling Ryan with a mix of desire and regret. “Don’t kill me! I

him. She would do everything Ryan wanted; he just had to drop his gun, and take her now. “What’s your name?” the courier asked, pointing his gun at Night Terror’s

and Karen Ricci!” She forced herself to smile. “Yes, lower

the ginger menace in the

marriage,” he quipped, as the waters dragged the assassins’ bodies

Night Terror’s knife still embedded in his flesh. He couldn’t remove it without risking bleeding out, even with his enhanced physiology.

this. The courier heard an explosion in the distance, south of his location. It seemed Atom Cat

hear himself think, as his heartbeat rose in intensity. His heart felt as if it would burst in

“I’m impressed.”

Pluto.

locate her. Was she hiding behind a

fell silent for a brief instant, while Ryan tried to locate her by sound. “You are Quicksave, are you not? My niece asked us that

He couldn’t hear right with that heartbeat drum in his head! “You know,

replied with a tone that made Ryan wonder if she

his life, or sheer masochism, but the courier couldn’t help but be a relentless flirt. “Can’t we solve our differences the noble way, with an arranged marriage? I swear, I will be the best

painfully transparent. Separating so I could only focus on one of you

but he had no idea what would happen once she fully unleashed

marker from afar, and it seems strange. As if connected to a second one, far, far beyond my reach. A universe that my curse cannot touch.” Her voice was getting closer. “You’re not really here, are you? You’re just a

At least it meant that while Pluto could kill Ryan now and track him in future loops, she couldn’t put the courier down permanently. The news

confirm the same with Cancel, that

fight so ferociously to live, then there is a cost to pay, even if you can recover,” the Underboss said with sharp insight. “Stay out of this, Quicksave. My

you’re too poor to

“Then die.”

full strength of her curse at

knew what hit him, they cut through his clothes and skin

froze time to dodge the projectiles and toss his gun

You can gain a respite from my curse by breaking the flow of causality, but at this distance, you can’t escape everything. At some

catch him from behind. A noose-shaped branch from a tree grabbed his neck and raised him above the ground, tightening

warped reality. It caused the

a gunshot in the distance. Pluto had decided to

it could worm its way to his vitals. As he moved,

power could affect it,

sooner did the courier step out of the way and time resumed, than he almost tripped and broke his skull against a large stone. His

Beep.

heard a familiar sound coming from inside

The A-bomb!

prioritized

time, dragged the device out of his clothes, and hastily disabled it. Thankfully, the temporal anomaly canceled the

time resumed, he found himself

before he hit a large stone below, but