The Perfect Run

Ryan had had many awkward elevator moments in his life, but this one trumped them all.

“Is your life always like this?” Hazmat Girl asked Ryan, as they climbed multiple floors towards the bunker’s recreational area. They shared their lift with four plushies out for blood, with Sarin wisely looking away from the fluffy abominations.

“Do you know where they put my A-bomb?” the handsome courier answered with another question, holding a laser gun in one hand and a Bliss inhaler in the other.

Sarin looked at him in embarrassed silence, and then focused back on the elevator’s doors. Come to think of it, this run was a complete inversion of Ryan’s suicide run. Instead of fighting his way inside Mechron’s bunker, he murdered his way out. The circle was complete.

As the elevator doors opened and revealed a well-lit atrium, the group faced a scene of utter devastation. Frank had reached the recreational areas first, and gone on a rampage that eclipsed even Ryan’s suicide run.

The giant fought a dozen Dynamis thralls firing at him with laser weapons, none capable of harming the enraged Psycho. Psyshock stood at the other end of the atrium, desperately trying to figure a way out of this mess, while other members of the Meta-Gang had taken cover wherever they could.

“Frank, calm yourself!” Mosquito shouted, fearfully hiding behind a broken pool table with Rakshasa. The tigerlike Psycho had summoned hordes of gremlins, with the tiny creatures trying to climb on Frank’s back. “You’re going to bring down the whole place on us!”

“I knew McCarthy didn’t go far enough!” Frank shouted, before grabbing a Street Fighters arcade game and throwing it at the thralls. The projectile immediately killed three people in a devastating impact. “The red menace contaminated our precious bodily fluids!”

“No, not Capcom!” Ryan protested at the horrifying sight. He couldn’t care less about the pool table or the bar, but destroying an arcade game? It was sacrilege!

Sarin, the uncultured bore, had the exact opposite reaction. “Argh, the pool table! Frank, what the hell, we’ve only got one of those!”

“Sarin?” Rakshasa glanced back at Hazmat Girl and her partner. “What are you doing with the prisoner? What the hell is going on?”

“President Adam is dead, and we’re taking over,” Ryan explained, laser gun raised. “Democratically.”

“Let’s play!” the plushies said, before rushing into the melee. The gremlins assaulting Frank immediately recognized the fluffy creatures and fled in terror at their approach. Unfortunately for them, the possessed toys seemed to find as much joy in chasing them as attacking humans.

A woman made of ink, which Ryan recognized as Ink Machine, peeked over a bar counter’s ruins. “Adam’s dead?”

“They are the enemy!” Psyshock shouted, running out of cannon fodder to throw at Frank. “Mosquito, Ink Machine, get out of your hiding hole and capture them!”

“You betrayed democracy!” Frank snarled back.

“Choose your side, guys,” Sarin said, raising her hands at Psyshock to blast him. “We’ve got Frank and the juice. Get in line.”

Psypsy immediately realized the danger of a mutiny. “Only I have the Elixir connection!” he snarled, before lowering himself to avoid Frank throwing one of his thralls at him. “You will run out of knockoffs without me!”

“And you’ll run out of life first!” Sarin made a terrible wordplay as she blasted the brainjacker. He dodged the attack with a leap, the compressed air hitting a wall and causing the bunker to shake.

When the Psychos present hesitated, Ryan pointed at his boxers and threatened to unleash his ultimate weapon. “Don’t force me to flash you. You shall not survive.”

After a short glance at each other, Mosquito and Rakshasa immediately left their hideout... and charged at Psyshock, much to his anger. “Traitors!”

“Sorry, Psyshock, but I would rather be on your bad side than Frank’s!” Mosquito apologized before lunging at the brainjacker, while Rakshasa tackled a thrall. Inky Winky emerged from her hiding hole too and wisely joined the winning side. “At least we can kill you!”

Thank goodness, it wasn’t loyalty that bound the Meta-Gang together.

Raising a tentacle, Psyshock managed to throw Mosquito off him and fled out of the room. Leaving his minions to take care of the remaining mooks, Ryan immediately gave pursuit. After escaping the atrium, Psyshock reached a corridor with reinforced glass windows on both sides, shattering one and jumping through the hole.

The hangars below the junkyard were no more peaceful than the atrium, for the Black Elixir had managed to invade them; perhaps another elevator connected the lower levels to this floor. The creature rampaged in the hangar holding the Meta’s submarine with the technicians fleeing in panic. The giant slime had grown with each victim, now reaching five meters across in size.

Most importantly, Ryan noticed his Plymouth Fury near the submarine, its engine removed from the husk. “Shortie?” The courier muttered to himself, remembering that Psyshock sent Len to work among the thralls. Yet only the screams of the enslaved answered him.

Ryan glanced at the other hangar within reach, the one where Psyshock had fled. The nerve squid was making a desperate dash towards Mechron’s scorpion mech.

Psycho with his laser weapon. A light ray hit the Psycho when time resumed, blowing a hole in his brain. Unfortunately, the engineer closest to the mech started to undergo

which led to the bunker’s entrance. Acid Rain had

Ryan replied before firing at her with his gun. Even though she couldn’t summon her poisonous downpour underground, Acid Rain still had sharp reflexes and managed

Two thralls guarding the area immediately fell upon him like a pack of hyenas;

since he arrived in New Rome? Every hour wasted on

back, though non-lethally. His weapon’s rays hit the addicts’ hands, forcing them to drop

only to take a blast of compressed air for her trouble. The powerful attack threw the teleporter

blasted the hound drones before they could retaliate. “Get Psyshock, I’ve got your back!”

Psyshock’s newest host. A thrall with a laser rifle attempted to intercept him, but the courier’s backup propelled him backward with a blast. Though Sarin couldn’t take a hit, she

reached Mechron’s mech right as Psyshock had started climbing its metal hide. He probably intended to use it against Frank, even at

emerge from below the mech and stand in Ryan’s way. The courier instantly

Len.

in her hands. Her beautiful eyes were devoid of

left temple, “or I will

place at the odious threat. “I can bring her back,” he said, raising his laser gun

see that moment flashing back before your eyes. The sight of her brain spilling out on

was right. The memory

couldn’t look

Shortie could activate the drill, and rushed at her while the universe turned purple. Ryan felt

times in the carotid and aorta. It was a highly dangerous technique, with a strong chance of causing medical complications, but he

the blood influx to the brain, causing unconsciousness and making her drop the drill. Ryan carefully caught

opportunity to launch a tentacle straight at the

time for two seconds. Leaving Len on the ground, he rose up and prepared

tentacle when time resumed, grabbed it with his free hand, and quickly pulled

tentacled whip, but the time-traveler dodged with quick bursts

Ryan quickly closed the gap and applied the inhaler to the

dose

in panic, but as Enrique guessed, his mutated body made him especially vulnerable to brain-altering chemicals.

courier kicked the brainjacker in the head, just to be sure he wouldn’t get up again, and then focused on Len. Thankfully, his friend was still breathing. She

side, holding her close to his chest. The battle raged around them, plushies escaping into the bunker while Frank smashed a wall

He always did.

took one more hour, but Ryan’s side eventually won the Meta-Gang’s

neither the plushies nor the Meta showed any mercy. Even if they were brainwashed tools, anyone

plushies and mutants when a giant

dust settled

back, the courier looked over his audience of Psychos, orphaned children, plushies, and one slimy abomination. Though Psyshock did get rid of Ryan’s suit, he had found a black turtleneck and pants to wear. “The summary executions, the waterboarding sessions… but it’s all

it is time to focus on the true enemy.” Frank the Mad nodded to himself, never losing sight

President, and the unlimited emergency powers that come with it. Powers that I promise to give up once the crisis is

wisely sided with the winning side or outright surrendered. Ryan recognized most of them, from the Land to Mongrel, though not all. He would have

new minions, but they were still

plushies, they had each bonded to an orphan, keeping watch over them like jealous pets. They had also enslaved Rakshasa’s gremlins, forcing them to fawn over the children

short, the pecking order had

as the lizard Psycho he beat up at the orphanage, in the previous Dynamis run. Unfortunately, it seemed a few

name, my scaled friend? The best I can come

“The Reptilian.”

this is a democracy: one man, one vote.” Ryan put a hand on his chest. “I am the man, and I

be president,” Frank agreed, Sarin flipping him the

settle this.” The courier glanced at the audience. “If you want me in

All the plushies raised a tiny paw, cautiously imitated by the frightened orphans; Sarin, Frank, and the wiser Psychos imitated them as well. Eventually, the Black Elixir formed a tentacle of goo with seven eyes at the tip

the Reptilian once he had secured an