The Perfect Run

Ryan drove his Plymouth Fury through dilapidated streets, while his partner-in-crime explained the plan in the back. He had put on the bowler hat, like a crown of pain and destruction.

“When Psyshock dies, the bunker will go in high alert,” Livia explained, checking on her phone. Cancel waited on the other side of the line to execute the metal squid. “According to Ryan, Adam the Ogre explicitly ordered the Land to close the bunker’s entrance if intruders get too close to it. This means we have only a short time window to either take down the Land, or reach the base’s entrance before she can close it.”

“How long?” Shroud asked, trying to disguise his voice by making it rougher.

“Minutes,” Livia replied.

“How do we prevent her from noticing our approach?” The vigilante was always such a downer. “Her range extends for miles. I checked.”

“The good thing about Ghoul, is that like with Lego toys,” Ryan said while opening the glovebox, “he comes in many parts.”

A skeletal foot wriggled within it.

“Oh, I wondered where the rest of him had gone,” Shroud noted from the backseat.

“W-what is this, Sifu?” The Panda asked, disturbed.

“It’s like a rabbit foot, it brings luck.” Ryan glanced at Fortuna in the rearview mirror. “Though less than the living charm over here.”

“Thank you for recognizing my superiority, though it is obvious,” Fortuna said with smug pride. “And this is disgusting.”

Ryan froze time and tossed the severed foot at her lap, causing Lucky Girl to scream when the clock resumed. She made a cute sound and grabbed Shroud on instinct, much to the vigilante’s confusion. He seemed torn between reassuring her and annoyance.

“I have a hand in the trunk, if you prefer it,” the courier mocked the blonde.

“I will show you a hand!” Fortuna complained before throwing the foot at the driver. She would have aimed true too, if Ryan didn’t freeze time to catch the projectile. “I will slap you in the face!”

“Anyway, as long as we have her tenant’s body parts in the car, the landowner won’t pay attention to us.” Ryan put the foot back in the glovebox. “She will think Psypsy picked Ghoul up and they’re now returning home. At least, until we crash through their front door.”

Livia answered with a nod. “The Reptilian, Acid Rain, Gemini, and the thralls should protect the Junkyard’s surface, while the rest of the gang is in standby inside their base. Psyshock’s execution will free his victims, the Reptilian shouldn’t be a problem, and I can handle Acid Rain.”

Ryan blinked. “You can?”

Though he couldn’t see her face with her helmet on, the courier was pretty sure Livia grinned in response. “I can see where she teleports before she does.”

In the end, the life of a Genome was a giant game of Rock-Paper-Scissors. One power trumped another, forming a delicate, complex web.

And then you had people like Lightning Butt, who just plain cheated at life.

“Gemini and the Land don’t have any hard counters though,” Livia said, as the group came within sight of the Junkyard’s walls of car piles and trash. “Fortuna, Shroud, can you take care of them?”

“Leave it to us, Livy,” Fortuna replied before frowning. “Now that I think of it, I should get a pseudonym too. I would have taken Diana if Felix hadn’t run off, but…”

“You should choose a name that fits yourself, not others’ desires,” Shroud said.

“You’re right, but I should get something that my boyfriend will like, since we’ll spend our lives together,” Fortuna said while checking her phone. “I’ll harass him with suggestions until he likes one!”

Ryan could tell that the boyfriend in question was strongly resisting the urge to facepalm, doubly so as the Panda started offering suggestions of his own. “How about Lady Luck?” the manbear proposed. “The Legend?”

“I would have said Almost-Invincible, but the last half is already taken,” the courier joked at the front.

“Excuse you? Almost Invincible?” Fortuna sneered arrogantly. “Nobody can hurt me. I’m the world’s luckiest woman.”

through Ryan’s mind. “Only if another Yellow isn’t involved, Goldie,” Ryan said. “The Land is one,

“That can’t happen.”

said, shocking her best friend. “The Land is a Yellow/Orange Psycho who can gain conceptual

manipulate earth, but her precision was inversely proportional to her range. While she was near impossible to destroy while fused to the earth’s soil, she could only create quakes in that state. However, this power combination also made the Land Fortuna’s natural

“But like all Yellow powers, it follows esoteric rules. Which means it’s nonsensical, but with its

don’t get it,” Fortuna

events to protect you, under the guise of luck,” Shroud explained. “But the Land has supreme spiritual control over an area. By that logic, its authority is higher than

replaced with doubt. She felt suddenly a lot less

will need to take back physical form to use her full terrakinesis, which will give you

main reason he ended up with Fortuna was due to her power foiling his assassination attempts. “Unlike your kind, we do not betray our alliance in the middle

her bravery. “If I die, I swear I

Land and Geist’s abilities would interact, and folded the idea away into a corner of his mind. Maybe the former could exorcise the latter, especially since his power

Meta-Gang didn’t have anyone capable of bringing down Lucky

contain due to their abnormal physiology, followed by Frank. Ryan could take care of his former bodyguard, but he could only hope Fortuna and her long-suffering boyfriend

Reptilian and Gemini stood watch over the

‘you shall not pass’, and was deeply disappointed when they

hand on the driver’s wheel, and tossed Len’s water rifle at Fortuna with the other. “Aim for the

friend, while

The Reptilian panicked, but Ryan

the Reptilian in a sphere of water. The

the reflexes from his first suicide

said, typing on her

raised the

freeing the thralls and sowing confusion into the ranks. Ryan didn’t understand how much until they reached the bunker’s entrance without the Land stopping them; Acid Rain guarded the tunnel leading beneath the

her face twisted into an expression of frothing fury as she drew two knives.

opened fire at her with the water rifle, but the Land seemed to have finally noticed the intrusion. The Junkyard trembled as an earthquake shook its foundations, tossing trash

projectile, but flickered in and out of sight. Acid Rain managed to dodge the attack, just as the Land’s invisible pressure overwhelmed Ryan’s crew; it felt like being out in the woods, stalked by a wolf pack. The courier abruptly stopped the car

fly into the fray, but the lock refused to move. He grumbled at Fortuna, as he carried her in

he did too, as Acid Rain’s toxic raindrops fell from the skies while the Land caused a nearby trashwall to collapse near the Plymouth Fury. Ryan, Livia, and the

Fury wasn’t so

as piles of trash entombed his beautiful companion.

Meta-Gang have

best friend. No sooner did the Augusti princess catch it that Acid Rain teleported behind her, knives raised. The Panda attempted to

So Ryan stopped it.

said, as he put on the Fisty Brothers and quickly activated his time-stop. Acid Rain’s eyes widened upon hearing her real name, but she teleported out of range before the

“You piece of shit!” she snarled, as a shiver went down the courier’s spine. “I’ll gut you like

Time skipped forward.

he found himself a few steps away from his starting location, and Acid Rain’s knife stabbed the transformed Panda’s arm; though her blade cut deep, it didn’t do much to slow

behind the teleporter. A sphere of water swallowed Helen, and when she attempted to teleport away atop a hill of junk, the prison followed her. Acid Rain covered her mouth in an

though. Acid raindrops had wormed a hole in

knife in his arm. Livia’s secondary power allowed her to skip time forward, creating an anomaly where everyone followed their

she behave in the erased time?” Ryan asked, glancing at a flying Shroud and Fortuna. The Land seemed to have singled them out as the real danger, trying to bury them beneath debris to no

power, but since I can predict her actions with my Blue power, I simply had to wait for her to reappear.” Livia rushed at the bunker’s entrance tunnel, which the Land had started collapsing with a quake. “And now

Girl and Looking Glass. “Windshield, the Land controls the land! I don’t

go anyway,” the glass manipulator replied. He looked truly dashing, holding his girlfriend like a bride before the altar. He would soon have to walk the talk too, as Ryan

“I know how you feel,” she told her masked beau, her arms around his neck. “You fell for me at first sight. Don’t worry, I

farther from the truth,” Shroud replied with heavy sarcasm, gathering a cloud of glass shards from the trash walls to throw

and common sense. “The sight of me dazzled you, because you are poor and your life is meaningless. But though you have that dark, mysterious charm, it cannot be. I am not the kind of

the courier entered the tunnel with the transformed

She must have seen them prevail in her visions. In any case, the courier’s group quickly arrived in front of the bunker’s blast