The Perfect Run

Ryan went straight for the killing blow.

“CIA!” His hand moved inside his trench coat, and brought out a fake badge he had prepared for this day. “Arrest this man! The senate impeached hi—”

Adam didn’t let him finish, and instead pressed his cannon’s trigger. A black sphere came out of it, forcing Ryan’s group to disperse. The courier instinctively dived down towards the Street Fighters arcade game, desperate to protect it, while Livia and the moved to the other side.

Though the cannon’s black projectile moved slowly, it shredded the bunker’s metal walls like paper, absorbing anything in its path like a tiny black hole. Ryan briefly mistook it for a Black Flux weapon, but on a closer look, the projectile simply pulled things towards itself.

A gravity gun.

Did it have something to do with Dynamis’ secret weapon to deal with Augustus? Food for thought.

Sarin immediately followed her boss’ lead, unleashing a shockwave at Livia. The seer saw the attack coming before the Psycho even pulled the trigger, and stepped out of the way. The let out a fearsome roar and charged at Big Fat Adam, claws extended.

“See?!” Ryan looked at Frank while waving his badge, who was slightly confused. “He doesn’t respect the democratic process!”

But to his surprise, Big Fat Adam happily played along. “See, that’s what I told you, Frank,” Hannifat Lecter said with joviality, before backhanding the so hard the manbear tumbled backward. “The storm is here. The CIA is taking over, trying to kill me as they did with Kennedy. They slew my vice-president, like they’re going to kill all the senators.”

“They won’t get to you, Mr. President!” Frank swore, his fists raised so high that they hit the ceiling. “The White House will not fall!”

“You have to protect democracy, Frank,” Big Fat Adam continued to brainwash his bodyguard with a sinister, televangelist’s smile. “If you fail all is lost.”

Frank let out a roar of rage, grabbed the recreational area’s bar counter, and threw it at the The poor manbear couldn’t dodge, the heavy projectile exploding on contact. Though it didn’t kill the seven hundred kilos bear, it stopped him dead on his tracks, and allowed Frank the Mad to bull rush him. The whole atrium shook with every step of the iron giant.

The fatass had anticipated someone might use Frank’s delusion against him, and prepped him up accordingly. That damn, cunning bloody bastard...

“You know, of all the foes I’ve fought in my long life, you’re probably one of the most dangerous,” Ryan confessed to Adam. Augustus was far more powerful, but Hannifat Lecter more than compensated in cunning and sheer depravity. “And that’s really saying something.”

“What can I say, mate? If a man is a man, he knows what he wants and gets it. And what I want,” He raised his gravity cannon at Ryan, “is to make you squirm.”

Ryan stopped time, the projectile stopping in midair. Good, a Black Flux weapon would have still worked.

Speaking of Black Flux, Ryan rushed at the false president to introduce him to his minority’s rights. Tossing his false CIA badge aside, the courier punched the cannibal in his stomach. Having managed to rattle Augustus in the previous loop, Ryan expected to inflict some damage. Big Fat Adam’s carbon skin was way less resistant than Lightning Butt’s body, as the latter tore through the former like butter.

The Ogre didn’t even flinch. If anything, the blow seemed to damage Fisty’s pistons more than the Meta-Gang’s leader.

Why? Why didn’t it work? Had his encounter with Lightning Butt been a fluke? Had Ryan only managed to hurt Augustus because the Plushie softened him up first?

Unless… unless Ryan needed to focus his powers first? The courier could only produce visible Black Flux particles while wearing the power armor, after all.

“I need the Saturn armor to use that power?” Ryan muttered to himself, right before time resumed. Hannifat Lecter’s projectile demolished the Street Fighters game, much to the courier’s dismay. “The arcade!”

This was it, if his Plymouth Fury getting drowned in garbage hadn’t ruined this run, that tragedy did!

“You tell me, mate,” Big Fat Adam replied, wielding his cannon with one hand and trying to smash Ryan with his other fist. He didn’t have time to do much, as a coil gun shot him in the left eye, blowing it up in a brief shower of blood. “Argh!”

Ryan took the opportunity to leap back to safety, glancing at his savior. “Thanks, I guess the two of you didn’t see eye to eye.”

“Oh, right, I’m supposed to quip,” Livia said, wielding the coil gun and aiming to finish Big Fat Adam’s bullet surgery. “Anyone in favor of safety glasses, say ‘eye’!”

Ryan groaned, but forgave her weak pun-fu.

She fired another projectile at One-Eye Adam, but he protected his face with his hand. The bullet bounced off his carbon skin, though it pushed his palm back slightly. “Sarin!” he snarled, trying to wipe the blood off his face. “Kill that one!”

Sarin unleashed a shockwave at Livia. Though she failed to hit the Augusti princess, her assault forced Livia to fall back to behind the ruins of the bar counter. The wasn’t in a better position, the much bigger Frank having tossed him against one of the atrium’s walls.

Hazmat Girl turned at Ryan to blast him, and the courier decided to use his secret weapon.

“Bianca.”

Sarin froze in place.

“Your boss isn’t working to find a cure, but I am,” Ryan pleaded, a hand extended. “We can make you human again.”

She unleashed a shockwave, and he dodged by leaping to the side. “Are you a Blue or some shit?” Sarin asked angrily. “A telepath reading my brain?”

“You’ve got air for neurons, how could I read it?” Ryan asked, though all it did was infuriate the Psycho. “You must have seen it too. He’s throwing you at this base’s orbital command center, not at the Elixir labs!”

“He’s distracting you,” Adam said after wiping off the blood from his face. His only remaining eye glared with malevolence as he raised his gravity gun at Livia’s hiding spot. “Don’t listen and power through.”

“It’s true,” Livia said from her hiding spot. “Ryan!”

Realizing her intention, Ryan rushed at Sarin, just as a chill went do—

Time skipped forward a few seconds, and when it resumed, Ryan had slammed Sarin to the ground. Holes had appeared where Livia used to hide, and where Hannifat Lecter’s remaining eye should have been. The cannibal screamed in pain, while Livia kept hitting his head with bullets; the had managed to free himself from Frank’s grasp by returning to human form, and then shifting back into the powerful animal.

“Look outside, we aren’t here to kill anyone!” Ryan told Sarin, before adding a caveat. “Except Psypsy and your boss, but they’re asses! The rest of you, we will cure!”

hell up!” Sarin’s gauntlets vibrated, and she aimed for the courier’s head. A shockwave hit the ceiling, causing concrete

he have to show for it? Nothing! He doesn’t want to save anyone, and deep

turn my life around at all?” she snarled, managing to kick him off her. Both rose

another volley. “You don’t deserve to be trapped in that suit, unable to touch, to smell, to taste. You made a mistake when you took these

what it feels to be me, jackass!” Sarin snarled back. “I don’t know how you can

blasts, but the

finish her sentence. The bullet grazed her mask, right near the point where

didn’t immediately attack. She touched

glancing at Adam. “But not for you. You can still

me,” she said, “and you don’t know

and that’s why he will die. But it’s not too late for

white knight or some self-help shitstain?” Sarin let

flinched in response, perhaps expecting a trick, but all Ryan did

your last chance. Your last, last chance at turning your life

“I won’t waste the

force you cannot hope to defeat,” Ryan bluffed. “You’ve been on the losing side long enough. You

raised her

And hesitated.

impenetrable as ever. Yet she didn’t attack. Ryan’s words had planted the seed of doubt in her mind, and now she didn’t

of bullets, tossing the coil gun

at the courier. Big Fat Adam had dropped his gravity gun, and the Augusti’s projectiles had slowly pushed him against the elevator’s doors. “His power only protects his skin, but not

nightmarish speed, mouth opened and hands raised. The blood flowing from his eyes made him look like a ghoul rising from the dead to devour

pulled her out of the way. Big Fat Adam’s sharp teeth closed

stop doing that, princess,” Ryan teased her, her fingers holding him by

Livia replied playfully. “You may rescue

and moved towards Livia and Ryan.

of running away, Livia faced

“Stop, Vladimir.”

moment, Ryan thought he had misheard, and so did Frank. The giant flinched, as if

name is Vladimir Khabarov,” Livia continued.

a previous loop, Frank the Mad… Frank the Mad

He was Russian.

Frank snarled, covering his head with his hand as if he could block Livia’s voice. “I

wasn’t in Arkansas.” Since Livia couldn’t hit the giant physically, she targeted his fragile mind. “It was in Novgorod. Your father wasn’t a cowboy, but a soviet, and he perished choking on stolen

while raising his fist. He attempted to squash Ryan and Livia like bugs, but the courier froze time to move out of the way. The giant’s fist hit the floor, going through it like

blasted the ground below Frank, part of the floor collapsing below the giant’s weight. The self-hating colossus fell down the hole halfway, with only his torso sticking up. He attempted to raise himself

“Sifu, get down!”

Adam had recovered and tried to flank him; the blinded madman must have detected them by listening to their exchange with Frank. Suffering from

get anywhere near his master. The two brawled for a second, but the more experienced Adam quickly grabbed the bear’s hands with his own. The Psycho opened his mouth,

a Mechron-made one. This was the same Blue Elixir the cannibal had attempted to turn Ryan into a Psycho with after

courier barely had the time to blink in horror as the Elixir shattered on the

forth between his two forms as his body absorbed the liquid. Big Fat Adam pushed his victim backward to fall on his back with cruel glee, while Ryan

you,”

you did,” Livia

didn’t she fall back? Unless… unless she had seen this event in a

when the settled back in his animal

crushed beneath his mighty feet. Instead of madness, the monster of the east moved with focus, and purpose, and

millions of people

whispered with shock and jealousy, as the manbear took a step towards Adam. The cannibal heard him coming, but he had guessed what happened from the sound.

her father could take two Elixirs with

blue hue, Ryan felt a moment of religious awe. A Gregorian song echoed at the back of his mind, and he could almost

existed, and

his right leg and arms extended, the left knee folded. How could a giant bear fly like this, Ryan would never understand, but he did. Perhaps Big Fat Adam might have dodged, if he still had eyes, or maybe he would have been paralyzed in awe too. The shouted his attack’s name, with his cute,

“Soaring Panda!”

so ridiculous look

backward and crashed on the ruins of the arcade, while the victorious bear gracefully landed

Adam the Ogre, he did not

no avail. His body

Frank,” Sarin said, vibrating hands pointed at his head. “Don’t make

must fight the communists’ infiltrators!”

answered, “No, Frank.

then Frank was

as if he could exorcise the Marxist-Leninist evil that infected him; but

of scrap. The courier observed him in a minute of respect, as he watched this proud giant, this loyal bodyguard that

about Frank’s past?” Ryan asked Livia, as

won the

almost as busted as your

the kettle black,” Livia chuckled. “Speaking of best friends,

triumphantly, sitting atop a crushed

circle was complete. When Ryan met him, the had been

was a