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!”

shockwave hit the ceiling, causing concrete and pipes to fall

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

him off her. Both rose

deserve to be trapped in that suit, unable to touch, to smell,

Sarin snarled back. “I don’t know how you can read my memories, but fuck off

from above with repeated short blasts, but the courier dodged each one. “I don’t want to hurt you, Bianca!” Ryan pleaded, showing one of the guns he kept in his trench

even finish her sentence. The bullet grazed her mask, right near

time, when Sarin landed on the ground, she didn’t immediately attack. She touched her mask, and

him,” the courier said, glancing at Adam. “But not for you.

don’t know me,” she said, “and you don’t know

why he will die. But it’s not too

you a white knight or some self-help shitstain?” Sarin let out a hiss of

Brothers and his gun to the ground. Sarin flinched in response, perhaps expecting a trick, but all

chance. Your last, last chance

“I won’t waste the chance to wipe off that

back a force you cannot hope to defeat,” Ryan bluffed. “You’ve

raised her

And hesitated.

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

of bullets, tossing the

him against the elevator’s doors. “His power only protects his skin, but not the organs beneath! If we keep hitting his head,

Big Fat Adam rasped angrily, trying to detect her by sound. When he did, he lunged at her with nightmarish speed, mouth opened and hands raised. The blood flowing from his eyes made him look

out of the way. Big Fat Adam’s sharp teeth closed on nothing but air, and Lightning Butt’s daughter instinctively

her fingers

replied playfully. “You may rescue me as many times as you

and moved towards Livia and Ryan.

away, Livia faced the titan

“Stop, Vladimir.”

Frank. The giant flinched, as if he

name is Vladimir Khabarov,” Livia

said in a previous loop, Frank the Mad… Frank the Mad was no

He was Russian.

as if he could block Livia’s voice. “I was born in Arkansas,

“It was in Novgorod. Your father wasn’t a cowboy,

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 steel through

weight. The self-hating colossus fell down the hole halfway, with only his torso sticking up.

“Sifu, get down!”

madman must have detected them by listening to their exchange with Frank. Suffering from his cooldown, Ryan

he could get anywhere near his master. The two brawled for a second, but the more experienced Adam quickly

This was the same Blue Elixir the cannibal had attempted to turn Ryan into a Psycho with after blowing New Rome to kingdom come.

blink in horror as the Elixir

that one must have detected the human beneath. The green Genome switching back and 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 held his

got one of you,” Hannifat Lecter gloated

did,” Livia replied with smug

fall back? Unless… unless

in

the syringe’s shards crushed beneath his mighty feet. Instead of madness, the monster

all the millions of people living

took a step towards Adam. The cannibal heard him

predicted she and her father could take two Elixirs with no

eyes shone with a blue hue, Ryan felt a moment of religious awe. A Gregorian song echoed at the back of his mind,

and He had

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

“Soaring Panda!”

could something so ridiculous

loud ‘crack’ as both connected. The monstrous Psycho flew backward and crashed on the ruins of the arcade, while the victorious bear gracefully landed on his feet. His pose reminded the courier

did not rise

horror, attempted to free himself to no avail. His body absorbed the metal

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

must fight the communists’

“No, Frank.

Frank was

The giant looked at his chest, scratching at it as if he could exorcise the Marxist-Leninist evil that infected him; but when he couldn’t, he slammed his head against the floor and mentally shut down.

The courier observed him in a minute of respect, as he watched this proud

past?” Ryan asked Livia, as Sarin lowered her gauntlets, still on her

the fight,” the

is almost as busted as

black,” Livia chuckled. “Speaking of best friends, ours should

one, Sifu!” the said triumphantly, sitting atop a crushed Big Fat

Ryan met him,

he was a