The Perfect Run

Snow. Snow, everywhere.

Antarctica was a land of ice without end, a white expanse of glaciers, frozen mountains, and plains so white that sunlight made them almost blinding to look at. It was utterly silent too. The few penguins and wildlife living on the continent nested along the coasts, and left the continent’s interior utterly lifeless.

Clad in the Saturn Armor, Ryan flew above the frozen wasteland with only Leo Hargraves for company. The courier remembered making a stop in Scandinavia and later Greenland during one of his lengthiest fetch quests, but the south pole remained a mystery to him.

“Have you found anything?” Len asked him through the telecom.

“Winter is coming,” Ryan replied ominously, as he and Sunshine flew over a tall glacier.

“Riri, you have been repeating that each time I call you.”

“Because people must know!” Ryan replied playfully. “I mostly see snow, but on the plus side, I haven’t seen any mosquitoes. Well, except the one we keep in storage.”

No wonder he never visited this place, there was nothing to do!

“I am highly disappointed.” The courier shrugged off a layer of frost forming on his armored arms. “I expected an ancient civilization buried beneath the snow, or maybe a mad scientist’s base.”

“What about the armor’s readings?”

“It actually picked up a spatial anomaly, but the signals are faint.” Truth be told, the entire region reeked of them. Whatever happened here had permanently damaged the space-time continuum in the area. “Sunshine and I are trying to narrow down the source.”

“I… finally.” It had been three days since they reached the continent, and quite a few members of the expedition had grown irritated with the lack of progress. “Don’t do anything rash.”

“Shortie, Rash is my middle name,” Ryan replied happily, “between Dashing and Immortal!”

Sunshine must have heard him, because the living sun looked over his shoulder. “Witty comes to mind too,“ he said.

“Witty is my son, Amusing my daughter,” Ryan replied, as he turned left after his armor picked up a stronger signal. Leo Hargraves quickly followed. “By the way, Sunshine, how is it you’re not melting the whole place with your mere presence?”

“I can control my own gravity and heat.” The superhero observed Ryan closely, his shining gaze both warm and intimidating.

“Do you want to shed light on some unresolved issues, my stargazing friend?” Though they had traveled together for a few days, the Carnival leader had remained surprisingly quiet so far. The courier had seen him gazing at Len while she didn’t notice, and his best friend had done her best to avoid the Living Sun. “Bloody issues?”

The Living Sun looked away, glancing at frozen mountains in the distance. “Is Len Sabino listening?”

Ryan had guessed right. “Shortie, the sun wants to dial you.”

“I’m listening,” she replied after a brief and tense silence, with Ryan putting on the loudspeaker.

“I wish to apologize on my team’s behalf,” Sunshine said. “To the both of you. What happened four years ago…”

“Wasn’t your brightest day?” Ryan sighed. “Believe me, it could have gone a lot worse, and you apologized already. At least to me.”

“In a previous loop?” Hargraves asked.

“So you believe us?” Ryan asked. The Living Sun hadn’t broached the subject since they set off from Monaco.

“I admit I find Shroud’s story difficult to believe, but I have seen many things in my life that I once thought impossible.” Leo Hargraves’ light seemed to dim for a brief instant. “You are within your right to hate us, and I would perfectly understand. I want to say that my teammates only followed my directions, and that I made the call that day. If you wish to blame someone, it is I.”

Len let the words sink in for a moment before answering. “Did you know who he used to be? That we were with him?”

“Yes,” Sunshine admitted. “I know Freddie Sabino was a good man, and that he traveled with his children.”

“Then why?” she asked, though her voice didn’t break. Ryan could tell that the subject remained painful for her, but not as much as it used to be. “Why did you come after him? Why didn’t you try to heal him? Your Genius… your Genius could have helped. Or at least tried.”

“We didn’t think curing him was even possible,” Sunshine admitted. “And time was not in our favor.”

“You predicted that he would cause a disaster,” Ryan said, remembering his conversation with Shroud at the loop’s beginning.

“Yes.” Sunshine seemed to hesitate about saying something, but eventually mustered the courage to. “And we had reason to think that he would kill you both, if we didn’t take action quickly.”

Ryan could almost see Len meditating on these words, reading between the lines. If let loose, Bloodstream would have killed his own daughter no matter what, and the Carnival saved her life.

On some level, she probably knew all along.

“I… I don’t know.” Len took a long deep breath. “I… I understand why you... why you tried to kill Dad. I do not support it, but… I understand. I’m… I’m not sure my father is even there anymore.”

“If we can cure him, we will,” Sunshine swore. “We made a decision based on the information we had available, but now… now I doubt we made the right one.”

“Hindsight is twenty-twenty,” Ryan replied. If anything, after seeing Bloodstream destroy New Rome in the previous loop, the courier thought that the Carnival hadn’t been thorough enough in stamping him out.

suddenly picked up an electromagnetic reading

the line. “Whatever happens, it will be my decision. Let me

beneath the Living Sun’s heels, forcing him to float above the ground not to fall. “However, you must understand that if

Len didn’t say anything.

father, then we will find it,” Leo Hargraves swore, ever the shining knight. “What

don’t want to talk about it.

understand. I am sorry to have

on for miles, an ice canyon so deep that he needed to put on the armor’s lights to see the bottom. But most importantly, his systems picked up traces of Violet Flux in the area. “Well well

found

as he analyzed

you mean?” Sunshine asked, arms

intruders from moving in,” Ryan explained. Natural Thin Places, like the one where he had his fateful date with Livia, often opened during rare cosmic or electromagnetic conjunctions.

short, it was

is keeping prisoners,” he guessed. “I can’t see any

had told him that the Alchemist often set up illegal labs to test Elixirs. The courier guessed she probably did the same in her center of

get us inside?”

with the Resonators.” Ryan always brought these devices with him on a trip, in case he ever found

behind on the other side of the portal, just in case,” Leo Hargraves said, immediately making plans. “The rest of us can look at what’s inside. If the Alchemist is smart, she will have defenses in place to

want to try talking it out first?” Len

have

mad everyone who tried to track her,” the courier said. “And she didn’t mind ending the world as an

tell everyone

pick you up,” Ryan said, taking flight again alongside Sunshine. “Perhaps

replied. “When you make battles costless for those who order them, the results are always terrible.

on Felix, trying to figure out what happened to the Meta-Gang. The risk of the Augusti finding out about Mechron’s armory

for the other bases, Leo Hargraves had cleared out two of them by the time Shroudy Matty called him for reinforcements. With half of the Carnival deployed in

had been focusing on R&D. The others were standard armed robot production facilities, and capable of churning out armies in weeks. Sunshine was right, nothing good could come out of such

legacy would

you agreed to join

Psychos would make the world a better place, and to be honest, if

Elixir’s release

Sunshine replied. “I want

suspected that Sarin intended to ask the same question, but with

desert of ice and snow. The modular base consisted of two dozen cubes

Bacchus and Simon’s information, it hadn’t taken long for Ryan’s group to find the lost Station Orpheon. The French government had stripped the research station clean after abandoning it, but left enough stuff for the team’s Geniuses to restore it to half capacity. Ryan guessed the military intended to reactivate the site at one point, but never got around to doing so before the world ended. For safety, the group had left Alchemo and the Doll with the submarine a few hours away in the south, moving in only

special equipment, had made a campfire outside. And even then, Mr. Wave

turned out, superpowered pandas were powerful enough to survive in Antarctica without power armor. Their indestructible fur and fat shielded them

Ryan had checked.

the heat,” the superhero told the as the manbear

Though his power had given him a great deal of insight, he still had the adorable tendency of

replied, as Ryan and his

Sunshine lights the way,”

the dark,”

before glancing at the

nose in his milk. Unfortunately, the frost was such that the boiling liquid quickly started to

a bit uncomfortable. “Yes,

if you stare at the sun too long,” Ryan said. “My pandawan is

still looking?” The asked, too afraid to

based on movement,” Ryan added. “You should be

I’m flattered, but this reaction is

as he took a deep, chilly breath.

you fought the Meta-Gang, Timmy. Mathias spoke highly of you. In fact, I would like to invite you to the Carnival. We need people like you, with their hearts in the right place. Of course, this is a dangerous work, and I would perfectly understand

and rolling in the snow. Then

just committed pandacide,” Mr. Wave told

of Stitch’s conception which covered his entire body, even the eyes; somehow it allowed him to see anyway. From what Ryan understood, the protection was made of trillions of bacteria adapted to the cold. Shroud, meanwhile, had thickened his suit with additional layers of reinforced glass to keep the heat inside, turning his

come with us, Atom Cat?” Sunshine asked upon seeing Felix. “We are about to face great danger. If the Alchemist truly makes her lair in this region, then she is

you one,” the young man replied while glancing at

too,” Sarin snickered. “I can tell there’s stuff you’re keeping for yourselves.

orange is in the henhouse,”

stared at him. “I didn’t

Ryan whistled, even as the Psycho raised her gauntlet in

Felix said, crossing his arms. “Livia would never cooperate with the Carnival. Something

change,” Shroud replied with

dating my sister,” Felix added. “Somehow, I find that to be the strangest