The Perfect Run

Aliens.

Of course it would be aliens! Everything made perfect sense now! Still, Ryan wondered if these visitors would look like tiny grey dwares, or humans with ridged foreheads. If the eight-meters tall monster in the snow was any indication though, they were probably cold-blooded.

Wait… Ryan glanced at the monstrous creature’s corpse, and came to a sudden realization.

“I knew it!” He shouted, pointing a finger at the colossal beast. “I knew it was the Reptilians!”

These scaled bastards had tried to infiltrate human governments to destroy democracy!

“It can’t be aliens,” Shroud said in denial. “Maybe the Alchemist… maybe she’s building a spaceship to leave the planet?”

“That piece of crap obviously crashed years ago,” Sarin pointed out. “If I listen well to our jackass-in-chief, a good four-fifths of it is buried in the ice. Who would build a ship like that?”

“We… we know Elixirs came from alien dimensions,” Len said, trying to scan the ship with her power armor. “It’s… it’s not impossible.”

Shroud still shook his head. “Can’t be aliens.”

He could accept the existence of a time-traveler, but not extraterrestrial visitors?

In any case, Ryan activated his time-stop as his group debated. Although he sensed an opposing force struggling back against his power, the icy wasteland turned violet to his relief. Since the strange purple lightning bolts in the alien skies kept moving in the frozen time, Ryan guessed they were made of Violet Flux.

Much like his experience in Monaco, his time-stop would work as long as the Resonators kept the portal open, allowing him to converge the Purple World with this pocket dimension.

But something else caught the courier’s attention. The Black Flux particles produced by his armor seemed to devour the space around them, creating tiny, almost invisible cracks in the fabric of reality itself.

“Huh?” Ryan said as time resumed. Though the black particles vanished, the damage they had caused remained.

“What is it, Riri?” Len asked, noticing his confusion.

“It seems my power has an anomalous effect on this thin place.” Come to think of it, Ryan remembered Black Flux consuming Alphonse ‘Fallout’ Manada’s radioactive Red Flux during their fight.

All hints so far indicated that the Black Ultimate One had given the courier the power to kill what couldn’t die. But how far could you push that definition? Could you kill energy? Items? Ideas?

Black powers were paradoxes, and didn’t follow the rules. Lightning Butt himself had become more like an animated statue than a man, and yet Ryan’s power could damage him. It could even kill a ghost.

Maybe it could kill Elixirs, or the alien energies they produced.

“That power gives me a headache,” Ryan said, deciding to prepare his team for battle. Sunshine and See-Through observed the dome cautiously, Sarin looked tense, Len and the didn’t hide their anxiety, and Mr. Wave barely restrained himself from going in guns-blazing. “Alright mooks listen up, who’s never explored a spooky alien spaceship among you? Raise your hand if this is your first time.”

Everyone raised their hand, except Ryan and Mr. Wave. “Mr. Wave caused the Fermi paradox,” the genome explained. “When alien civilizations see Mr. Wave, they go extinct.”

“Riri, why didn’t you raise your hand?” Len asked.

Sarin looked at Ryan with skepticism, which wounded the courier’s heart. “You saw aliens before, oh great and powerful leader?”

“Yes, but their ship was round and flatter.” Also, the passengers had kept trying to pay him in seashells for some reason. “In any case, rule number one for spaceships, and the most important one by far: don’t touch the eggs. A good egg is a boiled egg.”

The gasped. “But Sifu, eggs are cute and rounded!”

“Eggs are the enemy, soldier!” Ryan snarled with the passion of a drill sergeant, the adopting a military salute. “Any egg found in an alien ship is a potential W.M.D.! Boil them all!”

“Y-yes, Sifu!”

“Second rule, we don’t split up. Ever.”

“It wouldn’t change much,” Mr. Wave boasted. “Even if Mr. Wave faces an army alone, they will still be outnumbered.”

“I agree,” Ryan conceded, “but this is the principle of the thing.”

“I am usually more fond of dividing forces to cover a greater area, but in this case numbers might prove safer,” Leo agreed. “We have no idea what to expect within.”

“Which way do we use to move in?” Shroud asked, glancing at the blast doors.

“Mmm…” Ryan approached the gates to observe them. On a closer look, while the blast doors were mostly made of the same black metal as the rest of the ship, they showed hints of having been breached in the past. Someone plugged the cracks with a standard steel alloy. A cursory scan from his armor told the courier that the doors could probably survive extreme conditions such as atmospheric reentry. “Sunshine, we might need a solar eruption or two.”

“I see another perfectly good entrance up there,” Sarin said, pointing a finger at the hole in the ship’s metal dome. “If the lizard blasted his way out, then it means that path is clear, right?”

“Possibly,” Shroud conceded. “But we might find workers repairing the damaged area.”

“What bothers me is that nobody came to intercept us,” Hargraves said, his radiance dimming for an instant. “I expected more activity in the Alchemist’s base of operation, but the area looks deceptively empty.”

“Perhaps the thing killed everyone on its way out,” Sarin guessed.

creature? The gash that slew it came from a claw. “I am tempted,” Ryan said. “On one hand,

hostile actions until we can figure the truth out,”

clenched. “No way I’m not roughing up that bitch of a mad scientist along the way. She

“While we might need her knowledge, there’s no way I’m leaving the person responsible for Last Easter unmolested. She has far too much blood on

only know a small piece of the full truth, and an open conflict will lead us nowhere. Let us act cautiously, figure out

group settled on

explain the third and final rule then. If it

hole, followed by Shroud, Mr. Wave, and Leo the Living Sun. Shortie used streams of pressurized water

hundred meters wide. One end of a five-meters wide bridge extended out to a central platform equipped with strange biomechanical devices, while

projections flickered, and all the platforms’ devices were deactivated. Whatever juice the ship used, it was starting

platform, with Len, Sarin, and the crossing the bridge to secure the dome’s other entrance. Meanwhile, the courier and the

arrays of

and immaculate as a dream, but sometimes colored splashes gave it variety. A red star here, a green bird there. These phantom images only existed for an instant before returning to the white, and

chaos burnt at its center, the first and greatest sun illuminating the universe; and when Ryan squinted at it, he

were represented there. Other stickers contained substances he had never seen,

strangest of them all, a patchwork of chaotic ideas made real. Nothing unified the creatures and places of this realm, except that they only ever

alive. A pulsating cell with seas of green slime, teeth mountains, and forests of blood vessels. The atmosphere itself buzzed like

a compendium holding all knowledge and information that ever was, is, and would ever be. The azure glow of a supreme godmind cast the light of enlightenment like a lighthouse in the night, while its neural

violet expanse of compressed space and strange mirrors closed this alien panorama, all overseen by an eerie,

recognizing the Purple World from his brief contact with

Hargraves asked, causing Ryan’s head to

to float amidst the holograms, swiftly pointed a

Rubik’s cube was made of a substance that the

this remind you of anything?” Shroud asked

that surrounded it were all metals, from iron to bronze and gold. It was at the very center of it all, the core of one of

body,” Leo Hargraves whispered, astonished. “It’s the same color,

made of an anomalous metal. It was the only explanation for why Frank the Mad’s ability to absorb these alloys had seemed to affect the invincible warlord. But doubt always remained,

suddenly made

of a metal from the Orange World, the source of all inorganic material. A world

does not exist

A world without time.

“Adamantine…” Ryan whispered.

looked down on him from his vantage

mythical material from Greek mythology, said to be harder than anything? Did nobody read

dimension to align, creating an anomaly where he alone could affect causality. But that substance, the adamantine, didn’t come from either

unnatural metal from a higher realm where things like death, time, or the laws of physics held no sway. From its location in the cube, it might

behaved in

Sunshine whispered to himself. “I always wondered why

“Julie Costa?” Ryan asked.

with a touch,” Mr. Wave answered, his voice more somber than usual. “Create new life, or give

“but it may be that Julie’s power simply

asked, having clearly done his research. “We know he

“And if he had a latent cancer before he gained his

but I

a slow, almost imperceptible degradation. It could resist atomic explosions, but

a perfect defense either. Frank could affect Augustus, as did Livia’s time-skipping. Other conceptual abilities might

the only person capable of harming Augustus,” Shroud said, “or whatever

the other end of the bridge,

their way into the next room in

Alien orange crystal growths had started taking over the ceiling like an infection, while piles of Wonderboxes lined up the southern wall. A large hole led into a dark corridor beyond the room,

Sarin immediately moved to investigate the

opened a wonderbox, revealing seven bottles inside; one for

of the laboratory. Each contained gallons of Elixir, one for

computer, equipped with large control

Shroud, as

white spot to write numbers and letters had appeared on the screen. “It’s password-protected, and that machine is clearly Genius tech

to crumble beneath a seven hundred kilos bear of mass destruction, Ryan would never understand, but it survived. The typed three passwords in a row on the computer, before the screen let out a melodious ‘ding’ sound and revealed

in shock, as Len joined the to examine the computer’s

uh, I studied profiling, psychology, and behavioral sciences,” the explained sheepishly. “I made a psyche profile of the Alchemist based on compiled second-hand information, tried to figure out the likely passwords, and one of

password?” Ryan asked lazily as he approached the vats, observing the Blue Elixir through the membrane separating

a better bet than seven, the exclamation point reinforces security, and since the Alchemist likened herself to a god

nerd,” Sarin replied, unimpressed. She kept searching through the

I can

remove the safeties, could you transfer data to my suit’s computer?” Len asked the manbear. “This… this may

laser genome had moved in front of the demolished door leading into the next part of the complex. “Do

the blasted hole in the walls. The corridor beyond had no lamp to

eye open,” Hargraves said warily. “This place is too precious to be left undefended,