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.

came from a claw. “I am tempted,” Ryan said. “On one

actions until we can

that bitch of a mad scientist

might need her knowledge, there’s no way I’m leaving the person responsible for Last Easter unmolested.

might deserve our scorn,” Sunshine conceded. “But we clearly only know a small piece of the full truth, and an open conflict will lead us nowhere. Let us act cautiously, figure

the group settled

time to explain the third and final rule then. If it looks cute and cuddly…” Ryan loaded his chest cannon. “It

inside the hole, followed by Shroud, Mr. Wave, and Leo the Living Sun. Shortie used streams of pressurized water to launch herself at the ship’s roof, while

sphere with a diameter slightly more than two hundred meters wide. One end of a five-meters wide bridge extended out to a central platform equipped with strange biomechanical devices, while the other part led

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

entrance. Meanwhile, the courier and the Carnival members

arrays of colors; each representing

gave it variety. A red star here, a green bird there. These phantom images only existed for an instant before returning to

full of lightning bolts, burning stars, and lights. A shining heart of nuclear chaos burnt at its center, the first and greatest sun illuminating the universe; and when Ryan squinted at it, he realized that this star had

stickers made of different matter: steel, glass, iron, stone, gold, zinc, water, gas… all metals, all liquids, all inorganic matters Ryan knew of were represented there. Other stickers contained substances he had never seen,

ghosts, and 2D picture-like worlds. It was the 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 existed in human dreams

pulsating cell with seas of green slime, teeth mountains, and forests

The azure glow of a supreme godmind cast the light of enlightenment like a lighthouse in the night, while its neural tendrils constantly organized

compressed space and strange mirrors closed this alien panorama, all overseen by

Ryan said, recognizing the Purple World

Ryan’s head to

had decided to float amidst the holograms, swiftly pointed a

his friend’s finger. One of the stickers of the Rubik’s cube was made of a substance that the courier had already seen before.

of anything?”

was unusual as well. The substances that surrounded it were all metals, from iron to bronze and gold. It was at the very center of it

body,” Leo Hargraves whispered, astonished. “It’s the same color, the same texture… I would wager my

body was 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, because how could an

suddenly

gave his body the properties of a metal from the Orange World, the

not exist in the

A world without time.

“Adamantine…” Ryan whispered.

him from his

Did nobody read the classics?” Ryan shrugged. “It’s as good a name

dimension to align, creating an anomaly where he alone could affect causality. But that substance,

where things like death, time, or the laws of physics held no sway. From its location in the cube, it might even be

in such an

might be an Orange,” Sunshine whispered to

“Julie Costa?” Ryan asked.

voice more somber than usual. “Create new life, or give people cancer. Pretty nasty

Sunshine said, “but it may be that Julie’s power

tumor then?” Shroud asked, having clearly done his research. “We know he doesn’t eat or breathe. If he is made of

and iron rusts,” Sunshine pointed out. “And if he had a latent cancer before he gained his power, the tumor might have gained his

or breathe, but I know for a fact

to the laws of physics themselves, causing a slow, almost imperceptible degradation. It could resist atomic explosions, but not reality itself trying to

wasn’t a perfect defense either. Frank could affect Augustus, as did Livia’s time-skipping. Other conceptual abilities

then Frank the Mad might be the only person capable of

here,” Len shouted from the other end of the bridge, interrupting the discussion.

rejoined their allies, making their way into the

laboratory was far smaller than the metal sphere outside, but large enough to house workstations, biomechanical servers, and heart-shaped vats full of swirling liquid. Alien orange crystal growths had started taking over the ceiling like an infection,

all caution, Sarin immediately moved to

once!” The Psycho whistled as she opened a wonderbox, revealing seven

gallons of Elixir, one for each of the seven standard colors.

technology. All of them joined up in a central computer, equipped with large control panels and a comfy chair. Though energy still flowed

database?” Sunshine asked Shroud, as they immediately moved to secure

in denial. Only a white spot to write numbers and letters had appeared on the

on the glass man, gently moved him aside, and took the seat for his own. How the chair managed not to crumble beneath a seven hundred kilos bear of mass destruction, Ryan would never understand, but

shock, as Len joined the to examine the

psyche profile of the Alchemist based on compiled second-hand information, tried to figure out the likely passwords, and one

the Blue Elixir through the membrane separating it from the outside world. To his surprise, the slime

numerical number and a better bet than seven, the exclamation point reinforces security, and since the Alchemist likened herself to a god creating perfection, I figured ‘Homo Novus’ and ‘Magnum Opus’ were put somewhere. Everybody loves

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

can figure it out!”

Len asked the manbear. “This… this may contain all

shining arms, before glancing at Mr. Wave. The laser genome had moved in front of the demolished door leading into the next part of

the blasted hole in the walls. The corridor beyond had no lamp to light it, leaving only an abyss of

place is too precious to be left undefended, and yet nobody intercepted us. Something happened here,