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 hand, blowing our own hole would be good and proper. But using the other path would

us refrain from hostile actions until we can figure the truth

for yourself,” Sarin said, her fists clenched. “No way I’m not roughing up that bitch of a mad scientist

I’m leaving the

a small piece of the full truth, and an open conflict will lead us

group settled on

final rule then. If it looks cute and cuddly…” Ryan loaded

flew with his bear 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 Sarin did something similar with a

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 to smashed blast doors. The debris of the dome’s ceiling glittered at the bottom of the sphere, and huge, colored holographic projections hovered in the

Mechron’s own holographic orbital monitoring systems, albeit far more advanced and damaged. The projections flickered, and all the platforms’

group landed on the platform, with Len, Sarin, and the crossing the bridge to secure the dome’s other entrance. Meanwhile, the courier and the Carnival members checked out the projections

holograms, each using different arrays of colors; each representing strange

and permanency. It was as feeble 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 the

and greatest sun illuminating the universe; and when Ryan squinted at it, he realized that this star

knew of were represented there. Other stickers contained substances he had never seen, crystals that shifted like living beings, blackened metal as dark

cubic angels, many-legged demons, cohorts of 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

one where everything was alive. A pulsating cell with seas of green slime, teeth mountains, and forests of blood vessels. The atmosphere itself buzzed like trillions of microscopic flies,

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

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

World from

Leo Hargraves asked, causing Ryan’s head to snap in his direction. “It’s a long

decided to float amidst the holograms, swiftly pointed a finger

cube was made of a substance that the courier had already seen before. One that looked very

this remind you of anything?”

The ivory sticker’s location was unusual as well. The substances that surrounded it were all metals, from iron to bronze and gold. It was at

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

why Frank the Mad’s ability to absorb these alloys had seemed to affect the

suddenly made more

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

not exist

A world without time.

“Adamantine…” Ryan whispered.

looked down on him

mythology, said to be harder than anything? Did nobody read the classics?” Ryan shrugged. “It’s

anomaly where he alone could affect causality. But that substance,

or the laws of physics held no sway. From its location in the cube, it might

it behaved in such an anomalous

whispered to himself. “I always wondered why

“Julie Costa?” Ryan asked.

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

slew her before she could make contact with him,” Sunshine said, “but it

Shroud asked, having clearly done his research. “We know he doesn’t eat or breathe. If he is

had a latent cancer

think his power only gave his body the properties of that alien metal,” Ryan theorized. “Lightning Butt may not eat or breathe, but I know

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

defense either. Frank could affect Augustus, as did Livia’s time-skipping. Other conceptual abilities might bypass the invulnerable nature of

capable of harming Augustus,”

end of the bridge, interrupting the discussion.

their way into the next room

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, while piles of Wonderboxes lined up the southern

immediately moved to

seen so many Elixirs at once!” The Psycho whistled as she opened a wonderbox, revealing seven bottles inside;

the laboratory. Each contained gallons of Elixir, one for each of the seven standard colors. Computers, human computers, were linked to the devices by nerve-like

joined up in a central computer, equipped with large control panels and

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

quickly shook his head in denial. Only a white spot to write numbers and letters had appeared on the screen. “It’s password-protected, and that machine is clearly Genius tech of some kind. It might take me a while to figure out a way

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

do that?” Shroud asked in shock, as Len joined the to examine the

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

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

reinforces security, and since the Alchemist likened herself to

through the Wonderboxes like a child through

I can figure it out!” The

safeties, could you transfer data to my suit’s computer?” Len asked the manbear. “This… this may contain all the information we need to understand Elixirs. This room…

his 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 complex. “Do you see

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

Hargraves said warily. “This place is too precious to be left undefended, and yet nobody