The Perfect Run

Ryan had seen what Fallout could do in the past, and so he didn’t fool around.

“We have to keep him away from populated areas,” he informed Livia, as the two flew high above New Rome to meet with the incoming red comet. “When he’s angry enough, he doesn’t care about collateral damage anymore. And since we have trashed his life’s work, he will get a bit…”

“Unstable?” Livia finished his sentence with a chuckle. “That one was terrible, Ryan.”

“I’m keeping the best ones for later,” the courier said.

The armored duo made contact with Fallout hundreds of meters above the Gulf of Naples. Dynamis’ Red Genome appeared in all his shining glory, propelling himself through the skies by projecting two crimson streams of energy from his hands. The cyborg towered above both Ryan and Livia in size, even with their armor on. They might as well have been two GIs facing a flying tank.

Fallout’s fiery skull looked at the duo from behind its protective dome, his empty eyes burning with atomic rage.

“Out of my way!” he shouted before going straight for the kill.

The missile launchers on his shoulders activated and unleashed a volley of rockets at Ryan, who had reached him first.

The courier responded by activating his power, freezing two dozen projectiles in place. He raised his hands and activated the gauntlet weapons. To his relief, they worked perfectly in the frozen time, unleashing two red shockwaves in the cyborg’s direction. They detonated all the rockets in their way, and hit Fallout head on.

The impact and explosions propelled the surprised Alphonse Manada off his flight course when time resumed, almost making him fall in the Mediterranean Sea below. Yet though his method lacked the elegance and maneuverability of Ryan’s jetpack, he managed to stabilize his course.

“This… frozen time...” the corporate cyborg glared at Ryan. “You are Quicksave.”

“A question, tin can,” Ryan replied, as he attempted to engage the cyborg in close combat. “Is your zodiac sign Cancer?

Instead of bantering back, Alphonse Manada adjusted his flight to move out of Ryan’s way. “I should have killed you long ago,” the cyborg said, using one hand to keep himself afloat, and pointing the other at Ryan. “I will correct that mistake here!”

The courier barely had the time to blink as a dazzling red beam illuminated the sky, as a chill went down his sp—

Time skipped forward, and when it resumed, Ryan had moved to Fallout’s left. The surprised cyborg didn’t have the time to react, as Livia engaged him in melee.

Eight telescopic black tentacles surged from her armor’s back, each moving as swiftly as a serpent. They struck Fallout in the shoulders, tearing off the missile launchers integrated into his cybernetic apparatus, and in the chest. Steel claws at the end of the artificial arms tore through the Dynamis cyborg’s shielding.

“What a waste,” Livia said with a giggle. “A nuclear waste!”

Ryan wasn’t certain whether to groan or laugh.

Fallout responded by activating the energy minigun in his right arm, forcing Ryan and Livia to fly away. “You can’t defeat me!” he snarled angrily, though the courier struggled to hear him over the sound of plasma shots surging through the air. “I survived Augustus! You can’t—”

An explosion echoed in the distance, coming straight from Dynamis’ HQ.

The cyborg briefly interrupted his barrage of attacks to glance in its direction, his skull’s glowing dimming in horror. Smoke came out of the building’s top, as Enrique’s team destroyed the floor holding Lab Sixty-Six.

“No, no…” Fallout’s shock turned into despair and panic. “No!”

Instead of continuing his offensive, the cyborg flew straight towards the Dynamis HQ in a desperate attempt to salvage the situation.

“Oh no you don’t,” Ryan said, as he immediately gave chase. Fallout opened fire at point-blank range to make him back-off, and Livia activated her—

When time resumed, Ryan’s fist punched Fallout in his glass dome helmet.

The courier was intangible inside his girlfriend’s skipped time, making him invulnerable to Fallout’s attacks. Their abilities were powerful on their own, but together?

As Livia said, invincible.

Fallout’s glass dome cracked while he lost control of his flight. Instead of landing in the Dynamis-controlled district, the cyborg ended up falling into the Mediterranean Sea. The waters’ surface turned to steam when Alphonse Manada fell into the ocean, the Red Genome vanishing beneath the waves.

Though Ryan hoped that Dynamis didn’t make the cybersuit waterproof, he wasn’t naive enough to think the battle was over. “You think he’s fond of sea mushrooms?” he asked his girlfriend, hovering above the water while waiting for Fallout to resurface. An area hundreds of meters wide started to boil, though the courier couldn’t pinpoint the source.

“That would be a conCERN,” Livia replied, as she looked at the sea. She was probably trying to look through possibilities in order to locate the nuclear disaster. Cooked fish started rising to the surface.

Nice reference, though Ryan wondered if many people would have gotten it. “Hey, princess, did you know I visited their particle accelerator?”

“I’m sure they were thankful for the exposure,” she replied, before pointing a telescopic arm at a spot to her left. “Here, Ryan.”

The courier unleashed shockwaves at the target, sending splashes in all directions. The water vibrated around the point of impact, but Ryan couldn’t tell if he had hit Fallout. “Why hasn’t he emerged yet?” he asked his girlfriend. The man was as durable as Leo Hargraves, a dive shouldn’t be anything more than an inconvenience.

“I…” Livia froze, before quickly grabbing her boyfriend by the arm. “Higher!”

The duo immediately flew away from the sea, just as a crimson light erupted from below the waves.

A catastrophic explosion unleashed tons of boiled water into the skies, like an underwater volcano erupting beneath the sea. Though Ryan and Livia fled to safety, a cloud of steam swallowed their vision and obscured their sensors.

When they managed to escape from it, the duo noticed a bright crimson glow beneath raging waves of boiled water… a light moving towards New Rome’s shore.

“He’s running on the ocean floor!” Livia warned. Ryan unleashed shockwaves from above at the light’s source, sending splashes in all directions, but failing to even slow Fallout’s advance down.

“Damn, he’s using the water as a shield!” No wonder the corpo hadn’t emerged yet. “Where will he emerge?”

“The ship graveyard,” his beloved oracle predicted, the two immediately flying after the light. “He’s shedding his suit!”

Shit, that wasn’t optimal. The ship graveyard was empty, doubly so after Shroud moved his base to the bunker, but they were within walking distance of inhabited districts.

his girlfriend’s mind. “Ryan, how

him to space if I do that,” Ryan reminded her. “His brother won’t be

would rather suffer Blackthorn’s wrath than see people die. It will happen

happen?” She answered his question with a grim nod. Damn. Ryan immediately sent a distress signal to his allies on the

old harbor. Only crabs inhabited the rusted wrecks of tankers laying on the sandy shore, and Shroud’s warehouse had been left gathering

And resurface he did.

emerged from the shadow of a supertanker. Alphonse Manada had shed his cybernetic armor like

rasped while looking up at Livia, his voice sounding like smoldering fire. “Is this a declaration

sand turned to glass beneath Manada’s feet. “And you are misplaced to mock my father, considering

time, Alphonse Manada furiously raised his right hand at the duo. “I saved thousands!” he snarled, his fingers shining

house-sized stream of red particles erupted from his palm. Ryan and Livia split in two directions, both to dodge the attack

gone, and Bloodstream destroyed!” Ryan argued, trying to distract the maddened nuclear disaster. “What is there left for you to fight

superior mobility to dodge the attacks. “We’ve got more than enough

disseminated a vaccine, Cherno Bill,” Ryan replied before freezing time and letting it resume right before he punched Alphonse Manada in the

gauntlet hit

Genome didn’t even flinch. Ryan might as well have hit a steel

how powerful I am?” Fallout’s hand surged for the courier’s armored fist with blinding speed, grabbing him before he could back away. The Red Genome pulled Ryan closer, gazing into the helmet’s lens with his fiery

more effective than a breeze. Fallout grabbed both

I took my Elixir,” Alphonse Manada said, the light around him growing more and more intense. The Saturn armor’s sensors quickly issued heat and radiation warnings, Orange Flux spreading through the shielding to increase its resistance. “Wiped it from the map. I couldn’t control

corpo. Their steel, weaker than the Saturn

face blinding. “That I wouldn’t stop fighting for the good of all, no

blow himself up, Ryan realized in horror, as the Red Flux around

Alphonse Manada backward in an attempt to put as much distance between the living bomb and New Rome. The cloud became

still

had been designed to resist hits from Augustus, the courier still felt it buckle against the sheer power of the blast. Some of

see again, he found himself

sand, and vaporizing all water in the vicinity. Shroud’s warehouse had been blown away, a ship husk sent flying more than fifty meters closer to the shore. Ryan heard alarms and Private Security sirens coming from the old harbor, the blast’s shockwave having shattered all glass windows over a vast radius. An enormous pillar of smoke rose

Ryan noticed Livia’s armored hand sticking out

body moved on autopilot. “Livia!” Ryan hastily rose to his feet, his armor’s servos grinding in

froze, upon noticing movements inside

fiery radiance had dimmed, Alphonse Manada emerged from the smoke unscathed. In this moment, he looked so very much like a demon rising from the depths of Hell. “I will need to kill Vulcan too, and make sure she never creates something like this armor

you do?” Ryan hissed, struggling to hear his own words. His

seeing the future,

its duration. The madman had sustained his blast for at least half a minute, preventing her

No.

could have escaped, but she couldn’t see Ryan.

stayed for

benefited from the timeskip’s intangibility, the Saturn armor wouldn’t have survived the explosion. Even now, the blast had annihilated the paint job and most of the outer shielding, revealing

burnt skin vanished and his ears worked normally again, as his armor’s secondary systems

up the whole district,” Ryan accused

with Red Flux. “And once you are dead too, I

hadn’t made Ryan want to see the corpo dead, that comment

hand aiming for the chest. He would tear through what remained of the Saturn armor,

mom and a nuclear reactor have

to a crawl, devouring Red Flux particles like

get in without

left, the Black Flux disintegrating the

immediately register what happened… until the pain made itself known. Fallout let out a roar, as

a cold voice, before raising his hand in a karate

shoulder like a scythe, severing the

“I destroyed time.”

scream of pain as time resumed, his severed right arm collapsing into a harmless shroud of red particles. Ryan suspected that

have to peel him like an

Fallout took a step back, his ghoulish jaw twisting into a

Fear.

your knees, before I cut off the legs too,” Ryan warned. “I swore not to kill you, but you don’t want

glow, but his arms didn’t regrow. “Fine,” he said,

a familiar voice said from above the two

Fallout’s body died out, as a

blushing bride. She slowly descended on the glass ground, before letting her on-and-off boyfriend walk

roots broke through the crater’s edge, gently excavating Livia from below the

will follow,” Ryan warned, a

said with a sigh. “But let

more important. The courier left the Manada siblings and Wyvern to settle things, while the roots gently laid his girlfriend

armor was top-notch quality. The flames had seared the shielding, but Ryan could hear her

Ryan immediately removed Livia’s helmet, letting her platinum hair

at Ryan straight. She must have had a concussion. “I’m

No, she wasn’t.

was alive, and Ryan immediately

summer’s heat and his Red Flux particles had become no more than a faint glow around his bones. “Enrique?” When he realized that his brother and bodyguard would make no move to stop Ryan, Alphonse Manada realized the

replied, unflappable. “Father has been arrested for trafficking with the Meta-Gang, and Freddie Sabino has been permanently destroyed.

so tightly that Ryan wondered if it would

“I did.”