The Perfect Run

Ryan wondered how many lives Felix “Atom Cat’ Veran had left.
He had died at the Meta-Gang’s hands at least twice, once to Fallout's
bombardment of Len’s underwater base, and probably alongside everyone in
New Rome when Bloodstream escaped confinement. Which should leave him
with five lives out of nine?
“Felix!” Narcinia almost rose from her seat, only for Mars to put a hand on her
shoulder and force her back to her seat. The young teen looked at her adoptive
brother and father in confusion.
Fortuna’s response was far less subdued. “Felix, you ass!” she complained so
loudly that Mathias winced at her shrilling voice. “How dare you come to a family
dinner dressed like that! You look like a plumber!”
“Glad to see you too, sis,” Felix replied as he rose up, swiping ashes and dust off
his clothes. His eyes wandered to the table, meeting confused looks from the
guests. “Jamie, Ki-jung... Dad.”
“You could have used the door,” Mars said, his eyes tense. To Ryan's surprise,
he didn’t immediately go for his son's throat, perhaps because of his daughters’
presence. “We invited you.”
“And I'm sure the guards outside are for show. You would never have let me
close to Narcinia if I went through the entrance.” Felix turned away from his
father, before noticing Mathias and Ryan. “Who are you?"
“Your sister's boyfriend,” Mathias replied with mixed feelings. His tense eyes met
Ryan's, silently waiting for a signal. He too understood that the situation would
soon degenerate.
“Which one?" Felix asked, curious.
“The right one,” Fortuna replied.
Her brother rolled his eyes, before looking at Ryan. “And... who are you, a new
member of the Killer Seven?”
Ryan considered a dozen ways to introduce himself; as Quicksave, as President
of the Free World, conqueror of Monaco, immortal and all. All more dignified and
flowery than the last.
But only one sentence came to mind.
“I'm BLEEPING your ex.”
The awkward silence that welcomed his declaration delighted the courier.
“Don't give me that look,” Ryan said to Felix, as the younger hero looked at him
with astonished eyes. “It was your ex or your sister, and she’s almost as pretty as
you are!”
“Almost?” Fortuna asked angrily. “He doesn’t even groom his hair!”
“Whatever,” Felix said, though the revelation had clearly shaken him. “Narcinia,
come with me.”
“What,” the younger Veran asked, “where?”
“Away. My current bosses are a huge disappointment, but working with them will
still be way better than making drugs.” Atom Kitty extended a hand to his sister.
“Now that that death factory has been burnt to the ground, you can put an end to
this tragedy here and now.”
Narcinia didn't answer, instead anxiously looking at her father. This frustrated her
brother. “Nari...”
“Did you do it?” Mars asked his son, his tone dangerous. “Destroy our production
center?”
Felix shrugged. “I had nothing to do with that, though I wish I did. Whoever blew
up that toxic dump deserves an award.”
His father frowned, and Ryan felt a chill going down his spine. A mobile phone
materialized in a purple flash within Mars’ hand, the Olympian immediately
making a call.
Livia's vision was turning into reality.
“Ki-jung, don’t you have anything to say?” Felix asked, but the woman in question
avoided his gaze, much to his annoyance. “And you, Jamie? I heard about your
promotion. It's not enough to close your eyes anymore, now will you help
Augustus peddle the poison that almost killed your girlfriend?”
Ki-jung flinched, her fiancé taking her hand into his own. “Why are you here,
Felix?” Jamie asked, uneasy. Ryan could tell the young hero's words had struck
a nerve. “To open old wounds?”
“I'm here to close them. Bacchus needs chemicals from your division to make his
drug. Just by taking that job, you're enabling the death and ruin of thousands—"
“Felix, I..." Narcinia took a deep breath. “I don’t think now is the time to discuss
that.”
“Now is exactly the time,” he protested, taking a step towards his adoptive sister.
Jamie rose from his own seat, perhaps to stop him, while Mathias glanced at
Ryan and waited for a signal.
Meanwhile, Mars spoke on the phone with a scowl on his face. “He's here,
Janus, but he doesn’t know... he swears he’s not involved... yes, but... please,
not before my daughters... some other place...”
The Olympian’s face strained, and though Ryan couldn't hear what was said on
the other end of the line, he could guess. Mars was trying to convince his boss
one last time not to execute his godson, or to at least make the hit discreet.
But Ryan knew the older man was wasting his breath. Lightning Butt was
convinced Felix had provided the Carnival with the intel that made the
devastating Ischia raid possible, and his organization's myth of invincibility was in
jeopardy. A brutal, public murder would carry a clear message to both his foes
and followers.
“No traitor shall survive, not even my godson.”
In the end, as Hector Manada once said, Lightning Butt was a gangster with too
much power. When threatened, the answer was always more violence and terror.
The time-traveler looked at the fireplace behind Atom Kitten, noticing the tip of a
gun's barrel sticking out of the stone.
“I see.” Mars sighed, his face dark and sorrowful. He looked at his stubborn son,
the phone in his hand. When faced with a choice between disobeying his
invincible boss and paying the price, or offering a sacrificial lamb... the Capo
quickly reached a decision.
The click of a revolver’s trigger echoed in the room.
Ryan froze time, leapt from his seat, and pushed Felix out of the bullet's way.
When it resumed, the projectile impacted on the wall, Fortuna screaming in
surprise while Felix stumbled in shock.
“You should stop shooting people in the back,” Ryan said, as he glanced at the
fireplace. Mortimer had phased halfway through the stone, a gun in hand. “It's
getting predictable.”
Mortimer answered with another pull of the trigger, and the room erupted into
chaos.
The windows exploded into a rain of glass shrapnels, Narcinia screaming as Ki-
jung and Jamie hastily grabbed her and dived down below the table. Mortimer
missed and retreated back into the wall, while the shards avoided a horrified
Fortuna and a focused Mathias.
The projectiles struck Mars, only for a Roman-styled centurion armor and mask
of steel to materialize over his skin. The Olympian moved his hand over the only
part of his body exposed, the eyes, and rose from his seat.
“What the—" Felix said, utterly shocked.
“Later, boomer,” Ryan replied, grabbing him by the chest like a princess in
distress, and jumping through the opened window. The dining room was on the
first floor, and so while the time traveler gracefully landed on the grass below, his
favorite cat rolled on the ground. The courier whistled, calling his Plymouth Fury
to the rescue.
“Get up!” Ryan ordered Felix, helping him back to his feet. A storm of glass kept
Mars busy on the first floor, but not for long.
A car's headlamps emerged from the night's darkness on their left, just as
lightning struck the earth.
Felix and Ryan looked up in terror, as a man of ivory descended from the night
sky, shrouded in a cloud of crimson lightning. Lightning Butt looked down on the
duo, his eyes flaring with murderous fury.
But while Felix seemed to give up on the spot, Ryan wisely activated his time-
stop. Instead of moving within the frozen time, Augustus vanished from his sight,
alongside his red lightning.
One of Night Terror’s illusions.
Ryan quickly found the responsible party standing near the mansion’s wall to the
courier’s right, his black bodysuit meshing with the darkness. The time-traveler
grabbed two knives hidden in his pocket, and threw one at the hitman.
When time resumed, the blade hit Night Terrorized in the eye and made him fall
to his back, screaming. His illusion collapsed into nothingness, as if it had never
been there. Felix blinked repeatedly. “Where did he go?”
“No time, come with me if you want to live,” Ryan said as the car approached.
But to his surprise, it wasn't his Plymouth Fury, but a Mercedes Benz stopping in
front of the duo. The right door opened, revealing the driver.
“Here!” Livia said, inviting them inside. “Quickly! Before the others arrive!”
Ryan almost took the bait, so perfect was her face and voice, even the clothes...
before realizing Cancel wasn't with his girlfriend. Felix, too confused to think
straight, took a step forward; the courier stopped him with a hand on his chest.
“Livia always calls me “Master Ryan’ when things are heating up,” the courier
declared.
The woman in front of him blinked in shock and surprise, before trying to grab a
revolver hidden beneath her clothes. Ryan froze time and nailed her hand to the
driving wheel by throwing his other knife at it.
“I lied,” Ryan said as time resumed, the impostor dropping her weapon and
hissing at the pain. “But seeing your expression was worth it.”
Felix quickly guessed what was happening. “Mother?”
“You ruined everything, you ungrateful little...” Livia's voice turned into Venus’, as
the Augusti regained her true form. Great, she could also alter vocal cords. She
attempted to remove the knife with her free hand, her teeth grinding in pain.
“You're... trying to kill me?” Felix stood in place, too horrified by the realization to
even muster anger.
“They are, but not me,” Ryan said, and to his relief, his self-driven car was
making its way to their location. “Now, apologies, but we'll miss the dessert.”
“I knew you were a traitor the moment I saw you,” Venus hissed. “There's
nowhere to run.”
Behind the group, the glass storm had ended, either because Mathias had been
caught, killed, or something else. Mars stood at the window's edge with a cold
expression, purple rifts in space opening all around him. The tips of swords,
arrows, spears, tridents, and other weapons peeked through them.
Mars could have launched them at the duo below and skewered them, but he
didn’t. Though it was nighttime, Ryan could have sworn he had seen a flash of
doubt and guilt in the older man’s eyes.
But when he noticed his wounded wife, Mars quickly made up his mind.
Ryan barely had the time to push his kitten out of the way, as weapons fell on
them by the dozen. From what the courier understood, Mars could pull and
summon items from a pocket dimension armory, but he had never imagined the
speed at which he could throw them. The spears and swords flew in the air as
fast as arrows, impacting the ground with enough strength to cut a man in half.
Thankfully, Ryan managed to dodge the initial volley, reaching his car. “Come in!"
he ordered Felix as he swiftly took over the driving wheel, the superhero taking
over the front row.
Ryan noticed Fortuna grabbing her father by the arm, trying to keep him away
from the window and briefly halting the bombardment. “Daddy, stop!”
“It's either him or the rest of us,” Mars replied, before summoning thick chains
and binding his daughter's hands and legs. They quickly started to fall off her,
probably due to her power causing structural damage, but it paralyzed her.
“Mathias, Mercury, move my daughters to safety! The glass user is nearby!”
By then, Ryan was driving away from the mansion, moving out of the Olympian's
range. Mortimer phased through the building's walls, opening fire at the car with
his gun, but his bullets only grazed the bodywork. While the Plymouth Fury
escaped the property, Mars leaped outside the window, a red Suzuki Hayabusa
motorcycle materializing below him.
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“ » . .
It was a trap...” Felix whispered as
5 )
the duo escaped into New Rome's
streets. The Plymouth Fury overtook
two cars, bypassing a red stresiig ht
with Marg in wees The Roman
chsplayer materialized flying swords
and attempted to skewer his targets,
but the distance was too great for
him to aim right. His blades impaled
the road instead, and Mars briefly
interrupted his assault, focusing on
closing the gap between both
vehicles though skillful driving. The
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the latest chapter there!
“Dinners are more dangerous than battles,” Ryan said, opening the glove box to
grab a hidden revolver, “but not as much as weddings.”
Ryan quickly drove away from the suburbs and the shadow of Mount Augustus,
moving towards the Mediterranean coast. The shortest path was through the
Little Maghreb district, but that would force them to get close to Vulcan's base.
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The time-traveler decided to take the
longer way through the southern
. A
neighborhoods at the city’s edge. The
homes here were in dire need of a
paint job, and a mass ohraiefa sha
I:
sgedy iNdigRIYals begging to get laid
lined up in front of seedy nightclubs.
Ryan noticed a woman vomiti ng on
the sidewalk below a streetlight, a
friend helping her back to her feet.
Low-rent pimps and dealers openly
Sen 55
hawked their “wares’ in a back alley.
The tall buildings and narrow alleys
would have cast a dark shadow in the
area, even during daylight hours. The
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the latest chapter there!
Ryan veered off the road to dodge a drunkard, doing his best to avoid casualties.
Mars didn't share his mercy. When another civilian nearly stumbled on his path,
the Olympian materialized a wooden spike inside the victim, nailing them to the
street Vlad the Impaler-style. Onlookers screamed in panic and fled, but the
Plymouth Fury and its pursuer were long gone. A night of drinking had turned to
horror.
He can teleport stuff anywhere within a ten meters radius, Ryan reminded
himself, as Mars started catching up to them, but his launched projectiles can fly
a hundred times that range.
Though the Plymouth Fury was no Pandamobile and matched a motorcycle in
speed, the narrow streets forced the courier to slow down to maneuver. Soon,
Mars would get close enough for his projectiles to reach them. “Shortie!” Ryan
shouted, “Shortie, you're listening?”
“Riri, what's happening?” her voice came out of the Chronoradio. “I'm listening to
the Private Security's radios, and they say there's a firefight—"
“Let's just say the Augusti are in a heavy competition for the “Father of the Year’
award,” Ryan replied. “Can you pick us up?”
“I'm tracking your signal. Move to the sea, and I will be there.”
Ryan opened his car’s window, stopped time, and shot Mars’ motorcycle in the
frozen time. The bullets bounced off the Roman cosplayer’s armor but hit the
wheels. When time unfroze, the man almost lost control of his vehicle;
unfortunately, a violet flash erupted around his motorcycle, and when the light
died down all damage had vanished.
Damn, he could instantly switch damaged pieces of his vehicle with spare parts.
The transition was so smooth the vehicle didn’t even break down.
“Maybe I could touch a streetlight on the way,” Atom Cat suggested as Ryan
reloaded, his hands off the driving wheel. “I can blow stuff up behind us.”
“Now, kitten, that would be a terrible idea.” Felix's explosions had been useful on
the highway chase a few loops ago, but would be disastrous in a crowded area. It
would be even worse if he caused a gas leak. Ryan didn’t look down on collateral
damage, but he would rather avoid having civilian lives on his conscience.
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. p
Unfortunately, Mars didn't share
f 5 8
Ryan's viewpoint. Now that he was
close enough for his launched
projectiles to reach his target, the,
Obey lenlBAd Porspears
ahdShot'them at the Plymouth,
uncaring about hitting passersby.
One of his spears tore a prostitute in
: , s
half, another hit a house's window.
Ryan thought this would be a repeat
of the car chase with Pluto two loops
ago, but the previous race had been
on a highway, not a metropolis at
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chapter there!
The courier had to take back the wheel with one hand to take a difficult turn, an
enemy projectile grazing his car's paint job. If the pointless murder of civilians
hadn't earned Mars the time traveler's fury, this callous war crime did!
“Now you've done it!” Ryan snarled angrily, before turning at his kitten. “How
many weapons does your dad have?”
“I dunno, thousands? Dad is a hoarder.”
“Compensating for something?” Unfortunately, as Ryan navigated through a
tangle of back alleys, he noticed the shadow of two other motorcycles joining
Mars. Mortimer rode one, and a helmeted woman the other. Since she didn’t
carry any weapon, Ryan assumed she was probably Sparrow.
Felix removed his mask and wiped the sweat off his forehead. His smooth skin
glittered as they passed below a streetlight, his beautiful eyes capable of melting
any maiden’s heart. “Who are you?” he asked. “You're on Livia’s payroll?”
“Now, come on, I never sold my body for cash,” Ryan said. “I give. I'm a giver.
Also, you're an idiot.”
“I... I didn’t think they would try to kill me. I mean, they're... they're my parents. I
thought it counted for something.”
The young hero didn’t even sound angry.
Just sad and crestfallen.
“Well, at least you've got sisters willing to fight for you,” Ryan reassured, as they
escaped the narrow streets of the nightlife district for wider roads. They were
close to the New Rome strip, but unfortunately, the riders at their back gained
ground, Sparrow and Mortimer on each side, with Mars at the center. “But it was
stupid to come alone.”
“I didn’t,” Felix replied, looking through the windshield and at the night sky above.
One could see a few bright stars in spite of the city’s lights. “Come alone.”
A great dragon's wings overshadowed the stars, as she flew over the street. The
noise of a Private Security helicopter echoed above the road with the call of
screeching sirens.
For once in his life, Ryan was glad to see the cops.