The Perfect Run

It was May 12th, and Team Quicksave the Pandas had assembled.
As he drove towards Rust Town, Ryan hoped this battle would go better than
Vulcan's doomed assault against the Meta-Gang. The time-traveler had gathered
everyone he could call upon, provided all the necessary intel, and he wore a
cashmere suit. Everyone would soon move into position, Shortie included.
The die was cast.
Atom Cat remained silent at the car’s front seat, having outfitted his costume with
a dart bandolier. Ryan thought knives were classic for a reason, but the idea of
someone getting beaten by explosive darts amused him to no end. The and
Wardrobe stayed at the back, the former whispering a song to himself, and the
latter examining Ryan with her big, beautiful eyes.
“Yuki, I know you designed my new mask,” Ryan said, “but this is getting a little
creepy.”
“You went on a date yesterday,” Wardrobe said with a smile. “I can feel it.”
Did she have a gossip radar or something? Then again, Ryan had returned to his
penthouse suspiciously late into the night.
In the end, the “ten-minute visit’ lasted half an hour. Lucky Girl had incredible
taste, both for interior decoration and her sculpture hobby, to the point the courier
would introduce her to Wardrobe. He had the feeling they would get along
fantastically well. However, while Ryan had enjoyed the “date, his master plan
had utterly failed. Lucky Girl just sent him a message saying she would “allow’
him to invite her again.
“It was nothing serious, Yuki,” said the courier, “so I'm still open to new romantic
applications.”
“Sorry, I really like you Ryan, but I'm already in an exclusive contract with
someone else.”
“Really? Congratulations!” the time-traveler replied with a warm smile. “That's
wonderful!”
“Thanks, she's super nice, you will love her,” Yuki said with a grin. “But we're
talking about your love life. Is she in Il Migliore? Is it Len?”
“I will leave you to your endless speculations, watching as you go down the rabbit
ho—" Wardrobe’s costume instantly transformed into a cosplay of Sherlock
Holmes, hat and pipe included. “Hey, that’s cheating!”
“Hm...” Wardrobe observed Ryan, making deductions in her mind. “If I had to
make an elaborate guess... I would say Atom Cat's sister Fortuna, and it didn’t
go farther than a chaste kiss.”
Atom Cat emerged from his silent reverie to look at Ryan in disbelief. “What?” he
asked.
“That's awesome Yuki,” the congratulated Wardrobe. “How did you figure it out?”
“Elementary, my dear Panda!”
“You know Sherlock Holmes never said that in the Conan Doyle novels?” Ryan
complained, but Wardrobe ignored him.
“We know she was pestering him for a date, and from his expression, he clearly
considered it a chore before being pleasantly surprised,” Yuki explained, her
mannerism mimicking Sherlock Holmes’ most famous movie adaptations.
“Hence, he accepted out of a sense of obligation, perhaps hoping to subtly
discourage her. His hairstyle is also well-groomed and his smell remains the
same. Thus, we can assume the absence of physical intimacy.”
“I hate Yellow Genomes,” Ryan said, glowering while ignoring Atom Cat's baleful
glare. “I hate them so much. Also, why didn’t you use this costume before? You
could have cracked the whole conspiracy in minutes!”
“I don't like this costume,” Wardrobe replied, changing back to her normal
clothes. “If I wear it for too long, I develop a craving for cocaine, tobacco, and
violins. That's not good for my health.”
“Ryan, I warned you,” Felix said, infuriated. “I asked you man to man, friend to
friend.”
The courier looked into his second favorite cat's eyes, and decided to tease him
some more. “ just want us to become family, Kitten,” the courier said softly. “Is
that so much to ask?”
Instead of turning red as Ryan had hoped, Felix answered with a fiendish smile.
“Ryan, your adoptive sister,” he spoke with the same teasing tone as the courier,
“she’s single, isn't she?”
When Felix struck back, he hit hard! “I see the kitten is young, but he has claws."
“I'm just saying, we could become a family, Quickie. But if you take, you have to
give back too.”
“That's great!” Wardrobe said, finding twisted joy in the scene. “You marry each
other's sister, and then your kids will have a teen romance! I can see the drama!”
Ryan looked back at the road. “You discovered my only weakness, Kitten. You
are a troll worthy of respect.”
“Thank you, now drive,” Felix replied. “If the Meta don't kick your ass today, I'll do
it myself afterward.”
“Oh, we're going to Rust Town?” Wardrobe asked with a frown. “I had the feeling
we would go there, but Enrique refused to tell us until we arrived.”
“I guess now the cat is out of the bag, we could check our intel,” Ryan said, Felix
rolling his eyes. This reminded the courier that he should sneak into Jasmine’s
foundry and recover Eugéne-Henry after the raid.
Felix brought out his phone, having recorded files on it.
“Adam Fontaine, alias Adam the Ogre, alias the Brooklyn Cannibal,” Atom Cat
read the report while showing Wardrobe and the a picture of Hannifat Lecter.
“The USA issued an international arrest warrant after he was suspected of
murdering four people in Brooklyn, but he escaped to Europe on the Genome
Wars' eve.”
“Wait, he was a cannibalistic serial killer before getting his Elixirs?” Ryan asked.
Every time he thought Hannifat couldn't get worse, he was proven wrong.
“Yeah, Adam was a psycho long before he went Psycho. Orange/Violet. He can
turn his skin into a highly-resistant carbon alloy, granting him enhanced strength
and tank-like resilience; additionally, his stomach has been turned into a pocket
dimension where he can store almost anything.” Felix paused briefly. “Huh, he
has almost the same power as Dad, though way weaker.”
“Mars has an armory dimension, right?” Wardrobe asked. “I really like his war
god costume. Very classy.”
“Except unlike Adam, he has a large range,” Felix said gruffly, before quickly
changing the subject. This time, he read them the report on Adam's bodyguard.
“Frank the Mad, identity unknown. Suffers from schizophrenic delusions where
he identifies as a WWII commando, Vietnam veteran, US secret service agent,
and an Area 51 super-soldier experiment. However, his testimonies contradict
real events, and he becomes aggressive if called out on the inconsistencies.
Orange/Red, his body is made of metal and can consume more to grow in size;
also absorbs kinetic energy.”
Ryan frowned. “He can only consume metal? Not stone or ivory?”
“Only metal,” Felix replied, a little confused by the question. “Why?”
Because of how Frank's power had reacted to Augustus.
Ryan had heard the rumors that Augustus’ body was in temporal stasis, which
sounded plausible since he could act in the courier’s frozen time. However, then
he shouldn't age and a tumor wouldn't threaten his life. As for the other possible
colors, if Augustus was a White Genome, then his invulnerability should react
differently to powers and normal attacks. Yet it didn’t.
The courier remembered the end of his disastrous Augusti Run. Frank the Mad
and Augustus had briefly traded blows, and the Psycho’s power had
automatically reacted. It tried to absorb Lightning Butt, though it failed.
The fact Frank's power reacted at all meant Augustus’ body was made of
something that registered as metal, albeit one the Psycho couldn't consume
easily. This excluded the spatial stasis hypothesis. But then, how could it explain
the immunity to the time-stop, and well, everything? Perhaps Lightning Butt had
consumed a Yellow Elixir turning him into a Roman deity metal statue?
Yellow or Orange, Ryan thought. The courier had the feeling he had all the
pieces of the puzzle, but he needed to assemble them the right way.
He barely listened to the conversation afterward, though much to his amusement,
he learned that Psyshock’s real name was Francis Grey of all things. The group
passed the Private Security checkpoint without trouble; either they were the first
heroes on the scene, or a few patrols had been warned to let them through.
Instead of driving straight to the Junkyard though, Ryan drove to the north of
Rust Town and its industrial district. The plan called for Dynamis to surround the
Meta-Gang from all sides, and knowing Psypsy, he must have taken the courier's
prank personally. Better to lure the Psychos to an unpopulated area.
“Raid should start in thirty minutes,” Atom Cat said while checking the time. Rust
Town was eerily silent as they drove, the air suffused with tension. Either
Psyshock had already brainwashed the locals, or they could sense a fight would
start soon and stayed home. Old neon lights flickered dangerously as the sun
rose in the skies.
No, Ryan realized, a sun. Leo Hargraves traveled through the skies like a
missile, aiming straight for the Junkyard at a fighter jet's speed.
By then, the courier had reached an abandoned gas station north of the area,
vast swathes of concrete covered in oil stains. The place looked like a graveyard,
facing a series of abandoned projects and crumbling industrial buildings. A figure
stood on one’s roof, hands pointed at the Plymouth Fury.
Sarin.
A second after Ryan noticed her, she unleashed a blast of concussed air straight
at the car. “It's time, boys and girls!” the driver whistled as his car swerved to
avoid Miss Chernobyl's blast. The attack hit the concrete pavement and blasted it
to bits, while Ryan kept his car on the move.
Almost immediately, a pack of customized Dynamis dog drones broke through
the buildings’ doors, having waited in ambush for the group.
“Panda!” Ryan shouted, as his team prepared for battle. “Show them your
training!”
“Yes, Sifu!” The young apprentice opened his door and jumped out of the car,
having fully shapeshifted before he hit the road. His bestial form tackled the
drones, while Sarin kept bombarding the car from her sniping point.
By now, Hargraves had hit the Junkyard like a cruise missile, but he was only the
vanguard. A swarm of helicopters flew above Rust Town from the west, led by
Alphonse Manada's own vehicle. Wyvern, Devilry, and other fliers followed in
their wake.
The Meta-Gang's response was swift and brutal. Missiles surged from the
Junkyard and demolished some of the helicopters; probably the doing of
Psyshock’s mech. Immediately afterward, tremors shook all of Rust Town, before
turning into a full-blown quake. The weakest buildings collapsed under the strain,
forcing Sarin to fly away from her current position. Acidic clouds spread across
the skies, threatening to engulf the entire district.
The battle for Rust Town had begun.
Now that he didn’t have to dodge Sarin’s blasts, Ryan abruptly stopped the car
near the gas station. He and his remaining teammates quickly stepped out of it,
the whole place smelling of gasoline. With a whistle from the courier, the
Plymouth Fury's autopilot took over and drove it to safety.
“Now,” Ryan said, as he brought his coil gun and Desert Eagle out of his suit,
wielding one in each hand, “who goes first?"
“Me, me!” Wardrobe’s suit changed into a cosplay of Frankenstein's Monster.
Lightning surged through her body, allowing her to move at an impressive speed.
She powered through a hail of gunfire from a Dynamis drone and smashed it to
paste with her bare hands.
Less cheerful, Atom Cat grabbed darts and threw them at Sarin. Hazmat Girl
blasted them midflight, causing the projectiles to violently detonate and throw her
back against a crumbling building. Ryan opened fire on her, trying to open a few
holes in her suit.
However, as acidic raindrops fell from the heavens above, Ryan realized he had
a date of his own.
A feeling of dread went down his spine, as he pointed his coil gun behind him
and pressed the trigger. Acid Rain had teleported behind him, knives in hands,
but had to duck out of the way to dodge the courier's own projectile. The coil
gun's bullet grazed her cheek and narrowly missed her head, a drop of blood
falling on the ground.
“You thief!” she snarled angrily, raising her weapons threateningly. “You bar the
gates!”
“You always try to stab me in the back when we meet,” Ryan taunted her, having
grown almost accustomed to it. “You don't have to be so shy!”
“I'll carve you open, back and front!” Acid Rain snarled as she threw a knife at his
head with deadly accuracy. While the courier dodged, Atom Cat attempted to
grab the Psycho and blow her into nothingness, but she quickly teleported away
before he could close the gap.
Sarin jumped from her observation point and landed on the street, opening fire at
Ryan and Atom Cat. The courier quickly stopped time, grabbed his Kitten, and
moved them out of the way. Hazmat Girl's blast hit the gas station and detonated
whatever was left of the gasoline within in a fiery detonation. The blast tossed
Ryan and Atom Cat onto their chests on the ground, while the and Wardrobe
were too busy with the drones to assist them.
Sarin prepared to fire another blast, only for an invisible blade to behead her. Her
hazmat suit collapsed while rusting gas escaped its confines, and shields of
glass formed above the various heroes to protect them from the acid raindrops.
This gave Ryan and Felix precious time to rise back up.
“We have to kill Acid Rain,” Shroud warned as he appeared next to Ryan, acid
raindrops turning him visible. Soon, the rain threatened to transform into a
downpour. “Her power will kill thousands—"
“Left!” Ryan shouted a warning as he sensed Acid Rain's power activate.
The Psycho teleported back into sight, two submachine guns in hand. She
unleashed a hail of gunfire at Shroud and his companions, the Carnival member
raising a multilayered barrier of glass to protect the group.
“Open the gates, you thief!” Acid Rain snarled with a maddened face, her
projectiles unable to force their way through the barrier. “You won't keep that
place away from me!”
When she ran out of bullets, Shroud reshaped his defense into a volley of deadly
shards, while Ryan assisted him with bullets and Atom Cat with explosive darts.
Acid Rain tossed the machine guns away and teleported away before any
projectile could hit her. The more he observed her lightning speed in action, the
more Ryan grew convinced her teleportation ability came with enhanced spatial
awareness; the same way his own power provided an enhanced sense of timing.
Explosions shook Rust Town, and Ryan noticed flashes of crimson light coming
from the Junkyard. Frank the Mad came into view, now the size of a ten meters
tall giant and smashing a transformed Wyvern through whatever buildings hadn't
yet collapsed after the quake.
Kaiju battle!
Ryan would have fanboyed, if his entire team's life wasn't on the line. A shiver
went down his spine, as he sensed Acid Rain teleport all around them at blinding
speed. In the blink of an eye, Shroud, Ryan, and Atom Cat found themselves
surrounded by falling grenades.
Shit!
Ryan froze time to save his allies, grabbing as many grenades as he could and
tossing them away before they could explode. But ten seconds were far too few,
and while he could spare Felix and himself the worst of the bombardment, two
grenades exploded right next to Shroud. The detonation blew the glass
manipulator’s right arm off and shattered his armor, sending him crashing to the
ground.
Immediately, his control of the glass shards faltered and the heroes’ rainshields
collapsed into dust. Ryan sensed acid raindrops eat at his cashmere suit, much
to his chagrin.
Worse, Acid Rain exploited the cooldown to appear right in front of Felix and stab
him in the chest with two knives by surprise. The young man collapsed to his
back, two knives still embedded in his body.
Though he thought he had grown numb to these things, Ryan panicked. “Felix!
Mathias!”
“I'm on it!” Wardrobe broke away from her fight with the drones, leaving the to
manage them, and rushed at the wounded.
“Right!” Ryan shouted a warning, Acid Rain teleporting right next to Wardrobe
with a gun in hand. Thankfully, Yuki's costume changed into a ghost bedsheet
before the teleporter pressed the trigger, the bullet phasing harmlessly through
her head.
He had to distract that bastard. “I'm the one you want, blondie!” Ryan challenged
Acid Rain, though she teleported out of his bullets’ path. “I'm leaving for the
Purple World and stranding you here!”
The taunt worked, Acid Rain reappearing in front of him and opening fire with her
gun. “You selfish punk, you think you can keep it all for yourself?”
Ryan froze time to dodge, before engaging the Psycho in a gunfire version of
whac-a-mole. The had smashed the last drone with his bare paws, while
Wardrobe had changed her outfit to that of a nurse, dragging the wounded away
from the battlefield.
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)
She's too fast, Ryan thought, as he
frantically attempted to hit Acid Rain
and failed every time. And unlike
: : : : : )
Lightning Butt, his proj ctilesgauidn’t
change direstion hits ht. He could
. ly
have brought Paulie's Facehugger
missile, but decided against it. Such a
“ )
weapon was “safe’ to use when the
courier fought the Meta solo, but with
teammates? The risk of the Psycho
purposefully leading the projectile
towards an ally was too great to
ignore. The content is on
Novelxo.org! Read the latest
chapter there!
This may have been a miscalculation.
Thankfully, Acid Rain ran out of projectiles before he did. In the blink of an eye,
she disappeared and reappeared to his left, nearly beheading Ryan with a
katana.
“The Ultimate One favors me!” she snarled, forcing the courier to back down to
avoid a strike. She didn't give him any time to aim, or even think of a joke. “It
wants me to win!”
“Sifu, I'm coming!” The attempted to flank Acid Rain and save his master, paws
raised. “Panda Roll!”
With inhuman speed, Acid Rain dodged the attack and raised her blade to
behead the slower animal. Realizing the danger, Ryan abruptly stopped time to
force her to disappear, but the second time resumed, the Psycho eviscerated the
by surprise, spilling his bowels all over the ground.
However, this gave Ryan a brief time window to aim, and he managed to hit Acid
Rain in the stomach with the Desert Eagle. The Psycho vanished before she
could collapse, but some blood droplets remained behind.
“Sifu...” the gasped, a hand on his stomach while his bowels spilled all over the
pavement.
“Young apprentice!” Unfortunately, before he could even reach the Acid Rain
teleported above Ryan and struck him in the head with a steel pipe. The courier’s
world briefly blurred and he dropped his guns, only to get hit in the chest before
he could recover his breath.
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“ ) +
Once you're dead, I can finally go
” : : :
back!” Acid Rain started pummeling
him with two steel pipes, one in each
hand. She had no style oes
: ls ) 5
Ee shedidn {Hee them.
SheWas pure savagery and speed.
)
Even Ryan's enhanced sense of
timing struggled to keep up the pace,
and the acidic raindrops had started
burning the skin below his costume.
« :
I can go all the way back! You think
you can keep my family away from
’ Te » 5
me? You're killing me!” The content is
on Novelxo.org! Read the latest
chapter there!
But while the courier couldn’t match her inhuman speed or strength, he more
than dwarfed her in sheer skill.
Using a boxing move, Ryan sucker-punched Acid Rain in the stomach, right
where his bullet had hit. The Psycho let out a scream of pain, but the courier kept
pummeling this weak point, blood tainting her white shirt. She lost her breath,
and dropped one of the steel pipes on the ground.
“Sifut”
Acid Rain looked at her left, as the flanked her. He had shapeshifted back into a
human, and as Dr. Tyrano guessed, it had fully healed him.
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The lunged at a distracted Acid Rain,
fist raised, and shapeshifted in the
middle of his attack. ae ef en
BOAT BON the) Psy 0 took a full
beat baw to the chest, some ribs
breaking with a sickening crack. The
blow tossed her backward like a
ragdoll, but she teleported away
before hitting the pavement. The
content is on Novelxo.org! Read
the latest chapter there!
Ryan sensed her teleport again above the a knife in hand. She fell upon the
beast like a guillotine, but the courier grabbed her wrist before she could hit him
and tossed her to the ground with a judo move.
She teleported away again, trying to stab Ryan from the left. This time, slowed
down by her wounds, he managed to avoid Acid Rain's stab and punched her in
the face.
“The more I get into a situation, the better at it I become. And now...” Ryan
grabbed the steel pipe on the ground. “I got the hang of you, Rain Woman.”
Illustrating his words with action, Ryan hit her in the face, sending teeth flying.
The Psycho took a few steps back, while the and his master flanked her from
both sides.
“Ah... ah...” Acid Rain panted in exhaustion, searching inside her pocket with a
hand and raising her knife at the duo with the other. Blood flowed from her chest
and mouth, her wounds taking their toll on her. “I... send me... send me there...”
She raised a grenade at the heroes.
“Send me there!” the Psycho snarled, threatening to detonate the bomb. “Send
me there, you son of-"
Boom.
Before Ryan knew what happened, Acid Rain collapsed to the side, blood flowing
from the back of her skull. A shadow had risen behind her, a rifle in hand.
“Good grief, poor old Mortimer thought she would never stop teleporting around,”
Mortimer said, as he reloaded his rifle. “You alright, kid?"
“Sifu, who is this guy?” the asked, a little shocked by the assassin’s surprise
appearance. “He... he looks like a supervillain.”
“Because he is one,” Ryan said, while glancing down at Acid Rain's corpse.
Considering the downpour started to dissipate, she wouldn't get back up. “You
should stop doing that, it's almost vexing.”
“Lady Death's got no owner, corpo; only dealers,” Mortimer replied with a shrug.
“Anyway, you should check on your friends. I think your nurse dragged them
behind a pile of concrete.”
“Just to be sure, you aren't going to fight us?” Ryan asked. Since Sunshine had
made a very public appearance, the courier worried Augustus had sent the Killer
Seven to attack the Carnival and everyone present. Then again, the assassin
wouldn't have helped in that case.
“What? No, Fortuna would whine like a baby if poor old Mortimer did that. By the
way, you have all my respect for not having strangled her yet. I admire your self-
control.”
“Then why are you here, my kill-stealing friend?”
Mortimer snorted, before sinking into the pavement. “Miss Livia sends her
regards.”