The Perfect Run

A part of Ryan always knew it would end this way, ever since he first set foot in
New Rome.
He had tried to get away from this battle, to run circles around it, to delay it, to
out-think it, but he couldn't run away from it. In the end, all he could do was stand
his ground and fight.
And that he did.
A mighty crimson bolt struck him in the chest, the electricity redirected by his
armor's circuitry. Though the lightning would have fried a man alive, it dispersed
harmlessly to the false god's dismay. Ryan immediately activated the Gravity
Gun in his chest while Augustus was briefly startled, firing a black sphere straight
at his foe's stomach.
Augustus quickly caught the projectile with his left hand as if it were a tennis ball,
and found himself trapped. The black sphere pushed him backward and above,
higher towards the skies. Ryan gave pursuit, both foes flying above the clouds in
a perilous ascent.
"Dynamis.” Augustus clenched his jaws, his eyes ablaze with rage as he
recognized the technology. "I knew it."
He attempted to crush the black sphere with both hands, but though its surface
bent and cracked before the iron grip of his fingers, it resisted. Ryan calculated
the angle as they ascended, the blue in the skies giving way to darkness. The
stars became visible beyond the ozone layer, while New Rome's gulf looked no
larger than a pond beneath them. The courier wondered if he would be able to
see Ghoul's rocket from this altitude.
His hopes of watching Augustus follow the undead and Alphonse Manada into
interstellar exile were quickly dashed.
"There it is!" Mob Zeus shouted, the electrical halo around him becoming so
bright, so illuminating, that it would have burnt Ryan's eyes were it not for his
helmet's lenses. "The supreme lightning of victory! The absolute power, that sunk
islands, turned castles to dust, and split the atom!"
Ryan's armor sent alarms about abnormal electromagnetic activity, so the courier
immediately backed away and fled west. Augustus became a burning star above
his head, and then exploded in a cataclysmic light show.
A burning supernova of crimson plasma set the atmosphere ablaze, unleashing a
blast that rivaled Ryan's own A-bomb. A wall of fire erupted in the skies,
expanding in a spherical wave of energy annihilating all in its path. Crimson
thunderbolts coursed in all directions, tainting the black void of space red. The
sheer thermal wave heated up the air, starting a blast of burning air stronger than
a hurricane and faster than sound.
Ryan froze time, and though Augustus’ crimson lightning kept working in the
frozen time, it did halt the enormous blast of displaced, super-heated air. Putting
all power in his jetpack, the courier broke the sound barrier and outpaced the
fireball. Even though he managed to avoid the worst of the blast, the cashmere
poncho over his armor went down in flames, and the heat made his armor’s paint
peel away.
Even though the fireball now spanned kilometers, the shockwave eventually
weakened and died. Ryan glanced over his shoulder, to see a dying crimson sun
fill up the heavens above him.
Was that why Augustus’ Red Elixir had given him lightning manipulation?
Because he associated it with godhood and power? Ryan supposed that the
Orange one had made Mob Zeus' feeling of being untouchable uncomfortably
real. Worse, the catastrophic detonation confirmed what the courier had long
suspected.
Augustus’ lightning generation had no upper limit.
Yes, Lightning Butt needed a little time to generate anything stronger than a
thunderbolt, but he could produce enough power and heat to create nuclear
explosions. Maybe he could even manipulate electrons to somehow break
atoms.
No wonder Mob Zeus had managed to sink Malta. If given free reign, he could
probably destroy human civilization on his own.
Ryan couldn't allow him to do so.
A shadow emerged from the blinding light, chasing after the courier and quickly
gained ground on him. The sheer power and speed of Augustus’ flight caused a
small tornado to form beneath his feet, and no black sphere impeded the living
statue anymore.
Ryan hastily turned around to face his nemesis, flying with both fists raised
before him. Augustus answered the challenge by smiting the courier with a
torrent of bloody lightning.
Instead of dodging, Ryan flew straight through the thunderstorm, pushing his
power armor's resistance to the limit. The Saturn Armor stockpiled the lightning in
an internal battery, but the sheer voltage strained it. Still, it allowed the courier to
emerge from the lightning right in front of a surprised Augustus.
Ryan froze time, and punched Lightning Butt in the left cheek.
Black particles surged around the courier's fingers, swallowing his hand in
darkness. In this punch, Ryan poured all his memories of watching Bliss victims
wasting away, of finding Narcinia in a cage, of Augustus striking Hargraves while
the world came to an end, of Mars trying to murder his own son, of Pluto
successfully killing Fortuna, of all the hideous crimes he had seen take place
under Mob Zeus's orders across his adventures in New Rome.
Ryan's hand hit Lightning Butt with so much strength, so much weight behind it,
that the blow reverberated across the Saturn Armor. For a brief moment, the
time-traveler worried that his power hadn't grown strong enough to inflict
substantial damage, that all his efforts had been for naught in the end.
And then the split appeared.
The left side of Augustus’ face cracked around the impact, a red light glowing
from inside the tiny rifts spreading across his cheek, his lips, and his forehead.
The blow sent the god wannabe falling down, but he quickly regained control of
his flight.
Yet instead of engaging Ryan again in melee, Augustus hovered in place as time
resumed, looking up at the armored time-traveler flying above his head with
surprise... and a hint of fear.
Their positions from the battle's start had reversed.
"You wounded me," Augustus said, half shocked, half angry.
"Really?" the courier replied, freezing time again and closing the gap between
them. "Let's check!"
And Ryan punched Augustus again!
Lightning Butt tried to dodge, but his own reflexes worked against him. For years
he had felt secure in his invulnerability, letting his foes break their hands against
his metal skin as a show of strength. His survival instinct was fighting his
arrogance, and Ryan's hand struck before this internal battle could resolve.
This time, the courier aimed for the right side of the head, and witnessed more
cracks appear. The electrical halo around Augustus briefly shorted out, revealing
the old man underneath the luster of power. Red lines spread across his ivory
visage, like a damaged statue. His haughty, arrogant expression had turned into
a wince of pain. Ryan couldn't help but feel a deep sense of satisfaction at the
sight.
“Remember,” the courier said, “you are mortal.”
Time resumed, and Augustus struck back with a bestial snarl.
His first blow hit Ryan's chest with enough strength to bend the reinforced metal,
and the second sent the courier falling down to Earth at the speed of a
cannonball. Ryan regained control of his flight after crashing through a
cumulonimbus, floating above the vast blue expanse of the Mediterranean Sea.
Instead of engaging his foe again, he fled west as fast as he could.
Augustus immediately pursued the time-traveler with feverish zeal, his fear
replaced with murderous desperation. He couldn't let anyone capable of harming
him live to fight another day.
Ryan checked his location, and opened a long-distance channel. Both he and
Augustus flew so close to the water, and so swiftly, that the sea seemed to split in
half below them. "Simon, where are you?"
"We evacuated as you asked, pit rital," his friend's voice answered while the
courier dived to the left to dodge a crimson thunderbolt. Unfortunately, the
lightning changed course and homed on to the time-traveler, though the armor
absorbed it all the same.
"How far?" Ryan asked, as the Monegasque coast came within view.
"Really far. Why?"
"Because you might need to redraw the maps—"
Ryan choked as Augustus caught up with him with a roar. Both Genomes soon
started manhandling each other above the empty but illuminated streets of
Monaco, the sun was all but gone from the sky. A golden glow surrounded the
courier, as the Saturn Armor's Yellow defenses struggled against the cursed city's
insidious grasp.
"So you were the source of these anomalies,” Augustus said, before closing his
hands around Ryan's armored neck and squeezing. The mob boss’ eyes burnt
with savage hatred, the glowing red splits across his face making him look like a
demon from Hell. The outside finally matched the inside. "Good. I had hoped to
kill you for a very, very long time."
"Sorry, I'm not into that sort of foreplay.” Ryan activated his power and struck
Augustus at his arms’ joints by surprise, making the electric maniac release his
hold on him. Mob Zeus attempted to punch him in the time anomaly, but the
courier swiftly drew upon decades of judo practice, grabbed his foe’s arm, and
tossed the ivory man towards the city.
Augustus crashed into the ruins of the Monte-Carlo casino with a devastating
crash, collapsing its roof as time resumed.
Ryan immediately retreated outside of Monaco's airspace, and delighted upon
seeing Augustus disappear in a bright flash of violet light. The golden glow
around the Saturn Armor vanished as soon as he crossed the Monegasque
border and the fortifications Simon had set around the city.
The courier considered delaying his save until after he slept and confirmed he
wouldn't wake up in Monaco, before remembering he couldn't.
Still, Ryan let out a sigh and took a moment to observe Monaco as he gathered
his breath. He had worried that Augustus would prove immune to that too, but
thankfully, even an invulnerable man couldn't escape this cursed city's grasp. The
time-traveler didn't wish an eternity fighting clowns on anyone, but Lightning Butt
had more than earned it.
Ryan prepared to call Livia to announce the news, when his armor's sensors
noticed an anomaly.
An electromagnetic spike?
A flash of violet light erupted at Monaco's border, and a furious Augustus
materialized barely ten meters away from Ryan.
The startled courier froze in place for a split second and instinctively halted the
march of time. But Lightning Butt didn't slow down and tackled his foe, both of
them flying towards the hills overlooking Monaco.
What? How? Did Augustus’ invulnerability grant him immunity to Monaco's
grasp?
No, something far simpler had happened.
Monaco had let Augustus go, either out of terror... or most probably, out of sheer
spite.
The evil pocket dimension would rather screw Ryan over one last time than have
a new prisoner!
The two enemies’ flight ended at the Téte-de-chien promontory where the
courier's adventure in Monaco first began. Augustus smashed Ryan's head
against the pavement with enough strength to crack the helmet's lenses, and the
courier’s vision briefly blurred. A drop of blood fell down his forehead, while his
last reserves of Green Flux coursed through his veins and restored his vision.
Augustus’ shadow towered over Ryan as he struggled to stand back on his feet.
"Here is where you belong," Mob Zeus said while lifting his right foot like an
executioner’s axe. "Under my heel!"
Ryan hastily rolled aside before Lightning Butt could stomp his head like a
watermelon, and jumped back on his feet. Augustus’ heel shattered the
pavement in a devastating strike, digging a small crater.
"And here's the hand you deserve!" Ryan replied before freezing time. He swiftly
backhanded the mob boss before he could adjust his position, his Black Flux-
infused fist hitting the Genome supremacist in the face.
The blow sent a tooth flying and the mob boss stumbling. Lightning Butt quickly
regained his footing, and touched his chin as if expecting to bleed. When time
resumed, neither enemy took flight.
Instead, they faced each other on the promontory, their feet firmly anchored to
the ground. Augustus didn't attempt to zap Ryan again, perhaps expecting the
courier's armor to absorb his lightning.
Or perhaps the lightning lord would rather beat the time-traveler within an inch of
his life with his bare hands, to better feel his bones breaking beneath his fingers.
"You fight better than most, but your efforts are for naught," Augustus said before
taking a step forward. From the height of his two meters, the ivory man towered
above his rival like Mount Everest above all other mountains. "There can only be
one master of the world."
"You think that's what I'm fighting you for?" Ryan sneered, before doing some
boxing footwork. "The world?"
"What else?"
"Because I want to be happy.” Ryan froze time, right as Augustus raised his right
fist. "Because I want to make a great many people happy, and you're a threat to
their well-being."
Lightning Butt lunged at him with a jaguar’s speed, but Ryan lowered his head to
dodge his deadly punch and retaliated with an uppercut. The blow, shrouded in
Black Flux, would have shattered a normal human's head. It only caused more
cracks to appear on Lightning Butt's chin, and the shadows around the courier's
hands dispelled when time resumed.
"Make people happy?" Augustus didn't even appear capable of fathoming the
notion. "The likes of us stand above lesser men. They exist to serve us; we don't
exist to serve them. It is our will that decides what is right from wrong. It is our
destiny, our divine right, to remake the world as we wish."
The ivory man tried to strike Ryan while he waited for his countdown to end with
a haymaker, but the courier swiftly dodged this blow too.
"Make people happy? You sound like Hargraves." Augustus sneered in disgust.
"Such weaklings are not meant to live."
"Yet I made Livia happy," Ryan replied, as he counted from nine to ten. "While
you only ever brought her pain and sorrow!"
The mention of his daughter hurt Augustus more than the punches ever did. "You
dare mention her name?!"
"She didn't warn you about me because she knows it too!" Ryan froze time, Black
Flux swirling around his fingers. "That you're an irredeemable piece of shit! Even
if she still loves you, she understands that you've got to go!"
"It doesn't matter," Augustus replied, lying to himself. "Once you're out of the
picture, I will make everything right."
Ryan punched Lightning Butt in the chest, making him snarl as a new crack
spread over his torso.
The vicious brawl continued for minutes, perhaps hours; the universe turned
violet, then returned to normal, then switched back to violet again in an endless
cycle. The two duelists stepped down the hill's steel slope, one punch at a time,
with only the stars for witnesses.
Augustus was faster than Adam, and stronger than Wyvern. Though he was no
martial art expert, he had far more experience with hand-to-hand fighting than
Fallout. Lightning Butt's style was rough and direct, almost robotic, but
nonetheless effective. His body didn't feel fatigue, and each of his blows carried
as much strength as the first.
But he lacked something priceless, an edge that allowed Ryan to dominate him.
Experience.
When Augustus raised his fist, Ryan didn't see the Genome suprematist he had
grown to despise. He saw the boxers, judo masters, Psychos, ninjas, clowns,
ninja clowns, gangsters, petty tyrants, and heroes that he had bested across the
years. He saw all the people he had fought in close combat over more than eight
centuries of main quests, side-quests, random encounters, optional boss battles,
and adventures across Europe. Ryan's body reacted on its own, drawing upon
decades spent perfecting boxing, Krav Maga, Judo, Jiu-Jitsu, street fighting, and
all martial arts known to man.
Augustus might have been over seventy, but he was the child among the two
fighters.
By now, the mob boss’ entire body had begun to resemble the moon's landscape,
craters and rifts spread over a white wasteland. He tried to dodge and to parry
Ryan's blows sometimes, but his own reflexes worked against him. Having never
needed to dodge an attack or protect himself in over twenty years, Augustus had
developed an overaggressive fighting style, all relentless attacks with little focus
on defense.
It would have been enough to overwhelm almost anyone, but Ryan's reflexes
had honed to perfection over centuries. The courier focused on dodging the
enemy strikes, and counterattacking whenever an opening presented itself.
The damage he inflicted wasn't only cosmetic. Augustus’ expression had long
twisted into one of permanent pain, though rage was one hell of an anesthetic.
"Now you look like a real statue,” Ryan taunted him, even as his armor sent
alarms. The Black Flux was damaging the gauntlets as much as the repeated
strikes against Augustus’ indestructible body, slowly consuming the steel.
He had to bring an end to the battle quickly.
Augustus seethed with pain and rage, his movements growing wilder, unfocused,
desperate. When his punches missed Ryan and hit Monaco's hills, the very
ground trembled before his might. His lips uttered a single word. "Why?"
"Why are you losing?" Ryan froze time and punched Lightning Butt in the face
again. This time a bit of his stone lips flew alongside a tooth. "Because for all
your might, your fists only carry the strength of your arrogance behind them.
While mine carry the weight of centuries, and the hopes of thousands."
Even this armor was the work of dozens of people, who each gave their
knowledge, their work, their very lifeforce to make this wonder possible. From
Len to Jasmine, from Felix to Livia, all of them contributed. Their strength
coursed through these circuits.
And now, Ryan raised his hand to deliver the coup-de-grace.
Instead of taking it, Augustus blasted the ground with lightning, blowing dust in all
directions. Ryan's fists hit only smoke as time resumed.
When the cloud dissipated, Lightning Butt had taken flight and loomed over the
courier.
"Your power works through your hands, and only within that temporal anomaly of
yours," Augustus said, a crimson electrical current coursing through his cracked
skin. "Your other weapons are useless against me."
He zapped Ryan with a torrent of crimson lightning. The Saturn Armor absorbed
it, but when Ryan activated his jetpack to catch Augustus, the warlord denied him
the privilege of another brawl. Lightning Butt bravely ran circles around his foe,
bombarding him with shock and thunder.
"Running away, are we now?" Ryan taunted the mob boss as he chased after
him. "Puny god."
Augustus answered with another lightning bolt. Unwilling to overcharge the
armor's limited stockpile capacity, the courier dodged to the side, but like before
the thunderbolt acted like a homing missile and hit him at lightspeed. "Warning,
storage capacity at half-percent!' the armor warned after absorbing the electricity
into itself.
Ryan realized dodging had been a mistake, as a twisted smile flashed across
Augustus’ cracked face.
Now he knew the Saturn Armor’s endurance wasn't limitless.
The two engaged in a deadly course and pursuit over the French Cote d'Azur.
Once a coastal and sunny paradise, the Genome Wars had left only ruins, muddy
sand, and wild forests growing over both. They danced and waltzed, but only
ever exchanged thunderbolts.
If it had been a hand-to-hand fight, Ryan might have prevailed, but Mob Zeus
refused to let the courier get any closer than ten meters. Since he flew even
faster than the time-traveler and resisted his Violet power, there was little Ryan
could do to close the gap. He attempted his usual tricks, blowing up dust from the
ground or trying to make Augustus lose sight of him to spring an ambush.
It was all for naught. When Ryan feigned retreat, Augustus gave pursuit only to
back down whenever the courier turned around. When Ryan tried to hide behind
a hill or a tree, the lightning always struck him from an unexpected direction. Mob
Zeus could detect electrons, so he didn't need to see Ryan to hit him.
The mob boss harassed Ryan with a loan shark's relentlessness, never giving
him any moment to breathe.
"I BLEEPED your daughter!" Ryan shouted, trying to infuriate the madman and
make him drop his guard. "And your sister too! Look, a wild Hargraves!"
But neither truth nor lie disturbed Augustus’ focus. Unlike Bacchus, he didn't let
emotions interfere with his goal. Lightning Butt was brutal, but not stupid.
The only thing on his mind was his foe’s death, and nothing else mattered.
In desperation, Ryan froze time, and attempted to unleash a shockwave while his
gauntlets were wreathed in Black Flux. He hoped, prayed, that some of the dark
particles would travel with the blast and damage his foe.
Instead, his gauntlets shorted out, Black Flux seeping out of the damaged
circuitry instead of a shockwave. Worse, Ryan's fingers hurt beneath the steel,
the darkness threatening to consume them too.
“Warning: system overload!" The Saturn Armor alarmed Ryan, before the latest
thunderbolt caused the sensors to sort out.
With little alternative, Ryan tried to activate his intercom and call for help. "Leo?
Sunshine?"
But only thunder and static answered.
The sheer electromagnetic activity screwed with his communicators!
And what was bound to happen, happened.
Augustus zapped Ryan again, and this time, the armor failed to absorb the
lightning. The Flux batteries melted inside the steel armor, and the jetpack
exploded in Ryan's back. The whole armor shorted out, and the courier crash
landed on some forgotten French beach.
His battered, crippled armor hit a hard bed of sand, dust creeping inside the
servos. The helmet's lenses shattered, some shards making their way into
Ryan's left eye. The courier had to bite his own tongue to swallow a scream, as
half his vision turned red.
Get up, he thought furiously, I have to get up.
But the strike had damaged the armor’s servos, and while it had been as light as
a feather, the Saturn suit now seemed to weigh tons. Ryan could barely roll to his
left side, blood dripping from his broken helmet, his right eye glancing up at his
own death.
"This ends here," Augustus said, flying above his foe with the arrogant fury of a
wounded god. "The lightning does not care for kings or commoners, for good and
evil. When lightning falls, it strikes indiscriminately... and all mortals bow to it."
"Don't you know?" Ryan replied spitefully, his fists clenching. "I'm immortal.”
"Nothing lives forever. You least of all."
Augustus’ shroud of lightning grew more intense, as he gathered more power into
himself. Scraps of his skin peeled off and fell into the sea, revealing the
adamantine flesh and pulsating lightning veins underneath. He would gather
enough energy to power all of New Rome for a year, and vaporize Ryan with it.
Centuries of training, two dozen runs spent preparing, billions of euros worth of
resources gathered...
And it still wasn't enough!
It can't end like this, Ryan thought, his hopes faltering. If he couldn't go back in
time again, he wouldn't have a do-over. Augustus would kill him, and then follow
through with everyone in New Rome. This is... this isn't a happy ending.
"I am a god," Augustus said, his light as blinding as the sun. "You are just a
human being."
Ryan's guardian angel woke up.
Its white, furred form crawled out of the broken backpack and the damaged
armor. It hopped on the sand in front of Ryan's face, and looked at the courier
with big, sad blue eyes.
The same sorrowful look it had while in the bunker.
"No," Ryan pleaded.
"I will always be your friend," the Plushie replied, its pre-recorded voice morphing
into another, alien one.
Then it bravely jumped at Augustus, claws out and firing lasers from its eyes.
Even the Plushie's weaponry paled before Augustus’ light, as the false god struck
down the beach with his thunderbolt. The crimson lightning fell down with enough
power to vaporize a city block, turning the night sky red.
It never reached Ryan.
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Instead, the Plushie took the hit, its
mechanical body disintegrating from
the sheer heat and volt ge Tgoy
had ba fel paptois oie above
the Ebu rier, but the lightning focused
into a single point, a violet tear in the
very fabric of space and time. A
thumb-sized looking glass peering
through other realities. The content is
on Novelxo.org! Read the latest
chapter there!
A portal.
Much like Ryan's time anomaly, Plushie had always existed between two
universes. It was a gate.
And Ryan was the key.
Suddenly, all fell into place. Loops of subtle nudging, of not-so-random
coincidences and careful preparations, forming a chain of cause and effects.
All to leave that door open at the right time.
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Using the last of his strength, the
courier forced himself to his knees,
froze time, and grabbed the portal
with his bare doa black
a und his fingers in
a deadly dance of light and darkness,

; Ds
consuming Augustus divine
lightning. Space itself bent and broke,
as the time-traveler forced the gate
open. Otherworldly, alien energies

5 ' 3 ?
seeped into Earth's reality like blood
pouring out of a wound. The content
is on Novelxo.org! Read the latest
chapter there!
From the size of a thumb, the portal's size increased from two meters in
diameter... and so did its appetite. Sand, seawater, and air all floated into the rift,
unable to resist its pull.
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' : 5 "

Augustus’ eyes widened in surprise,
and he attempted to fly away. But the
rift consumed the air pet
and mage the ieng’S ue fall down
into this violet hole. As Mob Zeus
entered his reach Ryan grabbed him
by the ankle, the adamantine flesh
feeling as soft as butter between his
blackened fingers. The content is on
Novelxo.org! Read the latest
chapter there!
The time-traveler dragged his nemesis into the otherworldly abyss as the gate
closed behind them. The stream of Violet Flux intensified and swallowed them
whole.
The two Genomes had entered the Purple World.