The Perfect Run

After attacking Ghoul with his car in all his previous restarts, Ryan thought it had
grown a little stale.
So this time, he hit the Psycho with a truck instead.
Ryan couldn't find a Japanese one, but the one he “borrowed’ did the job,
crashing through the walls and tossing Ghoul against the counter. The courier
climbed down from the vehicle, carrying a black cane he had purchased at a
shop down the street.
“Ghoul, there are a few things I can't tolerate. The mass-murder? Eh, I've seen
worse. The child-abductions? Now it gets my blood boiling. Trashing my car,
thrice?” Ryan shook his head. “I can't let that slide, Ghoul.”
“Who the...” As it turned out, a truck did a lot more damage than a Plymouth
Fury. Some of Ghoul's bones had broken upon impact, and he struggled to get
back up. “Who the hell are you?!”
“You see this?” Ryan pointed at his hat. “This is my normal magician’s hat. The
happy hat.”
He tossed it away and showed Ghoul a new, black bowler hat.
“This is the war hat.”
Ryan put it on and suddenly looked far more intimidating.
“You know me, Ghoul. I'm a model of mental stability and composure. I'm well-
adjusted. But now that I'm wearing my war hat? Oh boy! Oh boy, no more Mr.
Nice Guy! I will do great and terrible things today! It's going to be terrific!”
“What are you—"
Ryan hit Ghoul's knee with his cane, causing the broken Psycho to fall helplessly
on the ground.
“Bartender, a Moloko Plus!” The courier ordered the frightened Renesco, before
kicking Ghoul while he was down. “It’s going to sharpen me up for a wild night of
mindless property damage!”
Because this restart was going to be an espresso.
Short, but intense.
After paying off the Private Security, Ryan moved to Rust Town and stopped his
car in front of Paulie’s place. Ghoul's head and torso were on the backseat, the
courier having tossed the rest in a dumpster. As it turned out, the Psycho had
great difficulties channeling his ice power without his arms and lower parts.
Or maybe it was learned helplessness at work.
“I have something to confess,” Ryan said, looking at his captive in the rear-view
mirror. “I've been feeling down lately. The stuff with Len really weighed on my
mind, and I still have a lot of work ahead to make up with her. I was aimless, with
no main quest or distraction, nor any clear path ahead. I had no distraction to
fend off the boredom and existential dread.”
The helpless skeleton looked at him with a mix of abject terror and confusion.
“But now I'm rested!” Ryan said, turning his head to look at the skeleton dead in
the eyes. “I'm pumped! I'm on top of my game again, and I've got a new main
quest! To give your whole gang a wedgie they will never forget!”
“What are you going to do to me?” the Psycho asked, more and more frightened
the longer he listened.
“We're going on a trip to Happyland, my droog!” Ryan grabbed Ghoul’s skull,
bringing him close to his own face. “Happyland!”
“Somebody help!” Ghoul shouted, as loud as he could. “Somebody save me!”
But nobody came.
Ryan stepped out of the car, wielding his cane, and waltzed into Paulie’s place.
Since it was the loop’s first day, the Meta-Gang hadn't pressed the shopkeeper
into service yet. He raised his eyes at Quicksave, his gaze turning into a glare
upon recognizing him.
“Hey, Paulie my old friend!” Ryan announced his unforgettable presence. “It's me,
Quicksave!”
“You?” The shopkeeper raised his archaic rocket launcher at his future client's
face. “You dare show your face here?”
“Yes, yes, I know we had our differences, but ooh boys, Paulie, do I have a deal
for you!”
Ryan slammed the ground with the tip of his cane.
“How much for that facehugger missile?”
As it turned out, when Paulie learned what Ryan had planned, he gave away the
rocket launcher for free.
It took thirty minutes for the courier to prepare. It wasn’t the first time he did a
suicide run, so it was a well-oiled routine, but he only tried that kind of stunt when
he didn't risk facing a Genome capable of permanently killing him. While
Psyshock was dangerous, the courier was confident he could take the maniac
out, or kill himself before being brainjacked. From the intelligence he had
gathered over the previous restarts, the Meta didn’t have anyone else capable of
threatening future loops.
As far as Ryan knew, the circumstances were right, especially if he could take
out Acid Rain early. Since the Meta had struggled to organize a counterattack
when three hundred foot-soldiers had invaded their territory, then logically, they
shouldn't expect a lone wolf.
After all, who would be mad enough to attack them head-on with no back-up, and
no chance of survival?
“Don't tell anyone,” Ryan said, driving straight for the Junkyard with his trench
coat closed to hide the surprise underneath. The rocket launcher waited on the
seat next to him, alongside two submachine guns, and the courier had put the
Fisty Brothers gauntlets on his hands. “But I'm immortal.”
Chained to the car hood, Ghoul let out a shriek of horror, as the courier drove
through the streets of Rust Town at full speed.
Besides avenging the three times the Meta trashed his car—no score was too
small to settle—Ryan thought they simply deserved to be wiped out. They
kidnapped children, including orphans under Len’s distant care, enslaved
civilians, murdered people without provocation, and just made the world a worse
place to live in. While neither Dynamis nor the Augusti were perfect, some of their
members were good people.
The courier couldn't say the same for the Meta.
It was the last loop that settled it. These Psychos were simply too dangerous to
be left alone, and Ryan needed to check on that famous bunker for himself.
Stealth was a lost cause, from what Shroud had told him, and the Meta-Gang
would quickly organize a defense if a large group moved into their territory. A lone
wolf suicide attack, fast and unpredictable, seemed more likely to succeed in
gathering intelligence.
As he approached the junkyard, Ryan briefly raised his mask to consume red
pills. They were doses of Rampage, a Genius-designed, combat-enhancing drug.
It boosted pain tolerance, reaction time, accelerated the production of adrenaline,
and hastened the metabolism for four hours. It was powerful enough to affect
even Genomes.
Well, afterward the drug made the user vomit for days and increased the risk of
strokes, which was why Ryan never took it during normal runs. Thankfully, that
wouldn't be a problem for this one.
After passing the dilapidated neighborhood without being interrupted, Ryan finally
came into view of the Junkyard. Stacks of cars, piles of trash, and cranes
overshadowed a three meters-tall fence topped with barbed wires. The metallic
items seemed organized into hills of various sizes, with the biggest one at the
center.
Two Psychos protected the entry point in the fence. One was some kind of
humanoid lizard, two-meters tall, with scales of various colors. The other was a
pale woman, whose whole body, from her long hair to her creased face, were as
white as milk; her shadow, however, was that of a monstrous, demonic creature.
Ryan identified the woman as Gemini but didn't recognize lizard-boy.
“Ghoul?!” Lizard-boy shouted upon seeing the car approach, his yellow, reptilian
eyes widening upon realization.
In response, Ryan screamed like a berserker and accelerated. "Valhalla!"
Gemini instantly disappeared in a flash of light, but lizard-boy wasn't so quick.
Ryan ran him over, the body letting out a “thump’ as it went flying against the
fence nearby, his body jolting from an electrical current.
Ryan drove inside a labyrinth of trash walls, with forking twists and turns. The
Rampage drug started taking effect, accelerating his heartbeat, sharpening his
senses. He quickly crossed paths with a few Psychos scavenging the area,
Mongrel among them. The mutant raised his head in shock upon seeing him
approach, his teeth sunk inside the carcass of a large rat.
Ryan opened the car's window, grabbed a submachine gun, and fired at anyone
in his path. The fastest Meta members dived to the ground to dodge a hail of
gunfire, but Mongrel took a full volley to the face for his trouble, collapsing on his
back.
“I thought life was meaningless, but I was wrong!” Ryan shouted to Ghoul. “It's
your suffering! Causing you pain is my reason to live!”
As he drove through the labyrinth in search of the bunker’s entrance, Ryan heard
the sound of bells echo through the Junkyard. Someone had sounded the alarm.
Immediately afterward, he sensed an invisible pressure weighing on his
shoulders. The same effect as during the last loop, before everything went to hell.
The feeling of someone judging him.
The Land.
So that settled it. The Meta used their new recruit as a sensor, but as Ryan had
guessed, it wasn't a perfect spying method. He doubted anyone could oversee
an area as vast as Rust Town and pay attention to every single detail.
It clicked during the visit to Paulie’s place. Mosquito ambushed him the last time
Ryan went there, but no welcome committee had interrupted the courier today.
This implied that since Ghoul was nearby, the sensor didn’t pay much mind to the
Plymouth Fury. She must have mistaken the situation for a return trip, especially
since bone daddy had gone on an assassination mission hours before.
The trash walls started to tremble and rain debris on the Plymouth Fury, though
Ryan dodged them with driving skills honed over countless loops. The courier
guessed the Land couldn't cause an earthquake inside their HQ, and her
geokinesis didn’t seem very precise.
However, acid clouds had started to appear in the skies. Ryan had expected
something like this. Considering her power, Acid Rain was only effective in an
open space, and thus would be assigned to defend the surface.
Moving towards the center, Ryan tossed grenades behind him, causing trash
piles to fall and condemn the roads behind him. Eventually, after a wild ride, the
courier finally reached a twenty-meter tall tower made of rusted cars, debris, and
domestic items like washing machines. As he had thought, the base of the
“landmark’ had been dug up, revealing a tunnel leading down below the earth.
Mosquito and Acid Rain guarded the entrance, the psychotic woman already
drawing two knives. Instead of paying attention to her, Ryan focused on
Mosquito. Having emptied the submachine gun, he tossed it through the window,
then drove straight at the insectoid monster.
Mosquito looked up, saw death approaching, and extended his wings. But while
he may have the appearance of a genuine bloodsucker, he couldn't move faster
than a car racing at two-hundred forty kph. Ryan grabbed the rocket launcher,
opened the door, and then jumped out before the collision.
Ghoul let out a final scream, as the Plymouth Fury hit Mosquito head on before
he could fly away.
SQUASH!
Mosquito perished the way of his kind: stuck to a windshield.
The Plymouth Fury finished its course inside the trash tower, sending pieces of
Ghoul flying in all directions. Ryan himself had managed to roll over the ground,
but the collision with the ground had torn some of his trench coat. A normal
human would have had their skin torn off, but for a Genome, the wounds were
superficial.
“I'm sorry,” Ryan apologized to his car as he rose back to his feet, the Plymouth
Fury buried alongside Mosquito’s remains under a pile of debris. “I will make it up
to you later!”
“You teasing thief!” Acid Rain shrieked, charging at him with astonishing dexterity,
knives raised. Toxic raindrops already fell on the ground, eating at Ryan's hat. “I'll
tear you apart!”
“Duty. Honor. Courage.” Ryan pointed the rocket launcher at her pretty face and
pressed the trigger. “SEMPER FI!”
A missile with a smiley face painted on it flew straight at Acid Rain, who
teleported atop a wall of cars.
The rocket switched directions and pursued the Psycho.
Acid Rain immediately teleported to another trash wall, only for the facehugger
missile to chase after her with relentless, implacable ferocity.
Ryan rejoiced at the sight. He had had the idea when Paulie warned him his
facehugger missile could track him down in a previous loop, even if he could stop
time. Acid Rain wasn't so different from Quicksave as a fighter, except she
moved through space instead of frozen time.
The missile would keep tracking her until it either caught the Psycho or ran out of
fuel. Which could take minutes. By then, Ryan would hopefully be in the bunker,
the absence of rainfall negating Acid Rain's power.
Still, Ryan hurriedly rushed towards the tunnel before the acid rain could turn into
a downpour. He tossed the rocket launcher away before bringing out his coil gun
and desert eagle from under his coat, wielding one in each hand.
He descended into the tunnel, fires spreading in the labyrinth behind him. He
didn’t know how long it would take for the Psychos outside to clear the way after
he had collapsed some of the trash walls, but he might find himself surrounded
anytime soon. He had to keep the initiative and adopt an all-offense strategy.
When Ryan had advanced far enough though, the earth walls around him
trembled. The Land must have figured out his intentions and tried to block the
entrance by collapsing it. If she hesitated so long about doing so, it meant a lot of
her teammates were inside and risked being trapped as well.
“Just what I was looking for,” the courier said, “victims!”
Rushing against the clock, Ryan quickly arrived in front of an opened blast door
with Mechron’s symbol on it. The thick steel construct probably weighed more
than two dozen tons, and wouldn't disgrace the Cheyenne Mountain bunker. The
Meta had clearly forcefully opened it with a laser weapon of some kind, removing
the joints and putting the gate next to the entrance.
A pack of four Dynamis drones protected the area, immediately charging at Ryan
with their weapons raised. The Genome stopped time and shot each of them with
the coil gun, the electromagnetic projectiles piercing through their metal shells.
When time resumed, the various machines crumbled into scrap and screws.
Ryan loved to challenge himself, but sometimes, it was relaxing to play life on
Easy Mode.
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The courier rushed past the blast
door before the tunnel collapsed
behind him, entering a long metal
corridor. The second he felled m
inside, the invisible bidsdufe
van Bhat Ebr whatever reason, the
1 ) . , . :
Land's power didn't carry inside the
vault. She probably needed dirt or
earth to serve as a relay for her
sensory abilities. He briefly tested his
time-stop, just in case a power
negation effect covered the bunker,
but thankfully his ability worked
perfectly. The content is on
Novelxo.org! Read the latest
chapter there!
Reinforced glass windows on both sides of the path allowed Ryan to peek inside
underground hangars below the Junkyard.
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The one on the left held the mecha
which Psyshock piloted in the
previous loop, waiting on top of a
platform. Ryan noticed a closed door
embedded in the Gelling) péaps to
I

aftow tHelrobdt fo quickly move the
surface. The hangar on his right,
meanwhile, housed some kind of
sci-fi submarine, halfway submerged
inside a large pool probably leading
into the sea. Like its brethren,

’ :
Mechron’s symbol was painted on
the back. Normal humans whom
Ryan assumed were engineers
worked on both of the vehicles. The
content is on Novelxo.org! Read
the latest chapter there!
Huh, so they had already unearthed these mechs prior to the courier’s arrival to
New Rome. That made his plans for a blitzkrieg much more complicated.
The Meta had forcefully opened each gate on the path and didn’t bother to close
them afterward. The distance also muffled sound from outside, so Ryan simply
walked in the room at the end of the corridor without anyone bothering him.
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He eventually entered some kind of
atrium, which the Meta had
repurposed into a recreational area.
Well-lit, the room i Ydsd ano

Batimes,

si fastimes, such as a
pool table, a bar stand, and even a
Street Fighters arcade game.
Considering the number of doors on
each side, it seemed to be some kind
of hub room; he also noticed an
elevator on the other end of the
atrium, leading to levels below. The
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the latest chapter there!
A group of Psychos, Sarin included, were in the room. Hazmat girl was currently
wielding a cue stick, and sending a ball into a hole, much to her fellow mutants’
frustration.
“Hey, what was the cause of the racket out....” Sarin asked as she raised her
head from the pool table, trailing off as she didn’t recognize Ryan, “side...”
“Sarin,” Ryan raised his guns. “Do you have a boyfriend?”
Hazmat girl looked at him in confusion. “Who are yo—"
“Don't break my heart like that!” Ryan shot her in the chest with his Desert Eagle,
the impact propelling her backward. “I'm a sensitive soul!”
And then, the courier opened fire on the surprised Psychos while laughing like a
maniac.
For the Meta, the survival horror had only started.