The Perfect Run

New Rome looked gorgeous from above.

The city breathed life. Millions of people returned from work as the sun started vanishing beyond the horizon, like the blood cells of a giant organism. The lights of casinos’ neon signs and street lights formed a sea of light, some red, others green, and all the other colors of the rainbow in between. The whole place smelled of sin, but most importantly, it smelled of life. New Rome rivaled the greatest Old World metropolises in size, making it the New World’s lighthouse. It was a beacon of hope for mankind, the promise of a bright future where humans would rise from their own ashes and rebuild.

Ryan couldn’t let this city die. Yet already a virus was at work, insidiously infecting thousands of Genomes, laying the ground for a worldwide pandemic. And though he had the cure safely contained in his Saturn armor’s backpack, dealing with this disaster would only summon another.

“We’re in position,” Ryan declared through his armor’s intercom. Livia was playing with her own new Opis armor in the clouds to his left. “Waiting for the signal, buddy.”

Two video feeds appeared inside his helmet, one projected on each lens. The left one came from Shortie’s own power armor, as she, Enrique, and a group of Private Security bodyguards climbed the lift to Lab Sixty-Six; the right one showed Felix, Wyvern, and half of Il Migliore waiting in front of Hector Manada’s mansion. The latter feed was of a poorer quality, as a Dynamis camera drone provided it.

“We’re ready to move in too,” Felix said, before turning at his teammate. Wyvern nodded as she took flight, followed by Devilry, while Reload and Wardrobe remained on the ground. Even a poor feed couldn’t ruin her in Ryan’s eyes; her law enforcement costume was the acme of chic.

“Oh, oh, can I wear the Chuck Norris costume?” Wardrobe asked with enthusiasm. “I feel this is now or never!”

“Another time,” Wyvern replied with a chuckle, before touching her earcom. “Enrique?”

“Go ahead with the arrest,” the CBO answered as his group reached the entrance of Lab Sixty-Six. Enrique bypassed the biometric defenses, allowing his team to move inside the dreaded Knockoff production facility. “Romano, you can start anytime.”

“Are you sure your men are loyal?” Ryan asked. “I mean, they’re called the Private Security. They don’t work for the public good.”

“I hand-picked this strike force myself, and I would trust them with my life,” the corporate hero replied. “It’s not for my life you should worry. Your job is the most dangerous one.”

Well, Ryan had a lot of experience with A-bombs. “You’re sure Fat Man will learn of this raid?”

“Certain. He has moles inside this building, and an alarm system to inform him of any breach of Lab Sixty-Six he didn’t authorize himself. When he returns to New Rome, his rage will know no bounds.”

Well, that explained how Fallout managed to respond so quickly to Ryan’s raid during his Meta-Run. However, the living nuclear disaster had already moved to the city at that time, while he should be in Sicily right now.

Enrique marked a short pause, as if reconsidering the plan. “Are you certain you and Miss Augusti can handle my brother on your own? He fought your girlfriend’s father, and walked away alive.”

Ryan chuckled. Was there a hint of concern he detected in his voice? “I never said my girlfriend was an Augusti…”

“You’re not the only one with an information-gathering apparatus, Quicksave. Though yours trumps mine by a wide margin, I will grant you that.” The manager cleared his throat. “You understand that I’m taking a huge risk by trusting you on this, and I expect a show of goodwill.”

“I’m not going to kill your brother, don’t worry.” Though they might have to redraw the map by the time they were done. “I’m all for nuclear energy… but only for peaceful purposes!”

“Good,” Enrique replied, his tone suddenly much less friendly. “Because otherwise, all I can say is that you will never see me coming.”

“Well, if your shiny big brother kills me, could you do the floral arrangement for my funeral?” Ryan asked. “Surprise me.”

“I will bring lilies and carnations.”

“By now, you should know I’m a flytrap guy,” Ryan replied.

However, before moving on with the plan, the courier contacted his sister through a private line. Stitch had removed the infectious Bloodstream agent in Len’s blood, so she shouldn’t transform even in close proximity to her father, but still... “You’re sure you want to go alone, Shortie?”

“Yes, Riri,” she answered before gathering her breath. “I… I appreciate what you’re trying to do. Support me. But in this case… in this case, I need to do it on my own.”

“I understand,” he replied, watching them enter Dr. Tyrano’s lair. The good reptilian doctor was typing on a computer in the room where Ryan’s team fought Alphonse Manada in a previous loop. The clones of Il Migliore’s members floated in advanced mechanical vats, their body fluids extracted to create Knockoff Elixirs.

“Sir?” Tyrano rose up from his seat and hastily covered his computer’s screen. Shortie’s feed caught a file’s title before he managed to do so, ‘Monster Girl Project: Test Log.’ “I didn’t expect you today.”

“No, you didn’t,” Enrique replied, hands behind his back like a corporate supervillain.

Len’s gaze, and the video feed, lingered on the clones in the pods. Quite a few members of Enrique’s escort lowered their laser rifle weapons at the sight. “Holy…” One of Enrique’s guards said, before noticing Wyvern’s scaled double. “Is that Wyvern? Did we grow her in a lab?”

“Wait, are we clones too?” another soldier in power asked. “Is that why we’re paid so little? Because we were programmed to shut up from birth?”

“No, you aren’t paid much because my father is trying to cut corners,” Enrique replied dryly. “You would have been paid half less if he had had his way. I covered the difference from my own pocket.”

“Still, you’re sure you want us to film this, sir?” A Private Security member asked, anxious. “If the world learns we’re doing this kind of stuff behind closed doors...”

“I know, but it has to be done,” Enrique said with a sigh, before glancing at Tyrano. “Pack your things, Doctor. We’re terminating the Knockoff program.”

“What?” Dr. Tyrano choked at this. “But sir, you can’t! I received no order from management!”

“I can, and I will. As for management, we’re currently facing some turnover.”

“Your brother will kill us all if he knows!” Dr. Tyrano kept protesting, before clarifying his fear. “He’s going to kill me for letting you in.”

Enrique didn’t flinch. “I will take responsibility for Alphonse and assume responsibilities for my actions today. You have nothing to fear, doctor.”

“It does! I can’t let you do—”

Four laser rifles’ red pointers aimed at his head, and a fifth between his legs. The scientist quickly raised his hands in surrender.

“Boris, how many times will I have to tell you,” Enrique told one of his bodyguards with exasperation. “Not the nuts.”

“He’s keeping a secret weapon there, sir,” the guard defended his choice of target, which Ryan found the wisest of them all. “I can feel it in my bones.”

“In any case, Doctor, we have ample proof that this project will lead to a disaster. If I were you, I would worry more about the weapons pointed at you than my brother’s wrath.” Enrique turned to his men. “Put up the explosives. I want nothing on this floor to remain usable. Sabino and I will deal with… with the source of it all.”

Ryan could almost see Len flinch behind the camera, but she followed without a word as Blackthorn and Tyrano entered Bloodstream’s room.

And then, she saw what remained of her father.

Ryan couldn’t help but shudder upon seeing him through the video feed. The alien creature Bloodstream had become floated helplessly inside a large, reinforced glass container; its body bloody red, and its all-too-human eyes glancing at Len. Could it still recognize her, even without the infectious agent in her body?

“Father…” Len put a hand on the glass, her voice breaking. She faced the creature’s countless eyes, none of them showing intelligence. “Do you… do you recognize me?”

Silence answered, and Len lowered her head in despair.

Ryan gave his sister some privacy and switched to the other feed. By now, Wyvern’s group was already confronting Hector Manada in his garden. The old chairman of Dynamis had been busy working on his roses when the superheroes surrounded him. His bodyguards had hands on their laser rifles.

“What is the meaning of this?” Hector asked, immediately realizing something was wrong.

Wyvern wasted no time in laying down the law. “Hector Manada, you are under arrest for human experimentation, drug fraud, bioterrorism, funding organized crime, weapon trafficking, and virtually every medical crime private courts have a provision for.”

“Add crimes against fashion!” Wardrobe added, looking judgmentally at the chairman’s dirty shirt and pants. “That outfit is hideous!”

“Arresting me?” Hector asked, more shocked than afraid. “I sign your paychecks.”

“We’re doing this pro-bono,” Felix said with a shrug.

Wyvern handed her former CEO a paper document. “Here is our mandate.”

Hector’s expression deflated as he read. “This is Enrique’s signature,” he said, his voice breaking. “My own son…”

“And the board’s,” Wyvern added, pointing at other signatures. “We have overwhelming evidence that you funded and armed the Meta-Gang, making you an accomplice to their crimes, and poisoned the Knockoff Elixirs with a Psycho’s biological agent. Either would be grounds for summary execution, but we believe in the rule of law. If you surrender without a fight, you will be entitled to a fair trial.”

“A fair trial? I run this city!” The chairman ground his teeth, before glancing at the other members of Il Migliore. “Devilry, Reload—”

“Sorry, ex-boss,” Reload interrupted him with a hint of disgust. “I can’t close my eyes on something this big, even for a billion euro. It’s Lex Luthor-level shit.”

“I don’t care much either way,” Devilry said bluntly. “But you ain’t solvable anymore.”

Hector clenched his jaw, observed the determined heroes facing him. His bodyguards looked ready to open fire. “Are you really going to try fighting us?” Felix asked, before pointing at Wyvern. “We’ve got a dragon.”

The bodyguards exchanged glances, realized they weren’t paid enough to die for a corrupt billionaire, and lowered their weapons.

Hector looked ready to protest, but by now realized that he was only one man facing the powerful superheroes he had spent millions recruiting. “I’m calling my lawyers,” he said, giving up without a fight.

“Of course,” Wyvern replied, unimpressed. “Wardrobe, if you would.”

Wardrobe manifested handcuffs out of thin air. “You have the right to remain silent, criminal scum!”

“You’ve condemned this city,” Hector said with vindictiveness, as Wardrobe put handcuffs on him. “My elder son will take over now, and there will be blood in the streets. You will see. After me, the flood.”

“Don’t push it, Louis XVI,” Felix replied, as he and Reload dragged the chairman outside his property. “You deserve the guillotine.”

“Louis XV!” Ryan complained through his private line with Livia, furious at his kitten’s error. “This is a reference to Louis XV, not Louis XVI! Livia, how could you date this uncultured bore?!”

“Let him eat cake,” Livia replied, before emerging from a cloud in her full, red glory. The Opis armor fit her even better than Ryan thought. Its sleek crimson steel espoused her form like a second skin, while her retractable tentacles waited for activation. She had a hard time managing her jetpack though.

“Marry me, ma bourgeoise,” Ryan asked playfully.

“Mmm, maybe later,” she replied with the same tone, this time close enough that the courier could hear without the intercom. “So? Do we start now?”

“One second,” Ryan said, as he switched to Len’s feed. He wanted to witness this, and to offer words of comfort to his sister.

Len had stopped mourning her father, and instead moved to the control panel overseeing the creature’s prison. Enrique and Dr. Tyrano stood nearby, observing her; the former with guilt and compassion, the latter with curiosity. “What are you doing?” the reptilian Genius asked his underwater counterpart.

“Trying… one last thing,” Len said, before introducing a bottled, chemical agent through a hole in the control panel. The machinery transferred the rainbow-colored substance into Bloodstream’s prison.

This cure, developed through their group’s research into the Psycho condition and Mongrel’s power, should in theory restructure Bloodstream’s genetic code and make him human again. This was the last hope of a despairing daughter to save the father she had loved.

But…

Some things couldn’t be changed, no matter how one tried. Ryan knew that all too well.

“It’s not working…” Len lamented, as the red blob absorbed the substance without changing back. The creature had mutated too much, halfway transforming into a denizen of the higher colored dimensions. The monster of Ryan’s childhood had become something beyond human, beyond reason. “It’s not working.”

She didn’t sound angry, or even surprised.

Just sad.

The father she had loved was long dead, and would never come back.

“I’m sorry,” Ryan apologized. Though he felt nothing but disdain for Bloodstream, he understood his adoptive sister’s palpable sorrow.

“I knew it.” He could sense the sob she struggled to suppress. “I knew it before I tried, Riri. But… but I still hoped.”

“What will you do now?” Enrique asked. Somehow, Ryan had the feeling he wouldn’t interfere, no matter what Len chose. He probably believed, much like the courier, that a daughter was entitled to deciding her father’s fate.

Len’s voice turned deeper, firmer. She had moved from denial and bargaining to acceptance. “What needs to be done.”

Ryan watched, as she slowly started activating Tyrano’s failsafe.

The good doctor quickly tried to protest. “Sir, there will never be another Genome with this exact power combination,” the Genius pleaded with his superior. “Its destruction will ruin years of research.”

“We have other means to make your dream a reality, doctor,” the CBO replied, looking at Bloodstream. “Methods that won’t compromise our conscience.”

Ryan half-expected Dr. Tyrano to fight back, but the reptile was no combattant, and the promise of being allowed to continue working on his dream of dinosaurhood mollified him.

When all that stood between Bloodstream and destruction was Len’s finger, his daughter sighed, and looked at her sire one last time. Perhaps she remembered all the good times she shared with him, as well as the bad, before taking her final decision.

“Goodbye, Father,” Len said with sorrow.

Shortie pushed the button, and sprinklers flooded Bloodstream’s container with chemicals.

Without the added strength of Len’s blood agent to make Bloodstream immune to it, Dr. Tyrano’s security system worked as advertised. His cure destroyed the monster’s cells, grinding them down into formless organic goo. The red alien shoggoth Freddie Sabino had turned into slowly started turning white, its eyes losing their colors. The creature didn’t even seem to suffer.

This was euthanasia, plain and simple.

Ryan knew he should have felt happy and relieved. He had longed for his adoptive father’s demise, hated him with all his heart. He had nursed that grudge like a worm in an apple.

But now, as he watched Len silently put a hand against the glass as life left the creature, the courier could only share some of her sorrow. Though Ryan knew him, there was a good man inside that thing once. A father lost to madness and the Alchemist’s cruel disregard for life.

And now, that man would only live in his daughter’s memories.

“Whatever happens, I will always be there for you,” Ryan promised his sister. He wanted to be in the same room as her, to hold Len in his arms and comfort her one last time. “You’re not alone.”

“I… Me too, Riri. I’ll always be there.” Len cut the video feed, though her voice kept echoing through the communicator. “But… not today. Leave me alone a moment with him. Please.”

Ryan cut the communication, focusing on the moment. Livia had great difficulty remaining stationary, instead making ridiculous figures in the air. “Are you done struggling to fly straight?” the courier asked, before frowning behind his helmet. “Unless you’re trying to cheer me up?”

“A bit of both,” she replied while stabilizing her flight somewhat. “Seeing alternate selves learning how to pilot does not equal gaining their skill. How did you end up learning how to pilot a flying suit?”

“I don’t remember, to be honest,” Ryan admitted. “I mastered jetpacks like, three hundred years ago.”

“Is there a skill you haven’t mastered?”

“Ice-skating.” This made her laugh. “Miss Augusti, do you know how to skate on ice and snow?”

“I do,” his girlfriend replied playfully. “And I could teach you… if you promise to cheer up.”

Ryan looked in the direction of Dynamis’ HQ. “I am cheering up.”

“Ryan…”

“I don’t know,” the courier replied. “I’ve hated him with all my heart. Wished him dead. I should feel joy and closure, not… not this.”

A huge burden had been lifted off from his shoulders, yet it left a bitter taste in his mouth.

“I guess I feel sad for Len and it bleeds through.”

His words didn’t fool Livia “I don’t think so, Ryan. I think you feel pity for her father, because you understand that unlike the likes of Adam, he didn’t choose to become what he was. A part of you truly wanted to see him cured.”

Ryan remembered one of Bloodstream’s rants, when he had caught his daughter taking her Elixir. The Psycho had said that he took two potions to better protect her in a hostile world, and these words had stayed with his adoptive son years afterward.

Maybe she had a point. A part of him still pitied Freddie Sabino for making an uninformed choice for selfless reasons, and paying the price since. He had moved beyond his burning hatred for his adoptive father, and found some embers of compassion left.

“But if my words can’t cheer you up,” Livia said, shyly moving her hands behind her back. “How about... we dance?”

“A dance?” Ryan asked, surprised by the offer.

“I like dancing,” his girlfriend admitted. “But I’ve never tried with a partner I can’t guess the steps of. Besides, we only have very little time left.”

Alphonse was on the way.

“Here’s my offer.” Ryan extended his hand at her, eager to take his mind off Bloodstream’s death. “I teach you how to dance in the skies, and you train me for the winter Olympics.”

“That depends.” She giggled. “Are you a good dancer, Mr. Romano?”

Oh, she dared challenge him? “The very best,” Ryan replied, taking her hand into his own. “Like no one ever was.”

And so, they waltzed in the skies.

As the couple made circles in the skies above New Rome, their armors’ backpacks opened and released a green dust upon the city below. The wind carried it like pollen, spreading this strange cure to the population.

Unknown to all, a new, friendly virus had infected New Rome’s population. One that would destroy all traces of Dynamis’ Knockoffs in people’s blood, purifying them. Many would-be Genomes would wake up tomorrow morning far more human than the day before. They would probably curse Ryan, unaware of the grim fate they had been spared from… unaware that they spread the cure each time they breathed. On the ground, Ryan’s other allies distributed the cure from high positions, or even through the city’s water system.

In weeks, all of Europe would have caught the Cure Flu, exorcising Bloodstream’s ghost from the population.

The courier relished in his armor’s smooth controls and speed, as he and Livia spread the cure to Rust Town, the Augusti’s territories, and the city’s center. Thanks to data gathered in the Alchemist’s lab, Ryan had added quite a few surprises to his suit.

Among other upgrades, he had combined the Fisty brothers to the gauntlets, which now included a Red Flux shockwave projector based on Bianca’s power. A Blue Flux-powered computer all but eliminated lag time inside the armor, making the armor move like a second skin. Orange Flux would reinforce the shielding in a pinch, and Green Flux would heal Ryan if he suffered internal injuries. Yellow Flux should provide a defense against conceptual attacks, and White Flux made them all work harmoniously.

Five Flux-based batteries, one for each color except Ryan’s Violet, provided the energy inside his backpack. Without his many allies to generate the necessary Flux, this upgrade would have been impossible. From the to Jerome, and even Shortie, everyone had contributed.

Last but not least, Shortie had included a miniaturized version of Dynamis’ Gravity Gun in his chest. Ryan intended to keep that trump card a secret until the time came to send Lightning Butt to a retirement home.

He hoped it would make a difference in the fight to come.

“He’s here, Ryan,” Livia warned, as she ended the dance.

Already? How? Even if he had been warned as soon as Enrique set foot in Lab Sixty-Six, no plane or helicopter could fly all the way from Sicily in such a short amount of time.

Ryan realized his mistake, as he noticed a bright red star appearing right above the twilight sun. His armor’s camera quickly provided a larger image, showing a titan of black metal propelled by a wave of Red Flux.

Alphonse ‘Fallout’ Manada had ridden the atom all the way to New Rome.

“Anxious?” Livia asked, as the red star became brighter and brighter.

“A bit,” Ryan admitted. “Last time we fought, he killed my entire team.”

“But you didn’t have me. Without false modesty, the two of us together?”

Livia put a hand on her waist, and adopted a fabulous pose worthy of a gangstar.

“We’re invincible."