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, p'tit 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 Tête-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-grâce.

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 Côte 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.

Instead, the Plushie took the hit, its mechanical body disintegrating from the sheer heat and voltage. The toy had barely leapt off a meter above the courier, 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.

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.

Using the last of his strength, the courier forced himself to his knees, froze time, and grabbed the portal with his bare hands. Violet and black particles swirled around his fingers in a deadly dance of light and darkness, consuming Augustus' divine lightning. Space itself bent and broke, as the time-traveler forced the gate open. Otherworldly, alien energies seeped into Earth's reality like blood pouring out of a wound.

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.

Augustus' eyes widened in surprise, and he attempted to fly away. But the rift consumed the air beneath his feat and made the living statue 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 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.