Enrique Manada had been true to his word.
Sitting around a garish pink table at the Dostoïevski restaurant, Ryan, Len, and the Panda examined the plans of Dynamis’ Gravity Gun; though the Gravity Rifle would have been a better name for it. The device was long and impractical, though the courier was certain they could miniaturize it.
As Livia had promised, the Dostoïevski was a Russian all-you-can-eat buffet located at New Rome’s periphery and catering almost exclusively to families. The restaurant could have easily accommodated hundreds of patrons, though Ryan’s girlfriend had rented the entire restaurant for a private gathering. The floor was carpeted with industrial, blue flooring, with the food steam trays decorated with fish imagery; staff members were dressed in sailor’s attire, and the tables smelled of ice cream. Somehow, the comforting atmosphere put even the usually shy Len at ease.
Everyone had come dressed casually for the occasion, even Ryan. The other guests hadn’t arrived yet, though the courier didn’t doubt they would. Nobody in their right mind would miss the garish neon lights advertising the restaurant on the roof.
“A few seconds after being fired, the projectile creates a gravitational anomaly,” Timmy explained, after reviewing the schematics. It was so odd to see him without his costume on in human form. He looked so scrawny and ordinary, with a shy, gentle smile. “Everything in its vicinity is pulled towards the sphere, while it counteracts the Earth’s pull.”
“So, if I understand correctly, and I almost always do,” Ryan said, “the sphere will pull Lightning Butt towards itself, and then fly up?”
His pandawan nodded. “According to Dynamis’ calculations, the Gravity Gun will expel him from the upper atmosphere. After that, the sphere will wander through the solar system without ever returning home.”
Ryan immediately saw where Dynamis found the inspiration for that plan. “They wanted to Kars Augustus.”
“Kars?” Len asked with a frown. Ryan silently vowed to remedy her complete absence of pop culture knowledge.
“I understood that reference!” The Panda said happily.
“Every time you open your mouth, my young pandawan, my faith in humanity is renewed,” his mentor congratulated him.
“But will it work?” Len asked with skepticism. “Augustus can fly.”
“By manipulating electric charges to ionize air,” Ryan pointed out. “He shouldn’t be able to fly outside the atmosphere. However, if he breaks the sphere before reaching space...”
Len frowned. “Do you think it could work, Riri?”
“Livia doesn’t believe so.” At least not without support. “Well, it’s not like I’m going to rely on only one secret weapon.” His main plan was to lure Lightning Butt to Monaco and trap him there permanently, while beating him up into submission with his Black Flux power remained a secondary option.
“We could make copies and distribute them to our group,” Len suggested. “I could replace my water rifle with it.”
“No, too dangerous,” Ryan said. “For it to work, I will need to fire it in close combat. Better to use our limited time on miniaturizing this Gravity Gun and install it in my armor.”
“Only your armor?” Shortie’s eyes widened. “Riri, you can’t mean…”
“Dynamis’ gardener in chief had a point. When people dare the lightning to strike them, they die.” Ryan had seen Augustus tear apart Big Adam’s jaw with a backhand, shatter Sunshine’s core, and survive the following supernova. New Rome’s tyrant was, by far, the most powerful foe the courier had ever faced. There was no room for error with him. “I’ll take Mob Zeus on alone.”
“Sifu, no!” The Panda protested in panic. “That’s suicide!”
“He’s right, Riri,” Len added while folding the schematics. “I’m coming with you.”
“I’m the only one who can even harm him,” Ryan replied. “And his immunity to my time-stop means I’ll have a hard time saving anyone caught in the crossfire. If he kills me, I can come back from it.”
Hopefully.
Len looked ready to protest, when the restaurant’s door slammed open and a green-haired spitfire walked into the place. “Holà!” the young woman said in mangled Spanish, before switching back to Italian. She dressed so trashily that Ryan almost missed the hazmat suit. “What’s up, boys and girls?”
“Hey, Bianca!” Ryan welcomed her with a raised hand. “What will you start with? Caviar? Blinis? Borscht?”
“I’ll try everything, El Presidente,” the former Sarin snickered, as a blonde, shy woman and a scrawny man followed her. A giant more than two meters tall closed the march, though he struggled to fit through the restaurant’s doors. “I’ve got years of sensory deprivation to make up for.”
“Hello…” The former Acid Rain smiled shyly at Ryan’s group. The contrast with her deranged former self couldn’t be starker.
“Oh, hi Helen!” The Panda waved a hand at them. “Hi, Mongrel!”
“Not Mongrel,” the latter replied. With his Knockoff Elixirs out of his system, the former Psycho looked healthy and most importantly, sane again. “It’s Jerome now. I don’t wanna have a supervillain nickname ever again.”
“You should still pick one,” Ryan said. “We’ll need you to improve our cure, and maybe even help us with weapons in hand.”
The former Mongrel shrugged. “Look, I owe you guys a life debt, and I’ll pay it back. But once it’s done, I never want to have anything to do with Elixirs or fight for the rest of my life. Years as a savage animal make you appreciate a normal nine-to-five existence like nothing else.”
“You… you freed me from a long nightmare. Cured me, and gave me my life back.” Helen bowed to Ryan deeply. “If I can do anything to help… I will do it. Even if it means picking up arms again.”
“Yeah, none of us are finks here,” Bianca said. “Even Frank feels he owes you one… that, and he’s eager to burn down the establishment.”
Ryan glanced at the last member of the group as he walked inside the restaurant. Though he was no longer the colossus he had once been, the man was still over two meters tall, and slightly balding. His middle-aged face reminded Ryan of Marshal Zhukov, tough and blunt, but also someone you could have a good time fishing with. His grey parka and heavy boots made him look for a soldier ready to go to war.
“My name is not Frank,” the giant replied with a heavy Russian accent. “My name is Vladimir. Or Vlad, like the impaler.”
“Whatever you say,” Bianca replied, before moving on to the buffet. Helen hurriedly followed after her, while Jerome asked the waiters about the nearest toilets. “I never knew I would say that, but I liked you more as an American.”
Ryan agreed. Frank had been a true patriot, enthusiastic, loyal, amusing… while his real self...
“It was capitalist brainwashing,” Vlad the Mad replied. “They know they cannot stop the revolution, so they infect the workers’ minds with microchips and polluted ideas.”
His real self was a total killjoy.
Worse, Len immediately recognized a kindred spirit. “Are you a Marxist-Leninist?” she asked hopefully.
Vlad the Mad’s eyes lit up in enthusiasm, and he immediately sat right next to Shortie. Thankfully, the tables were meant for six and could accommodate the giant just fine. “I am a Trotskyist,” he said with pride. “Only through permanent revolution can the workers of the world achieve equality for all!”
“I thought the communists were almost extinct?” Timmy asked naively.
“No, you would fit right in,” Ryan said. “But only in Panda form.”
“You think equality is something to joke about?” Vlad squinted at Ryan. “You think neoliberal oppression is funny?”
Ryan sighed. That one took everything seriously, and didn’t have a humorous bone in his body. “No, no, I’m all for protecting endangered species, even Marxists.”
“Comrade Lenin may be dead, but his ideas live on,” Vlad the Mad replied with passion.
Ryan would rather like it the other way around, but Len was so overjoyed to meet another commie that she started grilling him about political theory. “Do you think universal equality can still be achieved in a neo-capitalist world like this one?”
“Of course!” Vlad replied, while Helen teleported his empty plate and replaced it with one full of beef. With the Psycho treatment having separated her two powers, the former Acid Rain could switch the position of items of near-equivalent mass, including herself. “The workers of the world have never been more oppressed! The only thing they lack to take back the means of production, is awareness of their own strength!”
As he watched Len grin, Ryan had the feeling that these two would become BFFs in no time. He wondered if he had created a monster. “I prefer social democracy,” the Panda tried to meekly participate in the debate.
Vlad the Mad’s answer was the acme of subtlety. “And that is why this country is BLEEPed!”
The next batch of newcomers arrived. “This is a waste of my valuable time!” Alchemo complained crankily as he stepped into the restaurant, his daughter and a toaster on wheels following. “I do not need solid food!”
“Dad, it’s not the food that matters, but the company,” the Doll insisted, before greeting everyone. “Hi!”
Meanwhile, Toasty wasted no time bothering Helen and Bianca. The toaster on wheels rolled all the way to the buffet, to Acid Rain’s confusion. “Hey, beauties, do you want your blinis toasted…” it asked. “Or raw?”
“Is… is that toaster talking?” Helen asked Bianca, who shrugged before buttering a blini with low-quality caviar.
The last group arrived afterward, keeping the best for last. Mathias walked into the restaurant with his dazzlingly golden girlfriend holding his arm, while Livia and Felix exchanged words behind them. Ryan observed his girlfriend from head to toe, recognizing her clothes as the black coat she loved so much. Discreet, yet elegant.
“Lovely,” he said when Livia returned his gaze.
“You’re not so unfortunate yourself,” she replied with a wink, before glancing at Fortuna. “Do you mind if I take my knight aside for a moment?”
“It’s fine, Livy,” her best friend replied, before putting one arm around her boyfriend’s, and another around her brother’s. “These gentlemen will keep me company.”
“The things I do for family,” Felix grumbled, though his heart wasn’t in it.
“You’re anticipating a bit too much on that front,” Mathias said.
“No, he isn’t,” Fortuna insisted with a blissful gaze, before dragging them aside to their own table.
Ryan abandoned his own group to settle with Livia near a window. Their table was meant for two and isolated from the rest, and provided a cozy kind of intimacy. Livia nodded at a waiter, and a familiar tune started playing in the restaurant.
“Why are they playing the Rains of Castamere?” Ryan asked, upon recognizing the music.
“Because Mathias still half suspects me of treachery, and will recognize the reference,” Livia said, glancing at the vigilante. Though Mathias sat with his girlfriend and Felix, he often glanced at Ryan’s table. Jerome’s return from the toilets quickly distracted him though, as an unusually kind Fortuna invited him to join their group. “I like to make him squirm.”
“You are a cruel, wicked woman,” the courier accused his girlfriend.
“Would you rather that I disguise myself as a hockey killer and ambush him?” She asked, as a waiter gave them a glass of vodka each. “I’m surprised you didn’t assault Luigi yet.”
“I made him pay for his slight against me tenfold already,” Ryan replied while sipping his glass. “I’m not that vengeful, especially on a potential Perfect Run.”
“Good.” Livia glanced through the window, and at the parked cars outside. Ryan’s was the most dashing of the lot, though his girlfriend’s Ferrari gave the Plymouth Fury a run for its money. “Is everyone else here?”
“Only Dr. Stitch, and he chose to work on the Bloodstream vaccine plague rather than join us,” Ryan said. “Sunshine and co are destroying Mechron’s remaining bases as we speak. They’ll sit this one out, at least for now.”
“Good. If my father catches wind of their presence in the city, it will mean war.”
Ryan frowned. “How are things going on that front?”
“Geist’s demise woke my father up from his inaction.” Livia played with her glass, her expression darkening. “He suspects the Meta-Gang. From his point of view, he hasn’t heard of their activities in a few days, right as Geist mysteriously vanishes. Obviously, he suspects a connection. He has heavily reinforced security around Ischia Island, and authorized Vulcan’s plans to take back Rust Town… at least so far.”
“So far?”
“Wyvern made a surprise visit to Vulcan early tonight, and she left the foundry both alive and unharmed. My father hasn’t been informed yet, but once he is, he will grow suspicious of Vulcan’s allegiances.” Livia glanced at her boyfriend with a quizzical eyebrow. “What did you say to Wyvern?”
“How to patch up with an old friend,” Ryan replied with a sigh. “I owed that to Jasmine.”
Livia smiled, and for once the courier didn’t detect any hint of jealousy in his girlfriend’s expression. “I understand.”
“Do you think it will work?” the courier asked. He was glad that Dragon Mom listened to his advice, but it took New Rome’s destruction by an orbital satellite for Jasmine and her to reconcile.
“I give Vulcan a fifty-fifty percent chance to take Wyvern on her olive branch, and I will make sure to warn her if my father issues a kill order. She will make it out alive, whatever the case.”
“Thanks,” Ryan said. His fingers brushed softly against Livia’s, to her joy. “Is it alright to come here though? Your daddy is in a paranoid phase.”
“He is, but I mollified him somewhat when I brought Psyshock to Cancel. Officially, I’m meeting with Genome mercenaries to help us take down the Meta-Gang.” She winked at him. “Dad is too happy that I am taking my future role of leader seriously to look too much into my activities.”
“Damn it, I should have asked to be paid in advance,” Ryan said. “That was a missed opportunity.”
“Whatever happens to Vulcan, my family will occupy Rust Town again soon, and this time they will examine the area thoroughly.” Livia sighed. “There’s a strong possibility they might discover the bunker, even if we condemn the entrances.”
“So we’ll have to destroy it.” Ryan had expected as much. “Take what we can, and blow up the rest.”
“It’s better that way,” his girlfriend replied. “Things like the Bahamut orbital laser and robot armies will only lead to disaster.”
“Truth be told, I’m not sure what to do about Mechron’s Knockoff production process,” Ryan confessed. “I considered offering Dynamis the necessary technology, but not until after Greenhand is fully in charge. Unless...”
“Unless?”
“Unless you’re putting your veto?”
“I might.” She joined her hands and looked at the night sky beyond the window. “If all goes well for us, my father will be ousted from power, as will Hector and Alphonse Manada. At which point, both my family’s empire and Dynamis will be weakened. After reforming both, I intend to propose a merger to Enrique Manada.”
Ryan raised an eyebrow. “You want to form a new government?”
“The New European Republic,” Livia said with a foxy grin. “How does that sound?”
“The fearsome NER?” The time-traveler chuckled. “I think it’s already taken.”
“In the old world, not the new,” Livia defended her choice. “And you’re going to be part of it.”
“Moi?”
“What?” She laughed at his confusion. “You always joked about becoming a president. Don’t you want to become the Albert to my Victoria?”
Ryan chuckled while finishing his Vodka. “When did you upgrade from princess to queen?”
“When you called me Queen Crimson,” she said before giving him a dirty gaze. “You’ll look good with a tie on.”
“Only if you wear a matching suit.”
“Red and black,” she replied, before finishing her own vodka. “Mechron’s Knockoff technology could help this newborn nation, or it might create more tensions in Europe. I’ll need to examine the future in-depth after we prevail, to see how it will go.”
Ryan’s expression deflated. “If we prevail.”
“Even if we don’t, now that you have saved, we will remember everything. We can try again.” She expected to say something, but grew suspicious when he remained silent. “Ryan, what are you hiding from me?”
The courier sighed. “I’m having performance issues.”
“With your power?” Livia’s eyes widened. “You couldn’t save.”
“No. My Elixir, or maybe the Violet Ultimate One itself, won’t let me. I don't know why.”
“Is it about your other power? The one you used to kill Geist across multiple timelines?” Livia took his hands into her own, her steely gaze demanding answers. “Ryan, don’t you think it’s about time you tell me?”
Ryan sighed, and told her everything. He gave her the details of his expedition in the Black World, about how his power’s inner workings, and how it interfered with the space-time continuum. The more he spoke, the more she scowled… Although to his surprise, Livia didn’t appear worried.
“The Elixirs and Ultimate Ones grant us our wishes,” she said with a sad frown. “What did you ask for to get a power like this?”
Ryan answered bluntly, “I wanted to die.”
His girlfriend bristled, but her sorrow quickly turned into hope. “You wanted to die, past tense,” she said. “Now you want to live.”
Sharp.
“I had lost too much, with little to fight for anymore.” Ryan glanced at the people around him. By now, Len was smiling while the Panda and Vlad the Mad exchanged pleasantries, all red on vodka. The Doll managed to make Alchemo relax a bit, while Helen grew more at ease as Toasty’s terrible flirting attempts alleviated her mood. Bianca soon joined their table with a plate full of food, while Jerome toasted glasses with Mathias, Fortuna, and Felix. “That’s not the case anymore.”
Livia beamed with happiness. “You gathered all these people, Ryan,” she said, her gaze lingering on the former Psychos among them. “In some cases, you saved their lives, in more ways than one. They’re here for you… with you.”
“You most of all,” Ryan said.
She blushed and beamed with joy like a sunflower, warming the time traveler’s heart. “This is why I’m not so worried about the Ultimate One’s plans for you,” Livia declared. “If it weren’t for its influence, we wouldn’t have met each other. If it encourages you to see this loop through to the end, even without saving, then it means it has something in store for you.”
Unfortunately, a doubt quickly gnawed at her heart. “But if everything you destroy with that power stays destroyed…” she trailed off. “If you kill Father…”
“I won’t,” Ryan said. “I swear. I might imprison him, but I won’t slay him.”
Livia examined him carefully, before nodding to herself. “Alright.”
“That’s all?”
“I trust you, my prince. It’s as simple as that. You always fulfilled your promises, and I know you will follow through with that one.” Her expression twisted into a frown. “Could your power cut out the tumor?”
“Maybe,” Ryan said, though he had no intention of saving Lightning Butt from himself. “Or I might accidentally give him a wound he will never recover from. I’m sorry..”
Livia nodded to herself, but didn’t insist. She had already made peace with the fact her father's days were numbered, largely by his own fault.
“I’m already asking a lot from everyone to spare my father, especially after all he has done,” she admitted. “Ordering his victims to help cure him would be greedy. Bruno Costa could have saved him, and he blew that chance anyway. Now, he won’t even let his daughter Narcinia out of that cursed island.”
“What additional defenders can we expect?”
“Mars and Vulcan, for a start,” Livia answered. “Aunt Pluto and the Killer Seven have orders to reinforce the factory at the first sound of an alarm.”
Ryan crossed his arms. Almost all of these people needed to go for the Augusti to reform, Bacchus included. “This could actually work in our favor.”
“I thought the same,” his girlfriend replied. “I could pull strings to have Mercury added to the security detail while sending Uncle Neptune away. With so many Olympians gathered in one area, we could cut the rot from the family. Venus, we can capture easily.”
“The old Mercury?” Ryan asked in confusion. “Isn’t he retiring?”
“He will only do so if he feels the organization’s power is secure,” Livia explained. “That man was in the Camorra even before my father took it over and transformed it into the Augusti. He dedicated his life to this organization, and he won’t let it fall without a fight.”
In that case, the purge would leave only people like Neptune, who wanted to go legit, and Augustus himself. Still, Ryan could tell that his girlfriend worried that the raid might go wrong. Ending the battle with little to no casualties would be a trial.
“I have a surprise for you,” the courier said. “Something that will cheer you up.”
“Truly?” She squinted at him. “I haven’t been able to guess what.”
“Because I built it in a thin place, so you wouldn’t notice.”
“Built it?”
Ryan magically pulled blueprints from under his shirt, and showed them to his girlfriend.
The plan detailed a power armor, based on the Saturn model. That suit was leaner though, and adapted to a female wielder. Its plates were red as blood, its visor black as night, and a white spider symbol was painted on the chest. Most important of all, this model had traded the ear-like antennae for eight telescopic tentacles of reinforced steel.
“Queen Crimson, I present to you the Opis armor.” Ryan smiled as Livia gasped in shock. “Tailor-made for you.”
“Ryan, I can’t wear this,” she said, while covering her mouth with her hands. “If the others identify my powers on the Bliss Raid—”
“I wasn’t thinking about Bliss Island,” Ryan said softly. “How about we fight nuclear-proliferation together?”
Livia’s eyes widened, as her fingers moved to seize the schematics and examine them closely. She gawked at the smooth helmet, at the elegant metal tentacles that would make any Japanese schoolgirl squeal, at the dashing spider symbol on the chest...
“I love it,” Livia said, blushing. “Why a spider theme though?”
“It uses an extra-arm and drone system too difficult for most pilots to master… unless they can see the future. Besides, you’re scheming and sensible like a spider.”
His lovely princess pouted. “You make me sound like an evil mastermind.”
“Evil…” He approached his head closer to her own to whisper in her ear. “Or misunderstood?”
She giggled. “You’re an angel, Ryan,” his girlfriend said before kissing him on the cheek. “Which is why I brought a surprise for you too.”
“You did?” Ryan asked, suddenly excited. “It’s not even my eighth-hundred and eighty-sixth birthday yet.”
“It’s on the roof. You’ll love it.”
He did.
His girlfriend dragged him to the restaurant’s roof, where she had had a fascinating device installed behind the neon lights: a three-meters tall rocket, orange like an apple and rugged like a tank. A skeletal Psycho could be seen screaming behind the porthole, his voice muffled by the steel, his powers suppressed by a powerful heater.
Ghoul had been a sociopathic killer before becoming a Psycho according to Ryan’s research, and Livia predicted that he would keep murdering people even if cured. Though several other captive members of the Meta-Gang were monsters even with a cure and would need to be imprisoned for the good of everyone else, the bag of bones was by far the worst of them. The others might be cured, tried, and maybe even rehabilitated after a lengthy period of imprisonment; but Ghoul would never change.
The courier had jokingly suggested exiling his undead chew toy to space as an alternative to destroying him with his Black Power, but he would never have imagined that Livia would take him seriously.
“According to Vulcan, this rocket can go all the way to Pluto,” Livia explained.
“The planet, or the Genome?” Ryan asked innocently, marveling at this gift like a child before a new Playstation.
“Whichever you want. Also, Pluto is a dwarf planet now.”
“You don’t diss Pluto in my presence, princess.” Ryan’s fingers brushed against the rocket, basking in the rough feeling of steel and the smell of oil. Vulcan even added a string fuse to the reactor, like a petard! “How did she build something so beautiful in a few days?”
“She didn’t,” Livia gave him a sheepish smile. “I cheated a bit. She actually built it a year ago as a prison for Wyvern, but gave up on the idea when she realized that Wyvern would break out of it. I just asked her to add a few modifications, and gave her the data needed to improve the prototype.”
Ryan squinted in disbelief. “She wanted to send Wyvern to Pluto?”
Livia closed her eyes and nodded.
Strange minds thought alike.
“Still good,” Ryan said, deeply moved. “You shouldn’t have. You really shouldn’t have.”
“But I did.” Livia offered him a lighter. “Wanna do it together?”
“Sure,” he replied before taking her hands into his own. “I’ll let you pick the destination. Pluto? Venus? The Sun?”
Livia gave it some thought. “In orbit around the Earth, in case we ever need him to bring him back.”
“What, really?
“Ryan, he’s also immortal,” Livia giggled. “Sending him to Pluto would be really cruel. Maybe gazing at the Earth for a few decades will reform him.”
Ryan had his doubts, but indulged his girlfriend all the same.
And so, they romantically lit the fuse together. Ghoul screamed and panicked as the flames progressed closer to the reactor. “Is it safe from this distance?” Ryan asked, suddenly realizing standing on the same roof might prove dangerous. “And the others are right below—”
“Shush,” his girlfriend said gently. “It’s okay.”
Oh, alright, if she said so…
“What did you call it?” Ryan asked, as the fuse reached the reactor.
“SpaceZ,” Livia replied.
The reactor activated, but to Ryan’s surprise, no flame came out. Instead, the rocket suddenly jerked upward without a sound, not even shaking the roof below it. The device flew into the air silently, a faint Red Flux glow shining below the reactor.
An anti-gravity effect?
The courier would have preferred a big fiery explosion, but he waved his favorite undead astronaut goodbye all the same.
And so, Ryan and Livia hugged while Ghoul vanished in the skies to restart space exploration.
Both knew it might be their last moment of peace before a series of harsh trials to come. They would have to destroy Lab Sixty-Six, follow up with the Bliss Factory in quick succession before the Augusti could mobilize, and finally topping off the spree with Mob Zeus himself.
From now on, they would have to run the gauntlet.
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