“Do you want to be my friend?”
The plushie’s words echoed in the corridor, while Ryan found himself trapped between two monsters. On one side was a ruthless abomination against nature, and on the other, Frank the Mad. Psyshock remained in the background, carefully waiting for an opportunity.
The plushie and Frank locked gazes, two apex predators recognizing each other. The tension grew palpable, the rabbit throwing Pale Guy’s scalp away while Frank adopted a krav maga figh...
2020-11-21 09:03:21 +0000 UTC
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Six.
Ryan counted six future victims in the atrium as he opened fire, Sarin included. Some took cover, while others immediately charged at him. All were Psychos, and soon, they would be dead.
One was a featureless woman made of black ink, with a rather sexy silhouette. Bullets phased through her easily, although the attack’s savagery had briefly stunned her. Another was a deathly pale guy without any hair, wearing only black pants; while looking sickly, he had the muscles of an ...
2020-11-19 10:17:26 +0000 UTC
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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-m...
2020-11-17 09:24:56 +0000 UTC
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- Years ago, the region of Campania, Italy, December 2008
Julie Costa tended to her garden, hastening the growth of its wheat.
As a green aura flowed through the plant, it bore purple yields, full of nutrients. She had spent weeks tuning the exact ratio of protein, improving its resistance to cold, and increasing the plant’s ability to remove pollutants from soil.
Julie’s Green power activated whenever she touched a living being, allowing her to intuit...
2020-11-14 10:38:09 +0000 UTC
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Ryan thought his life was a role-playing game.
“Kill them all!” a druggie shouted from atop a roof, hitting Ryan’s car with a submachine gun, the bullets unable to pierce the shielding. Everywhere, the courier heard the sound of bullets flying. “Kill them all!”
But somewhere along the line, it had turned into a FPS!
Hiding behind his car with an earplug in his right ear, Ryan reloaded his pistol while mourning the Plymouth Fury’s paint job; at his side, Fortuna f...
2020-11-12 12:08:06 +0000 UTC
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Vulcan’s workshop echoed with the sound of welding, while Ryan reviewed an armor sketch, ass on a chair and legs on the workbench.
Ryan’s job as Vulcan’s assistant turned out to be more desk work than anything exciting like target practice. She handed him designs for new armor, guns, or vehicles, and then asked him to review and improve on them.
As he examined her sketches, the courier realized that Vulcan’s Genius power was probably ‘weapon creation.’ All her...
2020-11-10 12:59:10 +0000 UTC
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It was a bright new day in New Rome.
The sun was rising. Bullets were flying. Rats were singing.
Standing at the balcony of Jamie’s apartment in casual clothes, a coffee mug in his right hand, Ryan glanced at the rodents occupying the area. Ki-jung's rats seemed to be doing some stretching exercises while dawn rose beyond the horizon, showing incredible levels of flexibility. They were cute, for enormous mutant rodents.
But Ryan was a cat person at heart, and he was in a f...
2020-11-07 12:21:35 +0000 UTC
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Covers by Vitaly S. Alexius (Romantically Apocalyptic). Check out his work, it's amazing!
2020-11-05 15:17:10 +0000 UTC
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When Vulcan said she had a second spot in her cockpit, Ryan thought he would have his own baby seat at the back. But as it turned out, the Genius was more fond of motorcycle designs than cars.
“People are gonna talk,” Ryan said, holding Vulcan by the waist with his chest against her back as the mech accelerated. The crazy woman had designed her cockpit like a motorbike, with screens and computer interfaces at the front. The bench seat did allow for two people inside, but Ryan had to...
2020-11-05 09:41:14 +0000 UTC
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Election time! Nah, just kidding. Time to choose November's Past Fragment interlude.
1) Urban Guerrilla (Wyvern & Vulcan)
Before they became bitter enemies, the hero Wyvern and the villain Vulcan used to be an unbreakable team, sworn to defend the innocents. People looked up to them, and Dynamis considered them their best assets. This is how it all went wrong.
2) The Crimes of Augustus (Augustus)
...
2020-11-04 10:29:51 +0000 UTC
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And so, Vulcan’s biblical judgment was passed upon the heathens at Dynamis. Wyvern’s movie ended in rats and pestilence, like the previous Augusti loop.
It saddened Ryan to ruin Atom Cat’s first movie appearance, especially after befriending him earlier. His adorable feline sidekick hated these commercial ventures though, so no harm done. They would make up later.
When the Made Men returned to the house in his beautiful car, the courier almost expected Shroud to blow up the ...
2020-11-03 13:25:46 +0000 UTC
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A/N: from my nightmares to your eyes.
--------------------------------
I was driving when it happened.
I had just returned from abroad back to my home country of France, in time for Halloween. What should have been a normal vacation trip to Brazil ended up lasting months, thanks to our dear friend Covid-19.
Since it looked like France might quarantine itself again sooon, I had decided to visit my elderly grandparents while I sti...
2020-10-31 22:08:11 +0000 UTC
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All was well so far on the Augusti Path.
Ryan had met Zanbato as expected, beat up Sarin at the harbor, and now repeated the exact same conversation which would lead him to crash at Jamie’s house. All was well and good, to the sound of crashing waves against the piers...
“I have to be sure about something,” Luigi asked the courier. “Are you a snitch or a double agent?”
“Well, I’m not really on anyone’s side,” Ryan replied, but then his mouth acted on its ow...
2020-10-31 11:05:54 +0000 UTC
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Len Sabino woke up on a mattress, the room cold, and chill. Water leaked from the wood ceiling, rain hitting the window. Thunder echoed in the distance, the storm getting closer. In spite of the noise, Ryan was soundly asleep next to her, snoring almost as loud as the lightning.
“Hey, Riri, you’re sleeping?” she whispered, but the boy didn’t offer any response. Ryan was kind of cute when he slept, and completely in denial about the snor...
2020-10-29 11:58:16 +0000 UTC
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What a bright day. As Ryan drove towards the ship graveyard and Shroud’s warehouse, he felt utterly happy with himself. The courier had the intuition that everything would turn out well for him this time around.
“I feel like you’re my lucky charm, my friend,” Ryan told Ghoul. “Like a rabbit’s foot, or a four-leaf clover. I should have kept you ages ago.”
The Psycho’s bodiless skull glared at him, hung on the rear mirror by a rope.
Surprisingly, it had cost Ry...
2020-10-27 10:04:00 +0000 UTC
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Ryan dived towards the servers, dodging flailing wires while the glass windows shattered around him. Outside, someone had opened fire on the garage, bullets piercing through the walls and damaging the computers inside.
“If it’s the paparazzi,” the courier complained, raising his coil gun at the ceiling, “here’s my autograph!”
He opened fire, projectiles going through the roof while glass shards formed flying walls to cover the holes in the ceiling. However, the acid ra...
2020-10-24 10:39:34 +0000 UTC
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“It can’t be them.”
Ryan searched inside his car’s trunk, finally putting his hands on his secret weapons: his coil gun, and a bag of flour. “What do you know of Leo Hargraves’ Carnival, my feline friend?”
“That they’re wandering heroes fighting marauders, warlords, dangerous Genomes, and Psychos,” Atom Cat replied, his back against the car. “They help communities pro bono, then move on. They’re modern knight errant, not assassins.”
“That’s true...
2020-10-22 10:55:57 +0000 UTC
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Ryan hated hospital rooms. Even if useful for sanitization purposes, the constant whiteness made him feel sick and isolated.
Hours had gone by since the orphanage battle, its occupants evacuated by Dynamis and moved to one of the company’s hospitals. Psyshock’s victim had been put in an artificial slumber, laying on a warm bed with a respirator and brain scanning devices near her. Wyvern stood near the window, clearly struggling against the urge to sleep.
“Will she be okay?...
2020-10-20 11:03:42 +0000 UTC
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Ryan had been shot at more times than he could count.
Unlike Psychos or special cases like Augustus, all of the courier’s abilities, from his save point to the time stop, derived from a single unifying power. It was only through training and experimentation that Ryan discovered its multiple applications. In particular, it took him years of looping to realize he had an enhanced sense of timing.
The more he experienced a situation, the better Ryan became at predicting and...
2020-10-17 11:05:05 +0000 UTC
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No matter how many times he would visit it, Ryan would never get used to Rust Town. The whole place reeked of misery and despair.
Atom Cat seemed to share his sentiment, as both drove through the slums with the Plymouth's windows closed and the air cleaner on. “It’s even worse than I thought,” he said, looking at a streetlight hanging by its cable, threatening to fall on the road at any moment. “Way worse.”
“You never went mice hunting here?”
“No, my family l...
2020-10-15 10:52:01 +0000 UTC
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It was bound to happen, the Perfect Run submission has been reviewed and posted on Royal Road. The Perfect Run is thus now freely available for everyone!
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/36735/the-perfect-run
The chapter posting schedule will be Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday, so the second chapter will be posted tomorrow. I'm still waiting for my artists to send me covers, so the cur...
2020-10-14 19:39:56 +0000 UTC
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Hell existed, and it was a corporate seminar.
Ryan had thought his first day on the job as a Little League member would involve superhero training, maybe a routine patrol with Wyvern. Something practical. Instead, the courier received an assignment to a boring, weeks-long corporate internship.
He simply had to look at the day’s planning to wish for a restart. Coffee breakfast, first meeting—with half an hour delay because of the aforementioned coffee break—then lunch, then s...
2020-10-13 10:27:44 +0000 UTC
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Never Die Twice was sponsored by you.
-------------------------------------
Ragnarok had been prevented.
As he sat on his throne, in the golden halls of Valhalla, Odin didn’t know how to feel about this. His body ached in pain from Surtr’s flames, half his body forever burned, his skinless flesh festering with wounds. The words of Princess Gwenhyfar had hurt his pride, woken up the old warrior long overcome by his fear of...
2020-10-10 12:15:58 +0000 UTC
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Il Migliore’s HQ, the Optimates Tower, was the most luxurious place Ryan had ever seen.
Most of Dynamis’ properties were located northeast of the city, on the far opposite of Rust Town. Unlike its neighbor though, this district catered to the supreme elite of New Rome. Il Migliore’s tower was a seventy floors tall building, half penthouse skyscraper, half luxury hotel. The lower portion was bulkier than the top, housing gardens, pool balconies, and even helipad areas, while the up...
2020-10-10 12:15:20 +0000 UTC
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“This is stupid!”
“Lanka…” Jamie trailed off at the back of the car. “Calm down.”
Ryan listened to their bickering while peeking through his car’s window. Dynamis’ Star Studios—which won a prize for name originality—spanned roughly two and a half square kilometers of surface, located east of the city. They had an entire open park dedicated to them and roughly seven warehouses. From afar, Ryan noticed the staff moving cardboard cutouts, inter...
2020-10-08 10:48:13 +0000 UTC
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Chapter sponsored by you.
--------------------------------------------
The moment of truth had come.
For eons, Asclepius, Grandmaster of the Pale Serpents, had toiled to reach this stage. He had served under his god as high priest of Nastrond, having been raised since birth to serve the eternal dragon, Lord Nidhogg. His devotion, sharpened over centuries, had never wavered; the lich had sacrificed countless on his master’s altar, delv...
2020-10-06 13:10:32 +0000 UTC
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It had been a while since Ryan drove a group in his Plymouth Fury.
He often transported one or two people, especially when on a bender or working as a getaway driver, but rarely a group like this one. Jamie wore his power armor in the back, while Ki-jung dressed with a green hoodie at his side. Her rats had taken over every corner of the car, hiding behind and beneath the seats.
Unfortunately, Lanka complained all the way at the front. “You cheated, blabbermouth,” she ac...
2020-10-06 13:10:25 +0000 UTC
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Chapter sponsored by you.
------------------------------------
A dance of dragons.
Few of these creatures could fly, but when they did, they often danced in the skies; which was a pretty way to say they fought to the death. For territory, for mating, for gold. They fought with claws and flames, devastating the countryside until a single victor remained.
Tye never imagined it would happen to him though; that he would become a ...
2020-10-03 10:47:02 +0000 UTC
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It was May 8th 2020 for the fifth time, and Ghoul once again had a car accident.
As he climbed down from his Plymouth Fury after hitting his favored undead maniac, Ryan took the time to look at his beautiful partner. The car he had rebuilt from the husk he had found in the ruins of Florence, all by himself; over the years, Ryan had customized it into a marvel of technology that would make most Geniuses envious. The courier had drifted for years at the driver’s seat, survived countless...
2020-10-03 10:46:56 +0000 UTC
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2016, Venezia, Italy.
They once called it the city of canals. They said it was the most beautiful city in the world, with tourists all the way from China coming to visit it.
That was before the Wars.
More than a decade later, Venezia had become an open grave, a poisonous marsh whose canals overflowed with toxic plants and dark mud. Some islands had sunk, their supports destroyed by Mechron's bombardments. Most houses had fallen ...
2020-10-01 10:41:06 +0000 UTC
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