The Perfect Run: Bad Runs - Clockstopper: What if Ryan had become a Psycho?
Mortals say that time is a river. In truth, it is a garden.
From a single seed grows a tree with a thousand branches, each of them bearing rich fruits full of possibilities.
A man says yes. A man says no. A man does not say anything.
All these possibilities coexist, each of them leading to a different result. As the observer of reality, it is I who decides which history will be the truth; and which of them must be erased for the garden to survive.
I am the Ultimate One.
I am the architect of causality, the overseer of all time and space. I pruned countless possibilities across the eons, and they now only exist in my memory.
I will be your guide through these aborted realities. These worlds that could have been, these roads not taken. Some of these fruits could have been acceptable histories… and some were rotten to the core.
You have already witnessed the true history written by my observer, Ryan Romano. You have witnessed the perfect ending.
You shall now bear witness to the darkest, most terrible outcome.
It is in the nature of man to reach out for the sun and burn their wings if they fly too close. In the true history, Ryan Romano wisely resisted the lure of a second power. He had seen what this greed had done to his adoptive father, and refused to take another Elixir.
But in another extinguished possibility, his desire to save someone else led him to eating the forbidden fruit. Mortals say the path to Hell is paved with good intentions; and they are often right. For from the ashes of Ryan Romano, a demon born of time arose.
The Clockstopper.
| What if Ryan Romano had become a Psycho? |
It was May 8th, 2021, and Ghoul began the day the same way he always did: with murder.
He already liked killing even before he drank his Elixirs, and now that he had lost all flesh as a side-effect of his immortality, that was one of his few remaining pleasures. His body always felt cold, but he sensed something warm inside him whenever he watched the light die in someone’s eyes. Death was the ultimate thrill, only behind the feeling of the Elixir juice merging with his bones.
That was why he volunteered when Psyshock ordered the hit. While Adam wanted all the heavy hitters to help with clearing the bunker, Ghoul didn’t feel anything while scrapping robots. It wasn’t about breaking stuff.
It was about power.
And as he stood in the middle of the Jolie Wrangler bar, watching the barman bleed to death on the counter from an icicle to the throat, Ghoul felt stronger than ever. A wench was screaming in a corner with her boyfriend paralyzed by fear, while the clients cowered behind their tables.
The terror, the mayhem, the feeling of invincibility… he loved it so much.
“What’s wrong, my pretty?” Ghoul asked as he turned at a couple clinging to each other in a corner. “Why aren’t you running, huh? Or you want to pick a fight with me?”
Her boyfriend, some pretty boy who had purchased a minor telekinesis power for a nickel, started to choke in sheer fear. “Agh…” he gargled, his skin white as chalk and a brown spot appearing between his legs. “Agh…”
Oh, he was pissing himself! That was a new reaction. Usually they screamed or occasionally tried to fight back. Since he liked the man’s expression, Ghoul raised his hand and prepared to freeze his victim in place so he could watch it forever. He would cradle his girlfriend in the ice forever. Poetic, in a way.
But then the woman stopped screaming too. Her eyes widened so much Ghoul wondered if they would fall off from her face, her teeth gritting so loudly that it made the Psycho sick. Tears of fear flowed down her cheeks…
“Oh, you’re crying?” Ghoul mocked her as he manifested a pickax of ice in his hand. The Private Security shouldn’t arrive before a few minutes, so he could afford taking his sweet time. “You think that’s gonna save you?”
The girl didn’t answer.
She didn’t even blink. Nor did her boyfriend. They didn’t move an inch nor made a sound. They just cradled each other in perfect stillness, which crept out Ghoul.
“Huh?” the Psycho muttered as he suddenly realized that the bar had become silent as a tomb. He couldn’t even hear the sound of traffic outside.
And the girl’s tears…
One of them was suspended in midair, unable to hit the ground. As if it were frozen in…
…
No.
It was him.
He was here, in New Rome.
The Meta-Gang had run all the way to this city to escape him, and it still hadn’t been enough!
They weren’t looking at me, Ghoul realized to his horror as he heard footsteps behind him. He’s here.
“What is this?” a childish voice asked behind the Psycho. “A cash-grab remake of Ghostbusters? What is it with Hollywood spitting on all the classics? Next you’re going to tell me they’ll make a new Star Wars!”
He had to escape now.
The Meta-Gang member unleashed his power in an attempt to blow freezing mist in all directions. It wouldn’t stop him, but maybe it would give Ghoul enough time to escape.
His time had already run out.
No mist erupted from Ghoul’s body, nor even a sound. His bones wouldn’t move, nor his eyes. He felt cold as he stared at the paralyzed couple before him.
“Oh, don’t worry, these were rhetorical questions. I didn’t really expect you to answer.” The bastard remained out of Ghoul’s sight, but he heard him check the counter. “Oh, you play darts with people too? I see we have a connoisseur here.”
I still think, Ghoul realized, his previous moxie replaced with dread as a terrible realization dawned on him. I can still think.
All this time, they had thought his victims were frozen in time with their minds shut down.
Some had been paralyzed for years.
“You know, I could never find a zombie for my collection. I tried to dress up corpses and skeletons but… I dunno, they lacked a certain je ne sais quoi?” He lurked at the edge of Ghoul’s gaze, a shadow in a corner of his vision. The trapped Psycho couldn’t turn his head to fully look at his attacker, nor answer. “Here I walked into this bar expecting to toy with NPCs, and I got a new trophy.”
A finger poked into Ghoul’s eye. A surge of pain raced through the few nerves he had left in his rotten, undead body; but he had no mouth left to snarl and scream.
“Why do you still have eyes? You’re a skeleton, why did you keep them? That’s really gross and an insult to undead etiquette.” The madman moved back to the counter. “I can’t add you to my collection in that state.”
When he returned, he had a spoon in his hand. The edges were as sharp as a razor.
“I guess I will have to take them out.”
I will do anything, the trapped Ghoul wanted to scream. He would sell out Adam, Psyshock, his gang, murder anyone! He wanted to offer this bastard the moon and beg on his knees, but his legs remained firmly in place.
“Come on, don’t look at me like that,” the madman giggled as the spoon approached Ghoul’s eye. “It’s not like you will need them…”
Adam knew something was terribly wrong before his phone rang.
Call it animal instinct or gut feeling, but he had felt terrible all day long. Being in Violet Genomes’ presence like dear Helen’s presence often triggered a similar unease… but it had never been so sharp. Like fire in his belly.
The moment he recognized the number, Adam realized his plans for New Rome had gone down the drain.
“Mr. Manada?” he asked as he picked up the phone. Hector Manada had explicitly forbidden direct communication between the two of them, and he was now calling Adam with his personal number. “What’s the matter?”
“Turn on the news,” the CEO replied on the other side.
Had Augustus decided to come down from his mountain? Or had Ghoul made a mess of himself? He should have returned by now. I knew I should have sent Sarin with him, Adam thought as he exited his room and moved to the bunker’s central hall. Once a mook, always a mook.
When he arrived in the hall, Adam found a dozen of his henchmen watching TV instead of standing guard. From Psyshock to Sarin, they were all as tense as rabbits having heard a fox sneaking up on them.
And as he glanced at the screen, Adam realized that this would be an apt metaphor for the current situation.
The news report showed an alley on the New Rome strip, with a damaged car frozen in midair and three paralyzed Private Security mooks raising their rifles at an invisible enemy. Their weapons’ lasers were floating in front of their barrels, stopped dead in their tracks before they could hit their target. Adam couldn’t hear himself think over the sound of alarm sirens.
“You’ve got to be kidding me…” Sarin whispered, her hands shaking.
“Adam,” Psyshock said, his metal tentacles as still as a statue. “That’s the Augusti front Ghoul was targeting.”
“Shit,” Mosquito said what everyone thought. “Shit, shit, shit!”
“I know,” Adam said as he focused back on his phone. “When did this happen?”
“Twenty minutes ago,” Hector Manada answered. “We haven’t located his position yet.”
Adam glanced at the info stream. ‘Clockstopper in New Rome: please retreat to the nearest shelter—’
“You said your Architect’s devices could keep him out,” the Meta-Gang’s leader reminded his ‘employer.’ “That the Chronodisrupters could disable his power. What went wrong?”
“I don’t know,” Hector Manada admitted, his voice laced with despair. “My Geniuses don’t understand what happened. They’re trying to figure a way out of this as we speak.”
Dynamis and the Augusti had wasted billions into Genius research, designing devices meant to prevent their shiny capital city from suffering the same fate as half of Europe’s landmarks. Even Adam had gotten this bunker excavation job with the promise that he could find a Mechron-made weapon capable of killing Clockstopper. He had found good tech alright, but nothing that could bring down a living time disaster.
And now, Judgment Day had come. Augustus and Dynamis might have made ‘peace,’ it wouldn’t save them from annihilation.
“We have already activated the Level Four security plan and are gathering an attack force to repel him. You will join it.”
We would have better luck fighting a hurricane, Adam thought. “Mr. Manada, with all due respect, you don’t pay us enough for this.”
“Then I will increase my bid. One billion euro to split between you, and a lifetime supply of Elixirs.” The CEO didn’t even haggle. He knew every second counted, even though he was probably in a helicopter evacuating the city. “Meet with us on the Strip.”
“It’s a bold offer, but even Hargraves couldn’t take him down,” Adam pointed out as some of his mooks looked at him for guidance. Even though they feared their leader, half of them would desert on the spot if he went along with Dynamis’ madness. “What hope do you have?”
The CEO waited a moment before answering. “We have secured Augustus’ help, and we have developed a weapon. It is untested, but it will defeat him. I am sure of it.”
Adam wasn’t. The Meta-Gang leader weighed his options, analyzed the odds, and then reached a decision. “We’re already on our way, sir,” he lied through his teeth before ending the call.
“Boss, you can’t be serious,” Mosquito said in shock. “You want us to fight him?”
“Are you talking back to the President of the United States?” Frank lambasted the Green Genome. “I knew you sounded Mexican.”
“You fool, we fled all the way to this place because we thought Augustus would scare him away!” The Reptilian complained. “If he still came, then even Augustus—”
“We aren’t fighting anyone.” Adam crushed the phone in the palm of his hand and stomped on the remains. “Well mates, it’s time to bail out of town. Pack your things, we’re taking the sub after collapsing the entrance.”
“Wait, we’re abandoning the bunker?” Sarin asked, shaking with rage. “But the cure—”
“You don’t get it, do you? He’s got range, Sarin. When he visited Copenhague, he snapped his fingers and paralyzed the whole city. Nidhogg, the Shining Knight, everyone who tried to defend the place were turned into statues.” From what Adam had heard, the birds and clouds were still frozen in the skies above the city. “Now, imagine if he does it here.”
Psyshock tensed up. “He could affect the bunker?”
Afraid of being frozen in time and unable to jump into another host, huh? Adam thought. How was it that he was the one dying of cellular degeneration while two of his henchmen got immortality? There was no fairness in this world.
“I ain’t gonna find out.” Adam would like to live forever like any sensible man, but spending eternity as a museum piece wasn’t part of his retirement plan. Besides, the bunker held maps of other Mechron bases across Europe. They could find the Bahamut satellite’s remote in one of them, if Clockstopper had left anything behind to destroy. “So pack your things. Anyone who isn’t in the sub in the next ten minutes will get marooned.”
This city was already fucked.
They had gathered a hundred Genomes for the assault, and Wyvern still thought it wouldn’t be enough.
I knew this day would come, she thought as she roosted atop a building on the New Rome Strip. The city’s liveliest avenue was silent as a grave. Hundreds of abandoned cars were parked all around the empty street, while the staff of the casinos, brothels, and bars had long deserted. The only movement came from the small army of Genome gathering around the Bakuto establishment. I lived in fear of it for years.
Wyvern knew this pagoda tower building as an Augusti bastion, but the armored guards protecting the entrance had all been turned into frozen statues. Dozens of civilians and would-be gamblers shared their terrible fate, having been trying to run away from the establishment when Clockstopper walked in.
“Urban Guerilla to Team D, is that fashion disaster still inside?” Jasmine asked through the communicators. Hearing her partner’s voice soothed Wyvern somewhat, even though their association was going through a rough patch. “I’ve got the building in my sight.”
Wyvern glanced at the skies and noticed Jasmine’s power mech flying above the Strip, a four-meters long, technologically advanced rifle in hands. The best Geniuses that euros could buy had helped design this weapon specifically for this reckoning.
Would it work? Wyvern prayed that it would work. She couldn’t help but glance at the dozen or so metal towers all around town, their tip surging with purple light. These Chronodisrupters had successfully interfered with the powers of time-controlling Violet Genomes like Reload. Their mere presence should have made it impossible for Clockstopper to freeze anything within the city’s limits.
Had all their efforts been for nothing?
Devilry was floating at Jasmine’s right with Dynamis’ secret Gravity Gun weapon as back-up. The person on which it had been built to work, Augustus, awaited close to Wyvern’s position.
“This is useless,” Augustus said with surprising defeatism. Even the so-called god kept his arms crossed, his eyes shrouded in crimson lightning. “A show.”
His behavior surprised Wyvern. Yesterday, when they met at the allied city council’s meeting, he was still as arrogant as ever; even boasting that Clockstopper would never dare to approach ‘his’ territory. Could the Psycho’s mere presence shake his confidence so much? Then again, Clockstopper did rob Augustus of his revenge against Hargraves…
“It has to work, Dad,” his daughter Minerva replied through the joint team’s common communicators. Though her powers worked erratically since Clockstopper came to town, she was still one of the best people left to coordinate the effort. In fact, Wyvern doubted their organizations could have stayed a united front all these years without her influence. “According to our data, he is immune to physical damage, but disrupting his stasis will make him vulnerable.”
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Clockstopper’s power had frozen his own body in time and space, turning it invulnerable. Augustus might be able to damage him in close-combat, but the reverse might also be true. Though Wyvern wouldn’t mind seeing her ‘ally’ perish for his countless crimes, Clockstopper was by far the greater threat out of the two.
The only reason this assault happened at all was that the Psycho hadn’t frozen the entire city already.
“Are you still blind, Minerva?” Wyvern asked while Augustus’ expression turned into the very picture of anguish. Something is wrong here…
“I still can’t predict much,” the seer admitted. “He is interfering with my power somehow.”
The nature of Clockstopper’s secondary power remained a complete mystery even four years after his first appearance. Whatever it was, it interfered with all the Blue Genomes in New Rome and communications. Enrique’s attempts to contact his brother in Sicily through phone and Dynanet had been met with failure. Wyvern could have flown back and forth to bring him with them, but there was little time to waste.
Unless stopped, Clockstopper could destroy all of New Rome any second… as he had wiped out the rest of Western Europe.
“What about Reload?” Wyvern asked. “Has he reappeared yet?”
“No, nor did Cancel,” Minerve answered. “Geist doesn’t answer either, which is strange.”
Strange indeed. Geist wouldn’t help since the ghost was trapped on an island, but Reload’s unexplained disappearance disturbed Wyvern. She had seen him well no sooner than yesterday. Considering his power’s potential interference with Clockstopper’s abilities and Cancel’s absence, Wyvern could only reach one conclusion.
Their enemy had ambushed them before making his presence known.
Did he think they were the only threats of the city worth taking out? Wyvern thought. They still had Pluto, Augustus, and other heavy hitters. Any of them on their own could be enough to take him down. But that’s probably what the Carnival thought too…
Clockstopper had roamed Europe for four years leaving only sorrow and destruction in his wake. A hundred heroes had tried to confront him and only he had walked away. All the progress civilization had made to recover since Last Easter had been slowly undone; the economy was crumbling, with waves of refugees fleeing east. Only those who had outrun the clock had survived.
Why would today be any different?
“Team A to Team D,” Enrique called through the communicators. Wyvern’s manager and boyfriend was leading the ground Genome army surrounding the building. From Zanbato to Apollo and Wardrobe, every Genome in the city that hadn’t deserted had been mobilized to participate. Even vigilantes like the Panda had joined the effort. “Do you have a visual?”
“Yes.” Wyvern recognized the voice as Mortimer, the shifty intangible assassin responsible for over fifty murder cases. “Chief Pluto and Diana are in position.”
“Is he playing a game?” the latter asked in disbelief. Wyvern hoped that her enhanced luck would act as their trump card.
“Space Invaders,” Mortimer replied.
Wyvern blinked a few times in confusion, while Enrique asked the tough question. “The arcade game?”
“Yes, the arcade game,” Mortimer confirmed. “From his foul-mouthed reactions, I think he’s losing.”
“It’s the only functioning Space Invaders arcade left in Italy as far as I know,” Minerva said.
Was that why the madman hadn’t frozen the city yet? Because his power risked paralyzing the arcade? Nobody knew if Clockstopper could unfreeze things stuck by his power. If he couldn’t, then it would explain why he hadn’t paralyzed all of New Rome already.
But did the Psycho attack an entire city full of Genomes over a video game?
Enrique sighed loudly on his end of the communicators, having reached the same conclusion. “Wardrobe is ready.”
“So are we,” Pluto replied from inside the building. Team D’s goal was to have Mortimer use his intangibility to get his boss as close as possible to Clockstopper undetected, in the hope that her instant-death power could affect him. Diana was present as support, alongside the other Killer Seven members. “I am approaching him.”
Wyvern glanced at the gathered troops. Wardrobe had dressed like Father Time for the occasion, her face hidden beneath a cloak while her hands carried an hourglass and scythe. This costume had allowed her to negate Reload’s abilities in the past, so they hoped that it would disrupt Clockstopper’s.
But if he could shrug off the Chronodisruptors, won’t he ignore her too? Wyvern wondered grimly as she prepared herself for what would probably be her last stand. I’ll die or worse… but at least I will have tried.
“Laura?”
“Jasmine?” Wyvern asked, surprised that her partner was addressing her personally.
“This is a private line,” she replied gruffly. “Why are you here? I know you don’t believe in my weapon.”
“No, I do not.” That was why their relationship had grown strained lately. “But as a hero, I have to convince myself that I am wrong. And as a friend, I must trust you.” ”
Her best friend and partner sighed on the other side of the line as tension spread through the air. Their forces on the ground prepared themselves for a tough fight. “There’s a chance out of ten thousand that my weapon works…” the weapon Genius admitted. “But same as you, I’ve got to lie to myself about the odds.”
“We’ve faced worse ones,” Wyvern tried to cheer her up.
“Yeah… yeah we did.” Jasmine chuckled, but there was no joy in it. “Want me to open a private line to your boyfriend? This might be the last time.”
“Sure.” The line switched, and Wyvern recognized a familiar voice on the other side. “Enrique?”
She watched her manager tense up on the ground. “Laura? Now is not the time—”
“It’s yes,” Wyvern interrupted him as she gathered her courage. “My answer is yes.”
Enrique marked a short pause before answering. “Thank you,” he said, the façade of the unflappable manager falling off to reveal the sensible man underneath. “This means the world to me.”
“But first, we must live through this.”
Enrique sighed. “That’s what I’m worried about.”
The Bakuto’s first floor exploded, as a thousand tiny projectiles shredded its walls and windows.
The building collapsed on itself, but the volley continued its course into the strip. “Get down!” Wyvern heard half a dozen people shout at once. Some like Enrique were fast enough to do so, tackling Wardrobe to the ground while at it.
Others were shredded apart in the blink of an eye. The Panda, Zanbato, Chitter, and countless others were instantly vaporized.
“He’s using dust!” Minerva warned them through the communicator. From the panic in her voice, the Killer Seven had catastrophically failed. “Team C, now!”
Augustus struck first and annihilated the Bakuto with a mighty thunderbolt. Wyvern joined in with a stream of fiery light while Jasmine assisted with missiles and Sphere with energy bubbles. Hundreds of different projectiles, from beams to bullets, rained down on the former casino. The resulting blast shattered all the glass and windows across the Strip, leveling the casino into a crater.
And Clockstopper walked out of the smoke unharmed.
The first thing that struck Wyvern was his size. He was so gaunt and small; probably no older than sixteen. His costume was a banal combination of black pants and a purple hoodie, with only his mask standing out. Clockstopper kept his face hidden beneath wrapped bandages, a broken clock symbol drawn on the surface. All in all, he looked more like a kid on an Halloween candy spree than a natural disaster.
But the lazy, nonchalant way he walked out of the destruction and into the devastated Strip was more chilling than any threat. He kept his hands in his pockets, his shoulders relaxed. Wyvern didn’t detect any tension or fear in his body posture.
Clockstopper was facing a hundred Genomes, and remained completely unfazed.
The ground force immediately rushed at him from all directions. Enrique’s plants shattered the road as they erupted around Clockstopper, while Apollo leaped into action followed by a dozen suicidal survivors.
“Felix, no!” Minerva shouted her boyfriend’s name through the radio. “Don’t!”
Apollo’s crimson hand came within an inch of Clockstopper’s mask.
And that was as far as it would ever get. The youngest of the Olympians was now frozen in time alongside the entire ground force. Clockstopper sidestepped to avoid Apollo as he continued walking among paralyzed plants and people.
Enrique was no longer moving, no more than Wardrobe.
Her power can’t counter his, Wyvern realized in horror. Except maybe Augustus, nobody had any protection.
The Augusti’s leader fell down to Earth to strike. Wyvern, just as enraged over Enrique’s fate, followed him while Devilry opened fire with the Gravity Gun.
This time, Clockstopper looked up at his attackers. The Gravity Gun’s projectile froze in midair like everything else, but both Augustus and Wyvern carried on. Clockstopper absentedly waved his hand at the two.
Wyvern immediately lost all feelings below the neck, as an unstoppable force cut through her flesh. The invisible attack continued afterward, cutting New Rome’s buildings and the clouds above them.
He froze air in time and space, Wyvern realized as her severed dragon head fell on the ground a few feet away from her killer while her body crashed among the Bakuto’s ruins. Her enhanced biology kept her fully conscious, allowing her to see Augustus punch Clockstopper in the face with enough strength to shatter diamond.
The Psycho didn’t even flinch.
After a few seconds where he seemed paralyzed too, Augustus took a few steps back and looked at his hand in silence. His fingers were intact, pristine as the purest ivory.
Two inviolate objects couldn’t harm one another.
“There was no strength in it, Lightning Cancer,” a voice that Wyvern didn’t recognize muttered. “Nor will for that matter. Have you finally given up, old man? After so many tries?”
Augustus didn’t answer. He lowered his hands and looked down, the crimson lightning around his head vanishing to reveal the tired old man underneath. He didn’t try to hit Clockstopper again.
What are you doing? Wyvern thought. He can’t freeze you, you can still throw him into space! Just move and save the world!
But her hopes were wasted. Augustus had given up before the battle even began.
“Pff…”
The sound Clockstopper made… it wasn’t a groan of pain, a sigh of pity, or a muffled scream. It was something far, far worse.
A yawn.
“I’m bored,” Clockstopper said with a tired voice. He sounded so young, like a teenager who never finished growing up. “You’re boring me.”
He slowly raised his hand to the skies. The grand dramatic gesture reminded Wyvern of a Roman Emperor preparing to decide a gladiator’s fate.
He was going to freeze the city.
Jasmine, now! Wyvern tried to scream while Augustus clenched his fists in silent despair. The dragon’s lungs were gone though, her lips only letting out a moan of agony.
Her old partner opened fire from a distance, a red beam crossing the skies at lightspeed. The skies turned crimson as Jasmine’s divine judgment fell upon the earth.
But not even light could outrun time.
“Better luck next time.”
Clockstopper snapped his fingers and all went Blue.
It was May 8th 2022, and Ghoul began the day the same way he always did: with murder.
He walked into the bar and murdered everyone inside. Alarms rang, but the Psycho was long gone when the Private Security arrived. Adam woke up with the gut feeling that something was not right and spent the next hours fruitless investigating what.
Livia Augusti woke up blind to parallel realities and wasted her time trying to convince her father that a terrible threat had come to New Rome. Augustus listened to his daughter as he did countless times, and pretended that nothing was wrong.
Wyvern prepared a strike against the Meta-Gang, unaware that her own employer had hired them to harass his so-called allies on the New Rome council and gather lost technology. Enrique spent his time working while glancing at the ring on his desk and the photo of Laura next to it.
The day passed without trouble as the people of New Rome lived out the longest hours of their lives.
Blissfully unaware of the invisible walls penning them in.
It was May 8th 2023, and Ghoul began the day the same way he always did: with murder.
It had been three years since the loop had begun and some things never changed.
Sometimes, Ryan wondered why he even bothered adding the undead to his collection; but whenever the master of time considered dumping this corpse of a Psycho into the ocean, he simply couldn’t bring himself to do so.
New Rome didn’t feel complete without Ghoul.
Ryan couldn’t help but return to this collection each time he traveled back to Italy. It had so many hidden secrets to unlock or details he had missed. It always made him feel like walking into a candy store and testing out new flavors.
Mmm… come to think of it, Ryan had never collected a candymaker before. He knew something was missing in his life.
Speaking of candy, the void in his soul ached and his body demanded a tribute. Ryan needed his dopamine shot in a bottle now.
It was harder and harder to find Elixir bottles nowadays, but Ryan wasn’t afraid of running out of juice. Many of his collections needed to be dusted; he had plenty of forgettable NPCs to milk for his weekly dose of vitamin E.
Taking a red bottle in his pocket, Ryan sipped his Elixir as he walked through the streets of New Rome as Ghoul picked a fight with the Private Security. Nobody recognized his mask or what it represented, nor noticed the Violet hue covering every building and inhabitant. The effect stretched far into the skies and all the way to Ischia Island, trapping the region beneath a dome.
A snow globe frozen in time.
At first, Ryan had been disappointed when his power had mutated. He couldn’t reverse time for the whole universe as he did in the past, but what he had lost in range, his second shot had more than made up for in precision. Over the last years, he had collected hundreds of cities and countless people. Some he had kept in eternal loops, others he stopped outright.
It was a bit disappointing that he couldn’t extend his loops past twelve hours, but at least his Blue ability allowed him to tamper with his toys’ cognitive awareness and alter their perceptions. He had fun changing the mental scenarios and seeing how they played out. The tactics they had come up with over the loops were astonishing.
They had lost before the battle even began when he collected the city on arrival, but Ryan gave them an A for the effort.
He had been afraid that the likes of Livia or Diana could break free from their cognitive loop over time, but his worries had been unwarranted. Once the Blue had taken hold, it never let go. Ryan just had to alter their perceptions to filter out dangerous stuff, and they remained stuck in their mental routine.
Only a few people like Geist, Reload, and Cancel had been a real problem. The first, Ryan exorcized, and the others he added to his Monaco collection. His good friend Jean-Stéphanie was always thankful for the new company.
The Black Elixir had caused a mess as well, but it didn’t last long without a host. Such a pity.
“You have some nerve to show yourself here.”
Ryan stopped walking and looked up at the ivory man floating above his head.
“Are you here to ravish me like Ganymedes?” Ryan mocked him before a terrifying question crossed his mind. “Wait, did Ganymedes have a Roman name? Is there a more appropriate reference?”
“Have you come here to mock us?” Augustus asked angrily, red lightning coursing through his invulnerable body. “Are you no more than a lowly killer returning to his crime scenes to gloat?”
“Losers gloat, while I feel secure in my unlimited cosmic power. Don’t tell me you’re still sore that I didn’t visit you last year?”
Augustus was such a peculiar creature as far as power interactions went. Immune to time-paralysis and cognitive tempering, but not to the temporal bilocation effect and reversion that allowed Ryan to create localized loops. His invulnerable, cancer-ridden body was destroyed and reset with everything else, but somehow his mind wasn’t. Truly strange. Ryan wondered how his original power would have interacted with him.
“Anyway, are you here to glare at me?” Ryan asked mockingly before doing some footwork. “Or maybe you want a rematch?”
Augustus’ face twisted into an expression of impotent fury. “I should smite you where you stand.”
“You tried, it didn’t work. Besides, I don’t see what you’re blaming me for.” Ryan pointed a finger at the end of the road. “You just have to step over here and it will all end.”
A nearly imperceptible purple wall stood at the edge of New Rome’s silent road. Beyond this barrier, the timestream had carried on and left this bubble behind.
“You just have to cross this edge and you’ll be free,” Ryan said. “I’m not sure if it will undo the loop for everyone, but you will surely escape. I mean, I’m the only one who can interact with my snow globes and cross the barriers as far as I know. If you successfully break the dome, you’ll probably destabilize this fragile construct of mine. I’m sure the idea crossed your mind over the years.”
It did. It was written all over his stupid angry face.
“You know, time is a bit weird,” Ryan confessed. “When I was young and naive, I could wipe the time-board and cradle the universe back to zero. But now that I exclude some islands from the timesteam, suddenly the universe is running a tab. I’m pretty sure that time disconnection is why you can remember at all. Your body is reset to zero, but it remembers the tab. And since you can remember, you know what will happen once time catches up.”
Ryan chuckled and raised two fingers at this discount doll of a pagan god.
“I once unstuck a family I had collected for two years. When I did, time caught up to them. Human bodies can barely survive a few days without food and water, so imagine how they looked after years of starvation hit them in the face. Like a fruit, all that’s left is the juice. What’s going to happen to your daughter if you break the spell, huh?”
Augustus didn’t answer, but his fists clenched as he landed right in front of Ryan. He was adorable, trying to appear oppressive and dangerous when he knew all hope was lost. Even though he towered over the master of time in size, their powers were in different leagues entirely.
“Ah, but it’s not about your daughter,” Ryan guessed with a chuckle. “It’s about you. You know your time is already spent, and that the tumor devouring you will catch up to you if you stop the reset—”
Augustus blasted him with enough lightning to level a building. The electricity bounced off Ryan’s time-stopped body. The voltage felt no stronger than water crashing against an iron armor.
No, that wasn’t true.
Ryan didn’t feel anything anymore. His power only let the juice through, leaving only the joy of the rush and the thrill of his power.
“You’ve got to pay the bill one day, Lightning Cancer,” Ryan said as he walked past Augustus. The living statue didn’t try to stop him. “But don’t worry, Auggie. So long as you stay here, you’ll live. I’ll drag you along with me all the way down.”
Ryan looked over his shoulder.
“To the end of time.”
Augustus crumbled to his knees without a word, his fist hitting the ground in anger.
Afterward, Ryan crossed the purple wall and walked onto the silent road. It had still been day inside the closed space of New Rome, but night had fallen outside for everyone else. The moon was frozen purple while cracks spread in the skies and the earth trembled beneath his feet. Powerful waves battered the coast, eating away more pieces of land each year.
As it turned out, collecting so many pieces of Europe while continental shifts happened around them had made the continent more fragile. It was only a matter of time before all of Eurasia sank below the waves, Atlantis-style. Even then, gravitational and temporal forces struggled to keep the solar system in one piece after he collected the Moon and the stars.
“Wonderful,” Ryan whispered as he watched the raging waters and purple lightning battering against his snow globe. The timestream was finally tearing itself apart! “Take that, you sorry excuse of a world! Your land of misery, you torment me no longer! Gaze upon my work and do your worst!”
Purple lightning coursed through the skies, followed by a flood of rain.
“I have halted the march of time for all human beings!” Ryan boasted, his voice one with the storm’s fury. “I will not rest until I have undone causality! I will bring forth the end of history!”
Only the howling wind answered.
Sometimes, in his darkest moments, Ryan wondered if it wouldn’t be better if he were to free Cancel from Monaco and let her kill him. He was a sensible soul, prone to bouts of depression and moody moments; and his power kept him forever frozen in time. He was an immortal being that couldn’t be defeated, condemned to wander the world until the stars died out.
But no matter the hard times ahead, Ryan would never stop looking for happiness.
There was something out there that would satisfy him. The perfect collection that would finally fulfill him as a person. The vitamin E rush would keep him going until he found true bliss.
If only everyone else could just stop getting in the way of his perfect ending… it was harder and harder to collect people in Eurasia, as they avoided gathering in large groups.
How rude. They avoided Ryan just because he had the good taste to collect every capital on the continent! But he was a forgiving person. People were just playing hard to get. Deep down, everyone wanted to be collected by him.
When the present was so disappointing, they would rather live in the past.
And who cared about people when he had her?
His Plymouth Fury awaited him parked near the sinking road, with the love of his life at the back.
“I’m sorry I took so long, Shortie,” Ryan apologized as he sat at the front. “I was just… feeling nostalgic.”
Of course she would forgive him. She always forgave her dad, she could be merciful to him too.
“I know it was selfish to keep these two Elixirs, but… I’m glad I did. I saved you. I saved all these people.” Ryan glanced at New Rome. “You know I tried eighty-eight times? Eighty-eight. But it wasn’t enough. It was never enough. If it wasn’t your father getting between us, it was that damn sun burning us all to a crisp. I talked and I begged and I fought but… it wasn’t enough. It was never enough. I could never save you. Until I took the shot.”
Ryan looked into the rearview mirror. Len looked so beautiful in her violet hue, the true jewel of his collection. The one he would cherish until the end of time.
“It’s alright, Shortie. I have no regrets. It was worth it, for you belong to me now.”
Ryan looked at the road with a heart full of hope, as he moved on to look for new cities to collect.
“And I will never let you go.”
He would never let anyone go.
In time, all of Earth would become silent. An archipelago of stopped time and rising waves, a planet-sized play meant for a single audience. For Clockstopper was trapped in a loop of his own; one of addiction, torment, and self-delusions. He was just as much a prisoner as his countless victims, looking for an exit that he couldn’t see.
No one would escape.
And no matter how hard he would try, Clockstopper would never find happiness. He would haunt this silent grave of a world until the end of time.
Ryan Romano extinguished that possibility and achieved his perfect ending. By the strength of his will, this terrible world of sorrow will never come to pass; its people will never have existed. The Clockstopper will never break time.
This sad tale only exists in my memory now… and yours.
Author’s Notes
Hi guys, this special chapter was created to celebrate the release of the Perfect Run’s third ebook on Amazon and second audiobook on Audible. If you have enjoyed the chapter, please consider purchasing or reviewing either of them to help me keep posting free content.
Otherwise, this story is an anthology of one-shot/special chapters rather than a true web serial; it will be updated once in a while for special occasions (like the release of the third audiobook). Hope you’ve enjoyed it, and write you soon.
