Chapter 1: Banishment into a Playground

Under a crimson sky, a large city burned with hellfire as demons roamed the landscape. One might be forgiven for mistaking this for hell, but this was actually New York City. Many heroes fought throughout the giant city, some in teams and some solo.

If they listened closely among the chaos, they might hear the occassional sound of a famous thwip or snikt, or a giant roaring green monster that they prayed was on their side that day.

Whether or not the heroes would win the day aside, this wasn't where our story is focusing. Instead, it's focusing at the top of a skyscraper, where Johnny Blaze was chained up by the very chains he was just wielding.

Blood streamed down from his forehead as he was covered in sweat from trying to give his enemy proverbial hell. Instead the best he could do is just glare at him.

Mephisto, the red devil in a red cape himself, stood across from him proud of his accomplishment.

"You have no idea how many deals I had to make to get the forces I needed here today. But I've finally separated that damn Spirit of yours from you. If you hadn't helped my plans as many times as you ruined them, I'd regret ever giving it to you."

Held aloft in his hand was a floating, orange skull of fire raging to break loose. Despite being it's confinement being layered in thousands of enchantments and held by the lord of hell himself, it still burned his hand just by holding it like this.

"But now, you're done with this toy Johnny. Everyone is. I'm tired of this damned thing, and I'm casting it out!" On cue, a portal opened in front of Mephisto, and he baseball pitched it through.

"And good riddance!" There were always more spirits of vengeance, but one not being tied to Johnny, and especially not that one, was more than worth all the work it took.

He had played with his food for too long, and that habit had burned him for the last time, as he stared at his smoking hand. With that finally out of the way, Mephisto set out to conquer the world with his 'temporary' allies, though none of them were informed of the temporary part.

Back to the Spirit of Vengeance, it was sent careening through the Multiverse itself. They did not want it landing in some adjacent universe or dimension where it might find a way to return more pissed than before, so a large number of powerful beings had to team up to get it out into the multiverse.

------

Flashing forward to it's eventual destination, one eighteen year old brown haired boy was roaming the streets of New York City in the dead of night. As one might expect from someone wandering at that time of night, he was obviously intending to break a few laws, maybe a few jaws if he could.

Deep in a back alley, a scuffle could be heard as a woman cried, "Somebody help!" as three men surrounded her. The scene wasn't entirely normal, not by our standards at least, as two of the men looked weird.

One was tall, and so skinny he was like a twig that should have snapped ages ago. The other was short and rotund, practically bouncing with even the slightest tilt he made. In the middle stood a normal looking guy with a knife pointed at the girl's neck.

"Don't worry, we ain't rapists or nothing. We're just gonna take your money and murder ya. We got class like that." To some that is a much better way to go, but it's not exactly reassuring to the terrified woman who was bawling her eyes out in fear.

"And I've got class to stop you in your tracks." All four looked out into the street, to see a shadow bounding off the street lamp like rubber right towards them. Once he approached they could get a good look at him.

He was a shirtless, buff guy only wearing tight leather pants and a luchador mask. If anyone from our world saw him, they'd call him a Rey Mysterio rip off. That's because he basically was, and his name was High Flier, due to his quirk which let his body bounce off of anything like it was a ring's rope, it's name being Rope Master.

"Oh it's this third rater. I swear, you're either All Might or you're shit. I miss back when he was in the States-" The short one was bad mouthing the approaching hero, only to get drop kicked and sent flying.

Landing confidently and posing, the hero was immediately met by the short man bouncing off the alley wall back at him and knocking him on his ass. "Hah, dumbass. My quirk is Super Ball, physical force just makes me bounce around and hurt you more."

Having seemingly met his match, the hero focused his all on fighting the human bouncy ball, as the two of them bounced around the tight alleyway in an intense duel, the close quarters making them rebound several times in a second.

Meanwhile, the two other villains and the girl were exasperated. "Holy shit he's actually ignoring us. Oh man that's actually hilarious. We can just grab the shit and go." With that, the man with the knife stabbed the girl in her chest, grabbed her purse and started fleeing.

As he turned to leave, he just now heard running footsteps over the nearby fight, and came face to face with a fist that floored him, making him slam into the ground as the knife bounced out of his hands.

Rubbing his nose, the man sat up. "Dude you're late to the party, girl's already dead." Looking over, Jack was enraged. He wasn't able to get here in time, and the hero who was here let her die, hell he didn't even notice she died.

Not all heroes were like this, but one could say that if there were millions of heroes in the world, maybe only a couple thousand would actually willingly give their lives for the job. That's the difference in how seriously some take the position compared to others.

Knife man over here was no stranger to this newcomer's kind. Street fighters who pick up vigilantism in order to try and pick up the heroes' slack. But one could say that anyone worth a damn in that category, had already just become one of the good heroes mentioned before.

"Gotta say though, the leather jacket and black jeans, pretty good threads. What's your hero name?" Perhaps trying to buy time, the knife man tried to speak with Jack, but he was having none of that shit.

He sprinted forward with a purpose, and got in a brutal, classic streetfight with the guy who no longer had his knife. Jack grabbed the nearby lid of a trashcan and bashed him in the face with it, before throwing it like a frisbee at his head while he reeled backwards.

'All these normal ass attacks, don't tell me...' The man held his bloody nose in his hands while he cackled outloud. "Wait, don't tell me. Not only are you not a hero, are you quirkless? Holy shit, it's been a while since I've seen one that isn't an old fart."

While it was true that 20% of the Earth's population was quirkless, the majority of them were either middle aged or older. Not to mention a lot of young ones just killed themselves when they hit their depressed phase of their teenage years.

Even this low bit criminal had a quirk, which he displayed by waving his hand, and having the knife dropped earlier rise up and shoot towards Jack's back. The hand motions made it obvious though, and Jack sidestepped the knife as it missed him.

Telekinesis that needed exaggerated and exact gestures like his, were among the easiest to deal with if you were paying attention. Assuming it didn't have high output of course. So Jack just resumed beating the shit out of him, blood splashing into the sides of the alley.

All of a sudden he wondered where the skinny guy went, and he looked up only to step back in terror. Skinny no more, this man was now like 8 feet of pure tanned muscles, a towering behemoth of a man, and his hand has stabbed through the brick wall to hold himself up there. The secret to this was quite obvious, as the dead woman was now dried like a prune.

"Blood Train. Got a lot of power, but it takes constant blood to fuel me. It'd been a little too long since my last feeding." Jack almost wanted to run then and there.

Straightforward power types were the worst opponents for people with normal human stats, even the Japanese hero Eraserhead needed a lot of training and special gear to take them on.

The behemoth simply dropped down and back handed Jack into the wall, breaking a couple ribs and walking away with the telekinetic man in tow. Soon after, the bouncy ball man landed and chased after them, nary a scratch on him. "Wait for me guys, I'm done here too!"

Looking over, Jack saw High Flier limping towards him, his body covered in bruises. Of course he couldn't have won, he sustained damage from every clash whereas the ball man just got more force to use against him, and took no damage.

Walking over to the dead woman, the hero seemingly mourned her loss, and then looked to Jack in rage. "You fool! If you hadn't gotten involved, they wouldn't have killed this poor girl!"

"Me?! Motherfucker, A) You ignored the girl to fight against a guy you lost to anyways. B), she got killed before I even got here on time. And C), the big guy's quirk needed her dead anyways, so they were always aiming to kill her. We both failed tonight, and unlike you this wasn't even what I'm paid for."

Jack exploded on the dumb hero. He always hated people who blamed others for their own failures. It was an easy habit to get into but that doesn't mean he forgave the fools who did so.

Not backing down, High Flier got in his face. "You say that like I'm mainly doing this for the money. But I'm not, I'm a hero to protect the people!"

"If I'm wrong, you would have already started chasing those guys instead of arguing with me. I would say you're only fooling yourself, but after tonight you're gonna need a lot of beer to even manage that."

In a rage, High Flier smacked him aside and left, looking to head home and rest before deciding whether he should spin a story for the press or just never mention he was involved.

It was then that the Spirit of Vengeance finally arrived in the world, it's initial location of New York in Earth 616 leading it to appear in New York here. With no one here to control it, it immediately set out to do it's job and so it sought a host.

And as of right this moment, laying in that alleyway, no one had more of a burning desire for vengeance than Jack. The Spirit flew towards him in a hurry, and fused with his body.

A sudden heat overtook him, as Jack doubled over in pain clutching his head. "It's hot. Too hot! AGH!" As he yelled, flames overtook him and his surroundings, as his flesh burned away to reveal a flaming skull.

As he slowly got used to the new body of bones, Jack stood up and clenched his gloved fist which hid it's new appearance.

"What, what the hell is this. This body, this power. Is it a dormant quirk? Was that toe thing bullshit?" His voice was now deep and echoing, almost demonic.

But the most important feeling wasn't the newfound power, or his bones which had already healed, but a desire. That presented itself in the back of his mind. 'Vengeance. Against the sinners. Those who have sinned you, or those who have just sinned.'

Taking the desire as his own, Jack ran through the back alley in pursuit of the criminals he had just faced. This time, he wasn't aiming to stop them. He was getting vengeance.