Chapter 10: Hospital Visits

Warping back to the penthouse from before, All For One stood in front of the man in the chair, who immediately rose in order to show no disrespect. "S-Sir! I had no idea you'd be coming all the way here yourself. The product you ordered isn't ready just yet."

A sickening smile was hidden behind the mask, and he just laughed. "Don't worry. While I'll still need everything you can provide stock wise, I'll be keeping the girl for myself. She's more than worth everything lost combined."

"Lost?" The man was confused, while Kurogiri explained.

"Well judging by the news broadcast, the Ghost Rider managed to take out every single one of your men deployed into the field besides the gentleman with us. Which means this round of children would be a bust, without this gem obviously."

"WHAT?! How did he survive this?" Pressing a button, the man pulled up the footage of Jack's head being exploded, something which intrigued All For One greatly.

"If he survived that, then I reckon I only made him very, very angry back there. Against anyone other than myself, he'd be a headache." Looking over to the child assassin, he made a plan.

"Kurogiri, bring him to Dr Kyudai and get us an express order going. And while your at it, take all the remaining soldiers with you. I have a feeling we'll need a lot of tools for the following months." The Nomu for testing All Might's current abilities was already set aside, so he didn't have any free to use heavy hitters in that department just yet.

As Kurogiri left to do as he was told, All For One looked closely at the man who had mastermined all this on his own. "So, you had a plan for this girl right? May I ask what it was?"

As he explained, All For One began to smile wider and wider, truly happy to hear that this subordinate wasn't completely useless after all. "I love the way you're thinking. In fact, for now I'll let you continue the plan as normal. I'll come back for the girl once it's done."

There was a certain finesse to being a crime lord, and doing every little thing yourself certainly wasn't it. Sure you could force all subordinates to heel, but make them think you care and it's just a whole lot easier. Besides, this would be a perfect trial run for the quirk, and be some amazing torment to boot.

Inwardly, the man sighed. After learning about that quirk, all his ambitions and dreams piled up over night imagining what could be done. And now, it was no longer myth but a reality, right there in his grasp. "All right sir, I'll get started right away!"

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"MotherFUCKER!" Having regained control of his body, Jack slammed his fist through the ground in anger. All that, taking out two villains, the near dozen other child assassins, just to meet an even bigger fish that blasted him away and bailed?

And what pissed him off more was that someone on that level even casually existed in the first place, who the hell was that?! Why was he never on the news before.

Taking a deep breath and calming himself down, Jack tried to smell for the absolute ginormous amount of sin coming from that guy earlier, but he couldn't find it.

"He left my range, and without a trail I can't follow him. Am I just gonna have to hunt around the entire city for him? Cause I fucking will."

As he moved to get onto his motorcycle though, flying in in front of him was the hero Jet. "You'll go no further, you've done enough today." He set is arm out in front of him in an authoritative manner.

"Well, the villains still have a kidnapped child so no, I haven't. Either help me find her or get out of my way." He revved the bikes engine in place, hoping to intimidate the man out of his way.

"No seriously, hero shit aside, you need to lay low. You damn near leveled a building or two today, civilians are pissed. If you lay low for a while, the heroes that respect you can stay off your tail. If you go right back into action though, we're gonna have to choose between keeping our jobs and you."

"Sure, maybe you could tear through a legion of heroes and find their base. But by then they'd be long gone, and you'd have just made your life a lot harder from then on."

Jet was at the truck fight, he knew full well that Ghost Rider did things they couldn't; while the murder sickened him, he couldn't help but be relieved anyways when those villains were off the streets.

Seeing him sit back and contemplate, Jet continued. "Besides, it's not like you don't have other places to be. Everyone from the roof is just getting to the hospital now. And lastly, are you even in peak shape right now? You've probably taken out over ten decently strong villains in a single day. I'm not saying you can't take whatever monster did this, but I'd think you need a good night's rest in order to do so."

Jack was surprised that heroes could still be a decent voice of reason, and relented. Meanwhile, Jet turned to the leveled warehouse he mentioned and shuddered. Sure he'd seen buildings destroyed before, but this was on a whole other level.

One could just tell this was done by a single attack from the inside. And this crazy bastard just climbed on out of the rubble anyways.

"Besides, I'll be looking for her myself, along with as many other heroes as I can scrounge up, mark my words." With that, Jet flew off, leaving Jack to turn around and head towards the hospital they were at.

Hiding his bike discretely a short distance from the hospital, and leaving his jacket with several giant holes in it in the trash, he returned to normal and entered as himself, in order to keep things from getting complicated. God knows if the police would let him enter this place without a fight.

He wondered how he was gonna get in and see his friends, if they saw him as that anyways. When off to the side, he saw Ninja Warrior standing with his leg in a cast and crutches, seemingly standing guard over the halls of the hospital.

Having made a decision, he walked over to him. "Sorry bud, I don't think any hero's in the mood for autographs today."

Without saying anything, Jack just slightly pulled his burner phone out of his pocket and showed it to him. Ninja Warrior looked down at the phone, and up to his face. Phone, face, phone, face.

And a giant grin slowly grew. "Well I'll be damned, come with me right now." Maintaining a composed look, Ninja Warrior walked with him into the hospital room he was supposed to be in. The nurses had given up keeping him in there after he refused to stand still.

"So, how'd it go? Did you save the girl, stop the bad guys, save the day?" Jack hung his head and shook it, still pissed at himself more than anything.

"No. I let myself focus too much on fighting, and while I did take out two of the enemies, another stronger one knocked me away and bailed with Jackie." He had wanted to slam his fist on the wall just thinking about it, that would be a little immature.

Ninja Warrior placed his hand on his shoulder. "Listen man. You did better than anyone else today. And don't think I don't know about the call you had to make to save all those other kids first. I know it absolutely fucking sucks to fail just once, but you can't ignore all your other victories today."

As he fell into thought, Jack seriously considered his words while thinking back to everything he did that way. Sure, focusing properly on that loss was a good thing to learn and improve, but letting guilt consume him would be stupid.

Perhaps being done with the pep talk nonsense, he switched back into energy mode. "But holy shit dude! You're actually a person! With flesh, and a face, a handsome one at that! You always joked so naturally about being a skeleton, I just assumed that was a permanent thing."

"Well yeah that was kinda the point of those jokes. To set up a distinct difference between Ghost Rider, and Jack. That's my name by the way, nice to meet you and all that."

Holding his hand out, Ninja Warrior immediately shook it while stating, "The name's Joe. Joe Hiyama."

Jack couldn't help but chuckle at the name. "God, even your name's so close to being Japanese, but oh so far."

"You're goddamn right it is!" Joe took his own weeb personality in stride, and took pride in it since he was actually a properly active member of society while still being like this.

"Ya know, I just thought of something. Why did you reveal who you are to me?"

Jack leaned back and sighed before saying, "I really just need an actual friend besides Lyn. And, I need some heroes on the field I trust. Fully trust not some half assed keeping my guard up 24/7 shit. And I thought you were the perfect first candidate."

"Well I'm honored to be that man. So, who else are you gonna tell. Skylar, Lyn- Oh wait shit did you say you're friends with her? She knew this whole time?" Joe jumped back a little in shock.

"No, no. First, not telling anyone else just yet, let's expand this circle slowly. And secondly, I know her as Jack. She has no idea that I'm the Ghost Rider yet. You get why right?"

"Well duh. Kinda hard to be friends with the girl who's job it is to catch you. Not to mention she's seen all your Penance Stares first hand. Oh shit, and now the whole thing with her sister too. Man that's a nightmare and a half. Good luck to you on that one."

"I'm gonna need it. Speaking of which, think you could get me into her hospital room? I don't think the front desk would let a civilian in there, friend or not." Giving a thumbs up, Joe led the way with his crutches.

Through the window, Jack could see Lyn laying down with bandages over her head. "She's gonna be fine, by the way. A light concussion and disorientation, and lots and lots of emotional trauma, but she'll bounce back."

"And what about Skylar?" Joe's mood fell at that, and he sighed.

"She took a bullet to the stomach, and so far they're still figuring out how bad it is. It'll be a while before anyone can visit her. Also, I just realized someone has to tell Lyn about her sister."

Jack patted his shoulder. "I'll do it. I'll just say Ghost Rider told you, and then you decided that her friend would be the one best suited to deliver the news."

"Oh you're good at this. Go get em tiger."

Jack looked at him quizzically, hearing a hidden meaning in that.

"Dude it's so obvious. Practically written on your face."

With that, Joe walked off and left Jack to take a deep breath before going in. He sat down next to her and just waited for her to wake up. Of course, as mentally exhausted as he was, he actually fell asleep before that happened.

A few hours later, he woke up when she started stirring. Waiting patiently for her to be fully up before speaking, he just sat there quietly. When she started looking around, she noticed him.

"Hey there. Came as soon as I heard. Are you okay?" Getting out of his chair, Jack walked over and hugged her, as she shook in his hands. Even without knowing her sister wasn't saved, she was still terrified for her.

"How'd you even get in here?"

"I managed to find Ninja Warrior and convince him I knew you. We talked a bit before we made it here. He's a pretty nice guy."

She chuckled lightly. "He really is. He and Skylar tried so hard to protect us, but those villains, they were a higher grade than usual. No average heroes could have beaten them. I just hope he can."

Once that topic was touched on, Jack knew he had to rip the bandaid then and now. No matter how much he was afraid to. "Ninja Warrior he uhh, he actually told me how that all went. Ghost Rider contacted him secretly earlier. Decided it was best that I deliver the message."

The way he delivered it, Lyn had a feeling where this was going, and braced herself while lightly crying. "Ghost Rider was able to take down two of the villains, but another two fled. By the time he caught up to them, a fifth one blew him and an entire building away in a single attack and left. They got Jackie."

With that, the dam broke and Lyn let out a full mournful cry and increased the strength of her hold on Jack. He just quietly held her in place, while patting her back. Unable to stop himself, he couldn't help but say "I'm sorry."

Luckily, she interpreted this as an empathy thing, rather than him being the same guy that failed.

"First the Ghost Rider comes around. Then, you finally come back into my life after all this time. And now this. Can't life just pick up or down and stick with it, this roller coaster is killing me."

She forced herself to try and make a joke to lighten the mood, feeling like she shouldn't burden him with the full weight of this. "Well it can't stop now, it still needs to go back up first. And it will. I promise you it will."

He held her tighter, as if lightening a little bit would let her be taken away too.

This was not just a promise made by Jack. This was a promise from the Ghost Rider himself, one that the Spirit of Vengeance also signed off on. They would get Jackie back, and each and every one of those villains would pay their debts in full. If it's the last thing they do.