Chapter 9: Hell to Pay

The enemies were in a total panic at his arrival. In particular, the man in the suit seemed ready to leave at any moment.

"I thought you said the Ghost Rider was dead!"

"His head was blown off, how the hell was I supposed to know he could survive that?"

Taking a moment to look around, Jack summarized they were in a basement somewhere, as it was blank concrete walls all around, and only stairs up as the exit. Must be a big building though, as this basement was fairly spacious.

Waiting until they were deep into conversation, Jack made his move and leapt up, cutting at the black mist dude, as he was clearly the escape route with a warp quirk of some kind.

The assassin tried to block with his own sword, but Jack's was enhanced with hellfire and cut through like butter. 'That collar looks important, let's dice it.'

Nearly an inch before the blade reached that all important piece of metal, a giant bone spear shot out from the robed man and pinned him into the wall. "You'd do best not to ignore me, comrade."

'The fuck?' Of course, it made sense once the wizard looking dude lifted his hood to reveal that he was a skeleton also. "Bow down to the Lich King, fellow undead."

While these three were planning, the mist man said "I'll remain here to assist the fight. You take the child to the delivery point." And the child assassin began to run upstairs while carrying Jackie.

The second he made it up the steps, Jack let his full killing intent burst out and decided to kick it up to eleven. "We'll see how long you can keep the un in undead."

Spitting fire in a circle around the basement, it slowly began to heat up as they were encased in a cage of hellfire. "You're trapped in here with me, bastards!"

Cutting off the front of the spear that stabbed him, Jack jumped on top and slid down it towards them. The Lich spawned several smaller bones around himself and shot them out, while the assassin emptied his clip into him.

Ignoring the useless bullets entirely, Jack slashed only the spears that would hit useful things like limbs, and let the others turn his upper body into a pin cushion as he jumped between them.

What proceeded was a dance of death unlike anyone had seen before. The assassin engaged him in close combat, and unlike the first showdown against his students, Jack had learned the trick to dealing with them. Supplementing the lack of skill with brute strength in important moments to counter.

At the same time, he had to dodge the bone projectiles as too many small ones would restrain him, and a single big one would pin him. Not to mention the mist dude using portals to mess with him and redirect attacks.

This went on for several minutes, but slowly but surely he began to get into a rhythm and turned the tides. The heat began to slowly get to his enemies, and they began to make mistakes.

When he dodged a slash, the assassin tried kicking him in the face, only to have fire blown into it and his leg caught on fire. He tried to capitalize on this opening, but a giant bonewall appeared in his path, which Jack responded to by slashing sideways and sending a wave of fire.

The mist man opened a portal in front of the slash, and suddenly Jack fell over as he was cut in half. Before anyone could celebrate, he immediately reattached himself and actually motioned to do the same attack again.

When the mist man tried to repeat the same trick, he stopped and actually turned around to breathe fire through the portal, which landed right on the Lich who screamed in agony. "Why does this hurt?! I'm not even vulnerable to normal physical attacks!"

Reaching a conjecture, the mist man concluded, "It must be a special fire that simultaneously attacks the soul, much like his Penance Stare. It already had properties that were special like spreading to weapons, so this isn't surprising."

Instead of letting them analyze, Jack punched through the bone wall only to find the assassin was gone. Looking up, a sword was driven right through his temple. An attack to the head was one that dealt quite a bit of mental damage to Jack, so normally this would have stunned him.

As evidenced by him simply cutting above his head, and cutting one of the assassin's hands off though, this was not a normal situation. Rage like this, let him do many things he couldn't do before.

"THAT'S IT!" Losing his hand was the last straw, and the assassin pulled out a syringe and jabbed it into his neck.

Shaking his head, the mist man sighed. "I hope you know that's a one time thing. Make it count."

Every bone in his body cracked, his muscles exploding in power. "Oh I'll make it count alright!"

Jack couldn't react as the assassin seemingly disappeared, and reappeared in front of his face, punching him hard enough to crash him a foot into the concrete basement wall, the building above experiencing a major tremor.

"Oh, can we ignore structural damage now?" With that, the Lich began to spam giant bone fists which pummeled Jack further into the wall, and soon the street above began to feel as if an earthquake had just hit.

Slowly but surely, the massive damage was beginning to make Jack lose conciousness, but he refused to lose. He couldn't let them take Jackie. And he refused to let any of these men get away alive.

In the back of his mind, the Spirit clearly spoke for the first time. "Allow me to take the reigns. I'll shall show them true vengeance, and rend their bodies asunder into flaming purgatory."

Mentally nodding, Jack let himself go and stepped out of the proverbial drivers seat, as the Spirit of Vengeance took it's place. Another giant bone fist headed their way, and the Rider simply flexed his muscles to break the wall surrounding him, and punched out.

This one punch shattered the fist larger than his own body, sending the bone flying back as shrapnel which cut the assassin in several spots and impaled his leg, while the mist man redirected the projectiles from himself and the Lich.

Looking up, the assassin got a taste of his medicine as Ghost Rider suddenly appeared in front of him and uppercutted him so hard he flew through the basement ceiling, the several feet of concrete, and into the lobby of a major office.

Deciding to fully cut loose, the Lich summoned an even large bone fist underneath the Rider and punched him through the same ceiling into the lobby, before the mist man teleported him up and he continued with a bone spear as big as a house which stabbed through the front of the building and into the street, slamming Jack's body into the building across the street.

With his helmet punched clean off, the assassin tried talking but his lower jaw was clearly broken as several teeth were missing, and his face was a bright red from whatever drug he had taken.

His heart rate was slowly going out of control, and he knew he would probably have permanent consequences for this. But at least he could help kill that bastard.

"I have decided now is a good time to make my departure. Have fun gentleman." Without further elaboration, the mist man left. He didn't need to give any though, as a pressure like never before pressed down upon them.

Both experienced villains trembled, as they had never faced killing intent like this before. With a single slash, the entire house sized bone was chopped in half, and the Rider dashed through the gap, skull ever blazing much like the Spirit's resolve.

The Lich tried another giant attack, but this time while it was appearing Ghost Rider cut it in half, the flying flame slash just barely being dodged in time, while chopping part of his hand off. Coming in from the side, the assassin tried to punch him but the Rider's reaction time was too quick, and he caught the punch.

Any unbroken glass in the area shattered from the shockwave of the two opposing sources, and the Spirit casually flicked his arm in a circle and twisted the assassin's entire arm like wringing out a rag, destroying the bone and spraying blood everywhere through the armor.

Following up, the Rider threw his sword through his spine and sent him flying to the other end of the lobby, impaled into the wall and slowly bleeding out. In a final desparate attack, the lich made a giant bone wall which slammed them both out into the street where they continued their fight.

Standing on top of the wall, Ghost Rider ran atop it, and bobbed and weaved through bone blades that appeared from every which way from the wall which was basically a platform now, several dozen feet in the air for all to see.

Lich tried to block a punch with a several foot thick wall of reinforced bone like iron, but it was punched through and the residual force sent him flying like a rocket across the sky.

Shooting his arms out to his side, he stabilized himself by stabbing a bone platform into the sides of two buildings, only to look up.

Right after landing the punch, the Rider had squatted and jumped. Right above the Lich's head, his two fists clenched into a hammer and slammed down, driving him right through the bone platform and into a large crater into the ground, the impact setting off tons of car alarms and shattering the glass of a few buildings near it.

In a panic, the Lich made a sphere of bone, the thickest defense he had ever made. And the Rider dropped right through it, landing in front of his face. Grabbing him by his neck, the Spirit pulled him in. "You have avoided vengeance for over a hundred years. Now, it is paid to you in full."

When the Lich said he was an undead, he meant it. He was ageless, and was born in an era before the Symbol of Peace where villains were rampant. Many crimes were committed in that age by himself, and time had forgotten his sins.

But the Spirit of Vengeance didn't. It never would. And for the first time in this world, a true full power Penance Stare was given, which killed the Lich instantly in the real world, but replayed his sins over and over in his mind for an eternity in that one instant.

Whistling, the Rider called his ride, and hopped onto it without it stopped. Revving the throttle, the motorcycle burst past 200 miles an hour as it chased through the streets. Within minutes he had caught up to where they were taking the girl, a warehouse.

Crashing straight on into it, the Rider came face to face with an evil even it had scarcely ever seen. Holding the girl in his hands, was a man in a suit with a big bulky black mask on his face, with the mist man standing next to him and the child assassin as well.

"You did well bringing this girl to me Kurogiri, this quirk will be an absolute ball. I can't wait to get started with the test runs. As for you. Go away."

Stretching his arm out, All For One stacked over a dozen quirks into a single attack, and blew Ghost Rider away along with the entire warehouse before disappearing without a trace, with Jackie in tow.