The Streets of New York, Now:
Wheels turn alight with the glow of infernal flame. So the rider comes. Many years ago, he, the rider, belonged to a grouping of people of similar mind and worldview. Those halcyon days, long past and unmissed up until this point, have returned to the rider’s brain.
He banks and turns, angling the handles before him to manipulate the bike, forged of hellfire and Mammon’s ore by the goblins and monsters populous of Tartarean forges.
He is Ghost Rider. He was of the Champions. And now he makes for the Avengers. But what could make this fiery-visaged demon ride, breakneck and celeritous, through streets mundane, as though hell itself were after him?
The gates before him are emblazoned with a large letter A. He tilts back his hell born motorcycle; the spinning vulcanized front wheel bursts through the gate and sets alarms to ringing.
“Avengers! I need your help! Our very world depends upon you!” his voice resounds as like an autumn funeral, the whisper of dead leaves crushed beneath the eulogizer’s boot. The preternatural shout rouses the intended targets.
Now, behind him comes his dread foe, a single man, gifted many times by celestial gems. Blasts of various elements and powers shoot past him. Johnny Blaze has been dogged by this character since the start of his journey.
Washington, D.C., Now:
The United States capitol houses many important things, monuments to past leaders, memorials to fallen soldiers, it holds the congress and senate and is the city where the President lives. Now, three special visitors have come to the District of Columbia, arriving at the Ronald Reagan Building for a dinner and ceremony to honor the hero Jack Frost and herald his return. Jim Hammond and Jack Frost are vested in tuxedos, while the Russian beauty Darkstar wears a glimmering, champagne gown.
“You look so at ease in that suit, Jim,” Jack remarks as they step into the lobby.
“After losing my powers, I spent a good deal of time as a businessman and then C.E.O. of Namor’s company Oracle. I practically lived in a suit for awhile,” Hammond replies, leaning back nonchalantly.
“Yeah…don’t think I could ever get used to it. I feel stifled,” Jack counters.
“That’s because you’ve barely ever worn anything besides that speedo,” Jim laughs, “what a goofy look, and c’mon, you control ice, your powers instantly air condition you, putting on a shirt won’t hurt.”
“I suppose you’re right. Still…”
“You’re probably more shell-shocked by waking up after 60 years, right? I know how it is, just take it slow, you’ve got the Avengers to help you, and several of us have been through the same thing,” Hammond reassures his friend.
“Thank you, Jim.”
“Like father like son, da?” Darkstar asks her teammate, the Human Torch.
“Similar, I suppose. Though I wouldn’t know much about fathers,” Torch replies somewhat dourly.
“Forgive me, I forgot—“
“Ha, no worries, don’t think anything of it. I guess, it’s not so much because I’m an android but because my ‘father’, my creator, Phineas Horton and I didn’t get along and we split early in my…life,” Hammond eases her mind with a smile.
“Try having a radioactive supervillain for a father,” she smiles back, “so what did you two disagree on?” Darkstar asks, the pair turn more towards one another, bored with the ceremony before them. Happy they are for Jack Frost, but happiness does not alleviate tedium.
“Well…he was greedy. I guess I can understand it though, when I was built, everyone was poor, he was a genius and by all rights he could have prospered. See, he gets most of his renown for making me and some others, but he was Reed Richards, Tony Stark, Hank Pym all those guys and more combined,” Jim’s eyes glaze over for a minute as he thinks back to times past.
“But the depression made things hard, da?”
“Very hard on him. I think too, he was just born at the wrong time, I’ve seen his journals, he had so many ideas but had none of the tools to implement them. He kept the inventor side of him away from everyone else. He had a wife, he raised her child after she died and tried to do honest work, but he was always thinking. It’s wild, after awhile, the English language just…failed him. He wrote in some weird code, no one’s been able to decipher it yet, some mad shorthand I guess. Kind of funny, he had so many thoughts he wanted to preserve, but his method made it so no one will ever really know what he was thinking,” Hammond finishes, and looks into his drink. Then he looks up and into Darkstar’s eyes and smiles. Unbeknownst to him, she already knows Phineas T. Horton’s story, and in great depth. But she does not let on, and smiles back.
“Ironic. Like my grandfather used to say: ‘life is the greatest black humor story.’ Such an educated man. Isn’t that ironic too? We Russians, so proud of our educations, classically trained, up to our necks in science and math…in the end, all our education serves for naught. It only allows us to see just how badly we’ve been faring. I love my country, but I think it’s easier to love from afar,” she looks back, a smirk on her face, when things are so dreary one cannot help but smile. Though Hammond easily notices in her eyes there resides much sadness.
“So…having fun?”
“Nyet.”
“Same here, let’s make like a tree,” Hammond says with a grin. “I don’t know if Jack can work his cell phone thing that Bruce gave him, but I’ll leave him a message. He’ll understand.”
The two look around, and find an inconspicuous moment to step out. Jim gently takes her hand in his with his arm around her, she feigns sickness.
“Hey, the lady’s not feeling to well, we’re going to step out for some air, capisce?” Hammond asks a secret service agent posted at a door in the side of the building.
“Yes sir, the Avengers present have been given appropriate security clearance, so come and go as you need, just have your function badges with you when you come back in,” the man says in a monotone voice. Hammond nods and steps out the door, Darkstar in tow. A few minutes later the two alight in the autumn sky.
Pandemonium, Three days ago:
There is, betwixt all the many hellish regions, a nexus, a small capitol wherein no one lord has power over another. Should any demon or dark king need audience with another, this is often where they will meet. Such a meeting now transpires
“Cannot we act already?” The ebon-hearted Olympian Pluto sneers at Hela and Mephisto before him.
“Pluto…Hades, whatever appellation you ascribe to these days, you know full well that if you or I take action in Midgard, Odin and Zeus will easily sense us. Our plans hinge on discretion,”
“Well put, Hela. Plus, as the lord of lies, you both should know just how much I love pulling mortal’s strings. If we can’t have fun while we conquer, well, what is the point?” Mephisto’s voice, a fiery rasp, echoes through the realm.
“I simply grow weary of the wait, of this…discretion you seem to favor so, Hela,” Pluto states, baring teeth.
“I shall show you weary, swine of Orcus!”
“Now, now, children. Have I not given you what you’ve wanted? Pluto you have in your possession your much hated nephew. Hela, you have the meddlesome Thunderer, and his friend with the red-mane. Now I want my Rider back. I’ve poured over this new team of Avengers he’s gone to and I think, with some tricks, with some deceptions…we can get the mortals to ruin their own plane. Will that not be a sweet victory…and well worth the wait as well, Pluto?”
“Aye, a pox upon the mortals!” Pluto exhorts.
“Now we are in full agreement.” Hela crosses her arms, a look of condescension spreads across her face.
“Good, good. Now I suggest we hie to our brimstone realms, lest our absences be noted, and whereabouts discovered,” Mephisto explains, and the trio vanishes. Back in his own realm, the red beast smiles, he has more plans to put into motion, the most recent Lethal Legion, while a great failure, had managed to catch his eye.
Ryker’s, Two days ago:
“You’re the heir to one of the largest criminal empires in existence, you could have all the wealth and power you desire, yet you dress up like a bat and jump around like an idiot. That about sums it up, hm?”
“Who in hell—“
“Oh, boy, you have no idea just how accurate you were right then,”
“I don’t know what you’re getting at, but if you want a fight…”
“If I wanted you harmed you’d be bound in chains and dragged across the bottom of some Stygian bog filled with boiling pitch for all eternity. Now I can make you a deal because I’m the devil and that’s what I do. And, quite simply, I’m bored and you look amusing,” he pauses for a minute seemingly pleased with himself, “I can make you who you want to be, if you should but assist me in my one goal,” Mephisto now finishes his diatribe, a tone of guile and superiority in his voice. He snapped his fingers and Joe Manfredi no longer wore his prison garb, but was instantaneously fitted with his Blackwing gear. Manfredi narrowed his eyes at the demon.
“Shall we step into my parlor?” and with a flourish of his hand, a gateway appeared in Blackwing’s cell, a bridge into Mephisto’s realm made of the bones of all the many people he’d decieved.
Once in his realm, Mephisto, with a snap of his fingers furnished the landscape with a table and chairs, a small food and drink of the finest sat upon the table and Blackwing was now dressed in the best suit money could buy.
“Tell me of your most recent exploits with the Mandarin and your team, and of these new Avengers that defeated you.”
“If you’re the devil, shouldn’t you be privy to any information you want?”
“Yes, and I am, but I want a mortal perspective, and not from some egotistical would-be Warlord with fancy jewelry, or the Lemurian bastard. You were there, you saw most of it, your take on things may prove beneficial to me, and if that is so, I may prove beneficial to you.”
“I think I understand but…who knows, I’m not a god or demon or…whatever you are. Here’s what happened….” And Blackwing told his story, about how Mandarin recruited him to use the fortune and resources of the Manfredi family, how Mandarin recruited many others, Paibok the stranded Power-Skrull, Llyron a rogue Lemurian warlord, Amora the Enchantress bored with godly matters, the immortal and traitorous alchemist Diablo, the depressed and desperate Dragonfly, the villainous Quicksand and lastly the undercover Mimic. He related how he stayed on the space station with the Mandarin and Diablo while the others went down to earth to battle the Avengers. How Mandarin turned on all of them, releasing his hidden weapon the brainwashed hero Jack Frost.
The Avengers with the aid of Mimic helped Jack Frost regain his senses and put away the Legion. Diablo escaped with Dragonfly and Joe Manfredi found himself in custody awaiting trial. Now he found himself in a hellish realm taking in a delicious meal at the behest of the demon Mephisto.
“So that’s all of it,” Blackwing finished, sipping at his wine, “I doubt that’s all you needed of me,” Manfredi stated, growing bolder. He’d never been an A-list villain, or an A-list anything for that matter, but now, in the realm of some devil, he found himself peculiarly emboldened. An encounter with some dark lord would rattle most, but Manfredi took it to mean he’d succeeded somehow, he’d made the notice of this infernal beast, he could perhaps use that notice to elevate himself.
“You are quite right. Now tell me, has your family any connections in Russia?”
The Skies of Mexico, Now:
The Mesoamerican god Quetzalcoatl coasts above the clouds. The life of a god these days is dreadfully boring, Quetzalcoatl thinks to himself as he rises even higher amongst the clouds, his feathered headdress buffeted by the winds following him tightly like a tail. Perhaps the Asgardian Thor had had a good idea in coming to earth and acting as one of the “superheroes.”
He thought on it some more as he dipped down to catch a glimpse of the sea before promptly rising back up again. To be worshipped again! Prayers, votives, human sacrifices. The things that got his godly blood running with fervor. Save for the sacrifices, those were always a bit too awkwardly macabre for his taste.
Yet now, as though in answer to his pleas for excitement, a remedy for his boredom, he is miraculously transported to a Nordic court, before him, on a great throne, a majestic king and god, two ravens flutter above his head, next to his throne leans a giant golden spear. The elder bearded man rises.
“I, Odin, King of Asgard, needst thou help, should thee be gracious enough to grant it.”
Metnal, Hell-realm of Ahpuch, Now:
In a world below, Ahpuch the god of the dead in the Mesoamerican pantheon sits and ponders. He has just finished watching a meeting of three other hell-lords: Mephisto, Pluto and Hela. None of them think much of Ahpuch, they think his realm a joke, his influence near gone. For the past centuries, after belief in him ended, he has used his time to watch, trying before in vain to gain power, he now hatches another plan. The pieces put in place by the other hell-lords, he now thinks of ways to swoop down and snatch victory.
Mephisto wants his Rider back, for what purpose, Ahpuch does not know. Yet he can guess, in the past months a wave of imbalance has hit the hell-planes. Most of the other hell-lords are too wrapped up in their own games, but Ahpuch waits and watches. He does not know exactly what this wave is, what it means, but he is sure of two things: Mephisto knows what it is, and it originated with the Ghost Rider. Now he watches the Lord of Lies, as he plans to overthrow his new “allies,” Pluto and Hela.
Ryker’s, One day ago:
“What a spectacular failure I now behold!”
“Who is there? I demand you reveal yourself!” the man known as the Mandarin asks his unseen visitor.
“A demand, Mandy—it’s okay if I call you Mandy, isn’t it? Mandy, you’re in no place to make demands. However, I’ll be nice, the Luminary’s not the only gentle soul around, you know; for, it is I, the devil--though I prefer the cognomen Mephisto. You’ll come to call me master,” Mephisto finished his demented introduction with a mirthful smile. He loved to use a trickster persona, especially on people like the reserved, regal Mandarin. They found it insufferable and degrading, he found it amusing.
“Be gone, demon,” the Mandarin replies.
“Ah, now, Mandarin, must I repeat it, you’re in no place to make demands. Like I said, a spectacular failure, and given your heritage how it must hurt, it’s true isn’t it, you fancy yourself a Khan. The great Genghis your sanguine patriarch; I bet he’s rolling in his grave over such an inept heir.”
The Mandarin only grinds his teeth at the demon’s cajoling.
“Look how much Genghis and his son Kublai did, and you, with all your power, have done, in effect, nothing. You may cite more difficulties, greater adversity, but that’s a load of lies, and I’d know, I’m lord of such matters. For, just how many powers do you have, Mandarin?” Mephisto continued grilling his captive audience.
The Mandarin lets out a barely audible growl.
“Tell me, Mandarin.”
“One for each ring.”
“And how many rings have you?”
“Ten.”
“Ten rings. Ten different abilities, all at your command, you’re a walking countermeasure to just about any superhero out there, and still, all you can do is lose. You could be one of the greatest men on the planet and instead, you’re nothing.”
The Mandarin took a short, sharp breath. “If I am nothing, monster, than why do you waste your time with me.”
“Ah! There it is, Mandy: backbone. You’ve got potential, and I don’t want to see it wasted in here,” and with a snap of his clawed fingers, Mephisto set the Mandarin free. “Hunt down my Rider and a great prize shall be yours. Go now, worthless dog, he is on the road by now and you’d best make haste,” Mephisto adds with a sickening laugh.