nextgenerationmarvel | Some kind of trouble....

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Some kind of trouble....

The new internship was going really well. They were good kids; really good kids. Different conditions: two genetic disorders, two car accidents, and ... Luke ... but they were all responding well to getting their hands around a paintbrush or a pair of safety scissors.

Luke less so, not because his injuries were more severe -- in fact, they were less so than several of the others, but because he couldn't seem to relax. Then.... she could tell by the way he fumbled with the art supplies. The damage that had been healing after his previous accident ... or 'accident' ... was renewed. Kind of subtly, easy to miss if you weren't kind of studying this sort of thing obsessively.
Caroline calmly put in the call to DFYS ... but what about that night? Luke definitely wasn't talking enough to make anyone else take definite action immediately, and law-abiding citizen or not, Caroline wasn't sure she trusted the system to act quickly. Maybe she did have a little of Momma's revolutionary streak in her after all. She managed to keep him late, but eventually, the sun had long set, the center was closing... "Hey, Luke, I'm gonna walk you home, okay?" She didn't really give the kid much choice as she accompanied him. "Maybe have a talk with your Mom about how good your art's coming along."
"Mom'll be at work. And Dad... won't want to talk about art."
"Okay. Well, I'll just walk you home anyway."

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Tommy headed into New Jersey on a hunch, some half-remembered dream that pulled him in this direction. The demon seemed pleased by his decision to follow its impulses, which made Tommy hesitant. He didn't like being led around by the nose, but the demon usually knew where to find people to take down. It was better than receiving a visit from Mephisto, however, so Tommy took it for the small blessing it was and headed into the city.

Once he got to Jersey, however, he didn't get any further idea of which way to go so he stopped at the local 8th Street Bar for a drink. It was close to sundown, which meant his time at the wheel wasn't long for this world, but he'd at least enjoy himself while waiting.

He took his first shot of tequila and looked around, waiting for a sign of some kind to tell him where to go.

The attempt by Luke's father to pull him inside and slam the door was interrupted by tiny, dainty, and utterly unmoving foot in the way. The wince of the attempted slam just makes her smile wider.

"Mr. Moreau," she says cheerfully. "Certainly don't mean to impose on y'all, but I was wondering..."

"Miss Song, please don't..." Luke starts to whisper before his father interrupts them both, grabbing the boy by the wrist and jerking behind him as he tells the woman to get out and mind her own business.

"...Don't think so," Caroline says simply, hand going to her purse as her suspicions become less and less theoretical. The boy's clutching his arm, and she's pulling out her knife. "Be happy to leave you, but I'm taking Luke with me after all."

Drink number two ended much as drink number one had, and Tommy looked up at the television to watch the basketball game on television. Of course, it was the Nets.

His hand began to tingle a bit and Tommy tried for a moment to ignore it, knowing what it meant. He ordered a third drink and hoped he might be able to get through it before he had to leave.

Her being armed didn't intimidate him; the sound of sirens as she spoke further didn't scare him off. Some people took the A Man's Home is His Castle far, far too seriously.

...And then she discovered the other reason he wouldn't stand for any loss of face even enough to humor her before dismissing: he had friends over. Drinking buddies, clearly. Heavy drinking buddies. Oh, lovely.

She didn't want to hurt the boy's father in front of him, but she was rapidly having no choice... and it was getting rapidly more complicated. And then Luke was brave or foolish enough to try to talk to her again and got shoved, and a knife went into Mr. Moreau's offending wrist.

Somewhere in New Jersey, a little boy is shoved aside by his father as he tries to do the right thing. As Luke falls, he head slams into the corner of the end table and the boy falls to the floor unconscious, his blood sliding over his forehead to begin pooling on the floor.

Tommy's palm begins burning furiously and he looks down to see the pentagram fully realized on his skin. Now, it begins to burn.

Tommy slaps a twenty-dollar bill on the bar, thanks the bartender and rushes out of the front door, feeling his skin melting even as he stumbles toward his bike. Two more steps and he lets out a scream and falls, crawling toward his bike as his flesh melts and his eyeballs disintegrate.

The good news, for Mr. Moreau and his friends, was that Tommy Templeton was not in the area when the fight started. If they knew what was coming, they might not consider that good news. They might not even care, as they currently outnumber this little lady by four-to-one.

The bad news for Mr. Moreau and his friends...is that the 8th Street Bar is less than two blocks from their current location.

The Ghost Rider pulls up in front of the apartment building and steps inside, flaming skull clearly visible to all in the hallway. When he sees Moreau, his arm snaps up and points at the man.

"You."

"LUKE!" Oh, what in the name of Aunt Lucinda's God had she done risking letting him back here at all? A concussion, at least, and it might be so much worse ... But she has to concentrate on keeping back the men coming at her, who between them have 7 functioning hands to her two... even if those two hands are very good with knives.

Well, 6 hands once Moreau's charging in wide-eyed horror at the new arrival with the... giant flaming skull.

The Ghost Rider was not a figure in family stories or the Kentucky news, so Caroline doesn't place him immediately as she blinks ... but immediately refocuses on slipping past the remaining, fortunately even more shocked attackers to get some first aid for Luke.

The attackers are indeed too shocked to notice the woman making her way inside the apartment. Ghost Rider stalks down the hall, his boots thumping slowly but surely toward the criminals.

Two of the men push a third outside the door and slam it, leaving the man at the mercy of the Spirit of Vengeance.

"Hey, I don't even know these assholes, man! Don't hurt me!" the man screams.

This one did not seem guilty and so Ghost Rider ignores him.

Inside the apartment, the men are scrambling around for weapons, anything they can find to keep themselves from whatever that /thing/ outside is.

CRUNCH!

The door is kicked off its hinges and the Rider stands in the doorway, looking for the others.

"Surrender now and face judgement. Fight and the pain your pain will be unending." he said into the apartment as he stepped inside, looking about.

Two of the men swing at Ghost Rider with pipes, hoping to slow him down.

They are both summarily tossed across the room and /through/ the window leading into the alley. They do not move once they hit the floor.

Edited 2012-11-25 23:54 (UTC)

Caroline... has no idea what is going on. She stops Luke's bleeding, and absently remembers to put the cloth of her coat over her hand as she picks up the phone to call an ambulance amidst the screaming and she-can-only-assume dying.

Once the other two thugs are tossed outside, another man decides that he wants no part of this and leaps out of the hole in the window as well.

Ghost Rider turns to face Caroline and Luke as Moreau emerges from another room with a shotgun.

"HEY FREAK! GET OUTTA MY HOUSE!" he screams, and pulls the trigger.

The shot hits Ghost Rider in the back, tearing through the back of his coat. On a normal man, that would be a mortal wound, full of blood and indescribable pain.

Ghost Rider barely flinches.

He turns to face Moreau, whose eyes go wide. He tries to reload the weapon as quickly as he can, but it's not fast enough. Ghost Rider reaches up to his chest and pulls free a length of heavy black chain and makes a loud thump on the floor.

He slings the chain at Moreau and it wraps around his legs, yanking him from his feet and slamming him on the back. The air leaves his body in a rush and Ghost Rider simply pulls Moreau the remaining twenty feet to land at the Rider's boots.

Ghost Rider reaches down and pulls Moreau up to face him.

"Your soul is stained with the blood of the innocent. Now YOU will feel their pain! Look into my eyes..."

Moreau begins screaming then, and doesn't stop until Ghost Rider drops him to the floor in a heap. Caroline will see that the man's eyes resemble husks of coal and that Moreau simply twitches randomly, mumbling "Daddy, stop hitting me...please..." to himself.

The Rider turns to the woman and the boy. Confident that the child is safe, he will turn to leave without further words unless he is stopped.

"Hey!" Caroline calls out. "You are not leaving yet, Mister. For one thing, I don't know if you have a healing factor or you're just playing tough guy." Yes, with every horrible thing involved with this, whether or not the flaming skeleton man is shrugging off necessary medical care is a priority. Hey, she's a nurse.

Ghost Rider stopped and looked back over his shoulder at the young woman. She would see, as he did so, that his jacket was beginning to "heal" itself, the hole vanishing before her eyes.

Still, no mortal had ever spoken to him in that tone. Many were far too terrified upon seeing his face.

"This fool did not have the capacity to cause me pain. What of the boy? Does he live?"

Caroline might not have been the experienced superhero most of the family were, but she'd seen and heard of enough monsters, and the additional religious connotation of the rider affected her not at all.

"We'll get to the thank-yous later, if you could pick up my knife from over in the corner while I get Luke. He's alive. Head trauma like this, there's really now way of knowing about neurological damage until he wakes up. Caroline frowns thoughtfully. "Your ride could get him to the hospital faster than the ambulance, you think? Or are you only in the revenge game and useless at everything else?" She very gingerly scoops the boy up in her arms.

"I am the Spirit of Vengeance, NOT a chauffer!" Ghost Rider said. This mortal was beginning to annoy him with her irreverence.

Help the boy. He shouldn't suffer because his father is a piece of garbage.

"There are sinners to punish! I have no time for this!" he said aloud, clearly not speaking to Caroline.

I thought our duty was to protect the innocent?

There is low growl in the Rider's chest and he looks at the woman.

"Follow me." he said, leading her out of the door and out of the building to his bike. The bike began to convert itself, allowing for a small cart on its side for the woman to fit into.

"If your heart is impure, the hellfire will burn you. And I will deal with you after the boy is saved. Get in." he said, mounting bike.

If Caroline chooses to get on, she'll be able to fit inside the little cart with Luke and Ghost Rider will take them to the nearest hospital.

Flaming skeleton man has disassociative identities, clearly. Poor thing.

When it comes down to it, there just isn't time to be terrified.

"Mister, Dirty thoughts ain't exactly on my priority list right now." She climbs in, careful with Luke.

One brief, fiery, horrific ride later, she's bringing him in, perfectly willing to let herself freak out to hospital officials about the brutal thugs and the creature and the screams once he's handed over. Treatment begins, statements are taken, he regains consciousness, the mother is contacted, and Caroline leaves. And once she's away, standing out there in the night, she looks around and calls out. "So. I still need dealing with? You at least want to talk?"

Ghost Rider noted the moment that she got into the car, the hellfire didn't burn her. Only the pure of heart survived hellfire. She was not a threat.

The Rider appeared across the street, watching the woman as she came out of the hospital.

"Get on the bike." he said, mounting his bike once more. "I will take you to your home and then leave you."

I thought you weren't a chauffeur?

"Do not mock me, mortal." the Rider growled, waiting for Caroline.

"Wasn't mocking you," Caroline said as she went to climb in again. "Or are you talking to the other guy?" Pause. "Did he sign up for this, by the way?" Involuntary psychic possession is Wrong.

"I was not speaking to you." he said to Caroline. "And my host received exactly what he deserved."

Once she was on the bike, Ghost Rider looked to her.

"Where shall I take you?" he asked. His voice was discordant, as though the voices of several people speaking at once had been fed into a sound mixer and altered.

"Who made that call?"

She gives the address of a corner a few blocks from their place. Going straight there seems like a breach of the others' trust.

And in some strange instinct trying to stave off a return to panic, she gives it in the exact same multi-synth voice. Then adds, "Thank you."

"Our master." Ghost Rider said simply.

He noted her mimicry of his voice and wondered what manner of human this one was. She clearly cared for the boy.

They drive to the corner in question, where Ghost Rider looks at her.

"Was the child yours?"

Edited 2012-11-26 02:11 (UTC)

"....that ain't a word I'm too fond of," she observes evenly. Once the m-word comes into play, Windsong's daughter trusts nothing about who deserves what. Still, an operation to free the host isn't going to work with the resources currently available to her, up against this kind of liabilities. And, you know, considering she wouldn't have a clue how t odo it anyway.

"Hmm? No, they're getting his mom to him now. I'm interning at the center where he gets his physical therapy." And Caroline's face actually manages to cloud worse than it had at the monster's using the M word. "I should have made him stay the night somewhere else, somehow."

"Do not worry yourself with 'ifs'. You saved the boy from his poor excuse for a father and that sinner paid for his evil." Ghost Rider said.

"Everyone has a master, whether they know it or not, mortal. You would do well to remember that."

"Oh, I'll believe it; Aunt Lucinda says we all end up serving something or somebody, but mostly, when someone's throwing that word around, I think they could use a change of who."

"Such is not possible, no matter how much one might wish it otherwise." the Spirit of Vengeance said. Did he sound...wistful?

"My time here is done." the Rider said, stepping off of his bike.

Suddenly, the flame on his head vanished and he fell to his knees. Little by little, hair, organs and flesh regrew; as soon as vocal cords were available, the young man began to scream in pain as his eyes regenerated and his nerve endings sang with renewed feeling.

Tommy Templeton lay on the ground before Caroline in short order, exhausted from his transformation. He struggled to catch his breath as he looked up at the woman.

"This...is not usually how I meet women."

There won't be too far up to look, because once he's screaming, she'll drop down by his side despite her horror, trying to think of something she can do and coming up blank.

"Well, I'd hope not. Medical treatment's not going to help, is it?" she asked sadly. Not a scratch on him by the end. "So, um... is it a psychic cuckoo in your head, or dimensional magic, or what? If you don't mind my askin'."

"It's what I deserve." Tommy said simply, trying to roll to his stomach so he can get to his feet. The bike had also changed back to a Harley-Davidson Fat Boy. Tommy felt like hell.

The Rider usually didn't let him go before sunrise. This was new.

"I'm Tommy." he said by way of introduction.

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