Alright, some context: this chapter takes place after my previous Agents of SHIELD chapter and my story Losing Control. For those who don't know, it's created a bit of an alternate continuity with some events changed in the AoS timeline.
This chapter is one of those altered events, which I haven't exactly written yet. So I apologize if this seems like half a chapter, because it pretty much is.
Disclaimer: I do not own Halo, the MCU or any other franchise that appears in this chapter.
The mission had started off so well at first: invade one of the oil rigs owned by Anton Ivanov, the leader of the Watchdogs, and take the Darkhold back. The Secret Warriors had led the charge, consisting of Daisy, Lincoln, Yo-yo, and temporary member Robbie, who had led them to this facility in the first place.
The Inhumans and demon had carved a path through the old refinery, making short work of any Watchdog in their way, until they reached the main chamber where Ivanov was supposed to be.
He was there, along with an interdimensional gateway, similar to the one that AIDA had built previously. Around the gate were a bunch of technicians and engineers, who seemed rather oblivious to everything around them.
"So glad you could join us." The Russian-born Watchdog said. "You are just in time to witness the end for all Inhumans."
"Well, he's officially lost it." Daisy muttered. Lincoln responded by simply shocking Ivanov into unconsciousness, before turning his sparking hand at the other techs.
"Shut it down." Coulson said, in tandem with Lincoln's threat. Robbie's chain ignited as well, but the humans gazed at them with a dazed look in their eyes.
"It's too late." One said. "You cannot stop it. Joyous convergence is at hand!"
All of the technicians were suddenly on the floor, having been knocked away from the gate by Yo-yo. Unfortunately, the nutjob's words were quickly proven to very prophetic, as the machine started activating on its own.
The gateway opened, and the still conscious humans got on their knees, bowing before it. They began whispering and stroking strange pendants around their necks, which were oddly shaped black rocks that tapered off into two separate points. Eventually, a figure emerged from the rift, an Inhuman.
The Inhuman was wearing all black, though his clothes were charred. His face was monstrous and alien, with tentacles emerging from where there should be hair. Coulson, Lincoln and Daisy quickly recognized him, though the latter two became utterly terrified. Meanwhile, Robbie could feel anger and a little bit of unease beneath his skin. Eventually, Coulson spoke in shock.
"Is that Hive?"
"That's not Hive." Lincoln whispered. "Not anymore."
"Oh god." Daisy gasped. "It's them."
Spores erupted from the first Inhuman, making their way toward the humans kneeling on the floor. But instead of stripping the flesh away, the spores began converting them, as green-yellow growths and tentacles began sprouting on the bodies, which immediately got up and began howling.
Unlike most Flood forms, Hive had undergone very little physical mutation, the only really noticeable effect was the distinct sickly yellow-green flesh on his alien face, which matched the color of the spores and combat forms around them.
The Flood charged forward, before being knocked away by a pulse of vibration from Daisy. Lincoln capitalized on that by electrocuting several combat forms as they attempted to get up. But it was clear that this would be a losing fight, as the displaced spores started seeping towards them.
"Get back to the surface." Coulson ordered. "SHIELD and the Republic needs to know about this." They started to leave, but Robbie began moving forward.
"You guys go. I'm going to grab the Darkhold."
"They'll destroy this place whether you're here or not." Lincoln warned.
"I'll be fine." Robbie replied. "Just go!" Reluctantly, the rest of them did, Coulson already giving orders through the radio.
Robbie's skin began emitting smoke, before his flesh boiled away, quickly dissolving with a demonic roar and leaving the cracked and flaming skull underneath. The Ghost Rider marched forward, ignoring everyone else around him.
Hive, meanwhile, had grabbed the Darkhold, while simultaneously spreading spores around them. The rest of the SHIELD teams had wisely started retreating back to the surface, leaving the Rider alone on the rig with all the Flood forms.
...
"All strike teams abort mission." Coulson's voice went through the radio. "Get to the evac zone now!"
Panicked screams were all that answered him, most of which were abruptly cut out by alien warbling or roaring. "Damn it." Switching frequencies, he made a call to the Zephyr.
"Coulson to Zephyr, I need you to open fire on the facility immediately."
"What?" That was Mack's voice. "Why would you-"
"It's the Flood." Coulson quickly explained. "Destroy any method they can use to escape, no matter the cost."
"Understood." It was May this time. "But we're holding off on the really big guns until you get out."
"Well then we better hurry." Daisy said, collapsing the passages behind them as they went, covered by Lincoln. "'Cause this place needs to go, one way or another."
And so they kept up the same pattern: Lincoln would electrocute any of the few Flood forms that attempted to get to them while Daisy would bring down the halls behind them. Yo-yo would scout ahead at superspeed, ensuring that the path ahead was clear.
At one point, a pair of Flood combat forms emerged from the vents behind them, just after Daisy had sealed the entrance. She sent them flying with a vibration blast powerful enough to cripple any ordinary human.
Except the Flood just got back up, forcing the Inhuman to up her power level, stripping the diseased flesh from their body, causing disgusting liquid to spill out until both forms were in pieces. Clamping down on her disgust, she collapsed the tunnel again and kept moving again.
Through it all, the facility was rocked by explosions as the Zephyr fired on it, and unfortunately the other teams still didn't answer their comms, clearly having been overwhelmed by the Parasite. Coulson hated abandoning them, but he knew that he had no choice, and was more than willing to go down with them if it kept the Flood from spreading further.
Fortunately, it didn't take long to reach the recovery Quinjet, and luckily they managed to stay ahead of the Infection. Activating the autopilot, Coulson and co flew back to the Zephyr above, keeping themselves truly sealed from the rest of SHIELD as a quarantine measure while they underwent a thorough decontamination.
...
One Flood combat form charged, but the Rider tore it in half with his chain, making sure to completely incinerate the body in the process. Continuing forward after the Hive form, the Rider continued burning every Flood form that he came across.
Eventually he came across Hive (who didn't even bother to turn and appeared to be looking in the Darkhold) and whipped the chain at the Inhuman, but another Flood body intercepted it. At last, the infected Inhuman turned to regard the Ghost Rider.
"The Spirit of Vengeance." The flaming chain incinerated the Flood form, but another simply took its place. "You are here for the Darkhold." The body that once was Hive picked up the book in his hand. "Come and take it." Another half-dozen Flood forms entered the room, all sporting weapons the previous owners once had, and wasted no time in opening fire.
Roaring, the Rider ignored the weapon fire of the Flood forms and kept burning through them, all the while making his way towards the Hive form and the Darkhold in its hands. The Gravemind however, had directed its vassal to walk away, seemingly rather bored with this whole thing.
"Why persist in fruitless flight, searching through this mire." Another combat form charged the Rider, only to be thrown aside and shattered into pulp. "Suffering on, towards the dawn, to plunge into the fire."
Roaring in rage, the Ghost Rider ran through the Flood horde in his path, charging right at Hive. The demon swung his chain, cutting through all the Flood around him before the hellfire-infused metal flew towards Hive's neck.
The former 'first' Inhuman ducked under the metal, efficiently avoiding the Rider's swings as it put distance between them. It unleashed a wave of spores from its hand, but stopped when the Flood cells burned away upon contact with the flames around Robbie's skeleton body.
So continued the pattern; Ghost Rider kept up his attack while Hive narrowly avoided the strikes, letting the rest of the Flood attempt to wear the demon down. It didn't work, as the flaming skeleton all but ignored the Parasite, instead focusing on what was in Hive's hand. Eventually, he had an opening.
The Rider's chain then wrapped around Hive's arm, pulling him closer to the demon before slicing through the flesh. With his arm, the Darkhold also fell to the ground, leaving a one-armed Flood Inhuman backing away.
The Rider moved forward to finish the job, scooping up the book mid-stride, but they were interrupted by an explosion, as all the damage from earlier and the Zephyr's rudimentary containment methods had destabilized the facility. The Flood took the opportunity to protect one of its more useful forms.
"This is only the beginning." A portal opened behind him and Hive stepped through, vanishing completely off the rig. The Rider roared in anger as the flames consumed the building around him.
...
Back on the Zephyr, Team Coulson had a bird's eye view at the proceedings. It wasn't pretty; the Flood had completely overrun the facility, enduring the destruction wrought by the SHIELD plane, and were trying to escape in the still docked submarines. Mace had reluctantly called in orbital fire support from the Republic, which they were rather quick to oblige.
A beam of light erupted from the heavens and struck the burning oil rig, hitting the reserves causing a massive fireball that consumed the platform. The beam didn't stop, instead it began sweeping the ocean, boiling the water away along with the Flood filled submarines that attempted to escape.
Fortunately, the multiversal superpower was able to contain the situation, and after a brief scan of the away team to ensure they were clean, let Coulson and the Secret Warriors onto the Zephyr. It was only when they did that Mack asked the obvious question.
"Where's Robbie?"
"He was in the rig when they burned it." Lincoln said. "He was going after Hive."
"Is he even alive after all that?" May asked.
"Well, he was trapped in a nuke the last time we saw him." Coulson pointed out. "And he came back from that."
"If you guys are sure..." Mack trailed off.
"He'll be fine." Daisy said simply. "I doubt we've seen the last of him."
...
The Flood form that was once Hive walked through the metal hall, his pace brisk and his purpose clear. His severed arm had been impossible to heal normally, so Flood biomatter had simply been grafted over the hellfire wound to close it. Now, one arm looked far more like a claw, though still fairly normal looking compared to most Flood forms.
The Flood form moved quickly through this place, aware that the Republic and Separatists would be able to track any hint of the Parasite, which made any attempt at subterfuge difficult for the Flood alone. Fortunately, there were methods around that, as the religious man proved when he got on his knees as Hive approached him.
The Flood may have been easily tracked by the superpowers, but the Gravemind's non-infected agents were not so easily caught. Granted beings like Dark Samus lit up sensors like a Christmas tree due to being nothing but Phazon, but people like Darth Maul's Shadow Collective or the growing number of Unitologists would help the Flood covertly, whether they knew it or not. The man here was one of the former.
"I live to serve." The man whispered reverently, his head bowed.
In his hand, Hive held one of the pages of the Darkhold. Handing the page to the kneeling Unitologist, the man eagerly took off, already knowing what his mission was. The Gravemind only needed the one page for this specific plan, the rest of the book was immaterial.
...
Ghost Rider walked between worlds, once more on a mission. The Darkhold was now somewhere safe, but a new problem had reared its head. He had discovered that the Parasite had torn a page from the Darkhold, and knew that whatever plans the Gravemind had, it couldn't be good.
Sadly, neither he nor the Rider had noticed right away: they had only realized something was wrong when they started feeling the same drawing sensation (albeit weaker) as they felt when tracking the book, despite it being right in front of them.
Then Robbie noticed a small tear when running his fingers over the book, and opened it to the page in question. He made special care not to focus on any of the words, even in spite of his lack of comprehending the subject matter and the Rider's presence making him immune from the book's corruption.
Unfortunately, it was as the two of them feared: a page of the Darkhold was missing. When that was discovered, the Rider's fury as palpable, but there was also a sense of fear in the Spirit of Vengeance.
The only question was why? The Flood obviously didn't need the book, let alone a single page, so what was the purpose of taking it? Question upon question appeared in the Rider's mind, none of the answers making any sense.
In the end, it wouldn't matter. He would find where the last piece of the Darkhold was, and bring it home. All he had to do now was- he felt it. The Rider sensed its presence, this time on another version of Earth, one with a great many spirits. Getting through would be difficult but not impossible.
...
Finally, the rift opened. The Ghost Rider walked through, arriving on this new world. Before the portal closed, he had something he needed to do; igniting his chain, he widened the portal and flipped its orientation before changing the destination.
The portal lowered itself to the ground, revealing the Hell Charger. Once the car was through, the Rider wrapped the chain around his body and got in the car, driving away through the desolate streets.
Robbie regained control as he approached the city limits, which looked much more habitable, teeming with actual people walking around. The Rider's host would've liked to enjoy the freedom he had now, but it could wait; they had a job to do.
So yeah, if anyone's read the latest chapter of Catalog of War, this is another precursor chapter to that. Specifically, the chapter involving Ghost Rider fighting Avatar Korra and her team from Legend of Korra. Not to mention the end was also shown in the Legend of Korra aftermath chapter.
So, what was going to be a single one-shot in Catalog of War is likely going to become a separate story in its own right, and this chapter is really how it begins.
Anyway, so I figured the Ghost Rider would be immune to biological infection, since how are the Flood going to infect a flaming skeleton? That said, an immunity to normal Flood infection doesn't include an immunity to being mind-raped by the Gravemind, which is what many spirits aware of the Precursors are afraid of. Of course, it still requires the Flood to keep them still...
Anyway, I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter and reviews are always welcome.
EDIT: This story is continued in my latest fic, Spirits and Shields, if you want to take a look.