1-Spirit of Vengeance.
Violence is the answer of humankind for everything.
Being shot with a semiautomatic gun in the face was not something new for the Ghost Rider, being shot repeatedly was not a novelty either.
Neither being stabbed, burn, frozen, nuked; yeah, that one really hurt; drowned, smashed, run over by a tank, decapitation, disemboweled, well the bloody nine yards. At this point in his life, the Ghost Rider has suffered all possible forms of death that Earth and other planes beyond had to offer. That being said, a Rider is neither immortal or indestructible, it´s just harder than usual.
Superman is practically invulnerable too and all kind of supervillains had tried to eliminate him with all kind of tricks, yet the flying boy scout is still around the block. The Ghost Riders are even harder to kill.
Dealing with the supernatural menaces is the first duty of the Riders. They are, technically, the Nukes of Heaven, God´s wrath manifest and godly in nature, unbound and raw. With the fusion with a host, any kind of hosts, the Rider get control, limits and the ability to understand the world around them.
For eons, all Riders had Caretakers, individuals that "helped" them to reach their potential but never revealing the true essence of what the Riders are. With the amalgamation of universes that Ultron Sigma provoked, the last Rider know, the oldest son of Jonathon Blaze and Morrigan Aensland, was a bit of an anomaly and it was even more an anomaly when the One Above All, asked the lad to travel to a universe that was not his own and dealt with a lot of bullshit that went on in that particular dimension.
Considering that Brán Blaze-Aensland, was not going to inherit the throne of the Makai Realm due his status as the last and strongest Ghost Rider, Bran decided that it was the perfect opportunity to grow outside of the shadow of his parents and see what kind of trouble could he create.
Eons later, in Earth-9; that was the designation of the particular world; the Ghost Rider was the boogie-man of the boogie-men.
Consequence of crash landing in what would be called Tunguska in the prehistoric era. Legends grow on the tales of the flaming skeleton and how it was pure wrath incarnate, the Spirit of Vengeance, a tale to make rowdy child behave. The supernatural side of the world knew better and recognized a powerful player when they see one, however, the "celestial stench" of the Rider was completely different from any of the hosts of Heaven.
The Presence was bemusedly silent about anything related to the Rider and Metatron seemed to obtain guilty pleasure of comparing the Specter with the Ghost Rider.
It was pretty unfair for the Specter. In the case of the Rider, Bran was in complete control of his powers, there was no difference between the Rider and him, making Bran, essentially, a pseudo-god of vengeance. It was awesome, no one denies that, but at the same time is was a 24/7 quest of vengeance, 365 days of the year.
Whenever innocent blood is spilled, the Riders will brought Vengeance.
And innocent blood is spilled each second in the universe. This universe is not exempt of that rule, even in the so called advanced alien civilizations.
Advanced civilizations, the Rider´s flaming bony ass; from Tamaran to Krypton, they were a bunch of arrogant assholes. That being said, some alien girls were hot beyond belief and with Bran being half-succubus, a lot of flings were to be expected.
Earth was still the primary focus of the Rider. Curiously enough, in this particular reality, Earth was actually the cornerstone of the universe, after some convoluted cosmic crisis of sorts, Earth become point zero of the universe.
Frankly, it was hilarious.
Ironically, the work of the Rider was pretty much the same in this reality and with time, Bran was convinced that he has done a good job. Bran even managed to get off the majority of the superhero radars, although with some hicccups here and there.
During the Dark Ages, the Rider was overworked, during the Renaissance, the vampire threat was off he fucking charts, during the "modern" era it was even worse. The World Wars were already disaster enough, with the addition of what the Thule Society and the Yokais of Japan made, it was an even worse nightmare. The so call "Twentieth Century" was a disaster at so many levels that it was not even funny.
More often than not, the Rider was convinced that he has been brought here to prevent humanity to blast themselves to kingdom come.
The One Above All and The Presence, the two Apex of the two universes gave Bran a pat in the back, the instructions manual and toss him into Tunguska. After way too many millions of years, Bran preferred to think that he has made his parents proud, however, Bran was convinced that good old Captain America would have punched him several times. Especially if Steve saw what kind of business did Bran run behind the cameras.
Unfortunately, violence was a universal language and more often than not, the Ghost Rider found himself giving long and speeches in such language to a lot of entities; from natural to supernatural; that did not seem to get the memo and decided that Earth was a perfect playground for their latest pandemonium playground.
The aforementioned paragraph about how being shot in the face was not something new for the Riders was one of those nights were violence seemed to be the only way to get something done. It was also Gotham, that city was cursed and Bran mean it literally.
Millennia ago, Bran hunted and beat to the death an evil warlock in what today could be considered the oldest part of Gotham. The old Warlock was determined to open a portal that would allow a sun-like primordial god free reign into this dimension. That would be the equivalent of ringing the dinner bell for the bastard. Bran hunted, beat the Warlock, rip his spine out and beat the remains to a mulch with its own skull; still attached to the spine. Then Bran burned the corpse to ashes.
The taint of the warlock seemed to have filtered to the earth and Gotham has grown feeding on that evil. Hardly a surprise the city needed a cleaning from time to time. The last time Bran did a good cleaning was around two decades more or less?. When Bran crippled the so called Court of Owls and reduced the local criminal populace in about sixty percent.
Powerful as Bran was, he was only one and had an entire world to watch over, not to mention several other dimensions that must be watched, just in case they get ideas.
Anyhow, Gotham nights were always a bloody disaster. Each, single, time Bran ended up dealing with way to many lunatics and idiots with even more lunatic ideas and plans.
It all begun with a report from one of Bran´s employees at the Continental Hotel of Gotham. According to the word in the street, Black Mask; the code name of Roman Sidonis a local crime lord; has bought a lot of mystical trinkets, looking for something. It was so out of the usual M.O of Black Mask that it called the attention of the rest of the locals.
No one has the slightest idea about what was Black Mask looking for, but the payment was actually pretty good and money allowed a lot of eccentricities. The ruthless and cruel reputation of Black Mask did also help to kept curiosity relatively away. Gotham feeds on rumors, it was like drugs for them, word in the street run wild each day.
From the latest idiocy of the Batman´s rogue gallery to the latest mafia war, so on and so forth. As Ghost Rider, Bran has cleaned house every two decades more or less, the place was like a toilet, no matter how much do you clean, someone is going to shit on it.
Between the iron grip that Batman hold in Gotham´s cape community and how every time Bran made a trip to Gotham as the Rider, it ended up in a bloody massacre, Bran preferred to let his employees in the city to gather information and depending on the reports, see if Bran had to intervene or not.
That night was one of those cases. The majority of what Black Mask had added to his collection were small trinkets, parlor tricks in the grand scheme of magic, but unfortunately, among all the items that Black Mask has collected, there were some trinkets that were very dangerous.
Black Mask has recurred to local talents to collect his new toys. Thieves that made of Gotham their home, chief among them Catwoman, and several of them had recurred to the services of the employees of Bran.
It was a vicious circle but perfect for always being informed of the in and outs of the crime underworld of Gotham.
One of the items that Black Mask has collected was called the Mist of Ibella, a powerful enchanted item that allowed the user to teleport and control the minds of those that inhaled them. The previous owner was a very beautiful Latina girl called Lourdes Lucero, but she was forced to abandon the item due the actions of Ra´s Al Ghul and his League of Assassins.
Bran employed Lourdes as the Manager of the Continental Hotel in Valparaiso, where she had to run, escaping from Ra´s and his minions. The League of Assassins knew that the Continental was sacred ground, not even Ra´s dared to test Bran´s patience without a very good reason.
Catwoman stole the container of the mist from a smuggler ring around the coasts and delivered it to one of the Black Mask´s warehouses all over the docs. It was a clean, direct operation, once the goods are delivered Bran would have give the order to a squad of his employees and they would have raided the place.
Unfortunately, one of the goons of Black Mask decided to play with matchsticks around oil and inhale the Mists. The Mist are a dangerous little thing, it unleashed the inner desires of the goon and turn him into a monster. The lad was rotten since the beginning and the Mists just liberated what was already there.
The thugs in the warehouses were now monsters, parodies of humans beings, all muscle, teeth and black eyes. They look like vicious parodies of Slender Man, but with more guns and teeth and without tentacles.
Bran walked into the warehouse in order to prevent the Mist for spreading and turning Gotham into an even worse nightmare and was shot in the face by an enthusiastic mook with more guns than brains.
Hence the original comment of being shot in the face.
Bran wounds closed in a second, leaving a very pissed off Bran in front of the flabbergasted mook. Bran grab his gun, take it form his hand, shove it back into the mouth of the asshole and shot several times, turning his neck and back into a gory mess.
Not a second later, the rest of the mooks decided to join the bullet party.
The veritable rain of bullets was useless against Bran, who moved into the warehouse and transformed into his Ghost Rider form, scaring the shit out of the mooks even more.
Eight feet tall, dress with a black military coat with sharp spikes on the shoulders, black biker pants, biker steel toed boots, spiked gloves and a black shirt with a white skull on it; on a diagonal over his chest, a solid silver chain was wrapped. The appearance was already intimidating enough, but the real seller of the image was the fact that Bran was now a flaming skeleton.
From the shadows of the coat, Bran extracted a pair of arcane revolvers and started to deliver his own response of lead. Contrary to the mooks "spray and pray" tactics, Bran was precise, accurate and lethal.
Each shot was one thug down for the count. All the shots were lethal, thanks to his Rider powers Bran knew that all of this fuckers had enough innocent blood in their hands to earn the death penalty thrice over.
Stepping into the center of the warehouse, Bran took aim and shot the thugs with the 50 Cal revolvers. The weapons carried enough punch to reduce any human target into mince meat with each shot, but empowered by the Mists they were an unknown.
The thugs tried to took cover behind anything they found, desks, containers, stolen goods, the corpses of their former colleges, anything goes to seek some safety from the brutal guns. Bran took aim and deliver death with each shot.
A bullet pierced through the metallic walls of the container and blasted the head of one of the thugs, splattering his black blood and brains all over the insides of the container. Once they die, they recover their human form, although, with the bullet holes still on them.
Another tried to made a run to a better position and the bullet buried into his torso ripping it apart; another bullet blasted a hole in the torso of the thug the size of a basketball sending him flying against the other side of the warehouse.
Whenever the thunder of the guns echoed, another kill was achieved.
The guns of the thugs would have been perfect to deal with human intruder, but for the Rider they are of little consequence, even enhanced by the powers of the Mists, the weapons lacked any real punch against the impossible endurance and resilience of Bran.
Bran stored one of the guns back and took out a refill for the ammo cylinder of the revolver. Slightly moving his skull to the side, a bullet that would have hit his forehead sailed past him without consequence. Bran reloaded his revolver and proceed to vaporize the upper head of the shooter in one swift move.
Seeing that they were butchered, the remaining mooks made a run for their lives. Bran did not left them run, they were already dangerous enough as humans, as whatever they are now, they will be a nightmare for any poor victim on their escape.
One bullet at the bottom of the back destroyed the spine and the insides of one of them, another bullet to the left side of the head blow the brains of another and the last one was hit mid air, blasting him in two in a shower of awfully smelling innards.
Twirling the gun, Bran put it back into the shadows of his coat.
The Shadow´s Coat, a magical item crafted from the original Shadow´s Cloak of the hero know as Devil Slayer after his demise at the hands of Jeddah. It transformed into any clothes Bran needed, it was better than any personal armor in the market and stored whatever Bran wanted into its infinite shadows, the perfect tool for a Ghost Rider.
Sensing that there is no more enemies around, Bran transformed back into his human form.
Six feet nine tall, with the complexion of a professional swimmer, brown hair, golden eyes, strong Gaelic features and sharply dressed with a dark blue double breasted suit with a golden tie that matched his eyes.
Bran completely ignored the corpses around him and walked inside one of the containers, the place where the container of the Mist of Ibela rested. Inside the container, the small necklace that served as holder and container of the Mist was still around the neck of the headless corpse of the first thug that Bran had killed with his revolvers.
Grabbing the necklace, Bran sensed the Mist swirling around him, trying to infiltrate his body and soul with promises and sweet nothings, with a low growl and an exhalation of smoke, Bran let his fire touch the Mist. As soon as the Mist touched the fires of the Rider, they retreated back to the necklace and stay quiet.
The Mist may not be sentient in the sense that they lacked a will of their own, but they are more than capable to read and adapt to the wishes of their holders and once they fell the fire of the Rider, they knew that they have found something that could destroy them.
Bran stored the necklace inside his jacket, safe inside of the Shadow´s coat; later Bran would return the necklace to Lourdes, she had the willpower to kept the Mists at bay and she was a loyal member of Bran´s organization.
Increasing the assets of the Valparaiso Continental sound like a win/win situation to Bran.
But before that, Bran had to dealt with the situation here at Gotham, shit can hit the fan at any moment with Black Mask playing with forces that he understood little about. Even expert sorcerers and arcanist would found extremely difficult to deal with the shit that Black Mask has bought and according to all reports, Roman Sionis was Not a Homo-Magi.
Even to this day, Bran was still confused about how Homo-magi came to exist. Supposedly, at some point in human evolution, the "magic gene" was instilled into the population. The most common theory was due the influence of the Lord of Order and Chaos, but no one was entirely sure about the veracity of those claims. Magic exist and that was all they need.
Shuffling around the container a little, Bran found an inventory of the items inside and cursed under his breath for what he was reading. God dammit, Black Mask has acquired something that has turned him into a priority target.
In the edge of his senses a couple of new souls make an appearance. If Bran had to guess, he would say some of the caped crusaders of Gotham looking for some answers. Good intel was a scarce commodity, even in this modern era with cameras, internet and all that jazz.
Bran took the most dangerous trinkets out of the merchandise in the warehouse and when the two souls were already entering the warehouse, Bran stepped into a portal and disappeared from the scene, leaving no trace behind.
Portals were the greatest thing ever. Steven Strange, the Sorcerer supreme of Earth, taught them to Bran when he was learning with him in the New York Sanctuary. The ability to open portals to anywhere that the mage knew. Supposedly, a Sling Ring was needed to open portals and to travel between dimensions like the Mirror Dimension, but Bran was a Ghost Rider.
The ones that can walk among the worlds. A privilege granted to the Riders by the One Above All and the Presence. Bran has made good use of it to kept Earth safe.
The portal closed with a small golden spark, leaving Bran in the top suite of the Gotham Continental Hotel. Contrary to one could expect, the suite was not luxurious, it had a lot of amenities but it was more oriented to pragmatism and comfort than to lavishing luxury.
A couple of comfortable sofas surrounding a dinning table with weapons and trinkets over it; a big sturdy table of wood with all kind of notebooks and annotations on them, a medium kitchen with all kind of appliances and a big fridge, and a big TV connected to a squared CPU, were in the main hall. To the sides, a spacious bathroom with a very big bathtub and a sleeping room with an organized and big wardrobe and a massive king size bed.
Pragmatic but comfortable, a rule that Bran followed to the heart. Practically all the Continental Hotels all over the world had a suite like that. Of course, Bran had to confess that he had favorites and those were better geared up.
Bran took seat in one of the sofas, and look out for the telephone under the papers of the table. Shuffling with the papers a bit, Bran took mental note of taking five minutes out of his agenda to set some order in all the disaster that he had on the table.
Picking up the telephone, Bran tapped the reception button and waited for the receptionist to pick up.
"Mister Aensland", quickly answered the call the receptionist, a proud Gotham born lad called Abraham. "Good night sir, this is an unexpected pleasure, to what do we own your presence in the Gotham Continental?".
"Good night Abraham, is Natalia in the Hotel?", asked Bran taking the keyboard and the remote of the TV and the computer and setting then on.
"Yes, Lady Knight is already in the Stargazer lounge, should I inform her of your presence?". Reported back Abraham.
"No need Abraham, I will visit her later", shook his head Bran. "But can you please call the kitchen and told them to prepare me some late dinner?, I am famish".
"Of course, sir", chuckled Abraham, "something in particular?".
"I am in the mood for wyvern steak and dvergar mead", nodded Bran.
"It will soon be there, sir". Took note Abraham. "Anything else?".
"Nothing for the moment Abraham, thanks", said Bran after a second of thinking.
"Understood, enjoy your stay Mister Aensland", cut the communication Abraham.
Bran Blaze was the Ghost Rider, but Bran Aensland was the owner of the five stars chain of hotels all over the world called the Continentals. It was Bran´s particular way of paying homage to his parents.
The Continental Hotel were more than just five stars business. Truth to be told they were the reason why Bran Aensland was considered one of the richest men in the world. There is a Continental in several capital cities all over the world. The hotel had several more attributes than just a successful business.
Each hotel acted like a ward against extra dimensional intrusions, had their own private security forces and provided all the guests in the hotel with bodyguard services. Also, the hotel provided a lot of extra services for their guests, like gunsmiths, bank, an incinerator, safety vaults, healers, etc. The Continental was more oriented to the magical side of the world, but their services could be purchased by anyone.
Bran set some order in all the papers around, preparing some packages to be sent to all kind of magical contacts all over the world with notes and suggestions. Taking a swift shower and leaving some clothes for cleaning, Bran enjoyed a swift shower. Not much later, one of the workers of the hotel brought Bran his dinner.
Well done wyvern steak and a tankard of dvergar mead, the dinner of champions.
After a good dinner, Bran picked up a new suit; the Shadow´s coat morphed into an elegant gray coat; Bran checked some of the weapons that he kept inside of the coat and prepared for his meeting with the Manager of the Gotham Continental Hotel.
Not bothering with the elevators, Bran walked into a portal and stepped into the hallway that guided to the Stargaze lounge. The guards at the sides of the doors did not react to his presence, Abraham has already inform all the security personnel that Bran was in the building and that he will be visiting the Manager.
Nodding in salute at them, the guards opened the doors and nodded back. The perks of the Continental were many and the staff has soon learned to be loyal to the owner that took good care of them and their families, asking nothing in return but their loyalty and effort. It has worked well for centuries that Bran did not see the need of changing the system.
The Stargazer lounge was a bit of an oddity in the Continental Hotels. It was more an astronomy observer than a real lounge. It was built as soon as the actual Manager of the hotel, Natalia Knight, took her post. The lounge was something akin to an open balcony with a retractable roof, white couches and tables; one of them occupied with Natalia´s snacks and drinks along her notes and books; and several glass panels that allow a nice view of the city of Gotham.
Bran moved into the lounge, walking to the spot where he knew that Natalia would be, occupied with her astronomy observations.
Natalia Knight, aka Nocturne, was a Russian ascendant woman that was hit by an experimental laser in Oslo´s Astronomy observatory. Due the laser, her skin become alabaster skin, her hair black and gained some superhuman abilities. Teleportation and pheromones. She become a villain for a short while, but Bran found her and negotiated a very sweet deal.
In truth, Natalia was not all that complicated; she wanted to live in luxury and dedicate to her astronomy studies. Bran provided her with both and gained a very competent and capable manager from the Gotham Continental. It came with the bonus that Natalia was one of the ex-lovers of Batman and knew the identity of Batman, something that make the superhero wary of interrupt with the business of the Continental.
To be completely honest, Bran had nothing against Batman, point is, Bran knew the identity of Batman, long before he hired Natalia. For Bran, the important thing are not faces but souls and Batman and Bruce Wayne shared the very same soul. It was an easy deduction from there on.
Natalia was busy with her telescope, it was enchanted to always allow the watcher to see the stars no matter how cloudy or polluted the sky is. In Gotham, pollution was something usual, a dense cloud of smog covered the sky all nights, depending of how close you were to the industrial district.
The manager of the Gotham Continental was an exceptionally beautiful woman of alabaster skin, silk raven haired hair and hourglass figure. She preferred to dress with blue and black dresses and tended to kept a sharong around her shoulders and hips.
"Good night Natalia", called Bran the attention of the woman.
Natalia raised her eyes from the telescope, saw Bran, smiled widely and joined him at the center of the lounge, kissing Bran with a liberal application of tongue. She need to be on her toes to reach him, Bran was six feet and half tall in his human form.
The passionate salute of Natalia was a usual thing with a lot of exceptional ladies that Bran has meet through his life. It was always the result of a mixture of Bran´s charisma, heritage and actions. Like it or not, Bran was the oldest son of Morrigan Aensland, the Queen of Succubi, making Bran the Prince of the Succubi, meaning that Bran was half-sex demon of sorts.
Bran hugged Natalia, easily lifting her from the floor and continued making out with the pale woman. Their tongues danced with each other, exploring and exchanging saliva filled to the brim with all kind of pheromones and arousing chemicals. There was another reason why Natalia liked kissing Bran and it had to do with her powers.
Natalia emit pheromones that allow him to control males, when her pheromones interacted with Bran´s natural powers as half-sex demon, the result was like cocaine, champagne and an orgasm; all rolled together; for Natalia.
For a bit they just kissed, ignoring everything around, until Natalia was forced to breath and separated her mouth from Bran´s. Still, a thick line of saliva kept them connected, much to the amusement of Bran.
"Happy to see me, I take", chuckled Bran and Natalia punched him softly in the arm as she waved herself from down her high.
"God", she whispered, "is always as good as the first".
"I know, that´s why you love it", smiled Bran at the pout of Natalia.
She was eager to continue, but Bran put a finger over her pretty black lipstick lips.
"Down girl, as much as I would like this to be a booty call, it is actual a business call", cut Bran to the heart of the matter. "Black Mask has acquired something that he really should have not".
The mention of Black Mask put Natalia on alert. The mafia boss was a ruthless gangster that had little problem in butchering anyone in cold blood to get what he wanted. If Bran has intervened in person, then that means that the shit was about to hit the fan.
"That fool", mumbled Natalia. She poured two glasses of wine from the table that she occupied near the telescope and took a drink before organizing her thoughts. Changing her mindset to the Manager of the Continental.
"I take is something supernatural related", asked to Bran, offering him the other glass. Bran nodded and accepted the glass.
"A very dangerous gemstone". Bran took a sip from his glass, he was a beer man, but wine was not bad either and this was of an exceptional quality. "It looks like a big red diamond, but in truth is a dream, well, a nightmare, made solid".
"You are the mage", shrugged Natalia. "I know the basics, as all of the employees of the Continental, but dreams made solid?, that´s a new one".
"If it was just that, I would have happily let Black Mask be mulched by the nightmare inside of the stone", confessed Bran. "The real problem is that Black Mask is the kind of person that had the sufficient force of will to impose himself to the stone and use it to make his dreams come true, literally".
"That´s unsettling", commented Natalia after a few seconds. Black Mask´s dreams made true, that was Not a good thing.
"I hope that the fucker has no idea of what he has", Bran left his empty glass in the table. "I need you to use the Continental contacts to set up a reunion tonight with Black Mask, I will see what the heck he is up too and took the Dreamstone before he has the chance to use it".
"Are you going to kill Black Mask then?", asked Natalia with indifference.
Natalia has been a villain, out of necessity and against her will sometimes and knew the dark side of the world better than many. She has long ago run out of mercy, people like Roman Sidonis are better off dead and buried. The problem was the power vacuum that the death of someone like Black Mask left on the streets.
"Most likely", admitted Bran. "His hands were already more than covered in innocent blood, once I had the stone and whatever Black Mask has managed to store in his personal vault, I will send his soul to hell".
"Good riddance to bad trash", smiled wickedly Natalia.
A small guilty spark of pleasure flared on her brain when she realized how busy Batman is going to be with the aftermath of tonight´s events.
Personally, she was a fan of Batman, she knew the man behind the mask and knew that his crusade was necessary in this city. But Batman was unable to cross the lines that sometimes are needed to be crossed, and his moral high ground was annoying more often than not. The Continental and the Rider were there for those moments when fire must be fought with fire.
Natalia left her own glass and picked up the receiver of the phone at the lounge. It always amused her that all the decorations and appliances of the Hotel look like antiquities but worked better than more modern looking appliances.
Once the connection was established, Natalia gave the orders and organized the reunion between some of the men of the Black Mask and a possible seller of the articles that Black Mask was so eager to buy these days.
As soon as Natalia hanged the phone, she knew that it was a bloody trap.
It was so obvious that Natalia would have liked to howl in laughter at the voice at the other end of the call. For fuck´s sake, the are sending a car to pick up the seller and drive him to Black Mask building where they could seal the deal?. Yeah, sure, and the Joker works in a homeless dinner.
Bran was smiling all the time, doing his best to kept himself form laughing his ass off as well.
The thing is that there is gangs in the city that do actually respect deals and meetings, however, Black Mask was famous for being a complete asshole that will shot or bash anything that was in his way, indifferent of the consequences of his actions. Only a bigger asshole made him pause, a newcomer to the city was just dead meat for him.
Bran will tear him apart before the dawn comes, Bran was convinced of it.
Anyhow, Bran get to the spot in the city where the thugs of Black Mask will pick him up and drove him to the building of Black Mask. The quick travel in the car that Black Mask has sent to pick Bran up was hilarious for Bran. She was with a thug that eyed him as if he was taking the measures of his coffin and Bran was smiling in amusement and the blatant attempt of intimidation that was as effective and singing lullabies to a shark.
The building of Black Mask was actually a pretty big building. Supposedly, it carried the business of Sidonis Imports, the cover that Black Mask was using for his smuggling and trafficking business. It was actually a successful business, not even close enough to afford such a building, but more than enough to live well. Black Mask wanted to be top dog of Gotham and that was it.
As Bran and Natalia expected, Bran was pushed into a discrete room in the basement and rudely threatened to spill where the goods are. The thugs with him punched him several times, enforcing the interrogation and stealing of whatever Bran has come to bought.
It was not a surprise that these goons did not know who Bran was, in the last five years, Bran has never appeared in the cover of any magazine. Discretion was actually pretty important for him and the cover of millionaire playboy, as suitable as it would be for a half-sex demon like him, was more Bruce Wayne´s thing.
Bran mentally sighed and played possum, the punches of the thugs were nothing for him and patiently waited to the moment where they will report to Black Mask. After a while, and several more punches and kicks, one of the mooks took out a phone and report back to Black Mask. The man was in the building, at his office in the top of the building.
Perfect.
When the thug that was beating Bran threw another punch, Bran grabbed his fist and crushed his hand with his own. Before the thug could scream at the wreckage that was his hand, Bran punched him in the throat with enough strength to rip his head out of his shoulders. That was unexpected and Bran blinked a couple of times in stunned surprise.
Pretty much like the other thug in the room. That distraction was more than enough for Bran to recover and in a quick step, reach the other thug and break his neck with one hand. The corpse fall to the ground with a loud thud. Bran´s Rider senses were telling him that these two corpses had more than enough innocent blood in their hands to end up in hell.
Taking the phone out of the jacket of the corpse, Bran taped the calling back function and patiently waited for Black Mask to pick up the phone.
"What?", barked the mafia boss with evident annoyance in his voice.
"Mister Sidonis", smiled Bran with a bit of the power of the Rider in his voice. "Please stay in your office, I am on my way up to finish our business".
Bran crushed the phone and let his Rider form come out to play. As usual, the transformation was exhilarating and burning at the same time. Dad always said that the fire burned his skin and that it hurt a lot, but perhaps due mom´s influence, the transformation was exalting for Bran.
Kicking the door of the room down, Bran walked out of the room and into the shady hall that guide to the stairs of the building. Taking a rifle out of the Shadow´s coat, Bran took position into the open space in the middle of the stairs and took aim.
A Barret M82 is a sniper rifle that is used against vehicles and it packs quite the recoil, using it against flesh targets; whatever body armor they could have; would be considered overkill by any sane mind. The Ghost Rider preferred to be decisive in his shots and took out of his armory a weapon that he knew that would put down any objective in his way.
Aiming up, the Rider sensed the presence of the security forces of Black Mask walking down the stairs from the top floors. Their souls were not all irredeemable, there are a few gray spots among them, meaning that the Rider had to be careful with his shots.
The Barret barked once and one of the poor mooks was eviscerated. A second bark and the next in line lost half his head, a third bark and the third in line was bisected in two when the bullet hit his groin in an ascending angle, a fourth shot send the right arm and part of the torso of another one flying back from where they come, a fifth shot punched a foot wide hole in the torso of another of the guards.
By the fourth and fifth shot, the security guards had already scattered trying to look for cover or at least the sniper and shot them back.
One of them, one of the few that had chances to survive the night, observed over the edge of the stairs and once he saw the flaming skull of the Rider and the sniper rifle, he was frozen, trying to made heads or tails about what the heck was he seeing.
Other did not freeze as much; already accustom to Gotham´s shenanigans in the cape department; and just started to shot down the stairs.
It actually helped Bran, they had to peak over the edge of the stairs and that means a clean line of shot for Bran. It was not even a challenge, one by one, Bran landed headshots. It was actually incredible messy, the bullets turned the heads into red mists, splattering the walls; and the other victims; with blood and gory chunks.
After ten shots, the herd has been culled enough for Bran to take the sniper rifle back and ascend through to stairs for the upper floors. The last thing Bran wanted was for Black Mask to become clever and made a run for a helicopter or something like that. Heck, Bran was sensing him at the top; a very dark soul indeed; so for the moment he was in his office, confident in his spot at the king of the mountain.
Not many of the Riders had a lineage as peculiar as Bran and in order to reach the top floors quickly, Bran decided to use one of the traits that he inherited from his mother but was altered by his father inheritance as the Ghost Rider.
Mother had wings on the hips and the head. Bran had smoke like wings at the hips like his mother; two ethereal, volcanic smoke like, wings at the hip. Those let him fly around, Bran did not use them much, but they had their uses. In this case, to ascend through the space between the stairs quickly.
The survivors of the initial shooting did try to slow Bran down, but the bullets rebound out of his bones or melted in Bran´s fire. Taking the arcane revolver out, Bran reached the height of the survivors and executed those that were destined to hell.
Indifferent to the bullets shot at him, Bran pointed his revolver to the victims and shot. All headshots, there was no need to torture them, Hell will take care of that. Some of them tried to run, take cover or even use a corpse or a companion as cover. The only moment where Bran paused was when they tried to use a companion for cover.
At the end, only three were left, Bran waited for them to run out of ammo, floating in the middle of the stairs without any hurry. Any holes that the bullets made in his clothes closed as fast as it has been made. Once they emptied their clips, the three survivors reloaded and shot again, Bran still did not even move.
Once they run out of ammo, they stared at the flying flaming skeleton with fear and confusion in their faces.
Bran raised his arm and pointed out to the exit of the stairs.
"Out, you have a second chance in life, make it good or I will found you and murder you", announced Bran with the flames of his head erupting in red brilliance along red spots in his empty skeletal eyes.
The three survivors run out of the stairs as if all the demons from hell were hot on their heels. It was an apt comparison, however, the Rider was not going to hunt them down, their souls were still salvageable. With crimes, yes, but a good life from now on and a real, honest, desire of redemption could grant them entrance in Heaven.
Covering the distance left between the covered in blood and corpses spot on the stairs and the floor where Black Mask had his office. Bran still sensed the presence of the crime boss in his office, along other five presences, three as black as Roman Sidonis and the other two with lots of grays.
Stepping down the air into the floor of the building, Bran made a hand gesture and the security door melted into slag at his feet. The fires of the Rider burn everything, common steel and materials had nothing to do against it.
Crossing the melted hole in door, Bran was received with a lot more gunfire, this time with bigger stopping power. Two of the thugs at Black Mask side had shotguns. Remington, a good choice, useless, but a good choice.
Ignoring the firearms, Bran continued his movement, at this point he could see how Black Mask was screeching all kind of profanities about what Bran was, his ancestor, his hygiene, his mother, father and in general all kind of very unpleasant things about him and his family. Nothing new, after millennia doing the Devil´s work, Bran has already listened them all.
Grabbing the chains over his chest, Bran whipped the chain around as if it was a whip, the links of the chains glowed in orange and when they touched the bodies of the rest of the thugs of Black Mask, they cut through them as if they were made of butter. There was not even a corpse left, only a pile of ashes that was scattered by the winds that the chains generated.
Beyond crazy at this point, Black Mask charged ahead and put his golden Colt Python in the face of Bran, shooting it at point blank.
The bullet entered through the eye socket, rebound in the skull and landed in the teeth of Bran that spitted back at Black Mask turning his hand and golden gun into smithereens.
Black Mask fall to the ground in pain, holding the disaster that was his right hand.
Bran turned his attention to the other two survivors, a young boy with a shotgun and terror in his eyes and the secretary of Black Mask who observed terrified how her boss was bleeding in the ground by the actions of a flaming nightmare.
"You", spoke Bran and the two stiffened in barely controlled fear. The right hand of Bran raised and he pointed his gloved finger at them
"You are young and stupid, but not entirely guilty", said Bran. "Abandon this place, you have a second chance in life, don't screw up".
The boy toss the shotgun and run out of the office, the money was not worth of this kind of shit.
"You", the finger moved to the secretary of Black Mask. Despite how her soul screamed fear, she was putting quite the calm and collected appearance.
"You don't have the blood of innocent in you hands, but the sins of Black Mask stains your soul", the secretary blinked at that, not entirely sure how to take it. "You also enjoy the whip way too much". That made her blush a little, it was her secret vice after all.
"Go, you have another chance, do not screw up or I will hunt you and murder you", Bran pointed to the melted door at the office and the secretary did not need to be told twice, making a run out of the building and as soon as she could, out of the bloody country.
"Now, we have some business to discuss", Bran grabbed the screeching Black Mask by the skull with one hand and raised him to his eye level.
Black Mask was screaming obscenities but Bran bitch slapped him a couple of times, sending teeth flying with each slap. By the seven teeth lost he seemed to get the message and stop insulting, content with pain and glare furiously at Bran.
"What the fuck creep?", screamed Black Mask. "What the fuck what do you want?".
"Where do you store your latest acquisitions?", directly questioned Bran.
"Fuck you!", deliriously screamed Black Mask.
"Wrong answer", coldly replied Bran and grabbing the sane hand of Black Mask, crushed it into mulch.
Black Mask howls could have shattered crystal.
"Again, where are they?", the question was made again and this time Black mask lost an ear.
Then the left foot, right foot, four more teeth, both knees, both elbows and finally a kidney were sacrificed in the alter of Black Mask pride before Roman finally relented and gave Bran the information that he needed,
Raising the heap of broken flesh that was Roman Sidonis, Bran forced him to look at the eyes of Bran´s Rider form.
"Look into my eyes", started Bran the words that activated the Penance Stare.
"Your soul is covered with the blood of innocents, you have caused them pain and suffering".
Roman, broken as he was, started to felt the burn, how his soul was slowly being consumed in the fire of the pain and suffering that he caused during all his life.
"Feel their pain!".
As the words were produced, Roman Sidonis screamed in an agony that can not be explained in words. All the pain, the suffering, the desperation, the negative emotions that Roman has sown all his life, where now burning his soul, all at once.
The broken heap of charred flesh that was Roman Sidonis, Black Mask, fall to the feet of the Ghost Rider, smoke still lingering from the corpse. Bran did not even spare a glance to the cooling remnants.
The safe vault of Roman Sidonis was actually here, hidden in plain sight in behind a big picture of himself that decorated one of the walls. That was pure luck, Bran was convinced that he would have to scourge half of the holes of this blasted city to find Black Mask´s personal vault.
With a pull, the picture was sent flying at the other side of the room and setting his gloves over the metallic surface of the three meters tall safebox, Bran started to channel his fire into the door.
A minute later, the door was a pool of molten slag over the floor of the room of Black Mask and Bran was already ransacking the private collection of Black Mask. There were some very nice pieces dusting inside the collection. Even one in particular that made Bran smile like a child at Christmas.
Bran was convinced that, that particular piece of art was lost in the early 1900, but there it was, as beautiful as the first day that Bran saw it. Now, it was back at his hands, where it should always have been. It was a gift that one of the oldest gunsmith in history made for him, one of the finest pieces of guncraft that were ever made.
The dreamstone was there, along other lethal things that the less they saw the sunlight the better for humanity. Bran took his time to collect anything that was of magical value and left the rest intact. Mortal riches were already at his hand, he did not need more, but the magical artifacts were another entirely different problem.
Safely storing the items in the Shadow´s coat, Bran, still in his Rider form, stepped outside the vault, ready to open a portal back to the Gotham Continental and perhaps sleep for some hours; with luck giving the dreamstone back to Dream; before checking the hour difference between Gotham and Valparaiso and deliver the Mist of Ibela back to Lourdes.
After that, perhaps a quick cold one with the people at the Oblivion Bar and back to work. There are rumors about zombies in Louisiana, vampires in Kiev, Kamazotz doing things at Argentina, werewolves in Pakistan and several warlocks cabals at Luxembourg that are about to summon something that they really should not.
The work of the Rider was never ending and with the exponential increase in methods to vaporize humanity, the workload has just grow in the same quantity. Frankly, the Continental and Bran´s other employees were there to cover up for the massive amount of work that the Ghost Rider has.
Before Bran could open up a portal to the Continental, Bran caught with his left hand a batarang aimed at his head and turn his gaze to the three figures that had entered the office of Black Mask through the broken crystal. Bran realized that the chains had cut a good chunk of the glass and opened a hole big enough for the Bat-family to enter. That was sloppy of him and Bran chastised himself for it.
Eyeing the Batarang in his hands and the three bat-themed heroes in front of him, Bran had one word to say.
"Groovy".