Chapter 11: Prelude to Chaos

Jack just sat in Lyn's hospital room as long as he could, and passed the time by watching the news off of his phone. It wasn't particularly new or anything, but it was a smart phone and it could do basic things so eh.

Public reputation wasn't really something he cared about, but at the end of the day it did effect whether or not an entire state or country's worth of super heroes would come crashing down on his head.

Fighting heroes would be a lot harder than villains, because assuming they're just doing their job he'd have to go non-lethal and avoid doing anything too permanent, which immediately ruled out the Penance Stare, and a lot of his fire based attacks.

Kinda hard to turn down fire, you're either burning alive or you're not. Especially if he wanted to avoid permanent effects, god knows what that fire actually did, if that Kurogiri dude was right about it damaging the soul.

Back to the matter at hand, the official news broadcasts were way more one sided than before. When it was just a single, isolated incident they had room to express individual opinions, which lead to some broadcasts at least being neutral on him.

But with the major events of last night, including over ten scenes which he fought at, including the final one that induced major property damage, the government had to step in and start telling the broadcasts behind the scenes to crack down on him.

Luckily due to it being night, not many people were in that building so only minor injuries occurred, but it still raised a major stink. And in a hero based society where some heroes were literally hired as secret assassins (though nobody knew that part) to take out problematic heroes and villains alike, no way in hell were they letting that slide.

And so even the news broadcasts that were neutral on him before were slamming him for the major damage, and going out of his way to interfere in so many fights; a number of which he directly jumped in front of the police to engage in, due to not trusting their ability (for very good reason).

At least the internet was a more divided battle ground. Hell, by this point it had gone full flame war. Anyone with a hot take on either side immediately got blasted, using ammo from their personal accounts.

The amount of people that got roasted just for having their pronouns in their bio was astounding. By the end of the day, quite a few would probably delete their accounts all together.

Some were with the news broadcasts, claiming he was reckless and just another villain just with weirder goals. Others, very calmly found the truth in the matter of the situation.

"That skeleton dude was a high level villain. Not quite All Might level, but you'd definitely need one of the top 100 of a country to take him on, not even counting compatibility issues. I mean, what the hell would Midnight do to a skeleton?"

That was another story entirely, but much like how JAV actresses can be well known in the west by men with specific tastes, Midnight was too. One could say that due to her appearance, she was actually one of the more popular asian heroes in the west.

Having enough of people screaming at each other digitally for one day, Jack walked out into the lobby only to find, more people screaming at each other. Seemingly two random dudes seemed to be having a disagreement with one another.

Police moved to break it up, but the dudes swung at each other and you could hear the impact from there. 'daaamn these dudes ain't holding back. That had to hurt the hell out of their hands.'

Surprisingly it didn't end there, the two beat the shit out of each other full force. It was to the point that their knuckles were bleeding horribly, and their jaws might have actually broken, and they just ignored it and kept going.

'They're either bat shit insane or something's wrong here.' After both men got tazed, they were dragged away to be examined by the doctors for anything weird. Everyone in the building was actually held there while they examined if it was the work of a villain's quirk, but nothing turned up and no further incidents occurred.

With that, Jack ended his visit and went home for the night.

------

After attending to work normally the next day, as well as visiting Lyn again, night came around once more. And while Jack did agree with Jet that actively patrolling the streets was a bad idea, that didn't stop him from doing some good ol back alley hunting like he used to before getting involved in all this.

That's exactly what he did to take out stress and pass the time. Because after getting these powers, doing anything less felt like a waste. Like he was doing a disservice to the opportunity he was given, if he didn't clean the street up one crook at a time.

After one particularly noisy fight that ended with a dude face first through a window, Jack turned around to find himself face to face with everyone's least favorite american hero, High Flier.

"It's time I finally stopped you and your reign of terror, Ghost Rider. You and me, mano e mano. It won't end like before, I promise you that." He spoke like this was a prelude to some prime time wrestling match, which Jack just didn't feel like dealing with.

"I don't want to say you're a waste of my time, but you're a waste of my time High Flier. Not good enough to respect, not bad enough to fight. Why don't you go and fail to save another victim, and in the meantime I'll prevent dozens more by killing just one dude."

This was the real argument behind his actions. Much like in comic books, villains breaking out of any prison less than the absolute best ones, was common business.

The amount of attacks that have occurred by repeat villains, aka attacks that would not have occurred were a more permanent solution applied the first time they were defeated, was astounding. And this metric, was entirely ignored.

Not that anyone knew this, but even All Might knew a line had to be drawn somewhere, which is why he tried to kill All For One.

Obviously these words didn't really talk down High Flier at all, just pissed him off even more. "That's it, you're going down!" With that, the ground sunk slightly, and he sprung off of it, cruising through the air at Jack.

This of course was pathetically slow compared to the fights he had last night, so he just casually held his arm out and grabbed High Flier by the face. Surprisingly enough, he was actually able to launch out into a mid air arm lock from there.

But that was absolutely pointless, considering the strength of Ghost Rider an arm lock doesn't really do much. Point in case, Jack just freely walked over and slammed High Flier's back into the wall, slightly cracking the wall.

Despite receiving a hit that will bruise quite nasty in the morning, not only did he hold on tight; he also activated his quirk to bounce off the wall to try and disorient Jack, maybe make him fall over.

Only working against his favor, Jack just used the momentum to spin around and slam him into the other wall instead, this time even harder. He couldn't really kick it up too much though, as he thought before he didn't want to cripple the man.

If there's anything Jack learned from last night, it's that he couldn't be everywhere at once. Other reliable people needed to be on the scenes he couldn't, and while High Flier was not one of those people he could at least be a distraction, buy some time.

Slowly tightening his grip on his head, he aimed to make High Flier cry uncle. Yet despite how sore his back must be, and how much his head was being slowly pressed, he did not let go.

"I tire of your stubbornness. Your moral high ground is fictional, why do you try so hard?" It wasn't his strong suit, but maybe actually trying to talk him down would work.

High Flier's mind went blank for a second. "Wait, why..." When suddenly he snapped back into it, saying "Never! I stood down once to you before, and now look what's happened!"

"Let's see, over 30 villains taken off the streets for good, over 30 children rescued from being made into assassins, I dunno about the specifics but do you think I'd already have more than you if we looked into your records?"

It had been made crystal clear that High Flier wasn't giving up at this point, so Jack used his other arm to pull him off of the one he had in a lock. Surprisingly enough, he held on so tight that his own fingers and hands were getting hurt, but eventually he was pried off.

Then, Jack grabbed his chain and whipped it around High Flier, tying him up. Struggling intensely, he ignored how the chain was only damaging him when he moved, almost digging into his skin.

"Okay now this is weird. There's 'finally finding an ounce of courage in yourself' and then there's this. Something's wrong with you." Comparing this to the reckless right from the hospital, Jack put two and two together to realize.

"Oh fuck it's an enemy quirk." Step one of unknown quirks, it probably has a range so get out of it asap. Which is exactly what he did, lifting High Flier over his shoulder and booking it through the alleys in a random direction.

As he ran, suddenly it felt like something slammed his brain with a sledgehammer, as he stumbled and almost fell over. 'You're not getting inside my head, not on my watch.'

High Flier getting controlled was one thing, but if Jack got controlled it was basically game over for the entire city. The powers of the Ghost Rider didn't seem to terrifying to himself when he was in control, but if someone else held the reigns? Nightmares would become reality.

And so Jack kept running, as fast as he could as the enemy tried controlling him. Slamming into a wall every now and then, he knew that he couldn't do this forever so he needed to get out of their range like right now.

Before, he didn't want to call his bike due to laying low, but now he had no choice. Whistling, he hopped onto the approaching bike without slowing down, and sped along the streets while swerving like a drunk driver.

After travelling over three miles, the attack on his head finally stopped, and he pulled into a nearby alley, parking the motorcycle and putting down High Flier, who was just coming out of a daze now.

"You good now?" Jack looked down at High Flier, who was groaning pitifully. Unwrapping the chains, the hero simply rolled over, holding himself in agony while crying. His back was already bruising horribly, and knowing that he was being mind controlled, Jack almost felt bad for doing that.

"Can you tell me how you got controlled like that? Can you remember anything?" High Flier nodded, and talked while sobbing from the sheer pain, his fingers and wrists nearly dislocated from when he was holding on earlier.

"I noticed you in the area and went to talk to you about your actions, when suddenly it felt like something just grabbed my heart and squeezed. The metaphorical one, not the actual one. It forced myself into the back of my head, and I could only watch as it fought you."

So it was restricted to that area of effect, and seemingly just put him to use once he entered it. And he still had his memories of the fight, so he knew Ghost Rider wasn't at fault and wouldn't spread any rumors. That would at least be helpful.

With that, Jack turned to leave, and High Flier gave him one last message. "You need to know, while I knew better than to seriously fight you, the government has basically labelled you as 'arrest on sight'. As far as the law is concerned, you're a fully fledged villain now. A very shiny one for heroes that want fame or money at that."

Nodding his head, Jack left and returned home for the night, while keeping an eye out for anyone following him or tracking him. Not that he felt anything, but after tonight he couldn't be reckless, because he had no way of knowing when and where his enemies would attack next, nor the specific range or activation conditions of the quirk.

Between that enemy, and the fact that heroes were now gonna be coming to him looking for a fight, Jack had to prepare himself to fight people that weren't gonna go down easily, and do so without killing them. And he had just the plan.