Ch 46 : The Eternal Ghost Flame.

The Eternal Flame had now eaten over a million spirits and only then did it start to show changes.

The flame had grown to the size of a small van, after being filled up with resentful spirits; only after settling down to its new size did the flame start to change even further.

It first began to contract to the size of a small car and then a beach ball size, a football, and finally it contracted till it became the size of a golf ball and it strayed that way until blemishes started to appear in the flames colour, black and purple even blue fire mixed into the normal orange and yellow flame.

These imperfections soon completely consumed the flame, changing its fire to a blue and black colour with small purple balls of fire in the place of eyes.

Death watched on amazed, watching something she had never seen before even in her long life. She watched on as the flames purple eyes seemed to gain intelligence as the flame looked around the room and then it's eyes soon rested on her and she could feel the flame looking at her eyes even when its own eyes had no solid form or shape, she could just feel the flames eye trying to dig into her through her own and in doing so try and get to her soul; as they said the eyes are the windows to the soul.

It reminded her of one of the ghost riders abilities, to burn a person's soul to ashes by looking into that person's eyes and in turn at their soul but it would only work if the person's soul past the riders judgement, and that was if the rider had a common sense of right and wrong, good and bad, so you were really at the rider's mercy if you looked into there eyes or you didn't have a good defence against soul based attacks.

But a powerful being such as herself could shake such a simple ability off like she was swatting a fly away.

Death locked down her defenses for her soul and in turn completely blocked the flame out, all it would be able to see when it looked into her eyes were an empty vessel; so when the flame saw nothing in Death's eyes it decided to move on, continuing to look around its self with its new eyes.

Before it could only map its surroundings by its own unique sense's to make a mental picture of its surroundings and to feel around it's self to add to its mental image and it had only gained this ability after Nick had given it some type of sentience.

From that point it was able to developed its own intelligence and the start of its own personality and from watching it's siblings in the mental space it learnt that Nick was it's Father and he had to be protected no matter what.

That's why when it sensed harmful spirits rushing towards Nick it acted in defense and devoured all of the spirits even when it started to feel full and feeling like it was bursting at the seams, and yet just couldn't just let the spirits hurt it's dad so it endured them and kept them contained when it couldn't burn them fast enough and that's why when the spirits started to effect it, it just let it happen in fear that they would get lose and harm it's dad.

The flame lost consciousness beyond that point, but when it woke back up with the danger no longer around it decided to investigate is new eyes.

It saw a dead person in front of it that could only move even when it sensed that the person had no soul, it didn't pay attention to why it knew that the person had no soul and continued to look around its self.

The flame next saw its dad below it and got excited, it's blue and black fire rising up higher from where it sat on top of Nick's head, behind his smooth black horns.

And then the flame suddenly spoke, "Dad! Did you see that? There were so many spirits! Did you see?!" The flame shouted, not seeming to realise that it was actually speaking now, it's voice was child like and sounded like a young kid who just saw the most interesting thing in the world and they wanted to show their dad it... even though the thing was probably just a really fat cat for example.

"Huh?" Nick exclaimed when he heard someone call him dad suddenly, he thought maybe Ghost had made it to the underworld somehow with his new abilities but he didn't remember his eldest son sounding so childish.

So when he opened his eyes he didn't expect for a blue and black ball of fire to be looking at him with its purple eyes just a couple centimetres away from his face, "Eternal Flame?" Nick asked, a question in his tone.

"Hi Dad!" The flame shouted back at Nick excitedly.

"What the hell happened?!"

...

After Death gave Nick a quick recap on what just happened while he was meditating, he turned back to the flame that was flouting a couple meters off the floor a little ways across from him, "Son... or daughter, I can't really tell, firstly thank you for protecting me, you did a really good job." Nick smiled at the fire which made the flame really happy and in turn making its fire blaze up and almost touch the ceiling; Nick said the flame did a good job protecting him because he didn't want his new child to be disheartened but he was also genuinely happy that the flame had finally gained an identity of its own, the added powers were a bonus.

Nick then turned back to Death, "It seems that we'll have to go with option two for me to get fire resistance of some kind." Nick explained to her and she nodded her head in understanding.

"And what is option two?" She asked him curiously.

"It's called Extremis, a clever bit of nanotechnology that allows you to manipulate genetics, while not exactly an ability that lets you control fire it does give you the ability to regrow entire limbs in seconds, even fix psychological problems, no idea how it does that though, it gives you control over your bioenergy in a unique way, allowing you to super heat parts of your body to extreme temperatures and even breathing fire with practice... now this is a great risk because of how messed up my genetic makeup is after I started taking powers for myself left, right and center, I think I have only been this lucky so far because of how adaptive my body actually is, I guess I can thank my human half for that." Nick sighed to himself.

He knew from the get go that he was walking a thin line when he started absorbing different abilities and energy's but he felt that he had no choice, he needed to get strong enough to face the up coming challenges even if he couldn't get his hands on any infinity stones in the future and he knew that he couldn't base his plans around them, even if he could get infinity stones in the future they would only work in their own universe so they would be useless when he traveled to others in the future, and he would travel to other universe's in the future. That was his dream after all, to become a multi-universe traveler and see all the world's that he had obsessed over in his first life.

"And then there's the chance of literary blowing up from it going out of control, but it seems like it's my last option if I want to get rid of my weaknesses... but that's not if one of the Eternal... Ghost Flames new abilities has something to do with it." Nick said as he turned to the blue ball of fire looking at Nick excitedly.

"What's that Dad?!" The flame shouted loudly like an excited little kid, "Oh and I want to be a girl!" She said confidently, her purple eyes narrowing slightly and a dark blood red mouth opening in a wide mischievous grin.

Nick almost face palmed at his new daughters sudden change of topic and random energy spikes, "One of your new abilities is called Hellfire Infusion, it's the ability to channel your new hellfire into objects and vehicle's, or me in this case. Due to the mystical nature of the hellfire I shouldn't be hurt by them, actually empowered. So want to give it a try... umm, Marceline?" Nick asked his daughter, at the same time giving her a new name.

"Okay Dad!" Marceline said happily as she flew back over to Nick, finding her favourite spot above his head, "So how do I do it?" She asked Nick with a confused look expressed through her eyes.

"Well, you should have the knowledge on how to do it already but you should feel that you can control two types of fire right now, the eternal fire that you were made from and the hellfire that you just got, use the hellfire. The intention behind the fire should be the trick to it, so when you infuse the hellfire into me, think about making me apart of you, making the hellfire become apart of me." Nick said, "Okay give it a go."

"Okay!" She said happily, like she wasn't about to set her father on fire.

Marceline went silent right after, she seemed to be concentrating, seconds later her blue and black fire burst outwards from her main body, the flames quickly spread down to Nicks head and then the rest of his body, making his hair burn away instantly.

All Nick could feel at that point was pain, his skin bubbled and cracked as the fire got underneath it, even showing parts of his Uru skull and it's silver shine.

His screams sounded like a demons roar and it seemed to be two toned, like there was another screaming over his in just as much pain, it seemed that Venom was experiencing just as much pain as his host.

When Marceline heard how much pain her father was in she stopped trying to infuse her hellfire into him and withdrew the flames, "Dad!" Marceline screamed as she watched Nick fall forward into Deaths arm's, she cradled his head as he passed out.

Death and Marceline watched Nick with extreme worry in their eyes, Deaths black eyes and Marceline's purple.

That was until they saw a yellow liquid like substance appear around Nick's burns, healing them at speeds that could be seen with the naked eye, that got them to calm down, knowing that Nick was healing.

With a puff of white smoke a small orange fox with nine tails appeared next to Nick's body, making them surprised but they connected it to Nick so they weren't worried, "Don't worry I'm healing the Kit now, he just passed out because of the pain." Kurama explained to them.

"Plan B it is." Kurama finished before he disappeared just like he appeared.

...

Kurama took Nick's unconscious body home after he gained control of it for a short while, teleporting back home right above Nick's bed so that he could get Nick's body somewhere to rest and finish healing completely.

Marceline was floating above her father's unmoving body, her flames filled with guilt as she looked at Nick's wounded head.

She decided to go get her brother, Ghost, for help.

She flew out the room and down the stairs towards the kitchen and living room, where Ghost was normally.

Marceline found him and Felicia sitting on the sofa talking to each other, she also spotted her grandmother and Bruce in the kitchen talking about something, quitely to each other, "Ghost! Help, Dad's hurt!" She shouted as she came up to Ghost's furry face.

"Eternal Flame? You can talk now? ... Wait, you said Dad's hurt?!!" Ghost shouted as he transformed back into his original form, leaping over the table and up the stairs to Nick's bedroom, the others quickly realised what she said as well and followed after them.

When Felicia, Jennifer and Bruce got up stairs, they arrived to Ghost leaning over his fathers body, whimpers coming from him as he licked the blood coming from Nick's wounds.

Marceline was floating just above them, watching on with a dark air about her.

Jennifer gasped when she saw Nick so bloody and weak, the only other time she saw him so... damaged was when he was taken from her at a young age, he was tortured and experimented on by vile people that wanted his abilities for themselves.

The time she saw her little baby teleport back to her, covered in his own blood, numerous whip marks on his back still haunted her to this day; she thought the worst had happened again as she ran to his side.

Bruce shouted that he would get some help as he ran back out the room, down to the kitchen.

Felicia was in a different state to Jennifer, she was frozen in place, unsure of what to do.

She never thought something like this would ever happen to Nick, she had been told constantly that Nick was strong, that they was nothing that could stop him now, even when he was shot defending her he was back on his feet within a couple days, but now... she wasn't so sure when she looked at him, FOR GOD SAKE SHE COULD SHE HIS BONE'S!!!

She slowly walked over to Nick's still form, she almost mechanical sat down on the bed and held onto one of his hands that his Mother wasn't occupying, as she looked on at Nick's face, covered in blood and horribly burnt, she realised that she had to be the one to protect him since he clearly wasn't doing a very good job at it, that thought put a bit of a smile on her face.

Unknown to everyone in the room besides the beasts sleeping in Nick's mind Felicia was subconsciously using her powers so change Nick's fate.

With the path Nick was on, taking different abilities left and right, he would blow himself up, his body unable to contain all of the different powers safely but with Felicia's intervention he was now healing in a way that would only benefit him, it was such a small chance that he would heal this way that without Felicia's powers stepping in Nick would have been heading for a cliff on his road.