Chapter 12: Rich Get Richer

While Jack was sitting at home, he got a call from Joe. He picked it up casually, but he slowly sat up in his seat as he paled, and his knuckles tightened.

"We've just got some information on those child assassins you took down. They were kidnapped kids all right. But they weren't kidnapped decades ago. Even the oldest ones were kidnapped a year ago, and should still be a little kid."

Putting two and two together, Jack immediately got up and went out again, hoping he could investigate more goons to see if he could find anything. They had to have at least some henchmen on the outside, he just needed to get to them.

Up in the penthouse, the mastermind was talking to All For One on a monitor, with only the audio just in case. Because he had so many plots cooking at once, All For One couldn't just chill in America the whole time, since he had quite a bit to get started in Japan.

But he held an invested interest in the project's goings on, and so he held this call to see how it was doing. On the side was a video playing of Ghost Rider versus High Flier. Not an impressive fight, but one that revealed much information.

Sadly, it seems he had caught onto a weird feeling, and they weren't able to track him past a certain point.

"And how's the progress of the training?" As he was asked this, the mastermind frowned, and was a little scared to tell him the truth.

"Uhh, not great sir. Without our trainer, we're having a hard time getting her to submit." It seemed like a good idea to send him into the field at the time, he was basically a guaranteed win against those two heroes, and Ghost Rider was all but confirmed dead.

But now that he was dead, everything slowed down to a halt. "We've tried normal training but she's, very resistant. I can't believe she's gone through that many years without breaking, to be honest with you."

"Hang on. Years? In a matter of days? I'm gonna need you to elaborate on that one." Nobody could see it, but All For One just leaned forward in his chair, feeling that he was about to hear something super important.

"Yes. This entire project was built on the combination of our three quirks. Me broadcasting thoughts into the kids, the trainer projecting his years of slaughter and life and death battle into their minds, and our scientist accelerating their time so they not only aged two decades into the peak of their life, but experienced that training the whole time."

It was even better than he had thought. Not even skipping the time, but directly accelerating it and allowing processes to be done during that accelerated time. If he applied this correctly, it could be way more useful with him than used on a girl he might replace anyways.

The only reason he hadn't immediately taken her quirk is because it might have an unknown downside, which he didn't want to figure out the hard way. That's the thing about mental based quirks, who knows what it would do to your own head. And he had enough voices swimming in there as is.

"I'll need to speak with this scientist of yours right away. I have some urgent business for him to attend to." As soon as the call turned off, All For One burst out laughing. This was why he had roots in America, such useful tools just falling neatly into his lap, just by setting the seeds of making one man loyal to him a long time ago.

That was the true terror of All For One, he had set himself so deep into the world, that everything slowly gravitated into his path just as he wanted it. All Might has spent nearly thirty years of his life just tearing out his roots, and he couldn't even get them all.

A century was just too much time to prepare, and All For One had such a major head start on any heroes. And the one man besides All Might that did give him a headache, was almost the exact opposite of a hero.

"That Ghost Rider, I'll need to play around him for now. A direct confrontation with him would be very costly, and I'd like to mitigate that cost. Kurogiri, I need you to make sure that Tomura hears nothing about my operations in the US, and doesn't get involved. Mistakes are great to learn from, but that Rider wouldn't let him live to learn from it."

Standing in the back, Kurogiri nodded his head and left, while All For One thought of making some adjustments to some of his preexisting plans. Dreams just got a lot bigger.

-------

From that night on, Jack's routine became a lot more hectic, and so did the heroes. During the day, Jack spent most of his free time trying to keep Lyn calm and force her to nap, as she hardly ever slept without him making her.

By night, both of them were going all in on the criminal under belly of the city. Ghost Rider attacks became much more common, and he was active for much longer in the night than before.

Heroes combed the city like mad at behest of the police, and slowly but surely the public was starting to get a little worried. This was getting a little weird, and they thought that something might be wrong that they weren't told about.

Understatement of the century right there, not that they would know it. Big problem to all this increased activity though. Many more chances for two paths to overlap, which is what occurred when Jack rounded a corner to find himself face to face with a duo of heroes.

It was a man and a woman respectively, probably a married couple judging by their rings over their costumes. They both wore futuristic looking suits, sleek metal designs with energy coursing through them at regular intervals, and a big core in the center.

The man had a silver suit, and the girl a golden one. Their energies moving through the suit were red and blue respectively. 'Ah, this is one of those couples that have similar quirks so they get married to have a kid with that quirk but better.'

This became all the more likely when the woman spoke up with a Russian accent. "You must be the man terrorizing this city, the Ghost Rider."

"You should turn yourself in and save us all the trouble of having to kick your ass." The man spoke confidently, like he had any idea what he was talking to right now.

"I only terrorize the guilty. Which is a large number in this city, so in a way you aren't wrong. But the fact that so many guilty roam free is a fault that you aren't fixing, so I must."

"Then on the name of the Golden Glow!" "And Silver Shine!" ""We shall defeat you!"" The two made individual poses on their lines, and then posed together when they spoke in unison.

'What the hell is this, a Sentai show? I swear some of these heroes get way too into the role. But eh, who am I to judge a couple that's into role play, especially if their entire relationship is based on those roles.'

Looking closely at the suits, Jack noticed they did have slight differences in the designs, so he shouldn't expect the exact same powers. Namely, Silver Shine had vents in the backs of all his parts, which proved their use when his energy flowed smoothly out the back and accelerated him forward.

Ducking under his punch, Jack tried sweeping his leg but he jumped. Looking up, he noticed the eye slots of the suit glowed blue too. 'That might not be just for show, but his power boosting his eyes and reflexes.'

Looking in front of him, he found out what Golden Glow's vents on her gauntlets, greaves and boots did as she punched forward and launched out a red blast of energy. Jumping up at the last second, the blast launched Jack back, spinning through the air.

This led him right towards Shine, who boosted his leg into a speeding dive kick midair. 'These two coordinate really well, but-'

When the kick connected, something felt off. When he looked down at where his foot landed, he saw it was right in the Rider's grip, who looked at him coldly from below. Continuing his rotation, Jack spun his enemy around and slammed him into the ground when they landed.

Glow shot at his back again, but he just turned around and threw her husband at her, right into the energy blast. To his surprise, not only did in not hurt him, but he absorbed the energy through his suit.

'Okay whoever made these two's suits needs a raise. That's actually pretty smart.' The energy mixed into Silver Shine's core, making it turn a slightly different color. Locking eyes with his wife, the two joined hands and mixed their energy together.

"We won't have long like this, but we're gonna have to end this quick with everything we've got!" Against someone who can regenerate and has way more stamina, a short all out attack was actually a better idea than a long drawn out fight.

Both their cores turned purple, with the energy flowing out of the exhausts being predominantly their own colors with streaks of the other one mixed in. This made sense once Shine burst in front of him.

He was still speed based, but the red power gave him rougher, faster boosts, while probably less agile. Having enough of playing around, Jack countered their full on assault with his own, and punched directly into his accelerated fist, layering his own with a bit of hellfire.

This broke cracked the gauntlet and disrupted the energy flow, allowing Jack to follow through with the punch and heavily hurt his hand. Next up, was a left straight directly to his helmet, which also cracked while he got sent flying over his wife's head.

He couldn't see her face but he knew she was enraged, judging by the yell as she threw blasts out. They were faster, and sharper looking too. But he just threw his chain directly through a blast and wrapped it around her arm. Yanking down, he slammed her entire body face first into the concrete.

As it fractured, he then dragged her through the ground making a ditch along her path, and when she got near him, yanked up and swung her in circles around the alley, bashing her into all of the walls a couple times before throwing her over on top of her husband.

As they both lay down for the count, Jack calmly stepped over their bodies and continued on his way for the night while speculating. 'So they weren't controlled that time. Which means the enemy isn't just watching me 24/7 ready to attack whenever. Or, there was a complication with their ability.'

-----

Jackie was sitting in her cell. She sat on the cold ground, staring at the wall and talked to pass the time, despite no one being around her.

"I hope they come save me soon. I know you said it hasn't actually been that long since they took me, but I lost count a while ago. Do you think they'd even recognize me? Would my sister even want to see me after this?"

She stopped and listened to absolutely nothing, and nodded her head sagely. "You're right, worrying won't change my circumstances, so I just need to be patient. Besides, that old guy doesn't have much worth showing me anyways, and their goons can't emote well enough to give their own training."

Thinking back, she remembered being forced to control that hero, and almost controlling Ghost Rider. At first she went along because she didn't think it was real, just another trick, but after watching the Rider's problem solving in real time she realized it was the real deal and tried to resist.

From then on, she vowed to hang on as long as she could. Today they tried to make her control two more people, but she refused even as they tried to force her through various means. They wouldn't break her that easily. Not when she was never alone.