Chapter 29

He hit the gas, and the bike roared forward, leaving a fiery trail in its wake.

The city blurred past Johnny's hollow eye sockets. Night owls turned to look, but only for a fleeting moment. Too fast. Too unreal. Traffic cameras, phones in the hands of passersby—none could capture his true form.

The first step was complete. Transportation secured. Now, the hunt.

Johnny wasn't interested in chasing petty thieves or rescuing damsels in distress. That would be a waste of time. He recalled scrolling through his father's police chats, reading about criminals everyone knew about but lacked the evidence to arrest. The Francesco crime family. Tonight's target—their accountant.

He pulled up in front of a Bronx apartment building. The fire on his bike extinguished, leaving it an ordinary vehicle once again.

Mystical fact: Hellfire transformations only last as long as the Rider maintains contact with an object.

Johnny quickly surveyed the building. Four floors, guards on each one. The sin radars within him vibrated like the strings of a taut guitar. Everyone here was scum. No need to worry about collateral damage.

He approached the door and kicked it open in one swift motion. The crash echoed through the building, followed immediately by the sound of hurried footsteps.

"Who's there?!" shouted one of the guards.

Johnny stepped inside, his flaming skull illuminating the dark hallway.

"What the hell is that?!" one of them screamed. "It's a mutant!"

"Mutant or not, take him down!"

Johnny felt a faint sense of satisfaction. They weren't trying to run—that made the job easier.

Bullets flew, whistling past him, only to ricochet off his bones or burn up in the fire, leaving no mark. Johnny advanced, neither speeding up nor slowing down. With a broad swing of his arm, one guard erupted into flames, disintegrating in seconds. Another he hurled into a wall, cracking it. The rest he dispatched with their own gun, emptying the clip with frightening precision. Within a minute, twelve armed men were reduced to ash.

"Too easy," Johnny muttered to himself. "With powers, there's no challenge. Against ordinary thugs, it used to take strategy. Now, I can just plow through them like a tank."

He ascended the stairs. On the top floor, in an office, a man in a suit trembled. His eyes widened as he saw Johnny.

"Don't kill me!" he cried, collapsing to his knees. "I'm just an accountant! I'm not like them! I've never held a gun in my life, I just crunch numbers! I've done nothing wrong!"

Johnny leaned closer, his empty sockets blazing brighter.

"Let's see."

He activated the Penance Stare. The accountant's sins flashed before his eyes: money laundering, fraud, aiding in kidnappings, organizing human trafficking. In a single second, he felt all the pain and evil he had inflicted on others. The man no longer screamed; his will was utterly broken.

"Where are the weapons? The drugs?" Johnny's voice rumbled like thunder.

"In… the basement…" the accountant stammered, drool dripping from his mouth, his gaze vacant.

Johnny left the man crumpled on the floor like a sack of garbage. There was no need to worry about him escaping; his mind was shattered under the weight of his sins.

Johnny gathered all the contraband, piling it in the center of the room, and set it ablaze, watching as it turned to ash. It wouldn't return to the streets, where Danny and Barb played.

The safe door was torn off with ease. The cash inside was neatly packed into a suitcase and strapped to the bike.

Payment for cleansing the city of its filth.

He returned to the drooling, broken accountant on the floor.

"The Francesco family. Where are they?"

"They… they're at Don's birthday…," the man mumbled. "The address… is in my phone…"

If Johnny could smile, he would have.

"Perfect."

With a flick of his finger, he sent the man into flames and walked out of the building, leaving smoke and smoldering fire in his wake.

///

A noisy house on the city's outskirts glowed in the night, lit by the beams of a stereo system. Loud voices, clinking glasses, and bursts of laughter spilled out. Johnny Blaze sat on his bike in the shadows, watching the building with a calmness born of years of routine.

"A private party," he thought, eyeing the procession of cars at the entrance. "Don Francesco gathered his friends. Just the way he likes it. And just the way I like it. I'll swat them all out at once."

Johnny's gaze fell on the bazooka he had taken from the accountant's house. He picked it up, feeling the weight of the weapon, and then ran his bony fingers along the barrel, charging it with hellfire. The metal blackened like coal, and a faint smoke began to stream from the muzzle.

"One shot," he thought.

He raised the bazooka, aimed at the building, and pulled the trigger. The deafening explosion roared through the surroundings. Flames surged outward, consuming walls and roofs. The Francesco villa became a fiery inferno.

Tossing the bazooka aside—it instantly turned to ash—Johnny returned to his bike. But a strange sound caught his attention, like a stampede of rhinos heading straight for him.

He spun around just as a crimson blur burst from the burning building, hurtling toward him. Before the impact, a raspy voice rang out:

"Hi, Hothead!"

The blow sent him flying ten meters into a brick wall. His bones cracked, and part of his spine shattered into fragments.

"That punch could take out a tank," Johnny thought, slowly rising from the rubble.

Before him stood a true giant, at least five times his size. Massive muscles stretched under thin armor, and his head was concealed by a heavy helmet. Through its slits, a smug grin was visible.

"Well, look at this! A flaming skeleton!" The man laughed. "I thought my pals were roasted by that fire clown from the Fantastic Four, but you're not him. You're the Ghost Rider, right? I read about you in the Temple of Cyttorak. Name's Juggernaut. Hope you're tough!"

Before Johnny could respond, Juggernaut struck again. The kick sent Johnny soaring a dozen blocks, and when he landed, he shattered the asphalt beneath him. Car alarms wailed, and residents woke up, but the noise was nothing compared to the next event—Juggernaut's leap.

/////

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