THE CASE

Chapter Three

The ghost rider was insane. That was obvious. No human mind could live that long and experience things that world bending to such extreme degrees and come out the same way it went in.

I could see the strings that held whatever remained of his psyche together, drifting pieces of taut twine stitching one mismatched part of shattered mind to another.

Yet he has told me of more than I could have ever known by sitting on Titan alone, he has shown me worlds past the mere confines of my holopad. We traveled faster than light, leaving stars and planets whizzing in the distance as we honed in on his target.

It was a world called Markus Centauri, one much like earth, in infrastructure, civilization and technology, yet populated by alien humanoids with green, hard ridged skin and tentacled chins beneath bulbous almost obsidian eyes.

The Rider brought us to a bar front, parked his hellfire powered bike by the entrance and dragged me in.

He remained oddly quiet, while I contemplated my fate, which rested upon his friend. Death was becoming certain by the second. Talking of Death, I had yet to see the mistress.

“Get me two of your strongest stuff.” The Rider’s voice cut through the lively room. He obtained a seat by the counter and placed me down on one next to his. His flames were gone, he looked normal, old, weathered, but normal. A headful of white hair cascaded down to his shoulders, his jaw was dotted by a scraggly beard. He looked like a man who had lost much, much more than he should, and his only aim now was to live and take things as they came. Perhaps I pitied him.

“What you looking at?” He pointed, a frown on his face.

“You look human when you’re not on fire, dare I say it, friendly even.4

“Don’t let the exterior fool you kid, I’m still deadly.”

“Whatever you say, Frank.” I turned away from him and observed the bar. No one here looked at me like a curse or with the dread that those back on titan did. I was just another face, albeit I did draw curious looks considering I was in chains, but their gazes weren’t decidedly malicious or filled with fear.

I truly was just another individual, not an omen of death and destruction.

“I’m sorry sir but we don’t serve alcohol to kids.” The short statured Centaurian waiter said.

“You do now. Get us the damn drinks.”

“I’m sorry but it’s against policy to—"

“It is not your concern, waiter, just get us the drinks we ordered.” I chimed in. I’d rather not pass up the chance to experience alien alcohol, with all that’s happened, I deserved it. Also my biology was advanced enough to endure the beverage.

“You heard the kid.”

“I’ll have to get the manager.” Said the young waiter who rushed to the back.

The manager was a towering bulk of muscle dressed in buttoned up, sea green long sleeves and black trousers. He looked like he belonged in an office cubicle for extreme bodybuilders.

“Do we have a problem here?”

“Not if you get me my fucking drink pal.” Said the Rider, uncouth as always, ready to rip the man’s head off.

“I suggest you make the man happy sir, he has a very short temper and is prone to ultra-violent outbursts.”

“Is that right?” He chuckled, measuring up Frank by his elderly exterior. I could see the options going through his head, peace flittered past his mind replaced by violence. He saw our insistence as an affront to his masculinity and status.

“I’ll have to ask you to leave.” He said to Frank.

“Make me pal.” Frank challenged.

“Don’t do it, you’ll regret it.” I warned him.

“You’ll be dragging your grandpa out in a sack when I’m done with him.” He scoffed. “Guess it’s the hard way.” His hand touched the Rider’s shoulder and I saw the Rider reach for the manager’s arm with a calm demeanor, he held it by the elbow and tugged down, I’d never seen a man lose a limb faster.

Bone, tendons, flesh, all raw and in bloody beautiful, grisly display. The act was so swift that the manager himself paused to watch in grim fascination. Forgetting to scream and shout in agony as he looked upon his own hand and the bleeding stump it was pulled from.

The warm blood splattered across my face as the Rider whipped the arm into the manager’s chest with such force it rocketed the man into the back of the room and through the subsequent wall.

“Do you see a drink in my hand?” He said to the trembling waiter who had soiled himself, frozen in place from the gruesome event.

I closed my eyes and breathed in, wiping the blood from my face and strangling the urge to get up, rage and cause as much chaos as possible. To bring destruction with every living fiber of my being, to grab something by the head and bash it repeatedly against the wall hard enough to crush it. I wanted to make things bleed and bathe in their still warm blood, I wanted to hear the wet crunch of their bones shattering and the near elastic tear of their flesh and tissues pulled apart.

I expelled the breath and opened my eyes, meeting the Rider’s. A confident grin, one that begged for a swift punch, was etched across his face.

“See?” He smirked, downing the glass of alcohol in his hand.

“This proves nothing.” This was the proof he alluded to, that my inner nature was one of evil and destruction. But those were darker impulses I would never surrender to, I was more than my primal programming.

The world quivered and shook like a leaf in the wind. The ground quaked at catastrophic magnitudes, tectonic plates were shifting to a disastrous degree. People cried as they tried to run and crawl to no avail, the ground beneath their very feet betrayed their efforts.

The Rider sighed, muttering something under his breath and dragged me out of the collapsing bar, walking over those that begged for assistance and aid to reach his bike. I made no effort at asking him to lend them a hand, this man, who supposedly wanted to save all futures, had very little value for life. The only reason I was still alive was because he was still curious enough to forgo immediately ending, well till he consulted his ‘friend’ that is.

I looked up, paused and whispered “Amazing.” with as much awe as my voice would allow.

The face of literal destruction pierced through darkened and rumbling clouds. His enormous size and mass caused the world to fold and buckle around him, the very planet strained to support his immensity.

Pillars of electricity arced along his periphery, mass ejections of raw cosmic aura disintegrated whatever material thing that remotely neared his proximity.

The very sight of him drove those beneath me mad. I could see it in their eyes as I’d seen in my mother’s, I could hear it in their screams. They could not comprehend the being that stood on their world, their feeble minds could not grasp the sheer concept of a universal constant made flesh. I wondered what he appeared as to their eyes, what form they perceived him as. Each race saw him differently.

“Galactus buddy!” Frank, now assuming his Rider form, cackled as we flew for the destroyer.

I was baptized in the mere proximal emissions of his aura, it was a sensation akin to being next to the sun without burning. He was different from the mistress yet familiar. He held a breath, an air of sorts that bore the similar scent of demise that perfumed Death. It suffused him and soaked his vicinity, this being had claimed an illogical number of lives, and yet he wasn’t evil.

How could he be? He was a force of nature, the attribute of evil could not be placed upon a typhoon or tsunami, nor could it be placed on the destroyer. He was simply a force of nature maintaining the balance he was meant for.

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“Buddy!” Despite the Rider’s calls and hoots, the destroyer spared us not a single glance, we were but ants to him.

“Galan! It’s me Frank!” The Rider roared, his voice enhanced with cosmic power and hellfire. I thought I was ant before he even deigned to look at us, but as we earned his utterly disinterested gaze, I knew what I really was to the destroyer. An ant had more value, I was an atom, a nonentity undeserving of its sight.

“YOU WOULD SEEK TO IMPEDE GALACTUS?” His voice wasn’t one produced by his lips moving. It would seem that way to the eyes of mortals, but it wasn’t. if he truly spoke with his mouth, the mere force would most likely strip the flesh off our bones, my bones, the rider was fleshless in this form. The Destroyer spoke through psionic fields that allowed us to interpret and understand him regardless of our native tongues.

“What? No, you do you, Galan. Look, I just need your advice on something.” The Rider began with the familiarity of a long-cherished friend. The Destroyer did not reciprocate the sentiment.

“GALACTUS DOES NOT CONSULT WITH ANTS” The Destroyer said. I earned a slap to the back of the head for the clearly mocking expression I wore at the Rider.

“Okay, no need to be an asshole. Just look through my memories and you’ll get it.” The Rider said.

“BEGONE!” It was a wave of blue, concentrated beams of the power cosmic unleashed through his eyes to rid him of the pest that was the Rider and by association, me that was tied to the insane man.

“Fuck! Hey man, don't kill the kid yet!” The Rider shouted, withstanding the blast and shielding us from most of it. I could feel my molecules rupture, regrow, feed upon the blast and then burn out again in a continual cycle. Something kept me alive, it wasn’t entirely the Rider. “You actually survived that? Weak as it might have been.” He said with mild surprise. “Neat.” With smoke wafting off my charred bodysuit and healing flesh. Compared to us, the city below fared worse as it was turned to dust and ash.

“YOU WITHSTOOD THE POWER COSMIC. WHAT ARE YOU?” The Destroyer seemed finally to notice us, not as pests but not as equals either. Perhaps just as creatures deserving of a moment’s attention.

“It’d be a lot simpler if you just looked into my head.” He said again, the Destroyer obliged him. I witnessed the impossible, the Rider cried tears of blood as his cackle wail pierced through the world, he cried laughed from the soul in pain or pleasure or agony.

“FRANK CASTLE, MY ALLY?” The Destroyer said, a change in its tone. Familiarity if I were to judge it.

“One moment.” He took a deep, long breath, (how does a skeleton breath?) and assumed his lively personality. “Yeah, man it’s been a while. Plus we were more like best friends.” It felt forced, his jolly demeanor. The mental probe most likely dredged up memories he would rather forget. Whatever warmth I’d managed to build with him was erased, his gaze was cold on me.

“I SEE ALL WE HAVE WEATHERED IN YOUR REALITY. I SEE YOUR MISSION. ASK WHAT YOU WILL.”

“Great, see I have something of a conundrum here, what do you think needs to be done with this--” My trail was interrupted by a swarm of star sharks. Literal, flying sharks armored in intricate gold plates rushed for the Destroyer with maws wide open and ready to draw blood.

If their numbers weren’t intimidating, they made up for it with their ferocity.

“Need a hand?”

“NO.” Was all the Destroyer said and simply amplified his aura. The carnivorous creatures in all their ferocity could not withstand the Destroyer’s air. They did not fall, they fell apart, evaporating into crimson vapor and then rained down on Markus Centauri.

“As I was saying, does the kid live or die?” The Rider put it to the Destroyer.

“If I may be allowed to speak for my case.” I spoke up.

“Zip it kid, the adults are talking.”

“I say he be allowed to speak.” A man appeared next to Galactus. He looked human except that he possessed a larger build and disproportionate head. He was robed in a tunic and a blue cloak with raised collars that reached his ears. With cloud white eyes he stared down at me, his garment fluttering gently in the air.

“If it isn’t Uatu the watcher. Weren’t your people supposed to NOT interfere?”

“I WILL ALLOW IT.” Galactus said, putting an end to whatever argument the Rider wanted to make and allowing me to make mine.

“Fuck it then.”

“Great Galactus, you are a universal constant. You keep the ecosystem of space in balance by consuming worlds, you are certainly not malicious in your work, you simply do that which you must, that which you have been assigned to do. Yet the inhabitants of the world you consume would term you a devil and monster.”

“My case however is, If Galactus is constant to maintain the balance, is Thanos also not one? Is he not the universe’s response to the unchecked proliferation of life? You are a force of nature, but are you alone enough for the entirety of the universe? Are there not situations on worlds that need to be curtailed without the destruction of said worlds?”

“If we destroy the fields to ease the pollution and population of the inhabitants within, would we not then destroy all fields? Where would the balance be in that? There would be none, in some fields the population itself must be exterminated to retain the balance of the ecosystem. To allow the field to heal rather than destroy it.” I spoke words I’d contemplated but never uttered, words I knew but never vocalized from fear of what it’d make me.

“And so, if I indeed do commit these ‘crimes’ I am accused of, am I evil or am I just fulfilling the purpose I was brought here for?”

“…”

“…”

“…”

God, Scribe, and Vengeance gazed upon me in silence. They pondered my cause and case. I could feel eyes beyond this place. I looked up and met the universe looking down. Through my own words I gained an epiphany I did not want.

The truth has a weight one cannot escape, it shatters the bliss of willful ignorance to shreds and forever rests upon the shoulders of one who has gleaned it. I will never be the same.

I may have been a man, but even I was brought to the verge of tears. I would not cry, no one was worthy of seeing me that vulnerable.

And then, with concepts as witness, I received my verdict.

“HE LIVES.” Galactus looked at me with a grim understanding in his gaze. It felt as though he wanted to tell me things he was unallowed to divulge, to console me perhaps.

The Watcher gave me a sad, laden smile and phantomed away as seamlessly as he came.

“Sure thing Galan. Guess I’ll be returning him then.” The Rider said, the sickly sugary tone of his voice was as plastic as his smile. He pulled tighter on my chains and sped off at lightspeed.

What if I did not want to become a destroyer? What if I did not want to balance the scales? What if all I wanted was to be a poet or scientist or a builder? Was my existence relegated to my assigned purpose and that alone?

Perhaps I could do it in a manner I decided to be aligned to my tastes, but would that not be resigning myself to fate?

I had all these questions and yet not an answer.

“Get down.” The Rider ordered, tugging on my chains and pulling me away from my thoughts. I stared ahead, seeing naught but a barren wasteland that extended all through the horizon. We were not on Titan.

The Rider led me into the distance, we walked under the sweltering heat for days and hard ground for days. The glaring sun never set on this world, all I had to shield me from its oppressive heat were the burnt rags that only managed to cover half my body.

The jagged rocks and hard pebbles crumbled beneath my bare feet as my boots wore off on the unforgiving terrain. He did not have a destination in mind, he simply walked to think it over. On the seventh day, he had given it enough thought and came to a decision.

“On your knees.” He said, his voice lacking the ever-present nonchalance and playful madness it came with.

I obeyed. Why? Perhaps death was the only way for me to take my fate in my own hands. I wasn’t a benevolent person who couldn’t kill. As much as I wanted the acceptance of my people, I wanted to kill them all much more. I simply did not give into the desire because I strove to be better.

Do people deserve to die for their opinions? Maybe they do. But do they need to die because their opinions did not match mine? How could I slaughter my own race simply because they did not like me? I would’ve simply left Titan once I came of age, the galaxy was a wide place, one race’s culture did not permeate it all. Yes, I would still try to save it (Titan) because it was my home, what type of a man abandoned his own house to ruin without trying first to rescue it.

I could not lie, I was fallible. I am flawed and imperfect. Perhaps my ideals were foolish, and my goals were laughable. Such is life, one man’s treasure is another’s trash. One man’s philosophy is another’s poison.

I felt the barrel of a weapon kiss the back of my head.

“This is how it ends.” I understood the Rider. His mission did have its merits, but after the revelation, was it invalidated then by the fact that Thanos was a necessary component of the universe? Perhaps, perhaps not. Each universe is governed by their native sets of principles and truths, who was I to decide which was right and wrong.

Click! Went the finger on the trigger. Death knelt to meet my eyes, she smiled and kissed my forehead. Ever my comforter she was.

BANG!! The blast rocked my senses and made my ears sing. I was perplexed, seeing the Rider hurled past me and into the distance by the bolt of plasma.

“STAY AWAY FROM MY SON!”

Father?

[-------]

I told you, I’m here to bring joy. This was entertaining to create. Really.

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