THE NEED

CHAPTER TWO

I should have killed him when I had the chance— Anonymous.

The Cosmic Ghost Rider pushed down on the trigger. The spirit of vengeance held no scruples at killing a child, this child to be specific. He would do this for a better future, one without Thanos the tyrant in it, without the genocidal alien’s murdering touch soiling it.

Frank Castle had ended the life of many, more than he cared or knew to count, before and after he became the Ghost rider in his reality, a spirit of vengeance roaming the desolate wasteland that was once earth with not a single soul in sight. There was a time he answered to the back and call of Thanos, a time of great terror and death where he was the Mad Titan’s obedient blade and slave, driven insane by time and broken by the universal murderer’s hand.

BHAAM! His weapon spat a hellfire infused round large enough to shred an elephant’s skull to threads. Fear was not on the child’s face, he bounded off the bed with a surprising burst of uncharacteristic speed before the slug turned it to smoking dust.

The rider aimed again only to meet the boy’s palm slap his weapon up with more power than any child had the right to bear. He took a tackle to the chest that shoved him off his feet and into the hard ground which cratered in from the powerful slam.

‘That was unexpected.’ He thought. This young Thanos was much stronger than assumed, very much so. Anyone else would’ve perhaps folded at the attack, but he wasn’t just anyone, he was Frank Castle, the Cosmic Ghost Rider.

“What kind of a bastard tries assassinating a child?” Thanos spat, a questioning glare over his face as he punched the Rider’s flaming skull, singeing the flesh over his fist as he continued to blast punch after punch into the Rider’s skull, aiming to shatter the still burning thing.

“This one.” The Rider spat back, ramming a gloved fist into the child’s side, careening Thanos through his sizable shelve of awards and accolades. The child extracted himself from the wreckage, paying little mind the prestigious certificates and renowned trophies strewn at his feet. He could feel the seared flesh over his fists healing and his cracked ribs already mending to much pain.

The Rider, rising to his feet and empowered by cosmic power, lashed his chain at the boy, who jumped over it, only for the lengthy weapon to twist and wrap around his ankle, lashing him into the floor hard enough to crater it.

The Rider proceeded to whip the chain around, sending the young Thanos crashing and rebounding about the room, decimating whatever part he slammed against until finally the red chains of Cytorrak clinked and clanked around the disoriented Thanos, fully restraining him as he grunted in a futile effort to break them.

The Rider pulled the chain, dragging the boy into his open hand. Holding the tyrant’s young doppelganger by the neck inches away from his burning skull. The thought to easily snap the Titan’s neck flitted across his mind, but that, he decided, would be too great a mercy for Thanos.

He observed the boy, compared to other Thanos’, their face matched, their skin matched, except this one had even deeper crimson colored eyes. An omen of great evil.

‘He’s Thanos alright.’ Most would balk, cry, beg for mercy when faced with the Spirit of Vengeance. Some wouldn’t even put up a fight, choosing instead to accept their demise with clear resignation. He was the Spirit of Vengeance, the very atmosphere around him was oppressively thick and sweltering. Yet the child he tried to kill breathed easily.

“I am not afraid to die.” Thanos said, he knew Death on a personal basis, as if reading the Rider’s mind. “Just tell me why I must.”

“For the sins of your future.” He gripped Thanos by the neck and peered into his eyes. “Suffer the Penance Stare.” He spoke, dredging up the sins of Thanos and all the pain, sorrow and suffering he had caused in this world, the agonies of all who had ever suffered at his hands, multiplied and fed right back to the young Titan.

The experience was said to be more torturous than words could convey. Some would forever be changed by it, their minds fracturing from all they saw and felt. Some would tear their own eyes out in hopes of never seeing another sight. Most others simply did not survive it, their souls and minds liquefied from the unimaginable power behind the punishment.

Nothing happened, the Rider frowned. “Penance Stare” He repeated just to be certain, this Titan was young enough to have the immense trauma, guilt and weight of his sins crush his mind to pulp, unlike the older Thanos who enjoyed, basked even, in the penance stare, reliving his sins as peak entertainment value.

This young one, this specific one however, he was “Innocent.” He had sins, but they were unworthy of death or destruction, their weight was nothing to the strength of his strangely powerful soul. It did not make sense.

“Performance issues?” The Rider dropped the young Titan to the floor. He needed to think, willingly taking innocent life was something he vowed to never do, well actively do, he had values despite his blatant insanity. He was here to kill an evil child before it became an even greater evil in the future, except this Thanos was not evil, yet. Yet. He emphasized.

“Of course I’m not.” Again, the Rider suspected the child could read his mind. “I cannot read minds, but I can deduce and infer.”

“Makes sense you’d be a son of bitch even at this age.”

“You will not insult my mother, you oversized flint.”

“Defending your mother’s honor eh? Hah, I’ve seen it all.”

“I assume you came to kill me before I turn evil in the future?”

“Something like that.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Oh, and why’s that?”

“I will never become that person. Whatever he was in your timeline and reality, I won’t ever be.”

“You think you’re different?” The Rider’s mission had seen him cross a multitude of realities, bringing him to face uncountable varieties of Thanos’, young and younger, all had been judged guilty, all had fallen to his hands.

“I am.”

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“Heh, what a fucking snowflake.” The Rider laughed at the Titan’s face. No Thanos was good, not a single Thanos in all the realities the Rider had visited could be remotely defined as having a heart. After laughing in the face of the child, the Rider decided on his next course of action. “You’re coming with me.”

“No, I am not.”

“Does it sound like I’m asking?”

Frank Castle chained the boy to the back of his motorcycle. He mounted the hell-steed and left a trail of flames in the air as the bike’s wheel spun through space itself, breaking past the stratosphere of the Eternal home-world and into the vast vacuum of space.

‘Kid stays, he turns into a monster’ The Rider could not leave the boy as found, that would guarantee he’d end up becoming just another Thanos. ‘Can’t kill him either.’ The young Thanos still possessed a relatively good soul, innocent for all intents. ‘For now.’

The Rider needed a trusted opinion, a reason to either kill this Thanos like all the others before him or let him live, and at this point in time, there was only one being he respected enough to receive it from.

“My people will come for me. My father will find me.”

“Hahahah! You think he’s not happy to see you gone? No one cares about you because you’re a walking dynamite stick of death and destruction waiting to go off.”

“You lie Rider.”

“Do you know why no one showed up to help you after all that noise we made? They hope you die kid, they hope someone finally puts a bullet between your eyes, they’re just too pussy to do it themselves.” The Rider laughed harder, it was a cruel truth, one no child should bear. But this was Thanos, he could handle himself.

“Have you asked yourself, if you’re the reason I actually turn evil? Maybe your influence changes me into a mass murderer. Maybe your interference in my life results in all the terrible things I become”

“Yeah, except it doesn’t. You were just born that way. Seen it enough times to know.”

“And what proof do you have to back your claims?”

“You’ll see.”

.-.-.-.-.

“You might as well tell me about yourself. The punisher becoming the Ghost Rider should be an interesting story.” Thanos said, being able to speak through the invisible atmospheric bubble localized around his head. They blazed through the endless vacuum of space, stars and planets zipping by from the astounding speed at which the bike progressed, crossing lightyears in a manner of seconds.

“How do you know I’m the Punisher?” The Rider raised, caught off-guard by the fact he never shared, mentioned or stated. It deepened his suspicion that perhaps the young Thanos could read minds.

“I know a lot of things about a lot of things Frank Castle, you are just one miniscule fraction of it.”

“No one likes a smartass.”

“If you’re done being crass, perhaps you could begin your story while I await my fate.”

“If it gets you to shut up, gladly.” The Rider sighed, exasperated at the young Titan’s obstinance. He began, “On one fine afternoon, you decided to attack my world and eradicate it, all of our heroes rallied against you, they put up a damn good fight too. Hell, Cap and Ironman were the last men standing when I fell. But, I guess you won.” The Rider dimmed, the memories coming with a long dull pain.

“I fell to hell, terrible, terrible place. Met people I even sent there. Funny that. I met the red skinned bastard, the prince of lies and deceit, Mephisto. He offered me a deal I couldn’t resist, I offered him my soul. Off I went, out of hell and back into the land of the living with the fear of God on my side. Except there weren’t any living on it. You did a pretty good job at scrubbing the world clean of life.”

“I already told you it isn’t me. It is your version of me.”

“Tomayto, tomahto. Shut the hell up and let me tell my story wouldya?”

“Fine then, please continue.”

“Where was I again?”

“All life on earth was eradicated.”

“Right. I woke up after you exterminated my planet and wiped it clean of life. There was no way for me to leave it, so I rode over the earth’s dead carcass hoping to find one, just one living human. I rode for ages, for millennia, for a damned long time, long enough for even Mephisto to stop answering my calls. Long enough for me to go mad and regain my sanity and go mad again. Heck, if you knew the old, brooding, quiet and mysterious me, then you’d know just how much I changed. That’s when he came, Galactus, starving, and nearly dead. Bleeding his god blood all over the dead earth.” He paused to cackle.

“See I learned a bit about trade, especially with beings of great power. Hehe. Galan came to earth to ask for help because you were hunting him, but there was no one to help him, no one but me, so I made a deal. I sold him the earth and my services, and he gave me a tiny cut of the power cosmic and made me his herald. Now let me tell you something boy, the Spirit of Vengeance empowered by the Power Cosmic is something you’d have to feel to understand. But trust me when I say this, I sent more souls to hell than had ever been in human history!” His flames flared, his wild thunderous cackle almost ripping through the quiet expanse.

“We were legends, boy! We razed entire armadas to dust, we mutilated gods, butchered demon lords, slaughtered creatures whose name would drive you mad, we liberated worlds from darkness and etched our tales into the fabric of reality itself to be spoken of for untold ages! And finally, we got to you, the Dynamic Cosmic Duo against the Mad, Old King Thanos. Our battle turned worlds to ash and stars to sparks, oh how we raged and battled! Until…until you beheaded my best friend and mounted his skull beneath your throne. You could not kill me, would not, maybe, and I couldn’t defeat you. That’s when you made me an offer.”

“And you took it?”

“Thing is kid, I’d been making deals since I became the Rider, this was just another one. I’d fought for so long, been alive for much longer than I had any right to be, heck Thanos was the only familiar being I knew from the past. You sit in the barber’s chair long enough you get a haircut, of course I took it.”

“What happened after?” Thanos asked, gripped with interest.

“After…chromedome…twin…fire…the mistress…”The rider muttered beneath his breath, as though to remind himself. “The end of all things, heh, I enjoyed watching that one even as I died. The way it ended for you was deliciously tragic. Guess karma was a bitch, even for you. After that was Valhalla, yadda yadda yadda, Odin and a rebirth, and now my mission to kill every Thanos I can find before you become the future you.”

“Hrrmm. You could just have had me aborted if you’re so intent on your mission.”

“What?”

“Your mission is effectively abortion with extra, convoluted steps.”

The Rider hadn’t considered that at all, it was simple and efficient and would save him a lot of trouble. “…I don’t kill the innocent.” But he was the Cosmic Ghost Rider, not the Cosmic abortion doctor.

“Really? Shocking, considering I am still here, chained up and about to be executed by you.”

“No Thanos, not a single one, is ever innocent.” The Rider said with a gravely finality. “Now zip it, we’re here.”

[----------]

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