The heroic act of preventing a core meltdown and saving the entirety of Los Angeles brought no joy to Leopold Fitz and Mike, because in front of them stood two beings utterly incomprehensible to ordinary humans, locked in a tense standoff. The gold-armored Royal Guard slowly approached Ghost Rider, lowering his halberd and flipping the blade into a ready stance that promised a lethal strike at any moment. Meanwhile, Ghost Rider stared at the Royal Guard with his hollow eye sockets, watching his every move. As Constantine closed the distance, the fire on Ghost Rider's body suddenly flared up like a bonfire doused in fuel with a loud "whoomph."
Red sparks began to flicker from the black leather-gloved hands of the Spirit of Vengeance, causing the tormented spirit it held to scream in agony. The sound, though muffled to human ears as if filtered through thick glass, still sent chills down the spine. Fitz noticed the golden eagle emblem on Constantine's shoulder armor and weapon. He vaguely remembered seeing it somewhere before. He whispered his theory to Mike, who nodded thoughtfully, beginning to form a bold assumption.
"Stay behind me, monkey boy," Mike said, using his usual nickname for Fitz as he stepped protectively in front of him. "I have a feeling this isn't going to end cleanly today."
"Question one: Where did you get the item you're hiding in this lab?" Constantine asked, completely ignoring Ghost Rider's defensive stance. "Question two: Who funded this lab? Who helped you get approvals? Question three: Besides the few of you here, who else saw that book?"
"Let me go! Let me go, and I'll tell you!" The spirit, a haggard, balding man in a worn khaki suit, struggled desperately, screaming in pain. His voice echoed unnaturally around the lab as if amplified. Ghost Rider's grip tightened, and the man crumpled to his knees as if suffocating. It was an illusion—he had no lungs to breathe with. But Ghost Rider's grip conveyed the intention of choking, and the spirit's mind, still trapped in the delusion of being alive, responded accordingly.
"Answer the question," Constantine said flatly. "Talk or die."
Ghost Rider turned toward the Royal Guard, clearly wary of his actions.
To the Spirit of Vengeance, this golden giant radiated a golden halo of light—fragments of a power similar to its own had been embedded into this humanoid. Though the Spirit of Vengeance's cognitive abilities were limited, it felt an eerie familiarity with that energy. Under its influence, the Spirit wasn't certain that it could kill the impure soul before the Royal Guard extracted his answers—and it feared that doing so might cost its host's survival. After all, that female witch wielding the metal staff had recently injured its host so severely that only after Robbie Reyes briefly regained consciousness could the Spirit of Vengeance reignite his flesh and restore his body. That's why Constantine didn't see the dent Wanda Maximoff had left in Ghost Rider's skull with her staff.
But for the Spirit of Vengeance, its mission was singular: to burn the impure. That was its only reason for existence.
Ghost Rider abruptly turned back to the spirit, flames erupting from his hand, clearly preparing to incinerate the soul immediately.
No one saw the Royal Guard move. Fitz and Mike only felt a blast of air—like a shockwave—followed by chunks of concrete flying up from the ground, forcing them to shut their eyes. Then a streak of electric blue lightning ripped through the dim lab, followed by a deafening gunshot and explosion. Half a second later, as the clink of shell casings echoed across the floor, Fitz and Mike opened their eyes to see Ghost Rider slammed into the wall like a battering ram had struck him.
One of Ghost Rider's arms was gone. His chest bones had been blown apart, his leather jacket torn wide open, exposing a shattered spine through the burning fire. A massive crater marked his ribcage, and even his skull had a deep gash, almost split in two.
Meanwhile, the flaming skeletal hand still clutched the spirit's throat tightly.
Constantine slowly withdrew his halberd, casually swatted away the hand, and then rested the still-smoking weapon against the spirit's neck. The superheated muzzle was clearly ready to execute. Fitz and Mike couldn't comprehend how a weapon in the physical world could affect beings from another dimension—just as they couldn't understand how Ghost Rider had been able to grab the spirit in the first place. The mechanics of it all defied every principle they knew.
The spirit remained kneeling, unable to move—not because he didn't want to, but because he couldn't. As Constantine approached, the soul felt like a sewer parasite being dragged into the scorching light of the sun. Wisps of black smoke began to rise from his form—smoke that seemed foreign to this world, vanishing the moment it drifted too far from him. The two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents noticed there was no odor.
"Don't move, or I'll tear you to pieces."
As the only two normal humans in the room, the Royal Guard's voice snapped Fitz and Mike out of their trance.
Mike gasped for breath. The half-second fight had left him shaken to his core—he had forgotten to breathe. Following Constantine's armored hand gesture, Fitz and Mike watched Ghost Rider slowly rise from the ground, fragments of skin and muscle flickering across his flaming body. Though the fire ultimately incinerated those remnants, his white bones were regenerating—growing and reconnecting like ice crystals. His severed arm began reforming. His flaming skull roared back to life with renewed intensity.
But Constantine didn't even look at him, calm as if he hadn't just performed a feat of monstrous violence. Wanda Maximoff had powerful magic, yes—but her combat experience was negligible. Constantine's initiation into the Royal Guard had been hunting cultists and corrupted beings on alien worlds infected by outer dimensions alongside his lord. Together, he and Solomon had slain tens of thousands of corrupted creatures—gaining battle experience through blood and fire.
He never gave enemies a chance to fight back.
"He looks really pissed off," Fitz whispered, pointing at Ghost Rider. Mike patted his shoulder, signaling him to shut up. Anyone here—if the burning skeleton and the three-meter-tall armored giant could even be called people—could kill them both in a second. For their own survival, it was best not to attract attention.
"Last chance." As Ghost Rider rose, Constantine's voice sped up. The halberd he held might not be as powerful as the weapon his master would later give him, but even this prototype had been forged personally by Solomon, infused with ancient spells. It was why the Royal Guard could harm the corrupted spirit.
The spirit said something, but Fitz and Mike couldn't make it out. All they saw was the halberd flash, impossibly fast. The spirit screamed and vanished into a blinding white light.
Mike instinctively pulled Fitz back a few steps as Ghost Rider, furious, opened his flaming jaw in a silent roar and lunged at the golden-armored giant.
Constantine reacted instantly, pointing the halberd and firing a high-caliber explosive round that blew Ghost Rider's limbs into bone fragments. Yet the dismembered Ghost Rider still clawed his way forward. Constantine swung his halberd horizontally, smashing him across the lab. Had Mike not retreated, Ghost Rider would've crashed at their feet.
"We need to get out of here!" Fitz frantically grabbed Mike's T-shirt. "If we stay, we're dead!"
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