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Dante knew something was wrong the moment Natasha went silent for a few seconds.
"It's not time yet," Natasha said, forcing a composed look despite her clenched fists. "Go away."
"Every thirty days, you are obligated to punish sinners at my request," the Spirit of Vengeance boomed. "I have asked nothing of you for three months. I ask NOW. Punish the sinners gathered in this forsaken place."
Natasha shot him a look. Her eyes conveyed a sense of panic. "I think I messed up."
"It has to be NOW!" the Spirit roared, and its flames surged into Natasha like she was swallowing a storm.
Natasha's expression turned helpless as half her face transformed into a flaming skull, skin burning away to reveal the bone underneath. "Sorry. I can't control this. Part of our agreement."
"But why now?"
The ship had hundreds of symbiotes. Why did it not punish them?
"It sensed something specific here." Her voice was already changing, taking on that supernatural echo. "Something it considers worthy of judgment."
"If I knock you out right now—"
"It won't help," she interrupted him, shaking her head. "Nothing can stop it until the sinners it desires are judged."
Fire swallowed her whole. In seconds, the Ghost Rider stood where Natasha had been, jackets ablaze ablaze and chains forming in her grip. Bright flames engulfed her skull.
His force field warped and melted under the hellfire, sending a splitting headache through his skull. As he pressed a hand to his temple, trying to manage the psychic backlash, Ghost Rider charged and blasted straight through the prison wall like it was paper.
Felicia grabbed Dante's arm hard. "You alright?"
"I'll manage."
She hesitated and then spoke in a low voice, "What if Dad is inside?"
"Shit. We have to stop her."
If Walter Hardy was caught among the prisoners, then he would be burned for his sins—a thief carried plenty of them on his soul. He couldn't allow that to happen after promising Felicia to get her father out.
He sprinted after Natasha and straight into hell.
The prison crawled with symbiotes. Prisoners screamed, some in agony, some in terror, some driven beyond the limit of sanity, and some relishing the chaos. Researchers in half-formed symbiote suits laughed like lunatics as they jabbed electric rods into the helpless captives. They had been driven utterly insane by Norman's influence, reduced to sadistic puppets.
Ghost Rider's chains snapped out and yanked a researcher to her side. Her skeletal fingers clamped around his jaw, forcing him to meet her blazing gaze.
The man's screams turned utterly inhuman as the Penance Stare induced self-mortification by imposing every negative actions, behavior and sensation, and sins to the pain of others that individuals had ever committed in their lifetime. His body convulsed violently before collapsing into a twitching heap.
She moved to the next. Then the next. Each sinner crumbled the weight of their own accumulated guilt and evil.
One of the symbiotes suddenly slingshot itself across the place and landed directly in front of their group, standing with its hands clasped casually behind its back like it was a bigshot.
"You are Skullfire," it spoke in its own deep voice, but those words belonged to none other than Norman. "I had a feeling you would target this location. How thoughtful of you to bring your "bride" along."
Felicia's suit flowed over her instantly. She vanished and appeared before the scrawny symbiote, grabbing it by its throat. Her razor-sharp claws dug into the black flesh on its face.
"Where is my father?"
The symbiote gave her a disdainful glare, unaffected by her intimidation. "The slave is exactly where he belongs, serving his master like an obedient dog. Worry about your own skin, little kitten."
Norman's maniac laughter echoed as an army of symbiotes launched themselves from every surface. A black tsunami crashed towards them, feral and hungry and endless.
Felicia shoved him away and came back to Dante's side to confront the symbiotes together. "Darling, it's not time to hold back."
He took a deep breath. "I'm not going to."
His patience had completely run dry. And with a single thought, he engaged Death's Resonance Link. Power flooded him as Death's mask returned—it had become almost obligatory by Death at this point for every battle.
His senses became sharp to the point of overwhelming him, forcing him to suppress them.
He pointed a hand at the oncoming symbiote army.
The wet, slithering sound of black bodies, the maddened laughter of researchers and prisoners, the screams full of agony, and the Ghost Rider judging them all with Hellfire and Penance Stare—all of it froze for a single, stretched-out moment.
The prison held its breath as death roared around him, and a thick death aura erupted out of him. Hundreds of shadowy tentacles materialized in an instant. They whipped through the prison with terrifying speed, each one lashed around a symbiote. The tentacles slammed them down.
What had been a tidal wave of mindless puppets became a field of pinned down bodies thrashing uselessly on the ground.
"Damn…" Felicia muttered behind him in awe. "Darling, try not to kill them."
Laura said nothing, but her claws extended. Then she realized he didn't need any help so slid them back with a complicated look.
He smiled at the quiet cues about her emotional state.
Natasha suddenly swung her chain. A wide arc of Hellfire roared out and slammed into the death aura. The black smoke-like wave hissed and peeled apart.
"I don't know who or what you are," Natasha said, her voice layered. "But it'll be best for you to stay out of this."
That wasn't Natasha speaking anymore. The Spirit of Vengeance had seized full control.
He narrowed his eyes. "Is Natasha still in there?"
"She can hear you, but she cannot act," the Spirit replied, flames dancing higher around her skull. "The pact binds her. The sinners must be judged."
"There are innocent people here. You can't just kill them all."
The Spirit's head tilted slightly, as if she was mocking his naïvety. "The innocent have nothing to fear from my gaze."
"Bullshit."
He swept his hand again, and more death aura surged forward. A dense, endless wave of death aura met the Hellfire. The flames didn't die so much as they were swallowed whole, trapped inside the dark sea.
With another gesture, he changed the aura's shape. Hundreds of tentacles emerged and bit into the symbiote hosts. The aura ripped the black mass clinging to their bodies. Some hosts collapsed immediately. Others screamed, trying to cope with the reality.
The death aura delivered the symbiotes back to him, letting Venom merge with it.
"Laura. Protect Felicia."
"I don't need—"
"Yes, you do," Laura interrupted, stepping between Felicia and the wider prison like she had been ordered to guard a VIP.
Felicia opened her mouth to argue with him, but stopped and looked at Norman. "You irredeemable bastard, where is dad?"
"Ask me again, and I swear I'll end his life."
Felicia bit her lips and glanced at Dante before going quiet. Norman was fixated on Natasha and Dante showing their powers.
Dante walked toward Natasha—toward the Spirit controlling her body.
"I don't care who or what you are." He threw her words right back at her face. "Just get the fuck out of here."
The Spirit turned her burning skull toward him, glowing eyes glaring at him, reaching deep into his soul. "You serve the cosmic entity Death."
"I don't serve anyone," he snorted. "Death is my companion."
The death aura pulsed around him in agreement.
"Companion," the Spirit repeated, almost amused. "How... mortal of her."
"Are you stopping this," he said, taking another couple steps toward hers. "Or do I have to use force?"
He wasn't defending the criminals. But he couldn't allow indiscriminate judgment in this room. The Spirit might accidentally catch Walter in the inferno. And Silvija… If the Spirit turned this prison into a mass grave under her watch, she would never forgive herself. He wasn't going to let the Spirit of Vengeance write that guilt onto Silvija's ledger.
The Spirit's skull tilted slightly, flames dancing higher around her head. "You would threaten judgment itself?"
"I didn't fear death herself. What makes you scarier than her?"
"How audacious." The Spirit chuckled. "Death doesn't bring the soul-searing agony of Hellfire. I do."
She kicked off the ground.
One moment she stood there wrapped in Hellfire, chains clinking on the floor.
—the next she was in front of him.
The chain snapped out like a striking serpent and whipped toward his throat.
He pivoted using minimal motion. The chain missed his neck by an inch, cleaving through the death aura around him with ease. He stepped closer, approaching where most would back away.
"You're slow."
The Spirit yanked the chain back and swung again. Another horizontal swipe meant to behead him.
He ducked, letting the chain pass over him. He exploited the opening with a tight upward elbow. Death aura bloomed around his forearm like black flames. The Spirit twisted her head away, but the sheer pressure of it shoved the Hellfire, making her flames flicker.
"You have skill," she acknowledged. "But skill alone will not save you."
"Are you sure about that?"
The Spirit's chain looped around her fist as she threw a punch at his face. It was a simple punch without any technique, yet this strike became deadly when used with a Spirit of Vengeance's strength.
His hand, surrounded in death aura, brushed away the fist. He neutralized the force by redirecting the punch's momentum. The shockwave blew back Laura and Felicia, who were standing behind him.
He didn't need his eyes to check their condition. Their death wouldn't come today.
What's more important was counter-attacking. And that came in the form of a crushing blow on her ribs. The Spirit didn't even try to dodge—she let her durable body endure the monstrous power of his cosmic link.
The Spirit skidded a few meters back and brushed the spot he had punched. Even if he did any damage, her enhanced regeneration had already healed it.
"Amazing," the Spirit complimented him like they were in the middle of a spar. "How did Romanoff not know about your martial skills?"
"She knows nothing about me."
"Yet you know about her past in the Red Room." She let the chain hang freely down her hand. "You would make for a brilliant host. Alas, you have no drive for vengeance."
"I don't need vengeance, or you."
The Spirit chuckled. "Show me then. The power of Death's companion."
She moved again, closing the distance with a shoulder tackle meant to throw Dante off his feet. He stepped to the side and smashed his elbow in her burning skull. Grabbing her arm in a clutch, he repeatedly smashed his elbow in her skull. Each strike came with a sonic boom, creating a tiny crack in her skull.
He pulled his hand all the way and poured all his strength in the final elbow. The skull splintered and shattered into pieces.
Natasha's headless body dropped to the ground.
"It's over?" Felicia asked in surprise. "What an anticlimactic ending…"
Laura dragged her a few steps back. "Stay quiet."
The flames around the Spirit's neck burned brighter and the skull regrew from ashes. She rolled to her feet and punched her own jaw, skull tilted slightly like she was smiling. "Impressive."
"If you're so impressed, why don't you get the hell out of Natasha?"
"I cannot do that until I have judged that corrupted man's soul." She pointed a bony finger at the symbiote Norman possessed. "Norman Osborn and all these prisoners will be judged for all his sins."
"I can give you that guy. But can you spare the rest?"
She shook her head. "No sinner will go unpunished."
The Spirit before him was calm and friendly, unlike the embodiment of rage and fury Zarathos and other Spirit of Vengeance. Yet she remained unwilling to compromise.
"Then I'll just beat you until you accept it."
He lunged at her, death aura compressing around his fist until it looked solid darkness, and threw a tight sequence—Liánhuán Quán—straight punches down the centerline. The air itself stuttered and popped with each impact.
The Spirit blocked with the chain, she tried at least. She wasn't like Psylocke, who had lived and breathed swordsmanship. More than half the punches struck her body. The death aura enhanced strikes broke bones.
"You fight so well," the Spirit continued to praise him as she brushed the impact areas like she hadn't endured blows that could annihilate tanks. "Yet SHIELD has never heard about you. Which hell did you crawl out of?"
"The ashes of a dead universe," he said with a click of his tongue. "Listen, I'm a sucker for compliments, but there has to be a limit."
"That is a valid point. I should finish you off quickly and cast my judgment on these sinners."
The Spirit whipped the chain low, trying to hook Dante's ankle. He stepped on the chain and drove a thrust kick toward her skull. The Spirit jerked her head back just enough that the kick grazed instead of landing cleanly.
Then she retaliated by bringing the burning chain down like an executioner's blade.
The death aura around him thickened and slowed down the chain. It bought him just enough time for him to plant his feet and drive a short-range palm strike into her chest.
Cùn Jìn (Inch Force).
It wasn't the polite version he had used on Psylocke—it was performed with Death's resonance link and further enhanced with death aura. The force was released with Fā Jìn (Explosive Force Release) principles.
In simple words, he dealt a devastating strike, almost the strongest attack in his current form.
The impact erupted inside the Spirit's body. The kinetic energy rattled through bones and flames—everything holding the Ghost Rider together.
A loud, sick cracking sound echoed. Then the Spirit flew backward like a bullet and smashed through the reinforced prison cell glass. Shards exploded outward in a glittering spray as she slammed into the wall.
For a few seconds, she didn't move.
"Did he—?" Felicia whispered, trying not to jinx it again. She wanted it over with as much as him.
He knew Natasha's condition better than Felicia.
The Spirit pushed herself up slowly as dust and glittering shards of glass slid off its shoulders. She rolled her neck once casually, acting like she hadn't been hit with his best strike. Her burning hand gripped the chain again.
"That actually hurt," the Spirit said, sounding almost pleased. "I haven't taken anything like that in my entire life."
A Ghost Rider's durability and regeneration when the Spirit was fully in control was beyond superhuman. She wouldn't die from physical attacks. Only divine attacks could weaken her. The easiest way to beat her was through containing her.
'I'm running out of time.'
As strong as he physically was in Death's Resonance, he would burn through his stamina long before he could inflict any real damage on the Spirit.
He had to win through wits.
'The Spirit wants these sinners. What if I take her away?'
The Spirit wrapped her chain around her fist and lunged again. He crossed the distance in a blink to arrive in front of the Spirit and grabbed her by the skull.
The heat surged around his palm. Hellfire tried to burn him, and it did. The damage healed as quickly as it happened. The pain didn't diminish though.
The Spirit's burning eyes narrowed. "What are you trying?"
For the first time since the transformation, she looked… alert and cautious. As though she suddenly recognized that his plan would be as reckless as it gets.
He shut his eyes, focusing.
"Mystical energy!" The Spirit gasped. "No, you cannot use sorcery on us."
He opened his eyes, gazing into her burning eyes with his own. "Let's visit Heaven. Together."
And then they disappeared.
***
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