Ghost Rider let out a sigh. "Seriously? You chose right now, of all times?" Unlimbering his chains, he swung it at three of the bikers, turning them to ashes instantly.
Ruby, meanwhile, activated her semblance and shot off towards Ghost Rider. Leaving behind a flurry of rose petals, she dodged around the various vehicles the mooks were riding before extending her scythe and swinging it at Ghost Rider. The blade buried itself between two of his ribs. Extracting the blade, Ghost Rider swung his chain at her, but she dodged out of the way easily. Converting her scythe back to rifle form, she lined up another shot...
And got smashed by a motorcycle thrown from behind. Tumbling end over end, she watched as Superman caught up to them, smashing two vehicles out of the way in pursuit of her while Johnny backed off, then accelerated forwards after Morel. Activating her semblance once again, Ruby zoomed off after him, but before she got there, a chain wrapped around her ankle. Letting out a startled cry, Ruby tripped as Ghost Rider looked...back? But that would mean...
Sensing an opening, a mook tried to rush in on his motorbike, but before he even got to the front of the pack, a blur of metal sliced his head off, sending it tumbling off. The piece of metal retreated back to it's wielder, a man on a motorcycle. As he passed through a street lamp's illumination, he pulled out his twin katannas: Dragon's Claw and Tiger's Fang. Peeling off towards the front, he readied his blades, and slashed towards Morel! But Morel had seen the blades out of the corner of his eye, and, putting the motorcycle into a skid, just barely managed to keep his neck.
“Any information on the new guy?” he asked into his earpiece.
“Uh, you could say that, I guess.” Wiz replied as he looked at the figure. While his outfit helped him blend in with darkness, there was no mistaking who it was. Ryu Hayabusa. The Dragon Ninja. The Modern Ninja. The...
“Hey wait, I thought he got blown up by that other ninja a while back!” Wiz turned in irritation to see Boomstick looking over his shoulder.
“Boomstick, has anyone ever explained the idea of 'canon' to you?” Wiz said in exasperation. Turning back to the mic, he began relaying information back to Morel.
“Sorry for that. Anyways, that's Ryu Hayabusa, a.k.a the Dragon Ninja. He's extremely fast, enough so that he can dodge missiles and deflect automatic fire. He's also got a wide variety of tools, such as those twin katannas he's using, the kusari-gama he used earlier, and a host of others, but he prefers the legendary Dragon Blade-a sword that's immensely powerful, being able to cut through anything-although it can't kill what isn't evil. And finally, he's able to ”
Morel grimaced-this seemed like it was going to be a lot tougher now with Ryu in the battle field. “Is he with the other team?” He whispered.
“Probably not-Ryu seems to be the kind of guy who would want to go it alone, and he wasn't with the team originally, so I don't think he's with them.”
“Well that's a small blessing, I guess.” Morel said as he dodged out of the way of another swipe from Ryu's katanna. Focusing on his aura, he started Ren, then quickly started the process of En. Although tiring, it would be invaluable against such a fast opponent such as Ryu. Besides, he didn't exactly plan on keeping this up for long. Just long enough to do what I've got planned. Morel thought.
Ryu pulled up besides him again, and Morel turned to face him. “So you're the famous dragon ninja Ryu, then?” Morel said with a co*cky grin. Underneath his sunglasses though, he was studying his opponents reaction. Was he suspicious? Concerned? Indifferent?
“If you've heard of me, then you know that I am more than able to defeat you, driver” Morel grinned. Indifferent then, with a lot of confidence.
“I wouldn't be to sure about that.” Morel said, as he dropped his right hand off the handlebars.
“Hmph. Such arrogance...I cannot allow this!” Upon saying that, Ryu's twin blades leaped out to separate Morel's head from his body.
But Morel's En warned him before this happened, allowing him just enough time to close his hand around the object in rightmost sidecar: his pipe.
Using Shu, he swung the pipe with all of his might, ducking underneath the two blades before smashing it into Ryu's gut. Caught off guard by the seemingly ordinary man moving at such speeds, Ryu was caught by the pipe and sent flying off of the motorbike. Seeing this, Ghost Rider drove back in for a charge. But Ryu was not defeated quite so easily. Leaping to his feet, he got out a huge sword before charging in and slamming Ghost Rider off of his bike.
“Big mistake, kid.” he snarled. Twirling his chain, he pulled his motorcycle back towards him with Ryu on it, before sending him flying off it with a punch. Ryu recovered quickly, running halfway up the first floor of a building before launching tons of shuriken. Morel retreated back, forcing Ghost Rider to do the same as he regained control of his bike. Superman, meanwhile, launched forwards to take out the ninja. But before he had taken more than a few steps forwards...
“Incoming!” Superman had just enough time to turn his head before Ruby slammed into him, slightly staggering him as she pushed off of him to take on Ghost Rider. But Ghost Rider simply twirled his chain like a fan, the heat coming off of it so intense that Ruby quickly had to change directions to a nearby building. Compounding this issue, Ryu pulled out his bow and began shooting at Ruby, forcing her to weave in between the arrows. “A little help here would be nice!” She called out.
Her pleas were answered when Mew fired off a beam of psychic energy into Ryu, who hadn't noticed Mew during this melee since Mew was hanging back in the air. But with his newest friend in danger, Mew wasn't holding back, smashing Ryu into the sidewalk hard enough to crack the pavement. Mew then followed this up by telekinetically lifting Ryu and throwing him back at Ghost Rider, sending both of them tumbling. Mewing happily, Mew, Ruby, and Morel sped ahead-even with both Superman and Mifune plus the various mooks pursuing them, this would be a snap compared to before!
Ghost Rider got up. While he wasn't exactly hurting, that fight had still been pretty painful. Turning, he saw Ryu getting up as well. Lashing out with his chain, he pulled Ryu in towards him, snarling.
“Do you know what I ought to do with you, given what you did to me?” he said, snarling as he ignited his fists.
“Wait.” Said a voice in Ghost Rider's...skull. Inwardly, he groaned. Seriously?
“Alright, but make it quick, Aizen” Ghost Rider spat, before turning back towards Ryu.
“His abilities were most impressive indeed. Why don't you ask him to join our team? With him on our side, the others wouldn't stand a chance.”
Ghost Rider sighed, then co*cked his head. Hearing footsteps-loud footsteps-he quickly rolled out of the way, dragging Ryu along with him. Kong smashed by them, following the other fighters.
Ghost Rider grabbed Ryu by the shoulders. “Listen to me, punk,”, he breathed, “I'm only saying this once, and only because my Sponsor has taken an interest in you. You have two options. Option one. You refuse the chance I so generously give you, and I incinerate you on the spot”
Ryu nodded solemnly. “When the time comes, I shall accept my death like a ninja. Do so if you must.”
Ghost Rider grinned, then frowned. Shaking his head, he looked directly into Ryu's eyes. “Ah, but you haven't heard the other option.” Seeing that Ryu had no real reaction to this, he continued, “Option two is that you join our little team and help us cross the finish line first. Do this, and in exchange, you get to cling to your sad life in this Mad World for a little while longer.”
Ryu considered this for awhile, then nodded. “If you will align yourselves to help me fulfill my goal, I suppose I can do the same for yours, demon.”
Ghost Rider dropped him. “Your loss,” he said, “Now we just have to find a way back to the others.”
Ryu looked at him. “Couldn't we just use your bike?” he dryly asked.
“No. It's a one seater. Besides, I'd prefer if you don't touch it...I'd hate to have to clean up your ashes now that you're an ally.” Ryu stared at him. If he didn't know better, he'd swear that the flaming skull that was his head was smiling. Was that a joke?
Ryu was roused from his thoughts as a Death Watch helicopter noisily flew by overhead. It must have been a straggler from the earlier one that had been filming the rest of their fight, likely filming Kong exclusively, or perhaps for a wider angle of the fighting in general.
Ghost Rider grinned-or at least, he grinned as much as a flaming skeleton could reasonably grin. “On the other hand, I may just have found a solution to our transportation problems. Follow me.” Upon saying this, he got on his bike, and started driving after it. Ryu started to follow, but was hit in the head by a flying object-a smart phone.
“Forgot to mention this, but the boss wants you to see the video on here. It's the only one, and the phone's not password locked. Just make sure you watch it, okay.” Ghost Rider said as he lazily waved back at Ryu
Bemused, Ryu turned the phone on and went to look at the video...
What's Ghost Rider's plan? Will Morel and Kong actually get to do anything? What's Aizen's wallpaper? All these and more will be answered next time, only on ScrambleShock! TV!
3
u/Fragmentary_RemainsDec 28 '16
“Hah!” Ruby cried out as she crashed into Superman again. While she wasn't really sure if he even was taking any damage from all of this, he was still taking knock back from this, and preventing him from getting close to them was good enough for her. Strangely, he hadn't even taken flight yet.
“Good job. Just about one mile left.” Wiz said. Ruby smiled. They were almost done, and so long as they managed to keep this up, they could maintain their lead. They just needed to be sure Kong passed the other team as well...
Suddenly a strange noise caught her attention. Looking up, she could see what for all in the world appeared to be a normal helicopter...except for the part where it was constantly on fire and raining it on whoever was down below.
The razor sharp blades of the helicopter dug into the nearby sky scrapers as it rained down molten concrete on the fighters below. Ruby ran over to their bike. “Morel, we've got to get out of here!” Morel revved the engine, turned to her, and shrugged-apparently they couldn't go any faster than they were right now. Still, they were almost at the bridge, and would have only one mile to go after-
Just then, she heard a horrible screeching sound. Looking up, she saw the rotors slicing effortlessly through the street lamps, sending them onto the road. Cursing, Morel eased up on the speed to go around the obstacle, but Aizen had planned on this. Instructing Ghost Rider to maneuver the hell-copter so that it was around 45°, he created a 'wall' of hellfire. Moving slowly, Ghost Rider started driving them back. Mew teleported around to try and assist from the front, but Ryu let loose a barrage of arrows before he could even fire one blast, sending Mew on the evasive.
Ghost Rider let out a laugh, clacking his mouth. Now this was fun, almost as much as the time he had used that mining vehicle as a massive chainsaw. Their weapons were completely ineffective against the copter, and nothing they had could-
WHAM!
Unfortunately, the plan had forgotten one important variable (to be fair, he hadn't appeared at all after the first part, pretty much, so you may have too). Kong. Upon seeing the obstruction in his way, Kong simply did what he always resorted to when confronted with problems-he used brute force, sending the hell-copter spiralling towards the bridge.
Ruby was elated to see Kong. Now there was nothing standing in their way! But that elation soon turned to horror as Kong barrelled by, having not seen their bike. Kong smashed it to the side, sending them flying down the hill out of control. Mifune was luckier, having managed to accelerate down the hill onto the bridge. But then, a second twist-they had run out of gas! Even worse, all three vehicles were headed right for the same place on the bridge! Jumping off the bike, Mifune grabbed Allison and rolled out of the way. Meanwhile, Morel did the same as he saw the copter coming towards them, pausing only to grab his pipe.
KABOOM!
The combined blast three of them flying one way, with Ruby, Ghost Rider and Ryu going the other. As if that wasn't enough, Kong and Mew came barreling through, smashing through the wreckage like they were mere toys.
Morel got up slowly, grabbed his pipe, and turned to face Mifune. Meanwhile, Mifune saw Superman coming in and directed him to get Allison off the bridge. The two turned to face one another neither giving an inch.
Morel smiled, raised his pipe to his lips, and began to inhale smoke as he started up Deep Purple.
Ruby groaned. Her aura was nearly depleted at this point-all of her uses of it during the actual race, plus protecting herself from that explosion, and she was nearly finished. Getting up, she staggered a little-the blast must have depleted most of her aura. She'd have to rely on her speed to avoid hits now.
Not waiting for the others, Ruby began running to the other side. Seeing this, Ghost Rider got on his bike-wait, why did he use that helicopter if he had his bike still with him?-and rode after her in hot pursuit. Ryu was about to do the same when he heard a Kong smash through the wreckage behind him. Turning, he pulled out his bow and fired off three arrows into Kong's stomach. Kong grunted in pain, but it was obvious that he wasn't slowed at all by this.
Wordlessly, Ryu pulled out a wicked scythe and jumped up to Kong's right leg, slashing at him with enough force to stagger the formidable giant. Glaring at the little man, Kong raised a fist to crush Ryu, but he was already long gone. Out of range of immediate retaliation, Ryu a fireball, catching him square in the shoulder. Kong, caught off guard by this, took the blast at full force, staggering him. Glaring, Kong gave out a screech, but didn't charge. Seeing this, Ryu prepared another blast, but Mew intercepted it, blast dissipating on Mew's barrier. Dropping the barrier, Mew instead lifted Ryu into the air telekinetically. Grinning, Kong got ready to line up a punch, much as he had on Magikarp, but he was rudely interrupted a concrete parking barrier slamming into the back of his head. Turning to look at the source, he saw Superman, arms crossed.
Kong howled in rage and turned to fight, Ryu forgotten. Mew quickly dropped Ryu as he activated his barrier as Ryu launched several shuriken now that he wasn't in danger from Kong. Barrier now at his disposal, he charged Ryu.
“So, was she your daughter?”
The two fighters circled each other in the smoke, both awaiting the others move. Morel grinned-this part was always exciting. The tension in the atmosphere was palpable, as they both calculated the odds of what the other was going to do.
Mifune shook his head. “No, she was just a girl I found in the subway, lost and scared. I offered to protect her, and that's the end of that.”
Morel nodded. He reminds me of Knuckle. he thought, thinking back to one of his two students. “That was a very noble thing for you to do.” He said aloud, betraying none of the now-conflicting emotions that danced in his head.
Mifune placed a hand on one of his many swords he carried. “I'm just doing my job. And unfortunately, that involves defeating you-one way or the other.” With that, he launched the many katannas in his case up into the air and embedded them into the road, before rushing towards him, grabbing one as he went. Morel stayed still, waiting to see what would happen.
Morel blocked his strike with his oversized pipe. Knocked off to the side, Mifune didn't pause, using the pipe as a springboard for two blades he had spied over Morel's shoulder. Jumping to the blade, he grabbed it before plunging all three into the ground parallel to each other. Drawing yet another sword from the ground, he struck all three blades to raise them into the air, before striking each with his sword.
“One sword.” He said as the blade slammed into Morel's pipe.
“Two swords.” Morel had slightly misjudged where the blade was coming in, only partially deflecting the blade, causing it to cut his right shoulder.
“Three swords.” Distracted by the earlier cut, Morel nearly took the blade to his face, only just managing to move his face out of the way as the blade brushed past his ear, shaking him.
Mifune then rushed over to two other blades. Jumping into the air, he launched all three at Morel, who just barely dodged out of the way. Landing on one of the blades, Mifune backflipped off of them to grab another sword, then threw it at the three blades, sending them at Morel.
Surprised, Morel swung at the mass of blades, while shifting his weight so that he kept himself behind his pipe so as to protect himself from a counterattack by Mifune. The four swords were sent flying, landing farther away.
Mifune grabbed another blade, and rushed in to attack Morel again, not giving him any room to breathe. But Morel saw something interesting. Swinging his pipe, he forced Mifune to dodge back, smoke swirling around him as it obscured Mifune's view of him.
Grimacing, Mifune jumped into the midst of a large amount of blades, and then, with a swing of his blade, sent all of them up into the air. Clanging, the blades were held aloft by the force of their collisions, a veritable shield of swords. Rushing forwards, he sent three more swords towards Morel, before darting towards him. Slamming a sword into him, Mifune again uttered, “One sword.”
Clang. “Two swords.”
Clang. “Three swords.”
This continued until Morel was covered in 12 swords total.
And Mifune wasn't done yet. Slashing once, all 12 blades on Morel's body rang out, slashing into him again. Beaten and bruised, Morel dropped to the ground. Mifune lined up his sword with his neck, and slashed, separating head from body.
Both vanished into smoke.
Eyes widening, he flipped backwards. Good thing to, since Morel chose this moment to come in swinging with his pipe.
“Impressive technique,” Morel said, as Mifune shifted into a more defensive stance after having witnessed Morel's power. “But there are a couple of flaws to it, I'm afraid.” Upon saying this, he raised his pipe to his lips.
Mifune co*cked his head. While he wasn't perfect, how had this man figured out his Infinite One-Sword Style's flaws so quickly?
“The first is that your eyes dart to where each blade you pick up briefly before you take them.” Morel said, breathing smoke out of his mouth as he talked.
“What's the second one?” Mifune said, filing this information away for later.
“The second flaw,” Morel said, smoke briefly obscuring his face. Mifune looked around. Had it really been this bad before? “is simple.”
“It requires that your opponent not take your blades for themselves.”
Whirling, Mifune raised his blade in defense as countless number of clones poured out of the smoke, each picking up or already wielding one of his swords.
3
u/Fragmentary_RemainsDec 28 '16
“Still no sign of Mifune or Morel in that cloud.” Wiz muttered, looking at the now veritable tornado of smoke.
Turning to look at the other fight, he watched as Superman sent another concrete barrier into Kong, who merely brushed it aside like a bug, smashing it against the bridges cables. Meanwhile, Ghost Rider lashed out with his chain repeatedly, barely missing Ruby as he whipped it left and right, melting through a large amount of cables. Finally, Mew was dancing circles around Ryu as he blasted out fireball after fireball, hitting several of the bridge cables. All three of them weren't really doing much damage to each other. It was almost like...
Suddenly, Wiz jolted up in his seat. Tuning into all three of their channels, he began to speak urgently. “Listen, you guys need to get off the bridge right now, or else the others will bring it down very soon.” Ruby's eyes widened, then she nodded. She quickly activated her semblance, turning into a cloud of rose petals, and flew off the bridge and around Ghost Rider before bolting down the bridge, Ghost Rider zooming after her on his bike. Mew meanwhile teleported away, and began crying out to Kong. And while Kong didn't understand Wiz's commands, he understood the distress that Mew was now in. Jumping over Superman, he had almost reached Mew when Superman, carrying Ryu, jumped up and, using both hands put every inch of his strength into one blow at the same time as Ryu blasted a fireball into Kong, sending him crashing to the side into one of the bridges pillars. There was a groan, a shudder...
“Listen, I don't know what exactly is going on in that cloud, but you've got to leave RIGHT NOW.” Mifune heard Aizen say through his ears as he struck down the last of the clones. “I don't care if you go to the other shore or something, but I had the others bring down this bridge to stop their team, and if you don't get off of it, you're going to die. At least on the other side, Ghost Rider can pick up you and Allison with his bike, since he can ride it over water. But only if you're still alive. Now go!”
Mifune nodded in acknowledgement, and turned to run back to the other side. But with all the smoke and haze littering the battlefield, he couldn't see where he was going. At last, though, he found the way back, but then, he found that there was something solid in his path-more smoke???
“I forgot to mention that your technique has another flaw.” Mifune whirled to find Morel casually standing behind him. “You limit yourself to a small area, allowing yourself to be easily boxed in, such as by Deep Purple's Smoky Jail. Once set up, nothing can get in...and nothing can get out.” Morel said with a grin.
Desperation fuelling his actions now, Mifune began hacking and slashing at the wall in his way, but it seems Morel was telling the truth-there wasn't any way to break free. Turning, he raised his sword to strike at Morel and rushed towards him, when...
KRRRAAAAAAASH!!!
Ruby turned back to look. Kong was just barely on the other side of the bridge from where the collapse happened. Mew was floating overhead, looking at the destruction. Superman was landing on the ground, having hung on to one of the cables on this side to get a better view. Ryu was reclining against one of the concrete barriers. And Ghost Rider was overlooking the remains of the bridge.
Without a word, Ghost Rider set out to the other side, gradually becoming a speck of orange and red on the dark waters. Weary, tired, and in shock, the two teams didn't even bother to fight as they walked over to the finish line.
Gradually both teams began to get restless as no sign of any of their teammates arrived. Where were Ghost Rider and Mifune? Eventually, they saw a silhouette come over the horizon...carrying a humongous item.
Startled, Ruby could only stare as the now drenched figure of Morel came up. Ryu rushed to attack, but Superman held him back. “It's over,” he said simply.
“W-what? How in the-,” Ruby stammered, amazed at how he'd come back before Ghost Rider.
“Easy.” Said Morel with a grin.
“When the bridge collapsed, Mifune and I hit the water. He had been hit by a piece of the road, and had fallen unconscious. Carrying him to the shore, I used Deep Purple to camouflage him, then held my breath and went underwater. Ghost Rider did come by, and looked for Mifune for quite some time, but eventually left to search for him downstream. Only then did I rise up to take a breath, and using Deep Purple, made a boat out of smoke, and paddled all the way here.”
“Then Mifune-”
“Is on the other shore with Allison.” Morel said simply. “And I'm sorry.”
“I understand,” said Superman sadly. “Before you go, may I ask what you would use the wish for?”
“Where I come from, there is a dangerous species of insects known as Chimera Ants. Their numbers have gotten to dangerously high levels, and they have begun preying on humans. My aim is to use the wish granted from winning this to stop them.” Morel explained.
Superman nodded. “I wish you luck then.” Wordlessly, he watched as the now throughly bloodied, battered, and beaten team headed towards the finish line.
