S.P.E.A.R. was China's equivalent of S.H.I.E.L.D., officially known as the Special People's Enforcent and Advanced Response division.
Its director was Marcus Cross.
The organization already had more than 150,000 personnel, sixteen airborne carriers, and a dedicated scientific research division.
Its headquarters resembled S.H.I.E.L.D.'s flying helicarriers, though S.P.E.A.R.'s main fortress was built as a hollow circular mobile citadel. Internationally, it was simply called the Circle.
There was one major difference, though.
In the mainstream Marvel universe, S.H.I.E.L.D. operated as an international organization rather than an Arican-exclusive agency like its film counterpart. S.P.E.A.R., anwhile, was entirely China's own independent superhuman authority.
And there was another discrepancy.
Under normal continuity, S.P.E.A.R. was supposed to erge after the events of Infinity War.
Yet Drex Valen already knew the organization existed now.
At the mont, though, it was still relatively small-scale. China simply hadn't encountered enough superhumans to justify expanding it further.
Ironically, the organization's existence was tied directly to Drex himself.
The wave of monsters and catastrophic incidents he had unleashed across the globe forced governnts to reconsider their defenses. China responded by establishing its own superhuman security force.
A butterfly effect born from chaos.
For a long ti, Drex had wondered whether he had landed in so distorted version of the Marvel universe.
Still, he never targeted China directly.
So remnants of his old life lingered in the back of his mind, stubborn as ghosts.
"Director, these were taken last night."
Black Widow handed over a stack of photographs.
Drex studied the blurry images.
A streak of fire.
Distorted asphalt.
A speed readout beside the image.
600 kiloters per hour.
It looked less like a motorcycle and more like a fighter jet skimming across the street.
"The traffic officers on-site reported seeing a flaming skeleton riding a motorcycle," Natasha continued.
A few years ago, people would have assud the witnesses were drunk, high, or both.
Now?
With superhumans and monsters appearing almost daily, nobody laughed at reports like that anymore. The local authorities feared the incident could qualify as a Demon-Level disaster, maybe even Dragon-Level, so the case had been escalated imdiately to the Hero Bureau.
The mont Natasha finished speaking, Drex already knew who it was.
The Ghost Rider.
Most likely Johnny Blaze.
So phisto had moved earlier than expected.
Which also ant this was probably retaliation aid directly at him.
And for once, Drex's instincts were correct.
Although Drex had destroyed phisto's projection using the Dragon Force, the demon lord had still recovered fragnts of information before the avatar was erased.
Incomplete fragnts.
But enough.
Enough to sense the aura of a Hell Dinsion.
A foreign Hell Dinsion.
An ownerless fragnt.
That alone was enough to make phisto greedy.
Unfortunately, the information recovered was limited. So phisto advanced his plans and sought out Johnny Blaze ahead of schedule, awakening the Hellfire within him and using the Ghost Rider's supernatural instincts to track down the individual connected to that Hell Dinsion energy.
Once Drex pieced together the possibility, he decided on the only sensible approach:
Strike first.
Fortunately, locating soone was absurdly easy for him.
With his super vision, super hearing, and the assistance of the Black Queen's information network, finding Johnny Blaze took almost no effort at all.
Johnny Blaze was a motorcycle stunt perforr who made a living performing impossible jumps. Though technically still considered an independent rider within the industry, his feats had already elevated him to near-mythic status among motorcycle enthusiasts.
Money, fa, recognition.
Johnny had earned all of it.
He'd long since escaped the carnival circuit and established his own studio, traveling constantly for invited performances and exhibitions.
The true source of the Ghost Rider's power actually ca from Heaven.
At its core, the Spirit of Vengeance had been personally created by God Himself.
After the Great Flood and the story of Noah's Ark, God realized humanity's sinful nature remained unchanged. But having already promised never again to purge humanity through catastrophe, He instead created the Spirits of Vengeance to monitor mankind's corruption.
Those spirits descended upon Earth in the form of fla, rging with mortal hosts to beco Ghost Riders, beings ant to cleanse sin from the world.
Their purpose was simple:
Punish evil.
Avenge the innocent.
Destroy the wicked.
In truth, "Ghost Rider" was only a title.
Its real na should have been:
The Wrath of God.
As for how such a being ended up corrupted and working for phisto?
Either the Spirit of Vengeance had the worst luck imaginable…
…or phisto was just that cunning.
Through contracts, manipulation, and silver-tongued deception, phisto secured ownership over the Spirit's soul.
Hellfire itself ignored the laws of nature.
Vacuum couldn't extinguish it.
Water couldn't extinguish it.
The Ghost Rider could burn anything he desired… or choose not to harm what the flas touched at all.
Beyond raw destructive heat, Hellfire possessed countless abilities:
Enchanting weapons.
Reconstructing the Ghost Rider's body.
Empowering machinery.
And ultimately, the infamous Penance Stare, a supernatural judgnt capable of attacking both the mind and the soul.
During his first transformation the previous night, Johnny completely lost control.
He slaughtered an entire mafia syndicate.
For most Spirits of Vengeance, punishing sinners was normal behavior.
For Johnny Blaze, though, things were different.
Because he wasn't a normal Ghost Rider.
The entity fused with him was born from the soul of Zarathos, the elental demon lord.
In theory, that made Johnny one of the strongest Ghost Riders in existence.
If he ever obtained the dallion of Power, he would beco monstrously dangerous within his own continuity.
The souls consud by Johnny's victims didn't simply disappear, either.
Most of them eventually ended up feeding phisto.
To demons and devils, corrupted souls were both nourishnt and power. Feeding them into a Hell Dinsion strengthened both the realm itself and its ruler.
After massacring the gang, Johnny transford fully into the Ghost Rider and tore through the city on his motorcycle like a living natural disaster.
He accelerated down major streets at maximum speed, scorching entire roads black behind him.
The ruined landscaping alone would cost a fortune to repair.
Worse still, the Hellfire left molten trenches carved directly into the asphalt.
Not large ones.
Just catastrophically inconvenient ones.
Every repair would require road closures, reconstruction crews, and weeks of work.
By dawn, sunlight finally forced Johnny out of his transford state.
The backlash hit imdiately.
He collapsed unconscious in agony.
Drex found him without difficulty.
Killing Johnny during the dayti would accomplish nothing. Once night fell, Hellfire would simply resurrect him again.
Ghost Rider was one of the hardest superhumans in existence to permanently eliminate.
An antihero wrapped in divine punishnt and infernal loopholes.
But none of that mattered to Drex right now.
Because inside Johnny Blaze was sothing far more interesting.
The soul of Zarathos.
Drex brought Johnny back with him.
The fire of scientific curiosity was already blazing in his mind.
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