It is said that somewhere within the vast spaces of the universes, there is a dimension which holds only a single world. A long-dead world, born of battle and serving only to play host to battle. For as long as time immemorial, it has served as a battlefield to all manner of combatants, and has withstood more devastation and destruction than any single planet should ever be capable of withstanding. Stubbornly refusing to be destroyed, it continues to exist in stark defiance of the countless craters which mar its surface, deep chasms which carve deep gashes across it, and gaping pits which bore nearly to its core.
It is on this devastated world of battle that the Chronicler has seen fit to spin a tale of battle between two opponents who were never fated to meet. Once again the world will face more destruction and its unnaturally long life will again be threatened by a looming end. But will the wrath of these two warriors be the final nail in the world's coffin? Or will, once more, only one walk away, leaving only another corpse and another scar on this battle-torn world...?
Not for the first time did he open his eyes and find himself in starkly differing environs than when he had closed them last. Staring up at a dark sky, full of stars, with only the faintest whisper of a stale wind in his ears, and the feeling of dry, bare stone beneath him.
Slowly he drew himself up to sit, staring blankly forward, and for some minutes he sat there.
He was roused only by a strange sound, as of some great beast growling. He had yet to meet the creature that could pose any serious danger to him, but all the same he gave the approaching noise his full attention. And only a few short seconds later, he was quite glad he had done just that.
The cliffside before him exploded in a blistering wall of fire and molten stone, and a chain, impossibly long and searingly hot, whipped out from among the flaming rubble and lashed around his waist. In a flash he had been ripped through the air, swung overhead like a plaything on a rope and hurled through the air like a missile. He smashed through the face of a cliff, bringing the entire structure down upon his head and burying him under countless tons of rubble.
And with just that, his rage exploded.
A low rumble built up in the still air, and slowly, faint red light began to filter through the cracks in the devastated cliff's rubble.
"I don't know who you are..."
The light burned all the brighter, searing the rubble until it blackened and burned to ash, blasting away all at once as a roaring column of energy erupted, like a volcano suddenly exploding with no warning.
"But you just made a
big mistake!"
In a blur of red, he came rocketing out of the crater he had blown in the earth, and launched himself directly toward his assailant.
"I don't make mistakes, God of Wrath."
His expression, already twisted in a maddened scowl of rage, further contorted into a mask of pure wrath. "Do NOT call me a god!" He crashed down to the earth, mere feet away from the skeletal assailant, fists clenching tightly with the sound of groaning metal and cracking joints.
"Then I will call you DEAD!"
And again the chain in his hands lashed out. It writhed through the air like a snake, whipping first one way, then another, whirling into an untracable whirlwind of fire and metal, and striking from a hundred different directions all at once, pelting the unlucky god with hellfire.
And yet every lash of the chain was met with a ringing clash of metal on metal, his armored fists striking out with an impossible celerity, little more than golden blurs, trailing streams of red energy. Great showers and fountains of fire, energy, and sparks exploded between each collision, until the air was full of smoke and dust from the ferocity of the clash.
The skeletal warrior, still sat bestride his hellish motorcycle, finally dismounted the construct, which promptly faded into a whirling vortex of hellfire. "That was far from enough to silence you." He jerked his arm back, and the burning chain lashed out from the dust and coiled in his fist. "Crawl out from your stupor, and fa--"
His challenge was cut off with the crunching, grinding impact of an armored fist crashing into his skull. For a long moment, there was a stalemate, deadlocked clash, the golden-armored knuckles of the one grinding mercilessly against the face of the other's bare skull.....and then the blow struck through, grinding down and sending the other flying, producing a vast explosion of red energy.
"You will wish it did finish me...." Slowly, he drew his arm back, and threw both his arms out to either side, dropping low and spreading his legs wide, ready to launch himself into battle.
Asura
His flight through the air had been a disastrous one, first plowing through a chunk of fallen mountain, skipping thrice along the ground like a stone across water, and finally smashing into another mountain, becoming stuck embedded deep in the stone. His head was gone, destroyed by the force of the blow that had sent him flying, but after only a moment he began to wrench himself free from his confines.
VS
Staggering away from the mountain, a gout of hellfire speared up from his spine, roaring several feet up, before it slowly began to die down, spreading wide and growing more and more faint, before finally extinguishing altogether. And all at once, his shattered skull began to grow back, as if simply appearing from thin air. Within mere seconds it was whole again, and the expression on the skeletal face was a murderous one. "I won't need to wish when I tear you in half!"
Ghost Rider
