Jump 055: Ghost Rider

Jump 055: Ghost Rider

Location: Inside Johnny Blaze's Head
Age: 20(?)
Identity: Drop-In
Drawbacks: [+500] Scraping At The Door, Demonic Disturbances, Spirit of the Jumper

[Free]      Shadows On The Wall
[100/1500]  The Light In The Darkness
[200/1500]  Hearts Desire
[500/1500]  Deal With The Devil
[1100/1500] Spirit Of Vengeance
[1400/1500] Spirited
[1500/1500] Infernal Contract
[Spirited!] Faustian Bargain
[Spirited!] Spirit Of Justice

There once was a man who made a deal with a devil. This, of course, was a pretty terrible idea. One should generally try to avoid selling their soul (unless their name is John Constantine), and they should especially avoid selling it to anyone who calls themselves Mephistopheles. But Johnny Blaze was never one to listen. It was, for a man, a worthy cause - a cure to his father's cancer. But of course with the cancer cured, the knife was twisted in the form of the father dying anyway, and Mephistopheles holding a future favor to pay off the debt over Johnny's head. So Johnny spent the next decade and change becoming a stuntman and focusing on nothing but that, for years on end. Really, Evel Knievel would have been proud of the heights that he reached, until the day the debt was called due.

Somehow, an angel had been shackled by this demon, and in order to pay his debt, Johnny would have to obtain the Contract of San Venganza while working in concert with the ghost rider, as Mephistopheles called him. And honestly, this wouldn't so much have bothered Johnny (any more than being forced to work for the devil would bother anybody), if the ghost rider would just. shut. up.

"Come on, have a little sympathy, I'm stuck here too. Do you think I'd really be here if I had a choice?"
>"You're literally possessing me at night and making me say and do crazy things during the day when you think you can get away with it."
"Well of course I am, Johnny boy. If you knew half of what I knew, you'd be running down the street screaming about the bees in your eyes."

Really, the would-be angel DID at least try to be helpful, even if his motif was... questionable. Johnny got to sit in the back seat while the angel (who continually refused to give his name; 'names have power, and I'm not giving anyone in this twisted world any more than they already have', he said) turned into an overglorified, hulked-out skeleton who burned with white flames and could convert an ordinary motorcycle into something that felt more at home in Requiem Chevalier Vampire.

>"Hold on. What the actual fuck is Requiem Chevalier Vampire?"
"Oh, it's a French comic about a world of vampires, should get translated into English in the next couple years if I remember right. Gonna win the Eagle Award this year."
>"If you remember right?"
"Yeah, sorry, I keep forgetting that you don't see time the same way that I do. Anyways, you know how KISS has their face-paint motif and a bunch of bands followed them, each one building on that motif and sometimes adding spikes and all that stuff?"
>"...yeeeeeah?"
"Crank that up to eleven. Then up to twenty. That's Requiem. Too bad it'll never end up finished because of the plague."
>"The what!?"
"Spoilers. Don't worry your little mortal brain about it."

Honestly, Johnny Blaze wasn't the most stable person before this, but quite frankly he had an impressive yardstick in how sane he actually was. It didn't help that, since he was now a part of the supernatural world, he got to deal with all sorts of stupid little demons in addition to Blackheart and his cohort. And over the years they just got worse... or perhaps they were just more annoying. With the possible exception of a certain romp through Europe, and a hellfire-fueled conversion of Bagger 288. Of course, the angel was more than willing to cut a few deals in order to ensure Johnny had the power to actually defend himself without having to call on its power more directly-

>"Whoa, whoa, whoa. What the hell do you mean, cut a few deals?"
"Yeah, didn't I mention that? I'm stuck here, and no exorcism is going to get rid of me, but at least I'm not some sort of psycho who'll give a jaywalker the Penance Stare as soon as I'd give it to a genocidal warlord."
>"Riiight. And just what kind of... deals, are we talking, here?"
"Well I could give you superpowers, but you'd have to have a girly transformation sequence. On the other hand I could just grant you comic-book style regeneration and toughness, in exchange for something that I'd find a fair trade."
>"What's that?"
"A pitcher of lemonade."
>"You're shitting me. That's a fair trade?"
"Home made, freshly squeezed, ice cold lemonade. I've been stuck in your shadow for a while now without being able to drink when I'm playing Tall Dark And Gruesome, Johnny boy, and my throat is FUCKING parched."

-and all in all, despite Johnny having to live a nomadic existence for the decade that he was bound to the angel, things turned out pretty well to be honest.

And he got to use the Penance Stare, first on Blackheart, then on Mephistophles himself - and it WORKED, both times, with the contract of San Venganza sent on to the next world in a puff of flame.

Yes. That was certainly worthwhile.