Cyclone

I watched as that lone figure road down a deserted street on a, once, normal chopper… normal, what does that word even mean anyway? Were all different, not just physically but mentally too, and we each react differently to one another. Some guy might be a drug dealer and a cop would see him as scum you'd find on the bottom of his shoe while an addict might see him as their savior. A stranger who had never met the guy might see him as a corrupt man who wanted to spread his evil influence. But a friend of his might be able to sympathize with him as he learned that the dealer was only doing this type of work as a way for him to support his family.

Sorry about that got a little side tract there. Now where was I, oh yeah, him. He continued to ride on his once normal chopper as it left behind a line of flames wherever he drove when it was like this. He clenched tightly on the handlebars as his flaming skeletal fingers continued to rev-up the engine. Each twist he made on the demonic horns that acted as his handlebars made the eye sockets of the demonic face plate, that was positioned where his light should have been, flare out with fire.

The demon skull had teeth that arched forward not only at the top of the bikes front wheel but also on it's sides, the teeth were long, skinny, and each were trying to arch over the flaming wheel. At first glance you would have thought that the demonic mouth was trying to eat the ball of flame it launched on the ground. When in reality, if you looked close enough it would have revealed that the ball of flame which was connected to the beasts mouth by a poll of flame was it's front wheel.

The body that he sat comfortably on of the bike was a rib cage, to what it belonged to could not be described, all I could say was that it was a rib cage made of a metallic alloy. The bikes back flame wheel was covered by an arching back plate that had three rows of spikes making it's way down the middle of it. Finally the mufflers came out from the bottom of the bike and separated into two tubes on each side, one tube continued to travel below along the ground next to the back flame wheel. While the ones that separated rose up to seat level and continued to blare out fire and smoke next to the back plate.

Now that we were done describing just how badass his bike was, lets continue to see just what he was doing. He continued down the road, flames marking just where he had gone as they trailed behind him, and he almost seemed to be calm. Then a cry for help coming from some unknown source caught his attention like a jerk punching some guy in the face, he then lifted the front of his bike up and turned it towards the sound of the plea for help.

Like a rocket on steroids, he drove down the road at speeds that no one had ever seen the likes of before. He followed the echoes of the wish for help as if he were a ghost following the remnants of his past. He found the cries leading towards a dark ally that he began to peer through with soulless eyes, and saw five goons, they were armed, and they were speaking in Japanese at some scared Asian woman. Two of the goons were constricting the woman's arms as what looked to be the leader swaggered forward with a knife, rage began to boil up in his abdomen at the sight. Hooks attached to chains began to form out from the wrists of his black leathered, scorching, trench coat as he walked forward, shifting his head from left to right as if he were a snake about to catch his pray.

He looked at one of the goons who were to pleased to watch the sight of the assault on this innocent girl to watch his own back and he launched his right hook to strike through the man. To everyone's surprise besides him the goon had a hook suddenly burst through his chest, he pulled back on the chain and as it yanked itself from the boy he turned to ash. He help but begin to laugh at the thoughts that were bursting with ideas on how to punish these poor souls, infact he was so excited that he couldn't stop laughing, his laugh was like a mixture of a hyena and helicopter blades. The now four goons looked at the man and each one of them felt fear he could smell it and he was excited even more by it.

The two goons that were constricting the woman let her drop to the ground and all but the leader began to open fire on him. Bullets ripped through the leather but didn't hit him, all he did in response was stand there and let them shoot out their fear. Each bullet ripped through him but he showed no emotion of pain or distraught by this, as they were finally out of ammo to fire they looked at him with disbelief as they tried to reload frantically. He swiped across at the nearest thug and the man hardly got to scream out in pain before he crumpled to the ground as a pile of black soot. He then swiped upwards and slashed another thug right up the middle, he turned into two smaller piles of black ash and with that same hook chain he cascaded it downward to cross across another one of the thug's chest, he fell silent as he scattered in the wind.

The last of the thugs, the leader, was on his knees praying to any god that would allow him to be spared. But no god would save him from his wrath, he grabbed the collar of his shirt and hung him in the air with god-like strength. He could smell the sins on him, violence, greed, treachery, and lust, seriously this guy reeked with sins and each one had their own little "flavors" to them, it wasn't pleasant.

He only whispered out one word, a sentence done by the judge, jury, and executioner that was him, his voice combined with a growl, a hiss, and something in-between uttered out, "Guilty…"

His mouth began to open and a sucking noise could be heard the leader of the once intimidating group of thugs began to scream in protest. He screamed out only one word, "NO!" but it didn't matter to him, punishment had already been judged, his lackeys had gotten a swift sentence. 'But not you…' he thought, He could feel the mans soul being ripped out of the man's body and began to see each of the sins he had committed. He could see him feasting on drugs, food, and drink as if there was no tomorrow, never giving thanks to the supplier of such things. He could see him in a nightclub acting like he was the king of the place and doing other things that had to go with the sin of lust (I'll let your imagination take care of that part). He saw him running for dear life away from guards at a federal prison, he crawled under the fence and so did one of the guys that had helped in his escape, but he had gotten caught under the fence. He had a hand latching onto the others leg and begged for his help, but all this guy did was kick him in the face to further his own escape. Then, finally, he witnessed the final sin, violence, the leader had done what he did to the woman that had summoned him many times before and a few times had even killed them.

He felt no remorse or mercy for this man and neither did I as he began to suck out his soul. The air around them seemed to shake in response to this as strains of his black soul were being ripped out slowly, painfully. The leader no longer shouted out pleas of rejection, but instead only screamed in agony as his soul was slowly being torn from his body. While being placed on a first-class seat straight to hell.

The man exploded into flames as he crumpled down to the ground forever being whipped away from this world. He looked over at the woman who had summoned him, her eyes were wide with fear as she looked upon her "savior". She was so scared that she herself had crumpled down to the floor on her knees, as she seemed to stare into oblivion at the sight before her, I could see him through her eyes as they acted like mirrors.

His entire face was a burnt up skeleton with black horns poking out where his temples were supposed to be and arched upward high into the night sky. Flame surrounded his black chard skeletal head, all except for his empty, soulless eye sockets as he stared into her, he wore a long, tattered, charred trench coat that was unbuttoned. A gun handle was spotted poking ever so slightly from his right shoulder and was assumed to be held in place by the sling that was being hoisted by his right shoulder and ending at his left hip before it looped back around to connect to the weapons holder. A plain white shirt was under the trench coat hiding his flaming rib cage where only his roaring collarbone could be seen. He wore fingerless black biker gloves that glowed with red flames that matched the ones around his head. His white T-shirt was tucked tightly under his pants by a black belt that had a metal tip and a skull belt buckle where the eye sockets of his buckle's skull seemed to glow. He had dark navy blue jeans that were torn a bit by their ankles and stood in black steal toe boots.

This was he whom I fear every minute of my life, the spirit of vengeance, a being that I have tried to avoid all my life and I'll continue to avoid him until the day I die, because I… am him.

But I'm not always him, when I'm not him I'm Ben Krastil and I swear if any of you make a burger king joke I will personally come to your house and eat your firstborn child! Now where was I, oh yeah who I was, I come all the way from America more specifically, North Virginia, now if you haven't guessed I'm right now all the way up in Japan. Now you may ask me just what in the world I'm doing so far from home and I'll answer that all in due time, but first I gotta tell you just how I got like this. You may wanna get comfy cause it's a long story. But first things first, if you thought that I looked like a flaming skeleton 24-7 then you my friend need to be put into special Ed or something.

I'm no more then a teenager even though my alter ego makes me look like an adult, I'm not that very athletic but am pretty tall and I do work out and try to keep somewhat of a physique. But I also don't like the light all to much so I tend to stray towards shadowy places, which in turn got me a snowy skin tone. I also take care of my skin very well, I'm kind of a germaphobic, and I remember how my sister would sometimes yell at me for hogging the bathroom for "hours". I have short black, messy hair and if you'd ever saw me in the morning you'd say that I slept with a cat or something cause my hair would be sticking up in almost every direction possible. I used to have dark brown eyes but whenever I'm about to turn into him my eyes turn into a dark red, almost the shade of blood.

Now back at Virginia, I had a pretty good life, my mom worked down at the local clinic and my little sister, Emma, was just ending her first year of middle school. I on the other hand was preparing for my freshman year of high school…hmmm I feel like I'm forgetting something… oh yeah, and my dad was in an insane asylum for the third year counting. He was put in there for thinking that everyone wanted him dead because of his "secret box" but he would never tell anyone what the "secret box" was or what it's contents was. Before he finally got sent to the loony bin we were constantly moving, from one state to another, from one city to the next, but this didn't give me much time to make friends so I finally just gave up on the idea of having friends.

This pretty much labeled me down as a loner of sorts and that was fine by me. When dad got thrown into the joint, I went to visit him, only me though, I didn't want Emma to see dad like this and mom couldn't handle dad losing his marbles. But what my father kept saying about the "secret box" and the only clue he spoke of it's contents was that it held the "other him", that bugged me for a while back then. So one day I finally asked him just where the box was, he chuckled in a low tone and said, "It's hidden behind where it all began…"

I didn't understand what dad said at the time, but I began to understand just why he was so paranoid about someone wanting him dead because of his "secret box". Mom was told that the graves of our ancestors, John Krastil and Elizabeth Krastil, one of the many first settlers here in America, were recently defiled by having their caskets dug up, opened, and left for the priests at the church to stare at their ancient remains. This definitely had me worried and I told dad of the news, he laughed and said with a sadistic smile, "You better find my "secret box" before the guys who dug up those dinosaurs start digging up your grave son…"

With that ominous message passed I started looking over my shoulder in fear that someone was actually after me. At least a week passed and I was asleep in my clothes after a long night of video games, then it happened, a crash sounded from the living room and I was heading down to beat the crap out of any robber who dared ruin my beauty sleep. Then suddenly, I was hit upside the head and knocked out cold, I could feel my unconscious body being pulled and tied. When I finally woke up I found myself tied up and placed in some kind of high up thrown made up of random car parts, the throne seat was so high up that I could see the junkyard's gate.

I noticed that I was on top of a bunch of cars wielded together to make the throne so high up that I had to stair down just to notice the chanting, red hooded people below me. Then a woman with long blond hair, blue eyes, and a scar covered by an eye patch on her right eye stood infront of me. She wore a red cloak and underneath it was a full-blown leathery biker outfit, but what she was holding made me quite curious. It was a small black chest, roughly the size of a shoebox, and the lid that connected the box looked like tightly clenched teeth.

She spoke out in a commanding voice and said, "My friends, after at long last we have found it, the spirit that took our beloved leader and the new weapon that will fuel us to the top. We have found the spirit of vengeance!"

This managed to get the crowd below to roar in rejoice but I finally decided to call out and asked in an annoyed tone, "Hey! What the hell are you guys doing!"

This led the woman to make a glance at me and she merrily smirked as she answered my question right before she insulted me first. "Looks like sleeping beauty's finally up, and to answer your question punk, we plan to open your old mans box, but we can't open the box without the blood of the first born."

She suddenly pulled out a knife and before I could try and ask just what the hell she was talking about, she stabbed me right in my gut. She then withdrew her blade and scrapped off the blood onto the box itself, she then quickly placed it on the ground and took a couple steps back. A low groaning noise came from the box as clamps began to release the ancient, rusted seals and the lid flew open. For a split second nothing came up, then a loud high pitch laugh generated within the box and without any warning a column of flame erupted from the box.

The column of flame began to take shape and as I struggled to hold my head up as blood lose was beginning to set in, it generated a face. A skull to be more exact, the skull was a crimson red, due to it's own meaning or the flames wasn't clear. Its eye sockets began to erupt a white energy as it gazed down at the hooded individuals surrounding it.

It spoke one word in a low haunting voice, and that word was something that even scarred me, "Hungry…"

Without another thought, the spirit began to suck in every soul within the area infront of me, though I didn't see the blond chicks soul get sucked in but by this time, I was losing consciousness. When the spirit was finally done with its little snack, It turned its skull to me, I was gasping for dear life, and I could feel myself begin to fad into the darkness. The spirit lifted my limp body up with what looked like a hand made completely of fire and brought me up to its skull.

It asked me a question that I still can't figure out why exactly I answered, and asked, "Do you want to live?"

It may have been my subconscious answering or at least I 'd like to think that's what's answered the creature but I said in a fading voice, "yes…"

Then the creature plunged itself into me, it burrowed its way into my chest and further still, into the center of my very soul. I could feel the burning sensation increase in heat as the monster continued to burrow its very existence into my own. When every last part of itwas integrated with my being I fell, I remember falling away from the thrown seat and hitting the ground hard, I even made a little crater. I thought I had died, but far from it, my body moved without my knowing and that's when my first happened, I changed into him for the first time. The first time is always the most painful, I could feel the two horns burrow out of my temples, I could feel my skin begin to burn, crack, and hiss, but then I felt all the emotions.

It was like a tornado of anxiety, hate, fear, rage, pride, ecstasy, and a constant laughter all rolled up into one emotion. Whatever I had on at the time changed in subtle ways, like my trench coat being scorched a bit and my pants being torn at the ends of them. But when the transformation was done and over with he was born, I haven't really come up with a name for him, after all this time I kind of just got too used to referring to him as him or spirit. But the rest of what happened last night just became blurry images and incomprehensible sentences, at the end of it, I woke up on an old, rusted chopper spray painted black in the middle of my garage.

I wasn't sure what mom was gonna flip out on that morning: the fact that our house was broken into last night, I got home on a chopper, or the fact that Emma said her first swear that morning. But instead all I saw was my mom sitting there, legs crossed, and was apparently waiting for me to get home. You could imagine what I felt like, I was about to get a dose of mom's bombarding questions that would ultimately lead me to be left with no dinner for a month (yes that is a legitimate punishment).

I was preparing myself for the verbal assault when mom rose up and began to walk towards me. She did something that I didn't really expect, I mean assuming that your house was broken into and your eldest son was kidnapped you'd figure your mom would be pretty pissed. But she just hugged me for a long while, god it felt like an hour, I wished it lasted longer.

She whispered in my ear with enough sadness in her voice that it sounded like she was on the verge of tears and said, "I'm sorry…"

I couldn't respond to that even though I wanted to because the next thing I felt was getting really sleepy. My legs gave way and my mother hauled me over onto a couch, I then noticed that she had a syringe in her hand and I could only assume that she had drugged me with it. Imagine it, your own mother drugging you right when you woke up from some kind of nightmare and hauling you over to some kind of couch, I was mad at her to say the least. But I noticed right before I had blacked out that she was holding back tears in her eyes, I wanted to tell her that I could forgive her if she told me why she was doing this, but then the darkness took me.

While I was unconscious, image's flashed through my head, I saw someone on fire walking strangely forward, like he was contemplating each step he took before he even made it. He was walking away from the giant thrown of vehicles melted together and each step he made left behind a flaming boot mark. He continued to walk until he found a herd of motorcycles, all of them in good condition, but he continued to move past them until one of them caught his eye, well I couldn't see his eyes in the image but you know what I mean. He walked over to an old, beat up motorcycle, the one that I woke up on; he placed both hands on the motorcycle front plate and screamed. The fire that was on the man was transferred to the motorcycle and it changed it, transformed it, turned it into something…wicked.

He got on the bike and began to ride, he rode on throughout the entire night, and then I woke up. Everything was like how I remembered it when I blacked out only I found myself lying on my bed, I was praying to god that everything that had happened was just some kind of dream. I walked into both my mom's room and Emma's room, everything was gone, their clothes, Emma's toys, and moms sentimental stuff that she got from family members long gone. So mom did drug me and left me behind, but why, why, why, why, a question I began to constantly ask myself and as I made my way downstairs I found a note lying in the kitchen. When I opened it, the note was clearly written by mom because no one in our family could write cursive, it told me that dads "secret box" was real and it was hidden behind the portrait we had in the living room of John Krastil and Elizabeth Krastil.

That riddle dad made finally had some sense to it now; I literally hit myself for not figuring out the obvious answer. The letter then told me to go see my dad again and tell him that "the box has been opened" I didn't waste any time to begin my travel to the asylum. But then I realized that I always had mom drive me there and I had a long walk ahead of me, then I felt something in my left pocket which is weird cause I only use my right pocket for holding stuff (I'm weird like that okay). When I fished out just what was in my pocket I was greeted to a pair of silver keys, I remembered that there was the old chopper I woke up on and a devilish grin grew across my face.

After about fifteen minutes of trial and error, running from the cops, crashing at least 23 times, and finally cackling at the top of my lungs when I rode at ridiculous speeds I had finally learned how to drive…sort of. Anyway I was driving down to the asylum and luckily for me visiting hours weren't done yet, I called up my dad and waited in an empty room, only things there were empty tables and vacant chairs. He stumbled in, reminding me of the way that guy on fire did when he was walking through the junkyard and sat down across from me.

We were quiet for awhile, I wasn't sure what to say exactly, yeah turns out that I found your secret box dad and some crazy lady with a knife stabbed me, I nearly died, and now I might possessed by an evil flaming spirit. Dad cut the silence like a knife through butter and chuckled a bit as he said, "So kiddo…how's life?"

I had a choice right there, I could either punch him, or I could laugh to supress my hidden rage and tell him what happened, if I didn't need his help to figure out just what the hell was going on I would have punched him. So I laughed and said, "Oh you know this and that, mom drugging me into a blackout while she took Emma and ran off to god knows where leaving me behind, you know nothing different."

For the first time dads appearance seemed to change ever since he got here in the loony building, he straightened his back, his smile faded into a serious line, and his eyes demanded the truth. He then asked a question that had some weight to it and asked, "Did she leave behind a note?"

I threw over the note to him and said, "yeah she did…and your secret box? Let's just say it ain't a secret anymore."

He didn't really need to read the note anymore after I said that, he could guess what happened and he knew instantly that his little haunted jack in the box was inhabiting me, I wouldn't be talking to him if it didn't which I would learn later. He threw the note aside and asked in his serious voice, "The box was opened wasn't it?"

I nodded my head and he slammed his fist down on the table with enough force that I thought he had either broken his hand or the table. He looked like that he was shot or something, it took about five minutes before he finally looked up back at me, he said, "I'm sorry…"

I didn't know what to make of that and I asked, "just what are you sorry for?"

He continued, "I'm sorry for giving you my burden…"

I needed to know more, he wasn't making that much sense and so I continued to ask, "just what burden did you give me?"

He stared at me, dead on in the eyes and said, "For giving you the spirit of vengeance…"

That sentence, actually it was just those three words, 'spirit of vengeance' that had unlocked the rest of the memories of last night and made them clearer now. Last night I had allowed that giant tour of flame, that spirit to enter my being for saving my life, I had to stop myself from hitting slamming my own fist on the table. It all made sense now, that being on fire that I dreamed about, that was me, while this revelation dawned on me an image of a charred up, black skull surrounded by flame with horns sticking up towards the sky and black eye sockets flashed in my head.

That was the face of whom I had become, I put both my hands over my face and asked my dad, "How did you even get something like that inside of a box?"

My father let out a heavy sigh and began to tell just how everything got to this point. Apparently he had been the spirit of vengeance due to him making some kind of deal with the devil, he didn't tell me what he sold his soul for, no matter how many times I asked. He then continued and said that a demon was planning to overthrow the devil himself, you can see why the big man downstairs couldn't let that happen. So he went looking for one of the spirits that would deal with this problem for him. You see, the devil doesn't just pick one person to be inhabited by the spirit, instead he tries to inhabit as many as there are willing to allow that evil in.

Now I had a bit of a question to ask which was, why couldn't the big guy take care of this demon by himself, well as it turns out, the devil is weaker on the Earth which means that his powers are limited. My dad wasn't sure exactly why this was so he couldn't tell me, but what he could tell me was that the devil needed agents, people to do his bidding for him in our world. Now his power may have been limited, but his one power that he does have is THE DEAL, in a nutshell, you're basically giving yourself over to the devil, your letting his evil into you. He'll show up when you're at your weakest be that emotionally or physically, he'll offer you what you want the most at that given time and in return, he'll want your soul.

But once you make that deal, you're his property and he can do whatever it is that he pleases with you, now if your like my dad you got off easy. Cause you see, he may have become an agent of the devil himself but he doesn't do it by choice, the spirit of vengeance is the real agent. Anyone with this spirit is infused with a duty to punish the wicked, but this world isn't black and white which is just about how the Spirit sees it, only in black and white. Now you've done at least one thing wrong in your life, everyone has hell even I have but that's a different story. But that wrong deed is what will condemn you to the spirits wrath and he'll treat you no differently then from a psychotic murderer.

Now there's one thing that I forgot to mention, the spirit of vengeance may have infused the duty to punish the wicked but it'll also force the duty on you, making you change into it when your in the presence of evil, especially at night. But once you change, the spirit takes over and will hunt down, main, torture, and slay whosoever got it coming. But somehow my father figured out a way to control his spirit and could transform at will, now keep in mind that the spirit wasn't just gone it was simply giving him the wheel, so to speak. There was always a chance where the spirit could take control if the circumstances called for it and lets just say a lot more people tended to live with my dad in control, innocent or not.

Now as I was saying, a demon was moving in slowly but steadily on the devil's territory and so the devil went looking for a spirit who could handle this. But during this time my dad had met my mom (which she knew what he had inside of him) and they had already gotten married with me on the way and dad knew that the spirit of vengeance would get in the way of him having a normal family. So when Lucifer came knocking on his front door for help they made a deal, he would deal with the demon and in exchange, dad would not only get his soul but he would also no longer posses the spirit of vengeance.

Now dad had road for the last time in order to face this demon, he told me that it was a long grueling battle, one that he almost ended up losing if he didn't have a reason to continue to fight. But he had done it, he had beaten this demon and put it on a one way ticket back to whatever pit it crawled out of, to insure that this was infact his final ride he buried all of his weapons he carried as the spirit. He went back to where the big man downstairs told him to meet him so he could finally be freed of this duty.

But like any deal you make with the devil, he's bound to screw you over in some way. So when my dad came to the site where he assumed the devil would just give him his soul and take the spirit along with him, let's just say he got more then his soul. My dad gets his soul back, but he also got his secret box that contained the essence of his spirit of vengeance inside.

He had told dad that whoever wanted to open the box would need the blood of his first born child and anyone who was chosen by the spirit inside would gain it's powers without losing his or her soul. With that said the devil disappeared in the blink of an eye, now the spirit of vengeance is powerful host or no, but an unshackled spirit that didn't take orders from the big man downstairs is dangerous, so you can see why dad kept the box. Now my father had made some enemy's as the spirit of vengeance, some even knew who he was and most thought that he was dead. All except for a biker/cultist who had been dogging my father for year's cause he apparently gave their leader the second worse fate possibly. He didn't kill him or suck out his soul, he had given the leader the Penance Stare a powerful ability that only the ghost rider can do, it causes the individual to see and feel all the pain, both emotional and physical, that he or she has ever inflicted upon. But the pain was too much for their leader and caused him to reduce to suicide.

Apparently their second in command, the blond chick with the eye patch now revealed to be named Megan was a cousin to their leader and wanted revenge. She had tracked him for years until they lost all traces of him, which was when he met mom who helped in his disappearance. But thanks to a certain evil underworld overlord, they now not only had a beat on him, but they now knew about the box, and so the hunt was back on.

My parents had to move from place to place because they didn't want them to get their hands on the box. Over the while my dad did get an idea of how the bikers/cultists might just lose interests in the box and hunting him. If they thought he was crazy then they might see him living in a personal hell inside of his own mind and take pity on him, they would also see that he couldn't be used in order to learn where the box was…well not used directly. Now for the box, he planned to have it hidden in the one place that only mom knew about so the biker/cultists wouldn't use it for evil. Well one part of the plan worked, the bikers did take pity on him, which is why he's not dead. But the bikers didn't stop looking for the box, they had planned to wait and see if one of the family members would get any info on it…or at least that's what I thought.

It all made sense now, why we were constantly moving, what that spirit was, who those crazy guys at the junkyard were, and why my dad was locked in the Asylum. My father was in the asylum so he could not only protect us but also insure that the box was kept safe, but this didn't explain why mom left.

I looked up at him after a few minutes of taking this all in and asked, "Then why did mom leave me behind?"

Dad looked down and said with guilt weighing heavily on his voice, "She was afraid of me when I changed, she told me that she would leave me if she saw me like that ever again. I guess she was still afraid."

Mom left because she was afraid of me? I felt…almost enraged by this, a mother was not supposed to be afraid of her own son! I then continued, subduing my rage and asked, "So I have the spirit of vengeance in me…what happens now?"

My dad decided to flash a grin for once in this gloomy atmosphere and spoke with much pride, "Now? Heh, I get to finally end this act of being clinically insane and become your mentor."

I scoffed at the idea but I didn't really see any other way so I said, "Since when were you ever sane?"

Ever since that day my father had been acting like his good old self and within a week he was released from the institute in "perfect" health. As soon as he got out it meant the beginning of my training, first thing he did was dig up all the weapons he had left behind so many years ago and passed them on to me. It wasn't that much honestly, it was like four things and two of them were the same thing, the first thing he gave me was a sawed off shotgun. But for those of you who didn't know what that was it's basically a double barrel shotgun minus the long barrel and replaced with a short one. The next two weapons that he gave me were these strange brass knuckles with red glowing symbols on them, and finally he gave me this weird belt with a metal tip and a skull buckle.

He told me that the first three weapons I could use while I was the spirit of vengeance but the last one, the belt, I wouldn't need to use while I was in vengeance mode. When I asked why he told me that the belt acts as his mystical chains did, which he assumed that I had them as well…and he was right, the belt can stretch out to any distance but it acts differently when it hits someone. Instead of turning them to ash like the chains did or burn them it simply siphoned off some of their power making them feel weak, but it back fires working vice versa if I use it on an innocent.

Now the spirit has the enact ability to control hell fire which is what the spirit has constantly swarming around his body. Only it becomes more powerful and more destructive when focussed into a weapon, which he bothered to tell me that it couldn't be just some ordinary weapon you found on the street. Plus you had to be in vengeance mode to channel the hell fire, which was what the sawed off shotgun was for. A certain being had created him these weapons and he swore an oath to never reveal who or what had done such a thing for him.

The two brass knuckles could be used, like the belt, when I was in human form or on vengeance mode. In human mode they leave the guilty feeling the impact of the punch as if it was twice as hard and the innocent would barley feel anything. But when I become the spirit of vengeance, they not only become twice as powerful but they burn with a heat set to unthinkable temperatures.

He worked me to the bone, figuring out ways to control myself and steer the spirit when I needed to. Finding new ways to fight with either the belt or a couple of practice chains he still had lying around the garage. He even showed me a few punches and different fighting techniques if I ever got into one.

We then worked on ways for me to suppress my inner spirit so that I could hold it in longer. We started out slowly by traveling down back alleys and hanging around the wrong crowd, god it was like hell to me. It was like having a fire in my chest flare out to my bones and try to melt my skin off so it could punish those who were guilty.

By the middle of August dad and I were at an underground fight club with very little rules, that's when I began to smell an aroma of a foul concoction, when I told dad this he asked just what was it I smelled. When I took a whiff of the air it was like boiling blood and when I told dad he simply nodded and said, "That my son is the smell of violence, a sin, and a sign that your getting closer to suppressing your spirit."

He then told me that there were four levels to signal that I was getting closer to suppressing my spirit of vengeance. The first level was the ability to smell the sins of the guilty which would soon turn to seeing the sins of the guilty as I got closer to the second level. The second level was the ability to change into the spirit of vengeance during the day, but only for a very, very short time like thirty seconds. The third level was being able to change during the day but only when staying within the shadows and having a small set of control. But the last level was being able to change even when the sun was out and having complete control over your spirit but had limited powers.

This knowledge actually lead me to ask just what would happen when I gain full control over the spirit, to be more specific, what kind of power I would get. He literally gave me a list of what I could do, the first thing that caught my eye was superhuman strength, now from what I remember when I change I'm a flaming skeleton with no amount of muscle anywhere. But my dad insisted that he could lift up 25 tons so I just rolled my eyes and continued down the list.

The next thing that caught my eye was the ability to posses superhuman stamina, which I guess would make sense. Like I said, you have no muscles which means you have nothing to tire out while your fighting or running. Dad went to further explain even though I wasn't really listening, he said something about mystical energy that empowers the spirit that prevents his muscles from producing fatigue toxins and blah, blah, blah.

Up next were two that I knew would come in handy, the fact that I had a regenerative healing factor was awesome. But combined with the fact that you had superhuman durability was freaking god like. Although my dad stressed that even though I could regenerate and survive a grenade to my face there was few things that could kill me. Mainly weapons that were forged in heaven or mystical attacks that came from either heaven or hell, so any holy/unholy attack or weapons could really hurt me basically, note to self, don't piss off the nuns.

I already knew about hellfire but my dad still went into great detail about what this did exactly, it not only burned people but it burned their very soul. I could also project this fire in various ways, like shooting it from my eyes, mouth, or my hands. I could also create walls of hellfire to either protect me or others as my dad recalled using such a wall to stop a group of madmen from shooting a bunch of people. He then told me that the Spirit could produce these flames without bounds, which means limitless hellfire.

Dad then went into detail about how the mystical chains the spirit uses could also be transformed into other weapons but only melee based weapons. He also decided to add that, like the hellfire spirit uses, it could also be summoned to be fired from any other place on the spirit of vengeance's body. The last ability was the penance stair and I already had a pretty good understanding of what it could do and how I could use it. But dad warned me about another power the Ghost Rider wielded, it was the ability to suck out people's souls and send them to Zarathos himself as a snack. Sounded gruesome and I vowed never to use it, but dad then went into the limits of the Spirit of vengeance placed on it's host.

All these ability's sounded a little overpowering, almost making it seem that the devil was trying to put flaming skeletal gods among men. But my dad told me that this power I now wield didn't entirely belong to the big man himself, infact it came from another demon who was tricked by the devil to be trapped and forced to give his powers over to mortal men the devil favored. That demons name was Zarathos, a powerful demon lord who was worshipped by a group of people making sacrifices to him and the devil saw this as a waste of souls that he could have had. So he tricked Zarathos to get him out of the picture and make him his slave.

Somewhere at the end of August my dad told me that he found a school that would help me gain control over my spirit faster. He told me the name of the school, threw me my uniform, and said that the only known way to get to this school was at a very specific bus stop. To clarify, it was all the way up in mother chucking Japan, Japan people! I nearly blew when I started screaming at him just how the hell I was supposed to get all the way up to Japan and you wanna know what he did? He just pointed at my bike and said, "better get riding."

So now here I am, in Japan, the morning sun casting away my flaming skeletal form as I returned to the motel I was staying in. I let out a sigh as I entered my room and said, "Today's the big day…"

Today was the first day of school and I still had no idea just where this bus stop was. I stared down at my uniform and said, "Might as well put on the uniform…"

'Why am I even bothering putting this thing on? He didn't even tell me where the specific bus stop was?' I thought, but regardless I put the uniform on. The uniform was simple in design, a green overcoat with a white-buttoned long sleeved shirt, a red tie, and finally brown pants. I still wore my black steel toe boots, might be a little out of place but whatever, I also shoved my fingerless black biker gloves in my right pocket.

I packed up all I belonged (which wasn't much) and walked outside, I gave my old chopper a look and chuckled, not worrying about it in the slightest. That thing will follow me wherever I go, no sense in that changing now. I then heard a low rumble coming from behind me an I looked behind to see that the black bike was following me like a lost dog, I ignored it as I continued to walk to the nearest bus top. When I reached it, I placed my elbow on the armrest, placed my hand on my cheek and rested while I hoped that this stop would be the one that the bus to take me to my new school would be assigned to. My bike flipping its kickstand as if a ghost was riding it and finally decided to shut it's engine off as it to rested.

I began to think of the things that I had done in Japan so far, well the first thing I did was learn Japanese that's for damn sure. The next thing I did was taken in the sights, visiting obvious tourist traps but also visiting its dark underbelly. Then I simply waited until the end of my summer came and the beginning of my new school year started.

My daydreaming was interrupted by a groveled shout, I looked up and saw a bus driver of unknown age. That was mostly due to his hat, seriously the hat cascaded his face in shadows within a shadow! But the creepiest part about this guy were his eyes, they seemed to pierce the darkness that surrounded his face and glow.

He then asked, "You Ben Krastil?"

I nodded my head and he said, "well come on then kid, this is the bus to Yokai Academy."

I loaded myself up on the bus with the strange bus driver, his eyes seeming to look out at every possible nook and cranny of his bus just by giving a glance at the mirror above the driver seat. The bus went back into motion as I sat on the right side of the bus close to the end, I looked out at the side and saw my bike following at a steady pace. I sighed a little as I still felt those strange eyes of the bus driver stare at me as the bus continued in motion, yep this is definitely going to be a strange school year.