(A/N):
Drop a meme here that you find funny.
Or reflects your mood.
Which will encourage me…
<AUTHOR NOTE:->
Guys I Want you to help me find all those character’s you felt they should be in…
Since I can start my research on them…
And also helps me find the character’s easily…
Hope you comments their names or img…
here…
….
By the time Raja finally returned home,
The excitement of the day had begun to settle into something that almost resembled normality.
The small birthday celebration had been improvised after everything that happened at the cake shop.
May had eventually managed to arrange another cake, though it certainly wasn’t the celebration Peter had originally imagined.
Between the police station, the ruined shop, the damaged Camaro and the fact that everyone had spent half the evening worrying about Raja, nobody was particularly interested in throwing a huge party.
Still, Peter had smiled.
Ned had talked enough for three people.
May had made sure everyone ate.
And Raja’s grandparents had spent most of the evening reminding him that he should stop getting involved in dangerous situations,
Despite the fact that he had no idea how he was supposed to explain that danger seemed to have developed a personal interest in him.
Eventually, Raja excused himself and went upstairs to his room.
He closed the door behind him, dropped onto his bed and stared at the ceiling for a few seconds.
“What a day.”
He had started the morning by going to a friend’s birthday party.
He had ended it by driving a car through a cake shop, fighting armed criminals, being interrogated by the NYPD and signing a bail undertaking.
Somehow, that was still not the strangest thing that had happened to him since arriving in this universe.
Raja reached for his phone, but before he could unlock it, the familiar green System interface appeared in his vision.
Seeing it he smiled.
“About time.”
The notifications he had been waiting for finally appeared.
“Important Character Contact Confirmed”
“Target: May Parker
XP Reward: +150”
Raja nodded looking at the Xp he had got from the system.
“Not bad.”
Another notification immediately followed.
“Important Character Contact Confirmed”
“Target: Ned Leeds
XP Reward: +85”
Raja mentally opened his status.
His previous experience had been:
“Current XP: 1,535 / 10,000”
The System processed the newly acquired points.
“+150 XP
+85 XP
“Experience Added”
“Current System Status:
System Level: 3
Current XP: 1,770 / 10,000XP
Required for Level 4: 8,230”
Raja stared at the number.
“One thousand seven hundred and seventy…”
He smiled.
“Still a long way to go.”
He wasn’t particularly worried about it anymore.
When he had first seen the requirement for Level 4, ten thousand XP had looked ridiculous.
But after meeting Peter, May and Ned, he was beginning to understand how quickly the numbers could accumulate if he kept encountering important people.
And considering the universe he had found himself in…
There were plenty of important people.
Far too many, actually.
Raja closed the System and sank deeper into his pillow.
His mind briefly returned to Bruce, Betty and Hulk.
He still needed to find an abandoned house.
Then he needed to figure out how to move it into his dimension without anyone noticing.
After that, Bruce would probably need laboratory equipment.
Betty would probably need even more.
Hulk would probably want food.
A lot of food.
Raja sighed just thinking about it.
“I’ve somehow become a landlord.”
He closed his eyes.
For tonight, however, he was done.
WHiH World News Headquarters…
Across the city, long after most of the employees had started leaving for the evening,
Chess Roberts remained at her desk.
Her laptop displayed the same footage she had watched countless times since the Harlem incident.
The Ghost Rider.
Hulk.
Abomination.
She had watched the battle from every available angle.
The helicopter footage.
Traffic cameras.
Amateur recordings.
News broadcasts.
Social media clips.
Anything that had survived the chaos.
Chess dragged the footage backward again.
There.
The Ghost Rider stepped out of the burning Camaro.
She paused the frame.
Zoomed in.
The image became grainy.
She tried another angle.
Nothing.
She switched to another recording.
The same problem.
There was never enough.
Never the right angle.
Never a clear view of the face beneath the flames, assuming there was even a face to see.
Chess leaned back in her chair and rubbed her eyes.
“Who are you?”
She had been chasing the Ghost Rider story since Harlem.
The strange part was that she wasn’t even the only journalist doing it.
Sightings had begun appearing across the world.
Mexico.
South America.
Several parts of the United States.
Even Europe.
Flaming motorcycle riders.
Burning figures.
People claiming that a supernatural man had appeared and punished criminals.
At first, Chess had assumed they were all the same individual.
Then she found something that made that theory impossible.
The timing.
One supposed Ghost Rider had appeared in Mexico while the Harlem battle was still happening.
According to several eyewitness accounts, a flaming figure matching the general description of the Harlem Ghost Rider had appeared during a confrontation with a drug cartel.
The entire group had reportedly been wiped out.
But the Harlem Ghost Rider had still been in New York at the exact same time.
Chess had checked the timestamps repeatedly.
There was no way one person could have been in both places.
Unless…
There was more than one.
She opened another file.
The image showed a different burning rider.
The details weren’t identical.
The vehicle was different.
The silhouette was slightly different.
But the supernatural flames were unmistakable.
Chess frowned looking at the picture.
“So there are multiple Ghost Riders…”
She leaned back.
“Or one Ghost Rider with a very strange travel schedule.”
She gave a tired laugh.
“No.
You’re not getting away that easily.” The source of this chapter is g.com.
She closed the laptop.
Her shift had officially ended.
Chess gathered her things and stood.
She had no idea who Ghost Rider really was.
She didn’t know where he came from.
She didn’t know whether he was human, mutant, demon, alien or something nobody had named yet.
But she knew one thing.
There was a story buried underneath all of this.
And someday…
She was going to uncover it.
The Marauders Headquarters…
Far from the brightly lit offices of WHiH World News,
A very different group was dealing with the aftermath of the cake shop incident.
The atmosphere inside the Marauders’ temporary headquarters was tense.
Sabretooth stood near the center of the room, his arms crossed and his expression filled with irritation.
Around him were the others.
Scalphunter.
Arclight.
Harpoon.
Riptide.
Scrambler.
Vertigo.
Blockbuster.
Prism.
And Malice.
On the table between them sat several photographs and pieces of information concerning the stolen samples.
The operation had been simple.
At least, it was supposed to be.
Obtain the mutant blood.
Get it out quietly.
Avoid attracting attention.
Then deliver it to their client.
Instead…
Everything had gone wrong.
Scalphunter slammed his hand against the table.
“The cops have it.”
Sabretooth’s expression darkened.
“I know.
The case is at the NYPD headquarters.”
“And?”
“We can’t just walk in there.”
Sabretooth gave him a cold look.
“I didn’t say we were going to walk.”
Arclight crossed her arms.
“That blood was worth too much to lose.”
Harpoon nodded his head.
“And if Mr.Sinister finds out…”
Nobody finished the sentence.
They didn’t need to.
Their employer was dangerous enough.
But Mr.
Sinister discovering that they had lost the samples would create an entirely different problem.
The mutant blood had been obtained at considerable risk.
They had deliberately used human criminals connected to one of Sinister’s clone-operated gangs so that the Marauders themselves wouldn’t immediately be connected to the operation.
It had been supposed to leave no trail.
Instead…
A teenage boy had driven a car through the building.
The police had arrived.
The criminals had been captured.
And the briefcase had ended up in NYPD custody.
Riptide looked toward Sabretooth.
“So what we do now?”
Sabretooth slowly smiled hearing his question.
“We get it back.”
Blockbuster frowned hearing him.
“And the cops?”
Sabretooth’s smile widened.
“They’re only cops.
Normal human’s could they stop us…”
Malice looked at him.
“You think we can get into the NYPD headquarters unnoticed?”
“No.”
Sabretooth’s eyes gleamed.
“I think we’re going to make enough noise that nobody notices what we’re actually there for.”
The room fell silent.
“….”
“….”
“….”
The others understood immediately.
This was no longer about recovering a stolen briefcase.
It was about retrieving something that could potentially be worth far more than money.
The blood of a mutants which Mr.
Sinister values now.
Samples that someone powerful had gone to considerable lengths to obtain.
Monday arrived without the dramatic consequences Raja had half expected.
He had spent most of Sunday wondering whether the District Attorney would somehow decide that driving a Camaro through a cake shop and shooting two armed men was enough to turn him into the newest teenage criminal sensation in New York.
Fortunately, reality proved considerably less dramatic.
At the District Attorney’s office, the matter was reviewed along with the police reports,
CCTV recordings, statements from the witnesses and, most importantly, the fact that the entire incident had begun with armed criminals taking civilians hostage.
Raja had acted in defense of the people inside the shop, and the footage clearly supported his version of events.
By the time the review was finished, the possibility of charges against him had effectively disappeared.
Raja walked out of the building feeling considerably lighter.
“One less problem.”
He had no intention of ever seeing the inside of an interrogation room again.
Unfortunately, that was probably an optimistic ambition considering the universe he had been dropped into.
After that, his life gradually settled into something resembling a routine.
School in the morning.
Homework when necessary.
Peter and Ned whenever they decided to drag him somewhere.
His parents watching him suspiciously whenever they thought he wasn’t looking.
And, whenever he had free time, Raja searched the internet for something far more unusual.
An abandoned building.
Not just any abandoned building.
He needed somewhere that had been left unused for years, preferably a house or small property that nobody would immediately notice disappearing.
He didn’t want to walk into an abandoned warehouse in the middle of Manhattan and magically make it vanish.
That would create exactly the kind of attention he was trying to avoid.
He searched property records, old listings, forgotten real-estate advertisements and even local forums where people discussed abandoned properties.
The problem was finding something suitable.
Every promising location seemed to have someone interested in it.
One was scheduled for demolition.
Another belonged to a company that still paid taxes on the property.
Another had been abandoned but was regularly visited by urban explorers.
And one particularly promising house turned out to be occupied by an elderly man who had apparently been living there for forty years and simply didn’t bother updating the property’s online information.
Raja closed that tab immediately.
“Definitely not stealing that one.”
He continued searching.
At least he had time.
Bruce, Betty and Hulk weren’t going anywhere.
They had been living in the tent he had brought for them and other things were regularly brought to him there by him like water and mobile restroom which he brought for them.
For Hulk he had brought a larger tent which seems like a circus tent.
Well…
Technically, Hulk and them could go anywhere.
But Raja had already made it clear that they shouldn’t leave the dimension without discussing it first.
And, surprisingly, the three of them seemed perfectly comfortable there for now.
Betty had already begun exploring the possibilities of the place, while Bruce had started making notes about the environment.
Hulk, meanwhile, had apparently decided that empty black soil was perfectly acceptable territory for practicing his jumping around.
Raja had received one message from Bruce asking whether the dimension had any mountains.
Another from Betty asking whether the air composition changed across different areas.
And one very short message from Hulk.
“Hulk want food.”
Raja had stared at that message for almost a minute.
“Yeah.
I definitely need to find a house.”
Meanwhile, something else had changed without Raja realizing it.
He had somehow become part of Peter and Ned’s small circle.
It hadn’t happened through some dramatic conversation.
There hadn’t been an official moment where they declared themselves friends.
It simply happened. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
Peter started saving him a seat.
Ned began messaging him whenever they went somewhere.
If they were heading to the arcade, Raja was invited.
If they were building LEGO, Raja was invited.
If Ned discovered some new game or technology he thought was cool,
Raja was inevitably dragged into the discussion.
It was surprisingly easy.
Raja hadn’t realized how much he’d missed having people his own age around him until it happened.
Peter, in particular, seemed to hold him in unusually high regard.
Raja initially assumed it was simply because they got along.
Then one afternoon, Peter finally explained why.
They were sitting together after class when Peter suddenly became unusually quiet.
“Hey, Raj.”
“Hm?
What peter?”
Peter hesitated for a second.
“I never really said this properly.”
“Said what?”
“About what happened with Aunt May.”
Raja immediately understood.
“You don’t need to thank me again.”
“I know…
I had already thanked you once…”
Peter looked down at his hands.
“But I still want to.”
He took a breath.
“My uncle Ben…”
Raja’s expression softened.
Peter rarely talked about him.
“He was Aunt May’s husband,”
Peter continued quietly.
“They hadn’t even been married that long when he died.”
Raja didn’t interrupt.
“I wasn’t there when it happened, but…”
Peter swallowed puting his words together.
“I know what losing someone does to her.”
His fingers tightened as he didn’t speak afterwards.
“….”
Raja didn’t know what to say after that, so he simply remained beside him.
Peter looked toward him.
“You’re a good guy, Raj.”
Raja chuckled hearing him.
“Don’t tell anyone.
I have a reputation to maintain.”
Peter laughed as he shook his head.
The moment passed.
Neither of them realized that, somewhere beneath the joking and friendship, Peter had already begun placing enormous trust in him.
To Peter Parker…
Raja wasn’t simply another classmate anymore.
He was someone who had stepped forward when Aunt May was in danger.
Someone who had done what Peter desperately wished he could have done himself.
A few more days passed…
Then, one evening, Raja’s father came home with something unexpected.
“Raj.”
Raja looked up from his phone.
“Yeah?”
Jagadish loosened his tie and placed his briefcase on the table.
“Stark Industries is holding a gathering at Stark Tower.”
Raja raised an eyebrow.
“Okay?
So what’s that have do with me dad?…”
“We’re attending as a family.”
Jagadish looked at him.
“So you’re coming with us.”
Raja paused hearing his father’s words.
“Me?
Why?
I have never attended those parties before…”
“Mr.
Stark is interested in sponsoring you.”
Raja stared at his father.
“…What?”
“Your academic work, projects, future studies.
He wants to discuss the possibility of supporting you.”
Raja remained silent.
“….”
That didn’t make sense.
Not even slightly.
He hadn’t done anything remarkable at school.
He wasn’t some genius on Peter Parker’s level.
He hadn’t invented anything.
He hadn’t won some international science competition.
He wasn’t even particularly interested in becoming an engineer.
So why the hell would Tony Stark suddenly want to sponsor him?
Raja’s first thought was immediate.
‘He knows.
He knows I’m Ghost Rider.’
His mind immediately replayed the battle of Harlem.
Tony had seen his transformation.
Tony had access to JARVIS.
Tony had access to Stark Industries surveillance systems.
He could have tracked the Camaro.
He could have connected the dots.
Raja’s expression became slightly tense.
‘Do I overthinking it?’
But then he shook his head.
No.
That was probably paranoia.
His parents had connections with Stark Industries.
His father already worked there.
Perhaps they had simply recommended him.
Maybe Tony was offering scholarships to employees children or something.
That was entirely plausible.
There was no reason to immediately assume that the world’s most famous billionaire inventor had somehow discovered his secret identity.
Raja nodded convincing himself.
“Okay dad.”
Jagadish smiled hearing him accept to come with them.
“Good.
We’ll leave later.”
Raja watched his father walk away.
He remained seated for another few seconds.
Then quietly muttered,
“Please be a scholarship.”
Inside his mind, Zarathos finally spoke.
“You suspect the man knows.”
Raja sighed hearing his question.
“I suspect everything these days.”
“A reasonable response.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
He leaned back against the couch.
Whatever Tony Stark wanted…
Raja would find out soon enough.
And if this really was just a scholarship opportunity, he would gladly take it.
If it wasn’t…
Well.
He had a feeling the evening at Stark Tower was going to be considerably more interesting than his parents were letting him believe.
*******************************
(Author note:)
I hope you guys give me your opinion and idea’s.
Weekly Twice Chapters will be uploded…
Wednesday…
And Thursday…
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