Time's Up, Joker.

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-General P.O.V-

A few days before Michael was pulled into Dormammu's realm, the Realm Lord had a visitor.

A visitor from hell.

"Once you destroy the Rider and release my master, Lord Mephisto will reward you handsomely. This, I guarantee on my honor," Prince Astaroth had said, bowing before Dormammu.

Initially, the Realm Lord had refused.

That was until he learned of the Rider's location—and his association with the Ancient One.

His hatred for the Sorcerer Supreme spurred him into action, and his schemes paid off.

Now, he had the Rider within his grasp. Michael would be the perfect tool to use against his worst enemy. He just had to break the Ghost Rider first.

Thinking of this, Dormammu's laughter echoed—a deep, rumbling sound that made Michael's skin crawl.

"You've been meddling in matters beyond your understanding, Rider. Kamar-Taj's defenses may have shielded you for now, but here, in my domain, you stand alone."

Michael took a steadying breath, appearing unafraid.

"Alone? You sure about that?" He clenched his fists, and the Rider's flames ignited around him, bathing him in an eerie glow.

His head transformed into a burning skull, the blue hellfire blazing hotter than ever before.

**'GO ALL OUT. HOLD NOTHING BACK.'**

Zadkiel's voice whispered in Michael's mind, surprising him.

**'Nice to finally hear you talk. And don't worry, I'd be dumb to underestimate a Realm Lord.'**

From behind him, Kaecilius stepped forward, his expression smug. "Your arrogance is misplaced, Mr. Anders. Do you truly think you can defy God? Even the Ghost Rider cannot match the might of my master, Dormammu!"

The Rider's head jerked towards him, and Kaecilius stumbled back. The empty eyes looked at him with disdain. "SHUT UP, LITTLE MAN. THE ADULTS ARE TALKING."

He turned his gaze to Dormammu, the flames around him intensifying. "YOU DRAGGED ME HERE, DORMAMMU. WAS IT JUST TO MAKE ME KNEEL, OR ARE YOU LOOKING FOR A FIGHT?"

Dormammu's eyes narrowed, and the air around Ghost Rider grew colder, the oppressive weight of Dormammu's power bearing down like a tidal wave.

"Bold words for a mortal bound to a borrowed power," Dormammu sneered, his voice dripping with contempt. "I've consumed worlds for less."

"YOU HAVE, BUT SO HAVE I!" the Rider roared.

Chains erupted from the ground, glowing red-hot as they wrapped around his arms, ready for battle. "SO IT'S A FIGHT THEN."

Kaecilius and his followers backed away, watching with thinly veiled anticipation as Dormammu's colossal visage drew closer, filling the void with its unholy glow.

Dormammu's form shifted, reshaping into a humanoid figure with a head enveloped in orange flames.

The Rider tilted his head at the all-too-similar form.

"FLATTERING."

"Fool! I did not imitate you! This is the true shape of a Faltine!" Dormammu rebuked.

"IF YOU SAY SO."

"By the flames of the Faltine!!" Kaecilius, having had enough disrespect shown to his Lord, attacked. He, along with his sorcerers, conjured a tornado of red fire that consumed the Rider's position.

Dormammu watched from above, silent.

"THAT WAS THE BEST YOU HAD?" the Rider asked, his hellfire burning the Faltine flames into nothing.

"What?! Impossible!" Kaecilius exclaimed, shocked.

The Rider opened his jaws, and a dragon made of blue flames surged toward the sorcerers.

Mordo, Kaecilius, and his minions could only scream in agony as the hellfire dragon turned them to ash.

The Rider turned back to Dormammu.

"YOU HEARD ME TELL HIM TO SHUT UP, RIGHT?"

"What you do to ants is of no concern to me. you are the one I want, ghost rider."

Dormammu replied, charging a sphere of flame more powerful than anything Kaecilius could ever conjure.

Before he could unleash it, the Rider ran forward and leaped onto the hellfire dragon, flying toward the Realm Lord.

Spinning chains cut through the void, wrapping around Dormammu's hands. But the Realm Lord laughed, increasing in size, shattering the chains in a massive explosion that threw the Rider back.

The giant Dormammu punched down at the dragon, blasting it apart and hurling the Rider toward the ground, landing with a resounding crack.

Purple energy roots, crystalline and alive, wrapped around the Ghost Rider, absorbing his fire and binding him to the floating rock.

Michael reappeared, letting go of the Ghost Rider form and using his Yellow ring to phase through his bindings.

"That doesn't work on me."

"I can see that."

Dormammu responded, extended a hand, and the void shifted.

"Whoa-"

Gravity buckled beneath Michael's feet as the chunk of ground he stood on splintered and fractured, breaking apart into floating debris.

Michael braced himself within a construct shield.

He tried to fly, but Dormammu's pressure created a gravitational pull that depleted his ring charge faster.

Changing tactics, hellfire surged below his heels as he leapt from one fragment to another, dodging Dormammu's waves of purple energy and flames, each blast threatening to unmake him.

Michael pushed the Rider's power to its limits without changing form, hurling flame bombs with the heat of compressed nuclear fission.

The mini-suns exploded in Dormammu's face but left no lasting damage.

Even his hellfire chains, enhanced with fear, dissolved in the vast, pulsating energy surrounding the dark entity.

To make matters worse, each attack only seemed to make Dormammu stronger, his laughter echoing through the endless darkness.

"My turn!"

The Realm Lord went on the offense, telekinetically controlling the floating debris to smash into Michael while simultaneously assailing him with energy attacks from above.

Michael was forced to retreat, strategizing as he fled.

**'YOU'RE RUNNING AWAY!? HAVE YOU NO PRIDE?!'** Zadkiel seemed to turn into a chatterbox.

"He's too strong to beat in his own realm," Michael replied, flying while cloaked.

Behind him, yellow light mirages meant to act as distractions were eliminated in a wave of power. He replaced them with more and scattered them across the realm.

**'YOU HAVE MY POWER AND HAVE YET TO USE THE RING'S FULL POTENTIAL. WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR, HUMAN?!'**

"Nothing—" Michael answered, weaving around a thick beam of searing flames that created a wall blocking his path. He stopped, turning his focus inward.

"Nothing but your full cooperation, Zadkiel. I want it all. I want 100% of your power."

**'NEVER. YOU CANNOT CONTROL IT.'** Zadkiel flatly refused.

"Then I guess we die today."

Michael laughed as Dormammu erased every copy.

"You can run, but you can't hide, Rider!" the Realm Lord yelled, flying towards Michael in a beam of flames.

**'WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! KEEP RUNNING; IT'S BETTER THAN STANDING HERE AND WAITING FOR DEATH!'** Zadkiel yelled.

Michael turned around to face the approaching Realm Lord.

"I told you, give me 100%, and I can save us. Otherwise…we are both doomed! Hahaha!"

**'ARE YOU INSANE?! IT WILL DEVOUR YOUR SOUL!'**

"Let it. I've already lost my two reasons to live," Michael responded indifferently.

He'd figured out something Zadkiel didn't know yet. The Realm Lord didn't want to kill him. Otherwise, he would have done so from the start. For some reason, Dormammu wanted him alive.

Michael saw this as a chance to pressure Zadkiel into giving up full control.

And as Dormammu closed in, the pressure on the Dark Angel within him finally reached a breaking point.

**'ALRIGHT. I SHALL GRANT YOU 100% OF MY POWER. BUT BE WARNED, YOUR BODY WILL EXPERIENCE PAIN LIKE NO OTHER. AND I SHALL UNLOCK IT FOR ONLY ONE MINUTE. ANY LONGER, AND YOUR SOUL WILL BE CONSUMED BY HELLFIRE.'**

"One minute? That's too short. I want it to be permanent."

**'PUNISH MORE WRONGDOERS, AND THE POWER OF VENGEANCE WILL ATTUNE TO YOU, GRANTING YOU ALL MY POWER.'**

"Alright. Do it on my signal," Michael said as Dormammu arrived, shrinking his form to a more manageable size.

"I commend your efforts, but petty illusions cannot fool me, Rider," the Realm Lord said.

"I wasn't trying to fool you, Dormammu. I was buying time," Michael smirked.

Behind him, the massive jaws of a Hope-Eater appeared and swallowed Michael whole.

"Death will not provide you asylum from me."

Dormammu flexed his hand, disintegrating the Hope-Eater into nothing, only to reveal another Hope-Eater inside the first one.

"Futile."

He frowned, burning the second one, but another set of jaws appeared—a third Hope-Eater.

"What trickery is this?"

Dormammu raged, using his full power to dismantle the void space around the yellow construct.

The fourth Hope-Eater was revealed, this time pale green.

"Folded space?! You dare insult me with such basic techniques? I mastered them a million years ago! Die!"

Dormammu obliterated the fourth one.

"Die!"

And the fifth.

"Die!"

And the sixth—though it took a bit more power. Just a smidgen, a mere drop in the ocean, but the Realm Lord noticed.

"Di—"

The seventh Hope-Eater actually attacked, trying to swallow him whole. Dormammu blasted it out of existence, the sheer power shaking his entire realm.

Half the planets shattered completely, and the floating remains disintegrated in his relentless pursuit of Michael.

It was as if the Realm Lord was stuck in a never-ending loop. Every time he destroyed a Hope-Eater, another would appear.

He must have taken out over fifty of them before he realized why he couldn't get rid of these accursed constructs.

At some point, they had started adapting to his attacks. This revelation drove Dormammu into a fit of rage, making him feel as if Michael was mocking him—just as the Ancient One once had.

The wanton destruction began in earnest as Dormammu unleashed every weapon in his arsenal, determined to find Michael and kill him, even if it meant obliterating an endless number of Hope-Eaters.

What Dormammu didn't realize, though, was that Michael didn't have the ability to create endless Hope-Eaters.

No, Dormammu had fallen for Michael's ruse. There were only six Hope-Eaters.

Whenever Dormammu thought he'd destroyed one, it turned out that the Hope-Eater within would devour its predecessor along with Dormammu's own power.

That stolen energy was then distributed among the remaining five Hope-Eaters, making them increasingly resilient and harder to kill.

Dormammu was truly caught in a loop.

Inside the sixth Hope-Eater, which occupied the same space as the fifth but was phased out of existence, Michael remained hidden. His energy signature was cloaked beneath the fifth Hope-Eater.

Within the sixth's stomach was a sea of blue hellfire, swirling around a central whirlpool that seemed to pull the flames downward.

At the heart of this inferno lay something—a naked figure with dark wings—screaming in agonizing torment.

[...92%...93%...94%...95%...96%...97%...98%...99%...]

As the numbers ticked up, the sea of hellfire dwindled, until the last drop poured into the man who was the Host of God's Fury.

[Ghost Rider Template: 100%]

"FOR ONE MINUTE, WE ARE BOTH ONE, MICHAEL ANDERS. MY SPIRIT IS INTERTWINED WITH YOUR SOUL."

Zadkiel's voice echoed through the folded space.

Michael opened his eyes, now fully awakened.

Around him, the Hope-Eater's stomach unraveled into threads of energy, which absorbed into the ring on his finger.

He no longer had to hide—not from a mere Realm Lord.

The RealmLord stumbled back, watching in stunned disbelief as the Hope-Eater disintegrated, revealing something both familiar and foreign.

Emerging from the ashes was the Rider—Michael, but transformed.

Above his head, a blazing golden halo hovered, radiant and piercing against the darkness.

His face was obscured by a skeletal mask, its eye sockets ignited with unholy flames.

Black wings, wrapped in roaring blue hellfire, spread from his back, framing him in a fierce, otherworldly aura.

Dormammu's voice faltered. "What… what are you? What have you become?"

Michael's eyes burned with the fire of judgment. His voice, now carrying the weight of something beyond mortal or demon, resounded through the void.

"THE TRUE FORM OF THE GHOST RIDER. AN ARCHANGEL OF VENGEANCE."

A shiver of horror slithered through Dormammu, a sensation foreign to him—a primal terror.

For the first time in millennia, the RealmLord's instincts urged him to flee. Spinning around, he tore through the expanse of his realm, covering light-years in a breath, racing toward the farthest edges of his dominion.

Michael watched him retreat, his halo absorbing Dormammu's terror like fuel, brightening with each beat of the RealmLord's dread.

The golden halo was no mere decoration—it bore the mark of the Yellow Lantern Corps, their crest blazing at its center.

"YOU CAN RUN, BUT YOU CAN'T HIDE."

With a grim sense of satisfaction, Michael hurled Dormammu's own words back at him.

His hand moved, and a towering sword construct materialized in his grasp.

The halo pulsed, solidifying the ethereal blade into real, gleaming metal.

Hellfire chains coiled around his wrist, binding him to the weapon, infusing it with blue flames that danced along the blade.

He held aloft the Sword of Vengeance, its radiance searing the very fabric of the Dark Dimension.

With a single, earth-shattering swing, he cleaved through the void, unleashing a tidal wave of hellfire that surged forward, consuming everything in its path.

At the edge of his realm, Dormammu glanced over his shoulder, eyes widening as he saw the oncoming storm—a cataclysm of power closing in with terrifying speed.

Realizing he would never reach the escape rift in time, the RealmLord turned, summoning every ounce of his strength to make his final stand against death.

"Damn you, Ghost Rider!" he bellowed, his power pouring out in desperate resistance.

The flames descended, drowning his roar as they burned through everything he was.

In moments, the mighty Dormammu—lord of the Dark Dimension, conqueror of worlds—was nothing but ash swept up in the tides of damnation.

::------------::

This took forever to write. Sorry for that.