Ghost Riders (2024)

— Ken, Kira, and Noshiko Yukimura about the Ghost Riders in Creatures of the Night

In Memory Lost, when a young boy named Alex was brought to the station by Sheriff Stilinski after his parents were taken, the Sheriff sought out Scott McCall for assistance in helping Alex recover his lost memories. With Alex's permission, Scott used his claws to perform the memory-manipulation ritual on him by sticking them in the back of his neck. While digging through his memories, Scott saw Alex and his parents driving in their car on the back roads of Beacon Hills after having seen an R-rated horror movie together.

They were in the middle of discussing whether or not seeing such a scary movie was the right move for Alex when suddenly, a man on a horse appeared in the middle of the road. Terrified, Alex's parents attempted to drive away, but the man, who was wearing a long leather duster and a cowboy hat, seemingly disabled the car to prevent them from leading. He pulled a pistol from his hip holster and aimed it at the car, firing a bullet that shattered the entire windshield, allowing him to leap onto the hood of the car and pull Alex's father out of the car. Once Alex's father had disappeared, the man ripped the passenger door off of its hinges before pulling Alex's mother out as well, hitting the gear shift in the process. The man, for whatever reason, left Alex, who was hiding in the backseat, behind, and the car began to roll away on its own.

Just then, Scott returned to the present, where he informed Stilinski and Stiles that he had seen a man on a horse in the road, leading Stilinski to determine that the abduction was a human problem and not a supernatural one. However, when Scott struggled to remember the rest of the memory, Alex insisted that the man would be coming for him next.

Later, Scott and Stiles met up with Lydia Martin and Malia Tate in the Impound Lot to examine the car; since Lydia's Banshee instincts could not pick up any indication that Alex's parents were dead, and Scott and Malia's enhanced sense of smell couldn't pick up any scent that would indicate they were alive, they were all at a loss to explain what happened. After Stiles found a shard of glass that had turned bluish-green from the gun the man used, he and Scott eventually realized that it had, in fact, been a "magic" bullet that the man had used to shoot out the windshield.

The next day, Scott and Stiles went to Alex's house to investigate, not knowing that Liam Dunbar and Mason Hewitt, who were confused by the fact that their phones couldn't geolocate, would use Garrett Douglas' compass to find their way to the house as well. Scott and Stiles were confused by the fact that all of the house seemed abandoned except for Alex's bedroom, which had been cleared of any proof of his parents' existence.

When Scott went downstairs to investigate the noises he heard, Stiles had his first encounter with a Ghost Rider, who had returned to the house in hopes of erasing Alex as originally intended; when Stiles looked under Alex's bed, he saw bloody hooves but otherwise couldn't see anything until the Rider began shooting at him, forcing him to duck outside Alex's bedroom door. Once the Ghost Rider had left, Stiles and Scott returned to Alex's room to find that it had been completely emptied out, indicating that they had taken Alex from the Sheriff's station.

Outside the school, after realizing that he was the next target of the Ghost Rider as a result of seeing them at Alex's house, Stiles ran into Lydia Martin, who, unlike Scott, Malia, Liam, Mason, and Hayden Romero, was actually able to remember him. Just then, the Ghost Riders arrived in the parking lot, but Lydia was unable to see them. Stiles, who could see them, helped Lydia run away from them, and the two of them took refuge inside Stiles' Jeep; he warned her not to look at them or scream or she would risk being taken as well.

Though Stiles considered driving away, he eventually came to the conclusion that he was doomed either way and decided to spend his limited time urging Lydia to remember him once he was gone, citing their extensive history to help her hold on to his memory. Just as he reminded her that he loved her, the Ghost Riders pulled him from the car, leaving Lydia alone in Stiles' Jeep, struggling to remember what he told her.

In Superposition, Scott and Liam were practicing on the lacrosse field late at night when dozens of Ghost Riders began rushing over the field on their horses, though the two Werewolves were unable to see them due to their ability to only partially be present in the "real world."

Meanwhile, Mason Hewitt, Corey Bryant, Jake Sullivan, and several other students were in the science lab at Beacon Hills High School, doing an extra-credit physics lab that involved creating a magnetic putty. However, the presence of the Ghost Riders nearby caused the magnetic properties of the putty to become amplified as a result of the Riders' electromagnetokinetic abilities, alarming and confusing all of them.

Before they could question this further, Coach Finstock appeared and forced Mason and Corey to leave, walking them to the front door of the school. Just as they had left the building, Mason realized that he had forgotten his phone and ran back inside to the science lab, with Corey waiting on him to retrieve it. Corey became unnerved when the streetlights suddenly went out, which only intensified when the wind began blowing the leaves around him.

Corey pulled out his own phone and texted Mason to see if he found his phone yet before eventually becoming impatient and heading back inside to find Mason himself. Just as he called out Mason's name, the double doors to the school burst open due to the force of the wind, causing the leaves to blow into the entrance hall, startling Corey so badly that he gasped in surprise.

Not knowing what to expect, Corey reflexively pressed himself against the nearby row of lockers and used his Chimera powers to blend into his surroundings. This caused him to see everything with a greenish tint, and as he looked around, he was once again startled by the sight of a Ghost Rider walking down the hallway, which he was not able to see before he used his camouflage ability. Corey held his breath, afraid of drawing attention to himself, but the Rider was able to see him anyway, though he didn't seem to care much about his presence. The Ghost Rider walked down to the junction in the hallways, meeting up with some of his fellow Riders, where they paused before continuing on.

Upstairs, Mason had just finally reached the science laboratory, where he heard his phone buzz and went to pick it up. He unlocked his phone to find the first text Corey had sent, followed by a second that said, "They're here. Don't move." Concerned about Corey, Mason ignored this message and went to go find him, ending up in the library, where he saw Jake seemingly levitating in midair, choking as a result of some unseen force.

Mason gasped in shock, but before he could process this, Corey, still camouflaged, grabbed Mason by the arm and pulled him into the camouflage and enhancing Mason's eyesight as well so he could see that the Ghost Riders were there and were suspending Jake in the air by his neck with their whips, choking him with them. They quickly jerked their wrists, causing Jake to vanish in a puff of greenish-blue smoke. The Ghost Riders then jumped down from the balcony, landing lightly on their feet before walking toward the door, opening it with telekinesis, and making their way out of the school.

Back on the field, Liam seemed to sense that something was wrong with his best friend, Mason, and ran back to the school, with Scott following close behind him. When they caught up with Mason and Corey, the two explained that the Ghost Riders had just been there at the school, shocking the two Werewolves, who believed that the Ghost Riders had left after the storm ended. Corey went on to say that the Ghost Riders didn't seem to care about them at all and instead walked right past them, but when Scott pressed them for more details, neither Corey nor Mason could remember that they had captured Jake, instead believing that they were the only ones present when the Ghost Riders showed up, once again demonstrating their ability to manipulate memories.

Throughout the episode, Scott, Lydia, and Malia began experiencing strange events that led them to believe that they were forgetting someone important: Malia was struggling to control her Werecoyote transformations due to losing her memories of Stiles, her anchor; Scott noticed something off about a photo that was taken of himself, Malia, and Lydia during school picture day (which was that Stiles was also in the picture and had been erased) and was drawn to Stiles' old locker; and Lydia had forgotten who she was supposed to meet at school that morning and had strange, albeit incomplete, dreams about her last encounter with Stiles prior to his capture by the Ghost Riders.

The morning after they saw the Ghost Riders, Mason and Corey met in the library, where Mason shared what he had learned about the Ghost Riders-- the come in by the storm, collecting souls and riding lightning. However, Mason was confused as to why exactly they were there at the high school; realizing that they only saw the Riders in the first place as a result of Corey's powers, Mason suggested that Corey may have a special ability none of them know about. Corey went on to admit that he felt like the Riders were holding something but was frustrated that they couldn't remember what it was, leading Mason to theorize that it was someone and not something.

After school, Lydia had an intense retrocognitive premonition of the night that the Ghost Riders took Stiles, but had trouble understanding what it meant. Meanwhile, Scott went to work at the animal clinic and brought up the fact that he felt like there were holes in his memory to his boss, Alan Deaton, specifically that he took a shard of glass from the impound lot but couldn't remember why he was even there (due to both the young man they were investigating, Alex Turner, and Stiles both being captured).

Deaton admitted that dreams and waking dreams can be powerful tools to help trigger memories, but when Scott asked if the dreams could be connected to the Ghost Riders and the Wild Hunt, Deaton admitted that, while they were drawn to war and mayhem, he had never heard of them having anything to do with memory. Deaton went on to compare Scott's missing memories to Phantom limb syndrome, suggesting that his subconscious was trying to tell him what he was missing. When Scott asked how he was supposed to figure out what his subconscious was telling him, Deaton replied that the easiest way would be to just fall asleep.

That evening, Scott did just that, and fell asleep, only to dream of the night he was bitten and turned into a Werewolf. When he awoke, he found himself in the Beacon Hills Preserve, where that memory took place. Meanwhile, Malia awoke in her own room to find that, while she was sleeping, she opened all of her bedroom windows, took the blankets and sheets off of her bed, and made a den in the corner of her room where she fell asleep as though she was still in her coyote form. She then became confused when she got up and tripped over a bag holding the chains and restraints she used to bind herself during full moons before she learned control.

Later, Liam and Corey met up at the high school to try to form a truce out of respect for their respective relationships with Mason. Corey suggested that they work together to find a trace of the Ghost Riders to try to figure out what they were doing in Beacon Hills.

Meanwhile, Scott, Malia, and Lydia met up in the woods to compare notes about the gaps in their memories. Scott remembered the night he was bitten, but couldn't remember why he was out in the woods that night, and didn't understand how Sheriff Stilinski would have assumed he was out there and called out his name while he was hiding. Malia knew that she used to be locked up by someone during full moons before they started going to the Martin Lake House, but since it wasn't Scott or Lydia, she had no idea who it could have been. Lydia came to school that morning absolutely certain that she was supposed to meet someone, but she couldn't figure out who it could be.

Scott determined that he had a Scott and Stiles best friend who was with him that night; Malia theorized that someone else had chained her up during full moons and wanted her to stay human; and Lydia believed the person she was supposed to be meeting was someone she loved. Scott then guessed that they were all missing the same person, and pulled out the aforementioned picture, stating that he believed that he was seated between himself and Lydia in it. They all assumed that their lost memories were a result of the Ghost Riders erasing him from their memories.

Liam and Corey explored the library while camouflaged by Corey's powers, where they found a library card that was only visible when affected by Corey's powers. When they brought it to Mason, the human was delighted by how this correlated to their physics assignments, stating, "It wasn't there until you saw it-- then, it became real. It's Schrödinger's Cat! The quantum state of superposition. To see something is to change its very existence. It changed reality."

They examined the card, and Corey stated that it seemed to be a library card, only it was blank. Liam took it to the front desk in the library and swiped the card through the reader, causing Jake Sullivan's information to pop up on the screen. Once the three saw it, they suddenly remembered who Jake was, which caused the card to return to its normal state with Jake's name and photo on it. This confirmed that when Jake was captured by the Ghost Riders, he was erased from reality, just like Stiles and the Turner Family.

Finally, Scott, Lydia, and Malia went back to the animal clinic, where Deaton encouraged Lydia to use her Banshee ability of Automatic Writing to try to divine more information about who they were seeking. As Lydia entered a trance and began to write, Deaton admitted that he wasn't sure if they would be able to access their lost memories, adding, "The legend has always been that the Wild Hunt takes people. But, if what you're telling me is right, the truth is much worse. They erase people from reality." Lydia began writing furiously, and when she finally stopped, she found that she had written "mischief" over and over again on the page in a pattern that spelled out "STILES."

In Sundowning,

In Relics, The Ghost Riders targeted everyone who saw them at Scott's house, and subsequently launched an attack during a lacrosse match, where they succeeded in erasing all of those who saw them at the party except for the members of the McCall Pack and their allies.

In Radio Silence,

In Ghosted,

In Heartless,

In Blitzkrieg,

In Memory Found,

In Riders on the Storm,