Goddess of Chaos!

“Keep working” She told herself, setting up the hatemonger to a broadcaster strong enough to emit its signal on a city wide scope, all while she heard screams going on behind her. “Just keep working… And you won’t garner HER attention.”

Even as she told herself this mantra, her eyes stopped blinking and a cold sweat trickled down her brow underneath the safety of her mask when she heard the ‘click’, ‘click’ of her cohort’s foot steps behind her, followed by a laugh that made her blood run cold. Daring, she turned her head to look over her shoulder at what caught the sadist’s attention THIS time, and instantly regretted it. She was no stranger to ****; in her rule the act was commonplace in how she conducted her kingdom. If anything, what she had done to her husband would have been considered pure poetry by many who shared her mindset. But this… Demon. No matter how cruel her rule was, this monster put all her atrocities to shame.

Circling the barely conscious Reed Richards who hung levitating in the air with his arms and legs outstretched and spread eagled, his body was marred with cuts and scratches that looked painful but barely deep enough to risk his life. The creature raising a talon and delicately pinching her clawed fingers to pinch over his broken jaw and raise his head up to look at her, his eyes averted to the sight of hers once he did, which made her fanged smile all the wider. “What’s The Matter Reed? Does My Beautiful Appearance Disturb You?”

The woman… If she could still be called that leaned forward, turning Reed’s ruined face back and forth to admire his fear and pain. Tilting her head and smiling a toothy grin that was filled with nothing but razor-sharp teeth and a long serpentine tongue that licked at the blood caked over his lip. She chortled in laughter. Her skin was just as blood red and showed hints of almost draconian scales over her bare shoulders and back when it wasn’t exuding raw cosmic energy, as if her body could barely contain it all. Boney protrusions like spikes and horns jutted out of her shoulders, down her spine and over the ridge of her scalp in the same fashion as the metal studs of her leather costume, her hair now long, oily black and molded into three sets of gnarled and twisted horns framed her terrifying visage. Her eyes were a piercing yellow, reptilian, soulless as the slits narrowed with focus and her smile stretched literally from ear to pointed ear. Below the neck did not look any less demonic. Black chainmail adorned her bare body like a bikini with a thin loincloth of the steely rings to match. Made more horrifying that her ‘clothing’ was not held up by straps but pierced into her very flesh. Her hands and feet were like the talons of some terrible harpy, and were not too far off from that description, her clawed toes clicking over the black stonework of the dungeon floor while her long, serpentine tail slithered behind her. Twice as long as she was tall and as stout as her own leg, she casually changed from walking to slithering with ease when it suited her. To complete her horrifying visage, she bore a pair of jet-black wings that folded over her spiky shoulders like a tattered cape. The only thing that remotely reminded Reed of his wife, was the beautiful face the monster wore, twisted and perverse into the nightmare enjoying every second of his misery.

Rearing her head back to cackle a laugh, it echoed over the dark stoned dungeon of the former lab, her laugh travelled and echoing over the transmuted spire of the Baxter building and causing everyone else to shiver with fright. She had transformed the entire building and city around her to match her mood, corrupting the steel and stonework to appear as some city-wide master dungeon of pain, mysery and suffering. Bats dropped from the ceiling and chirped screeches as they swarmed out of the slit openings in the walls, flying out into the dark polluted skies overhead and circling the black tower the cosmic monster had made her own.

“Good!... For far Too Long You Ignored How Magnificent I Was Reed, Now You Have ****.”

“Leave’em alone you witch!”

“Yeah!”

Slowly turning her attention to the now human Ben Grimm and her brother Johnny Storm struggling to break free of their invisible bonds, the demonic Malice looked briefly annoyed, before her smile returned.

“Well Then, Perhaps You’d Like To Take His Place?” Lightning fast and causing the torches that lit the dungeon to burn with greater intensity, the smiling creature unfurled her wings and stared daggers into Ben’s eyes, her smile threatening to crack her own face as she waited for him to relent and turn away. “I Bet The Two Of You Miss Your Powers, Don’t You.” Turning her eyes to see her brother’s worried look, Malice leaned back and wrapped her wings back around her shoulders, where arcs of red electric energy coursed down her body.

With a thoughtful look and pursing of her lips, the nightmare woman tapped her finger over her own lip until her smile returned in earnest. “Well Then, Let’s Fix That.” Snapping her fingers…. Johnny Storm burst into flames. Screaming at the top of his lungs and flailing in searing pain, the man burned alive to the woman’s delight and to everyone else’s horror. But no matter how long he burned for, his flesh never seared or crisped, almost as if the flames were an illusion, but the agony, VERY much real. “Flame On Indeed! Ha HA ha ha ha haaa….” Looking over to Ben, the woman snapped her clawed fingers again. “Don’t Think I Forgot About You Too, My Pet Rock.”

Gasping, Ben felt his skin go stiff, chipping and cracking at the joints of his fingers and elbows as his flesh turned dry and grey like granite. Panting, the man lost the feeling in his arms and legs and his chest slowed down its raspy attempts to keep breaths as his body turned to stone. Completely turned, his face was trapped in an open mouth cry of fear, but his eyes remained unchanged, darting back and forth as he cried out a muffled moan.

“STOP THIS! PLEASE!” Wept Alicia, watching as Johnny burned silently, now to hoarse to scream and her husband trapped in stone but still aware of his surroundings. “Don’t you have ANY mercy in you?”

Hissing at the word, Malice slithered towards the woman with her tail, cupping her chin in her talon and pulling her down to look in the eye, her face one of disappointment as she gave the woman a hurt look. “Why Alicia, YOU Know I would NEVER Be So Cruel To You. What Reason Would I EVER Have To Harm You?” Letting the woman go, her eyes widened briefly as an idea struck her, turning her attention to the former Cosmic Goddess hanging from the wall. “SHE Was Generous Enough To Restore Your Sight! But You Can Find I Can Be Much More Generous.”

Tapping her clawed finger over Alicia’s forehead, the woman gasped and went wide eyed, looking all around her in a state of utter panic. “See? I Have Opened Your Eyes to ALL Vision. Now You See Everything! Light, Radiation, Electromagnetism, Radio Waves, Astral Realities, You Can Even See Into the Minds Of Those Around You, Their Thoughts, Their Dreams, Their Nightmares… What Do You See?”

Alicia’s response was a blood curdling scream, one where she sobbed and wept from the overload of stimuli. She could see it all, unfiltered and unrelenting. Swirls and maelstroms of colour and emotion, images and after-shadows of entities invisible to the naked eye, she could see Johnny’s pain, Ben’s helplessness, Reed’s pain and the children’s terror all at once. But the most terrifying was the void staring back at her with a fanged cruel grin. “TOO MUCH! TOO MUCH! TAKE IT BACK! TAKE IT BAAAAAAAACK!”

Rearing back with a look of faux insult, the monster woman sneered and hissed under her breath. “You Would Renounce This Gift? Any Other Puny Mortal Would Jump At The Chance To See The Truth Of The World! SO BE IT!!!” With a swift backhand to the woman, Ben groaned in his frozen state, unable to stop the act and watched as Alicia lowered her head in despair, her eyes pools of milky white and blind once again. “LET THAT BE THE FIRST AND LAST ACT OF KINDNESS I EVER OFFER!” Roared the cosmic entity, her rage quickly turning to cruel laughter once again as she took to the center of the lab and spun around on her tail, her arms spread out to the sound of pain and misery around her.

“Stop hurting our mommy!” Whimpered a voice behind Malice, making her smile evaporate and turn her full attention to the four weeping children held up and bundled together and unable to escape. A low growl like that of a crocodile purred from the demon woman’s throat and she sauntered her way towards them, her splayed out talons clicking over the stone floor with each step until she stood under the four floating children with mild annoyance. Looking up at the scared and weeping faces of Valaria and Franklin, Malice paused, folding her arms under her chainmail clad chest and flick her clawed fingers idly, her face softening.

“You can’t do it can you?” Narrowing her eyes in contempt, she turned to the source of the voice speaking, red arcs of electricity bristling up her thighs and arms to find Reed looking up at her. “SHE was the reason you broke in the first place, the reason you hated me so long ago when I couldn’t save our child.”

Still expressionless, Malice listened on, her serpentine tail coiling around her feet.

“But this is the REAL reason you’re different from the others, YOUR Reed couldn’t save YOU. You killed him before he had a chance and for that moment you felt free… Until you weren’t. That’s why you can’t kill me either, you don’t want to end it all over again.”

“I didn’t stop with you.” Malice said softly, the gravitas in her voice gone as she moved towards the hanging man. “I murdered everyone who crossed me, both real and imaginary. MY world is dead because I wished to kill it.” With a gesture of her claw, Reed was lowered until he floated close to the ground as if propped up to stand. “The hate monger unleashed what was brewing inside me for so long without an outlet, and it was wonderful, to HATE so openly without shame or guilt.”

“Please stop this Susan, this isn’t you.”

Looking down and crossing her arms more tightly around her, the nightmare woman quibbled her lip and looked to be close to tears when she finally answered. “You’re right. This isn’t like Susan Storm at all… Because I killed her. I killed every last crumb of what that woman represented in my head, if only to stop hearing her damn protests when I was peeling the skin off your flesh like a fucking banana!”

Waving her claw, the four children behind her screamed as they felt their bodies change, sprouting tails and fur as their bodies shrank. Their ears changed shape to be over sized and round while their faces pushed forward with whiskers and their eyes became pitch black. Swirling her talon, a metal cage formed and entrapped the four mice and placed them next to a stone table, her smile becoming cruel and sadistic as she watched and listened to Reed scream and cry out for her to stop. Not yet done, she pointed towards the cat burglar and freed her from her invisible bonds, the woman crying out as she sprouted a tail and ears of her own, sprouting blonde fur as she shrunk down to the size and shape of a domestic cat. When she placed the animal in front of the cage, the feline quickly became transfixed and began to strike and pounce at the hamster cage’s bars, causing the children inside to squeak and cry out in fright and dart to the other side of the cage to avoid the cat trapped in a frenzy to catch them.

“There is no more Susan Storm Reed Richards… Not anymore. Now? There is only Malice!” Leaning forward, she licked the tears and blood off his face and moved away from the broken man to divert her full attention on Susan Von Doom who had quickly turned to look away from the various acts of barbarism and went back to her work. “Any progress… Sister?”

“Y-yes, I should be done with the broadcaster in just a few minutes. The range of the Hatemonger will span enough distance to cover the entire city.”

“Oh, I have bigger plans than just the city, be sure to finish quickly, I’m running out of toys to break and I’d HATE to draw my attention on a familiar face to get my amusement.” Moving away from the scared armored woman to return to the center of the dungeon, she looked up on the last person she had yet to ****, then again, what else could she do to the woman she stole her powers from. Her face was drawn, her eyes hollow and her body limp while hanging up in the air. To see such defeat on the woman filled Malice with cruel laughter.

“All this power, and you wasted it on watching 7 billion people die… You think too small. When I am done, you will see the truth of all things. All of us will when I bath the multiverse in blood and anguish.” Propping herself up by her serpentine tail, Malice unfurled her wings completely, revealing the inner membrane of her draconian wings sporting baleful red eyes that match her yellow irises.

“They will worship me… All of you will… Malice; Goddess of Chaos!”