Hate is a Poison

“Hate…. You….” Hissed Susan, clutching her head with both hands as the world spun around her. “Hate… YOU…”

Vertigo had claimed Susan as the Goblin formula boiled away in her system, warping her mind as it did her body. Gripping the ground when her balance betrayed her, The Invisible Woman’s finger nails dug into the stonework with the same ease as scratching into mud.

“THAT’s right sister… Just let it flow through you.” Chuckled the Blue Goblin, pulling back her hood over her head to show her own long, pointed ears, extended chin and nose and mishappen fangs. Her skin pale and paper thin, like the complexion of a corpse… Or a witch. “It’ll do wonders for your hair and complexion, add a few decades, put rings under your eyes, crows feet and a SEVERE case of mood swings!”

Getting to his feet and clutching at his side, Reed could only watch as his wife groaned and clutched at her head.

“Susan?”

Her reaction to the sound of his voice was both sudden and fierce as she looked up at him with a glare of such hatred, he only remembered it from when she was at her lowest point in life. Her eyes, once warm and an inviting blue were sickly and harsh, narrows to such fine points, she seems to be staring daggers at her own husband.

“HATE… YOU!” Susan pointed a thin finger at Reed, staggering forward with her eyes twitching.

Sue… ACK!” Reed clutched at his throat when he felt an invisible hand grip at his larynx… From under his skin. His windpipe being held, along with his feet where he stood. All the while the Blue Goblin smirked and watched with her hand outstretched, squeezing her fingers closed and watching Reed gasp for air.

“Go ahead sister, I’m doing you a favor letting you do the deed. After all, what has this snivelling little man done for you? Given you a hovel to live under, knocked you up with a couple of parasites? Turn you and your family into a walking carnival freak show? NOW you get to pay back ALL the misery he gave you. Personally? Start with the heart. I LOVE seeing Reed’s cry their eyes out before they’re clawed out. I used the tears of the last Reed for Mascara.”

“HATE… YOU…” Slurred Susan, stumbling her way towards Reed with her hands outstretched as if trying to reach for Reed’s throat. Her eye twitching as she stepped closer, her fingers cricking as a wave of her powers extended out from her, heading towards Reed.

Even though he couldn’t see it, he felt the wake of her powers move towards him, he feared the worst would happen when the invisible barrier slammed into him. Only… It didn’t. The tightness around his throat disappeared, his lungs finally able to take in air as Reed’s wife stumbled through the barrier she made like it was water and wrapped her arms around him.

“Susan?”

“Hate… You…” She hissed between clenched teeth. Her eyes wide with rage and tears streaking down her thin cheeks. Her embrace tightening as she pressed herself close to the man. Finally able to move, Reed did the same, comforting his wife.

“The HELL are you doing?!” Screamed out the blue Goblin, stamping her foot with her hands wringing at her sides. “This isn’t part of the god-damned script!”

Storming her way towards the couple, the Goblin paused when she nearly hit an invisible barrier. Slapping her hands against its surface in rage as she snarled back at the two.

“Do you have any idea who you are FUCKING pissing off here?! You and I could be scooping out his eyes right now and using his skull as a candle holder! We could be bonding over skinning this rubber band of a man with a bowie knife and tanning his hide to make shoes and a matching FUCKING purse! WHAT THE FLYING FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!”

“Hate… You…” turning her gaze slowly, until her teary eyes glared back at the goblin woman, Susan Storm’s face became a mask of pure mindless rage. “…MALICE!”

Waving her arm out towards the Blue Goblin, the barrier wrapped around the woman and sent her flying across the rooftop. The gesture short lived as the Goblin used her own powers to rip the bindings apart and land on her glider, which had arrived when she whistled for it to come.

“Hate… Malice… I… Hate… MALICE! I… HATE YOU!” Susan clutched at her head, nearly losing her balance again as she struggled with her fracturing mind. “You… You ruined my LIFE!”

Waving her hands like a conductor in an orchestra, the enraged Invisible Woman screamed as she flung invisible walls of **** at the flying Blue Goblin. The witch countering each strike with a barrier or construct of her own, unseen by the naked eye save for either of them. Reed could only watch as his wife and her evil twin fought on the roof. Their powers causing the water tower he crashed through earlier to collapse when its legs were cut in half.

“YOU MADE ME INTO A MONSTER! YOU WOULD HAVE HAD ME HARM EVERYONE I EVER LOVED FOR NOTHING! KILLED MY BROTHER AND BEST FRIEND AND EVEN MY HUSBAND!”

An explosion rocked the next roof top when the Goblin’s glider let loose a barrage of missiles that were caught in mid air by Susan’s abilities and sent back where they came from. Leaving the monstrous woman to protect herself at the last second lest she be blown to bits.

“I HATE YOU!!!”

Crouching over her glider with her hands at its wings, the Blue Goblin looked so enraged her clenched teeth threatened to chip… Until she scrunched her face into one of bored disappointment.

“Well that’s disappointing…” She sighed, pulling free a trio of grenades from the satchel hanging at her side. “We could have had a sweet time together sister. Killing Reed, ruining lives, even after the stuff would burn through your system and ferment your brains… Then again your heart would have exploded before then. Oh! Gave some to your kids too, by now they’re probably tripping basketballs before strawberry jam starts coming out of their new pointy noses Ha, HA, ha…”

Falling to her knees, Susan clutched at her own skull. She wasn’t wrong, even now her mind felt like it was on fire and her heart was pounding so hard she feared it would burst in her chest. Feeling Reed come up from behind her, the goblinized Susan hissed out a sneer that quickly turned to a sob as they embraced each other. Standing back up on her glider, the Blue Goblin began to giggle as she reached into her satchel and pulled free a handful of grenades tied to a cable. Swinging the bundle over her head like a bolas.

“So… Since this is a good way to end the night. WHO WANTS FIRECRACKERS?!”

A sound, almost like a whistle flittered past the Blue Goblin’s ear and the rope holding the grenades were severed just above her thumb. Seeing the explosion go off across the empty street, the goblin was confused, even more so when a massive invisible pyramid the size of a housing complex came crashing down and slammed her into the roof floor like a freight train.

Looking up at the devastation after the construct evaporated and the smoke cleared, the couple noticed an invisible shape standing between them and the square shaped hole in the roof, the two only able to see it from the dust and smoke wrapping around it. The form then becoming visible to reveal Moon Dame, her stark white cloak billowing behind her and brandishing a pair of invisible khopesh blades in her hands. Pulling her hood back, the warrior looked back to the couple, her attention on Reed as he guarded his ailing wife.

“Keep him safe sister…” Moon Dame spoke silently. “This will soon be over.”

Approaching the crater she created, Moon Dame spotted a hand climb its way out of the debris, the Blue Goblin cackling despite her injuries as she got to her feet and glared up at the warrior woman approaching her.

“Heh… didn’t I kill you?” The Goblin chuckled, spitting out blood as she wiped her face with the back of her hand.

“The moon knights of Khonshu are not so easily removed from their duties.” Moon Dame explained, her tone cold. “And if we are to fall… Like Osiris of old, we are brought back unto the living until our duties are done.”

“BLAH BLAH BLAH FUCKING DIE ALREADY!”

Pointing back at the Moon Dame, an arc of electricity fired from her outstretched finger, the impact warped by an invisible barrier as Moon Dame charged forward with her blades at the ready. The Blue Goblin laughing like a maniac the entire time as she dodged and ducked every swipe and strike of the invisible blades. Moon Dame’s strikes were beautiful, masterful, she was like a windstorm blowing through and cutting anything that she came across… but the only thing she couldn’t lay a single blade on was the Goblin herself.

She was just so fast! As elegant and fluid Moon Dame was in trying to strike down the monstrous woman, the Blue Goblin was just dancing around her, hopping and flipping back and forth with a smile on her cruel face. When Moon Dame came with an arcing swing of her khopesh, the Blue Goblin matched it by grabbing her wrist, sucker punching her in the lower stomach so hard she was sent reeling two feet off the ground and stomped back down to the floor of the roof with her foot, kicking the cloaked woman across the roof top. Pressing a button on her wrist gauntlet, the Goblin called for her glider, the thing sputtering as it took to the air, damaged but still able to fly as it hovered overhead. Deploying a rack of small missiles ready to fire under its wings.

“Well that was fun, haven’t had a dance like that in a while. Reed always had two left feet on the dance floor… Another reason why I killed him.”

“You… ‘Cough’… You will not win.” Wheezed Moon Dame, clutching at her side and wiping blood from her mouth. “You are an obscenity, and Khonshu will not let you stand.”

“How about we make a wager. I send you straight to hell, and if you meet the guy, ask him yourself if killing the same guy across the multiverse isn’t worth its weight in shits and giggles.” Pressing a button on her gauntlet, the glider pinged as it made ready to fire. And promptly exploded in the air behind her when a blue metallic baton struck it in the engine exhaust, raining fiery metal across the roof and forcing the Blue Goblin to guard her face.

“What the fu…”

A column of fire blasted down on the woman, bringing up an invisible barrier to stop the intense heat as Daredevil swept in to pull Moon Dame out of the way and bring her to where Susan and Reed were still watching.

“MOM! DAD!” called out Valeria, she and her brother were slung under the arms of Lady Anti-Venom as she scurried up the wall of the abandoned building they were all on to rejoin their parents.

Finding their mother in the same state they were in, her eyes tear filled as she twitched under Reed’s arms, Franklin looked up to the alarmed, grizzly visage of Lady Anti-Venom who was already extending her fingers out to purge the Invisible Woman of the goblin formula. To the relief of everyone there, Susan’s complexion cleared. Her skin regaining its healthy pink as the exaggerated ears, nose and chin changed back. Gasping with an intake of air, Susan opening her soft blue eyes and was instantly embraced by her two kids.

“IT’S CLOBBERING TIME!”

Getting to her feet, Lady Anti-Venom’s eyes narrowed to the sight of the Blue Goblin fighting back against the Human Torch, who only let up his barrage for the Thing to slam down over the offending woman with his fists, making the crater they were fighting in deeper when he gave his calling card gesture. Looking back to the family beneath her, the symbiote wearing woman grinned as her eight elongated legs propelled her back up.

“Stay together you guys, mommy long legs has to cure a disease.”

The Thing was jackhammering his fists into the Blue Goblin, creating small tremors with each strike. His onslaught only stopping when the Goblin screamed and sent him back with an invisible barrier. “WHEN I’M DONE WITH YOU LITTLE SHITS I’M GONNA…” Her tirade cut short with an invisible crook and flail smashing into her from behind, the bloodied and crazed Goblin turned back to find the Dare Devil and Moon Dame flanked her. Attacked by four fronts at once, the Blue Goblin reached for her satchel, only to find Daredevil slide past and cut the strap, stealing the pouch full of explosives and blades and throw them up into the air.

“JOHNNY!”

“On it!”

A simple fireball was enough to destroy the Goblin’s tools and put her on the back foot as she blocked, jumped, and rolled out of the way of every attack made against her. Even so outnumbered, they were no match for her inhuman strength and speed. Grabbing Daredevil by the throat and tossing her over the roof for Johnny to fly down and catch and serving an uppercut to Ben so hard everyone swore they heard stone chip. Ducking at the last second to a khopesh that nearly took her head off, the Goblin laughed and spun kicked Moon Dame away.

Turning with a battered lip and black eye, the Goblin tried to find where her prize was still sitting. What she caught instead was a massive eight-legged monster scramble towards her at lightning speed and clamp her blackened jaws over her shoulder. Those same legs coiling around and stabbing into her body and immediately began draining the goblin formula out of her blood stream. After a minute, Lady Anti-Venom pulled away and skittered back, leaving the now human woman to stumble and look up angrily at her attacker.

Finding herself now surrounded by the Fantastic Four and Susan’s variants, the depowered woman spat blood at her own feet and blinked, looking confused.

“Wha… Where am I?” She asked innocently, looking around the devastation and the people surrounding her. “I… I can’t HEAR her anymore… Heh… You… You FREED me! How can I ever…”

“Save it bitch!” Daredevil spoke coldly. “I know you’re lying. Just like when you were back at the house. It’s not going to work a second time.”

Her eyes narrowing and her bloodied lip curling into a crooked smile, the former Goblin sneered into a chuckle.

“You think this is the end of me? You think your fucked up freakshow got one over the great and terrible Blue Goblin?” She announced with her fists in the air before hunching over to clutch at her side. “I’m doing you all a fucking favor! Every reality I went to that had a Reed Richards in it has ruined ALL your lives… He’s ruined MY LIFE! Killing him was the best thing I ever did for any of you… ”

The Goblin gasped with blood spurting out of her mouth… Along with the gapping wound in her chest where an invisible khopesh speared through her from behind. Looking down at her mortal injury, she could just hear Moon Dame behind her whispering into her ear when she pulled the blade free.

“You didn’t deserve Reed!” Grabbing the necklace around the goblin’s neck, she ripped it free from her neck. “You don’t deserve these either!”