It's all fun and games...

Reed wheezed as he struggled against the vice-like grip of the goblin woman holding him by his neck and filling him with an intense electrical current that paralyzed him on their flight. Every nerve and muscle twitched and spasmed against his will and filled him with searing pain that made him see nothing but white. The Blue goblin could only chuckle at his agony. Her laughter cruel, sadistic, and vile. Like a cackling madwoman grinning so hard, her lips split at the skin at either pale cheek. He couldn’t see where she was taking him, her flight was erratic, spinning, looping, and zigzagging in the air without purpose or reason, the whiplash alone was too much for him to bear. He felt like he’d pass out any second.

She finally let go of him in mid-flight and flew off, leaving him to crash into a billboard over a fifty-story apartment building and keep tumbling until he crashed into a pigeon coop. Sending wood and feathers flying everywhere and frightened birds to scatter and flee from the impact. Still reeling and wracked in pain, Reed’s eyes twitched as his hand reached for something stinging into his neck. Ripping it off and dropping it to the ground, the coin sized device continued to give off an electric current that burned the wood it landed on, but for now he was no longer being electrocuted.

“TARRED AND FEATHERED!” Called out the Blue Goblin, circling the building and delighting in the man’s pain, seeing him crawling out of the debris, covered in filth and pigeon feathers as he staggered to his feet and clutched at his head. “AND THAT’S JUST TO START THE NIGHT OFF, MY LITTLE RUBBER BAND OF A MAN!”

Getting to his feet and wiping the feathers and detritus off him, Reed looked up at the grinning monster of a woman hovering overhead.

“I had this night ALL planned out for the two of us Reed. I wanted you to suffer, to grovel broken at my feet begging for release… Like so many other Reeds before you. The fucking worms…”

Her glider descended down to the floor of the roof where she stepped off and approached the man. He was still dazed, his vision still blurred when he spotted her pulling something free from the satchel hanging from her side, tapping it with her thumb and playfully throwing the apple sized object towards the man as if to play a game of catch.

“So let’s start this with a BANG!”

Squinting his eyes at the object, he could just make out the grin of a metallic jack-o-lantern before the eyes and mouth lit up and an explosion plumed out towards him so fast he couldn’t raise his hands quickly enough to protect himself. His body warped from the sudden concussive **** of the grenade. Had he still been human, every bone would have shattered, and he would have been blown to bits, instead his body stretched against his will like sails blown open to an intense wind, misshaping his body and sending him back into the pigeon coop, now set aflame and burying him in the wreckage.

“HA, hahahaha HA! I NEVER get tired of seeing you get twisted up like that.” Giggled the Blue Goblin, pacing over to the flaming wreckage and outstretching her hand. The act separating the debris and flames from her prize as she clenched her hand into a fist and Reed was pulled up into the air by an invisible hand, grasping at his neck.

“You didn’t play by the rules Reed, you never do. I told you to come alone, and NOW your whole family will suffer for this. But before they do, I want to enjoy our private moment together here.”

Squeezing her hand tighter, so too was the grip around his neck.

“Maybe I’ll start by peeling your skin off like a banana!”

Her grin spreading wider, she made to do just that when Reed fell to the ground, gently caught in something invisible as he was bundled up and pulled away to safety at the far corner of the roof. There, the Invisible Woman appeared, her hands outstretched as she kept her husband safe behind her and stared daggers at the Blue Goblin.

“How about you fuck right off you pointy eared bitch!” Declared Susan, looking over her shoulder to find Reed singed but not worse for wear. Returning her gaze to the offensive woman, Susan frowned. “You aren’t going to lay another finger on him you monster.”

Tilting her shoulder in a coy pose, the Blue Goblin covered her mouth with a gloved hand to stifle a laugh. Her grin ever menacing.

“Well look at YOU… Aren’t WE the living example of Stockholm syndrome standing before our very eyes. I checked your place out by the way. Nice… Décor. Real homey… I hope you didn’t mind, but I did a little remodelling while you were away. A little red here, a little maiming there. The smell might take a few days to clean out, but good news is Johnny’s room has a window into the kitchen now.”

“You will never harm any of my family ever again!”

Reaching into her tunic, the Blue Goblin plucked free a necklace she had underneath her costume, pulling it taut with her thumb to show off a collection of wedding rings she smiled down at.

“A lot of other Susans said the same thing. Each of these is a Reed Richards I killed right in front of them. Wanna know which ones were sobbing their eyes out when I proved them wrong?”

Screaming, Susan let loose a barrage of hard-light objects, invisible to the naked eye but just as solid as car sized boulders towards the grinning demoness who cackled and danced out of the way of her attacks. All the while a protective barrier surrounded Reed as he sat up and watched the two women trade blows. But this Blue Goblin, to her it was all a game. She flipped and spun out of the way of every destructive **** Susan unleashed on the woman. Easily.

“MY TURN!” The smiling goblin called out in a sing-song tone of voice. Pulling free a trio of jack-o-lanterns from her satchel and throwing them at the Invisible Woman. Wind-up laughter from the three objects were the only warning Susan got when they all split apart into dozens of spinning razor blades in the form of bat wings twirling towards her and Reed.

Steeling her concentration, Susan stopped them all by trapping them each in invisible bubble. A stinging sensation from her leg diverted her attention to her thigh… Where she found a bat winged dart sticking into her. Pulling it free, the dart dripped with a green liquid, one she didn’t recognise as she turned her attention back to the Blue Goblin. The crone laughing to herself as she combed her fingers through her pale white hair.

“Looks like you missed one.”

Susan gasped and fell to her knees, clutching at her sides and crying out loud when she felt her muscles spasm uncontrollably and her skin felt like it was melting. Looking down at her hand, she could see her skin look papery thin, pale, and her fingernails growing rapidly… and sharp. She could feel her ears grow longer, ending in points while her teeth grew sharp and chipped. She couldn’t see it, but her hair was turning grey and her eyes glassy. Just like her adversary’s.

“SUSAN!” Cried out Reed, the protective barrier keeping him safe dropped, as did the many holding the rest of the darts in the air fall to the floor of the roof. “What are you doing to her?”

“Mmm, got to savour the first time you take that stuff, I bet it feels like your brain is being dipped in gasoline and set on fire!” Chuckled the Blue Goblin, sashaying her way playfully towards the two, and freeing a knife from her belt she used to pick at her nails. “You… Well MY you from MY dimension made a deal with Norman Osborn years ago to help me deal with my more malicious tendencies that kept cropping up from time to time. Gave him a diluted version of his formula he said it would help balance out my more violent tendencies.” Giving the injured man a pose and blowing him a kiss, the Blue Goblin laughed. “The first thing I did after taking it was carved out his pleading little eyes and ate them like jujubes.”

“Reed?” Hissed Susan, her fanged teeth clenched as she struggled to keep her sanity. “Hate… Hate… You…”

“That’s right sister, live it up. Get MAD! Get pissed… We can take turns carving out his organs one by one. And if we’re lucky your kids can join in on the fun.”

“Our… WHAT DID YOU DO TO FRANKLIN AND VALARIA?!”

Turning to grin at the anxious Mr. Fantastic, the Blue Goblin looked positively smug.

“Wouldn’t YOU like to know…”

***

Still in the park and carrying the kids over to the Fantasticar, Johnny and Ben looked on with a worried gaze where Reed had been stolen away. Bringing Valeria and Franklin into the Fantasticar to be treated, Ben looked out the window into the night sky.

“Once we take care of the kids, we can go looking for Reed and Suzie.”

“Hey kiddo, you feeling okay?” Asked Johnny, resting Valeria into one of the passenger seats as she began to stir. Her eyes opening to look back at her uncle.

The moment her eyes opened, her face curled into a rictus smile, her skin and hair turning pale as her eyes became sickly yellow.

“Uncle Johnny’s a cheater!” She cackled in a raspy voice. Her teeth sharpening and her features distorting. “Cheater! Cheater! Mommy SAID you’d cheat.”

“Uncle Ben and Johnny are CHEATERS!” Giggled Franklin, getting up from his own seat, his ears growing to points and his stance hunched as he and his sisters looked more and more like goblins by the second.

“Cheaters never prosper!”

“Cheaters never prosper!”

“Cheaters NEVER prosper!”

Too shocked to react, both men found themselves attacked by the cackling goblin children who lunged out for them.