Dress for the job you want
I stood in the streets beside a newer than its neighbor’s streetlight, over a patch of pavement that was the full black of replacement rather than the blue/grey of weathered road. There was no sign of what happened here, but it was burned into my memory.
Green Goblin had been battling Spiderman. I was not fast enough to keep up with them, the web swinger and the Goblin easily clocked in over a hundred miles an hour and were unaffected by surface traffic. I could make fifty miles an hour, eighty kilometers in civilized speak, on flat ground or even deep woods, but in New York traffic with cyclists and pedestrians who are breakable, I was down to half that. I was in sight, but not in range when Spiderman cornered Green Goblin by webbing his sled.
Spiderman webbed the wall above Goblin and was prepared to swing in when the Goblin’s eyes caught on a school bus that had screeched to a halt just shy of hitting him. With a laugh, he took a pumpkin bomb in each hand and tossed one under the bus, and a second through the windscreen. Spiderman didn’t hesitate, he jumped through the window, webbing the pumpkin bomb in the bus with enough of his gooey goodness to deaden even its deadly blast effect. He didn’t get the one below the bus, and when it went off, six kids were sprayed all over their classmates and painted the interior of the bus with lifetime trauma.
Goblin freed his sled and jetted off, laughing like a maniac. Smug in his endless ability to escape via escalation, to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat by enacting atrocity on the defenseless. Spiderman worked to save who he could, while the Green Goblin escaped as he always did.
I stood there in the coldest part of the night, the hour before dawn and I reached out for six souls. Two were gone, holding no grudge, they had passed beyond, having accepted their death. Four remained. One was a raging thing filled with anger that left alone would become somebodies’ problem. Well don’t judge, she died screaming with her guts falling from her and her legs several feet away, with zero life experience about conflict. Not everyone is a saint; so stow your fucking judgement. Two were hurt and confused, not understanding what went wrong, and not able to move on until they did. The last one, oh that boy was something. He had a younger brother, and he wasn’t willing to go until he knew that thing that got him was gone.
Goblin magic isn’t free. It is old magic, blood magic. It is soul magic at it’s heart (pun intended).
I cut my wrists with my claws and spun in a circle, casting a blood circle to bind and contain that which I worked to myself and no other. I let the drum beat of my heart set the base line, and began to dance. I danced the hunt, the hunger of the stalk, the rising crescendo of the chase, the savage joy of claw and fang, of strength and fury, and the orgasmic release of the kill. The union of predator and prey, the consumption of the essence of that which is hunted, the ending of all they were, all they are, and all they could be. The death of eternity. Immortalities end.
They came, four spirits, in anger, in fear, and in hope.
“What do you want?” Rage challenged “What/what will you do/do?” Fear whispered. “What do you need?” Hope asked.
“I enact the Rite of Kings, I invoke the Right of Challenge, I undertake the Ordeal of Justice. I ask from you the mantle of King that I may grant Justice, High and Low, on those who harm innocents like yourself. I swear to you that I will bring him who harmed you under my fang and claw, that I will end his life and his power, I will erase his legend. What I need is what remains. I ask your Rage, that you gift it to me and all that it calls into this world. I ask your Fear, that all who would hunt the innocent should know what you felt a hundred fold when I come for them, I ask your Hope, that you trust that this Goblin King will hunt only those that hurt the innocent, that only predators will be my prey, and those who would be monsters will bow to me or die.”
I danced within the blood circle as the blood rose into a thicket o thorns, and shadows danced behind me of my every hunt, first as a soldier in Afghanistan, then as a Goblin in New York city, then finally as the aspirant Goblin King.
Within me I felt a shadow stir, the ashes of a ruined soul, a mortal made something beyond survivable by fairy magic, my changeling brother, a slain Knight of Fairy. He whispered, “The Rite of Kings, the Right of Challenge, the Ordeal of Justice.”
As I danced, he called his power from a realm that cast me out, that denied me still and ever. He called to him all that was his, stolen as it’s root was, and bound it to the blood that I spilled. Bound it to the rite. Spells he chanted binding his soul to the work, such shadow of it that remained, wove the magic of fairy that was his. The twilight dawn of the Elves not the endless night of the Goblin. He bound it to me and to the work, but it was not enough.
Rage gave in first. Such rage as the child bore was a poor fit for a child’s soul, and as it struggle to twist him into a shape better fit for his rage, for his hunger for retribution and for punishment, now before him danced a Goblin King in a circle of blood, lit by the dancing shadows of hundreds of my kills, the promise of vengeance made dark flesh and fang, power beyond the shadow of a mortal mind that remained. He gave to me his rage, and all that his dark spirit might have become with it, and thus cut free of the ties that bound, his spirit moved on to the summer lands, the halls of the dead, where the rage of the living has no place.
Fear came next. They did not want to die, did not want to hurt, could not understand what was done to them or why. They only wanted it to stop, wanted the pain to stop, wanted the fear to stop, wanted those who hurt them to understand, to feel what they felt and to stop! They screamed out their pain, their fear, and the power it bound, they screamed it into the blood that poured from me, and the elven magic bound it into goblin thorns, weaving it into something terrible and fey. As they poured out their fear, it bound them no longer. Taking each other’s hands, they turned sideways from the world and walked into a beyond that held no place for fear.
Hope was last, for long did Hope look upon the dark and terrible thing that danced in blood, laughed in the dance of rage, in the promise of endless death, and cloaked itself in fear. Hope watched, and watched, the endless parade of deaths that had been, deaths could be, and the one shining death that MUST BE, and saw no innocents. While terrible beyond the child’s understanding, Hope understood this was a terror that would stand between the folk and lesser monsters. This terror sought to make a world in which his brother need not fear being blown up on the way to school. With that thought, Hope smiled, and poured the last of Pandora’s great gifts into the blood.
The circle of blood began to change, the blood scarlet of the circle having woven itself into blood red thorns with the addition of Rage. Upon the twin gifts of Fear, the thorn circle became smaller and darker, turning into a ring of black thorns that hovered above my shoulders, barely wider than that. With the addition of hope, the circle shrank, and burst into cold blue flame, the corpse flame, the barrow fire that burned upon the tombs of dead kings, the cold fire of the Unseelie. The circle of thorns shrank and settled onto my head, becoming a burning crown of thorns, a burning Corpse Fire burned on the crown, as its thorns cut into me, into blood and bone, binding itself to me, and me to it.
I raised my voice to the dying of the night and screamed my intention, my vow, my will to the world.
“This dawn I will feast on the heart of the Green Goblin, and by this deed crown myself the Goblin King, Lord of All Monsters!”
My voice shook the heavens and the earth. More to the point, there were about twenty people standing around with phones out, live streaming this on everything from YouTube and Twitter, to Grinder. I guess the Gay Pirate look works for a lot of people. I was not alone.
“You will not be killing anyone you Anime reject!” A voice filled with bravado called as he swung down with inhuman speed on his web, both feet ready to blast me into the wall behind me with enough force to stun a mountain troll.
As Spiderman swung towards me, two glamour spun versions of myself stepped to left and right of the central image. The one to the left raised its fists to punch, the one to the right drew two pistols to shoot, and the one in the middle stood with lofty distain. As his Spider Sense didn’t trigger, Spiderman ignored the pistol clad Goblin and as he was about to lay a wrecking ball of damage on his target, he ignored the one not dodging, and performed a heroic flip to dodge the illusionary fists of my leftward glamour to land both his feet into the brick wall about twenty feet past as he blew right through the illusion.
His reflexes were Amazing, I guess the title Amazing Spiderman was not all hyperbole, and he caught himself with bent legs and outstretched arms so he didn’t break anything, but he hit a brick wall with about ten tons force, and it gave.
Half into the drugstore behind the wall, and trapped in the falling rubble, his Spider Sense screaming at him that I was coming left him not a lot of options.
I grabbed him by the chin and yanked him out of the wall. Halfway out, I hammered a punch at least half again stronger than any I had thrown in my life to his gut. He doubled under it, unable to breathe, but unwilling to give up.
Thwip, Thwip! Two blasts of webbing bound my face as he struggled to blind me. Two unfortunate truths ruined what had to be the best response from a foe that had no business being functional that I had ever seen. First, the Corpse Fire Crown isn’t an illusion, its fires burn with the rage, fear, and hope of the dead. I was on a mission of vengeance, and the fires of that crown could burn the world. Webbing was honestly not a challenge. Second and more importantly, I was holding him by the neck. No matter how he dodged, I knew where his body was.
I hammered him again and again, feeling ribs creak then break under my assault. Finally he hit me back with desperate strength. He used maybe 60%, even now holding back because he was trying to stop me, not kill me.
I pulled him to my face, so we were nose to mask and the fires of my crown, and the fires in my eyes reflected in his protective lenses (corrective? It would suck to have eight eyes and need glasses).
“Little hero, this is why the world needs me. Even now, even beaten, you still won’t risk killing me. You are so concerned with saving everyone’s lives, even the bad guys, that they will be always free to kill again. You are the reason I am necessary. Look into my eyes and see the souls of those you let die!”
Rage tore open his mind, and fear filled it. Rage battered his will, while Fear shared with him the sight of Spiderman webbing one bomb, while their bodies were torn apart by the other. Fear let him see the Goblin flying away laughing as a child tried to hold his own severed thigh tight enough not to bleed out. Hope kept a Hero from losing his mind, but the souls of the dead had no room for mercy. This night was about justice and blood.
I let him fall to the floor. Normally I would have bound him with the thorn manacles, but tonight they were too strong. Tonight they would not just bind, they would crucify. I was not here to hunt heroes, but monsters. I left him on the ground and called to the twilight, the knife edge between the darkness and the light.
“I am the Goblin King, I invoke the Right of Challenge, let me be borne by the spirits of the dead, let me be cloaked in the spirits of vengeance and let the world tremble at my coming!”
The corpse fire of my crown burned blue/white, my eyes blood red fire, and from my back a cloak of shadowy flame flowed. Beneath me the shadows took form and a Nightmare, a black steed of Fairy with hooves that struck fire from the air as it rode upon the winds like it was ground, whose eyes blazed with fire like my own, and whose breath was living flame.
Spiderman rose to his feet, and tried to point his web shooters at me one last time as I stood upon my steed.
An old man stepped from the shadows and spun between his arms with sticks. Crack! Crack! The explosion of fluid showing he had broken both web shooters.
“Stay down kid. This is grownup business.” Sticks announced as he turned his back on Spiderman. The Hero’s night continued to go downhill as Elektra kicked Spiderman’s knee taking him down and crossing her sai beneath his throat to shut him up and keep him down. Sticks continued talking.
“Rite of Kings hey? Haven’t seen that one in a while. I mean, last use was probably that Minamoto kid, and Genghis Khan, before that Arthur. You become the thing everything that goes bump in the night NEEDS to take down first. Cool threads though. I got to give Fairy points for style even a blind man can appreciate.” Sticks said, grinning at me utterly unperturbed.
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“Dress for the job you want, right? What is the Chaste’s stance on my Challenge?” I asked, for their power was considerable in the shadows in which I had to work. Not for nothing did the Immortals of the Hand fear this group of mostly mortal warriors; even their renegades like Daredevil and Elektra were legends of their own.
“You want to be King of the Monsters kid? Fine. You want to hunt those things that step beyond mortal and start looking at human beings as prey? Absolutely no problem. You start turning them into a power base and start thinking of lording over those same people, and we will have an issue. You chose the Ordeal of Justice though kid, and I just don’t think you have it in you. You are way too far from human.”
I looked at the old bitter warrior and pointed a finger at him, and then myself “Pot, kettle.”
Elektra snorted, failing to suppress a laugh that made the old man look momentarily offended, and then grin wryly, admitting the point.
“If you can pull it off, the Chaste will acknowledge your claim. If you become what you fight, we will put you down today.”
I grinned at him, frankly understanding how Elektra and Daredevil got to be such a pain in my ass. This guy gave zero fucks. He didn’t threaten, he simply told you under what conditions he would be compelled to kick your ass, or kill you, and then left you to make your own decisions from there. I was glad he was blind, I didn’t want him to see me looking impressed.
Cloaked in the Rage of the dead, borne up by the spirits of Vengeance, crowned by Justice, I rode upon the winds of howling fear, and the city trembled at my coming. There were about six news helicopters, two police helicopters, but the mortals were paralyzed by the terror of my coming. I rode to Oscorp upon a nightmare, a cloak of fire trailing behind me, and a challenge upon my lips.
“Coward, pretender, murderer of children, oath breaker and thief. Norman Osborne, pretender to the Goblin name, criminal scum, as your King, I summon you for judgement. Green Goblin, coward and fraud, I will feast on your heart, and end the pollution of your legacy in the shadow of your own throne.” Fairy magic blasted my words, no distortion from the echoes as fey magic caused them to echo cleanly throughout the whole of the city. It was dawn, the time of trial, and the pitiless midsummer sun would stand in judgement.
A green cloaked figure flew into sight, hanging on armour foot jet flames until his hands stretched broadly, and a green disk of sorcery flared beneath his feet. Black armour caught the dawns light, running over him like a waterfall of gold over armour fit for a King and Champion. His own voice rang, not assisted by technology, but my sorcery and his own inhuman will.
“Doom is here. This trial is witnessed. Let the righteous be upheld, and the unworthy be consumed.” His voice echoed like thunder from the buildings, as he stood like an Archangel sent to pass judgement. The man could pick his entrances, and I had to admit, he was not posturing. I had called upon Doom to witness, and without favour, he would pass judgement upon those who undertook this trial today without fear or favour.
The air split, and a figure in scarlet and blue stepped forth upon the air, golden rings of sorcery hovering just beyond his fingertips and beneath his feet as Doctor Stephen Strange, Sorcerer Supreme strode forth.
“You fool, what have you done? This is magic no one should be toying with. I cannot stop it; someone has to die before it is finished. You have summoned and I am here, Doctor Stephen Strange, Sorcerer Supreme. I am called to witness, and upon your own heads be it.” Dr Strange’s voice echoed around the city in endless weariness.
A whirlwind spun in the air forming the third point of the triangle of the two looming men, a whirlwind that soon began raining rose petals and emitting the light gay laughter of a dancing maiden. The whirlwind resolved into a third figure, gowned in green and standing upon a circle of blood red runes and sigils.
“From the dawn I come, in the first light of day summoned from the court of the Ljosaslfar, the Seelie fey, from the court of Summer herself I am summoned. Morgan Le Fey to bear witness to the Rite of Kings, to the Right of Challenge and to the Ordeal of Justice. Let the souls of the dead bear witness to justice, let the eyes of the living bear witness to the test of will and the fall of blood, let they eyes of the wise be opened to a new Throne and Dominion made this day.”
Turning to Doom, she curtseyed deeply. “Victor!”
Turning to face her, Doom bowed deeply. “Morgan.”
Turning to face her Dr Strange swore. “Shit!”
Turning to face Dr Strange Moran waived cheerfully. “Morning Stephen, you are looking very constipated. You should see a doctor.”
At the SHIELD Helicarrier Nick Fury faced his Avengers.
“Well, what do we do about this?” The one-eyed commander snarled.
Thor shrugged. “It is a matter for elves. They will deal with it. There is no reason to get involved.”
Captain Marvel shrugged. “Its almost Kree, you know if more people settled things like this, there would be a lot fewer civilian casualties. I don’t see the issue.”
Captain America looked conflicted. “Look Nick, I don’t think sending us to fight those three just to get close enough to save a psychotic like Green Goblin can end in anything but a lot of dead civilians.”
Iron Man shrugged. “When people like me, or Norman Osborn go down, governments go down with us. We are way too deeply in bed with all the things that your fearless leaders can’t admit to doing for us to ever face anything like trial.”
Black Widow patted Nick Fury on the shoulders and summed it up. “The best possible solution is that Green Goblin ends up dead and we didn’t do it.”
In his boardroom, Norman Osborn faced a panicked board of directors.
“Look Norman, the NSE just stopped trading on our stock, but we lost billions in the pre market trading. When the brakes come off, we are going to lose billions more. You threw our cash reserves into countering the early sell orders, but the rest of us are not willing to go down with the ship. This Green Goblin mess, you have to address it. People are talking Norman, important people!” His CFO and longtime backer Arjun Rahul tried to reason with him.
Less restrained and far more vulnerable, the Public Affairs VP Christian Delacroix was almost incoherent with rage.
“You have to do something. I have the press hounding me, I tried to use our computers to prove that footage was fake, and you know what, I FAILED. You have to give me something Norman, something to throw to the press to get them off our backs our we are going to be looking at DA’s asking the same questions. I won’t sugar coat it, I have had two of our Defense Department contacts reaching out and telling me that if we can’t make this go away fast, they are going to have to look at damage control Norman. Do you know what THEY mean by that?”
Norman prided himself on being a lot of things, and all of them were offended. Who were these underlings to chastise him. He MADE them. What were they? They made nothing. He was the genius, he was the creator. They created nothing. They didn’t do the hard and dirty work of TAKING what was needed from others when Oscorp was just a key element away from solving a problem. No it wasn’t them who reached out and took the missing piece to the puzzles. When even being an genius wasn’t enough, he became something more.
[We became something more] The goblin in his mind whispered.
“We became something more.” Norman Osborn said softly, his face smiling at last.
“What are you talking about? Are you even listening Norman? I know you founded this company, but it is a lot bigger than you. If we have to cut you out to keep it alive, well, there are bigger things than you at stake here Norman!” His CFO Arjun Rahul said, his icy reserve cracking at last.
“Bigger things than Norman, yes.” Norman began to laugh, and laugh and laugh. Then taking Arjun by his head, he snaped his neck like a twig and threw him out the bullet proof glass boardroom window to sail to land broken in the streets before a rearing Nightmare and the Goblin King that rode it.
“Bigger things than Norman, but not bigger things than US!” He picked up his VP of Public Affairs and pulled him nose to nose.
“Listen to me, little man. You tell your friends in the press whatever lie you want, but you tell our partners in the Defense Department that they are done dealing with Norman Osborn. From now on, the mask is off, and they are dealing with the Green Goblin. They don’t get to threaten me. They come, hat in hand, to beg from scraps from my table, and they are properly grateful with what I choose to give them. If they have a problem with that, I will choke their children with their entrails and see if their successors are more reasonable to deal with. Nod if you understand.”
The terrified VP pissed himself, then nodded. Norman Osborn began to laugh, a high inhuman maniacal laughter.
He dropped his useless servant, and stalked to his office. Keying the command on his wrist computer, he watched the hidden wall of his office slide back and his true self be revealed. The armour of the Green Goblin, the sled he designed, the pumpkin bombs. Better, in the mirror backing of the wall of his armoury he saw his true self reflected in his eyes. The Super Soldier formula that none of his test subject survived was not the tame thing that made Captain America, nor the failed thing that made Red Skull. Norman Osborn was a genius, and in his genius he had reached out and searched for the one thing required to bind such power into mortal flesh. He needed something to bind to his flesh, that would allow it to contain power so much greater than human, and retain the intelligence required to be the perfect soldier. What he found, what he became, was the Goblin.
Bound in his flesh, augmented beyond all dreams of human limits by the transformational serums of his Super Solider serum, he passed beyond what a human mind could control. Reflexes beyond human, power beyond human, urges beyond human, no human being could possibly contain such things and live, so he became something more than human.
[we became] The Goblin spirit whispered inside him. [we became, we are, we will always be!] The spirit began laughing, and Norman laughed with it. They were one. They were the Green Goblin, and NO ONE was allowed to challenge him, especially not before his own building, the monument to his own greatness. That freak thought himself a Goblin King? Well, after today, the world would tremble before the might of the Green Goblin!”
Hopping on his sled, he keyed open the secret wall in his own office, opening to the sky. For once, not caring if he was observed, the Green Goblin soared out of the top of Oscorp Tower, into the cameras of dozens of newscopters, and police helicopters, and dove to the square where three figures of sorcerous power marked the boundaries of this upstarts challenge. In the center rode that freak, that low born bastard who dared to beat him like a common thug, who dared to chain him like a common criminal. He rode some sort of flaming black horse, like the fantasy he clung to. Well Norman Osborn was no fantasy, his Green Goblin was ancient spirit bound in flesh augmented by super science. He rode no horse, but a glider equipped with a minigun linked to a Heads Up Display (HUD) and Glance Targeting System (GTC) that targeted the cannon wherever his eye focused. At his side he wore a pouch of antipersonnel Pumpkin bombs, capable of shredding anything within ten meters with tungsten penetrators that would punch through light vehicle armour or the heaviest personal plate carrying armour. He had the physical strength to flip an armoured car, or to throw a normal one. Given the gift of the Goblin spirit, he was faster than human, and fought with instinctive fury that trumped mortal martial arts with the blood thirsty heritage of the darkest killer of myth.
He lined up a shot, and behind the spray of empty casings and 2500 rounds per minute, he dove upon his assailant. “Die you pathetic worm. Die before the might of the Green Goblin!”
The rounds hammered into the Goblin King and his horse, causing the horse to rear but the Goblin King to simply gather his cloak of flame before him and stand in the stream of 5.56mm minigun fire.
Honestly, I felt ashamed, as a goblin. Had that supposed genius not figured out yet that human sensors sucked at locking on to fairy folk? A pixie could wander through the air defense cordon on an aircraft carrier group playing the bagpipes and take a poop on the Admirals plotting table. Not a single missile, gun, or drone would target where the pixie was, and there is a decent chance the pixie wouldn’t even notice they had been attacked. Goblins were different, we knew enough to notice being attacked, and get right bent out of shape about it.
2500 rounds per minute of 5.56mm blasted six feet from where I was standing. 2500 rounds per minute of bouncing death that is deadly within five hundred yards, dangerous to a thousand. He missed me, but if he kept blazing away like that, how many would he kill?
I stepped into the fire, letting it shred my left arm, blasting the hand away and letting my own blood shoot forth in a river. I felt my crown bite into my head, and tears of blood fell from every point. Turning my horse I raced in a circle contained within the three hanging figures, marked by a ring of my own blood. As I raced the circle, my own heart beat raced as my body strove to deal with a loss of blood that threatened even me.
“Challenge has been accepted. By right of this, by the blood I bear, I call the Ordeal of Justice into being. Let no power enter the circle but the two who contend. Let no power leave the circle until only one remains. By my will, by my name as Goblin King, I seal this circle. The Right of Ordeal begins.”
A pale circle of corpse fire flared up from my blood, and the bullets of the goblin began bouncing off of it, and around the circle.
Above me Doom was the first to act. His own shield had sprung up to limit the spray of bullets, of all the figures to stand in judgement, the only who looked down upon the peasants below with a lord’s duty not an immortal’s distance. He raised his hands up now and called a ring of his own jade fire to enclose my own.
“The Ordeal of Justice is called, let no power raised within pass beyond. I so will it.” Doom closed his fist, an unnecessary but entirely boss power move, and a circle of green fire sprang up outside my own, binding not only Green Goblin’s, but my own power inside until only one of us lived.
“Victor, you cannot make yourself a part of this. This is murder, right in the streets in front of us. I will not lend my power to it.” Doctor Strange held his own power ready, but did not complete the bindings.
Laughter answered his call for reason, and Morgan Le Fey threw wide her arms.
“What is that mortal line? Ah yes, two fiends enter, one fiend leaves. Let the power raised within not pass beyond. Let the circle stand though all the worlds burn until only one remains. The Ordeal of Justice is called!” Her voice rang like a bell, and h er power wove like living vines of green marked with thorns of black and blooming roses of blood red. A scent of fresh roses filled the air, and bird song filled the air as the sunlight itself seemed to gather among the leaves as all of Summer bore witness to the Ordeal of Justice.
Green Goblin hit the wall with his glider, and fell from it. His sensors not detecting anything solid, for it could not detect fairy magic any more than it could detect dark matter. It was a thing of this world’s science, and what passed inside the circle respected few to none of those rules.
The Green Goblin landed in the classic three point superhero pose. I guess anyone raised on cartoons has to use it. Drama must be served. Fairy were all about drama, even the second rate kind like changelings and conjured abominations.
Well, since Aunt Morgan stole the Thunderdome line, I was left with few good choices. Since Green Goblin went full cartoon superhero with his landing, I would stick with cartoons for my line. I shamelessly stole from Optimus Prime, but he would not begrudge me. I loved that line, but never thought I would get to use it. I dropped my voice to the deepest raspy bass I could manage, and put all my will, all my intention, and all the spirits bound to me in this Ordeal into my voice. It was not a joke, it was not banter. It was my will, my purpose, and I bound my soul to it.
“One shall stand, one shall fall!”
I closed my regrown left fist. The challenge was accepted, the circle was sealed. The Ordeal of Justice commenced.