I sit in the circle of flames, beyond it are the lines of police. Their weapons are drawn, their faces are full of fear, hatred, rage. I raise my fist and tear into the heart, the hot blood fills me, fills the hole the rage howls in, and I can feel my body healing. Flames surround me, so hot the asphalt bubbles like soup. Beyond the flames, on the rooftop, able to watch, but not able to interfere is Spiderman. Spiderman tried to stop me and failed. Spiderman tried to stop this piece of shit too, and that is the failure that counted.
The song echoed in my head, the song I would never stop hearing, the song, the screams. At some point the screams of the people stopped, and the screams of the burning structural members took over. When the building collapsed, the screaming stopped for everyone but me. That wasn’t fair, how could the screaming only continue for me. What about him? Mark Allen. The so called Molten Man. Why should I have to hear the screams he started forever, and not him. No. If he was deaf to their screams, I would teach him to scream before the end. That song, the song he was blasting as he rampaged through the streets echoed in my head. Linkin Park I think it was. Burn it down.
“The cycle repeated
As explosions broke in the sky
All that I needed
Was the one thing I couldn't find
And you were there at the turn
Waiting to let me know”
[I rose and dressed, someone was booming that music loud, there were sirens distant but closing fast. Whoever was playing it, they were not driving a car, and the sound was too strong for a ghetto blaster.]
“We're building it up to break it back down
We're building it up to burn it down
We can't wait to burn it to the ground”
[There was a flash, and then another, another, another. Flames soared up into the night, flames, the song, and laughter.]
“The colors conflicted
As the flames climbed into the clouds
I wanted to fix this
But couldn't stop from tearing it down
And you were there at the turn
Caught in the burning glow
And I was there at the turn
Waiting to let you know”
[Thwip, thwip, that hated sound, Spider man was diving on a figure glowing in molten gold, a living figure of flames. He was shooting balls of plasma out of his hands, and where they touched, stone burned, wood burned, metal burned. MY PEOPLE!]
“We're building it up to break it back down
We're building it up to burn it down
We can't wait to burn it to the ground”
[I kicked in the doors to the main building across the street. I owned it, I kicked open the doors that were not already open, and used every scrap of compulsion my Kingship had on those who bore my mark, to wake, to rise, to get their people and to get out. Those who were sworn to me, if they could not rise, I could take them by force, and carry them out. The smoke was thick and cloying. Too much burned too fast, the whole face of the building was burning. Smoke was too thick to see, too thick to breathe for mere humans. I pulled my people out, pulled them to the street where the Fire Department and ambulances could get to them. My people, but how many were mine? How many were just neighbors. Not mine?]
“You told me yes, you held me high
And I believed when you told that lie
I played soldier, you played king
And struck me down when I kissed that ring
You lost that right to hold that crown
I built you up but you let me down
So when you fall, I'll take my turn
And fan the flames as your blazes burn
And you were there, at the turn
Waiting to let me know
We're building it up to break it back down
We're building it up to burn it down
We can't wait to burn it to the ground”
[I heard a child crying “mama, mama wake up. Mama, mama, I’m scared.” She was coughing, she was crying, but she was not leaving her mother, and her mother was not responding. The smoke was getting thick, and I kicked at the door.]
“When you fall, I'll take my turn
And fan the flames as your blazes burn
We can't wait to burn it to the ground
When you fall, I'll take my turn
And fan the flames as your blazes burn
We can't wait to burn it to the ground”
[ I failed]
Howling with rage, I tried to punch through the walls, but I could not. Fairy magic, fairy law. I had no power in the home of another. I could no more enter a home uninvited than I could piss on the moon from Madison Avenue. I could enter a business, I could enter a home that did not have a working threshold from a living family. I could enter any place owned by those sworn to me. I could enter any place owned by non mortals, but here on earth, no power of mine could get me into that home to save the child or her mother. The child began screaming. I raged, willing to die, but not willing to fail. The air was so thick that there was no oxygen in it. Even my own strength was starting to fail. The child had long since fallen silent, and only the screaming of the flames.
The building started to come down, and bricks and beams struck me. The barrier between myself and the door suddenly fell, and I drove through it. Two figures, the mother recognizably a middle aged Hispanic woman, the child, a twisted mass of flesh whose nightgown had caught and burned her even now as she lay beside the smouldering bed. A rush caught her still form, and her mother. I knew I was too late. Had either lived, the threshold would have kept me back until the sun burned out, but the dead have no power over me. I burst through the wall, carrying their corpses and fell to the ground coughing. The fire department had too many living to deal with. While a few panicked at the sight of my unglamoured form, more paused only long enough to make sure the two I held were beyond their help, and then moved on to those who were.
I took a few minutes to heal myself, to purge the smoke and damage I had taken, and to prepare myself for the hunt. This Molten Man danced as he burned down buildings in my neighborhood. He played his music and danced as people burned. For all my power, I had to sit by helplessly and listen to a little girl and her mother die because no human could enter the building, and no goblin could enter a home uninvited to save them.
I wrapped myself in glamour, covered myself in the image of the Fire Captain I had seen on the TV talking about a spate of arsons we had back when The Hand was making a pest of themselves. I wrapped myself in his image, took for myself his voice and strode to the nearest engine chief as he directed his people.
“Gimmie a sitrep, where is this asshole now, and is he contained?” I growled, letting the man’s own voice carry the rage I felt, because none of the fire fighters here felt it any less than I did.
“The cops got a cordon six blocks down. He’s duking it out with Spiderman. He’s put that freak in Rikers like six times now. It’s just a question of how much of the city he burns down before Spidey stops him this time.” The engine chief muttered tiredly.
“And how many more die.” I added.
The fireman flinched, spat, and nodded. Meeting my eyes with the sort of helpless rage my own burned with.
I passed behind the engine, and let my glamour fall. I let the shadows blur my edges and ran as only a hunting goblin can. I ran over cars, over fire trucks, I ran along the sides of buildings and along streets. Sometimes on two legs, sometimes on four, I was no longer pretending to be human, I was fucking done.
I burst through the police barricade, I crushed the top of a police cruiser as I bounced off its roof to bound into the intersection where Spiderman attempted to reason with Molten Man.
“Look Mark, they used you. Osborne used you, the mob used you. They played you for a sucker, used you as a weapon and then left you to pay the price when you got caught. Your beef isn’t with the cops, it isn’t with the people. You know none of them had anything to do with it.” Spidey was trying to reason with the little shit. Why? He had caught him before, sent him to Rikers before. He had all the time in the world to think about what got him there. Whatever choices he made, they must have been stupid if they got him into the clutches of Norman Osborne, the Green Goblin, and the mob. Those are not people you make deals with if you are any kind of decent human being. Now that he broke out of prison, he is going around burning random buildings and people just to get Spiderman out for a fight.
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“It’s all your fault, Spiderman. If you hadn’t gotten in the way, it would have worked out. I would have been the one in control, I would have been the one calling the shots, but YOU RUINED IT. Now you can BURN!” Molten man raged, and his armour blazed bright and blasts of flame sought to pin the bouncing wall crawler, but Spiderman’s danger sense had him out of the way of every blast. Buildings could not dodge, and the fire was like thermite, it burned stone, metal, concrete. As long as this fight continued, people would be at risk, and who knows how many more would die.
I didn’t make any speeches, I hit Molten Man at about 80kph right in the back, and put him into the building he was trying to pin Spiderman against. His flames burned my skin, but I didn’t care. I would heal, and he would not. His flames were coming from his armour and his armour was bonded to him. Whatever horror show Norman Osborne had tricked this Mark idiot into, it wasn’t to make him a super powered rival. He had power, but no control. I was willing to bet that Norman could control Molten Man’s fire just fine, but Mark only had the choices of burn the world yes or no. Nothing in between. He had chosen to burn the world. I had been forced to listen to him burn a mother and child.
He could escape from Rikers again, as he had before. He would not escape from me.
I reached up and grabbed the armoured helmet, feeling my palms melt onto the flame hot armour as I went to snap his neck like a twig. I wasn’t here to fight him. I was here to kill him.
Spiderman’s kick blasted me from Molten Man’s back. I had to jump once, twice, three times, until finally I bounced off a light pole and onto the roof above as I had both Molten Man’s fireballs and Spiderman’s webs to dodge. I could not fight them both. Spiderman had to go.
I saw his web shooting for me as he hung above me at the apex of his leap. I left my glamour there as if I was readying myself to try to block his webs with my arms. Who exactly would do something that stupid is unclear, but the kid bought it. I sidestepped the webs as they passed through my illusionary body, and he had a flash of my image of myself nicely webbed up as he had done to me in our last encounter. Operating on reflex, he yanked on the web to pull me off my feet towards him, as he shot feet first towards me to administer a kick strong enough to put even me down. Instead, he hit the ground, and I hit him. I let him have the full force of my punches, ramming his head into the ground with force enough to pop a human skull like a grape. He was stronger than me, and while that wasn’t a guarantee his bones were, the force I was using could knock me out, but not kill me. If I was wrong, well, sucks to be him. Sucks harder to be between me and my kill.
The blood pouring out of my hands was what I needed, the burns oozed blood, and from that blood I wove the thorn manacles of the Unseelie. The same shitty laws that made me listen to a mother and daughter burn because I cannot enter a home uninvited let me forge thorn manacles from my blood that could bind a god, at least until sunrise. They would hold a spider.
I heard gunfire from the police helicopter above, but a blast of fire swatted the copter from the sky. I wonder what it hit when it went down, and how many more just died because Spiderman stopped me killing Molten Man? I had wasted enough time. Mark was laughing, and blasting his music again.
“We're building it up to break it back down
We're building it up to burn it down
We can't wait to burn it to the ground”
He flung whips of fire at the police, then up at the roof where Spiderman and I had been fighting.
“Come out and play SPIDERMAN. You think you can stop me? No one can stop me. Not Spiderman, not the Green Goblin, NO ONE.” He roared.
I laughed. I laughed loud and long, and I put all my power into letting it fill the night. I let it ring for blocks around.
“Green Goblin, oh no boy. You don’t face the Green Goblin tonight. You face the Goblin King, and my laughter is last sound you will hear. When I am done, there will be nothing left even for hell.”
I dropped from the rooftop in the classic superhero pose. I needed him to see me coming. This was about punishment. This was about fear. This was all I could do. I could not raise the dead. I could not rebuild all that was lost. I could not even do more than a token bit of healing compared to the wounds he inflicted on this rampage. All I was, in the end, was a killer. That was all I could do. So that is what I would do.
I let him bracket me with fire, I moved between them, spinning, leaping, to avoid the blasts yet walking forward in slow lazy steps, my laughter filling the night.
“Mark Allen, Molten Man, stupid little man turned to stupid little tool, used and discarded. Left in the garbage as not even worth picking up again. Don’t worry, I will make you suffer. You will have time before the end to beg if you like.” I taunted as I moved closer.
He lashed out with his fire again and again. He was firing at me, but as the flames got higher, as the flames and smoke surrounded us, I confirmed he was not using his mortal eyes, but the sensors in his armour to track me. I began to laugh.
“Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. All that bluster, and you can’t even touch me?” My laughter shook the buildings, and it shook Mark. He put both his hands together and unloaded his full output in front of him in a wave around where he saw me. Unfortunately, I was behind him. With his arms and legs locked against the force of his own blasts, he was helpless when I grabbed his neck from behind, kneed him in the back to bring his knees to the ground, then bent him backwards to break his spine.
CRACK!
Mark screamed as his legs went offline, and I saw fear in his upside down face for the first time. I think he realized I wasn’t a hero. I wasn’t Spiderman to let him kill and kill and kill, only to have a time out like a naughty boy until his next escape. I was the Goblin King, I was the ender of legends.
“You killed a little girl and her mother tonight, and for that, you die” I told him.
I drove my hand into his chest. The armour was strong, but bending him backwards had shattered the microtubes that provided both the structure and plasma channels of the armour. They failed on the third strike. The forth was wet and wonderful. I heard him gasping at the penetration, his arms grabbing helplessly at mine as my hand closed around his heart.
“Do you want to live?” I asked.
“Please, please, I will do anything!” He begged.
“No.” I said, closing my fist around his heart, ripping it out, and watching as his eyes faded as I laughed long and loud before taking my first bite.
I sit in the circle of flames, beyond it are the lines of police. Their weapons are drawn, their faces are full of fear, hatred, rage. I raise my fist and tear into the heart, the hot blood fills me, fills the hole the rage howls in, and I can feel my body healing. Flames surround me, so hot the asphalt bubbles like soup. Beyond the flames, on the rooftop, able to watch, but not able to interfere is Spiderman. Spiderman tried to stop me and failed. Spiderman tried to stop this piece of shit too, and that is the failure that counted.
A bullet snapped my head around, then a half dozen more impacted my chest. I took another bite of the heart. At any other time, the rifle bullets would have been a serious issue, but with the fresh heart of a hunt, with the fresh kill of a legend filling me, the wounds were nothing. Less than the burns I had already received. I would be weeks in recovery, but tonight, until the dawn rose, I had the magic of the hunt running through me, and I was not for them to stop.
Fairy magic is about legend. There was a monster of flames that stalked the night and killed innocents. The police did not stop it, Spiderman did not stop it. In the end, it was a monster that stopped it. The Goblin King hunted Molten Man, and for the death of a little girl and her mother, he killed him. That was the legend that ruled this night. Those who failed to stop Molten Man could not stop the legend this night.
When dawn came, my body shut down at the hateful touch of the sun. I let it strip the power from me. Let the pain of the burns that even my regeneration struggled to heal flay me. Let the bullets that were still in me grind my flesh as the healing slowly forced them out. Each heartbeat was a wave of punishment. Each heartbeat was the memory of pounding on an apartment door, power beyond any mortal’s dreams and helpless to do anything but listen to a little girl burn. I turned my eyes to the hateful sun, and let it burn my slit pupiled eyes. I could not cry. The flame and smoke robbed me of that.
I came to this city to be a hero. I told myself I could be a hero. Heroes save lives, and at that I failed. All I was, all I could be, was a monster. At that I succeeded.
Sugar opened the door to my room. She shut the blinds, cutting me off from the punishing sun. She put a coffee on the floor beside me, and sat with her own to stare at me.
“You are lucky that camera’s can’t catch you. I mean they could see you, but what you were shifted every second. Some of it was pretty bad, pretty scary. They could hear you though. A lot of the police saw you, but I guess that bit about eating the dude’s heart was a little over the top, because the picture the sketch artist came up with looks more like a demon than you.” Sugar said carefully.
I turned and looked at her, waiting to see her flinch.
She looked at me a long time and then sighed. “I forget how sheltered you were before all of this.” She said, making a hand waving gesture to encompass my burned, shot, goblin body.
“You are never going to be some shining hero, and I don’t want one. Heroes let the monsters walk away to do it again. I don’t want a hero. A want a better monster, a monster that can stand between our people and all the nasty people and things that want to fuck with us, that want to use us, that want to hurt us. I want a monster so bad that every other monster is terrified they might still be alive when you catch up to them. I want a monster that makes them afraid to burn little girls in their beds just to show off how tough he is.” Sugar said, and her voice was harder than my claws.
I sighed. “Sugar, I could kiss you right now.”
“Ugg, no. You have bits of some dead asshole’s heart in your teeth. Later maybe.” She said without sympathy, and we both sat and drank coffee as we listened to clean up crews deal with the wreckage of what neither hero or monster were able to stop in time.