Chapter 19
Third person
The air itself seemed to vibrate with the hum of the glider's turbines. Hobgoblin laughed, a sound like tearing metal, as he banked hard to the left.
"Dance, little spiders!"
He released a volley of razor-bats. They spun through the air, seeking flesh with mechanical malice.
"Scatter!" Ghost Spider screamed.
They moved. It was a blur of motion. Spider-Woman vaulted over a fallen crate, her agility saving her from being skewered, but one of the bats grazed Carnage Spider's shoulder. It wasn't a deep cut, but it was distracting. A spray of red misted the air.
"Bastard!" Carnage Spider snarled. She didn't retreat; she launched herself upward, web-shooters blazing. "I'm coming up there!"
She fired two lines of webbing, anchoring them to the glider's wings. She yanked, trying to ground him.
Hobgoblin didn't panic. He roared with delight and spun the glider into a violent corkscrew. The centrifugal force was brutal. Carnage Spider's grip slipped, and she was flung sideways, smashing into the rusted side of a shipping container with enough force to dent the steel. She slid down, crumpling into a heap, groaning.
"Too slow!" Hobgoblin taunted, diving low.
He strafed the ground, the glider's wing clipping Ghost Spider. She tumbled across the concrete, rolling to absorb the impact but losing her footing. Spider-Woman tried to close the distance, firing an impact web, but Hobgoblin's speed was overwhelming. He weaved through the maze of the warehouse, popping up behind her, behind her, then gone again.
They were fast. They were skilled. But he had the one thing they didn't: The sky.
Gravity was his weapon. He used the three dimensions of the arena to perfection, peppering them with pumpkin bombs that forced them to cover, chipping away at their stamina. They were exhausted from the gang war, their movements growing sluggish, their reactions delayed by milliseconds that felt like hours.
Ghost Spider tried to rally, standing atop a container to get a better angle. "We have to ground him! Hit the wings!"
Hobgoblin saw her. He grinned. "Nice view."
He flipped a switch on his controls. A missile detached from the glider's underside.
"Catch!"
The missile screamed toward the container.
"Move!" Spider-Woman tackled Ghost Spider, shoving her off the crate just as the explosion erupted. Fire and shrapnel filled the air. The blast wave threw them both violently against a brick wall.
Silence, save for the ringing in their ears and the mocking laughter from above.
Hobgoblin hovered in the smoke, circling them like a vulture. "Is that it?" he sneered. "I expected a feast, but you're all gristle."
He raised a fist, unleashing another barrage of razor-bats. The Spider-Gang was down, panting, bleeding, backs against the wall. They had nothing left to give. The advantage was absolute.
Then, the wind stopped.
I watched from the shadows, my eyes tracking the glider's erratic path. It was annoying. A fly buzzing around the room that refused to sit still. He relied on his machine to dictate the terms of engagement.
Without it, he was just a man in a mask.
Time to clip his wings.
*Snap
I focused my will. The air around the glider thickened, rippling with distortion. I didn't use a physical attack; I used the environment itself. I bent space around the mechanical glider.
Hobgoblin didn't notice at first. He was too busy gloating. He fell down on the ground unable to react.
*CRUNCH.*
The sound was horrific but his thick skin protected him. The glider was gone into the ground in the form of graffiti. The spider gang looked in confusion, their guard up and focused on the fight as the opportunity presented to themselves they webbed him from head to toe.
"What the—?!" he shrieked, fighting the controls. "It's stuck! It's stuck in nothing!"
I clenched my fist.
*Snap.*
The vanished glider, instantly reappeared. And the weaponry misfired multiple ammunition on his owner due to dysfunction in hardware.
*KABOOM.*
The glider didn't land. It cratered.
It smashed into the concrete floor of the lot with earth-shaking force. Metal folded like wet paper. The turbines imploded, sending a shockwave of dust and debris outward. The once-proud machine was reduced to a sparking, twisted heap of scrap—a graffiti of steel and fire painted across the warehouse floor.
Hobgoblin was thrown clear, tumbling through the dirt in a painful roll. He groaned, pushing himself up, his costume singed, his advantage stripped away in a heartbeat.
He looked up at the sky, then at the wreckage, confusion and terror warring on his face. "Who…? What did that?"
The Spider-Gang stared, wide-eyed. They were alive, saved by an invisible hand that had swatted a fly out of the air.
I observed the chaos for a moment longer. The playing field was level. The beast was caged.
And then, I felt the call.
***
I felt the aura I trapped inside the shard I gave to the two eternals was broken.
I watched from the shadows, ready to depart, my interest in the grounded goblin waning. But the air shifted. The smell of ozone and burning jet fuel was suddenly replaced by something ancient, something cloying and metallic.
The crystal in Thena's hand—the one I had given them as a mere anchor—was screaming.
It wasn't a hum anymore. It was vibrating violently, the spatial signature within it expanding uncontrollably, which allowed me to pinpoint the location where I need to be and using my dimension as a shortcut I can re apprehend next to them.
"Jotaro," Thena said, her voice uncharacteristically tight. She wasn't looking at the wreckage of the Goblin. She was looking at the shard, which was now burning white-hot in her palm. "You arrived."
Sersi turned to her, eyes wide. "What's happening? Is it him?"
Thena shook her head, gripping the crystal until her knuckles turned white.