*Go! Go! Goblins!*
*Go! Go! Goblins!*

*Where did they come from?*
*What do they know?*
*Don’t ask so much questions,*
*Just enjoy the show!*

*Go! Go! Goblins!*

[rap break]
*For Brains, math and science appeals!*
*Shady ol’ Brass is always tryin’ to make deals!*
*Blitz’s the sportsman, always on the field!*
*And our rocker girl Butch? She just keeps it real!*

*Go! Go! Goblins!*

*All of these goblins could drive you up the wall!*
*And poor Carl Bellman’s gotta deal with it all!*

*Go! Go!*
*Go! Go!*
*Go! Go!*
*Goblins!*

-**Theme Song**

#**Go! Go! Goblins! The Lost Episode (S1E13)**

*Go! Go! Goblins is filmed in front of a fake studio audience.*

-GGG-

It was a beautiful morning in Menda City, and one apartment building stood, proud and serene, against the sky.

At least, on the outside.

"Where’s my *coffee*?!"

Carl Bellman rushed out of his bedroom, straightening his tie. He nearly tripped over a little green man with pointed ears, who wore a loud check sports coat, a fedora tilted at a rakish angle, and had a candy cigar stuck in the corner of his mouth.

"Hey!" cried he, in a Cockney accent. "Why don’t you watch where you’re going!"

This did not, to Bellman, seem particularly logical.

"Brass, *you’re* the one standing in front of my door!"

The little green man puffed on his candy cigar for a second or two. "Well, you don’t have to make such a fuss about it."

Bellman sighed, glanced at his watch, and headed into the living room.

The TV was on some daytime talk show. He could just barely see a pair of pale green ears - and a much brighter green mohawk - protruding above the back of the couch.

The ears had several piercings in them.

Their owner grunted, "Mmm."

"Morning to you too, Butch." Bellman looked around. "Where’s Blitz?"

The bathroom door opened behind him. A well-built blue  male goblin walked out, with a towel around his waist. And, inexplicably, his head. "Bellman? You’re out of shampoo."

Bellman sighed. "I don’t-I don’t have time for this." He turned toward the apartment’s kitchen. "Where’s my iced co-"

He froze.

He stared at the assemblage of test tubes, beakers, bunsen burners, brightly colored liquids, and general "science" things that had sprouted on his corner since he made the coffee.

"What the-"

A fourth, purple goblin poked his head out. And adjusted his Coke-bottle glasses. "Bellman. Good morning. Sorry about the mess."

Bellman sighed. "Brains, why don’t you just call me Carl?"

Brains shrugged. "I forget."

"Okay. Fine."

"Shouldn’t you be at work early to finish that big presentation?"

"Yes, I *should*. So-"

"A presentation, is it?" Brass walked up to the two. "Sounds loik someone could use some of my patented flair."

Blitz walked up. "And sports metaphors."

"What, like football?"

"Exactly!"

"What I *need*," Bellman ground out, "is my *coffee*."

Brains didn’t look up from his clipboard. He just waved an arm behind him, in the vague direction of the fridge.

The thermos sat on the counter right next to it. Finally.

A few seconds later, the door slammed behind Bellman.

Then it opened again.

Then he stuck his head in, and said, "Bye!"

Then it slammed again. 

For a few minutes, silence reigned. 

Brass joined Butch on the couch. Blitz finished toweling off. And Brains got down from the kitchen stool, and headed toward the fridge.

And he frowned. 

"Did one of you move the thermos that was here?"

Through the doors onto the balcony, one could faintly hear a car pulling off.

"Nope."

"Nuh-uh."

"Nnn."

Brains said, "It held my latest condensate."

Butch said, "I don’t mess with your magic potions."

Blitz asked, "Where were you last night?"

Butch grunted, "Concert. "Front row."

-GGG-

A crowd of cheering rock fans stood at the edge of a stage, enjoying the music. 

Someone grunted. A few people in the front of the crowd looked down.

Another grunt. A pale pair of ears and a mohawk briefly popped up behind the edge of the stage.

Another another grunt. The ears and the mohawk got higher.

A third grunt. Butch’s eyes barely crest the edge of the stage. She grabs the edge with her fingerless-glove clad hands, and tries to pull herself up-

-GGG-

Brains muttered, "If it’s not on the counter…"

He opened the fridge door. Reached in.

And removed a thermos.

"...Oh dear."

Brass sauntered into the kitchen. "All roight, what has your knickers in a twist? You found your vacuum flask, yeah?"

"No. No, I didn’t." Brains Screwed the lid of the thermos, And held it out. What does that smell like to you?

Brass leaned over and it took a sniff. "Coffee."

"Exactly."

Brass met Brian's eyes. And then the pence dropped. "Oh."

"Precisely."

Butch sighs, hits Mute, turns around, and leans on the back of the couch. "So what does your magic potion do?"

Brains adjusts his glasses. "Science."

Butch shrugs, even though Brains can’t see her. "Same diff."

"Heinlein said that sufficiently advanced science-"

"Hey," Blitz interrupted, "are we gonna go after him or not?"

Brains nodded. "We are. As soon as I whip up two more potions."

-/-

MegaGlobal International’s main branch in the city was a towering edifice of steel and glass. A sheath covering a small part of a mighty worldwide machine.

As one particular cog in that machine sat at his cubicle desk, he pressed a button, flicked a switch, and then waited for his computer to boot up.

He placed the thermos on his desk, and heard a rustle behind him. He did not turn around.

"Heeeeey, Bellman." The second man took a sip of coffee.

"Beecher. I’m kinda in a hurry, so-"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. Big presentation. Just wanted to give you the heads-up."

Bellman’s stomach did a standing back somersault with a half-twist. The judges would’ve rated it a 8 out of 10. He turned around. "Heads-up for what?"

Beecher had, unfortunately, not learned that the 80s were over. He wore a blue shirt with a white collar. The mug he raised to his lips bore the legend, "ASK ME ABOUT MY INDEX FUND".

He, of course, delighted in being the bearer of bad news. "There's been a last minute addition. Vice president in charge of Japan might be taking a little lookie loo."

"In charge of-" Bellman swallowed. "You mean the-" He leaned forward, And dropped His voice to A whisper. "The Zaibatsu merger?"

"You didn't hear it from me. So if I were you I would make sure that all my Is were crossed and all my Ts were dotted." Mr Beecher smiled at his own witticism. "See ya."

And off he floated, to Grace others With the dubious pleasure of his presence. 

Bellman said something he had learned from Brass, and turned back to his computer. As he wanted for the word processor to warm up, he opened his thermos,and took a sip directly from it.

And frowned. 

*Tasted a little funny. Did I make it wr-*

The word processor opened, and, coincidentally, pushed the coffee right out of Bellman’s mind.

He cracked his knuckles. Time to get to work.

The thermos sat on his desk. 

Unsuspected. 

Lurking.
-/-

The bus driver looked at the goblins. 

Slowly, he said, "let me get this straight. You're all kids."

Brass nodded. "Roight."

"And you want to go downtown."

"Mm-hmm."

"And you're all homeschooled, because of your skin condition, which is why you're out in the middle of the day."

"Got it in one."

"And you're related."

"Five by five. Can we have our tickets?"

The driver held up a hand. "Hold on. So you're all British? Because my wife is from Chelsea."

Brass felt faint stirrings of disquiet. "…Yeah?"

The driver frowned, and looked at Blitz, who was in tennis whites. 

Blitz said, in the manner of a man having an admission torn from him by wild horses, "I…love football. The-" He gritted his teeth. "-*footy*."

Brains said, "I plan to go to Oxford. Mate."

"Huh," said the driver. 

And he looked at Butch. 

And all the boys tried not to visibly cringe. 

She stared back at the driver. 

And in a perfect British accent, went, "Chelsea?"

"Yes?"

"Roight, when was the last time you visited? Ever been to Poppies? Or Seawise chippy?"

The driver's face broke into a smile. "Once or twice."

"Belton still the manager?"

"I do believe he was."

"I swear, they changed the batter. Or maybe they're using different fish."

"You noticed that too? The driver chuckled. For all five of you, that'll be…"

A few seconds later the four goblins sat in the back of the bus.

Brass took off his porkpie hat and scratched his combover. "Cor, that was amazing! How'd you know all that, then?"

Burch looked at him. 

Then she pointed to her sleeveless top. 

The one with a British flag stenciled across it. 

"Guess."

-GGG-

Bellman put the finishing touches on his presentation, and sat back with the virtuous glow of a job well done. He smiled at his monitor, poured himself a nice cup of joe, toasted his fine, fine work, and raised it to his lips.

And stopped.

Because he was fairly certain coffee wasn’t supposed to be pink.

He lifted it to his nose, and took a sniff.

It didn’t smell like coffee either.

…How much had he drunk?

He peered down the inside of this thermos.

…Too much.

His stomach went into its best imitation of a washing machine’s spin cycle. On a raft. In the North Atlantic. In winter.

He stood up from his chair. His career might not take the hit, but letting the meeting go forward would probably be even worse.

Which was exactly when a friendly hand clasped his shoulder.

"There you are, Bellman!" Beecher beamed at his colleague. "Everyone’s waiting!"

"Beecher, I-I don’t feel so good-"

"Nonsense! Just stage fright! Oh, don’t forget your laptop!"

Bellman grabbed it on sheer reflex. And also the memory of what Beecher had done to the old Braun coffeemaker.

They *still* hadn’t gotten the stains out of the linoleum.

"No, I’m serious-"

"So am I!" Beecher manhandled his colleague into an about-face, and frogmarched him towards the conference room. "Don’t think you can puss out at the last minute!"

As Bellman continued to protest, his ears grew warm.

He figured that had something to do with the potion.

Especially when a door swung closed behind him, and he could hear his desk phone start to ring.

-GGG-

The security guard leaned over the reception desk, and said, "He’s not picking up."

"Typical," Brass said. "Just typical. I gave him a line on a cheap mobile, and he didn't want it!"

"Maybe," Blitz said, "he didn't want something that ‘fell off the back of a truck’."

"That's lies! Lies and slander!" Brass paused for a beat or two. "It was an, er, inventory surplus."

The guard cleared his throat. "What’s so important about this medication, anyway?"

Brains said, "...He has to take it every morning. He was in such a hurry he, er, forgot."

"Is that why you have a thermos?"

"He also missed his coffee."

The guard sighed, and looked like he’d rather be somewhere else. Anywhere else. 

"Look, we can’t let you up. I can call someone to take him his medication."

Brains frowned. "It has to be delivered persona-"

Someone patted him on the shoulder.

He looked to his side, just as Butch stepped past him and whispered "*Watch and learn, Four-eyes.*"

She stopped in front of the desk.

And she looked at the guard.

And he looked back at her.

And she smiled.

-GGG-

Bellman stared at the people watching him. One of them was a man in a suit that probably cost more than the entire block Bellman grew up on, with a greying haircut that could have fed a moderately sized third world family for a month or two.

Bellman swallowed. 

No pressure.

When he said, "Lights, please?" his voice only cracked a little.

…Maybe that funny feeling in his stomach was just nerves.

He raised his wireless pointer, and clicked once. The light shining from the digital projector changed colour.

He blinked a few times, and hoped his watering eyes were not visible. When the stinging stopped, he thought, 
*Funny. The room isn't that much darker.*

"Good morning. I don't have to tell you about the increasing importance of Asian markets…"

-GGG-

In general, elevators are awkward, in-between spaces. 

And that's when they're occupied only by humans.

Blitz looked sidelong at Butch.

Looked forward.

He side-eyed her again.

Butch sighted. Just…spit it out.

Blitz coughed. "I didn't know you could be that...whatever that was."

She looked down at a small scrap of paper with a number on it, and smiled, even though she would deny it later. "*I am vast, I contain multitudes*."

Brian adjusted his glasses. "Thoreau?"

One of the woman in the elevator said, "Whitman."

Butch looked up."*Thank* you." 
 

Brass asked, "Can we save the book report for later?" He looked at the woman. "Do you happen to know what floor Carl Bellman works on?"

The woman blinked. "The one we just passed."

-GGG-

"Some of you checked the Nikkei this morning." Bellman paused for laughter. "It's possible there's a largely unregarded market sector."

He clicked the clicker.

"Japan, for example, is leading the way in mobile internet access, including gaming."

The light wasn't shining in his eyes. In fact, it seemed to be shining on his forehead. 

…Wait. 

Bellman stepped to the side. Just enough to turn into a shadow unless you counted the faint light from his laptop.

Speaking of.

He glanced at PowerPoint's Presenter View, clicked to the next slide, and spoke a little faster. 

Especially when he noticed an odd feeling in his chest.

"If you look at the growth chart…"

-GGG-

The goblins burst out of the stairwell, gasping. Except Blitz, of course. 

"And *that's* why I always say cardio!"

He stood there with his hands on his hips until he realized that his companions weren't falling at his feet. In fact, they weren't falling, albeit with considerable effort.

"Chop chop, boys and girls! We gotta hustle!"

Brass held up a hand. "Five…seconds."

Blitz looked at his stopwatch. "Time's up exclamation mark come on!" He grabbed the British man's hand and pulled him. 

Brass grabbed Brains, and Brains grabbed Butch.

Who said, "Hey-!"

-GGG-

"Despite Japan's current economic issues, ah think-"

What was happening to his voice? 

"-upcoming platforms lahk the AEGS Dreampitch tout built-in online capabilities as ah core feature-"

-GGG-

"This is his desk," Blitz said.

Brass said, "How can you tell?"

Blitz pointed to the thermos.

"So," Brass said. "Where is the git?"

"I wouldn’t say he’s a git, exactly."

The Goblins™ spun around. There was an adult human male, leaning on the cubicle wall.

He said, "You, uh, folks’re looking for Bellman?"

Brass nodded. "Yep."

Beecher nodded. "Uh…huh. Who are you?"

"…Cousins," Brains said.

Blitz nodded. "From England."

Butch, somehow, did not facepalm.

"Uh…huh," Beecher said. "*Fish an' chips and the footy, roight?*"

Brass, through gritted teeth, said "…Roight."

Brains clears throat, adjusts glasses. "Sorry, but Bellman left some medicine behind."

Beecher blinked. "What kind of medicine?"

"...The type he should’ve had an hour ago."

"Oh. Well, he’s in a meeting." Beecher pointed.

"Thank you."

"I could-"

But they were already gone.

-/-

It was almost over. Bellman was almost home free. Then he could-

Well, he wasn’t sure *what* he could. Clock in sick, go home, and yell at Brains, probably.

"And this concludes my presentation."

And then, he made a fatal error. 

It wasn’t his fault, really. It was a habit formed in a hundred meetings. 

"Any questions?" his mouth said.

The rest of him - mainly his brain - recognized the mistake the second it was made. But there was nothing for it but to keep going.

His shirt felt strange against his - rather expanded  - chest. Looser in some areas, tighter in others. In one spot in particular, he felt the cool air of the conference room directly on his skin.

And he was pretty sure there was more weight around his waist. Both internal and external.

The VP cleared his throat. Bellman couldn't see his face. "This is still a niche field. Why should we invest?"

Glad you asked, Bellman said. "Ah think this is ah great oppuhtuniteh t'get in on th' ground floor. Maybe-

He smiled into the dark. 

"-maybe someday everyone will hahve some kinda internet connected device in theih pocket at all times."

The VP snorted. "Can you imagine? Well I think I've heard enough, Belton. Can somebody get the lights?"

The lights?

Bellman had a brief, wild moment where he wondered if he'd be able to hide under the table, before the harsh fluorescents stabbed into his eyes.

When he blinked the tears away, he lowered his hand.

Everyone else in the room stared at him.

Even the guy at the blinds.

Bellman looked down at himself.

He held a frilly, pink-and-white parasol.

It went well with the frilly…everything else. Including the wide hips, the crinoline, and the rather enhanced décolletage.

Not that it needed much enhancement.

Bellman looked past his rather expanded nose. The visible flesh was a sort of…magenta-red? Maybe?

There was a sound. A sound Bellman would not have noticed, not even have heard. But his new, pointier, larger ears heard it just fine.

It was the sound of someone twisting the control stick-thingie for the blinds. The actual user was still staring across the table, past the VP, directly at Bellman. Her hands were on autopilot.

On the other side of the glass was a pile of goblins. Blitz and Brass on the bottom, Butch on their shoulders, and Brains at the top.

In one hand, he held a very familiar looking thermos.

In the other, he held a test tube.

There was a smile on his face, like he was glad to be just in time to save the day.

Bellman stared at Brains.

Then looked down.

Then back up again, at the people in the room.

And she frowned. 

And she spat, "Oh, *sugah!*"

-GGG-

Bellman’s apartment door slammed open, and Belle stomped in.

Well, as much as someone *could* stomp wearing a frilly crinoline.

She whirled around, tossed her parasol at the umbrella holder, crossed her arms, and glared Southernly.

The other goblins followed. Quiet for once. Brains stayed at the back.

Belle said nothing as the first three filed past her. She didn’t say anything to Brains either. But he stopped dead.

"Thayt memoreh potion o’ yours-"

"It’s actually a-"

"Is it gonna cause aneh permanent damage?"

Brains shook his head. "No. They’ll remember there was a meeting, but they won’t remember what was said."

Belle’s lip curled with the  fully concentrated scorn of two hundred years of Southern breeding. "So, business as usual, then."

"In a sense, yes."

"They won’t even remembuh-" she waved a hand down her body. "*-this?*"

"They’ll remember, but it won’t seem strange. And when you go back to normal, the memories will smooth themselves over. Just that you looked a little ill, and they let you take the rest of the day off."

"Speaking of." Belle leaned forward. "Ah took the antidote. How long befoh it weahs off?"

Um. Brains swallowed. "About that…"

If you happened to walk past Belle’s apartment building at that very moment, and listened very closely, you might’ve heard something that sounds an awful lot like a comedic catfight.

Or, more accurately, a goblin fight.

**ENDFILE**


2026 Eulalie "Nequ" Quentin     
CC-By-SA-NC       
Fanart, fanfics, commissions, reposting, all allowed, as long as you include credit. (And hopefully a link.)

**-GGG-**

Late that afternoon, Beecher headed out. He passed Bellman’s desk, and hoped his good pal was okay.

Why, he had even left his thermos!

Beecher picked it up.

Looked around. 

Opened it up.

Took a whiff.

He stood there for a second or two. His eyes unfocuses.

And, oddly, his hair began to turn green.

"Whoa," Beech said, as the scent of…incense filled her nose, a tye-dye pattern spread across her suit, and her hair curled into matted locks. "Like, far out."

**THE GOBLINS WILL (NOT) RETURN IN AVENGERS:DOOMSDAY**