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After navigating the cold, damp labyrinth of the New York sewers for what felt like hours, Norman Osborn led Karn into a massive underground sanctuary. This secret base, repurposed from a long-abandoned subway station, was a masterpiece of concealment. With its original entrances collapsed and buried, it was a place that even Deep Blue's global surveillance algorithms couldn't touch.
Inside, the station was no longer a transit hub but a laboratory of darkness, filled with cold machinery and glowing monitors. Waiting for them was a tall, middle-aged man in a green striped T-shirt and khaki pants.
Karn, still reeling from the energy depletion of his previous battles, didn't wait for an introduction. His predatory instincts took over. He lunged at the stranger, his fangs bared, intending to drain the man's life force to replenish his own.
Norman Osborn stood by, a smirk playing across his face as he watched the "show."
A Mouthful of Grime
Karn's fangs sank into the stranger's neck, but the expected rush of warm life energy never came. Instead, he felt a rough, abrasive texture—like biting into heavy-grade sandpaper. A second later, his jaws closed on nothing but a dry, shifting mass.
"Cough! Cough! Cough!"
Karn pulled back, hacking violently as he spat out a mouthful of coarse sand. The stranger's neck, which should have been a shredded mess of arteries, was a hollow gap where fine grains flowed like liquid, knitting the flesh back together in seconds.
The man looked at Norman with a look of pure annoyance. "Norman, why did you bring back a fool? Is this the ally who's supposed to help me crush the Spider?"
Norman slowly removed his ferocious Green Goblin helmet, his eyes gleaming with a manic intelligence. "Let me introduce you. This is Flint Marko. You might know him better as... Sandman."
He turned to Karn, his voice dripping with irony. "As you can see, Mr. Karn, some abilities are quite 'unsolvable' for a predator who expects a meal of blood and bone."
The Unholy Trinity
Karn's expression turned grim. He looked at the shifting man of sand, then back at his "savior." The taste of two consecutive defeats had humbled the Inheritor. He realized that the Tobey Maguire version of Spider-Man and his tech-savvy companions were far more dangerous than the typical "Totems" he hunted.
"This is your sure way to kill them?" Karn asked, his voice low.
Norman spread his hands, rising into the air on his glider with a preacher-like piety. "Exactly. If those so-called heroes can play at teamwork, then why shouldn't we? My defeat last time taught me a lesson. Now, with you and Mr. Marko, I have the answer."
Karn nodded slowly. While the Inheritors usually preferred hunting alone, the idea of using local "supervillains" as subordinates was an established tactic among his more successful siblings. He swore to himself that after this hunt, he would never go into a battle without an army of his own.
The Choice: Citizens vs. Loved Ones
"Tell me your plan, Goblin," Karn demanded.
Norman pointed toward the deepest section of the base, where a massive cylindrical glass device hummed with a sickly green light.
"I want to play a game with Spider-Man," Norman cackled. "This tank is filled with a gaseous version of my Human Enhancement Agent. If I release this from the top of the Empire State Building, I can create tens of thousands of superhumans in NYC overnight."
He leaned in closer, his face twisting into a mask of pure evil. "But they won't be heroes. They'll be monsters. Every dark impulse they have will be magnified. New York will burn from the inside out. While our Spider-Men are busy trying to stop a city of ten thousand villains, they'll be separated. Vulnerable."
Karn's heart stirred. He liked this. Chaos was the perfect seasoning for a hunt. But Norman wasn't finished. He pulled out two photographs: Mary Jane Watson and Aunt May.
"A game with only one choice is boring. On one side, he has tens of thousands of innocent citizens. On the other... the two women he loves most in this world. I want to see which one he lets die."
Karn actually found himself applauding. "I like your game. So... where are the women now?"
Norman smiled slyly, flicking the photos toward the man of sand. "Don't worry. Mr. Marko is going to go 'invite' them to the party right now. Am I right, Flint?"
Sandman caught the photos, glanced at the addresses written on the back, and dissolved into a pile of grit.
"Wait for my good news," a voice echoed from the dust as it blew into the ventilation shafts.
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