Norman Osborn wasn't just a madman in a mask; he was a titan of industry. As the head of Oscorp, he spent half his life looking at energy schematics and competitor patents. The moment that blue, pulsing glow illuminated the wreckage of Hammer's lab, Norman's blood went cold. He knew exactly what that was—or at least, what it looked like. It was the forbidden fruit of the energy world: the Arc Reactor.
But seeing it strapped to the chest of a man who looked like he'd crawled out of a Siberian coal mine? That didn't make sense. That technology was supposed to be locked behind the golden gates of Stark Tower, protected by layers of AI and billion-dollar security teams.
"Who the hell are you?" Osborn growled, his voice distorted by the helmet's comms. "Stark doesn't hire people who look like they eat glass for breakfast."
Ivan Vanko let out a low, guttural laugh, the electricity from his whips illuminating his scarred face in rhythmic flashes. "Stark? I am the ghost of the man who actually built that sun." He took a step forward, his heavy boots crunching on broken glass. "My name is Ivan Vanko. And today is the day the world stops looking at the moon and starts looking at me."
To Vanko, this was more than a fight; it was his debutante ball. He had spent months rotting in the dark, breathing in the fumes of underground pipes and soldering wires by candlelight. No more hiding like a rat. Tonight, he was the storm.
"Ivan Vanko? Russian?" The name bounced around Justin Hammer's concussed brain. He was a man who lived for intellectual property theft, yet he'd never heard of a Vanko in the Stark archives.
"You think Tony Stark is a genius?" Vanko sneered, sensing their confusion. He circled the room, his whips hissing like angry cobras. "The Starks are a family of pickpockets and storytellers. My father did the math. My father drew the lines. Howard Stark just put his name on the bottom of the page and called it a legacy. I'm here to take back the inheritance."
Hammer's eyes gleamed through the blood and grime on his face. He didn't care about the history or the ethics; he only cared about the leverage. "Listen, Ivan! We have a common problem!" Hammer shouted, clutching his shattered ribs. "Stark humilated me. He's the one holding the world hostage with that tech. You give me the schematics, I'll give you a budget bigger than some national GDPs. We'll bury him together!"
Vanko paused, his whips humming in the silence. He looked at Hammer—a pathetic, bleeding coward—and then at Osborn—a high-tech freak. "I came here to find a wallet, Hammer. It seems I found one with a loud mouth. I will help you break him, but first..." Vanko turned his gaze back to the Green Goblin. "I need to take out the trash."
CRACK.
Vanko's whip lashed out with the speed of a strike of lightning. Osborn, enhanced by the Goblin Formula, moved with unnatural fluidity, his body twisting in mid-air as the floor where he'd just stood exploded into blackened dust.
"You're fast, Russian, but you're fighting a god!" Osborn screamed. He tried to close the distance, but Vanko's reach was oppressive. The twin whips created a "no-man's-land" of high-voltage death. Every time Osborn tried to lunge, a whip would snap at his throat or his ankles, forcing him back.
However, Osborn's physical stats were no joke. The serum had turned his muscles into tempered steel and his reflexes into a blur. He wasn't getting hit, but he was getting frustrated. He looked at his HUD—AMMO DEPLETED.
The grand entrance had been too flashy. He'd burned through his machine-gun belts and his pumpkin bomb satchel clearing out the "extras" in the room. Now, facing a guy with infinite electrical energy and a reach that covered half the room, the glider was becoming a liability in the cramped, burning space.
"Hmph! Enjoy your little playground, Hammer!" Osborn roared, his pride wounded more than his body. He whistled, and the glider banked sharply, swooping under him. He latched onto the mag-locks. "Ivan Vanko, I'll remember your face. And Justin? Don't bother checking your insurance. You won't live long enough to collect!"
With a roar of the turbine, the Green Goblin shot out through the shattered window, a green streak disappearing into the Manhattan smog.
Vanko took a step toward the window, his whips still crackling.
"Don't... don't chase him!" Hammer wheezed, slumping against a desk. "Forget the freak! I'm dying over here! There's a button under the desk... black toggle. It opens the private elevator to the garage. Get me to the hospital, and I'll make you the richest man in the Eastern Bloc."
Vanko snorted, retracting the whips. The glow faded slightly, though the hum of the reactor remained constant. He was annoyed. His first outing should have ended with a body count of one CEO, not a tactical retreat. But as he looked at Hammer, he realized the billionaire was right. This was a marathon, not a sprint. The alliance with Hammer was the foundation; the destruction of Tony Stark was the penthouse.
Vanko grabbed his discarded black robe, threw it over his crude harness, and hoisted the mangled Justin Hammer over his shoulder like a sack of grain.
While Hammer was being rushed into emergency surgery under a pseudonym, Norman Osborn was having a meltdown in his private workshop.
The Green Goblin didn't handle rejection well. He had spent millions on that armor, sacrificed his sanity for the serum, and he'd been chased off by a man with a glowing chest and a couple of wires.
"Not enough power..." Norman whispered, his eyes bloodshot and wide. He stared at the damaged wing of his glider. "The glider is too light. It needs more. More missiles. More armor. More death."
His obsession was shifting. It wasn't just about Hammer anymore. It was about the fact that he had been challenged. The Goblin didn't just want to kill his enemies; he wanted to dominate the sky. He began pulling crates of experimental Oscorp ordnance out of storage—stuff the military had deemed "too unstable" or "too cruel."
The next morning, the sun rose over Queens, blissfully unaware of the high-tech arms race happening in the shadows.
At the Wing Chun Kwoon, the smell of soy milk and fried dough filled the air. It was the usual morning ritual: breakfast, training, and gossip.
"Did you guys catch the news about Hammer Industries?" Reese Fisk asked, leaning over a bowl of noodles. As the heir to the Fisk empire, he kept a close eye on the competition. "Someone turned their R&D lab into a charcoal pit last night."
Huang Wen, who was casually sipping tea, glanced at Reese. "You three were out on 'Three Swallows' patrol last night, weren't you? What, did you miss the fireworks?"
Zhong Qiang chuckled, shaking his head. "By the time we swung by, the NYPD and Hammer's private security had the place locked down tighter than a drum. We managed to slip in because Jack flashed his badge, but the scene was... weird."
"Weird how?" Logan asked, sitting nearby. He looked a bit restless, his fingers drumming on the table.
"No magic," Zhong Qiang explained. "Usually, when things blow up in this city lately, there's some sort of energy residue or mystical stink. This was all hardware. High-caliber rounds, specialized explosives. Jack said the blast patterns didn't match any standard military grenades. It looked like someone brought a mini-war into a laboratory."
Huang Wen leaned back, his mind spinning. Hammer Industries? In the original timeline, Hammer was just a footnote, a guy who tried to copy Stark and failed. But with the variables he'd introduced, things were deviating. "Hammer's only relevance is his obsession with Tony. If someone hit him, it's probably because of that. Tony's currently busy playing with the Chitauri tech I gave him, so it's not his doing. Probably just another shark in the water."
"Actually, the word on the street is a bit more specific," Reese added. "Hammer put out a statement from his hospital bed. He's claiming Norman Osborn personally attacked him on a flying surfboard."
"And Oscorp is calling it a frame job," Zhong Qiang added with a grin. "They claim their 'experimental flight platform' was stolen and that Hammer staged the attack to steal their tech. It's a total dog-fight in the press right now."
Logan, who had been uncharacteristically quiet, suddenly leaned toward Huang Wen. He had a look in his eye that Huang Wen recognized—the look of a man who was tired of being left behind.
"Hey, Boss," Logan said, his voice dropping to a fawning, almost suspicious level of politeness.
"What is it, Logan? You want more beer?"
"No, no," Logan said, offering a toothy, awkward smile. "I was thinking... Jean took me for a ride yesterday. Literally. We were way up there, Boss. Clouds, birds, the whole deal. It was... something else."
Huang Wen raised an eyebrow. "And?"
"And I'm tired of being the only one on the team who has to take the stairs," Logan muttered. "Do you have any of that... martial arts magic that lets a guy fly? I mean, I'm heavy, sure, but there's gotta be a 'Heavy Iron Flight' or something, right?"
Huang Wen stared at him for a second, then burst out laughing. "Fly? Logan, the last time I checked, you were nearly three hundred pounds of solid metal and gristle. You don't fly; you fall with style."
"I'm serious, Boss! I feel like a lawn ornament when the big stuff starts happening!"
"Logan," Huang Wen said, wiping a tear from his eye. "You're the man who isn't afraid of anything. Are you telling me you've changed your mind about heights?"