Nighttime, Osborne Industrial Building, New York
Under the cold lights of the rooftop laboratory, Norman Osborn was embedding the final combat module into the chest plate of the Green Goblin armor.
"Hmm?"
His hand froze midair. His pupils—already tinged with green—contracted sharply, and he whirled toward the shadowed corner behind him.
Eyes narrowed, his voice came out harsh and grating, like sandpaper scraping metal:
"You've been watching long enough. Aren't you going to step out and greet your host?"
Silence answered him—only the low hum of the ventilation system filled the air.
Just as Norman began to suspect another hallucination, a series of crisp footsteps broke the stillness.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Leather ankle boots clicked softly against the marble floor, weaving a strange, deliberate rhythm.
Norman spun around—and there stood a blue-haired boy, as if conjured from the night itself.
He wore a flowing indigo robe, its gradient deepening toward the hem, where dark cloud motifs shimmered like rippling water with each step. Under the sterile lamplight, his amber eyes gleamed with quiet intelligence.
With a voice as clear and resonant as clinking jade pendants, he said:
"Brilliant craftsmanship—truly ingenious. Yet such talent has been led astray. A regrettable waste."
He tilted his head toward the armor. "This suit… it pulses with corrupted qi, steeped in a venom that gnaws at bone. No vessel for virtue, this."
Norman's gaze swept the lab: triple biometric locks untouched, laser grids inactive, motion sensors silent. This slender youth had slipped through Osborn Industries' defenses like a ghost.
Without a word, Norman retreated three meters, his thumb pressing a hidden alarm beneath his sleeve. His voice turned icy:
"Who are you? What do you want?"
The boy smiled faintly. A mischievous glint danced in his peach-blossom eyes, and every gesture carried the grace of a noble house's heir. Casually, he bowed slightly:
"A pleasure. I am Xingqiu—a mere bookworm who occasionally wields a sword."
He gestured toward the lab. "Passing through, I sensed your mechanisms—ingenious, yes—but shadowed by a faint aura of malice. Curiosity compelled me to inquire—"
Before he could finish, Norman lunged.
A blade flashed from his sleeve, aimed straight for Xingqiu's throat.
Whoosh!
The steel sliced the air—only to meet empty space.
Xingqiu's toes barely brushed the floor. His indigo robes bloomed like ink lotuses as he drifted backward, light as willow catkins. The blade grazed the jade pendant at his chest, then carved a mirror-smooth gash through the alloy workbench behind him.
"Such… enthusiastic hospitality," Xingqiu mused. "I confess, I'm unaccustomed to it."
As he spoke, he pivoted gracefully, and the weapon at his waist—the Eye of Heaven—flared to life.
In his hand now gleamed Miechen, the "Extinction of Dust." Its gilded shaft coiled with emerald wave patterns, and droplets along the spearhead fractured the crimson emergency lights into a thousand prismatic sparks.
Norman's eyes narrowed. Where had that come from?
"Tricks!" Norman snarled. He dove toward the Green Goblin armor, slamming a button on its forearm. From the shoulder plating, eighteen micro-darts hissed through the air toward Xingqiu.
Using the distraction, Norman stomped toward the control console, boots cracking marble beneath him, desperate to don the suit.
"Your mechanisms are impressive," Xingqiu called out, laughter threading his voice.
Miechen danced—a stroke of ink given motion.
From its tip surged a curtain of water, blooming midair into azure spear-flowers. The darts struck the swirling vortex and sank like stones in mud, flicked aside with effortless precision.
Norman's fingers were half an inch from the armor's activation switch—when the spearpoint pressed coldly against his spine.
Clang!
He twisted unnaturally, his short blade intercepting the spear just in time. But the parry was a feint. In the same motion, Norman flicked three poison needles from his sleeve—straight for Xingqiu's eyes!
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Xingqiu tilted his head. A few strands of light-blue hair fluttered down, severed by the venom-tipped darts.
Yet Miechen seemed to awaken. Its tassel exploded into a thousand liquid blades, each hardening into razor-sharp sword energy.
But Norman had already sealed his fate—he activated the armor.
The Green Goblin suit clamped shut with a hydraulic hiss. Water-swords shattered against its alloy shell in a shower of sparks.
Norman tapped his wrist console. Six auto-cannons unfolded from the glider, their infrared sights locking onto Xingqiu like bloodshot eyes. He grinned, teeth bared.
"Times have changed, kid."
Da-da-da!
Bullets erupted—but Xingqiu was already moving.
He spun, Miechen carving a crystalline arc. The water element coiled around the projectiles, bending their path into a spiraling tornado. Every round deflected into the walls, spraying molten sparks.
"What—?!"
Before Norman could react, Xingqiu was upon him—gliding over the water-slick floor like a dragon through mist. Each step landed between the gaps in the gunfire. When his spear met the ground, lilies of liquid bloomed; when it thrust forward, it tore silk from the air.
BOOM!
Azure light erupted from Miechen. At its tip, water condensed into a roaring dragon's maw.
Norman barely raised his blade—but his hesitation cost him.
Whoosh!
The spear swept past like a startled swan, knocking the dagger aside with surgical precision.
Xingqiu spun, reversed his grip, and drove Miechen forward—a torrent of pressurized water aimed at Norman's throat. The spearpoint hovered less than three inches from his Adam's apple, steam already scoring his skin.
"Wait! I surrender—!" Norman cried, terror flooding his face.
The spear halted. Droplets from its tip beaded on Norman's neck like icy tears.
"Since you yield," Xingqiu began, voice calm, "then—"
Norman's lips twisted into a sneer.
"Go to hell!"
A flash—his wrist module detonated the lab's glass wall. The glider shot inward like a spinning blade, aimed straight for Xingqiu's heart.
Clang!
Without turning, Xingqiu flicked his wrist backward. Miechen traced a perfect arc, striking the glider's edge. Metal shrieked as the device careened into the far wall, crumpling like foil.
"To stoop to such pettiness," Xingqiu sighed, "is beneath a man of your station."
Norman saw his chance. A dark-green dagger snapped from his leg armor. With a guttural cackle—"Gah! Gah! Go complain in hell!"—he lunged for Xingqiu's chest.
But halfway through the thrust, his body convulsed.
The dagger clattered to the floor. Norman collapsed, knees buckling, hands clawing at his own face. His skin writhed as if infested, eyes rolling between agony and fury. Inhuman growls tore from his throat—the Goblin Serum, at last, turning o
n its host.
Xingqiu turned slowly, watching the man writhe.
"Perhaps," he murmured, "the armor was not the only thing poisoned."
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