----
Inside the lab, Nolan's focus was locked on Subject Nine.
The display showed that his genetic mutations now mirrored Matt Murdock's almost perfectly..... almost.
One crucial gene marker still hadn't aligned.
He'd hit a wall.
Nolan had already reconstructed the scene of Murdock's transformation using data from the incident report: environmental variables, chemical composition, and temperature gradients… all modeled to perfection in the system.
He brought up the simulation again.
In the video: a truck speeds through the street, its brakes failing. The driver panics, swerving wildly. A child steps into its path.
Just before impact, a figure dives out pulling the kid to safety.
The truck crashes. Chemical waste explodes from its tank, splashing across Matt's face.
Nolan narrowed his eyes.
"Subject Nine, reinitiate trial. Increase dosage. Inject adrenaline simultaneously," he ordered sharply.
Then it clicked Matt had been saving someone when it happened.
That life-or-death stress must've triggered an adrenaline surge, accelerating the serum's binding process.
Within seconds, the lab monitors lit up. Gene markers began aligning.
One by one, the previously unlinked sequences are locked into place. Both genetic profiles, Matt's and Subject Nine's, turned green.
Progress bar: 100%.
"Success," Connors whispered, swallowing hard.
'This guy's a monster…' he thought. A genius monster.
"Prepare for dissection," Nolan said calmly.
Even with a perfect match, he wouldn't proceed until he verified the results on a cellular level. No assumptions. Only evidence.
"Yes, sir."
…
Night fell.
Thunder rumbled across New York. A massive thunderstorm rolled in, casting a heavy gloom over the city. From above, Oscorp shone like a beacon but it was surrounded.
Vehicles like ants converging on sugar approached from every direction.
In a building not far from Oscorp, Steve Rogers peered through binoculars.
"They're moving in heavy. Full gear," he muttered. "Hydra's pulling out everything they've got."
"Why Oscorp?" he asked.
Clint Barton turned to Natasha, catching the subtle shift in her expression when the name Nolan was mentioned earlier.
She'd hidden it well but not from him.
Natasha's voice was clipped and controlled.
"When I was tracking Klaw, I heard whispers about Oscorp. They're replicating a human enhancement serum. Recent sightings of the Green Goblin? All trace back here."
"Certain tech involved is unique to Oscorp."
She laid out all the intel she could except Nolan.
They didn't know yet what she did.
They didn't know… what she had become.
She'd tested it herself. A small cut on her hand had healed in seconds.
And Clint? His team had started changing too.
But most of them? They didn't survive. They turned into sludge.
"Hydra's after the serum?" Steve asked, frowning. "Or the Goblin?"
"We don't know," Natasha said. "But there's more going on in that building than we've been told."
Steve slung his shield onto his back. "Let's find out."
They turned to leave but Natasha hesitated again, frozen in place.
Clint gave her a light nudge.
She blinked and nodded. "Right. Let's move."
The trio slipped out into the rain.
A bolt of lightning splits the sky. Torrential rain poured over New York like divine judgment.
Inside Oscorp, lightning illuminated the terrified face of the dissected Subject Nine. His eyes were now milky white.
Nolan stood over the body, scanning data.
"So… that's it."
"The enhanced sensory nerves displace the visual cortex. That's why he's blind it wasn't just chemical exposure. It's competition. His brain rewired itself."
Vision had been sacrificed to make room for something greater.
Perfectly replicable, Nolan thought.
"No problem at all."
He turned away. "Begin prep."
Removing his super-hearing headset, Nolan felt an instant emptiness. The silence was suffocating like being deafened.
His brain had adapted to heightened sound. Without it, the world felt distant.
Like taking off glasses after years you could function, but everything felt wrong.
He lay down on the table.
Connors moved into position. "You're sure about this?"
"Inject it," Nolan said.
The needle pierced the skin near his tear duct. A cool, pale-blue serum entered his bloodstream.
Instantly, the Evolution Catalyst is activated and designed to accelerate the body's absorption of foreign compounds.
Normally, the serum would take hours to take hold.
Nolan's took seconds.
First came the heat. Then clarity.
The sound exploded in his mind.
Footsteps. Breaths. Raindrops. Wind through cracks in the walls. A thousand overlapping signals, each clear, each layered.
His ear canals were reshaped. Eardrums thickened. The ossicles were restructured.
Simultaneously, his nose twitched. Every scent is split into recognizable categories: cataloged, indexed, and remembered.
Touch responded next to temperature, humidity, and airflow. Every molecule in the air danced across his skin.
Multiple senses collided, intertwining into something beyond human comprehension.
The world lit up.
His eyes stayed unchanged but the rest?
His brain struggled to keep up at first an overload of input crashing through his mind.
But he'd trained for this. Built for this.
And soon, he adapted.
"This… is what it feels like," he whispered.
He understood now. He understood Matt.
Suddenly, a 3D model of Oscorp's surroundings was rendered inside his mind. Not static real-time, moving. Dozens of vehicles converge.
Nolan smiled.
"We've got test subjects on the way."
He tapped his earpiece.
"Get ready," he said. "Company's coming."
----
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