18. Norman Osborn

"Settle down."

These were the words accompanying the sound of cracking concrete. Connor's head was bleeding from that huge impact and had already lost consciousness.

It was right about this time when Peter rushed in, he saw how Adam ruthlessly plant Connor's head into the concrete floor.

One hit! Oh my god! What kind of arm strength does he have!?

No kidding. Adam had been training for more than eight years, his body was far stronger than an average person. To put it in simpler terms, a normal human can lift upto his own weight where as someone stronger can go twice or thrice like weightlifters.

Where as Adam can go more than ten times his weight and that's without considering the benefit brought by True Inner Gates. After opening the first two gates Adam experienced an explosive growth in strength.

Each gate grants him twice the power of the previous one. The First Gate gave him a boost of 2 tons and the Second Gate doubled that power, making his strength shoot up by 4 tons.

Combine it with his own power Adam now has strength equal to five tons. If he were to use Tsunade's ninjutsu then his raw would be staggering.

Peter was depressed to see an opponent he was having so much trouble beating lay on the ground like a dead chicken.

"Go stop that."

Adam adjusted his voice slightly and said to Peter.

Waking from his thoughts Peter immediately understood what Doctor Connor's was doing. After fiddling around the machine for a bit Peter managed to stop it.

Connor was planning to change the entire New York city. For that he was going to use the cloud dispenser to spread the serum all over New York.

The Cloud Dispenser as its name suggests would disperse the serum in the form of a cloud over New York. Once it forms a cloud then it's guaranteed game over. Luckily Adam took out Doctor Connor and Peter took care of the Cloud Dispenser.

"Alright. Hey, now can you tell me... Huh? Where did he go?"

Peter was finished with his work and turned around to find Adam and Doctor Connor missing. Only the cracked floor and messed up lab entered his eyes.

How did he... can he vanish like a chameleon or... a ghost? Nah. Ghosts can't make others vanish or could they?'

With so many weird questions in mind Peter made himself scarce. Soon the police and relevant people of Osborn Industries rushed in, they were stunned to find the Lab in a mess and the cloud dispenser filled with the serum.

Authorities did what they had to and maintained the scene. As a company that rose from nothing they have seen enough in their time and this incident was quickly covered by some excuses before any major details leaked out.

Of course the facts about the Lizard was also covered up. They didn't know where it went, most of the cameras inside the lab was destroyed by someone so it was impossible to know where it was or where they went.

...

Osborn Manor.

Norman Osborn stood inside his study looking out through the window. The moon was hung up in the sky with uncountable stars accompanying it. The silvery radiance shined through the skies making anyone looking at it appreciate its beauty.

The study only had the moonlight as a source. Looking at the moon Norman's eyes reflected tranquility. Something he very rarely shows.

"We finally meet."

It wasn't clear who he was speaking to but as soon as those words left him, a figure emerged from the shadows. He wore black clothes and had a black fox mask on his face revealing two pitch black eyes.

"It seems like you expected me."

Adam's voice didn't contain any surprise, he merely said those words for the sake of it.

Norman calmly spoke, "I knew one day this meeting was inevitable. You have been trying to get the research papers for years, it's just that it wasn't time yet, right?"

Adam did speak.

Norman continued, "At first I suspected that you were hired by those scums from military but now... I don't think so."

Adam asked without any change in his emotions, "And why is that?"

"Intuition. You cleaned out every gang within this city, now no one has the courage to do any dealings openly like they used to before. That just shows your strength and yet you didn't resort to any extreme methods all these years."

"That gives me the impression that you have another goal. Not one for profit but for another reason, I speculated many possible scenarios but denied most of them and finally came to a conclusion."

"You don't care for that medicament itself but someone associated with it. Maybe your family, maybe your friend or maybe someone else."

"I definitely don't have anyone like you as my friend or my family, if I had someone as outstanding as you within my circle of limited friends I would have known. That only leaves one more person, my son, Harry."

Norman turned around at this point. He looked at those pair of pitch black eyes searching for some sort of change but came up with nothing. This didn't disappoint him but made him hold the man before him in high esteem.

"My son is a playboy and very easy going and maybe because of that he has people around him he can call true friends. Only they would have no greed for this research."

"Harry has three people he let into his life, Peter, his best friend. Elle, a charming but caring young lady. Then there is Adam, calm and mature."

"So you can only be one among these three. Peter is a good boy, he won't be cruel to his enemies, so he is out. Elle is kind, so she is out as well. That only leaves Adam."

Silence...

Short few seconds later Adam sighed and said, "Truly intelligent uncle Norman."

Norman shook his head, "This has nothing to do with intelligence. You stand out too much among his friends. I was just close to the answer that's why I could guess it was you, anyone other than me wouldn't be able to."

Adam didn't find his words unreasonable. He took a seat as did Norman. Both of them stared at each other for few seconds before Adam asked.

"Why did you seek me out?"