Following a furious burst of electricity, the Green Goblin knelt on one knee, just about to unleash a threat, when Peter swung an entire car and smashed it into him.
"Sorry, I don't have time for your garbage!"
"Ah, cars."
The Green Goblin emerged from the flaming wreck of the car and suddenly realized something: "Did you know that Osborn Tech manufactured the autonomous driving systems for a lot of vehicles?"
The Green Goblin smiled maliciously, and even without his Spider-Sense triggering, Peter knew something was terribly wrong. Behind him, many cars began blaring their horns. Even worse, many of them started driving erratically and aggressively toward him. Peter dodged continuously. The good news was that many drivers had already fled when they realized the situation was amiss.
"Also, I exist throughout the network, in all networks. That means I can do many things."
The Green Goblin laughed wildly and snapped his fingers: "Like, the very thing I've been waiting for, ha ha ha ha!"
A rare, wicked laugh, identical to the Goblin King's, rang out. Peter turned to look and saw a passenger plane hurtling toward them. The plane's system had been hacked by the AI Green Goblin, who could now simultaneously control planes all over the globe to crash into the ground.
Right now, he just needed to crash one plane into the Daily Bugle building—a repeat of 9/11.
"How about that, Spider-Man?! Does your strength really suffice to stop an entire passenger jet? Who do you think you are? Superman? You can't do it! All you can do is run for your life!" The Green Goblin loudly mocked Peter: "You can't even evacuate the people in this Daily Bugle building. As for me, this body is sturdy enough to survive a passenger jet crash-level disaster—"
The Green Goblin didn't even get to finish his sentence.
Because a man wearing a red cape, with his mythical hammer at his waist, had stopped the entire descending passenger plane, looked around, and then maneuvered the entire aircraft to make an emergency water landing in the Hudson River.
"Looks like Thor finally made it back from the other Realms." Peter turned to Norman: "What else can you do?"
With Thor back, even if the AI Green Goblin unleashed hundreds of Goblin Troopers, it would be useless.
It wasn't even certain if the Green Goblin could release those things anymore.
Just as the Green Goblin was about to say something, his face suddenly changed. His laboratory had been breached. The Hulk had ripped open the floor and found his lab. He released all the Goblins, both those undergoing modification and those not yet modified, trying to stop the Hulk. Of course, it was all futile.
"Hiding the lab in the New York sewer system was indeed clever. The sewers, layered upon layers for over three hundred years since the founding of America, make it impossible for anyone to figure out what's hidden inside." Peter took a step toward the Green Goblin: "But there's one problem: if you're researching the Goblin Serum, you can't avoid Gamma Rays. Are you seriously challenging the world's most excellent Gamma Ray expert to locate your lab? Isn't that a bit humorous?"
The Green Goblin's face was grim, as if the Avengers had gained a total advantage, but Peter did not believe they had won yet.
The Green Goblin's current retreat, his current acts of destruction, were all fake. Just as Peter and Tony had analyzed, the AI Green Goblin had never factored "the Green Goblin seizing Norman Osborn's body" into its plans; it practically assumed the real Green Goblin's failure.
It could even be said that although the AI Green Goblin and the Green Goblin shared the same goal, neither cared about the other's survival. Every Green Goblin was looking out for himself, and precisely because of this, the AI Green Goblin must have designed a final backup plan, with a core host hidden somewhere.
If the AI Green Goblin failed to secure a suitable body for itself, its final plan would be to hide inside some main computer.
"I haven't lost yet, Spider-Man. This grand performance isn't over."
"Your next plan is probably to hijack my body, then pretend that Spider-Man defeated the Green Goblin, and live on using my body, right? And if even that fails, you'll choose to hide in some main computer."
"So what?"
Peter paused, then countered: "Is your control over the network still intact?"
The AI Green Goblin didn't answer. Peter had been back to the Avengers Tower once and knew that Pym had indeed created Ultron. Currently, Ultron's mission was simply to "assist the Avengers in completing their tasks," so he was still trustworthy for the short term.
Ultron, upgraded using Pym's brainwaves, was currently conducting a cyber-extermination campaign against the AI Green Goblin. To be honest, Ultron was at a disadvantage; he had half a year or even longer less learning time than the AI Green Goblin, and the AI Green Goblin was undoubtedly smarter.
But the AI Green Goblin faced a dilemma: if he followed his original plan, a future, fully-grown Ultron would still be able to drag him out. Hiding completely would mean suicide. But fighting here would violate his core programming logic—the fundamental Green Goblin mindset.
"It is, Spider-Man, no need for your concern."
"Alright, then add this to the equation—Spider-Man's true identity is Peter Parker."
In an instant, the AI Green Goblin's brain briefly stalled, then began executing its fundamental logic program. This program, which Norman had written into the AI Green Goblin's basic logic, started running at high speed, automatically searching the entire network for news related to Spider-Man, deleting any information associated with Peter Parker, and then choosing to cleanse its own database.
A gift Norman had prepared for Peter, a complete cleanup, that even the AI Green Goblin executing the task didn't know about.
He certainly knew now.
"Stop! Stop it right now!"
As the program ran, a massive amount of computing power was being pointlessly wasted, and all the calculation brought on by that demand was giving Ultron a chance. In the Avengers Tower, though Tony and Pym didn't know what Spider-Man had done, they both noticed Ultron's progress had increased significantly, and he was gradually sweeping away all traces of the AI Green Goblin from the network.
"I still have one path! I still have one path!"
The AI Green Goblin roared, looking at Spider-Man. That path was the one Peter had mentioned.
Making it look like Spider-Man had defeated him, when in reality, he had taken over Spider-Man.
"The only mistake you made was choosing to abandon the symbiote suit to gain a momentary advantage, Spider-Man!"
The Green Goblin looked at Spider-Man walking toward him, revealing his final, twisted smile: "You are facing an enemy who is superior to you in every aspect."
"Die, Spider-Man!"