(One) 14:07

Norman Osborn was in his office, sitting at his desk, watching the cell phone that had been delivered to him earlier today. The unknown voice that had been toying with him that afternoon was now speaking.

"It's time for our final conversation, Mr. Osborn. You should choose your words carefully. Though to be frank, I don't really intend on giving you much to say."

Soul-Storers

(Two) "I know everything about you, the secrets you've kept from everyone, and the secrets you've kept from yourself. In particular, the secret you kept so far from yourself that you completely forgot about it. The secret that was so well forgotten the people you wronged have no memory of it.

"You still think I'm bluffing; I can tell. Even though I've alluded to something that shows I'm not. But it doesn't matter. This isn't about the Green Goblin, and the people you've killed under that masked identity. There's been so many Goblins, I could never prove it. But this, this, can't even be forgiven.

"It's been amusing for you. You get to play with having a conscience. You even get to be the patron of the man you so grievously wronged. And now you have all the wonders of Oscorp to play with it, to make the world a better place. Head of SHIELD, so much of the world was open to you. Here's the thing, Osborn. I don't believe in redemption. And when this day is over, neither will you.

"You don't know who's doing this to you. And you will never know. A dead man once killed Lance Bannon. You could spend a lifetime going through the rabbit hole I just gave you, and you will never find the connection to me. And you don't have a lifetime, just a few hours.

"So this is the choice. You can wait until this evening, when I release the information I have and everything you've ever built falls apart. Or… you can do the right thing."

The voice made a wry, cruel little chuckle, and Osborn winced because it was the same kind of wry, cruel little chuckle he had made so many times in the past.

"Oh, just one more thing. You survived being impaled because your Goblin power gave you a special healing factor. Except how would it have worked if your heart had been impaled?"

(Three) The call ended. The cell phone seemed to smoke. But instead of self-destructing, only a few vital components burnt up, making tracking the phone quite impossible.

"Did you get all that?" Osborn asked, as his secretary Ms. Koziak entered.

"Yes. There's no way of getting through the voice-altering technology. But I can positively say the call was made in New York."

"With routers that call could made from anywhere."

"No. We can detect routers. We can't locate the call any more closely, but it was made in New York City."

Osborn was not pleased with this. "I suppose I can't complain too much. Part of what Oscorp does is to make this kind of untraceable technology."

"I know it doesn't help much given the size of the city. But at least we can be sure it wasn't made by Dr. Doom. And it could help narrow down possible suspects. It would be nice to know if it wasn't the Red Skull."

"I'm quite sure it wasn't the Skull and his umpteenth deadly, yet conveniently overly complicated, plan. Anyway, I suspect I was talking to a subordinate.

"As it happens, I have an idea who we were talking to. And not the sort of person one should accuse lightly. But right this moment, we have work to do."

(Four) 14:11

Sandman and Spider-Man were still being pursued by Morlun. "We're moving away from the skyscrapers," Sandman noted.

"Yeah, eventually we're going to run out of Manhattan."

"Ah. Well at least it's a nice day. It's been a very mild December."

Spider-Man looked around and noticed a construction site nearby. "Hold that thought."

Morlun was getting closer to the two. So he did not expect Spider-Man to abruptly swing around and kick him in his chest. Spider-Man's plan worked and Morlun found himself falling to the ground. He landed right in the middle of the construction site, landing on a floor of wet cement.

(Five) "Did that work?" Spider-Man wondered to himself. An instant later it became clear that it did not. Morlun leaped out of the cement and continued his pursuit. His force field was so effective that there wasn't any cement on his clothes.

"Why did you do that?" Sandman wondered.

"Well, it worked on a similarly invulnerable foe. Though to be fair Morlun is considerably more agile and probably stronger as well."

(Six) Aunt May did not know where she was. All around her was darkness. She could barely see anything. She looked at her hands. They were impossibly old and wrinkled. She looked at them more closely and they appeared to be made of dust, alternately dissipating and reforming. She gasped and was not clear whether she was speaking or thinking. "I have been trapped here for thousands of years."

An immense weight was on her back. An immense, invisible weight. "I feel like I'm being crushed. That I have been crushed for five millennia and more. That the slightest effort to try to squeeze my way out under my burden, and I will be instantly crushed and destroyed.

"I can't imagine anything other than this existence. Mentally, I am as prostrate under the memory of this burden and this unbelievable length as I am by the actual weight. But something's not right.

"I must think. That creature, Nightmare, said my death would be like a singularity, infinitesimally short to those looking outside it, infinitely long to me trapped within it. This must be what's happening to me. This is my fate, my eternal fate.

"But something's not right. How could I spend thousands of years experiencing this, and only thinking this now? There's something I'm missing. What is it?

"Peter mentioned something once. Retcon. What could it mean? Why am I thinking of it?

"Wait a minute. It's an acronym or something. Retroactive Continuity. Where did Peter mention it?"

(Seven) "Now I remember. Peter mentioned it about some television series he was watching. Usually science-fiction shows or fantasy ones. The show would have an overall narrative, but as it developed the producers and writers would realize that there was some element that needed to be changed. And one option was to pretend that this was always how it was supposed to be. The writers would knit a new element into the show as if it had always been there.

"Let me think. I need an example. Here's two. Peter mentioned a television show, a British one, about an alien disguised as an Englishman. At one point he was injured after an attack from a deadly villain, and he went to a serene ancient community to recover. But the ancient community was actually a trap, its entire history an illusion to trap him.

"And there was Philip Chang. Yes, he was a fellow graduate student of Peter's. And one day we were talking about China and he said that while China's history goes back five millennia, Japan pretends to be more than a millennium older than it really is.

"That's it! I haven't been here for thousands of years! I may not have been here for thousands of seconds. This is just another illusion of Nightmare's.

"Have to think! Have to concentrate! If I can imagine, think more clearly, maybe I understand where I am really. It's still dark. I can't see anything. But something's different…

"I don't seem to have arms. Or legs. Am I paralyzed? I think I can move, ever so slowly. Where am I?

"Hold on. The weight on me, about to crush me. It's not as present. Am I just imagining that? Hoping that? It's still there? But is it about to fade? If I'm just a little patient.

"I'm not on the ground. I'm on something. I'm pressing on something. I was about to be crushed, but now I'm on top of something. Why?

"And there's something else. I'm thirsty. Have to drink. But what? From where? I need to drink. And I'm drinking right now. Well, I certainly need to drink as much of this as possible. It's very wet. But… it's sticky. Like blood…"

(Eight) And then the light appeared, and somehow Aunt May could see herself, as a grotesque leech, sucking out the blood from an emaciated, half-dead Peter.

(Nine) 14:13

Mary Jane Watson was still at LaGuardia, waiting for a shuttle. On the one hand, she was slightly bored. On the other hand, she was still nervous about Morlun and his pursuit of Peter. Just then her phone rang.

It was Paul. "Have you heard about this Morlun creature?"

"Yes. So far, he hasn't ripped Peter from limb to limb. Though I don't know how Peter is going to stop him."

"I saw him myself. In fact, I pushed him out of the Chrysler Building. But it didn't do any good."

"No, his ability to defy gravity and leap through the air is a real buzzkiller. Hold on…"

"What?"

"There's something missing. There's something I should be remembering."

"You know, I may be able to help you about that."

"Really? Why?"

"I was just thinking what a strange coincidence that I should be in the same building as a super-villain attacking Peter. And that led me to think about the whole time-twisting business that got us together in the first place."

"This isn't just your clever plan to get back together is it?"

(Ten) "No, no. As I told Peter last month, I've been taking medicine to deal with it. And I've been dealing with the effects. But when I was wondering about my encounter with Morlun, something occurred to me about the memories."

"What?"

"It's not just that the memories were all scattered and confused. I just realized that there a couple of memories that haven't happened yet."

"What do you mean?"

"I can't fully review the memories without having a headache. But one deals with something, the beast… I don't know anything more. But in the second one I'm somehow suffused with light. It's very strange…"

"That is very strange." And for a moment Mary Jane "remembered" something that had not actually happened yet. But then…

"Hold on," she said.

"What?"

"I don't like the way somebody here is looking at me."

"Maybe you're just being overly suspicious."

"Suspicious people looking at me for nefarious purposes has been happening to me for more than a decade. I trust my instincts." Mary Jane hung up, and calmly got up and left the waiting area. After waiting fifteen seconds, the man she was suspicious of, perhaps ten years older and in good health, got up and followed her.

(Eleven) 14:17

Sandman and Spider-Man were still being chased by Morlun. They were in the south of Manhattan, in the Soho region, when Sandman spoke up. "Hey, I just got a text!"

"Really?"

"It's asking you to call this number."

"Let me see if I can swing just this way so Morlun will avoid us just long enough for you to call it." And Spider-Man did make a stunning maneuver, which was more impressive because (a) he was still carrying Sandman and (b) he had to make sure he didn't drop him. Just out of sight on a fourth story ledge, Sandman dialed the number. "My phone isn't telling me who it's from."

"That doesn't necessarily mean anything. It could just be… what the?"

"Is something wrong? Is it Morlun?"

"It's not my spider-sense. It's something different, and yet vaguely familiar. But it's so inconveniently vague I can't remember what it is."

"Here's the phone."

"Spider-Man? It's me, Jimmie Woo." said the voice on the other end.

"That sounds vaguely familiar. For some reason I'm thinking of Spider-Woman. Now if I could only remember which one…"

"Look, Jessica would tell me I'm in SHIELD. Or was."

"That sounds a lot more familiar."

(Twelve) "Look, I've spent the past half hour trying to find you and help you. There's a whole host of SHIELD technology that can help us, and which we can put into effect once we meet up. I'm just a couple of blocks from you."

"Uh huh. Uh huh." And a few seconds later Spider-Man and Sandman were swinging towards a relatively small office building. Spider-Man opened a second story window, followed by Sandman. That room was abandoned. "Jimmy, where are you?"

"You're getting warmer. Try the suite to your right."

Spider-Man complied. "Where are you now?"

"Getting warmer. Try the next room."

The next room had no windows and was pitch dark. It was hard to see anything. It was especially hard to see Morlun emerge from the shadows and sneer, with Woo's voice, "Red hot."

(Thirteen) Morlun's blow was intended to be a killing one, and only Sandman's interference limited it to "only" smashing Spider-Man into two rooms down. Still entangled by Sandman, he still easily leaped to where Spider-Man was lying, momentarily stunned. "You silly fool. I cross through universes. You didn't think I can track your phone and imitate someone's voice?"

"Guess I know now."

Morlun punched Spider-Man, and again Sandman's interference limited a killing blow into one that merely punched Spider-Man out of the building, such that he crashed into the kitchen of Dr. Strange's brownstone, startling an understandably shocked woman perhaps a couple of years younger than him.

(Fourteen) "Yes, this is the truth," a great booming voice declared. "All the things your nephew could have been, should have been, he hasn't been! Because you have been a leech! Sucking out the lifeblood from his very veins!"

In the distance Aunt May could see what appeared to be birds approaching her. She realized she was no longer a giant leech and Peter, in any form, was no longer near her.

As they approached, Aunt May realized that they were not birds. They were winged figures of fire. The one closest to her was carrying a giant sword. Angels. And in their flame, they were clearly but somehow tactfully naked.

The closest Angel landed, carrying his sword. "All you have ever been was a millstone around your nephew's neck. A vice he could never free himself from. The guilt you've been poisoning him with since your first husband died has been killing him more than your own cancer!"

"I don't believe you."

"You deny me? You deny the Truth of all Being? You've never felt guilty about how you've treated him."

"I certainly deny you and all your works, whatever they may be."

The Angel was a little nonplussed, so Aunt May explained. "Isn't it obvious? You're still Nightmare."

(Fifteen) Indeed, it was Nightmare, who slapped Aunt May so hard she fell to the ground. She collected herself and stood up again. "A gentleman doesn't hit women."

"This is my world. I can do whatever I want."

"No. You can't kill me. I will die soon, but that's my body, not you."

Nightmare changed the subject. "But your nephew could be so much more. How much higher could he have flied if you weren't dragging him down to earth?"

"I don't think that's true at all. I was rather annoyed when somehow Peter got involved with Otto Octavius and tried borrowing his technology to become a multi-millionaire. And then he lost it all, and in doing so he managed to lose his doctorate because he plagiarized Otto. That was very unlike him, come to think of it."

"You're hiding something from me!"

"Why should I tell you anything? You're a demon, for God's sake."

"Why aren't you being more honest? Why are you keeping something from yourself?"

"Why don't you just go away and leave me alone?" But she didn't notice that the Angels behind her were turning white, like Nightmare.

(Sixteen) "Take her!" Nightmare shared. And then he and all the other "angels" turned into malevolent vultures. In an instant they swarmed around her, tearing at her flesh. Somehow no blood dropped on the ground. But in a few seconds, there was nothing left of Aunt May. In triumph the kettle of vultures flew away, leaving nothing behind.

Except a small little girl. She was wearing a bathing suit and a small little pail decades old. "Here I am. I have to make a whole wall of bricks, and I don't have any straw at all." She paused. "Well, no time like the present."

(Seventeen) "Are you alright?" asked the young woman, who was clearly of American Indian descent.

"I've felt worse," Spider-Man said, only for his legs to crumble below him. He barely regained his balance. "Though quite frankly, today's efforts are taking a toll."

"Look, Dr. Strange isn't here. He's…"

"Yeah, I know, he's in Venice. And you are?"

"I'm Sara Wolfe. I've been the Doctor's friend for years. And I'm his accountant." Spider-Man looked around and noted the couple of ledgers and a host of scattered receipts around the kitchen that confirmed Sara's story. He looked out the window he had crashed through and saw that Morlun was still battling Sandman. It was clear that Sandman had improved his technique, so Morlun was often just hitting empty air.

"OK. We've got a couple of minutes while Sandman delays Morlun. I've got an idea. Does the good doctor have an egg-timer?"

"Uh, yeah, I think he does."

"Right, I need you to get it. Plus anything that has a spring in it. Plus anything small scale mechanical devices, like an alarm clock or rubber bands or whatever."

(Eighteen) The two quickly scoured through the kitchen and the nearby closets. Spider-Man hastily made a doohickey whose Rube Goldberg like composition did a good job of hiding its purpose. He took that, along with the mechanical egg-timer and entered Dr. Strange's study, with Sara following him.

Spider-Man opened the window he had stepped through the last time he visited Dr. Strange. As he quickly attached the egg-timer to a strange purple gem. As it happened Morlun and Sandman were now fighting on this side of the Brownstone.

"I could use a little help!" Sandman shouted, just before he suffered another punch from Morlun. "Actually, I could use a lot of help!"

"Hold on Sandy! Just a couple more minutes."

Spider-Man felt his Spider-Sense tingle and quickly walked out of the study and to a nearby closet. He opened it and found a host of strange mystical objects. His Spider-Sense directed him to a strange vial, filled with an unknown black liquid.

"Do you know what this is?" he asked Sara.

"Yeah. It's basically like holy water, except it's more like holy hydrochloric acid, and is certainly not to be used by amateurs."

(Nineteen) Spider-Man leaped back into the study. "Sara, attach that doo-hickey to the door of the study on your side, just above the lower hinge." He quickly attached the vial to the gem and the egg-timer.

"Is there anything else I can do?" Sara asked.

"Yeah. Run. Out the back door. There's a good chance this brownstone will be a pile of ruins shortly. And if that happens I'll probably be dead, so tell Dr. Strange I'm sorry."

She quickly left. Meanwhile Sandman was losing ground in his fight against Morlun when Spider-Man yanked him into the study.

Morlun dove right after them, landing right beside them and not actually breaking the window. Spider-Man leaped over him and successfully closed it. But then Morlun grabbed Spider-Man and tossed him out of the study and into the hall.

Spider-Man saw Sandman punch Morlun while he got to his feet.

(Twenty) He looked past the two combatants and at the egg timer. Although he couldn't really see it from where he was standing, he knew it only had a few seconds left. Spider-Man quickly flew two shots of webbing. The first yanked Sandman out of the study. The second activated the doohickey had attached to the study door and slammed it shut in Morlun's face.

"What good does that do?" asked a non-plussed Morlun. "I can smash down the…" And then the egg-timer rang, causing the black vial to break over the strange purple gem.

"What did you just do?" Sandman wondered.

"If we're lucky I may have just stopped Morlun for good. Cross your fingers. And for a few seconds, nothing could be heard on the other side of the door.

(Twenty-One) And then Morlun walked through the door like it was made of tissue paper. Behind him odd balls of purple floated behind him, seeming to turn into cotton candy and dissipating altogether. Behind Morlun, Spider-Man and Sandman did not recognize the three minor mystics Demonicus, Kaecilius and Adria who had been trapped in the Purple Dimension for at least a decade our time. "We're free!" "I can't believe it!" "Are we on earth again?"

Adria moved to embrace Morlun: "Thankyouthankyouthankyou…" Morlun responded by grabbing her throat and crushing her windpipe. "Shut up," he said just a little smugly as he dropped Adria's corpse to the ground. As Sandman and Spider-Man backed down the hall into another room, the other two mystics, now quite terrified, sneaked behind Morlun and quickly made their escape.

"That was your plan Spider-Man? I will grant the Purple Dimension could ensnare all humans. But my people easily move from universe to universe. Escaping its clutches is child's play to me.

"I can sense your weakness. This is taking longer than I thought it would. But you'll still die very soon."

(Twenty-Two) "Hold on!" Spider-Man said. "There's something strange…" He grabbed Sandman by the hand.

14:22

And then the two vanished.