After squeezing Norman for everything he was worth, Tony granted him partial control over the Shadowkhan and sent him away. Then he returned to his room and started the draw.
Although this was hardly his first time, every draw filled him with an inexplicable excitement.
The pointer spun, and mysterious images flashed before Tony's eyes one after another. Stop.
At his silent command, the pointer on the wheel visibly slowed and soon came to a halt.
A docile little rabbit appeared before Tony's eyes, then instantly darted into his mind.
A thunderous roar filled Tony's mind.
The rabbit represented speed-speed beyond light itself. With the power of the Rabbit Talisman, even Flash would be a mere amateur compared to Tony.
Name: Tony Stark Gender: Male Identity: Heir to the Shadow Kingdom Abilities: Horse Talisman, Dragon Talisman, Sheep Talisman, Rabbit Talisman, control over Shadow Ninjas, control over Shadow Blades, control over Shadow Night Bats, control over Shadow Trolls. Draws remaining: 0 Dark Alliance members: Spider-Man, Winter Soldier, Green Goblin
As Tony looked at his updated stats, a satisfied smile curled his lips.
His figure flickered, and he vanished from the spot. When he reappeared, he was already in the downstairs living room.
Not even a second had passed since he left his room.
After testing the Rabbit Talisman's power, Tony summoned his newly acquired troll legion with a thought.
Huge figures appeared before him. Each Shadow Troll stood three meters tall, like a miniature giant.
On an ancient battlefield, they would have been devastating weapons of war.
Moreover, Shadow Trolls had the strongest defenses of all the Shadowkhan, making them ideal frontline tanks.
While Tony explored his new abilities, a jailbreak was unfolding at a New York prison.
Flint Marko stumbled through the sewers in a sorry state. He was still wearing his prison uniform, and exhaustion showed on his face.
He found a concealed spot in the sewers and stayed there for a long time. Only after nightfall did he quietly emerge.
But once he stepped out of the sewers, he realized he seemed to have lost his way. He was nowhere near the city; yellow sand stretched as far as he could see.
Flint was dumbfounded. With no other way to find a route home, he trudged onward through the sand.
But as time passed, he found no way out. Instead, he felt increasingly ill, and the world spun around him.
Just then, the ground gave way beneath his feet, and he sank into the sand. As quicksand swallowed his body, the groggy Flint snapped alert and began struggling violently.
But the harder he struggled, the faster he sank. Before long, the quicksand swallowed him completely.
Ten kilometers away, a sign hung on a fence: Military Test Site.
This was a site where the Military tested nuclear weapons, and the entire stretch of desert had been created by those nuclear tests.
He had unwittingly wandered from the sewers into the Military Test Site-a land of death saturated with nuclear radiation.
An unknown amount of time passed. Once moonlit night had fully blanketed the land, a hand emerged from the sand.
The sand churned, and Flint's figure slowly rose into view.
He stared at his hands in shock, his eyes full of disbelief.
He had thought he was doomed, yet somehow he had survived-and gained the ability to control sand.
Joy at having escaped death flooded his heart, but he soon calmed down.
Looking at the yellow sand around him, he no longer felt despair. This was his home turf.
After several hours, he left the Military Test Site and returned to New York City.
Still in his prison uniform, Flint returned to his home in the slums of Hell's Kitchen under cover of darkness.
Inside, a pale little girl and a woman were asleep.
Both had pale faces and wore shabby clothes. It was clear they were struggling to make ends meet.
Guilt filled Flint's eyes as he looked at them. He did not wake them, instead settling back against the couch and soaking in the feeling of home.
Then several sheets of paper on the table caught his attention. He picked them up, and soon his body began to tremble.
It was a medical report. According to it, the patient had leukemia and little time left.
The patient was his daughter.
The news struck Flint like a bolt from the blue, leaving him sitting frozen on the couch.
Leukemia was a terrifying disease. Treating it required a bone marrow transplant, and that would cost a fortune.
Given his family's circumstances, they plainly could not afford that much money. As an escaped convict, he was even less capable of coming up with it.
Already wracked with guilt toward his daughter, Flint now faced her illness without any way to help. Intense anguish welled up inside him.
"No, I can't. I can't let anything happen to Harley. Absolutely not."
Flint muttered to himself, his eyes bloodshot. After one more glance at the room, he stood and left the house.
At eight in the morning, several armored trucks pulled up outside the Federal Reserve's entrance. A large contingent of heavily armed guards lined both sides of the road, keeping bystanders away.
Three hundred meters from the Federal Reserve's entrance, Flint stood in a hoodie, his gaze fixed on the armored trucks.
As a fugitive, he could not earn money through legitimate means, nor did he have the time. The fastest way to get money was to rob a bank!
Before, even if the thought had crossed his mind, he would never have had the nerve. But after gaining the ability to control sand, he was no longer an ordinary man. Robbing a bank was no longer a fantasy.
When the armored truck doors opened and the guards began carrying cases of cash into the bank, he could wait no longer.
Boom!
A fierce wind rose, and he instantly transformed into a sand giant, charging straight toward the bank entrance.
Before the guards could react, Flint sent a storm of sand crashing into them.
He did not kill them, however. He merely knocked them unconscious.
Then he swept up all the cash cases with his sand and swiftly vanished from the spot.
By the time everyone reacted, all they could see was a giant made of sand, three or four meters tall, making off with the cash cases before disappearing at the end of the street.
Woooo!
The alarm sounded, and the entire bank descended into chaos.
That day, the New York Daily News ran a detailed report on the bank robbery, causing a sensation throughout New York.
The U.S. Police Department immediately came under immense pressure. With the Federal Reserve backed by the government, the higher-ups issued an uncompromising order: solve the case and recover the stolen money as quickly as possible.
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