HOOONK! HOOONK!
"Damn, hey, stop that! There's no way to move up here!" a middle-aged cab driver yelled at the car behind him, whose driver was laying on the horn non-stop while the whole road was stuck in heavy traffic.
The guy doing the honking didn't stop. If anything, he kept going.
HONNNNNK!
"What the hell!" The cab driver lost his patience, got out of his car, walked straight up to the other vehicle, and punched the driver right through the open window.
"How dare you!" And just like that, both guys were fighting in the middle of the street.
Some people called the police. Others started recording.
"RUN! AHHH, MONSTER!"
Just as the two were grabbing each other by the collar, panicked voices came screaming past them and people started running in the opposite direction.
Both guys stopped their fight and looked toward the traffic. A green monster was running across the tops of the cars, smashing through every windshield it stepped on.
"What in the world is that?" Both of them froze.
"HAHAHA! Yes! Fear me, weaklings!" The Lizard was loving every second of it — humans scattering, screaming, falling over each other trying to get away.
He spotted the two frozen men staring at him.
"Well, what do we have here." He flicked his long tongue out, jumped from one car roof to the next, and came crashing down right onto the cab, flattening it.
That snapped them out of it. Both men turned and ran.
"Trying to escape?" The Lizard grinned, ripped off the cab's roof panel, and hurled it at the two running men.
It was heading straight for them. If it landed, they were dead.
At the last second, a web shot out and caught the panel mid-air, letting the two men scramble to safety.
"Who?!" The Lizard looked around and spotted a figure perched on top of a street light.
"Whoa. Who are you — some kind of government experiment gone wrong?" It was Spider-Woman.
The Lizard didn't bother answering. He grabbed more car parts and started throwing them at Gwen.
She dodged easily and fired webs to try to slow him down, but it wasn't working. The Lizard was as strong as Spider-Man, and he tore through the webbing without slowing down at all.
Seeing that wasn't working, Gwen went in close.
The Lizard came at her with his clawed hands and tail, forcing her to keep moving. She ducked under the first claw swipe, fired a web at his wrist and yanked hard trying to pull him off balance, but he barely moved. Like pulling on a wall.
He swung his other arm around and Gwen had to roll under it, came back up and landed two quick hits to his side. The Lizard barely flinched.
He's too strong.
She shot a web to a nearby car and used the momentum to swing herself up and over him, trying to get to his back, where the tail couldn't reach as easily. She wrapped webbing around his arms from behind, trying to pin them.
For about two seconds, it held.
Then the Lizard just flexed and tore through it like it was paper, grabbed her web line, and yanked her forward hard. Gwen hit the ground rolling and barely got her hands up in time.
She was back on her feet fast, but the Lizard was already on her. His tail came around low, and there was no time to react to it properly.
"Grrr!" The tail caught her clean and sent her crashing hard into the side of a parked car. The door caved in on impact. She slid down and hit the ground.
Everything hurt.
She pushed herself up slowly. The Lizard was already turning back toward her.
"Grrr!" Suddenly, gunfire opened up from the side.
He spun around. A group of police officers had moved in behind cover and were opening fire on him from two angles. The shots weren't doing serious damage — the Lizard's scales were tough — but they were enough to pull his attention off Gwen.
Irritated, he turned and charged at them at full speed.
The officers saw him coming, and most of them took a step back without meaning to.
"Oh shi—"
"Don't be afraid, shoot!" Jean DeWolff shouted from behind a squad car, already firing. Her voice cut through the panic, and a few of the officers steadied themselves and kept shooting.
It didn't matter much. The Lizard hit their position like a truck. His tail swept through the group in one wide arc and knocked several officers clean off their feet. He grabbed a squad car door with one hand and ripped it off, sending it spinning to the side. The officers scrambled to get clear.
He spotted Jean in the center, the one giving the commands, and locked onto her.
Jean didn't run. She kept firing, stepping back slowly, drawing him away from the downed officers.
"Fall back, get the injured out now!" she called over her shoulder.
The bullets still weren't doing enough. The Lizard kept coming. The police pulled back and started dragging their injured colleagues toward safety.
"Call for more backup! There is a monster loose out here!"
Jean kept her eyes on the Lizard, tracking his movement, waiting for a clear moment.
"Hold your fire!" she called out suddenly, seeing Spider-Woman back on her feet and closing in from the Lizard's left side. Too close. If they kept shooting, someone was going to get hit.
The Lizard caught the hesitation and turned back toward Gwen.
Then something hit him hard from above.
Peter came down out of nowhere, both feet driving into the side of the Lizard's head in a full-speed drop kick. The impact snapped the Lizard's head sideways and actually staggered him two steps.
Peter landed, bounced back up immediately, and got between the Lizard and Gwen.
"You're late," Gwen said without stopping.
"I'll try to be earlier next time… but who is this guy? Some kind of evil lab experiment?" Peter asked, having no clue that the reptilian monster was none other than his missing mentor.
The Lizard straightened up slowly and turned to face both of them. His eyes moved from one to the other.
He let out a low growl and attacked.
With both of them on him, the Lizard was getting pushed harder. He attacked in a rage, but couldn't land anything clean with two opponents moving constantly around him.
The Lizard wasn't stupid, though. He read the situation, knew this wasn't going his way, and suddenly broke off the fight and sprinted toward a nearby alley.
"He's running!" Both Spider-Man and Spider-Woman went after him, but the Lizard, running on all fours, using walls and every object around him, was faster than expected. He hit the entrance to a New York underground tunnel and disappeared inside.
Both of them jumped in after him.
"Ugh, it smells so bad down here. I can barely breathe," Gwen said.
Peter was trying just as hard not to gag. "Yeah, it's really bad."
"Which way did he go?" The tunnel split in two directions ahead of them, with no sign of which way the Lizard had gone.
"Let's each t:ake one," Peter said, already moving toward one side.
"Okay."
Bad luck. Both tunnels split into more tunnels further in, branching off in every direction with no way to track him. They had nothing to go on. Eventually, they both ended up back at the tunnel entrance, empty-handed.
"We lost him." Neither of them said anything for a moment.
"Oh — wait. Didn't you go to help with Mr. Stacy's discharge today? Did he get out okay?"
"Oh no." Gwen's eyes went wide. "We were driving back from the hospital when the traffic got bad, so I got out to check what was going on. They must be freaking out wondering where I went. Bye, Peter!" She took off in a panic.
Peter watched her go.
"...Good luck with that."
A/N:🚨 Power Stone Goals! 🚨
🔥 200 PS = 1 Bonus Chapter
🔥 500 PS = 2 Bonus Chapters(Max 2/week)
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