Peter swung the Dragon Fang. It sheared through Otto Octavius's four titanium tentacles like they were made of warm butter. Sparks showered the asphalt as the severed limbs clattered uselessly to the ground.
Before Otto could even register the loss of his mechanical appendages, black tendrils erupted from Peter's suit. Venom surged forward. The symbiote plunged its shifting, liquid-ink claws into Otto's chest, forcefully ripping the unconscious alien parasite right out of the doctor's body. Venom discarded the limp, dark sludge, tossing it carelessly against a shattered brick wall.
Otto hit the ground hard. He hadn't lost consciousness. Stripped of both his mechanical arms and his symbiotic enhancement, he glared up at the night sky, his face twisting into a mask of pure, unadulterated rage.
"Damn you, Spider-Man!" Otto roared, struggling to push himself up with his purely human arms. "If you hadn't interfered, none of this—"
Thwip.
A thick wad of web fluid plastered directly over Otto's mouth, cutting off his villainous monologue mid-sentence.
"You're working way too hard, Otto," Peter said, landing lightly on the hood of a crushed sedan. "Your revenge tour is hurting a lot of innocent people. I'm officially mandating some PTO."
Peter fired several more rapid-fire web lines, pinning Otto's paralyzed limbs firmly to the concrete. "I really hope you're feeling talkative about the Erskine Serum later. Otherwise, we're going to have to bring in the telepaths to sift through your brain, and Emma Frost does not validate parking."
Leaving an automated encrypted message for the NYPD and Black Cat to secure the area, Peter turned his attention to the massive, jagged crater the Lizard had torn into the street. He didn't hesitate. He dove off the car, plunging straight down into the gaping abyss.
"Can we track him?" Peter asked aloud.
The Spider suit instantly rippled, consumed by a wave of glossy black. Venom took the wheel. The symbiote's hulking form hit the floor of the sewer system with a heavy, echoing thud. A grotesquely long, slavering tongue rolled out from jagged white teeth, tasting the damp, foul air.
Scent acquired, Venom rumbled in Peter's mind.
The massive black figure launched forward, tearing through the subterranean tunnels. They followed the metallic tang of fresh blood, navigating the dark, dripping maze of New York's underbelly. They sprinted for miles until they reached a massive, cavernous junction where millions of gallons of sewage cascaded down into a central, roaring abyss.
Venom skidded to a halt, crouching low to the wet concrete.
The scent scatters here, Venom growled, its tongue flicking out in agitation. The blood stops. Did the prey jump? Did it climb?
Peter understood immediately. The scent hadn't just washed away; it had stopped existing. By the time Connors reached this junction, the massive lacerations on his scaly hide had already knit themselves back together. His reptilian healing factor had kicked in completely.
The black sludge peeled back from Peter's face, revealing his standard lenses. He let out a long, exhausted sigh, his shoulders slumping.
Oscorp's Savage Force program was supposed to be strictly monitored. The Avengers had kept tabs on it constantly. Ever since Spider-Man brought back that horrific "Potential Villain List" from the wasteland universe, the team had kept a quiet, non-intrusive watch on anyone who might trigger an apocalyptic scenario. Jarvis was programmed to sound the alarms the second someone stepped out of bounds with superhuman tech or biological enhancements.
I do not believe this falls squarely on your shoulders, Peter, Jarvis's crisp, British voice echoed in his earpiece. Norman Osborn did not force this outcome, nor did Dr. Connors display premeditated intent to inject himself with the active serum. All of this is the fault of Dr. Otto Octavius who manufacture this outcome.
"Thanks, Jarvis. But we still have to find him. And down here..." Peter gestured to the miles of branching, identical tunnels. "That's going to be a nightmare."
Venom's voice echoed in the back of his skull again. Why do you assume the prey will seek out its mate and offspring?
"Dr. Connors told me about the psychology of the modified lizards," Peter explained, pacing along the edge of the rushing water. "The serum rewrites their brain chemistry. They start considering themselves an entirely new, superior species. But with that comes an overwhelming, biological sense of isolation. They feel lonely. The instinct to seek out family—or create a pack—is going to drive him."
Perhaps he will simply drag humans down here to breed, Venom suggested darkly.
Sorry. A joke.
"Their reproduction rate is way too slow for that," Peter muttered, shuddering at the mental image. "Even if he tried, the sheer isolation would probably drive him to suicide before a second generation was ever born. The baseline lizards in the lab did exactly that when kept in solitary. Unless..."
Peter froze. A cold knot formed in his stomach.
Unless what?
"Unless he finds a faster way."
Peter took a sharp breath. His mind flashed to a very specific memory.
The Amazing Spider-Man. In that film, the Lizard didn't wait around for natural reproduction. He built a dispersal device. He tried to aerosolize the serum and drop a biological cloud over the entirety of New York City.
Connors retained his genius-level intellect. He hadn't started eating people yet, which meant the man was still fighting the beast. But how long could he hold out?
Peter turned around and fired a webline, propelling himself back toward the surface.
By the time he vaulted out of the crater and landed back on the street, the NYPD perimeter was fully established. Red and blue strobe lights painted the surrounding brick buildings. Inspector George Stacy stood at the front lines, his trench coat flapping in the cold wind as he personally supervised heavily armed SWAT officers loading the firmly webbed Otto Octavius into an armored transport.
Peter stood near the edge of the police tape, staring blankly at the flashing lights. His mind was running complex biochemical equations at lightning speed.
A soft thud sounded behind him.
"You okay, web-head?"
Felicia Hardy stepped into his peripheral vision. Her white hair caught the ambient streetlights, contrasting sharply with her sleek black leather suit.
"How's it going with the Avengers?" Peter asked, shaking himself out of his stupor.
"They've already secured the perimeter around Martha and Billy Connors," Black Cat replied, leaning casually against a lamppost. "They're safe. But you look like you just swallowed a bug. What's wrong?"
"I was just thinking about Dr. Connors' next move," Peter said, crossing his arms over his chest. "I know how the Savage Force research works. The modified lizards are biologically hardwired to seek out more of their own kind. If they don't find them, the psychological toll drives them toward self-destruction."
Felicia raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. "So... what? We need to start checking the missing persons reports for women dragged into the sewers?"
Even under the mask, Felicia could feel Peter staring at her with profound exhaustion.
"It's possible," Peter admitted reluctantly. "Connors injected himself with a variant of the Super Soldier Serum. It enhanced his physical traits, but it also supercharged his bestial, reptilian instincts. But I don't think he's going to do things the old-fashioned way."
"Then what's the play?"
"Aerosol dispersion," Peter said grimly. "The most likely scenario is that he builds a device to spread the lizard serum in the form of a cloud or mist. He could infect all of Manhattan in a matter of hours."
"Where is he going to find a fully stocked laboratory down there?"
"The sewers are massive, Felicia. There are abandoned subway stations, old maintenance hubs, forgotten bootlegger tunnels. And he doesn't need high-tech equipment. The only raw biological material he needs is his own blood. I could cobble together a mist diffusion device out of the junk in Uncle Ben's garage in three hours. Connors doesn't need to run clinical trials. He just needs to purify the serum and hit the switch."
Felicia listened quietly. She studied the rigid set of Peter's shoulders. The panic wasn't there. He was entirely too calm for someone predicting a city-wide biological terror attack.
"You already have a solution, don't you?" she asked.
Peter nodded. He did.
Weeks ago, Peter and Dr. Jonathan Drew had run theoretical simulations on how to reverse the Savage Force serum. If they could obtain a clean sample of Dr. Connors' pre-mutation DNA, they could synthesize a counter-agent. A neutralizing serum that would strip the reptilian genetics right out of his cells.
"I know how to manufacture the cure," Peter said, rubbing his gloved temples. "It'll take time in the lab. Dr. Drew and I are best positioned to synthesize it without Oscorp breathing down our necks. But the real problem isn't making the cure. The real problem is capturing a nine-foot-tall, super-soldier-enhanced lizard so we can actually inject him before he gasses the city."
"Have you ever tried to drag a giant reptile out of a sewer?" Felicia mused, a slow, sharp smirk spreading across her lips. "If you want to catch a beast, Peter... why don't we hire a professional hunter?"
Peter blinked. The words hung in the cold night air.
He slowly turned his head to look at her. A massive, apex predator roaming the concrete jungle. A beast that needed tracking, trapping, and subduing.
"A hunter," Peter breathed.
There was only one man in New York who fit that description. Sergei Kravinoff AKA Kraven