The vulture-man hovered nervously in the air, trying to swoop down and attack the officers but was quickly scared off by the hail of gunfire, retreating back into the sky.
George Stacy gripped his shotgun so tightly that his knuckles turned white. He was wearing a bulletproof vest, but it was practically useless against these lizard-men.
A CNN news helicopter circled overhead, capturing footage of the dire situation the NYPD was facing. Reporters always seemed to arrive quickly when chaos erupted.
“Boom!”
An old Crown Victoria was lifted by a lizard-man and hurled several yards away. Two officers, who had been taking cover behind the car, froze in fear. Paralyzed, they could only watch as the lizard-man, who looked like a creature straight out of a horror movie, advanced on them.
“Boom!”
George Stacy leaned out from behind the car and fired his shotgun, the pellets tearing into the side of the lizard-man’s head, ripping off half of its face, exposing the gleaming white of its skull.
“Run! Get out of here!” George shouted, trying to reload, but the return fire from the other lizard-men forced him back into cover.
The lizard-man’s muscle tissue squirmed and quickly healed, its tail whipping around to knock the two officers aside. With a roar, the beast charged forward, leaping several meters in a single bound and landing on top of the police car in front of George Stacy.
Bullets ricocheted off its scaly skin, drawing blood but doing little harm.
The lizard-man wrapped its long, muscular tail around George Stacy’s neck, lifting him high into the air. It glanced at the three stars on his shoulder badge.
“Haha, what a surprise! I’ve captured a deputy commissioner. How amusing! You’ll die right in front of all the people of New York City,” the lizard-man sneered, turning George’s oxygen-deprived, reddening face toward the TV cameras above. He struggled desperately, but the chokehold was too strong.
In New York, the police commissioner is appointed by the mayor and can nominate deputy commissioners to assist in managing the department. Though George Stacy had administrative duties, he had retained his officer’s authority due to his background as a cop, which earned him the respect of his fellow officers.
Unfortunately, that very habit of being on the frontlines had endangered him.
“Shoot… shoot me!” he yelled with all his might, but none of the officers dared to fire. The battlefield fell into a tense silence.
At home, Gwen Stacy clutched her mother tightly, trying to comfort her, but she was shaking herself. She wanted to say something reassuring, but all that came out were hoarse sobs. Tears streamed down her face, her makeup smudging as she watched her father about to be executed on live TV in front of millions of New Yorkers.
Sensing the shift in the atmosphere, Colonel Johnson barked, “Finish him! We need to move to Oscorp Tower. Don’t waste time!”
He planned to steal the equipment for producing the lizard serum and then escape into New York’s maze-like underground sewer system. In the damp, dark tunnels, advanced human weaponry would be useless, and only light infantry or special forces could pursue them, which posed no threat to the lizard-men.
Once they contaminated the city’s water supply or food sources with the lizard serum, New York would soon become a kingdom of lizard-men.
“Understood, Colonel!”
The lizard-man tightened its tail, attempting to snap George Stacy’s neck.
Bob Lee Eagle hesitated, ready to intervene and save George. Though what he had seen in the Oscorp lab had shattered his faith in humanity, decades of memories as a human kept him from turning completely against them. Unlike the other lizard-men, he hadn’t been overtaken by a new, monstrous personality.
But someone else moved even faster than him.
“Boom!”
A figure in red and blue shot through the air, kicking the lizard-man off the car and into the distance.
A man in a spider-themed costume stood on the car’s roof. He tore the lizard-man’s tail away from George Stacy’s neck, saving him.
“You okay, sir?” he asked as he pulled the tail off George’s throat. The tail was still strong even after being detached, continuing to constrict, leaving deep bruises around George’s neck.
Cough… cough!
George Stacy gasped for air, coughing violently. He had nearly been strangled to death.
“Who… who are you?” he asked, puzzled, looking at the strange man who had just saved him.
“I’m Spider-Man!”
Peter Parker, his face hidden beneath his mask, had no idea that he had just rescued his future father-in-law. Glancing around at the fallen officers, some gravely injured or already dead, anger surged through him, making his hair stand on end.
“You again, lizard-men! Today, I’m putting an end to all of you!” he yelled at Colonel Johnson.
“Hah, bold words, kid. That move you pulled wasn’t bad. Seems like you’re not just an ordinary human—you’ve got a hint of our kind in you.”
Colonel Johnson’s reptilian face twisted into a sinister grin as he waved a hand.
“Take him down!”
The lizard-man that Spider-Man had kicked away snarled and crouched, ready to pounce, its cold, slitted eyes fixed on Peter.
George Stacy picked up the shotgun he had dropped.
“Kid, run! This isn’t an enemy you should be facing.”
He pressed the gun to his shoulder, though his hands still trembled from fear. He positioned himself between Peter and the lizard-men. As a veteran cop, George could tell that the kid in front of him was no older than his own daughter.
“Hah!” Peter’s figure blurred, and in an instant, he was in front of the lizard-man. A powerful kick slammed into the creature’s head, shattering its skull in one strike.
The lizard-man collapsed to the ground, its body twitching violently from its innate vitality. Its freshly regenerated tail thrashed about, trying to help it stand again, but not even the lizard-men’s regeneration could save it from death after such a massive head trauma.
“One hit… he killed the lizard-man with just one hit.”
George Stacy’s jaw dropped in disbelief. After fighting these monsters, he knew firsthand how terrifyingly resilient they were. Even unloading an entire magazine into their heads hadn’t been enough to kill them before.
“I’ll allow you to join us, kid,” Colonel Johnson said, his tail swiping aside a police car as he spoke. His muscular body, coiled under his scales like snakes, radiated terrifying power. “But before you do, I’ll show you what real strength is.”
“Beating you? That’ll take no more than a minute,” Peter shot back defiantly.
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