Sorry, because of a family emergency I couldn't upload.
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Pain thrummed along Sylas's ribs, but he pushed up anyway. He could take a beating Peter had been proving that particular superpower for weeks.
A slash of green blurred past his vision. Sylas rolled. The Lizard hit the floor where he'd been and punched straight through, crashing into the level below.
"Spider-Man's back!" Peter burst from a pile of shattered tile, snapped twin webs to the Lizard's limbs, and hauled. "Stay down, big guy!"
The Lizard sneered. "Pest."
"And yet everyone keeps calling me a bug," Peter shot back. "It's Spider-Man. Branding matters!"
His lecture lasted exactly one centrifuge-spin as the Lizard whipped Peter by his own webs, pinwheeling him through desks and lockers.
Sylas sprang, heel-kicking the Lizard at the base of the skull. The creature staggered; Peter rebounded and pounded away punches that would crumple a sedan.
They barely rattled the scales.
A claw flashed. The Lizard caught Peter at the waist and flung him out a window.
CRASH
Peter snagged the frame with a web, slingshotted back inside, and landed beside Sylas.
Sylas drew a shadow blade and slashed at the Lizard's neck skreee sparks skittered off the armored hide. A chip splintered from Sylas's edge.
"Great," he muttered. "That was new."
The Lizard's tongue snapped out; his tail lashed, swatting Peter mid-swing.
"Why should you keep your gifts," the creature snarled, "while I pay the price?"
He ripped up anything he could grab, chairs, cabinets, a radiator, and hurled them in a storm. Sylas's danger sense screamed; he dodged two, and a third caught him and slammed him hard.
"Got you," the Lizard rumbled, hauling Sylas up one-handed.
"And I've got you," Peter said, yanking the creature's legs with thick webbing and pulling. The Lizard toppled; Sylas rolled free, lungs burning.
The monster rose as if nothing had happened, healed already, and did the math. Two against one. He snarled and ran, bulldozing into the corridor.
"After him!" Peter vaulted, Sylas right behind.
They tore down the hallway one giant shadow chased by two smaller ones.
"Move!" Peter cried just as Liz Allan stumbled into view, The Lizard swiped.
Peter yanked her into his arms, spinning them both flat against the wall as claws shredded air where her head had been.
"Th-thank you," Liz stammered, shaking.
"Down the window," Peter said, gentler than his pulse felt. He fired a quick web nest outside and lowered her.
Classmates tugged her safely to the ground.
The Lizard wheeled, ambushing back down the hall. Sylas met him, locking hands with the monster. "Go!"
Peter swung away with Liz. In the distance, sirens bloomed.
The Lizard drove Sylas back, claws pressing, Sylas's legs shook, Don't let go.
Shadow ninjas spooled out of his silhouette, swarming the Lizard with jabs and kicks. They barely counted as more than irritation.
"That's all you've got?" the Lizard mocked.
"Not quite," Peter said coming in hot on a web-line, boots first. His dropkick planted the Lizard into a cinder-block wall.
Peter offered a hand. "You okay?"
"Functional," Sylas said, letting Peter haul him up.
A chunk of concrete whistled toward their heads. They split opposite ways as it obliterated the floor where they'd stood.
"Rain check on introductions," Peter puffed. "Monster first."
Police poured into the corridor, weapons up. The Lizard charged through the breach, straight at the firing line.
BANG-BANG—BRRRT
Bullets peppered his scales and skittered uselessly along the armor.
"Out!" Sylas barked, shoving Peter back through a window and vanishing into a shadow seam.
The Lizard hit the officers like a wrecking ball, grabbed the police captain by the chest rig crunch and dropped him, limp.
Peter froze. It was the first time death had happened right there in front of him. The hallway shrank to a tunnel around his breath.
The Lizard stepped through the dust. "Our account isn't settled, Spider."
Sylas stepped out of the dark, eyes catching on the body. This is the real New York, he thought. Hero or not you don't always get there in time.
"I'm bringing you in," Peter said, voice low. He surged forward, faster, harder rage fueling every strike.
Sylas flanked, but the Lizard's tail was a living whip, hammering Sylas into a locker bank. He needed a blade that could bite vibranium, or better. Not today.
"Need a hand, kids?"
The voice drifted in from the broken window smooth, amused. A red-gold silhouette hovered outside.
Tony Stark lifted a palm. A hot beam of repulsor light carved the hallway, forcing the Lizard to throw both arms up. The scales sizzled; smoke curled.
"Ow," Tony observed, drifting in through the shattered frame. He clocked the scene in a second two masked vigilantes, one giant lizard, a corridor full of brass. "So this is what happens when you skip study hall."
Peter's mask angled up, boyish awe bleeding through the lenses. "M-Mr. Stark?!"
"Nice upgrade, Sleepwear Kid," Tony said casually. "Colors pop. Stitching still screams Etsy, but we'll get there." His faceplate tilted a degree toward Sylas. "And you return the thing that doesn't belong to you."
Sylas's silence said plenty. Tony's tone suggested he wasn't joking: Arc Reactor Mk II business.
The Lizard roared from the classroom and hurled a lab table. Tony's palm flared WHOOM the table spun molten and slammed aside.
The creature ducked back into the science room, hunting for cover.
"Plan," Tony said briskly. "Scaled Godzilla's bulletproof and not a fan of tanning beds. Bug Boy, keep him busy. Shadow Boy, you flank him from the dark. I'll herd him to the atrium fewer civilians, more space."
Peter nodded, already moving. "On it!"
Sylas's shadow deepened, widening like a spill of ink. "He adapts fast," he warned. "Don't let him get time."
"Great note," Tony said. "I'll write it on a missile."
They moved.
Peter slid into the room low and fast, webbing burners, carts, anything he could weaponize. The Lizard smashed through a lab bench, tail sweeping. Peter vaulted the swing and snared the tail against a pipe bank.
"A little busy!" he called as the pipe groaned.
Sylas rose from the Lizard's shadow like a guillotine and hooked a corded arm, shadow-ninjas piling on. For two precious seconds, the monster stalled.
"Now," Tony said and fired a staggered burst that drove the Lizard backward through a double door and into the airy main atrium.
Sunlight cut down across a rain of dust. Sirens pulsed closer. Students had cleared, thank God just a few phones peeking around corners.
The Lizard planted on a landing and bellowed.
Tony's HUD flickered something odd in the corner: a heatless, lightless signature around Sylas that didn't behave like a suit, a drone, or any kind of Stark-tech artifact. He filed it. Later.
"Round two," Peter said, stepping up beside Sylas.
"Round two," Sylas agreed.
They went in together web, shadow, and arc-light roaring across the marble. The atrium shook with the fight and the promise of problems much, much bigger than a rampaging lizard.
And above them all, Stark's mask hid the faintest smirk.
"Now this," he said, "is extra credit."
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~Support with 200 PowerStones = 1 Bonus Chapter
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Thank you so much for your support and for reading!