Night fell.
Inside the Oscorp Tower, everything was swallowed by darkness.
Only the faint, ghostly glow of the emergency exit signs remained.
But the darkness barely hindered Bunte's vision. If Peter could see clearly even through blacked-out lenses, then this level of gloom was nothing to him.
"Connors' lab should be this way…"
Back when he hacked into Oscorp, he had already mapped out the entire route. Not only that—he'd slipped himself a universal access credential. No door in this building could stop him now.
It didn't take long before he found what used to be Connors' laboratory.
The place was an absolute wreck.
Equipment lay toppled and twisted all over the floor. Even the heavy lab benches had been overturned.
A piercing chemical odor filled the air. Bunte wrinkled his nose, covering it with his hand as he stepped inside, guided only by the soft red glow emitted from his wrist device.
For some reason, an odd feeling tugged at him. Not danger exactly—not Spider-Sense either—but something akin to being watched from somewhere unseen.
He swept his gaze through the ruined lab. A handful of white mice—ones that hadn't yet been used for testing—peered at him warily from atop a fallen box. When they met his eyes, they scattered instantly, disappearing into the corners.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
Pushing aside his unease, Bunte righted one of the tables, found several intact test tubes, and began gathering whatever materials remained, preparing to recreate the lizard serum.
He didn't notice the way those white mice, hidden deep in the shadows, stared back at him with eyes that grew fiercer and fiercer.
…
Meanwhile, in the underground sewers beneath New York—
Peter had made it to a central nexus point, a junction where major pipelines converged—a massive reservoir for the city's wastewater.
"In a narrow sewer like this, even the slightest vibration stands out."
He shot webs into the darkness, anchoring them across the tunnels. Threads crisscrossed and linked into a vast, interconnected net—a sprawling trap waiting for its quarry. And he was the spider at its center.
"Now I just have to wait."
Peter crouched on the web.
Only now did he finally have a moment to breathe.
Except he wished he didn't, because the air here was revolting.
"Filthy, smelly… why is my workplace always the worst?" Peter pinched his nose and muttered, "If only I could work in outer space like Superman."
"I bet Iron Man never has to come down into sewers. And little Bunte… no wonder he didn't come help me."
He continued grumbling to himself.
"Right—!"
Suddenly remembering something, he hopped down to the concrete walkway and rummaged through his backpack, pulling out his camera.
"This is perfect. If I get photos of Spider-Man fighting the Lizard, I can clear Spider-Man's name and make some money."
His irritation spiked as he thought about George Stacy insisting Spider-Man and the Lizard were working together.
He risked his life catching criminals for the police, and they didn't thank him—that he could ignore. But accusing him of being the villain?
"All because they don't know I'm the one catching those guys. Next time I should leave a note—signed 'Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.'"
He liked giving credit where it was due—a small, harmless obsession.
Not that he realized others would interpret it as taunting.
"And the Daily Bugle—if they'll pay five hundred for Spider-Man photos, they'll definitely pay a thousand for shots of the Lizard."
He stuck the camera to the sewer wall with a quick splat of webbing.
Already, he was imagining how to spend that thousand dollars when he got it.
A thousand bucks could last him a while.
But if he could earn money consistently by photographing Spider-Man in action, he wouldn't have to live so tightly.
"I could get Uncle Ben a new car… or maybe a used RV so we could take a family trip."
It sounded like a lovely plan.
Soon he and Bunte could shoulder the household costs, giving Uncle Ben and Aunt May a break. A few snapshots for hundreds—sometimes thousands—of dollars was absurdly easy for someone with his talents.
And the truth was, his family hadn't been on a trip together in ages.
Peter was still daydreaming when the vast web beneath him trembled—ever so slightly.
His mind snapped back. He crouched low, gaze fixing on the tunnel ahead.
But then—
The vibration surged.
Not just a string or two, but every thread shuddered violently, like the collective strumming of a dozen guitar strings.
For a heartbeat he thought he had disrupted the delicate frequency himself, scrambling across the web too quickly. But when he looked up—
A mass of small lizards crawled out from every direction, swarming along the pipes and concrete, all converging toward a single point.
Like countless rivers returning to the sea—they were gathering to greet their king.
Found him.
The thought shot through Peter's mind, tightening his chest.
Holding his breath, he crawled after the direction the lizards were moving. The shadows around him stretched like the throat and gullet of some colossal monster, swallowing his small silhouette whole.
He pressed on—
And suddenly, everything stopped.
The vibrations ceased.
The web fell silent.
As if the prey had slipped free of the trap entirely.
Peter froze.
For a brief, unnerving moment, the sewer grew quiet—like that hushed breath right before a monster appears in a horror movie.
Or maybe not like—
Maybe exactly that.
Peter swallowed hard. A sharp, electric pain stabbed through his skull, shooting down his spine like a current.
His eyes locked on the depths of the tunnel, bracing for whatever was about to crawl out of the dark—
But he didn't notice the enormous claw hovering directly above his head.
The pain intensified. He tilted his head upward—
And met a pair of dim, yellow eyes.
BOOM!!!
—
The lizard creature tore its gaping jaws wide, lunging straight at Bunte's back!
His Spider-Sense shrieked like a blaring alarm.
Without thinking, Bunte flipped backward, springing to the ceiling in one smooth motion.
Hanging upside down, he found himself staring into the face of a creature with sickly green fur, scales spreading across its body like a disease.
"A rat?"
"A… lizard?"
The mutated monstrosity stood nearly two and a half meters tall. Its body still held traces of a white lab mouse—but already showed the unmistakable signs of reptilian transformation.
Its segmented tail cracked through the air like a massive whip.
Before Bunte could react further, a heavy crash echoed from outside the lab, as if something huge had slammed into the floor.
Then came a sharp, rasping voice:
"The serum antidote?"
"I can't let you ruin my plans, boy!"
Bunte jerked his head toward the doorway—
And his eyes widened.
"Dr. Dongwu?!"
/-\
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