"This is getting us nowhere!" Peter shouted over the hiss of a nearby broken steam pipe. He lunged at the Lizard again, his movements fueled by pure adrenaline rather than actual energy. He was anxious; he could feel his strength flagging, and the monster didn't seem to have a pulse rate above a resting crawl.
The surrounding blocks had become a ghost town. Civilians had long since fled into the subways or barricaded themselves in high-rise apartments. A few blocks away, the NYPD had set up a perimeter. Armed officers gripped their service rifles with white knuckles, their eyes darting between the thrashing reptilian nightmare and the three colorful figures trying to restrain it. They hesitated. If they opened fire, the spread of their rifles could just as easily catch a Spider in the back as it could pierce the Lizard's hide. To the cops on the ground, the Spider Trio was the only thing keeping that monster from turning Broadway into a buffet.
"This is beyond annoying!" Huang Liang yelled, his voice cracking with fatigue. Without his inner energy to bolster his muscles, the physical gap between him and the two mutates was becoming painfully obvious. His legs felt like lead. "He's got the defense of a tank and the healing factor of a god. He's like a 'diet' version of the Hulk—all the rage, none of the mercy, and he never gets tired!"
"Why don't you just call in the cavalry?" Peter gritted his teeth, firing a desperate web-glob directly into the Lizard's yellow eyes. "Call your Master! Huang Wen could end this in three seconds flat!"
As the Lizard clawed at the webbing on its face, Peter delivered a desperate roundhouse to its knee. He hoped to shatter the joint and buy them a minute of peace. But the Lizard's tail acted like a third leg, stabilizing its massive frame with a heavy thud. It didn't even wobble.
"Summoning Master for a lizard?" Huang Liang panted, checking his wrist. His web-fluid indicator was flashing a steady, mocking red. "It doesn't feel right. We relied on him to bail us out of the Vanko mess. If I call him every time someone with scales shows up, I'm never going to grow. I want to stand on my own two feet, Peter!"
"Master?" Gwen Stacy whispered, her voice barely audible over the chaos. She dodged a jagged piece of debris, her mind racing. She had heard Peter mention this "Huang Wen" before, but the way they talked about him was bordering on religious. The Lizard was stronger than the three of them combined, yet Peter claimed this man could "kill it instantly." Part of her was skeptical—she'd seen a lot of weird things since her bite, but "instant kill" for a monster like this sounded like an exaggeration. Still, she found herself desperately wanting to meet the man who could command such terrifying respect.
Just as the Lizard let out a triumphant roar and prepared to lunge at the exhausted Huang Liang, a familiar, metallic voice boomed from the heavens.
"Wow, you guys really know how to throw a party. And look at this—did you find another stray in the alleyway? Honestly, Liang, I'm starting to think Huang Wen is just running a daycare for kids in spandex!"
"Tony Stark?" Peter and Huang Liang yelled in unison, looking up as a streak of gold and red sliced through the clouds.
"Iron Man?" Gwen's eyes widened behind her mask. The tabloids and the fan forums always painted the Spiders and Iron Man as rivals—the street-level vigilantes versus the billionaire tech-giant. But the casual, mocking tone in Stark's voice suggested they were on a first-name basis.
Tony descended, his thrusters kicking up a whirlwind of dust and trash. "Clear the floor, kids! Seriously, move. You know how touchy my targeting computer gets with 'friendlies' in the way. Use those webs to watch the flanks and take a breather. I'm going to show you what a real budget for R&D looks like!"
"Tch, typical Stark. He waits for us to do the heavy lifting, then swoops in for the cover of Time Magazine," Peter grumbled. But he didn't argue. He was spent. Gwen was shaky, and Liang was practically running on fumes. They retreated to the rooftops, frantically swapping out empty web canisters for fresh ones.
"ROAR!"
The Lizard wasn't interested in a "relay race." Sensing the shift in the battle, he didn't wait for the armored man to land. He whipped his tail in a massive 360-degree arc, aiming to catch the retreating Spiders. But the Trio moved with a sudden, practiced synchronicity, jumping and absorbing the shock of the air displacement to catapult themselves further away.
BOOM!
Tony didn't even wait for his feet to touch the pavement. While still ten feet in the air, he leveled his palms. A concentrated repulsive beam slammed into the Lizard's chest with the force of a freight train. The monster was hoisted off its feet and sent tumbling backward through a brick wall.
"The sheer output..." Huang Liang whispered from a nearby ledge. He watched as the beam literally scorched the Lizard's scales off, exposing raw, steaming flesh. It was a level of raw, destructive power that none of them could dream of achieving with their current physical limits. Technology, it seemed, was the ultimate shortcut to godhood.
Tony hovered in the air, his visor tracking the movement in the rubble. "Wait, you're kidding me."
Inside the wreckage, the Lizard's chest was already bubbling. New scales were weaving themselves over the burn marks at a visible rate. Tony hadn't fought the Hulk or Logan yet; he'd never seen a biological organism refuse to die quite like this.
"Hey, Tin Man! Be careful!" Huang Liang warned from above. "His healing is off the charts. If you have the big guns, use them now. If this turns into a marathon, your battery is going to die long before his heart does!"
"My energy running out? Please, I'm running on a clean-burning Arc Reactor, kid. I could do this all week," Tony scoffed. His shoulder plating slid open, revealing a honeycomb of micro-missiles. "Jarvis, paint the target. Let's see how he likes high-explosives."
Whiz-whiz-whiz!
A dozen miniature rockets streaked through the air, impacting the Lizard just as he scrambled out of the brick dust.
BOOM!
A massive cloud of fire and debris swallowed the street. Tony smirked behind his HUD, but the victory lasted only a second. An infrared signature spiked within the smoke. The Lizard erupted from the cloud, leaping thirty feet into the air with his claws extended, aiming straight for the Mark VI's chest plate.
"Oh, you want to go airborne? Bold move for someone without wings," Tony's voice dripped with triumph. "Jarvis, engage flight stabilization. Let's take him for a ride."
The Lizard was in the air, unable to change direction, his primitive brain focused only on the metal man above. He didn't realize he'd just jumped into a trap where he had no leverage, while Tony Stark owned the sky.