Inside the bustling offices of the Daily Bugle, Peter Parker had just arrived, slightly out of breath, camera bag slung over his shoulder. He moved quickly to his cluttered desk, sorting through the latest batch of photos he had snapped and handing a stack to Robbie Robertson, the ever-calm editor who was reviewing material by his desk.
Robbie flipped through the glossy prints—classic action shots of Spider-Man mid-swing, one even featuring a near miss with a taxi cab in Times Square. He gave an approving nod. "Nice work, Peter. Your Spider-Man shots are always on point."
He paused, glanced at Peter with raised brows, and added, "But I want to see what you've got on the so-called lizard man."
Peter blinked. "Lizard man? What lizard man?"
Robbie didn't get the chance to answer before J. Jonah Jameson barged in, the door slamming open with his usual bluster. His expression was tight, his voice louder than necessary. "Parker, maybe if you actually showed up to work on time for once, you'd know what the hell's going on!"
Jameson slapped a file onto the desk. "There have been multiple sightings of a giant reptilian creature in the New York City subway system over the past two weeks. This morning, someone was attacked again. Eyewitness accounts are stacking up—and it's not just tabloid fodder this time."
Peter's expression froze. The young man from this morning—the one who'd nearly driven into the Hudson—his ramblings about red eyes and monsters suddenly made more sense.
"So he wasn't just hallucinating," Peter thought. "He really saw something. And it wasn't just a shadow—it was the Lizard."
"I thought it was just clickbait," Peter muttered aloud.
Jameson didn't care for the comment. He thrust a photograph into Peter's hand—a grainy shot of a middle-aged man in a work uniform. "This guy's a maintenance worker with the MTA. Name's Glenn Hardy. He went missing during his shift this morning. His coworker claims he was pulled down into the sewer by some kind of giant reptilian humanoid."
Peter studied the photo. Glenn looked to be in his 40s, stocky, the type of veteran worker who knew every corner of the tunnels.
"So you want me to… find him?" Peter asked, though he already knew the answer.
"Find him?" Jameson scoffed. "No, Parker, the NYPD and those SHIELD-wannabes can handle that. You—you get me pictures. I want a full frame shot of this 'Lizard Man' on my desk by morning. Understand?"
Peter nodded reluctantly. He didn't need to pretend. He already knew who the Lizard really was—Dr. Curt Connors, former ESU scientist, a brilliant biochemist who had once tried to regenerate his lost arm using lizard DNA. The experiment backfired, transforming him into a savage reptilian creature. And clearly, he was back.
Jameson, meanwhile, wasn't finished. He handed Peter a printout with a list of names and phone numbers. "These are reptile biology experts, zoologists, herpetologists—anyone in New York who's written so much as a blog post about genetic splicing or underground reptiles."
"In addition to the photos, I want interviews. Ask them about potential causes, environmental triggers, anything that can support the copy I'm running. We'll frame it as a science education piece. If I can't get photos, I at least want quotes."
Peter's eyebrows lifted slightly. "You want me to take photos and write the interviews? Isn't that a little much for one guy?"
Jameson's response came with a grin and a heavy hand on Peter's shoulder. "I'll make it worth your while. A thousand bucks if you deliver good material. Pictures, expert opinions, public safety angle—tie it all together. Make it sell."
Peter paused, already mentally calculating the rent, Aunt May's groceries, and how badly he needed a new camera lens. "Color or black-and-white?" he asked flatly, slipping the photo into his bag.
"Color. And dramatic," Jameson called out as Peter walked off. "If it bleeds, it leads."
Meanwhile, far below the surface in a forgotten section of the old subway system, Ethan—still using the alias Chen Lin'an—crept through the tunnels with a heavy-duty flashlight gripped in one hand.
His boots splashed in shallow runoff, and the cold humidity clung to his skin. Broken pipes hissed with steam, and graffiti on the walls marked decades of forgotten stories. But he wasn't down here for urban exploration.
On his right shoulder, a black tendril stretched and coalesced into a fanged face—Venom.
"I don't like it down here," Venom growled, its pale white eyes scanning the darkness. "It smells like rot and chemicals… and something old."
Ethan swept the beam of the flashlight ahead. "Are you sure those people were taken down here?"
Venom hissed. "I'm not sure. But I can feel something. The scent is strange. Mutated."
Ethan nodded grimly. "Same rumors in every report. Lizard-like creature. Sharp claws. Red eyes. Always in the tunnels."
"We should've brought more fire," Venom muttered. "Or bait."
Ethan's expression tightened. "No. If it's who I think it is, I need to understand what happened. Dr. Connors used to be a respected scientist. If he's turned back into the Lizard, there must be a reason."
They pressed forward, deeper into the decaying arteries of New York, where civilization gave way to shadows—and where something ancient, scaled, and angry might still be hunting.
Ethan had made his way deep into the damp, winding tunnels beneath New York. He originally assumed the rumors about a so-called Lizardman were just exaggerated urban legends—nothing more than a sensational story meant to scare tourists or sell papers. But in the past few days, the number of disappearances had spiked, and that changed everything.
People vanishing without a trace. Survivors muttering about red eyes and claws. This wasn't just baseless gossip anymore. Something was down here—something real. So Ethan came, determined to uncover the truth.
Was the Lizardman just a deranged killer? Or part of a larger operation—maybe even a trafficking ring using the sewers as a hidden highway? The answer had to be buried somewhere beneath the city's underbelly.
"Up till now, we don't even know if this 'Lizardman' is an actual mutated creature," Ethan muttered, sweeping his flashlight across rusted pipes and slick stone walls, "or just someone in some enhanced tactical suit pulling a scare show."
"I'm hoping it's a real mutant," Venom whispered gleefully from Ethan's shoulder, peeking out with glowing eyes. "A big, scaley, violent one. That would be exciting. I haven't eaten anything interesting in days."
Ethan sighed, stepping over a broken ladder and ducking beneath hanging wires. "You just want to bite his head off. If it turns out he is a giant lizard, are you really sure you can take him on?"
Venom clicked his tongue in annoyance. "Please. I've dealt with worse. If he's smart enough to abduct humans, he's not just a mindless animal. That's strategy. That's intelligence. That's flavor."
"He shows up every few nights, never in the same place, and always drags one person back underground," Ethan said quietly, tension creeping into his voice. "This isn't random. It's calculated."
Venom's grin widened. "Exactly. It's a predator. And predators are fun."
The more Ethan listened, the more uneasy he felt. His instincts—tempered from his years in this new world and sharpened by his bond with Venom—were screaming that something deeper was going on. "Alright, stop. The more you talk, the more nervous I get."
He looked straight ahead into the dark. "If this thing turns out to be more dangerous than you expect, I'm banning you from chocolate for two days."
That got Venom's full attention. "Wait—what?! That's not fair! You can't punish me for being insightful!"
"I'm punishing you for ruining my peace of mind," Ethan replied dryly. "If I have to suffer with this bad feeling, so do you."
Venom narrowed his white eyes. "You're bluffing."
Ethan smirked. "Try me."
"…You really have a dark side," Venom mumbled.
"Look who's talking."
Ethan shook his head with a small laugh. "You need to develop a sense of humor."
"I have one. You're just not funny."
"Then prove it. Give me your best smile."
Venom obeyed—baring a wide mouth full of jagged, glistening fangs.
Ethan recoiled slightly. "On second thought, forget it. If anyone saw that face, they'd drop dead from sheer horror."
Venom: (▼▼DRAN▼▼#) Die, human.
"Okay, okay—don't wrap around my neck!" Ethan shouted as Venom coiled up, icy tendrils pressing against his throat. "That's cold! I said I was joking!"
"Apologize," Venom growled, mock-wrathful.
With a sigh, Ethan fished a square of chocolate from his pocket and handed it over. "Fine. My bad. Here. Can we not strangle each other while we're monster hunting?"
Venom snatched the treat, unwrapped it with a tendril, and bit into it with sulky satisfaction. "Hmmph. Lucky for you this chocolate's still good."
"You always say that."
The two continued their cautious descent into the undercity—concrete echoing under Ethan's boots, the shadows growing heavier with every step. Somewhere down here, something moved. Something with red eyes. Something that didn't want to be found.
And Ethan was starting to suspect this was no ordinary mutant, no common criminal.
He was walking into the lair of something born from science gone wrong—something that just might be Dr. Curt Connors, twisted by his own serum into a creature known in Marvel's darker legends as… the Lizard.