The Lizard, a monstrous engine of claws and fury, exploded through the second-floor window, dragging a desperately clinging Spider-Man behind it. Its cold, yellow eyes scanned the library below, instantly locking onto its target. Not Hawk, the source of the blood it craved, but Gwen, the perceived key to obtaining it.
With a triumphant roar, it launched itself from the shattered window frame, a plummeting meteor of scales and rage, directly towards the staircase where Hawk and Gwen stood frozen.
There was no time. No time to calculate, no time to plan, no time for anything but pure, unadulterated instinct. In the microsecond before the Lizard's trajectory became an unavoidable reality, Hawk grabbed Gwen, pulling her roughly against him. But even as he moved to shield her, a horrifying calculation flashed through his mind: supersonic speed. He could move them both, vanish from this spot before the Lizard even began its descent. But the G-forces… the sudden, brutal acceleration… Gwen's body wouldn't survive it. She would be crushed, torn apart by the very speed meant to save her.
In that same infinitesimal instant, he reversed his motion. Instead of pulling her away, he pulled her behind him, spinning on the spot, deliberately placing his own body between her and the descending monster. His back became the shield.
CRACK!
The impact was like being hit by a speeding truck. The Lizard's massive, clawed hand slammed into Hawk's back with the force of a wrecking ball. The sound echoed through the library like a cannon shot. Hawk felt the impact resonate through his bones, a jarring shockwave that, for an ordinary human, would have pulped their spine instantly. He was launched forward, tumbling down the stairs in a chaotic, uncontrolled roll, Gwen still clutched tightly in his arms.
He twisted mid-air, absorbing the kinetic energy, redirecting their momentum. His back slammed into a heavy oak bookshelf at the bottom of the stairs. The solid wood exploded into splinters around them.
The entire sequence—the leap, the shield, the impact, the crash—happened in less than two seconds. The few remaining students in the library, who had been paralyzed by indecision, finally broke, shrieking and scrambling for the exits, leaving the three superhumans alone in the suddenly cavernous, echoing space.
"Hawk!" Gwen cried out, her voice muffled against his chest.
The Lizard landed heavily on the stairs, the marble cracking under its weight. It let out a low, guttural growl, its forked tongue flicking out, tasting the air. Its yellow eyes fixed on Hawk, who was already pushing himself up from the wreckage of the bookshelf, seemingly unharmed.
"Blood…" the creature rasped, the voice a horrifying fusion of Connors's intellect and the Lizard's primal hunger. "Give it to me!"
Ah, Hawk thought, brushing dust from his clothes. So he is coming for me. He glanced down at Gwen, who was scrambling to her feet beside him, her face pale but her eyes wide with adrenaline. "Are you alright?"
But a nagging inconsistency bothered him. If the Lizard wanted his blood, why had its initial attack trajectory been aimed so clearly, so lethally, at Gwen? It wasn't just his imagination. His combat intuition, honed by a thousand days of training and now amplified by his Cosmo, screamed that the initial leap had been a killing blow intended for her. If he hadn't reacted…
Gwen, recovering from the shock, shook her head quickly. "I'm fine. But you—" Her eyes suddenly narrowed, focusing on something behind him. "Watch out!"
BOOM!
Hawk didn't even turn. He simply lashed out with a backward punch. His fist connected with something solid—a heavy library desk, swung like a club by the Lizard's powerful tail. The desk disintegrated in mid-air, exploding into a cloud of wood fragments and paper.
"You two get out of here!" a voice called down from above. Peter, now clinging to the wall near the ceiling like his namesake, his voice slightly distorted by his mask's modulator, yelled a warning. "Be careful, Hawk! His strength… it's insane!"
Peter knew. He had felt that strength firsthand. It was exponentially greater than it had been on the bridge just days ago. He worried that Hawk, despite his obvious power, might underestimate the sheer brute force of the creature.
Gwen looked from Peter, clinging impossibly to the wall, back to Hawk, who stood calmly amidst the debris, and made a decision. "Be careful," she urged Hawk, her voice tight with fear.
"Okay," he replied, giving her a reassuring smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.
Gwen turned and sprinted towards the library exit.
The moment her back was turned, the Lizard's predatory focus snapped back onto her. Its pupils constricted. With a powerful thrust of its legs, it launched itself from the stairs, ignoring Hawk completely, its claws outstretched, aiming to intercept Gwen before she could escape.
"Oh no!" Peter screamed from the ceiling.
"You're asking for death," Hawk's voice was suddenly devoid of all warmth, colder than ice, sharper than a razor's edge.
In the same instant, Peter reacted, firing two thick strands of webbing from his wrists. They snapped onto the Lizard's airborne form, momentarily arresting its forward momentum, pulling it taut in mid-air like a grotesque piñata.
But it was only a momentary pause. And it was all the time Hawk needed.
BANG!
A sonic boom cracked through the library, shattering the remaining windows. Hawk vanished from his spot. He reappeared in mid-air, directly in front of the momentarily suspended Lizard. There was no wind-up, no dramatic flourish. Just a single, seemingly light punch delivered directly to the creature's chest.
CRACK!
The sound was not of impact, but of catastrophic structural failure. The Lizard's thick, scaled hide and the reinforced bone beneath it offered no resistance. Hawk's fist punched clean through, shattering the creature's sternum and ribcage, exposing the grotesquely mutated, rapidly beating heart within.
The kinetic energy transfer was absolute. The Lizard's body, instantly transformed into a projectile, shot backward like a cannonball, ripping free from Peter's webs. Peter, caught by the sudden, immense recoil, was yanked violently backward along with his quarry, screaming as he flew through the air.
With incredible reflexes, Peter cut the web lines, tucked into a somersault, and shot out another web, anchoring himself to the ceiling just moments before he would have slammed into the far wall.
The Lizard was not so fortunate.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Its trajectory carried it across the entire length of the library. It smashed through row after row of heavy oak bookshelves on the second-floor mezzanine, sending books and splintered wood flying in a chaotic explosion. Its momentum finally stopped when its back slammed into the library's thick, load-bearing concrete wall with a final, sickening CRUNCH. The wall cracked, spiderwebbing outwards from the point of impact. The Lizard hung there for a moment, impaled on the wreckage of the shelves, before sliding limply to the floor.
It all happened in less than three seconds.
Hawk landed silently beside Gwen, his expression unreadable. "Are you alright?"
Gwen nodded mutely, her eyes wide, staring at the impossible scene of destruction, her mind still replaying the image of the Lizard leaping towards her, its claws outstretched. He wanted to kill me, she thought, a cold dread washing over her. Why?
Peter dropped from the ceiling onto the devastated second floor. He stared down at the Lizard's unmoving form. The creature's chest was a gaping, ruined cavity. Shards of bone and wood were embedded in its exposed, mutated heart. The heart gave one final, weak flutter, then stopped. The sickly green hue of the Lizard's scales began to fade, receding like a tide, revealing pale, human skin beneath.
One hit.
One punch.
And the monster was dead.