On South Brother Island, the Lizard opened his eyes. The green scales on his body quivered slightly, emitting a faint, metallic clinking sound.
During this period of dormancy, the Lizard's physique had completely settled into a form three meters tall and five meters long.
The two rows of bone spurs on his back were no longer simple skeletal extensions; they had evolved into dorsal fins where bone, muscle, and surface scales merged into one.
The Lizard's claws had grown increasingly sharp. As he propped himself up with one claw to slowly rise, the solid floor of the South Brother Island laboratory was silently shredded, leaving behind neat, deep gashes.
His lizard tail showed little change from before, though its strength had clearly been enhanced.
"Connors?"
Hearing the movement, Dr. Banner walked over quickly, peering through his glasses at the Lizard, who had just transitioned from a prone position to standing.
The Lizard did not speak. He stared at Dr. Banner in silence.
One second, two seconds... the Lizard remained motionless.
Without a word, Dr. Banner took off his glasses and tossed them far aside.
At the exact moment Banner threw the glasses, the Lizard's eyes narrowed sharply, a cold light glinting within his golden vertical pupils.
Swish!
The Lizard's upper body remained still, but the tail behind him suddenly whipped upward. With a slight pivot of his torso, he sent the thick, powerful tail smashing toward Dr. Banner!
In the fleeting instant between the tail's rise and fall, a flash of green surged deep within Banner's eyes. Then, from head to toe, inside and out, an intensifying green hue and bulging, corded muscles tore his clothes to shreds.
Boom!
The lizard tail slammed down heavily, but a pair of massive green hands caught it firmly, shoving it to the side.
"Big Lizard, want to fight? Hulk will play with you!"
The Hulk spoke in a low, booming voice, his fists slowly tightening. He seemed genuinely irritated.
Opposite the Hulk, there wasn't a trace of emotion in the Lizard's eyes. His golden pupils stared coldly at the Hulk. Without a word, he dropped into a crouch and lunged forward on all fours, snapping his jaws at the Hulk.
Seeing the Lizard attack without a word, a flash of rage crossed the Hulk's face. He raised both fists high and slammed them down the moment the Lizard reached him.
Rumble!
The Lizard's head was instantly driven deep into the floor by the Hulk's strike. The force was so immense that the Lizard's neck and upper body buckled upward as his head remained pinned to the ground.
"Hmph," Hulk snorted. But before he could express any further thoughts, the Lizard's tail somehow snaked around his neck.
"Ugh!" Hulk grabbed the tail wrapped around his throat. The green veins on his arms bulged—he clearly intended to rip the Lizard's tail off by brute force.
But the Lizard didn't give him the chance. With a violent whip of his tail, he lifted the Hulk off the ground and slammed him hard into the floor on the other side.
Hiss!
Roar!
A lizard and a giant—two green behemoths locked in a desperate struggle.
Less than twenty meters away, Dr. Otto and Professor Morbius, who had been conducting experiments moments ago, looked at each other in bewilderment.
"Are you going to go up and stop them?" Professor Morbius asked Dr. Otto in a hushed tone.
"Me?" Dr. Otto shook his head repeatedly. "Are you joking? The tentacles on my back are for self-defense; I can't possibly interfere with the tens of tons of force those two monsters are throwing around."
"Then what do we do?" Professor Morbius felt small and helpless.
Dr. Otto kept his voice low, terrified of drawing the attention of the Lizard or the Hulk. "I've sent an emergency signal to Batman. I don't know how long it will take him to—"
Before he could finish, Otto's eyes widened. Batman had silently appeared beside the grappling Lizard and Hulk.
Two loud booms echoed as Batman detonated miniature mines on both the Hulk and the Lizard.
As the explosions forced them back half a step, Batman flicked his wrists. In the blink of an eye, a dozen beeping miniature mines were scattered across the floor, nearly reaching the feet of Dr. Otto and Professor Morbius.
"What are you doing, Lizard?" Batman asked, his voice cold.
The Hulk grunted in dissatisfaction. "Big Lizard's gone crazy. He attacked without saying a word!"
After hearing the Hulk's complaint, Batman's white-lensed eyes stared icily into the Lizard's golden vertical pupils, meeting his gaze without flinching.
"Why?" Batman asked in a low voice.
The Lizard's face, like his body, had long since transformed entirely into that of a reptile. As he slowly stood up, he looked more like a small dinosaur from a prehistoric world.
"Something is making a noise," the Lizard's voice was as harsh as nails scraping on glass. "That sound woke me from my evolution. I am very angry."
"Who?" Batman asked.
The Lizard did not answer. Instead, he turned his body and looked toward Manhattan.
Batman mentally calculated the trajectory of the Lizard's gaze and realized it pointed directly toward Reed Richards' Baxter Building.
"Dammit! I never thought I'd be chased by a pack of dinosaurs in the 21st century!"
Susan's brother, Johnny, shouted as he ran. "Dammit! Who can save me?!"
"Ben! Why isn't the building's security system online? Get me a heavy machine gun! This little pistol you gave me can't even scratch their hides!"
Beside Johnny, Ben Grimm was also running with giant strides, carrying Reed Richards over his shoulder.
"Two hours ago, Reed shut down the entire building's security system so he could focus on researching that Omni-Wave Projector!"
"Why would he do that?!" Johnny yelled in despair. The dinosaurs behind him were gaining ground; he could feel their hot breath hitting the back of his neck.
"Because this lunatic didn't want to answer calls from all those big shots after the Omni-Wave Projector triggered the alarms!"
Ben Grimm sounded a bit guilty as he spoke. If he and the little girl, Lunella, hadn't brought the Omni-Wave Projector back, the security system wouldn't have been triggered, and the phones in the Baxter Building wouldn't have been ringing off the hook.
"We have to find a way to save Lunella! She was taken by those primitive men!" Susan Stone called out from across the hallway. She was also being pursued by dinosaurs, shouting as she ran.
Ben Grimm stole a glance at the massive dinosaur chasing him—a beast over eighteen meters long—and corrected Susan's priorities.
"The problem right now is how we save ourselves! The security system is down, and there's no way to turn it back on unless Reed does it. Every signal except the emergency line is being jammed... Damn it, we never thought this would happen when we designed this place for security!"
"And I should remind you both: those first five dinosaurs were just the scouts. They're still pouring out of there!"
With Reed Richards on his shoulder, Ben Grimm knew that if things turned truly dire, he would have to throw himself into a dinosaur's maw just to save Reed's brilliant mind.
But Ben didn't want to die. He wanted to live. As the jaws of a creature that looked like an oversized Giganotosaurus snapped shut just inches above his head, Ben Grimm asked himself one question:
"Who can save us?"
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