It was a sleepless night. Gwen tossed and turned, and each time she closed her eyes, the horrifying, decaying face of zombie Peter haunted her mind.
His rancid breath, the grotesque and disgusting sight of his jaw.
Gwen knew zombies looked like that. When a person loses both lips, no one would look good. Yet, she couldn't stop herself from feeling an even deeper repulsion toward Peter.
By midnight, Gwen couldn't take it anymore. She suited up as Spider-Woman and went out to search for Peter.
This time, she didn't run into another zombie Peter. She found Peter right after stepping outside.
Though it seemed she arrived at an inconvenient moment.
Gwen didn't know how to describe the scene: In the small alley behind Peter's house, Peter was lying flat on his back on a pile of garbage.
Standing in front of the dazed Peter was a red-haired woman, far more voluptuous and fiery than Gwen, asking with concern:
"Peter! You just swung over here on a web, clung to a four-story wall, and then fell?"
"Uh, ma'am, you've got the wrong person, I'm not… um…" Peter began rambling.
"Stop pretending! I'm Mary Jane Watson! I'm friends with your Aunt Anna! I just parted ways with her at your front door." Mary Jane, hands on her hips, decisively called him out.
Peter's eyes were glazed over, like he'd just been struck by lightning. Ever since he got these superpowers, he had all sorts of ideas, like wearing a mask like Spider-Woman to fight crime.
But his grand plan hadn't even started, and he'd already been exposed?
"Shh! Please! I had an accident. Can you keep this a secret?"
"Sure! Are you... the new Spider-Man?" Mary Jane's forceful tone left Peter utterly deflated.
His powers were just a copy of Spider-Woman's!
"I guess you could say that."
"If you want me to keep a secret, no problem! But make me your sidekick. Every superhero has a support team, don't they?"
"Y-yeah…"
Maybe it was fate. After the initial shock, Peter and Mary Jane started talking, and the more they talked, the more they hit it off.
For some reason, Gwen, watching this from the rooftop, felt a chill.
"Hmph!" She grunted softly, turned away, and went back to bed.
The next morning, Gwen tried to calm herself down.
If she had been scared before, thinking Peter might have turned into a zombie and died before her eyes last night, all those fears vanished when she saw Peter chatting happily with a curvy redhead. Instead, she was just mad.
Still, when the unkempt, bleary-eyed Peter, with dark circles under his eyes, once again bummed a ride from her dad George, Gwen couldn't help but feel relieved.
But then, when she remembered the redhead's chest was bigger than hers, she couldn't stop herself from making a disgusted face.
"Uh, Gwen, what's wrong?"
"I strongly suggest you look at yourself." She hid her feelings well and pulled a small mirror from her bag.
Peter saw his disheveled reflection in the mirror and noticed that his shirt buttons were completely mismatched. He immediately realized his mistake. "Sorry, Gwen."
George, driving in the front seat, glanced over and couldn't help but tease the young man he saw as his future son-in-law. "Hey, Peter, no girl would be happy to see you looking like that."
He didn't realize that there was already a deep rift between his beloved daughter and Peter.
It seemed like just another ordinary day at school, the usual routine, until lunchtime.
Gwen pulled a downcast Peter, who couldn't look her in the eye, up to the empty rooftop of the school.
"Gwen, what's this about?"
"Are you okay after last night?"
"Me? I'm fine." Peter's eyes darted everywhere but at Gwen.
Gwen grabbed Peter's shoulders tightly. "I'm worried about you! If that spider hurt you last night, I sincerely apologize. I caught it in the wild, and judging by its pattern, it might be venomous. I strongly suggest you see a doctor or consult Dr. Connors."
Peter was the kind of guy who acted cool in public but was a chatterbox behind closed doors.
Even with Gwen's open concern, he didn't get it. He brushed her hand off forcefully. "I'm fine! I'm great! Stop worrying about small things."
"Small things?" Gwen's eyes widened in shock.
A body mutation, turning into one of the Spider-People, and this was a small thing?
Peter, are you really going to keep this from me?
Gwen was always one to act. Without hesitation, she shot a huge wad of webbing from her wrist, hitting Peter square in the chest.
Peter was dumbfounded, eyes wide, unable to speak for a long time.
"Hello! Let me introduce myself. I'm Spider-Woman. So, are you the future Spider-Man?"
"I…" Peter finally raised his right hand. Tiny, visible barbs protruded from his fingers—Spider-Man's secret to walking up walls.
"Thought so…" Gwen tore off the web stuck to Peter's chest. "Alright, I've come clean. Your turn."
"My turn for what?"
"What else did you do last night?"
"Nothing! I turned into this out of nowhere. I was terrified."
"Really?" Gwen had an urge to ask about Mary Jane, but when the words reached her lips, she stopped. She suddenly realized she had no right to ask.
Zombie Peter and Mary Jane—double whammy.
A subtle feeling of betrayal spread through Gwen's body.
"Nothing," Peter replied, sounding irritated.
Gwen gritted her teeth.
"Fine! Decide whether you want to team up with me to take down New York's criminals." Gwen turned abruptly and walked away.
If last night's meeting between Peter and Mary Jane seemed like a coincidence to Gwen, then the fact that they spent the next few days glued together, with their relationship visibly growing, was something Gwen couldn't accept.
To make matters worse, Atreus, who was monitoring the school, caught wind of it.
He facepalmed with a sigh. "Come on, Gwen. Give it up. This is fate, no, the ultimate power of canon!"
Real damage is the most real kind of damage.
In history, Gwen had it rough. Her dad died protecting Peter, and then Gwen herself died later on.
Sure, it shattered Peter emotionally.
Maybe that's the so-called doomed love.
Eventually, Peter moved on, had one or two other girlfriends, but ultimately married Mary Jane and had kids!
Sigh! In the end, how could a supporting character ever defeat the lead?
The wheel of fate keeps turning, and no one knows when or how it veers off course just a little.
Dr. Connors had obtained the interspecies research formula that Peter's father had left behind. Within a week, his research made groundbreaking progress.
But Ambrose Osborn, the head of Osborn Corp., couldn't wait any longer. His genetic disease left him with little time to live. Frustrated with Connors' lack of results, he decided to shut down the lab.
This pushed Dr. Connors to the edge.
Years earlier, he had lost his right arm in battle, and his life's work had been dedicated to researching limb regeneration. His focus on lizard genes, which could regenerate limbs, had been his life's passion. Now, with everything about to be lost, how could he take it?
So, after receiving the shutdown order, Dr. Connors took a desperate step and injected himself with the newly developed lizard serum.
His arm did regrow, but at the cost of turning him into a monstrous, three-meter-tall creature covered in fearsome green scales—a Lizardman.
And so, this brand-new monster unleashed a bio-horror spectacle on New York's Golden Gate Bridge.
"Roar!"
The appearance of Lizardman turned the already congested bridge into a complete traffic jam.
"Ahhhh!" Panicked citizens screamed and ran for their lives.
Who could blame them? Anyone would be terrified seeing a giant, upright, walking green lizard, especially when it effortlessly tossed a car weighing over a ton as if it were a toy block.
Inside the car were innocent people.
"Help—me!?" A middle-aged office worker thought he was done for. But just as the car was plummeting 30 meters, it suddenly stopped, suspended in mid-air.
Spider-Man Peter had made his entrance.
With his super-stretchy webbing, Peter saved the man at the last second.
However, the Lizardman's rampage continued, sending more and more vehicles flying off the bridge. Peter was forced to rescue people again and again.
He didn't notice that everything he was doing was being watched by another Spider-Person.
Gwen shouted, "You save the people! I'll stop him!"
This is the mindset of the police chief's daughter.
"Okay!" Peter nodded, while Gwen bravely swung down and engaged the Lizard in battle.
Unfortunately, Spider-Man's inherent weakness—high agility but low attack power—was painfully clear against the tough, thick-skinned Lizard.
The Golden Gate Bridge wasn't Spider-Man's preferred terrain.
Gwen's sense of justice wouldn't allow her to use webbing to tie up cars and hurl them as weapons, so her attacks barely made a dent.
Neither punches nor kicks, nor even webs, could harm the Lizard or restrain him.
In a fit of rage, the Lizard casually tossed a car, crushing an innocent civilian beneath it.
Hearing the victim's agonized screams, Gwen's heart broke.
"Stop him!" Gwen shouted, prompting Peter to join the fight.
Unfortunately, without piercing the Lizard's thick hide, their attacks were futile, and they were far from making any significant impact.
To make things worse, they weren't even making progress quickly.
"If only Kratos were here…" Gwen wondered why she thought of that seemingly rough yet gentle man at a time like this.
Sadly, he wasn't.
Even with two Spider-People working together, they couldn't control the rampaging Lizard and could only watch as he wreaked havoc.
When the Lizard rammed a car full of children off the Golden Gate Bridge, Peter had no choice but to prioritize saving the kids, while Gwen struggled to hold off the Lizard.
Then, something happened that defied the course of fate.
By some stroke of bad luck, the NYPD's SWAT team, led by Police Chief George Stacy, arrived on the scene in just twenty minutes.
Seeing Spider-Man rescuing civilians and the Lizard causing chaos, George decisively ordered, "Try to avoid the two Spider-People and open fire on that green lizard-looking guy!"
More than twenty NYPD SWAT officers immediately raised their rifles and unleashed a barrage of bullets at the Lizard.
"Rat-tat-tat!"
A torrential downpour of gunfire rained down.
Firepower that would turn a normal person into a sieve had little effect on a monster like the Lizard.
The 9mm rounds from the MP5s bounced off, and most of the 5.56mm bullets from the rifles were deflected by the Lizard's tough scales. Only a few rounds penetrated his skin, but even they failed to reach his muscles.
These superficial injuries only further enraged the berserk Dr. Connors.
"Roar!"
Braving the storm of bullets, the Lizard, with strength and speed beyond human comprehension, crossed fifty meters in the blink of an eye and lunged into the SWAT team.
"Ahhh!" With a single swipe of his claws, the Lizard unleashed a bloodbath.
SWAT officers, clad in bulletproof vests and tactical helmets, were tossed around like broken dolls, their bodies twisted grotesquely as they were flung through the air.
It was clear they wouldn't survive.
George bravely raised his pistol and fired several shots at the Lizard's head.
Unfortunately, this only enraged the creature further.
When the SWAT team around him had been wiped out, the Lizard finally locked his sights on Chief George Stacy.
"No!" Gwen tried to intervene.
She failed. Her flexible webs were no match for the Lizard's sheer, unstoppable force.
The Lizard's massive claw struck her father's chest.
"Rip!" His thick bulletproof vest tore apart like a rag, and the expression of deathly fear froze on both father and daughter's faces.
At that critical moment, a pale but strong arm appeared.
Impossible!
The Lizard's terrifying reptilian eyes contracted to their smallest size.
Dr. Connors knew exactly how powerful his strike was.
A car weighing over a ton could be tossed effortlessly by him.
Yet, this devastating blow was stopped by a single human arm.
The man grasped his wrist tightly, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't move an inch further.
Gwen's eyes widened with immense joy: "Kratos!?"