Gwen glared at the hulking reptile. "Dr. Connors, I'm taking you down and bringing you in!"
Spider-Woman went on the attack. The Lizard could snap concrete pillars with a swipe, but he couldn't lay a hand on her—she danced around him, strikes landing again and again. The problem was damage. His hide was thick, and his regeneration erased what little she managed to do. Wounds that would put a normal man in a coma sealed over in seconds.
Rage made her hit harder—and burn out faster. Breath ragged, form slipping, she started to fall behind. The Lizard caught a leg and whipped her through a crumbling wall, leaving a human-shaped crater.
New to her powers and still green in a real fight, the burst of agony kept her down. She pushed to rise as a towering green shape blotted out the streetlight, turning the alley into a dark void. A kick hammered her again. Heavy footsteps closed in. She tried to stand. Nothing answered. Despair crept in with the fear.
Dr. Curt Connors wasn't home anymore. The Lizard wouldn't show mercy.
"I just got these powers," she thought. "I don't want to die."
But pain sang in every inch of her body, and her limbs wouldn't listen.
She braced for the end—the same end she assumed had already taken the white-haired guy at the substation.
Then a voice carried across the rubble. For a heartbeat, she thought she was hallucinating—until the Lizard paused and turned.
The man wasn't dead.
"How?" flashed through Gwen's mind—then the voice came again, annoyed and very alive. "Hey. You ugly freak. Didn't you hear me?"
The Lizard pivoted. Sam Moore was standing in the debris, a feral smile on his face. "Came straight at me? Think I'm easy?"
Connors had been a genius, but the Lizard ran on instinct more than intellect. Seeing prey that should have been crushed, it stalled for a blink—then charged to tear him apart.
"Run!" Gwen tried to shout. He didn't.
The Lizard roared and thundered forward. For all its bulk, it moved fast—nearly as quick and reactive as Gwen herself, just heavier, stronger.
Sam raised one hand.
Infinity unfolded—space around him stretching, layering, reaching toward an unmoving limit. The charge hit that invisible horizon and stopped.
To Gwen, it looked impossible. A slender arm against a charging truck—and the truck froze inches away.
What is happening? Why doesn't anything make sense?
Sam glanced up at the looming maw and smiled, bright and infuriating. "Come on. Little harder. You might touch me."
The Lizard bellowed and poured everything into the next push. Muscles bunched, tendons creaked—and it still couldn't close the last few centimeters. A breath away, and a world apart.
Sam got bored first. He flooded his frame with cursed energy, letting Six Eyes thread precision through every motion.
At his current fusion, he wasn't going to overpower the Lizard head-on. He didn't need to. With Infinity active, the Lizard couldn't touch him. He could touch it.
He moved. Strikes landed with surgical timing—throat, ribs, knee, sternum—each hit amplified by cursed energy and Gojo's crisp, clinical rhythm. To Gwen's shock, the "civilian" dismantled the monster like a veteran.
A kick hammered the Lizard's chest. It blew back through a row of walls and hit the ground hard. It staggered up seconds later, torn flesh knitting with sickening speed.
Gwen's spark of hope dimmed. "Sir," she called, voice tight, "Dr. Connors heals fast. If you don't finish him in one shot, he'll grind you down. You need to outpace his regeneration."
Sam didn't answer. The Lizard, freshly mended and angrier than before, lunged. Sam's mouth curled. "You think I can't deal with that?"
He opened his hand, fingers curling slightly as his voice went cold. "Technique Shift—Blue."