The Birth of Doctor Lizard

Dr. Connors' gaze flickered.

He sat slumped in his office chair, his expression outwardly calm, but inwardly, he was locked in an internal struggle.

On one hand, Dr. Connors wanted to proceed with the human experimentation.

After all, what was the point of his research if not to benefit humanity, to free people from the suffering of disability?

But on the other hand, Dr. Connors knew all too well that the regeneration serum was not yet stable.

Up to this point, only one, and precisely one, white mouse had achieved the results he dreamed of after being injected with the regeneration potion.

But therein lay the problem.

They didn't know why it had succeeded.

Yes.

It had succeeded, but they didn't know why, and they couldn't replicate it.

Since they didn't even know what the issue was, they couldn't find the problem, and naturally, they couldn't replicate it.

Medicine was a rigorous discipline, allowing no room for carelessness.

Especially when it came to human experimentation, let alone one problem, even the slightest confusion had to be resolved before proceeding to the next step.

Therefore...

Emotionally, no one wanted to see the regeneration potion succeed more than he did.

But rationally, the board's approach was undoubtedly gambling with the lives of those disabled soldiers.

Dr. Connors was in the throes of an internal battle.

Angels and demons appeared in his mind.

The angel told him that this was wrong, and if something went wrong, God would not forgive him.

But the demon told him that medicine was destined for sacrifice, and if it succeeded, even if he died and went to heaven, the angels would have to make way for him.

Dr. Connors sat in his office, lost in thought.

Sunlight streamed through the window, casting shifting patterns of light and shadow on his face.

And so.

He remained in his office from afternoon until nightfall.

With a ding, Dr. Connors, who had been lost in his internal struggle, was startled awake.

He grabbed his phone and opened the text message that had just arrived.

He read:

Doctor, I'm on my way to the hospital. We believe in you.

After reading it.

Dr. Connors' gaze became unfocused.

Then!

With a whoosh.

Dr. Connors suddenly stood up from his seat and, as if having made some firm decision, walked resolutely towards the door.

The camera monitoring the laboratory remained quietly in the corner.

A red light blinked.

With a ding, in the laboratory, the "Bio-Engineering Mixer," responsible for cross-species gene splicing and fusion, successfully opened. Dr. Connors took out a bottle of serum that appeared green.

I may not be an angel, but I absolutely cannot be a demon.

Dr. Connors murmured, looking at the bottle of regeneration potion in his hand, a fusion of mutated serum extracted from a white mouse and lizard serum. His gaze then firmed, and he sat down with the bottle of regeneration potion.

After a while.

Sitting in the chair, Dr. Connors looked at the syringe in his hand, took a deep breath, and then, without further hesitation, plunged the syringe into his right arm, which he had lost in an accident, and quickly pushed the plunger all the way down.

Almost the moment he pulled the needle out, a wave of dizziness, without any prelude, washed over him.

Thump!

Dr. Connors' head slammed onto the desk in front of him.

At the same time, in the stump of his right arm, something seemed to be wriggling, trying to break free.

Like...

"A bug?"

"Hmm, a very small lizard."

Gwen, who had already finished dinner and returned to her room, was on the phone with Hawk, recounting a funny story from dinner about her eight-year-old brother being scared by a lizard that had crawled in from somewhere.

Hawk listened to Gwen's laughter on the other end of the line, sounding a bit curious.

"Aren't you scared?"

"Hawk."

Gwen said seriously, "You forgot, the regeneration potion in our lab was inspired by lizards. If there's one thing our lab has plenty of, it's lab rats and lizards."

She wasn't some delicate little woman.

She was a cold scientist who could drain a lizard dry without batting an eye, and dissect a lab rat just as calmly.

Hawk suddenly realized, and smiled.

Gwen also smiled, then changed the subject.

"What about you, have you eaten?"

"No."

Hawk looked at the fried chicken legs he had just bought. "I was planning to go to the rooftop to spar, and eat after that."

There was no helping it. The old gymnasium had been demolished at the start of the new semester to build a swimming pool.

And the new gymnasium was packed with people, especially today. With the new semester, there were even more ninth graders, making the gym even more crowded.

So Hawk just decided he'd spar on the rooftop when he got home tonight, then eat, shower, and sleep.

Gwen listened to Hawk's plans and nodded. Then, she thought of something.

"Hawk, can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"Why do you practice boxing every day? You're already strong enough, aren't you?"

Gwen said.

The scene she saw after walking through the forest flashed in her mind.

Hawk standing in a pool of water, bare-chested.

The waterfall that seemed to flow backward in front of Hawk.

Gwen didn't know if Hawk had actually made the waterfall flow backward, as she hadn't seen it with her own eyes.

But she had no doubt that the Hawk in front of her could kill a bear with a single punch.

She had seen it with her own eyes.

That day, after seeing Hawk kill a bear with one punch, Gwen felt both relieved and terrified.

After all, she hadn't encountered a single wild animal from the moment she entered the forest until she found Hawk. She knew how lucky she had been.

Or maybe not.

Perhaps it was divine intervention.

Gwen then thought of that unknown website that could provide Hawk's real-time location, even though his phone was turned off.

As Gwen recalled Maryland and that unknown website, Hawk also fell silent upon hearing her question.

"Why do you still practice boxing every day?"

"To..."

Hawk was silent for a moment. A scene flashed in his mind, and after thinking about it, he gave an answer.

"To protect myself and the people I care about."

"Am I one of them?"

Gwen's clear voice rang in Hawk's ears as she listened to his explanation.

She had forcefully given Hawk her "used-by-beauty phone" that day, and after he didn't refuse, she felt like she had found the secret to interacting with him.

Hawk hadn't expected Gwen to be so direct.

He couldn't help but chuckle, then nodded heavily.

"Of course."

"..."