Dr. Connors Wasn't Planning to Stay Human!

Why had Hawk worked so hard to become stronger?

Wasn't it so he could keep his own fate in his own hands?

Oh.

Now someone came along and wanted his blood?

Heh.

Dream on.

It had only been Gwen just now. If it had been anyone else, Hawk guaranteed that the moment their blood-draw needle came down, Hawk would have blown their head apart.

However...

Gwen ignored Hawk's teasing remark and looked once more at the blood analysis report that had just come out.

Others might not understand it, but she could.

And precisely because she understood it, Gwen sucked in a sharp breath.

Nearly every one of Hawk's blood values was off the charts.

His white blood cell count alone had already reached the maximum value the equipment could display. The actual figure might have been even higher.

And what did a white blood cell count indicate? It meant Hawk's immune system was exceptionally powerful and efficient. With such a formidable immune system, he could almost instantly identify and eliminate any foreign invader, such as viruses, bacteria, parasites, and so on.

It even suggested that his recovery ability was astonishing.

Gwen once again thought of the day of the lab accident. She had clearly seen Hawk's hand bleeding, yet it had healed in the blink of an eye.

And there were all the other figures...

In short.

If Gwen had not personally drawn the blood from Hawk's finger, then merely looking at this report, she would absolutely have assumed that the data had been falsified.

Because these were not numbers a human being should possess.

"I once saw Captain America's blood test report online."

"Hawk."

"Your numbers are even more outrageous than Captain America's. Don't tell me you were injected with Super Soldier Serum too, like Captain America?"

Gwen could not help looking at Hawk. Having ruled out mutation, injection with Super Soldier Serum was the only possibility left.

But unfortunately.

Hawk shrugged.

"I wasn't."

"All right."

Seeing that, Gwen decisively dropped the subject. In a few quick motions, she tore the report in her hands into tiny pieces, thoroughly cleaned the machine inside and out, rinsed the test tube under the faucet three times, then tossed the soggy scraps of paper into the nearby trash can.

She completely eliminated any chance of the report or blood sample being accidentally discovered by someone else.

Hawk could not help laughing when he saw Gwen finish all that.

"Was there really any need to be so nervous, Gwen?"

"Yes."

With a grave expression, Gwen said to Hawk, "I have no doubt that if your data were exposed, you would end up on an operating table."

Hawk raised an eyebrow. "That depends on whether they can catch me."

They could try.

Because Hawk would not mind turning their attempt into their deaths.

After all, he had already started killing.

As he had said before.

Killing was no longer a question of whether he would do it. It was only a matter of how many he would kill.

But Hawk's words did not ease Gwen's expression in the slightest. Instead, she stared at him even more seriously.

"Hawk!"

"Yeah."

"Never let anyone find out about your blood data."

"...All right."

Hawk looked at Gwen's stern face, thought it over, and nodded.

Only then did the serious expression on Gwen's little face soften somewhat. As she and Hawk walked toward the laboratory exit, she changed the subject.

"So what do we do next?"

"About what?"

"Dr. Connors."

"It has nothing to do with us."

Hawk shrugged. "We weren't the ones who turned him into a lizard monster. For all we know, Dr. Connors might already have run off to Mexico."

Gwen thought about it and nodded.

"Possible."

"Let's stop talking about him. What class do you have this afternoon?"

"French. You?"

"Geography."

Discussing their afternoon schedules, the two of them left Stark Tower Lab 3 behind them.

Just like that, three days passed in a flash.

Over those three days, the commotion caused by the lizard monster gradually died down.

After all, since the lizard monster had appeared once on the Williamsburg Bridge that day, it had not shown itself again during those three days.

Everyone believed the lizard monster had either been secretly captured by the military or had already fled New York City.

The Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, Peter, thought so too.

But...

In reality, Lizard had never left. At this very moment, he was hiding in an underground tunnel five blocks from Midtown High School.

In New York City's sewer system, platforms were set up at regular intervals.

Lizard's temporary base had been set up on one such platform.

But at that moment, Lizard had reverted to Dr. Connors's appearance.

Yet after experiencing life as a tremendously powerful, fully limbed, though admittedly ugly, giant lizard man, how could he willingly revert to being a weak and helpless, disabled human once the dosage wore off?

Perhaps Dr. Connors's original reason for injecting the Regeneration Potion had been to stop the board from using those already pitiful disabled veterans as test subjects.

But now, Dr. Connors had come to realize something.

Being human was not bad, but being a lizard man meant being stronger than ordinary people, more capable than ordinary people, and far freer than ordinary people.

So Dr. Connors made a decision.

He would no longer be human. He wanted to become a lizard man permanently.

And to achieve that, he first had to figure out why that one and only successful white mouse had succeeded.

Thus, over the past three days, he had remained there, watching the recordings from his laboratory.

Finally...

Amid the occasionally hypnotic mechanical hum caused by electrical currents passing through the equipment, Dr. Connors—covered in sweat and grime—suddenly lit up as he stared at the frozen image on the screen before him.

There it was.

The image showed the severed-tailed white mouse licking blood from the floor.

Dr. Connors rapidly rewound the footage, and soon the image froze on the moment Hawk withdrew his hand from before Gwen's eyes.

"Hawk!"

"It was him!"

The moment Dr. Connors saw that image, his entire body jolted, then began trembling uncontrollably.

He was trembling with excitement.

He had once been kind to Hawk, so Dr. Connors believed that if he called Hawk, Hawk would surely give him some blood for research.

That was what he thought, and that was what he intended to do.

But just as Dr. Connors was about to take out his phone, a voice that seemed to come from within his heart, yet also seemed to sound beside his ear, suddenly rang out.

"No, he won't give it to you. How could someone with such powerful blood possibly give you his blood?"

"..."

Listening to the whisper that seemed to echo both within his heart and beside his ear, Dr. Connors's eyes became unfocused.

"That's right. He won't give it to me. How could he? But... what should I do?"

"Gwen..."

"Capture Gwen. She's Hawk's girlfriend. Capture Gwen and force him to give you his blood!"

"You're right. Capture Gwen, force him..."

With vacant eyes, Dr. Connors muttered to himself as he grabbed the three remaining Regeneration Potions beside him...

Mass releases still ongoing—please keep reading and add it to your collection!