Remaining nameless to avoid spoilers

Note:

A warning of sorts: no need to panic or anything, the next chapters will put everything in its place.

***

The news that the target had reached the decoy caught Daisy at the entrance to the control room.

"Tell me it worked!" she demanded, ignoring the local commanding officer (a former Air Force colonel) and looking at the kid operator she'd remembered five minutes earlier.

"Uh," Aaron, that was the guy's name, cast a quick glance at his boss before answering, "that's right ma'am, the lizard has taken the bait, everything is going according to your plan."

Having a lot of experience with women in power, Aron didn't miss the opportunity to suck up where necessary, adding a dash of flattery to his report. And the bad news can be left to his less farsighted immediate superior.

"During the execution of your "genius" plan," the former colonel Johnson intercepted the word exactly as Aron had expected, "valuable equipment worth tens of millions was destroyed, and twenty-five elite fighters were killed."

"Not so elite if they' allowed themselves to be cornered," Daisy smirked at her, showing a full set of beautiful teeth - so white that it was almost painful to look at them in the bright light.

It was especially painful for someone like Johnson, forced to wear dentures in her early fifties - a consequence of several not-so-successful missions for the homeland. The colonel had no doubt that this was exactly what the upstart was counting on. That Daisy always found a place to sting the most.

She had a point, though: she was alive, even though she had faced the Lizard one-on-one, with only the knife in her hands. Even if it wasn't just a knife.

[Hoping to get even more favor from the Adepts after the final stage,] Johnson grimaced to herself, [no one will spare any money for her treatment.]

"Put the Lizard on the main screen, I want to see his every move," gave orders to Daisy, "snipers, ready in two minutes!

Meanwhile, the Lizard continued to make his way to the intended rendezvous point. The grip of pursuit clenched around his neck tighter and tighter, it seemed that not only he but his enemies had opened a second breath in them as well. More and more often, his back was torn by gunfire. More and more often he failed to escape from the attack in time.

"You can go straight through here," he suddenly remembered the plan of the building he'd seen on the computer; for humans the local flimsy walls are a barrier, for him, no.

Protecting his eyes with his hand, he flew at full speed into the wall, bursting into the next room with ease.

"What is he doing?" Daisy was in the control room, indignant, "He can't get to the exit from there, can he?"

"I guess he took a shortcut," said Aron, who had Daisy safely behind him, "so if you cut through the mess hall and the mess hall, you can get to the balcony above hangar two."

"You mean he memorized not only the route, but the whole plan of the building at a glance..." stretched Daisy, "well, well, we're ready to meet... damn, there's a sniper position, tell them to get out of there!"

But it was too late. A lunging lizard burst toward the balcony at the same time as the soldiers were told to leave the room. The unluckiest of the snipers happened to be just in the way of the Lizard, which was a surprise to both of them. Waving off the annoying nuisance, the monster jumped off the balcony, not at all concerned about the fate of the unlucky woman left disabled after their brief encounter.

After looking around, the lizard was confused. This hangar was not the one he had seen on the CCTV broadcast. It was much bigger, and there was a lot of equipment: cars and trucks, a couple of infantry vehicles, and even one air interceptor. All this variety of military engineering was not on the camera footage.

Before the monster knew it, several searchlights were shining on his figure, and then shots rang out - the sniper he'd maimed wasn't the only one who was supposed to meet the Lizard in the hangar.

Except that the rifles of the shooters were not filled with ordinary ammunition. With bewilderment, Yasher plucked a dart fluttering with red plumage from his shoulder. Could it be the antiserum? Soldiers were already rushing toward him from all sides. He had walked into a trap, but when had they had time to set it all up?

"Great! Pack him up and drag him back," Daisy, who was watching the operation in real time, excitedly clapped the operator on the shoulder, making the guy wince in pain - the idea of sleeping with his boss no longer seemed so good to him, "let's start preparing for extraction."

The pain was already beginning to take back control of Daisy's body from the stimulants, but at the moment there was little to dampen the girl's mood. With an exaggeratedly brisk stride, she strode in front of the gritted teeth of a retired military officer who was aiming her toothless gums to claw at her spot.

Parker, already a normal human again, was dragged back to where he had begun his escape as the Lizard. Only this time they took him straight down to the familiar seat, to which multiple metal manipulators were attached.

"I should have broken that thing," Peter grudgingly muttered when he saw the bloody bed.

"I don't think you could have done it," he heard a familiar voice say, "the glass is very strong, as are the walls and even the doors through which you were just dragged. This room is the most fortified place in the complex."

"What's the meaning of all this?" Peter shouted, glaring hatefully at Daisy, "If you've done something to them..."

"I suppose you mean your girlfriends," Daisy grinned, "well, they've already done everything for us. They broke into a secret S.H.I.E.L.D. base under the city and started smashing things up. All we had to do was ditch the car in the right place to send the fools on a wild-goose chase. You saw the tape yourself, by the way, and it was taken three days ago. So... both your girlfriends have been a mutant anatomy tutorial for S.H.I.E.L.D. scientists for days. No one's gonna save you, Parker. It's over."

"You're lying... lying again, why should I believe you?" Peter let it out, the desperation in his voice as clear as the rage seconds earlier.

"Hey, have I ever lied to you? Show him the full tape, let him admire it one last time," Daisy shoved one of her charges sideways.

Meanwhile, the guy was already chained to the seat where hundreds, if not thousands, of "worthies" had found their rest before him. He watched the video of Venom and the Spiderwoman battling it out from start to finish against the entire security system of the secret S.H.I.E.L.D. base while he was lying on his deathbed. She really didn't lie. Unable to break through the outer perimeter of the base, Venom and Stacy tried to retreat back into the tunnel, but they didn't make it. S.H.I.E.L.D. also had a couple of skilled marksmen who managed to shoot the girls with sniper rifles.

He saw with his own eyes how Gwen, wounded in the stomach, fell and how Venom, who tried to pick her up, was caught in the crossfire. Even if they weren't dead-the spider powers still allow for some level of self-healing, not to mention symbiote abilities-they're both already in the shield's custody, in some of their super-secret prisons.

Never before had Peter felt so idiotic. Obviously, he had been long and thoroughly watched, but he, confident that Nick Fury's underlings would be the first to visit him, had not even tried to prevent the surveillance. As a result, like an obedient puppet, he acted strictly at his puppeteer's bidding the whole time. Even when he became a Lizard, he could not break these strings.

Satisfied with herself, Daisy turned away from the panoramic window through which she watched the outcome of her deeds. Parker is completely broken, not a hint of defiance in his eyes anymore. With this treatment, his brain would become a perfect core, and consequently a happy, bright future awaited her herself. Preferably away from all those damn fanatics: the Shield, Hydra and other dubious secret organizations.

Not without blemishes and collateral damage, but she got the job done. As she always has.