By Moonlight (P.P + M.J)

28. Sunny With a Chance of Lycans

The next morning was interesting, to say the least. Peter had slept on the floor of MJ's room, after making sure to message May that he was staying at "Ned's" place after a rough night heroing. The second half was true at least, but for the rest of it, not so much. Him and MJ had stayed up past three in the morning just talking. Something they did was that MJ would lay on her bed, Peter was on the floor, and MJ would let her hand hang down so she could reach him and they would play thumb wars as they talked.

MJ's parents were out by dawn. One of the things Peter learned was that her dad was a low-level cop who patrolled upper Manhattan. Her mother was a teacher at Hamilton High School, which was somewhere in Brooklyn, and her older sister was a custodian at the library. Because their jobs required them to leave early, MJ usually took the bus to school, but Peter wouldn't know that. He rarely ever made the bus, and when he did, he never really saw her.

But he did take Mr.Stark's advice and skip school the next day. He was so battered that he thought May would understand. Since her parents and sister would be gone all day, MJ invited him to hang out at her place until she got back from school.

"Don't wander though. And if I find out you looked through my stuff, you're dead," she warned him, giving the boy a long kiss before she left. Peter smiled, thinking how he wouldn't stick around that long but would definitely return.

After sorting himself out, he put his suit back on and took up his backpack, leaving through the balcony door. He had made up his mind that he would track down Werewolf and hopefully find him at his hideout in the sewers. He also hoped he'd maybe run into the lycan's boss and take care of whoever that was as well, if Werewolf hadn't already.

"You don't have to look for him, you know," MJ said, reaching down to play with Peter's brown curls, "Werewolf's gone. Why go after him?"

"But he can't be. If you're right, then he'll go back to his boss and take care of him. I wanna go see if he did. I'll be fine," Peter explained as he twiddled his thumbs.

"But what if he turns on you again?"

"He won't. He's in his right mind now. Like I said, I'll be fine."

"Still, I'm worried about you. Which is saying a lot because I've never cared about anyone."

"That makes me feel special," Peter laughed, leaning up and resting his chin on the side of her bed, his face close to hers, "but trust me, I'll be fine, MJ."

"You say that a lot for someone who's almost died multiple times," MJ grinned, tapping his nose.

Peter swung away from her house, remembering the conversation with a smile. He liked that MJ cared for his well-being. It told him something about her.

He crossed the bridge, whooping joyously, "good morning, New York! Ya miss me?!"

He took the long route around, not going directly to his destination. He enjoyed the morning air, relishing the sun rising along the buildings. He never went heroing at dawn, and he liked the change of scene.

He also didn't realize how many petty crimes happened in the morning. He stopped some hold-ups and a few bike thefts, which were routine, but more common than he thought. But what shocked him most was a scene on the docks.

He was swinging on the edge of the city and stopped at the harbor to watch a ferry leave for Ellis Island. He liked watching it course across the water, but it sometimes gave him flashbacks to his last ferry experience. But this time, he wasn't watching the boat. He was investigating a small fishing dock, where there was dark blood stains painted on it, and some droplets nearby. There was a trail leading from the dock to a park nearby. Peter followed it, praying it didn't lead him to a dead body or something.

While it didn't lead him to that, much to his relief, it did however take him to a spot next to a tree in the middle of a nearby park. A pool of darkened blood lay at its base, some of it smeared on the bark. But that's where the trail stopped. It didn't go anywhere else. What surprised Peter was how much there was. No one could lose so much and survive. Whoever it was either dropped dead and was carried away or had evaporated into thin air.

Either way, who's ever blood it was long gone. What if it had to do with Werewolf? Had he done something else before he attacked Peter? Fearing the worst, he took to the sky and traveled toward Oscorp. He remembered where he had tracked the lycan last time, and as soon as he found the familiar manhole, he was down under it in seconds. Morning traffic didn't help, and he almost got run over as he went into the drain. It was his fault though. He hadn't looked both ways.

Almost the second he hit the murky waters of the sewer, there was roar from the street followed by several screams. Car horns blared and there were sounds of crashing. Peter instinctively thought it was Werewolf, but the roar was more shrill and not as resounding. The web-slinger sprang out of the manhole, and saw the oddest thing in the world.

It was a monstrous, almost seven-foot-tall lizard, like some kind of lycan, its skin all green and scaly. It was crashing out of the front doors at Oscorp, a sizable satchel slung across its wide-set shoulders. Was this new creature somehow linked to Werewolf? It didn't appear bothered by the commotion going on regarding its disastrous entrance. Peter jumped on top of a car and shouted to it.

"Yo Godzilla!" He shouted, and the lizard turned on him with menacing green eyes, "what zoo did you escape from?"

The lycan-lizard roared at him and Peter shot two webs aimed at its legs, throwing it onto its back. It did not like that, and shrieked in frustration as Peter swung it into a taxi. Peter thought that Werewolf must know this thing, like maybe this was who he was working for. But why would it be coming back from Oscorp?

Peter jumped as the lizard threw a bicycle at him, and he attempted to ensnare it. This lycan wasn't as coordinated as Werewolf had been, and was more clumsy and fell more easily into Peter's traps. Peter heard a distant siren and figured the cops must be coming to take the lizard down.

The lizard must've put that together too, and it looked down the street. It snorted in irritation, giving Peter an evil look. It leapt and tried to slam the boy, but Peter dodged just in time. But the lizard managed to grab onto Peter's backpack, making him lurch backward. The straps broke and Peter was thrown to the ground. The lizard sniffed and fumbled with his book bag, inspecting it.

It then froze, and looked at Peter as the web-slinger jumped into the hood of a truck. He didn't know whether it was surprised or delighted, but the look it gave him was off-putting all the same.

"Parker," it then hissed with a sly smile, and the boy's skin crawled at the tone of his voice. It must have read the name on the tag of his backpack, and that fact that it now knew his name was terrifying.

"I remember you," it went on, dropping the bag and walking toward the manhole, "my former acquaintance refused to kill you. You had... corrupted him. But he's no longer a problem."

A terrifying thought seized Peter.

"What did you do to Werewolf?" Peter demanded as a patrol car rounded the corner. The lizard kicked in the manhole while reaching into its satchel. It picked out a tiny, glinting object and tossed it toward Peter, and it bounced toward him on the cement ground.

"Soon, you shall share his fate," the lizard snarled as cops started to close in. Peter was paralyzed as it disappeared beneath the street, escaping into the sewer.

As police swarmed the area, Peter grabbed the object the lizard had thrown and webbed up into the buildings, away from the scene. He fled into the skyscrapers, the lizard's words engraved in his mind. He kept tight hold of the small object, and when he judged that he was far enough away, he came to a stop on top of the library. He looked at the object in his hand, and his heart plummeted, his chest tightening as recognition washed over him like a wave.

It was a metal fang.

Some Perchelle, action, and discoveries make for one interesting chapter. So yeah, here's 28! Sorry to have made you wait!

~Fargone5