19 Flames Of Ambition

"Are you that excited, Gwen?" he chuckled, as she skipped beside him.

"What does it look like?" she grinned as they made their way back home after a long day at school.

It had been two weeks since the concert incident, and Gwen's mental health was improving. After all, seeing dozens of people pulverised into bloody pieces before your eyes would be traumatising to anybody.

"Do we really have to wait till we get to your house?" she groaned, eyeing his backpack. "There aren't any cameras here."

"Better to be safe than sorry, and it's not in my backpack anyway," he shrugged and gave her a smirk that made her knees weak. "Why so impatient?"

"I don't know," she sighed. "Stopping my nightly escapades seems to have given me surplus energy. Nothing seems to have happened in the last two weeks."

Peter merely smiled back. Contrary to her, he believed that a lot had happened in the past two weeks. He'd completed the incorporation of his professor's regeneration pathways into Project Lizard, which holistically enhanced it in every way possible.

Project Genelock's formula had been set in stone, and a functioning prototype of his cancer cure had been synthesised, which made Osborn ecstatic.

Most importantly, his study of Gwen's regulatory sequences boosted his Genome adaptation to the high heavens. After all, the very reason why he had made it a four-stage process was that the body rejected foreign DNA. Now that he'd identified the reason for said rejection—Regulatory sequences—he could reduce it to a two-stage process.

Moreover, he'd already perfected his genes in the first stage. Thus he only had one more stage to go through—one that he would undergo today.

"I mean, you did grow an inch and become more...ahem...muscular," Gwen shamelessly looked him up and down, taking note of his baggy clothing. "I'm kinda jealous, you know. I want that RMwhatever."

"Yeah right, says the one who has something a lot better," Peter shook his head in exasperation.

While there indeed were mutations such as the 'Myostatin-related Muscle Hypertrophy' that increased muscle growth to an insane degree in cattle and humans, it came with a whole lot of complications—especially cardiovascular problems.

On the other hand, RMRS (Rapid Muscle Regenesis Syndrome) was something that he'd pulled out of his ass to explain his rapid climb to health and increased muscle mass. He could use that as an excuse for a few other things, as he really did not want to be pressured into sharing his serums with other people.

"Eh, debatable," Gwen innocently shrugged, and she picked up the pace, forcing him to catch up.

"You could walk slower, you know."

"Don't you have the RMPS shit?" she asked.

"It's RMRS, Gwen, and it doesn't make me walk faster."

"Ah, a shame."

***

"Why is your room the exact same every time I'm here?" she asked, jumping on his bed and making herself at home after getting asked a million questions about her health by Aunt May. They'd

"You've been here only three times, Gwen," he sighed, throwing his bag to the side and heading over to the fridge.

"Four times," she corrected, lying spread-eagled on his bed. "This is comfy..."

"You came in uninvited the third time...," he grumbled.

"Wait, I need to be invited in here?" she looked at him, giving him the cute puppy eyes.

"Haaah, no," Peter relented, giving in to the oldest trick in the book, before opening the fridge and picking out three flasks with stoppers on them. It had a thick, viscous semisolid liquid that was almost grey in color.

"Are these the ones?!" she exclaimed in excitement, vanishing from his bed and reappearing next to his shoulder. "They look a little different from my normal webs."

"That's the point," he grinned and pointed to one of the stoppers labeled web nets. "That one would be incredibly useful. When you shoot it out, it, well, forms an incredibly powerful net that should trap most foes."

"That... really would be useful," she said in awe and looked at the one beside it. "Impact webbing?"

"Explodes on touch to incapacitate opponents."

"Web Shields?"

"Hardens into an incredibly thick substance when in contact with magnesium. It's your job to engineer it so that it hardens into the shape of a shield," he shrugged.

"I can do that. I just need to modify my modified web shooters. It's easy enough, but this will be soooo helpful!" Gwen said in happiness, her face splitting into a wide grin before giving Peter one of her signature crushing hugs. "Ah! uor mussels pheel nice."

"What?"

"Nothing. I was just wondering how I could pay you back. You've done so much for me already," she shrugged, pretending as though the last three seconds never happened.

"Consider it a thank you for saving my life," he waved it off, sitting on a chair to catch his breath – Gwen hugged hard.

"You returned the favor when I was lying unconscious in the alley," Gwen snorted and moved forward, placing her hands on the armrest of Peter's chair. "Is there really nothing I can do for you?"

"Well, there is something..." he began, looking at Gwen's beautiful face that was uncomfortably close to his own.

"Oh! Is there?" She grinned, leaning a bit closer.

"Yeah," he nodded, his prodigious mind almost overclocking to keep himself calm. "It's something I could do myself, but you helping me would be much, much better."

"Uh-huh," she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, somehow making it look sensual. He could almost feel her breath on his face. "Go on..."

"Can you..." he began. "...teach me engineering?"

"..."

***

Peter sighed to himself as Gwen left the room after forcibly inviting him to have dinner at her house next week, while looking as though she would not take no for an answer. He half-expected her to chuck him across the room if he even tried to dodge the invite, which almost made him laugh out loud.

He agreed to the invitation as he genuinely liked spending time with her. However, as for starting a relationship, he would consider it once he injected himself with the Lizard Serum, which was merely a day away. If he revealed it prematurely, there was a chance she would stop him from taking it. After all, he didn't want to keep that a secret from her before starting a relationship.

Moreover, the friendships they were forming in school weren't looking the best. Harry hadn't appeared even once in the last two weeks of school, and when they called Norman Osborn, he'd informed them that Harry had left him a note and had disappeared. Search operations were ongoing without public scrutiny. The official news was that he was seriously injured in a car crash.

Flash had stopped approaching him for a few days after Harry confronted him but tried to bully him once more a few days back. Unluckily for him, Peter had broken his nose with a well-timed punch, which did the job. The last he saw of Flash was him scrambling down the corridor as he beat him black and blue.

Glory Grant and Betty Brant were moving to California after their high school, leaving only MJ hanging out with them. But even she was focusing on her model career, which didn't give her much time.

"Time is the herald of change. Wonder if I'd be able to control it someday..." he began daydreaming but quickly snapped out of it. "Now, for today's main event," he thought, standing up and heading to the fridge again.

He opened it, letting out yet another blast of cold air before bending down and opening a compartment with a long syringe filled with a serum that looked akin to liquid gold.

"You took so long to fucking make," he groaned in his head and grabbed a belt, heading to the bathroom. This serum was not supposed to have any visceral reaction, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

He entered the large bathroom and carefully placed the compartment to the side before undressing, revealing the work he'd put in the gym in the last two weeks and the enhancements he'd received once he reached genetic perfection.

His musculature exuded a harmonious blend of lean definition and functional power, and his shoulders boasted a broadness that complemented his well-defined upper arms. The contours of his biceps and triceps rippled beneath his skin, and his forearms were lined with a network of veiny pathways, indicating not only his vascular efficiency but also the robustness of his blood supply.

His chest was sculpted to perfection; his pectorals perfectly carved, while a finely etched six-pack adorned his abdomen, boosting his stability and core strength. His obliques were just as well-defined, weaving an intricate pattern down his sides; their tone evident even when he failed to flex.

"Didn't skip leg day, either," he chuckled, flexing his defined quads before kneeling before the toilet and pulling out the now golden syringe.

He bit down on the belt he'd brought and inserted the needle into his forearm.

SWISH!

The entirety of the liquid flowed into his bloodstream, which made him wince ever so slightly. The moment it touched his blood, it immediately began diffusing—something he could feel very clearly.

With a muffled groan, he dropped the syringe that clattered to the ground near his feet as he clutched his stomach, feeling his muscles contract and relax at dizzying speeds. Every single muscle group looked like something, or multiple of said something, was moving underneath it, making it ripple and pop akin to the waves in the ocean.

The temperature began to rise as his genome was continuously spliced, the DNA in every single cell in his body changing, adapting them to perfectly accept the Lizard Serum he'd created, and to perhaps even enhance it to some extent.

"I did not predict this, FUCK," he screamed in his head as the temperature of his body began to rise to an incredible degree. He dragged himself over to the shower close to him and turned on the cold water at full blast. He knew it wouldn't help as much as he wanted it to, but it would do something, at the very least.

The heat didn't stop, increasing without limit—making even the robust enzymes in his enhanced body begin to denature—their active sites deforming and malfunctioning, unable to complete their jobs. If that ever were to happen, he would die. Plain and simple.

Eating, drinking, protein formation—anything you could possibly think of—would cease to exist the moment his enzymes deformed.

HISSSS!!!

Steam began emanating from the skin the water came into contact with, billowing up in the room as muffled grunts of pain turned into faint echoes. His writhing silhouette moved slower and slower until he moved no more.

He lay in a steaming heap, invisible to the world—unmoving.

Yet a few seconds later,

THUMP!

THUMP!

THUMP!

"Urgh!"

Two glowing green eyes pierced through the steam, the embers of ambition now a swirling flame.

***