by Alex Irvine
On the streets, police and soldiers were hitting this new Abomination with everything they had. But nothing worked. The two soldiers in the vehicle unloaded on it with a rocket-propelled grenade. It didn’t even flinch… but they did get Blonsky’s attention. He charged down the street after the automobile, which slammed into reverse and roared away back south.
“Get out of there, soldier!” Ross commanded.
But the Abomination was too fast. It ran close to the vehicle, which was caroming off parked cars as it fled in reverse. The Abomination picked up a taxicab and held it overhead. Huge fireballs backlit the creature, showing off its spines and the bones interlaced with its huge muscles. The soldier’s camera tracked it all.
The Abomination loomed over the camera. He leered down, holding the taxicab high.
“Give me a real fight!” he roared. Then he brought the taxi down.
The camera fuzzed out, and the monitor went black.
Ross, Bruce, and Betty sat in silence.
Then the radio squawked again. “General,” a communications officer said, “the NYPD want to know what to use against it. What do you want me to tell them? Sir?”
Ross stared silently at the dead monitor.
“Sir?” the communications officer prompted again over the radio.
Ross shook off his shock. “Tell them to bring everything they’ve got and head for Harlem,” he ordered. He lowered his head. “And heaven help them,” he whispered. The general’s face was tired and grim—he knew the military had no way to fight the monster.
“It has to be me,” Bruce said, knowing there was no other choice. “You have to take me back there.”
“What are you saying?” Betty asked him. “You think you can control it?”
“No, not control it, but… I don’t know. Maybe aim it.”
“And what if you can’t?” Ross snapped.
“We made this thing. All of us,” Bruce said. “Please.”
Ross closed his eyes, then slowly nodded his head. “Land us near it,” he instructed the pilot.
“No, no. Keep us high,” Bruce interrupted. “Open the back door.”
Ross nodded. A soldier hit a button, and the ramp of the helicopter hinged open. Cool air rushed inside.
Bruce hurried toward the rear, still locked in the wrist shackles. “Put me over it!” He instructed. “Go higher!”
The helicopter surged upward, and the city dropped away. Bruce peered down from the open door. New York was three thousand feet below them, glowing in the darkness. Another explosion boomed up in Harlem, but from that height, Bruce couldn’t hear the screams.
“Bruce, stop! What are you doing?” Betty yelled. “Think about this. You don’t even know if you’ll change.” She had hold of his arm. “You don’t have to do this. Please, this is insane!”
“Betty, I’ve got to try,” Bruce said. “I’m sorry.”
He kissed her, letting his lips linger on hers… and then he let go, falling back out of the open cargo door.
The wind whooshed around him as he tumbled down toward 125th street. He closed his eyes and let himself fall.
He fell. And fell.
Nothing happened. No burst of energy or anger or power.
Nothing.
Bruce’s eyes snapped open. Uh-oh, he thought.
He plunged at unbelievable speed toward the street below.
CHAPTER 23
Bruce Banner crashed into the Harlem street in an explosion of asphalt and dirt, leaving a very deep, rough hole in the pavement.
Down the street, the Abomination was inflicting terrible destruction on the city, and civilians running from his path dodged the hole in the ground from all directions.
A mighty green hand and arm rose up and grabbed the hole’s ragged edge, crushing the street with its grip. The Hulk emerged from the ground.
All around were police lights flashing, people running, sirens blaring, and explosions detonating in the distance. A police chopper aimed its spotlight on the Abomination down the street. The Hulk staggered, unable to stand the sensory overload of a city in chaos.
But then the Hulk closed his eyes, grimacing against the madness. He strained, all his muscles flexing, and he let out a roar, shaking his head to clear it.
Now he could concentrate on his target: the Abomination—the enemy.
The Hulk stood tall and bellowed at his adversary, his roar shaking the street.
The Abomination turned around and saw the Hulk. His gray eyes shimmered with malicious recognition. “Hulk,” he growled.
Hurtling toward each other, the two giants collided so powerfully that the windows of the surrounding storefronts shattered. A theater’s marquee exploded into a fountain of sparks. The Abomination tackled the Hulk, knocking him off his feet, and they tumbled down the street toward Broadway, ripping up the asphalt as they rolled. The Abomination got his feet first and flung Hulk away. The force of the impact on the ground staggered the Hulk, who took a moment to recover his senses. Just then, the Abomination approached, striding through the fires blazing in the wrecked cars that littered the street.
“Come on,” the Abomination said, beckoning.
The Hulk turned to a police car abandoned nearby. Its wailing siren irritated him. He smashed it down flat and then tore it in half, holding the two halves, as he had held the pieces of the sculpture the last time he’d faced Blonsky. He charged at the Abomination and began to beat him with the pieces of the car. The Abomination lost his balance and landed on his back. The Hulk pounded him with the car until it came apart, then pounded him with his fists. The pavement was cracked and caved in all around them.
The Abomination turned his head and spat. Then he said, “Is that all you’ve got?”
The Hulk reared back to deliver another punch, and the Abomination got his revenge for the fight in the field. He kicked the Hulk so hard that Hulk’s flying body punched straight through the nearest building.
The Abomination rumbled down the street, accelerated like a long jumper, and soared up into the side of the first building, digging massive handholds into the bricks as he scaled the apartment. When he got to the hole left by the Hulk’s body, he could see to the street on the other side.
Above them, the helicopter buzzed low over Harlem. General Ross and Betty watched the battle from the copter. Betty gasped as she saw the Hulk crash through the building and come down behind it, pulverizing a large waste container when he landed.
General Ross peered down from the helicopter over the gunner’s narrow shoulder, narrowing his eyes as he saw the Abomination climbing. “Use that weapon, soldier!” Ross ordered the gunner. “Give him some help!”
“Which one?” the gunner asked.
“Shoot that one climbing the wall!” Ross retorted. “Which one do you think?”
Tracer fire streaked down in the dark as the gunner blasted the helicopter’s cannon down at the Abomination. Bricks exploded around the climbing creature.
The Abomination managed to reach the rooftop, where the gunner had a clearer shot. Cannon rounds streaked down at him, ripping up the roof. Some of the rounds ricocheted off the Abomination’s platelike bones, but others stung him enough to slow him down… a little.
The Abomination headed for a water tower, sprinting across the roof with the helicopter tight overhead. Betty clung to the helicopter’s ramp as it accelerated to keep up.
Down in the alley, the Hulk heard the sound of firing above. He shook himself, growled, and then bounced off the close walls of the alley, scaling the space parkour-style.
When he reached the top, he jumped onto the remaining fire escape and pulled himself onto the roof.
The helicopter hovered to his left, raining cannon fire down on the Abomination’s back. The Abomination changed course, sprinting toward the helicopter as the Hulk got to the rooftop. The Abomination ran to the edge of the building and jumped. Up on the ramp, Betty’s eyes widened in fear. If the Abomination hit the chopper, it would never survive the imp
act.
The Hulk sprinted across the roof toward the Abomination and and lunged just as the creature jumped. He caught the Abomination’s legs, dragging him down so that all the beast could do was catch hold of one of the helicopter’s landing skids. The machine lurched and spun around as the pilot tried to keep control with an extra two tons of the Hulk and the Abomination struggling below.
“I can’t hold it!” the pilot shouted. “I’ve got to put it down!”
Betty lurched across the rear ramp, barely managing to hang on. They had gotten close to the Grayburn College campus again. The helicopter spun and pitched in the air. Below it, the Hulk and the Abomination collided with rooftop cisterns and the corners of buildings.
The helicopter was going to crash. The rear rotor had failed, and it was a miracle it hadn’t gone down in flames already. Inside the copter, Ross hung on to his chair, his jaw set firmly.
Betty closed her eyes.
CHAPTER 24
The helicopter spun wildly around its main rotor, narrowly clearing the top of the college’s library. It skittered into the dome of the main hall and crashed down into the plaza. Betty was hurled toward the front of the cabin as the tail rotor sheared off, and the rear ramp crumpled like a crushed can. The Abomination was under the copter when it hit the ground. Its rotors shattered against his back. The Hulk had tumbled free.
Inside, Betty recovered her senses first. She saw her father wedged up against the pilot’s chair. “Dad? Are you hurt? Let me help you.”
“I’m all right,” General Ross groaned. “Just find a way out.”
The crashed helicopter shook as the Abomination climbed on top of it, finding the Hulk in the main plaza of Grayburn College. The Abomination leaped off the copter and slammed the Hulk against a marble wall, pounding his body like a boxer against the ropes. The Hulk clinched him to stop the pummeling, their faces inches apart, teeth bared with strain.
He struggled against the Abomination’s grip but could not get free. Behind the creature, Hulk saw Betty trying to get out of the crashed helicopter.
The Abomination guessed where he was looking, and his grin got even wider. “You don’t deserve this power,” the Abomination said with a leer. “Now watch her die.”
The Abomination raised his gigantic right forearm and pinned it against the Hulk’s throat, the elbow spike driving into the flesh of the Hulk’s chest, right above his thumping heart. The marble wall cracked behind the Hulk’s head.
Blood poured down the Hulk’s chest, but he found a reserve of strength in his desperation to save Betty. Fire was spreading in the wrecked helicopter, and its fuel tanks were leaking on the plaza. Soon it would explode!
The Hulk caught both of the Abomination’s wrists in his hands and forced them apart, roaring with the exertion. He drove his knee up into the beast’s belly, twice, knocking the breath out of him. Then he pivoted and drove the Abomination headfirst into the wall. The Abomination was stunned for a moment, and the Hulk leaped clear… just as the first spark hit the spreading pool of helicopter fuel with a blinding whoosh of flame.
Halfway there, the Hulk saw that he wouldn’t be able to beat the explosion. Still running, he slammed his hands together in a thunderous clap. The shock wave blew the fire out and rocked everyone inside. But their lives were saved. They staggered to their feet.
Betty gasped as she heard a crackling, rattling sound from behind the Hulk and saw the Abomination had gotten up again. “Look out!” she cried.
The Hulk turned but not in time. A tremendous blow to the side of his head bowled him over. He tried to rise, dazed, staring up at the Abomination looming above him.
The Abomination had fashioned a weapon out of a chain with two huge steel weights at one end. He swung it over his head like a nunchaku, and the weights smashed the Hulk to the side again. He lay sprawled, trying to get his feet under him again, but the blow would have knocked the library building down. The Hulk couldn’t just shake it off.
Now the Abomination advanced on the helicopter, again whirling the huge steel weights over his head. “General,” he said, gloating, “any last words?”
He raised his arms, ready to bring the weights down and crush the helicopter to fragments… with Betty, General Ross, and the rest of the crew in it.
General Ross didn’t offer any words. But the Hulk did.
The Hulk struggled to his knees, then pulled his feet under himself in a squat and roared, “Hulk… smash!”
As the Abomination swung his weapon, the Hulk smashed his enormous fists into the ground to throw his enemy off balance. The force of the Hulk’s fists formed a canyon in the ground.
The Abomination stumbled and slipped straight through the crack in the ground. As he fell, the chain from his weapon swung free through the air, circling the Abomination’s enormous neck. The Hulk didn’t hesitate. He launched himself on the Abomination and yanked the chain tightly. He dragged the Abomination back with all his strength as the Abomination fought, lashing his fists and elbows backward to pound the Hulk’s head and shoulders. But the Hulk was too angry to care. He was going to end this now. The Abomination would never hurt anyone, or threaten anyone, again.
But Betty had gotten out of the helicopter, and now she stood in front of the Hulk and screamed out, “Stop!”
The Abomination hung limp in Hulk’s grip… but he was not dead yet. The Hulk paused and looked at Betty… then, incredibly, he let the overcome Abomination drop to the ground. Around them, soldiers and police officers lowered their weapons.
The Hulk and Betty walked to each other amid the wreckage. Betty looked up at him. “It’s okay,” she said.
The Hulk reached out and stroked her cheek, wiping away a tear from when she had been so scared that he would die. He looked at it, then looked back at her. Slowly, working hard for each syllable, he said, “Betty.”
A helicopter spotlight pinned him, and he flinched. Then, with a last look at Betty, he turned and ran, bounding across the rooftops to escape. Betty watched him go. Then she turned to General Ross. He was watching her, and Betty knew he had seen the truth.
The Hulk had turned into a hero.
EPILOGUE
Betty Ross stood at the railing looking south over New York Harbor from Battery Park City. She was thinking of the last time she had come this way, on the boat with Bruce from New Jersey. She wondered what had ever happened to that pickup they’d driven up from Tennessee and then abandoned at the mouth of the Holland Tunnel.
And she wondered what had happened to Bruce.
She still had the picture of him on her camera, from right before they got into the truck. She kept it. She would always keep it… and the next time she saw Bruce, she would take another one. He would come back when he was ready, when he could really control the Hulk. Betty knew. She would wait.
In a cabin in the wilderness of western Canada, Bruce got his mail. There was a small package addressed to David B., which was the name Bruce had used in a certain business transaction. He opened the package and removed the necklace Betty had pawned for traveling money. He’d looked for quite a while before tracking it down, but now he had it.
Bruce sealed it in an envelope, addressed it to Betty, and put a stamp on the envelope. He would mail it in the morning, and when Betty got it, she would know he was thinking of her.
Then Bruce meditated. Every day he got a little better at keeping the beast inside. But he wouldn’t be able to hold it in forever. That wouldn’t matter as long as he could control it… and where he had once meditated to hold the monster in, now Bruce was learning how to use meditation to bring the change into the Hulk when he wanted it. On his terms.
He practiced. He kept practicing.
One of these days, when he had it right, he would find Betty again.
Just off-base in Florida, Thunderbolt Ross finished his drink.
He was not feeling good. The Super-Soldier project was a disaster and so was General Thunderbolt Ross’s career. The Abomination had destroyed
everything Ross had worked for, and to make matters worse, Bruce Banner was the one who had saved New York—and Betty—from the monster Emil Blonsky had become.
The bartender came back and poured him another one. Ross could see himself in the mirror and didn’t like what he saw. What was next? He’d have to retire. He’d put his feet up, go fishing, and have to chew on his failures for the rest of his life.
And Betty still wouldn’t talk to him. He had people watching her, and she hadn’t been in touch with Bruce, either. No one seemed to know where Bruce was. At moments like this, that suited Ross fine. Bruce Banner could fall right off the face of the Earth, and it wouldn’t bother Ross a bit.
Someone else came in and walked up next to him. “Mmmm, the smell of defeat,” he said. “You know, I hate to say ‘I told you so,’ General, but that Super-Soldier program was put on ice for a reason.” Ross knew without looking up that it was Tony Stark speaking to him. Stark, better known as Iron Man, was everything Thunderbolt Ross was not. He was rich, he was popular, he was a big shot inside S.H.I.E.L.D., and his Iron Man project—unlike Ross’s Super-Soldier project—was a roaring success.
“I’ve always felt hardware was much more reliable,” Stark said.
General Ross turned a weary glare on Stark’s photogenic face. “Stark.”
Stark nodded. “General.”
Thunderbolt Ross didn’t like Tony Stark, and both of them knew it. But occasionally they had been forced to work together.
“You always wear such nice suits,” Ross said, mocking Tony’s reliance on armored suits instead of his own strength.
Tony looked down at himself. He was in fact wearing a nice suit. It had cost a lot of money. “Touché,” he said. “I hear you have an unusual problem.”
“You should talk,” Ross said. He knew some of what had been going on at Stark Industries lately.
“You should listen,” Stark said, getting more serious. “What if I told you we were putting a team together?”