Afternoon, Midtown High.
Riiiing!
The dismissal bell had barely finished its first chime, and Peter Parker hadn’t even managed to stand up from his seat, before Julian blurred into a streak of motion and bolted out of the classroom.
“Huh?
What the hell just flashed by!
J—” Peter’s hand hovered awkwardly in the air, his jaw dropping as he watched his best friend vanish at the end of the hallway.
“What’s the rush with him?
Hurrying off to see a girlfriend?” Gwen Stacy walked over, hugging her textbooks to her chest, and raised a curious eyebrow at the empty doorway.
Peter shook his head with absolute, unshakable conviction.
“Impossible!
I’ve known that guy for a long time, and I have literally never seen him talk to a girl.
Even the auntie running the convenience store downstairs is LGBT!
There is zero chance he has a girlfriend!”
Gwen glared at Peter, looking at him as if he were a piece of trash stuck to the bottom of her shoe.
She glanced down at her own feet.
‘Hmm… a perfectly clear, unobstructed view.’
She had a strong, sinking suspicion that Peter Parker had just insulted her in the most foul way possible, but she simply didn’t have the evidence to prove it.
Gritting her teeth, Gwen puffed out her cheeks and glared out the window.
“You never know.
After all, some people look like complete nerds on the surface, but behind closed doors…”
Peter followed her gaze, catching sight of Julian flawlessly vaulting over the school’s perimeter wall with the agility of a gymnast, drawing a chorus of excited cheers from the passing students.
Seeing the ‘admiring’ look in Gwen’s eyes—at least, from his heavily skewed perspective—Peter’s internal alarms instantly blared.
‘Oh hell no!
This son of a bitch Julian is trying to steal my girl?
He has to be stopped!’
Meanwhile, in West Midtown, Manhattan.
Outside a drab gray building, blinding yellow police tape stretched across three entire city blocks.
Twelve M1126 Stryker armored vehicles formed a tight, heavily fortified perimeter, the remote weapon stations on their roofs all aimed dead at the central building.
Elite snipers in black tactical gear locked down every high vantage point, their HK416 designated marksman rifles loaded with specialized S.H.I.E.L.D.
tranquilizer darts.
“Heart rate is stable at 120.
Blood pressure is normal.
The target remains heavily sedated.” A combat medic checked the vitals monitor and relayed the information over his radio.
On the stretcher beside him, Bruce Banner was strapped down tightly by five heavy-duty carbon-fiber restraints.
The scrawny man in the round glasses kept his eyes tightly shut, the monitoring bracelet on his wrist emitting a steady, annoying beep-beep-beep of warning alarms.
“Good.
Get him on the chopper immediately!”
General Thaddeus Ross’s commanding voice rang out from behind.
At his command, six soldiers instantly hoisted the stretcher and marched briskly toward the CH-53E Super Stallion transport helicopter idling on the street.
Whirrrr!
The deafening roar of the helicopter rotors whipped up a fierce gale, rattling the police tape.
The soldiers effectively formed a human wall, using their bodies to block the camera lenses of the surrounding civilian onlookers.
At the entrance of the building, Betty Ross stumbled out, supported by two female soldiers.
Her white lab coat was smeared with blood, and her blonde hair clung messily to her pale, tear-streaked cheeks.
“Betty, I—” General Ross stepped forward, trying to find the words to comfort his precious daughter.
Betty snapped her head up, her blue eyes blazing with absolute fury.
“Are you happy now?!
You’re going to turn him back into a lab rat!”
“He is United States military property!” Ross hissed, keeping his voice low but completely desperate to justify his actions.
“The military funded the research that you and Bruce conducted!
Is it so wrong for me to reclaim the results of my own investment?
And I’m not doing this for my own selfish gain, Betty!
I am doing this for our country!
I’m doing it to ensure that the Hulk—that terrifying monster—can never hurt another innocent person again.
People like you…”
Betty violently shook off the female soldiers’ hands and marched straight toward the helicopter.
As she brushed past her father, she paused, her voice dropping to a harsh, venomous whisper meant only for him.
“You were the one who made him a fugitive.
I will never forgive you for what you’ve done to Bruce today.”
General Ross’s face completely froze.
He watched his daughter board the transport chopper in silence, his fists unconsciously clenching so tight that his knuckles turned stark white.
Meanwhile, in the laboratory upstairs.
Major Sparr leaned heavily against the metal table, her sharp gaze entirely locked on the plump man sitting across from her—Mr.
Blue, Dr.
Samuel Sterns.
“I will ask you one more time, Dr.
Sterns.
Can you create more monsters like the Hulk?” Her voice was cold, hard, and unyielding, her eyes drilling into him like daggers.
Four heavily armed soldiers stood silently behind Sterns.
The muzzles of their M4A1 rifles were lowered slightly, but their fingers rested firmly on the trigger guards.
Sterns pushed his glasses up his nose, the lenses catching the cold fluorescent light and hiding his erratic, shifting gaze.
He threw his hands up in a helpless, almost comical shrug, a wry, exasperated smile on his face.
“How could I possibly do that?
Like you said, how could a chubby little guy like me ever create such a terrifying beast?
The Hulk is a completely unique anomaly, cobbled together by countless accidents and pure coincidence!”
Major Sparr narrowed her eyes, a thoughtful, dangerous edge creeping into her voice.
“Theoretically?
Sure, it’s viable, but it would require extensive clinical—”
CRASH!
The laboratory door was violently kicked off its hinges, brutally cutting Sterns off.
Emil Blonsky blurred into the room like a phantom, moving with a speed that practically defied human limits.
The three soldiers closest to the door barely managed to raise their rifles before Blonsky took them down simultaneously with a vicious karate chop, a crushing elbow strike, and a brutal knee to the gut.
Before their bodies even hit the floor, Blonsky had already snatched one of their falling rifles, viciously driving the heavy stock right into the face shield of the fourth soldier.
“Blonsky!
Have you lost your damn mind?!” Major Sparr roared at the sudden intrusion, her hand instantly dropping to her sidearm.
Blonsky didn’t bother answering.
He closed the distance like a bolt of lightning, delivering a devastating, full-force palm strike directly to Major Sparr’s carotid artery.
The Major’s pupils dilated rapidly, and she crumpled lifelessly to the floor.
The entire assault had taken less than five seconds.
“Talks too much,” Blonsky muttered under his breath.
He spun around, leveling the dark muzzle of his stolen rifle straight at the space between Sterns’ eyes.
“I don’t care what the hell you did to Banner,” he ordered, his voice raspy and dripping with raw, unhinged madness.
“I want you to do the exact same experiment to me.
Make me as strong as that monster.”
Sterns’ glasses slipped down to the tip of his nose, but he didn’t even bother to push them back up.
Instead, the corners of his mouth slowly curled into a bizarre, deeply unsettling smile.
“Oh?
You’ve seen the Hulk, haven’t you?” Sterns’ voice suddenly trembled with uncontainable excitement.
“Looking at you now, you must have!
You’re completely mesmerized by his godlike power and physique, aren’t you?”
Blonsky gave a slow nod, but the rifle in his hands remained dead steady.
“Yeah.
I’ve seen it,” he said coldly.
“I know what that kind of godlike power looks like.
So, do it.
Now!
Run the experiment on me!!”
Clatter!
Sterns violently shoved his chair back and leaped to his feet.
His sudden movement was so fast that the muzzle of Blonsky’s gun actually twitched.
But Sterns couldn’t care less.
His unsettling smile stretched into a wide, manic grin.
“Follow me!”