The wind over Midtown Manhattan still carried the sharp smell of smoke, dust, and gunpowder.
Emily stood against the outer wall of a skyscraper, her body hidden beneath optical cloaking as the afternoon sun washed over the city.
Behind her, the partially deployed jellyfish rig core quietly suppressed every trace of energy fluctuation around her.
Even the most advanced military radar would not have noticed anything unusual in the air.
Below her, soldiers were already clearing the cordons.
CH-53E Super Stallion transport helicopters were powering up one after another, their massive rotors whipping the street into chaos.
Dust, leaves, and scraps of paper flew everywhere.
Stryker armored vehicles lined the road, their engines rumbling as soldiers climbed aboard.
Emily froze in midair.
Wait.
What?
She had rushed here from Queens in less than ten minutes.
And she was still late?
Emily almost rolled her eyes so hard they could have fallen out.
She had spent three days waiting inside a cave just to witness the birth of Iron Man.
She had watched Spider-Man’s entire mutation process from beginning to end.
But now, when it came to the Hulk, she arrived only to find Bruce Banner already tied up and ready to be loaded into a helicopter.
Her mind exploded with silent complaints.
“So even as a Memokeeper, I can still be late for an iconic scene?
Seriously?
Zero, if your KPI evaluation has a punishment for late attendance, my bonus this month is finished!”
Her consciousness spread with the wind, sweeping across the scene below.
In an instant, she found Bruce Banner.
He was strapped to a helicopter stretcher with five high-strength carbon-fiber restraint belts.
Monitoring rings were locked around his wrists and ankles, releasing urgent beep-beep alarms.
Heavy sedatives had forced his eyes shut, and his face was pale enough to look like paper.
But under the skin of his neck, faint green veins still pulsed with an eerie glow.
Six fully armed soldiers carried the stretcher steadily toward the CH-53E.
The three powerful turboshaft engines roared like beasts, and the wind from the rotors shook even the roadside barriers.
Civilians raised their phones desperately, trying to film the scene, but soldiers blocked every clear angle.
Emily hovered above them and clicked her tongue.
General Ross had truly gone all out.
Calling in Marine heavy transport helicopters just to capture Banner was no small move.
The CH-53E Super Stallion was one of the largest transport helicopters in U.S.
military service.
With that level of power, it could carry far more than a bound Banner.
If the Hulk himself could somehow be tied down tightly enough, they might even drag him away too.
Ross clearly intended to take Banner back to a military base and cut him apart in the name of research.
At that moment, angry voices came from the entrance of the damaged building.
Betty Ross was being helped out by two female soldiers.
Her white lab coat was stained with fresh blood, and her blonde hair stuck messily to her pale cheeks.
Her blue eyes were red and exhausted, but they still burned with stubborn anger.
General Thaddeus Ross hurried toward her.
His Air Force lieutenant general uniform was spotless, his medals shining under the sunlight.
For once, his hard face showed a trace of softness.
“Betty, I’m glad you’re safe.
I’ve already arranged a car to take you back to the hotel so you can rest—”
“Are you satisfied now?”
Betty cut him off before he could finish.
Her voice trembled, but her anger was clear.
“You finally got what you wanted.
You locked him in a cage again.
Now you can turn him into a lab rat for your experiments.”
Ross’s expression stiffened.
Then his face darkened.
“He was always military property,” Ross said in a low, firm voice.
“The military funded the gamma research project.
I am simply reclaiming the results of that project.”
He stepped closer, trying to control his tone.
“I am not doing this for personal gain.
I am doing this for the country.
I am doing it to stop the Hulk from running loose and hurting innocent people.
Especially you.
Betty, you almost died because of him.”
“Because of him?”
Betty looked at her father as if he had just told the cruelest joke in the world.
“If you hadn’t pushed him again and again, if you hadn’t chased him across the world with soldiers and weapons, he would never have transformed like this.
You made him a fugitive.
You, Father.
Thaddeus Ross.
You did this.”
Ross opened his mouth, but no words came out.
Betty turned toward the helicopter.
As she passed him, she stopped beside him and spoke in a voice only he could hear.
“I will never forgive you for what you did to him today.
Never.”
Ross froze.
He watched his daughter climb into the helicopter without looking back.
His fist tightened until his knuckles turned white, and his jaw clenched hard enough to crack.
But in the end, he only turned to his adjutant and barked an order.
“Notify the air wing.
Full escort.
There must be no accidents.”
“Yes, General!”
The helicopter door slid shut.
The rotors spun faster, and the huge aircraft slowly rose from the ground before flying toward the military base outside New York. Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
The Stryker formations below began moving in the same direction.
The blocked streets slowly opened again, but the tension had not disappeared.
Emily watched the helicopter fly away and sighed.
Father and daughter had turned against each other.
Lovers had been separated.
General Ross had chased the Hulk for years, but he never understood one simple truth: the harder he tried to control Banner, the further he pushed everyone away.
This capture had been a tragedy from the beginning.
Emily thought the show was over.
Since Banner had already been captured and she had missed the iconic scene, there was no point staying.
She might as well go back to school.
If she moved quickly, she could still make it before the final bell.
But just as she prepared to leave, her consciousness caught an abnormal biological signal from the underground laboratory beneath the abandoned office building.
Emily raised an eyebrow.
Oh?
Unexpected harvest?
Her consciousness slipped through the building’s circuits and scanned the underground lab.
Everything became clear in her mind like a perfect overhead map.
The laboratory was a complete mess.
Glass containers had shattered across the floor.
Green serum samples had spilled across metal tables, giving off faint gamma radiation.
In the center of the room stood Major Emil Blonsky.
His combat gear was torn open.
His muscles were tense, his breathing was heavy, and his eyes were filled with madness.
He had seen the Hulk’s power.
That terrifying, world-crushing strength had awakened something ugly inside him.
Blonsky was a soldier, a fighter, a man who had spent his life chasing power.
After being crushed by the Hulk, humiliation had become a thorn buried deep in his heart.
Opposite him was Dr.
Samuel Sterns, the scientist Banner knew as “Mr.
Blue.” Two soldiers held Sterns against a metal table.
His round glasses sat crooked on his face, and terror filled his expression.
But beneath that fear, there was also the dangerous excitement of a scientist staring at forbidden knowledge.
“What are you doing?” Sterns shouted.
“Let me go!
The serum hasn’t completed human trials.
I can’t predict what will happen!”
“I don’t care what happens,” Blonsky growled.
He grabbed Sterns by the collar and lifted him off the table.
“I want that power.
The Hulk’s power.
Right now.
Inject me.”
In Brazil, the Hulk had shattered Blonsky’s body with a single kick.
That helplessness had burned into his soul.
He wanted strength.
Strength enough to crush the Hulk.
Strength enough to erase that humiliation forever.
Even if it turned him into a monster.
Sterns stared into Blonsky’s eyes and understood one thing immediately: if he refused, he would die in this lab.
Slowly, his fear faded.
In its place came excitement.
He had studied Banner’s blood for a long time.
He had dreamed of testing the effects on a human subject, but ethics and fear had always held him back.
Now Blonsky had delivered himself to the table.
To Sterns, this was not a disaster.
It was an opportunity.
“Fine,” Sterns said quickly.
“Fine.
I’ll inject you.”
He stumbled to the lab bench and grabbed a syringe filled with green serum.
Then he added a small vial of brown liquid.
“This is my improved version of the Super Soldier Serum.
Combined with Banner’s gamma blood, it should maximize your physical potential.
But I warn you now, whatever happens next is your responsibility.”
Blonsky tore open his collar, exposing his chest.
“Enough talk.
Do it.”
A manic light flashed in Sterns’s eyes.
He pushed the needle into Blonsky’s neck and emptied the syringe.
What happened next made even Emily raise an eyebrow.
The moment the serum entered his body, Blonsky screamed.
His body expanded at a terrifying speed.
Bones cracked, broke, and reformed into monstrous shapes.
His skin turned an ugly grayish green.
Sharp bone spurs burst from his spine.
His muscles swelled like living tumors, tearing through his combat gear.
In seconds, the six-foot special forces soldier became a ten-foot monster.
Abomination was born.
The Hulk’s first true monster-level enemy had entered the Marvel world.
“Haha…” Sterns spread his arms in wild excitement.
One lens of his glasses was broken, and blood stained his face, but his eyes shone with obsession.
“Perfect.
Simply perfect.
This is a masterpiece—”
“GET OUT!”
The sound wave exploded through the lab.
Glass, tools, monitors, and equipment shattered instantly.
Sterns was thrown backward like a ragdoll and slammed into a metal table.
His forehead hit the sharp edge with a dull thud.
Blood poured from the wound.
At that exact moment, a leftover drop of gamma-irradiated Hulk blood slid from the table and fell directly into the open cut on his forehead.
Abomination did not even look at him.
Feeling the power surging through his body, the monster let out another roar, crouched, and jumped.
BOOM!
The reinforced concrete ceiling shattered like paper.
Broken stone and twisted steel rained down as Abomination blasted through the building and vanished into the New York sunset, chasing after the helicopter carrying Banner.
Only Sterns remained in the ruined lab.
The drop of Hulk blood moved through his wound like something alive.
His veins turned an eerie green beneath his skin.
His skull began to crack and reshape.
His cerebral cortex expanded violently, and his forehead bulged into an unnatural shape.
“This is…”
Sterns climbed from the floor, clutching his growing head.
At first, his eyes were full of terror.
Then terror became joy.
Then joy became madness.
He could feel his brain evolving.
His memory, logic, and thoughts were exploding beyond normal human limits.
It felt as if his mind was stretching outward, touching the hidden rules beneath the world itself.
“Hahaha… so this is power.
This is divine wisdom!”
His laughter became twisted.
Emily watched from above and let out a long breath.
So that was why Banner had been captured so easily.
The real event had been waiting here.
She had missed Hulk’s capture, but in exchange, she had gained a front-row seat to the birth of Abomination and The Leader.
Zero really knew how to calculate KPIs.
At first, Emily only wanted to watch.
She had no plan to interfere.
But as she looked at the rapidly mutating Sterns, her fingers moved slightly.
The Leader would become no less dangerous than Abomination.
His intelligence, obsession with gamma mutation, and future ability to manipulate minds could cause endless disasters.
New York already had enough villains.
It did not need another one.
Emily made her decision.
Her rig deployed silently.
Optical cloaking dropped for one brief moment as she appeared inside the lab.
The cannons on both sides of her frame charged instantly.
Three beams of azure light shot forward, carrying annihilation energy.
They struck Sterns with perfect accuracy.
There was no explosion.
No scream.
No dramatic last words.
Dr.
Samuel Sterns, who should have become The Leader, was erased before his future could begin.
His body, his mutating brain, and the gamma blood inside him vanished instantly, leaving behind only three smooth, glass-like marks on the metal floor.
Emily activated optical cloaking again and disappeared from the lab as silently as she had arrived.
Perfect.
Strike hard.
Speak little.
Leave no trace.
Not only had she removed a future disaster, she had done it without exposing herself.
A perfect example of the low-key path.
But before she could relax, her consciousness caught two violent energy signatures from Harlem.
Explosions thundered in the distance.
Helicopters roared.
Crowds screamed.
Emily did not even need to guess.
Abomination had caught up to Ross’s helicopter.
Banner had transformed into the Hulk.
The battle in Harlem had begun.
She turned toward the distance.
Thick black smoke rose into the sky, and firelight painted half the horizon red.
Emily hesitated.
Should she go?
If she did not go, she would miss another classic Marvel scene: Hulk versus Abomination, one of the most iconic monster battles before the Avengers.
But if she went, Harlem would already be a battlefield.
Buildings could collapse.
Bullets would fly everywhere.
The military would be there.
S.H.I.E.L.D.
might also be watching.
Tony Stark could even appear later.
If she exposed herself by accident, that would be real trouble.
Emily hesitated for two seconds.
Then her super-intelligence and overwhelming curiosity gave her the final answer.
She was already here.