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"Blonsky!" The name was a choked, horrified gasp from General Ross. He stared at the monster on the street below, at the grotesque culmination of his life's work, and saw not a super-soldier, but a walking, roaring monument to his own obsessive failure.
"You did this!" Banner yelled, his voice raw with an agony that went beyond fear. He grabbed the front of Ross's tactical vest. "You gave him the serum, you gave him my blood! How many more lives have to be destroyed by your obsession?!"
"I… I didn't give the order," Ross stammered, his usual blustering authority gone, replaced by the pathetic whining of a man who has lost control. "He acted on his own."
On the street below, the Abomination, the monster that was once Emil Blonsky, was reveling in his newfound power. The army, Ross's army, had arrived, and he was swatting their tanks and armored cars aside like children's toys. Bullets sparked harmlessly off his mutated hide. He was a god of destruction, and he was laughing.
From her invisible perch high above the chaos, Hermione watched the slaughter, a faint, appreciative smile on her face. With every soldier that died, she felt a small, pleasant jolt of energy as the Dark Harvest did its work. Oh, General Ross, she thought with a dark, cynical amusement. You are a disaster of a human being. But you are fantastic for my bottom line. Please, never change.
The Abomination, bored with the army, finally turned its gaze upward and spotted the last remaining helicopter. With a mighty leap, it began to scale the nearest skyscraper, its massive claws finding purchase on the sheer glass and steel. It was coming for them.
A cold, grim resolve settled over Bruce Banner. "This is the only way," he said quietly, looking at Betty, his eyes full of a deep, sorrowful love. "I have to go."
Ross hesitated for only a second. His career was in flames, his monster was out of control. His only remaining gambit was to fight a monster with a monster. He gave a curt, reluctant nod.
"Bruce, no!" Betty cried, grabbing his hand. "The cure… we don't even know if the Hulk can come out again! You could die!"
"I have to try," he said, his voice soft. "If I don't, you'll all…"
"Bruce…"
"Betty…"
Hermione, watching this tearful, dramatic farewell from the open doorway of the chopper, finally lost her patience. Oh, for goodness sake, she thought. We don't have time for a romantic subplot!
With a sigh of pure, unadulterated exasperation, she walked up behind Banner and, with a firm, well-placed kick to his backside, sent him tumbling out of the helicopter.
"Go on, then!" she yelled after him.
Everyone stared in stunned, horrified silence as Bruce Banner, mid-goodbye, was unceremoniously punted out into the empty air. Hermione just jumped out after him, summoning her broomstick in mid-air and settling onto it with a casual grace.
A few seconds later, a new roar, one of pure, untamed, gamma-fueled rage, erupted from the street below. Bruce Banner was gone. The Hulk had returned.
The two titans met in the middle of the street with a crash that shattered every window for a three-block radius. It was a battle of gods, a primal, brutal ballet of destruction. They punched, they kicked, they threw cars, they smashed each other through the walls of buildings. The street burned. The city screamed.
Hermione hovered above, an invisible spectator at the greatest monster movie ever made.
But something was wrong. The Hulk was sluggish. The lingering effects of Sterns' antidote were still suppressing his rage, robbing him of his full power. The Abomination, on the other hand, was a creature of pure, joyful malice. He was stronger, faster, and he was winning.
With a final, brutal punch, the Abomination sent the Hulk crashing to the ground. He pinned the green giant down, a triumphant, ugly grin on his mutated face, and raised the sharp, bony spur on his elbow for the killing blow.
"You don't deserve this power, Banner!" he roared. "Only a true warrior like me is worthy!"
Hermione watched from above, a thoughtful frown on her face. He's going to lose, she realized. The rage isn't pure enough. It's unfocused. He needs… a catalyst. A new idea, a truly brilliant, deeply chaotic, and utterly terrible idea, began to form in her mind. What, she wondered, is the one thing that could possibly enrage a giant, green rage monster more than anything else? What is the one, universal, and most profound form of humiliation?
A slow, wicked, and absolutely demonic grin spread across her face. She raised her wand.
"Expelliarmus!"
A thin, almost insignificant beam of red light shot from her wand and struck the Hulk. It wasn't aimed at the Abomination. It was aimed at the one piece of equipment the Hulk had left.
His iconic, inexplicably durable, purple pants.
There was a sound like tearing fabric, amplified a thousand times. The purple shorts, which had survived countless battles and transformations, suddenly and catastrophically disintegrated into a cloud of tattered, purple confetti.
And the Hulk was naked.
An eerie, profound silence fell over the battlefield. The Abomination, his bone spur poised to strike, froze. He lowered his head, his gaze falling upon the… situation. He looked at the Hulk's bare, green buttocks. He looked at his own position, straddling the now-nude goliath. The atmosphere, which had been one of brutal combat, suddenly became deeply, deeply awkward.
The Hulk was also confused. He looked down at his own body, at the thing swaying gently in the breeze, and felt the cool night air on his gamma-irradiated skin. And then, his brain, a simple engine of pure rage, finally processed the absolute, total, and soul-crushing humiliation of what had just happened.
A new roar started deep in his chest. It was not his usual roar of anger. It was a sound of pure, cosmic-level fury, a sound of a being whose last shred of dignity had just been violently stolen. His body began to swell, new muscle erupting as his rage found a new, infinitely deeper well to draw from. He was bigger. He was stronger. And he was very, very angry.
"I… I swear, it wasn't me," the Abomination stammered, a look of genuine terror on his face.
The next second, a massive green fist, powered by a level of rage no one had ever witnessed before, smashed into his face.
The rest of the "fight" was not a fight. It was a punishment. A brutal, one-sided, and deeply personal beatdown. The enraged, and now completely naked, Hulk pummeled the Abomination into the pavement, his roars of fury echoing through the city.
Hermione watched, a look of profound, scientific satisfaction on her face. Incredible, she thought. It seems that acute, public humiliation is a far greater catalyst for gamma-mutate power levels than the death of a loved one. The data is conclusive.
In the middle of the carnage, her S.H.I.E.L.D. phone began to ring. She glanced at the caller ID and answered.
"Sorry I'm late, Director," she said cheerfully, pre-empting his question. "Got held up in traffic."
"Never mind that," Fury's voice, tight with stress, came over the line. "What the hell is going on down there? Can you subdue both of them? We can't let them tear New York apart!"
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