If Banner had been asked to predict who Steve's "old friend" would be, he never — not in a hundred paranoid brainstorms — would have guessed Emil Bronsky. Not Emil the quiet prisoner from three years ago, but Emil now: Abomination. Seeing the man who once hauled him into custody grinning like a lunatic made Banner's skin crawl.
Emil stepped in like he owned the place. "Long time no see, Banner. Miss me?" His voice oozed smugness — the smell of someone who'd been rebuilt from revenge and chemicals and decided he liked the taste.
Banner's eyes dropped to the wall behind him. The reflection showed a shorter figure in Emil's grasp: the scepter. Cold slid down Banner's spine. Fury tightened. If the scepter was here, its puppet strings might be on anyone in the carrier — even Steve. That meant the whole air carrier could be a nest of enemies.
Banner didn't hesitate. He lunged for the window.
"Steve! Stop him!" Emil barked, but words came too late. Banner smashed through the glass. The carrier was tens of thousands of feet up — a fall like that was death unless something snapped the fight inside him back to Bruce.
Two things flip Banner into the Hulk: rage beyond the threshold, or imminent death. Falling from an airborne carrier checked both boxes. He hit the transformation mid-plummet; flesh ballooned, muscles ripped, the roar that followed shook the sky.
Stark's interceptors — sleek annihilators — peeled off the carrier like angry hornets. Their orders were brutal and simple: stop the Hulk. Lasers painted the air around him but barely bruised the green titan. Small missiles followed. The Hulk snatched one from the air, flung it back like a hot rock… straight into a destroyer. The explosion lit the sea like daytime.
Nick Fury, now clearly compromised, watched from the command room with a grin that didn't reach his eyes. "Keep firing," he ordered. The pilots obeyed.
The first annihilator dove in again and met a shockwave. The Hulk's clap was more than showmanship; it produced a concussive wall that shredded metal and sent pilots spinning. One craft filed a screaming alert and burned out; another pilot tried to abort back to the carrier, only to find Nick's orders unwavering: no retreat.
The third craft tried to be clever and avoid the clap, but when the Hulk's second clap hit, it detonated a missile tucked under a destroyer — debris chewed the sky. The pilot didn't get to fly home. The air filled with smoke, heat, and the distant, endless roar of a creature that couldn't be reasoned with.
In the command room, Emil paced, fists clenched with impatient glee. He had the scepter; he had the Secretary of Defense under his thumb; he had an entire carrier at his disposal. He imagined parading the Hulk's corpse as proof his Dark Avengers plan was legitimate. He imagined the world bending.
"Lock all surveillance on the Hulk!" he snapped. "Put the carrier in stealth. Lower altitude. If he doesn't die from the fall, we'll scorch the ocean with high-temp missiles. We will show the world we're not asking permission."
"Sir," an officer — still logged in as Maria — stammered, "those missiles are restricted. If we use them over Mexican waters, it's an international incident. It will expose SHIELD's hand."
Emil's smile turned venomous. "Shut up. I decide. I hold the scepter. I make the call."
They went silent. Even controlled agents kept a sliver of institutional caution; but under Emil's fist, that caution bowed.
Out on the falling green mountain that was the Hulk, the world felt small and hot and crushing. He was being hunted from the sky and the deck above. He smashed, he roared, he ripped a freighter's radar array clean with two swipes. Each attack from above barely registered. The thing that frightened him—what Banner felt in the marrow—was how everyone in command now spoke Emil's name like a god.
Emil thought he'd manufactured victory. He was about to learn how quickly hubris met the wrong opponent.
Because when Emil thought he'd reduced the world to his puppets, somebody else smiled — not a puppet, not a soldier, not a hostage. Someone who'd never been interested in the role Emil had carved out for himself.
Ryuuto stepped out of the smoke like a punchline delivered at the wrong time. He wasn't dressed like a hero. He wasn't begging for permission. He was grinning, because chaos tasted like opportunity to him.
Emil paused. Fury paused. Even the Hulk's roar died down to a curious rumble.
Emil had all the pieces he wanted — the scepter, the carrier, the intent to make the world tremble — and then came Ryuuto. The man who'd been a "trash-to-legend" joke in so many worlds, now standing there with a look that said: try me.
In Emil's head, a cold little thought bloomed and died when he realized the truth: compared to this new wildcard, he was only the jester. The crown he'd stolen would melt before the storm Ryuuto brought.
Emil had been a nightmare built by science and resentment. But he wasn't prepared for the kind of monster Ryuuto could become when his patience snapped. And that's when Emil finally understood the worst thing about meeting Ryuuto — he was not the prowling apex of this world. He was just another clown in a show that was about to be stolen.