It was dark. The darkness felt old -- or somehow was old, a remnant of some distant past when things were darker. And the darkness felt evil, or was evil, if such was possible even in primordial times. And out of such a darkness, if visions did come, they would still be dark, old, and evil. Such visions can be dangerous; eldritch things that should no longer be, yet still exist. Such was the thing that stepped out of that horrible darkness into the tiny glow of a single red light. It was shaped roughly like a man, but did not move or bend like a man. Its yellow hide was more carapace-like than skin-like, and wore metal armor over that. Its mouth, almost as wide as its head, was stretched tight in a grimace. Above its mouth, since it had no nose, was a huge, red, multi-faceted eye that stared unblinkingly at the table it moved towards it.
On that tabletop, lying in uncharacteristic repose, was the sleeping form of the Hulk. Shackles bound the Hulk's wrists and ankles to the table. Whether or not the alien thing that put them there realized their uselessness once the Hulk awoke, it gave no indication. It only walked up to the edge of the table and grabbed a control handle jutting from the side of the cylindrical drum mounted on a long arm over the Hulk. It was from the cylinder that the dim red glow emitted. The thing's long fingers adjusted dials on the control handle with one hand, while its other hand pushed square keys and round buttons on a lower panel on the side of the table.
"Your allies, the Avengers, have thwarted my nuclear ambitions," the alien thing known as Psyklop grumbled with a barely comprehensible voice. "But I still have you, do I not, Hulk?"
With the push of a last button, the cylinder changed its shape, narrowing at the bottom and releasing a studded wheel with the red glow emitting from the single long stud below it. The red glow began to pulse, increasing in intensity.
"My gods will give me this one last chance, Hulk," Psyklop continued. "Where a nuclear explosion might have failed to open the way to the Rock of Eternity, I will succeed by sapping the limitless radiation from your gamma-spawned body to open the way. With just a simple calibration, this shrinking ray will drain your energy instead of your mass. Now—eh?"
Psyklop turned to the rumbling sound followed by the sound of metal being rent and torn. "The Avengers!" Psyklop said with a defiant sneer. "How have they found me so soon?" Psyklop turned from the darkness where the sound emanated and made the adjustments to its machine even faster.
It was not fast enough. Out of the darkness came a green blur of motion. The mutant speedster, Quicksilver, was on Psyklop in a moment, ramming into it at hundreds of miles per hour. "Where are your teleport traps now, villain?" Quicksilver asked sarcastically between hammering blows.
Psyklop stayed on its feet, but Quicksilver's sudden onslaught had tipped it off-balance and knocked it into the control panel, throwing off the calibrations. Psyklop had no time to notice, as he had to respond to this threat quickly before Quicksilver overwhelmed him. Before Quicksilver had rained his tenth blow, Psyklop managed to press the stud on his armor that electrified it. Quicksilver's inhuman reaction time saved him from electrocution, but the shock he took from even the slight touch he made sent him reeling in pain.
Psyklop knew not to press his advantage over Quicksilver. The rest of the Avengers were surely coming. It touched every stud on his armor that activated a defensive purpose. It would need them. A second later, the next intruders reached the chamber, only they were not active Avengers.
"No," Psyklop said as it observed the arrival of Captain Marvel and Captain Marvel Junior. "The wizard has warned them."
Captain Marvel was the second to hurl himself into Psyklop. This time, Psyklop was thrown backward into the shrinking machine with enough force that the control panel was crushed before the shrinking ray bathed the Hulk in its red light. Psyklop, busy with grappling Captain Marvel, still managed to turn his multi-faceted eye back to the table and watched with horror -- such as only one who had served horrible, ancient things for millennia could conceive – as the instrument of his gods' plans began to shrink away to nothing.
"Nooo!" Psyklop screamed.
Bruce Banner felt the scream as if a physical thing, shocking him out of his daydream. He was sitting up, tensed, on the couch. He tried to conceal what had happened from Betty by adjusting his glasses, as if that had been his intention, but it was too much to hope that it would fool Mrs. Betty Banner.
"What's wrong?" Betty asked. She moved the popcorn bowl from between them to the coffee table and scooted closer. Her hand stretched out to Bruce's hand.
"It's nothing," Bruce said. "Just got caught up in a daydream again."
"About the Hulk?"
Bruce nodded silently, still facing forward, though not exactly at the television before them. He had lost interest in the program some time ago.
Betty seemed to sense Bruce's feelings again and stood up to go turn off the television. "No more monster movies for us," Betty said. "I'm sorry. I don't know what we were thinking--"
"No, it wasn't just that," Bruce said. "This was...I don't know, particularly vivid. More like one of my dreams at night."
Betty sighed as she turned off the TV and came back to the couch of their living room. "When are you going to stop thinking about the Hulk? When are you going to see Dr. Lieberman again?"
"I've another eight days until my next appointment with him," Bruce said with a grimace, remembering all the fruitless sessions with his shrink. He still stared forward while he felt Betty curl up next to him. She was lifting his arm to put around her and he only turned to face her once he felt her safely cradled in his arms.
"Bruce," she said softly. "Let's go to bed...and give you something else to think about."
Bruce responded with a warm, loving kiss before they did just as she suggested.
It was good. It felt so right. And for a short time there was no Hulk. No Psyklop. No Avengers. Just the two of them in a tiny, intimate world just for them. But as soon as it was over and they were lying apart, Bruce felt that world coming back around him as he drifted off to sleep.
When Bruce woke up, he felt an old, familiar dream taking fold. He was not in his own body, but in the body of the Hulk. He saw out of the Hulk's eyes as a passive observer, unable to interact with the dream unfolding around him. He had seen many bizarre things in these dreams, so he was not too surprised to see the Hulk tumbling through space – through a miniature solar system where the planets were smaller than he was and almost brushing against him as he tumbled. The planets grew larger around the Hulk until the Hulk was able to land on top of one, towering over the whole world. The Hulk put out his green, muscular hands, ineffectually reaching out to balance himself as the continents grew under his feet. Now Bruce could see mountains, forests, and cities coming into focus as they shot up around him – and soon these things too dwarfed the Hulk as the tiny buildings soared into skyscrapers and the alien people of the city were soon towering over him as he had once towered over their whole world, until he was no larger than a child's discarded toy to them.
The world did not stop growing around the Hulk, though the speed at which it did was seemingly too slow by degrees. One moment, the Hulk was dwarfed by feather-topped trees. The next moment he was surrounded by some kind of crystalline structure. And when the crystalline structure spread out too wide for him to see, it was replaced by tall, leaf-like plants, all eight to ten feet tall. Trees sprang still higher from out of the lower vegetation, but the trees looked more like giant dandelion weeds. There was rocky ground under his feet that made up the shore of a small, placid pond. Clusters of toadstools up to three feet tall grew by the water's edge and warty rocks were half-submerged in the water. A large lizard with a body maybe five feet long -- similar to a monitor lizard, but unlike any Bruce had ever seen -- sat on one of the rocks, slowly lifting its head to observe the Hulk's arrival with uncaring eyes. Across the pond was a cluster of ...something that Bruce could not even tell from here if it was vegetable or mineral, as it appeared to be some combination of both.
"What's going on?" Bruce heard the Hulk say. "Hulk small as a bug now."
Bruce was ashamed that he had not realized it sooner. The words of Psyklop came back to him now from his earlier daydream. The shrinking ray. The world had not grown, but rather the Hulk had shrunk. He had shrunk so small he had passed into a sub-atomic universe and then another sub-atomic universe beyond that. And not necessarily a peaceful world either, as evidenced by the horrible "ronnkk" sound that rumbled like thunder and echoed all around him.
"Is that a dog or a pig?" the Hulk asked no one. The Hulk was looking around and found the source of the horrible noise crashing through the weed-like trees on the other side of the pond. It was gargantuan in size, larger than an elephant – maybe larger than a blue whale! -- but looking more like a giant boar with paws instead of hoofs. "Maybe it's both!" the Hulk observed.
The monstrous beast spotted the Hulk and must have thought it had found prey, for it leaped on the tinier, green monster. The Hulk grunted at the amazingly strong impact, but responded quickly by grabbing one of the beast's tusks. "Can tell one thing," the Hulk said to itself. "Hulk has never been here before!" However strong the boar-monster might have been, its tusks were no match for the grasping strength of the Hulk and the tusk cracked and broke off in the Hulk's grip. The squeal of the boar-monster was twice as horrible as its roar, but the Hulk only swung the tusk fragment in its hands like a giant club, threatening the beast with more violence. The monster was undeterred and scraped its fangs against the Hulk's seemingly impenetrable hide. Normally, the Hulk was patient and tolerant with animals, sensing that they meant no true malice, but there was something so unnatural, so alien, about this giant creature that its very existence seemed to enrage the Hulk.
"One thing Hulk knows for sure – he is the Hulk!" The Hulk roared as a sort of challenge and then continued to roar until its volume drowned out the roar of the boar-monster, launched himself like a missile at the chest of the monster, and – most viscously – held the tusk fragment forward. The deadly weapon impaled the monster. As the monster's movements slowed, the Hulk hung from his weapon for a moment, as if waiting for the monster's response. The monster's legs weakened and buckled underneath it before it collapsed, leaving the Hulk plenty of time to leap clear. Normally, the Hulk might have boasted loudly to no one about his victory, but his alien surroundings left him expecting further danger. He stood, tensed, listening.
That flash of intuition paid off, for in the distance was the baying-oinking of more of the giant boar-hounds. Their existence alone seemed like a challenge to the Hulk, so he flexed his muscles and leaped high into the air, vaulting well over the giant weeds around him and into a sky still different from the one he knew. It was brighter here and the sun looked larger, but more diffuse, as if looking at it through an invisible haze. Looking down, the Hulk leaped over mile after mile in, for him, small bounces so he could see that the landscape continued to be different too. Much of it was prairie, dotted with oases overgrown with the feathery frond-trees. In the distance were a combination of round, low, prairie-swept hills and tall, skinny plateaus of stark rock. The Hulk's leaps stretched out into longer bounds, now five miles in breadth, as if the Hulk was growing impatient in his search for a way out of this place. Bruce thought he could almost hear the Hulk's thoughts and they seemed dark indeed.
A long ridge that the Hulk had spotted earlier now appeared, on closer inspection, to be a highly-elevated road built on an earthen mound. Although the Hulk normally avoided civilization, both he and Bruce seemed to share a curiosity about what manner of people dwelt on this world, so it did not surprise Bruce when the Hulk ended his leaps at the road and looked both ways for more signs of civilization. When the Hulk's ears detected the roar of the monsters coming from one of those directions, though, all thoughts of finding people lost their priority. So it was only by the most fortunate of coincidences that, a few bounds later, the Hulk came into view of a large, walled city surrounded by six more gargantuan boar-hounds.
"A city!" the Hulk cried, stating the obvious. "That means people!" It was a city under siege – and a medieval city at that, it seemed, as its defenses were ballistas and catapults that seemed to do no more than sting and annoy the monstrous attackers. At first, Bruce thought the Hulk might turn his back on the city, knowing the Hulk's dislike for being around people, but whatever manner of people lived here, they were the underdogs. Bruce felt some reassurance in knowing that the Hulk always sided with the underdogs. "Ha!" the Hulk laughed. "People attacking pig-dogs with sticks and stones. They need more."
The Hulk launched himself into the air with his highest leap since arriving – ten miles high at his apex before coming down straight at one of the giant boar-hounds. With practiced ease, the Hulk tacked in the wind until he had positioned himself to come crashing down right on the giant boar-hound's snout. The impact shattered bone and cartilage before smashing the monster's head down into the ground. The Hulk roared and beat its chest like a drum, a war cry that drew the attention of all the other giant boar-hounds. The Hulk's savagery was frightening. He ran straight up to the next giant boar-hound, which bent down and scooped up the Hulk in its jaws without considering him a threat – until the Hulk broke the monster's jaw from the inside and knocked its teeth out as he jumped free through the side of the mouth. The giant monster flailed about in pain, swinging a long, rat-like tail wildly behind it. The Hulk spotted the tail and ran towards it, snatched it up in both hands, and pulled the monster over on its side just by swinging its tail. Before the 150-ton monster could scramble back up onto its feet, the Hulk grabbed a hind leg and bent it until he heard bone snap again.
With one of their companions critically injured and another disabled, the four remaining monstrosities abandoned their assault on the city wall and turned their attention to the city's tiny defender that was almost halfway done defeating them. The Hulk leaped into foe after foe, leading with feet, fists, or shards of bone as impaling weapons. The battle was brutal, grueling, and sickened Bruce so much that he prayed the dream would end so he would have to watch no more of it. The dream did not end, but the fight did, exactly sixteen minutes later. Three of the boar-hounds were limping away with broken bones while the other three lay dying around the triumphant Hulk.
"Huh? What's that?" the Hulk asked no one. He turned around and followed a new sound coming from the city. "Loud screaming!" the Hulk observed.
A huge portcullis had risen in the city wall. A mob of about 70 armored soldiers rushed through the open gate. Most of them were unarmed, their weapons sheathed or otherwise hanging at their sides. The top of the city wall was lined with at least as many defenders, all shouting.
"They scream so loud…like maybe Hulk fought on wrong side," the Hulk said to no one. "But if they want a fight, Hulk will battle them all."
They were coming at the Hulk fast, about to break over him like a wave. The Hulk braced for battle, but Bruce noticed well before the Hulk did that the defenders were not issuing war cries, but victory cries. They were cheering. The Hulk realized this at the last moment and relaxed just before his fists would have crushed and broken the few rows of men advancing on him. Nor did the Hulk make any effort to stop them from swarming around him and trying to lift his heavy body off the ground. Five men working together managed the task and, when the Hulk laid down amongst them, the throng of soldiers managed to hoist them over their heads and stand beneath him. In this way they bore the Hulk away from the scene of carnage and into the city wall. The Hulk, who had been a living engine of death and carnage just a minute earlier, was now as pacified as a kitten being carried by a loving owner.
A parade of well-wishers, eager to see or touch their savoir, thronged the streets of the city. The cheering continued unabated even after the Hulk had been carried several blocks to an open courtyard before a many-pillored palace. The courtyard was packed wall-to-wall with people, though they found room to part for the emerald-topped procession. The soldiers finally set the Hulk down on his feet again. The Hulk looked around and noticed something that Bruce had noticed minutes ago.
"You are green," the Hulk observed loudly. "All of you, green like me!"
Then the soldiers and citizenry thronging the courtyard began to all bow down, facing the castle. The palace gates had opened and, crossing the to the stairs that led to the courtyard below, there was another procession – this one led by a beautiful woman with the same green tint to her skin, blonde hair down to her shoulders, and wearing a long, flowing red dress and white headdress with attached train.
Then she spoke, and her bell-like tones were welcome, but strange to the ears of both Hulk and Bruce. Still, they silenced the loud murmur of the crowd so all could hear her speak more. This woman, so obviously the leader of her people, glided halfway down the steps of the palace and spoke more directly to the Hulk, though that did not make her words any more understandable. All Bruce could glean from her countenance and tone was that seemed glad to see him, though he reasoned that was likely just from the circumstances of the Hulk's arrival too.