Chapter 3:

Two Rude Awakenings

"Wake up you miserable woprat" shouted a voice.

Rick groaned as he slowly regained consciousness and attempted to rise from his current position, only to find himself chained to the top deck of what appeared to be a large moving vehicle. As he raised his head to look in the direction that the voice had come from, he wished at once that he had remained asleep. Standing above him was a reptilian humanoid. Its body was covered in greenish-gray scales, although, due to the fact that they were such a dark color and contrasting against the bright light of the sun—wait, was that two suns in the sky— they appeared almost black. Rick stared in terror at the creature's menacing eyes that closed into slits in order to more closely observe him, the pointed skull which ended in a maw filled with pointed teeth that could have easily bitten his arm off if it had the mind to, and its tall gaunt body which looked powerful enough to easily take on a S.H.I.E.L.D agent. But the scariest thing to Rick at the moment was that, held by its clawed three-fingered hands, the creature was carrying a fiery-looking whip which was being lashed inches away from his nose.

"I'm awake, I'm awake" Rick shouted. "What do you want from me?"

"What do I want from you?" chuckled the creature in unpleasant manor. "I want a lot of things, boy. I want to overthrow my bosses and be king of the Tatooine Slavers. I want to have a harem of twl'eek dancers at my beck and call. I want to be so sinking rich and powerful that both that stupid Galactic Republic and that nosy Sith Empire leave me alone!"

The tone of his raspy voice had a large degree of frustration in it which only became more obvious as he continued to raise his volume during this rant.

"I want to be known and feared by all the pathetic little settlers and moisture farmers on this hellish dustbowl of a planet. I want be known as Kyzack the Great and Terrible, Kyzack the Krayt-Slayer, Kyzack the greatest Trandoshan of them all!"

As the Trandoshan— which after that last sentence, Rick guessed was either the name of the creatures race or the name of whatever social order it belonged to— continued his rant, Rick sat up a little straighter and tried to get his bearings. As he looked around at his surroundings, he observed a large hole at the far end of the roof he was chained to that was surrounded with debris.

"But", the Trandoshan cracked his whip in Rick's direction again to get his attention, "What I want from you is much simpler than all of that. I want information. You are going to tell me who you are, where you are from, and," he angrily pointed to the hole that Rick had just been looking at, "you are going to tell me who I can demand ransom from for your life and to pay for the damage you did to my sandcrawler when you crashed you pod into it."

His orange yes had a terrifying gleam as he returned his gaze to Rick

"Oh yes," he said, "You and I are going to have a nice long chat."

O—O—O

"Wake up you pathetic maggot"

Bruce Banner groaned and rubbed his sore head as he attempted to rise from the cot he found himself on. He looked around and found that he was inside a prison of some sort with force -field barriers in the place of metal bars to contain him. Staring at him from the other side was a tall, dark-haired man.

The man wore a long black cloak with a symbol of some sort of winged creature on the chest, and a hood that was currently down, allowing his long black hair to freely hang past his shoulders. His eyes were a piercing ice-blue with a stare just as cold. In fact, his entire clean-shaven face could have been carve from stone for the lack of emotion that it showed. He stood around six feet- two inches tall and it was obvious to Bruce at first glance that this man was a man of great power and authority. Given the fact that He himself was currently in a prison—no doubt on this man's orders— that could only mean one thing, Bruce was in deep trouble.

"Just my luck" thought Bruce to himself. "I manage to be caught and imprisoned within my first five minutes of being in this universe. I hope Rick is doing better than I am right now."

"Finally, you're up" said the man in a voice that was deep and somehow gravely and smooth at the same time. "We have almost reached our destination, and it would likely go badly for you if the Dark Council saw you in such poor condition."

"What Dark Council? Where am I? And who are you?" Bruce asked in a somewhat dazed manner. "I haven't done anything against any laws that might exist here. I just arrived in this universe a few minutes ago for goodness sakes."

The imposing man on the other side frowned and said, "You are lucky that I am more patient than many other sith lords in the Empire. I will answer your questions for the sake of both of us being able to make a good impression to the Dark Council, but be warned, such bluntness and impertinence will get you torched or killed by many others in the Empire."

"What Empire?" asked Bruce.

"The glorious Sith Empire" the man replied. "Founded by men and women centuries ago who were exiled for their beliefs and practices of using the Force in its entirety, rather than shunning the darkness as our enemies, the hated Jedi, do."

In response to the immediate look of curiosity and confusion on Bruce's face, the man continued, "More shall be explained to you of the nature of the Force later, for now you must know the basics of you situation. As to your current location, I am called Lord Wayne, the Master of Bats, and the Knight of Darkness. You are on my ship, the Terrorizer, and we are on our way to the planet of Dromad Kass to present you to the Dark Council, the acting leaders of the Empire. One of them had a vision of your coming and sent me to intercept you upon your arrival. You will play a pivotal part of the war that we are waging on the Republic and Jedi who exiled us so long ago. Does that answer your questions?"

Bruce only nodded, but his only filled with more questions that he dared not ask now, as the man, Lord Wayne, was apparently not in a good temper, an Bruce didn't want to know what would happen to him if he pushed him much further. He decided that he had better talk very respectfully so as not to further anger him.

"Thank you for satisfying my curiosity, Lord Wayne. I shall not trouble you any further."

"Good" said Lord Wayne as he turned and started to walk away, "You have better be worth the amount to trouble that they put me through to find and retrieve you. I've been distracted from my quest from revenge long enough."

Alone in his cell, Bruce considered his options. He was trapped with no chance of escape in the immediate future. He technically could try turning into the Hulk and try to escape that way, but that was a very bad idea. For one thing, he wasn't sure if it would work in the first place. Perhaps this universe had weapons or cells that could neutralize and contain the Hulk. Also, even if he could escape his cell, the ship was in space with nowhere to go. Plus, while he knew that he could choose to turn into the Hulk, he wasn't sure that he could turn back so easily without Rick around to help him calm down. The risk just wasn't worth it. He would have to wait until the ship had reached its destination and see what happened.

"I really hope Rick is doing better than I am right now."

Greetings to you who follow this story. I'm sorry that it took over a year for there to be another chapter, but you can't write if you don't have any inspiration. To that end, I'm inviting anyone who reads this to leave suggestions in the review section of what you thinks should happen. I've got the main plot and ending decided, but I've been having trouble deciding what should happen in between. Feel free to actually review the story too. And yes, I created a Batman inspired sith character, because why not?