Rachel DeLanco's apartment was a small but cozy one-bedroom abode, housed in one of the middle floors of a large building that sat at the edge of the suburbs outside the city of Pallas, New Hampshire. Talia had learned the drive well from all directions - Rachel had been her saving grace over the last four months.

Dressed in the fresh clothes her friend had provided, Talia followed her friend out of the parking lot and carefully walked to the elevator, where Rachel held the door open for her. As she walked in, the doctor felt her knees give out, causing her to stumble against the wall of the lift, but she was quickly scooped up by Rachel.

"You OK, Tal?" Rachel squeaked, spinning her friend around to meet her face to face.

"It's all right," said Talia, motioning Rachel away. She walked over and hit the button for the seventh floor. "I'm still just weak from the change."

The elevator began to rise, jerking slightly as it started but smoothing out for the rest of their journey upward. As the doors cracked open, Rachel squeezed out, keys in hand, and jogged the way to her door, quickly unlocking the entrance and bolting inside.

Talia followed cautiously, rounding the corner into the apartment, only to see Rachel furiously gathering up strewn clothes and objects that were scattered around the place. Talia smiled.

"Don't clean up on my behalf, Rachel," she laughed. "Seriously."

Rachel frowned. "I only do it because I know you'd be doing it for me when you're supposed to be taking it easy." She jogged over to the couch and plucked a pillow from the floor, throwing it onto the cushions before grabbing Talia by the shoulder and pushing her down onto the seat.

"Sit. Relax." Rachel made a drinking motion. "Coffee?"

"Please."

Rachel almost leapt away from the couch, steering her path with the maneuverability of a fighter jet away from the living room and toward the kitchen, simultaneously reaching into her shoulder bag and withdrawing the fragments of Talia's wardrobe from the night before, tossing them toward the washing machine in the closet and missing by several feet, the scraps tumbling to the floor. Without missing a beat, though, Rachel coasted into the kitchen and fetched a coffee filter and grounds, heaping a few scoops into her coffee maker and flipping the switch.

Talia rolled her eyes and shook her head. Sinking down into the couch, she picked up a stray sock that was wedged under the armrest, folded it, and placed it on the ground.

"I see you cleaning!" came Rachel's voice from the kitchen.

Talia sighed, tilting her head back into the couch cushion. She closed her eyes briefly and tried to relax, but a gnawing curiosity rattled within her brain. She knew Rachel didn't like her doing it, but she had to know.

The TV flickered on and Talia flipped through a few channels until the local news filled the screen. The words "SPECIAL REPORT" were emblazoned across the bottom of the broadcast, and Talia's gut sunk.

The laboratory building Talia had trespassed into last night - a large, private complex located a few towns over - formed the backdrop of a scene riddled with police, with the news correspondent standing in the foreground breaking down the story. The view was obstructed, but it was clear to the doctor's discerning eye that one of the lab doorways, in addition to much of the wall around it, was missing, leaving a giant hole where it once was. On the ground, shards of glass reflected sunlight, skewered across chunks of brick and concrete.

I was trapped, no exit. The beast made one.

"Police are not revealing the full details of the incident here at Buscema Lab," spoke the correspondent - a neatly-groomed man in his 30s - while walking around the scene. "Attempts to get comments from the lab or the police on the cause of the incident have gone unanswered so far. However, residents in surrounding neighborhoods spoke to us earlier."

The news rolled to tape, and the image of an older woman popped on screen, with a microphone being held to her face. "They're saying it's under control, but there were swarms of police all around here last night, I couldn't get any sleep! Nobody fires that many guns for something 'under control.'"

The next image was that of a middle-aged man with a goatee. "Guns were blazing, and all I know is that whatever came out of that building wasn't normal."

"It was that green hulking woman," spoke a young couple. "We're sure of it. We thought the stories were false, but we totally saw her!"

The news kept cutting to different people. "It's some kind of practical joke, a pretty lewd one at that."

"It was the She-Hulk. Totally the She-Hulk."

"Whatever it was, I don't think anything human could've done that to the lab."

The correspondent appeared back on screen, with a blurry, distant over-the-shoulder photo of a large, muscular green woman, cropped from her broad, powerful shoulders up to her wild, unkempt hair. "This marks the 14th reported sighting of the alleged 'She-Hulk' creature in the past few months in the state, including this still captured last month by a bystander in the Valley town park. We again asked the police and the lab if they could confirm or deny the presence of the, and we were given no comment. Back to you, Jim -"

The TV switched off, and Rachel put herself between Talia and the screen.

"Don't do that to yourself, Tal! You have enough on your plate." She kneeled down and placed her arms on her friend's shoulders. "The She-Hulk has never hurt anybody."

Talia looked away from Rachel and scowled. "Not yet."

"C'mon, forget about it for just a second," said Rachel, rising to her feet and making her way back to the kitchen. "Take a break, please, for your own sake. You know it's a vicious circle worrying about everything; it'll just cause you to get upset."

Talia scowled. "And we know what happens when I do that."

Rachel either ignored her comment or didn't hear it. Her friend had opened up her cabinet and fumbled around across different shelves, removing a single mug, while unsuccessfully searching for a second. She slid over to her sink, fetching a used one out of her sink, quickly rinsing it with tap water, then moved it to the coffee maker.

"Still like your coffee black?" she shouted.

"Yes."

"Disgusting." Rachel withdrew the pot and began to pour.

"So," said the doctor, "I see they've stuck a name on it."

"On what?"

Talia was silent. Rachel's eyes widened.

"Oh." She walked out of the kitchen, answering hesitantly. "Yeah, I've seen the name pop up here and there."

"Here and there? How widespread is this?"

"They really latched onto the descriptions of you as 'hulking,' which just evolved." Rachel took a deep breath. "It's better than calling you 'the green woman' or 'the thing,' at least."

Talia waved her arms at the TV. "She-Hulk, though? Why does it have to have a gender tag? Why don't they just call the thing 'the Hulk?'"

"Not everybody is as smart as you, Tal," Rachel shouted from the kitchen. "You're talking about common sense when it comes to the award-winning combo of men and the media.

"Second," she continued, "I kind of like it."

"I don't. I'm still lucky that the worst they've done is start naming it so far."

"Paging Dr. Walker," Rachel said, "You're here and you're human, and your name is Talia, not She-Hulk. You're also in my place and you need to start relaxing."

"What I need to do," Talia responded darkly, "is get rid of this thing dwelling inside of me." Talia fished the purple vials into her hands, holding the purple liquid up to the light. "These nanobots are the key."

"Nano-what now?" asked a confused Rachel. Two coffee cups in hand, she wandered over to the small couch positioned against the wall in her apartment's living room. Positioning herself to sit down, she offered out a cup full of brew to the already-sitting Talia Walker, who accepted the gift eagerly.

"Nanobots," said Talia, sipping in the hot beverage. "Microscopic robots."

Rachel brought her own cup to her mouth, staring at her friend over the ceramic glass. "And you want to put these things into your bloodstream?"

Talia nodded.

"I don't get it, Tal," said Rachel, motioning to the three purple vials that were now resting on her coffee table. "What can these things do that your other treatments have been unable to accomplish? You put yourself in a lot of danger just for those small tubes."

The doctor gulped down another mouthful of the hot beverage, before putting the glass down onto a coaster. "I've been trying to treat my...condition as any other ailment. I was trying to treat different effects, pinpoint the exact cause, but in the end, I've been trying to treat my problem as something normal."

Talia stood up and motioned at herself. "That was my problem, Rachel, nothing about my condition is normal. Nothing about my condition is logical. The overexposure of gamma radiation that caused this whole thing - it's not supposed to create a creature, it's supposed to annihilate my cells and kill me.

"The transformation doesn't even obey the laws of physics! When I change…" The doctor motioned over to the pile of shredded clothes from the night before that was sitting on the floor next to Rachel's washing machine. "When I change, I gain mass. Rapidly. Mass isn't supposed to just come out of thin air. Mass is matter, matter changes forms, it isn't possible to be created or destroyed. When people gain muscle mass, they're taking in calories, protein, etc. gradually over a period of time and turning that into muscle. I'm not converting anything, I'm just receiving, and then losing it when I change back. Where's that coming from?

"If my transformation doesn't obey the normal laws of this world, I have to stop treating it as such." Talia scooped up one of the vials and held it up to her eye. "These nanobots should be able to give me a better idea of what the real root of this whole thing is."

Rachel sat up enthusiastically. "Do you really think it'll help you find a cure?"

Talia gave a slight sigh before shaking her head. She lowered the test tube into the ground. "I don't know. Nothing's a given. But I sure intend to find out tonight." Talia looked up. "With your help, if you can spare it."

Rachel choked on a sip of her drink, and gazed quizzically at her friend. "Me? Tonight? How?"

"My lab." Talia paused, her face blank like a stone, all emotions trapped away. "I need you to trigger my transformation and bring out the beast."