Déjà vu.

This was the nagging feeling in the back of Talia's mind as she sat strapped and locked inside the sterile pressure chamber where their latest experiment would occur. This all seemed familiar. But of course it was: History was repeating itself. As before, this was the calm before the storm, the last remnants of humanity before the beast.

Worst of all, though, she was now left alone with only her thoughts.

She had wanted to be pacing the lab, hopping from computer to computer, analyzing and re-analyzing data tied to the experiment she was about to take part in. She had wanted to look over the expensive-looking chamber she was locked inside panel by panel, screw by screw, to see how secure it really was. Her brain would absolutely have been content solely obsessing over the looming experiment and everything that could go right and everything that could go wrong. Yet, Geoff had insisted she isolate and let him get to work. Procedures had been double-checked, triple-checked, and most of them checked even more, after all. "Don't you trust me, Talia?" he had asked.

So here she was, body half-reclined in a cold, heavy duty metallic chair, her wrists and ankles secured with thick steel semicircular restraints welded to the frame. She was clad in thin medical scrubs that did nothing to protect against the chill of the metal; the only warmth was from the various wires and sensor pads they had stuck on her arms, legs, and torso. Then, to complete the facade of safety, she was sealed into a medical pressure chamber with one-foot thick walls so secure that air had to be pumped in via vents lest she suffocate.

It's all security theater, Talia thought to herself drearily. None of this can stop the monster.

"How are you feeling, Tal?" asked Rachel, her voice echoing through the lonely chamber via a tinny-sounding intercom built into the walls. Despite her best attempts to hide her inner turmoil, Rachel had noticed something was off with her when she had woken up this morning. That was her talent, after all, cracking through the wall that the scientist always attempted to put up.

"Ready to go," she answered plainly, forcing a small grin. Talia had gotten good at pretending her feelings didn't exist, even though they very much did - a fact her body made clear every time she transformed into the pure embodiment of unchecked emotion. A transformation she put every fiber of her being into resisting. But today, she was going to go against all of that, and bring the creature out willingly. Again.

Déjà vu.

Two or so weeks ago - had it been that long? - she had set up an experiment in her lab in Vermont. She had made Rachel induce the transformation in her in order to get readings from the nanobots she had stolen the night before. In the process, the monster had injured Rachel, and she still was having trouble forgiving herself for forcing her friend to help her in the first place. She had sworn to herself she wouldn't put anybody else in that situation again.

Yet here she was. Potentially ready to unleash more damage unto people she cared about. Rachel had already suffered enough these last six months. Geoff was being helpful, but naive to the chaos her curse brought to everybody around her. Am I repeating the same mistake twice?

Her usual calm demeanor felt imperfect. There was something inside that was stirring. Is it the monster, anxious to get out again? This long of a time without having changed was unusual. But each day that passed without the creature emerging made its presence feel stronger, more ready to escape.

Talia closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. The isolated nature of the chamber made it so quiet, she could actually hear herself think. It was almost, as well, that she could hear her inner creature speak…

"Talia!" Geoff's voice shook her out of her introspection. Probably for the better. "Are you ready?"

"Let's get this started," she answered flatly.

"OK so listen: There are going to be five stages," Geoff explained, his disembodied voice tired but confident. "We start with the control reading, where we'll analyze your vitals one last time. Second, we'll trigger the metamorphosis with the electroshock. Next, we'll isolate the gamma signature of your transformation. Fourth, we allow the nanobots to complete their readings of your transformed state. Lastly, we force a reversion and bring you back."

Rachel's weary voice cut onto the intercom. "That last part," she said, hesitating for a moment, "not as easy as it sounds."

Geoff scoffed. "Yes, I'm quite aware of where the last experiment went off the rails." He paused, lightening his tone, as if he had remembered her plea on the roof to be nicer to Rachel. "I've been working on these calculations for weeks, and I wouldn't do anything that would put any of us in real danger." She could hear him tapping on glass, no doubt wildly motioning to pages of numbers and equations on the computer screens as if it would alleviate Rachel's traumatic experience. "Trust me, when we get to stage 5, you can leave that to me."

Geoff's confidence, or at least his projection of such, hadn't changed in all these years. It should've made her feel better; after all, his expertise was why she had made the fraught trip to New York and to the past she had left behind to begin with. But that didn't erase what had been the lingering thought weighing her down since that revelation on the rooftop: Why were they even bothering with the experiment? Geoff had fed her analytical mind the possibility that any achievement made in preventing or curing herself of her monstrous transformations would only doom her to die by her original fate: withering away from the degenerative disease lurking within her genes. All this effort, everything they had been working toward, all to treat a body that seemed destined to betray her no matter the circumstances.

What a choice: One curse or another.

"Time to get this show on the road?" asked the tinny-voiced Geoff. "Let's get going with that first stage."

"And remember Talia," Rachel's voice cut in. "We're right here for you."

A quick flicker inside the chamber caught the corner of the scientist's eye. Talia turned to see two small monitors blink to life, the screens flashing a few different colors before settling on a uniform black background. Within moments, lines of text began to appear on the right viewer, new rows appearing second to second as data from the nanobots inside her activated. As the right monitor continued to populate, the left screen began drawing a waveform monitor, which Talia quickly recognized as what she had used to detect varying waves of gamma radiation. As of now, it was showing nothing significant, but that would change soon.

After all, this was just the first stage. The control.

Control. Talia thought. What control? She had no control. Disease destroyed her father and she didn't have any way to stop it. That same disease, inherited from her father, then ravaged her, and to rid herself of it she traded control of her body from hostile genetics to a raging spirit birthed within her. All hopes of controlling this beast had been daydreams, for this was a monster content with freeing itself against her very will. She tried so hard to fight her body, fight her mind, fight her emotions. But they always won.

And even if she ever freed herself of its control, then, according to Geoff, the disease was ready to reassert its will over her again anyway.

No. I refuse to believe it. Talia flexed her right hand, testing its movement against the constrictive restraints. I feel fine. Reflexes and coordination seem optimal. Geoff said there were signs of the disease, but I remember what that weakness felt like and I don't feel it now.

It's quite possible he was wrong. Yes, that has to be it. It is it! I know more about my own genetics than he could ever hope to. She looked over to the gamma waveform. We're all freaking out over a hypothetical! The radiation cured me. It had to have. It had to.

She had convinced herself of that hope for a few moments before her lips unleashed a burst of laughter. Talia felt her nails digging into the soft flesh of her palm as she balled her fingers into a fist, bathing herself with her cackles of futility that quickly transitioned to echoes of hostility. Who am I kidding. Hope? Fortune? Luck? They don't exist for me. Of course I just swapped one curse with another! Traded my brain, the one thing I still had, for large green muscles. Muscles that are used to hurt and destroy instead of save. I would've died, but at least I would've died as me. And, I mean… did I even swap at all? Most likely I have two diseases ravaging me at the same time, fighting each other to see which can destroy me first!

"Damn fool!" she seethed to herself through clenched teeth. You're such a bold genius, Talia Walker. You tried to cheat death by playing God, but instead you only unlocked HELL!

Talia's muscles tensed as she felt a bone-chilling release rush harshly through her veins. Unwelcome but familiar. Yes, she knew this feeling. A feeling that had grown slightly distant in her memory. Unbottled rage. The trigger. The point of no return.

The Change.

Had they triggered it? Was she already in the next stage? The pangs of the oncoming metamorphosis were unmistakable, but she hadn't felt anything similar to the electroshock Geoff was supposed to trigger. Last time it was searing pain that took minutes to accomplish its task, but there was no pain this time, only her own anger. And this time felt so…quick?

Does it really matter? It's happening, and there's nothing you can do to stop it. Control is lost once more, your humanity is just a brief dream to wake up from again.

With a deep breath, Talia leaned her head back against the chair and closed her eyes. She could hear and feel the heavy beat of her heart, the early pangs of change as her bodily structure prepared to rearrange itself, the pains that would come with it, and the cool rush of adrenaline that promised numbness if she were to give in. Also lurking within was the scariest part of the transformation to her: the unchecked rage of the beast waiting to assert dominance over her precious consciousness, driving her rational mind into an isolation far crueler than the chamber she was in now. Briefly, she pictures the red eyes of her shadow that plagued her nightmares, before banishing it from her mind. Instinctively,the scientist attempted to regulate her breathing, to untense her core, to desperately hold onto her sense of self.

But why fight it? a stray thought called to her. This is your chance to reset your genetics again. It can only be this one time, right? One more renewal of life to buy some more time. This transformation will put off the disease, Geoff will get the readings, we can work on a cure or suppressant for both conditions. If time becomes short again, just trigger another metamorphosis. Talia opened her eyes and looked over once more to the monitors, where text was now more rapidly spawning and the gamma waveform was beginning to dance up and down. Maybe this won't be as bad as it sounds. Maybe we can just…give in?

She attempted to unclench her fists, but fighting against the instinct to resist the change was proving hard in its own right. Talia noticed an immediate change, however, as a cool wave of sensations washing over her body morphed into stabbing spasms as she felt her muscles begin to swell with a newfound surge of power. Bones cracked and popped as she felt the once-loose medical scrubs begin to grow tight, first around her shoulders and legs, then soon against her torso and chest. Things were moving quickly, much quicker now.

No! Suddenly her fingers stabbed back into her palm in a tight ball, nails cutting so deep they drew blood. The quick pain threatened to be lost into the rush of the transformation, but Talia found herself clinging onto that pain, that human pain. No! What am I doing? What am I thinking? Give in to the beast? Am I that self-serving? I may have two curses, but at least one will let me live and die as a human, by a human disease. This…this thing that lives within me can't be controlled, can't be bargained with. And you want to intentionally let it win? Mom was right – you're so stupid, Talia, such an idiot. The creature is probably laughing at you too! Puny in body and mind, so weak to temptation. All you accomplish only causes pain, and you have only yourself to blame.

She clenched her teeth, struggling to resist the slowing bodily changes. Thick, green strands of hair began to slowly unfurl their way down her head, lengthening down beyond her widening jaw and falling upon swelling breasts threatening to rip apart her fragile wardrobe. As futile as it felt, Talia maintained her focus on the sensation of blood trickling down her hands, a sign of her vulnerability…her humanity.

Why do I do that? Why do I give myself hope? Why do I think I have a choice in my fate? To die by my disease would require curing myself of the gamma poisoning, and what are the chances of that? You can't even hold off one change, let alone prevent the monster from emerging long enough to allow this body to die in peace.

And I'm not forgetting you. The scientist's breath began to grow quicker, shallower. The beast within. The waking nightmare. You wouldn't let me die. You take everything that I am and run around using my brain and my body! Her upper lip began to curl upward, releasing a low, guttural growl. You're self-serving, too. Maybe we aren't so different after all.

Talia felt the change pushing against her. Felt her body ready to explode, as if the beast was rebuking her thoughts against her. Her grasp on her own humanity was teetering on the edge, her body swollen with gamma energy. There was nothing she could do. Nothing I can ever do. Might as well just give up. Why bother to fight anymore. It's just so hard.

"Talia." The scientist's eyes grew wide. Rachel's voice. "Talia?"

"Rachel!"

"Talia, the gamma wave, we–"

"It's fluctuating too much!" Geoff interrupted, his voice soaked in stress. "The nanobots can't…we can't isolate the gamma signature. Too many changes, so many variables!"

Turning her head, Talia looked toward the monitor and saw the dancing lines of the gamma wave. The display was the definition of chaotic beauty – raw data that looked like it could be no more contained than the emerging beast it was taking readings from.

She found comfort in it.

"I knnnowwww this," Talia growled. She stopped, closed her eyes, and took a heavy, controlling breath. "I. Know. This."

Her growing rage, threatening to overflow and overwhelm, slammed into an invisible wall inside her. It was trying to flow into a space that was already taken, taken by something she rarely invoked. Her emotions. Her grief.

Control. Take control!

Flexing her growing gamma muscles, Talia focused her inhuman strength on her bindings and burst her restraints one by one, chunks of metal and wiring scattering across the floor of the chamber. The scientist lumbered out of the straining chair and onto her broadened feet, slowly maneuvering her demihuman form toward the monitor station. She focused in on the gamma wave on the screen as an enlarged hand grasped for the keyboard below.

Stay with me. One step at a time.

"Give me access," she spoke into the intercom.

"No, Talia," sputtered Geoff. "You're in no condition to–"

"Give. Me. Access. NOWWWW," she growled at the comm station, her skin plunging into a deep green.

Sounds of frantic typic echoed over the speakers, before Rachel's comforting tone returned. "You're good to go, Tal. You've got this."

Her eyes zoned in on the gamma waveform, Talia brought her thickened fingers to the keyboard mounted below the dual monitors and started typing. Key by key. Number by number. She could feel the change continuing to progress slowly but surely, her shoulders splitting out of their sleeves, and tears splitting her pant legs up the back of her calves.

An extended formula started to appear on the second monitor. Talia divided her focus between proofreading the formula, eyeballing the gamma waveform, and fighting for priceless seconds of control of her brain power, which by the second was getting duller as her emotional firewall began to fade.

"You're doing it, Tal," spoke Rachel calmly. "I know you're fighting. But you're doing amazing. I'm here with you. You can do this!"

"Raayyy-chelll," growled Talia as she honed in on her friend's voice, her mind struggling to isolate the last sequence of keys. Multiple splits began to race up the back of her scrub top as taut green back muscles spasmed among the violent late waves of the metamorphosis.

Me know what can do, Talia assured herself, her mind losing its battle. Whatever….happens to…Talia….to PUNY TALIA…NO…whatever happens to me…happens. Make it work.

With a balled-up fist, she slammed her hand down one last time upon the keyboard to finalize the formula. Tree trunk-sized thighs burst forth from the surviving section of her pant legs as the last vestiges of control slipped away. With one mighty swing, she flung her musclebound arm through the monitors, before bringing her hands up between her breasts and tearing off the tattered top from her torso, throwing it to the ground.

Angling her head back, the She-Hulk let out a deafening roar that echoed furiously inside the sealed chamber. It was a warning: She would not be trapped.

The entire room rumbled as the raw power of the She-Hulk collided with the walls of the chamber.

"Do you have it?" nervously asked Rachel, backing away from the intercom and the rattling chamber. "Do you have the scans, Geoff?"

"Yes," he said, furiously punching away at his computer station. "All is sticking to our plan."

It's been pretty rocky so far, buddy. Suddenly another massive boom as the She-Hulk's rage made another attack on her enclosure. Computer monitors and glassware alike shook violently from the aftershock.

"So, we can activate stage 5, right?" she asked. "Calm her down?"

Geoff ignored her for a few seconds as he finished typing to himself, before looking up with a lack of concern. "Yes, but what's the rush? That chamber's walls are a foot thick." He tapped his way through what looked to be pages of data. "The more readings we can get the better!"

"The She-Hulk will not let herself stay trapped in there," said Rachel, her voice taking on a grimmer tone. "She will find her way out and we do not want to be in her path when she does. Activate the reversion tools."

Another shockwave. This time the entire structure seemed to jump on contact.

"Geoff," Rachel pleaded. "That's no longer Talia in there. She is a caged animal and will do anything to break free. And when she finally does, she's going to turn all her anger onto the ones she thinks trapped her." She motioned to the unpopulated room around them, "And I'm pretty sure she's going to think that of us!"

He only smirked. "We'll be fine."

The bang of gamma-powered fists against thick steel returned again on cue, but this time a second quickly followed. Then a third and a fourth attack after that, each hit coming sooner and sooner. The horrible noise of crumpling metal echoed across the lab space as the smashing began sounding like a drum beat – not too dissimilar from the sound Rachel was hearing her heart create. The sound of hissing air soon joined the chorus as the wall began to slowly break apart.

"She's breaking out!" shouted Rachel, backing her way toward the computer. "It's now or never, Geoff!"

The geneticist calmly looked from his computer up to the chamber, before looking back down to the computer and clicking a few things with his mouse. Rachel waited anxiously for something to happen.

And it did. With an ear-splitting screech, a six-foot chunk of the pressure chamber ripped forcefully away from its seams and slid across the floor, knocking over tables, monitors, and equipment. A chilled breeze wafted from the opening as the pressure inside equalized with the exterior lab.

Standing at the gap where the wall was now missing was the She-Hulk. The jade giant stood with her massive arms held to her side, fists like wrecking balls that were not finished with smashing. Rippling green muscles fueled by gamma-carrying veins stood ready to move. Rachel went cold. The creature's eyes were narrow, boiling with rage and, as she feared, seeking out a target. She let out a roar that made Rachel cower and shield her ears.

"Sensational…" cawed Geoff.

Shit.

WIthin seconds the She-Hulk was lunging forward. Rachel instinctively grabbed Geoff by the lab coat and leaned back with all her body weight to yank him toward her down to the ground. The monster's path took her straight through the computer console, where she then whipped her body around, smashing the surrounding tables and lab benches around her.

Geoff seemed unfazed. "What a magnificent creature," he said, leaning up from Rachel's saving grip. "It's even better with my own two eyes."

The She-Hulk pivoted her head toward Geoff and Rachel, her reservoir of rage unquelled by the brief display of destruction. "You've made me mad," she growled. "Don't puny humans know that the MADDER She-Hulk gets, the STRONGER She-Hulk gets?!"

Turning to her side, the monster latched onto a nearby machine and began to pull. Bolts began popping up from the ground as she lifted it effortlessly above her head and heaved it at the pressure chamber. The metallic bodies clashed and exploded and a spray of sparks and debris.

"Why puny humanstry to contain SHE-HULK?" she roared, taking a massive stomp toward their bodies helpless on the ground. "Nobody can contain She-Hulk! Not puny Talia, not puny cage…NOBODY!"

Rachel's mind was racing. Everything was going to hell again. Can I talk her down like last time? she thought. Will anything work in time?

Her arms quivering in fear, Rachel slowly pushed herself to her knees, making telegraphed movements as the She-Hulk's fiery gaze followed her. "Sh-She-Hulk," she stuttered. "It's me, Rachel. Remember me?"

The She-Hulk narrowed her eyes. "Ray-Chell," she huffed. "Why did Ray-Chell lock up She-Hulk?!" The beast leaned forward and unleashed a mighty roar at the woman, one not only tinged with anger, but with grief. "WHY?!"

"She didn't lock you up, She-Hulk," said Geoff. "I did."

The creature's eyes quickly turned to Geoff and soon after her body followed. She lurched forward and within two gargantuan steps she had the geneticist in her hand, hauling him by the neck of his lab coat and dangling him like a helpless animal in front of her. "You are just like puny Talia!" she spit through clenched teeth. "And She-Hulk will crush all puny bugs who hurt her!"

These pig-headed scientists! Rachel didn't know what to do. All she could hear was Talia's embodied rage seething and the sound of a machine humming.

Humming?

She looked over and heard the whirring of moving joints as two large robotic spinning cylinders lowered from their resting spot on the ceiling of the lab. The She-Hulk had no doubt picked up on the same sound, as she whipped her head around to pinpoint the source of the noise before looking above her. Growling as an animal would to a predator, she tossed Geoff harshly to the floor and flexed her muscles as a show of force. The beast bent her legs, and readied to leap.

The cylinders struck fist. The whirring mechanisms unleashed a red arc of electricity onto the She-Hulk, who arched back in pain as the sparking current engulfed her. Roaring in anger, confusion, and pain, the beast attempted to fight, waving her arms and stomping her legs around frantically, but her attacks met nothing solid. With every strike, the monster's reactions grew slower and more labored, until, overwhelmed, she fell to one knee.

Slowly, the red beams began to shift green. And as they did, the She-Hulk started to change. The arms that had uprooted machinery minutes ago became slim and narrow. Legs that could've carried the monster miles with a single leap could now barely hold her form upright. Defined abdominal and pectoral muscles vanished underneath modest breasts and a slender waistline. Olive skin reemerged as the monstrous green pigment vanished.

The green electrical arc ceased its attack, vanishing into the twin cylinders as they ceased to spin. As the devices retracted into the ceiling, Rachel rushed over and caught the naked human they had left behind as she began to collapse. Even as she held the restored Talia in her arms, she couldn't believe what she was seeing was reality.

Talia looked at Rachel in confusion. "Wh-what happened?" she asked. She looked over Rachel's shoulders and locked eyes with Geoff, who was laughing with glee. "How?"

"I told you to trust me," Geoff laughed. He pointed to a tablet in his hand, which was displaying Talia's gamma curve. "This, Talia, is how we've cured you of the She-Hulk."