Chapter Nineteen
"So, my plan worked then?" Spider-Man quipped, clinging to the wall of the ravaged control room.
"Something like that," Fury grumbled. Then, to Clark Kent, who had only just recently regained consciousness, he added, "Kid, you got a lot to answer for!"
"I don't even remember what happened," Clark said, rubbing his head. "At least, not clearly… just a few fragments of things. It's all kind of fuzzy."
Captain America, Thor and Iron Man walked into the room.
"Good lord, Nick, what happened in here?" Cap exclaimed.
"I told you we should have stayed for the big showdown," Iron Man said.
"Not a chance," Fury said, shaking his head. "The fewer bodies around when Lensherr did his thing, the better. Especially those of us who walk around wearing suits made of metal, Mister Stark. But now, we've got bigger problems." He blasted the last of the lingering fires in the room with a fire extinguisher, putting it out. "Our computer database is completely destroyed. All of our intel on superhuman activity, completely wiped out. It took years and billions of dollars to collect, and now we're back to square one."
"Gee," Spider-Man said with a shrug. "You'd think you guys'd be smart enough to back up your data." Fury shot him a glare that could kill. "Just sayin'," Spider-Man added, meekly.
An alarm started blaring and lights began to flash red all over the Triskelion. Everyone in the room jumped a little, startled by the sudden commotion.
"Oh, no," Nick said, his voice barely a whisper.
"What is it?" Clark asked. "What does that alarm mean?"
"It means Banner's turned into the Hulk!" Nick yelled, dropping the fire extinguisher. "We need to put the Triskelion on full alert! Seal the facility! We may only have a few minutes before-"
The ground beneath them exploded as an incredible force from below crashed its way through. Nick was thrown off his feet and landed in a pile of rubble. They heard the inhuman roar before the dust even settled. Then, the creature emerged. Eight feet tall and 1,200 pounds, green skin, huge rippling muscles and a face contorted with rage. It roared again, the primal scream of a wild animal.
"You gotta be kidding me," Iron Man sighed.
"Ultimates, assemble!" Captain America cried, hoisting his shield aloft and charging toward the Hulk.
"Wait…" Spider-Man said, noticing something. "His eyes… look at his eyes!"
Cap was too late to notice that the Hulk possessed the glowing yellow eyes of the Eradicator. Moving with super speed, the Hulk grabbed Cap's entire torso in his massive fist, picked him up, and hurled him against the wall like one of those children's toys that sticks to smooth surfaces. Then he followed through by lobbing a huge section of the computer console at Cap, burying him beneath it.
Thor raised his hammer. "This will send you back to hell, you ugly troll!" he bellowed, swinging the hammer at the big green monster. He struck the Hulk across the face, and the beast actually recoiled with the force of the blow. Iron Man quickly joined the fray, firing a repulsor blast at the Hulk, knocking the Hulk back another step. It only took a moment for the monster to recover, however. In an instant, he swatted the hammer right out of Thor's hand, then followed through with a haymaker that sent Thor flying straight through the wall and out of the room.
Iron Man leapt onto Hulk's back, placed his hands on either side of the brute's head and unleashed a massive sonic pulsewave that made the Hulk howl with pain. The Hulk sped backwards into the wall, crushing Iron Man between the wall and his own massive body. The wall cracked and pieces of Iron Man's armor fell off.
Spider-Man and Clark looked at each other. "Um… should we be doing something?" Spider-Man asked.
"What did you mean about his eyes?" Clark asked.
"Look at them," Spider-Man said. "They're glowing yellow… just like yours and Doctor Garner's did when you were possessed by the Eradicator."
Clark's lips went tight in a scowl and he clenched his fists, standing tall. He marched defiantly toward the Hulk. Clark was only now starting to remember what the Eradicator had made him do while he was possessed. If that thing was really inside the Hulk, then Clark had a score to settle.
Hulk was digging into Iron Man's armor, ripping it off in sections. Iron Man fired another repulsor blast straight into Hulk's face, but it did nothing. The creature's rage had grown, causing it to become even stronger. Clark walked right up to the Hulk and slapped his hand down on his shoulder, pulling him off of Iron Man. The Hulk spun around, furious. Clark stared into the monster's yellow eyes.
"It is you in there, isn't it?" Clark asked.
Suddenly, the Hulk's expression changed dramatically. It looked sorrowful, almost afraid.
"I am sorry, Kal-El," the Hulk said, speaking in the voice of the Eradicator. "I had hoped to use this vessel as a means of escaping this facility. But its mind is so full of rage… I am finding it… difficult… to… exert… control… over its… actions…"
Then, just as suddenly as his expression had changed before, it returned to one of blind rage. The Hulk roared again and punched Clark, knocking him across the room.
"Hey!" Spider-Man said, leaping down onto a pile of debris across from the Hulk. "You can't do that to my friend!" He fired off a wad of webbing right into the Hulk's eyes. As the monster struggled to remove it, Spidey leapt back onto the wall, bounced off it, then drove his feet into the Hulk's stomach. Rather than knocking the creature over as he'd hoped, Spider-Man ricocheted off and landed flat on his back. "Well, that didn't work," he mumbled.
Hulk, his eyes still covered with webbing, smashed his fists wildly at the floor, trying to find Spider-Man and squash him. Spidey quickly rolled out of the way, just missing being crushed by a massive green fist.
Hawkeye and Black Widow charged into the room. Hawkeye whipped out his bow, firing six arrows at the Hulk in rapid succession. Each arrow stuck to the Hulk's chest with suction cup tips. Then Widow pulled out a small detonator device and pressed the button. The arrows exploded, sending a huge fireball flaming up Hulk's chest and into his face. Hulk roared and fanned away the smoke, but all the blast really succeeded in doing was burning away the webbing from his eyes.
"Nice work, guys. Really," Spider-Man said.
The Hulk's rage now had a new target, as he charged toward Hawkeye and Black Widow. But, by now, Clark was back on his feet, and he super-sped in front of the Hulk, blocking his path. As the Hulk ran toward him, Clark reared back and then punched the monster square in the face. The sound of the punch was like a gunshot, and everyone in the room felt the impact. Clark didn't stop. With the Hulk stunned for a moment, Clark followed through with another punch, then another. Green blood actually spurted from the Hulk's lip. Clark slugged the monster in the face again, then socked him in the stomach. The Hulk was confused. He had never felt this before. He had never felt pain inflicted by the punches of another.
Clark was like a man who had lost his mind. He was so used to holding back with his powers, taking enemies out with a simple tap on the forehead or a quick shove into a wall. He never got to let loose and actually fight anything. And now, here was this big green monster who wanted nothing more to smash and destroy, who was possessed by the very thing that had tried to turn him against the entire world. Clark balled up his fist and punched the Hulk in the face again, harder than he'd ever hit anything before in his life. The walls of the room blew apart, shattering with the impact force. Everyone was blown out of the room and into different parts of the Triskelion.
When the dust finally settled, Clark was still standing, and the Hulk was lying flat on his back. Clark wiped the green blood off of his fist. He took a deep breath, and then looked around. His x-ray vision and super hearing revealed that everyone was still breathing.
"Is everyone all-" Clark started to ask. The Hulk's hand shot up and grabbed Clark's leg. Clark looked down to see the monster staring up at him with an unholy rage unlike anything Clark had ever witnessed. The Hulk roared and jerked Clark's leg, swinging him around and throwing him into a pile of debris. The creature got to its feet and super-sped at Clark, slamming his fists into Clark over and over and burying him deeper and deeper into the rubble.
"Hey, Mister Green Genes," Spider-Man said, standing up wearily behind the Hulk, his costume ripped almost to shreds. "I thought I told you to leave him alone!" Spidey shot out another webline, this time snaring it on a support beam that was coming loose from the ceiling. Spider-Man pulled down on it, snapping the support beam and bringing the whole ceiling caving in on top of the Hulk.
The Hulk's fist shot up through the wreckage, sending pieces of metal and wood flying like shrapnel from a grenade blast. Spider-Man ducked, his spider senses just barely averting him from being hit by a shard of metal. The Hulk pulled himself up out of the debris.
"Don't you ever get tired?" Spider-Man asked, wiping sweat from his brow. The Hulk grabbed Spider-Man's head and slammed it into the floor. "…I guess not," Spider-Man coughed as he blacked out.
Clark shrugged off the rubble that he was buried in, pushing himself up with his arms. The Hulk was throwing Spider-Man around the room like a stuffed animal. He didn't see anyone else who was still conscious. It was all up to him now.
Then he spotted it. Buried under some of the debris was Thor's hammer. Clark remembered what it felt like to be hit with it, having taken a beating from it himself back in Smallville. And it had seemed to hurt the Hulk, too, when Thor struck him with it earlier. The hammer, combined with Clark's super strength….
Clark crawled over to the hammer. When he had tried to lift it before, he couldn't do it. Thor had said something about only someone who is worthy being able to wield it. But that was when Clark was under the influence of red kryptonite… surely he was not worthy then. But now, in this situation, he was himself. He was Clark Kent of Smallville, Kansas, and this monster was going to kill everyone here if Clark didn't stop him. If anyone were ever worthy of wielding this thing, Clark thought to himself, it had to be him, right now….
Hulk lifted Spider-Man's limp body up again, ready to smash it onto a sharp spire of metal that was sticking up out of the ground. He raised him up high into the air with a ferocious roar.
"Drop him," Clark Kent commanded from behind the Hulk. "NOW."
Hulk growled, slowly turning around to face Clark. He was met with a blow from the mighty Mjolnir, straight to the jaw. The Hulk staggered back and dropped Spider-Man, who landed safely on the ground.
Clark stood defiantly, holding the hammer in one hand even as it sparkled and crackled with the blue energy. He grabbed the hammer with both hands, swung it back, and followed through with all his might, cracking the Hulk across the face with the hammer. The blue energy shot off the hammer in sparks, and the Hulk was sent flying across the room into another wall. In a burst of speed, Clark was on him again, raining blows from the hammer down onto the Hulk's back, driving the creature further into the wall. Finally, the Hulk slid down the wall onto the floor, subdued at last. Clark dropped the hammer and fell to the ground, exhausted.
To Clark's horror, the monster rolled over and sat up again. Only this time, it no longer had a look of anger on its face. This time, it was a look of peace and tranquility.
"Thank you, Kal-El," the Hulk said, speaking once again with the Eradicator's voice. "You have allowed me to take control of this body. Farewell, Kal-El. We shall meet again."
The monster plunged his hand into a pile of rubble and grabbed something. He pulled it out. It was the metal cylinder. The Hulk rose to its full height, then, crouching down for a moment, he pushed off with his massive legs and did a gigantic leap, breaking straight through the ceiling of the facility. Through the hole it left behind, Clark watched as the Hulk sailed off into the distance.
Then Clark passed out.