The incredible Hulk's eyes bulged in his brutal, gray-skinned face at what he saw. He was presently standing in a cobbled street of a city he did not recognise, and some distance away, high above in the indigo sky, was a dragon. There was absolutely no doubt: The lean body, long and whip-like tail, bat-like leathery wings and flames blasting from its mouth to set ablaze all below. Tall spires of towers burned like candles, victims of its wrath...as were the hordes of fear-maddened people, many in nightclothes, screaming and dashing to and fro around the Hulk.
Some noticed his gargantuan form, clad only in ripped blue trousers, in their midst now, and yelled in some incomprehensible language as they veered away from him. "Always the same," he snarled, "wherever I go! I ain't the arsonist here, ya jerks! Where am I, anyway?" The last thing he could remember was being in South Carolina; the sun had just been coming up and its golden rays setting off the unavoidable - and unappreciated - metamorphosis back into his human alter ego, Robert Bruce Banner. What had that weakling idiot gotten them into now? "Hey, nay of you bozos speak English?" the gray behemoth roared. But his bellow was matched by that emitted by the winged nightmare raining down hot death.
The dragon now swooped overhead, and the Hulk had to make one of his spectacular leaps to escape the cascade of fire it spewed into the street he had just been standing in. Lying in the smashed wreckage of the ox cart his leap deposited him on, he hastily slapped out the small tufts of flame on his hair, skin and trousers, and growled "Okay, Smaug...You just flipped my anger switch big time." He waited, superhumanly powerful leg muscles tensing, until the dragon was close enough again...and timing it just right, the Hulk shot up and collided with crushing impact into the side of the monster's head. In the streets below, frightened citizens gasped as they saw the gray missile strike the winged horror, and then many fled as the beast plummeted downwards and crashed into the ruins and chaos it had wrought.
Shortly a bestial roar echoed across the burning city...The Hulk's, as he stood above the now slain dragon with his huge fists raised up and proclaimed his triumph. Victory was his! Then he noticed it: The light of the sun rising over the towers. He groaned as the rays touched him, muttered "Here we go", before stepping from the dragon's carcass onto the ground. People had gathered, and as they watched, the Hulk's form began to shrink, his skin colour to lighten. In a moment it was Bruce Banner who faced them.
OOOOOOOO
King Kull of Valusia had spent a pleasant time in Kamula, the famous city of pleasure. Certainly better than his first visit some years ago, when he had discovered and destroyed the hideous slug-deity Zugthuu, as well as the cult that worshipped it with human sacrifices. But fear and anger now consumed him as he and his retinue galloped on their horses to Valusia's capital, the City of Wonders. Earlier that morning, as he and his troop rose from their nights' resting on their way back from Kamula, word had reached the king of the sudden attack by the dragon on the city in the pre-dawn hours, and he had doubled their pace, anxious to be with his people. Also had he been told of the appearance of the gray-skinned troll that slew the dragon before transforming into a seemingly normal man who spoke no known language, and Kull was particularly eager to meet this person.
"Valka!" the king gasped as they came within sight of the city walls, and saw the smoke from the now-quenched fires rising from it. This was a grim day for the kingdom...