It had come to his attention he could not find some of his favourite Hollywood movie stars ever since he arrived on this Earth.
Some had explanations like Robert Downey Jr who did not exist and instead was the Merchant of Death in MCU Earth. Similarly, there were quite a few movie stars who were now other people on this Earth or even outright missing. One of those who were missing was Angelina Jolie, an old favourite of his in another life.
In all his planning to secure Dr Banner and save the guy from being hunted down by the US military, Cerion never imagined he would stumble onto the MCU version of Angelina Jolie.
Well, she didn't go by the name Angelina either. So, it'd be rude of him to accidentally call her that instead of her true name…Thena.
"I never imagined I'd stumble into an Eternal in Louisiana." Cerion commented noncommittally as he sipped the cup of coffee Thena offered him.
Thena looked sharply at Cerion over his comment but went back to fixing her home. There was a large hole on the roof of her home while a man-sized hole was left on the floor as well.
"I wonder how you know of our existence. Our existence has remained a secret for thousands of years." said Thena, as she gathered broken planks of wood from her house's floor.
"Maybe on Earth as humans took you for gods." Cerion conceded. "But, certainly not by other old races. Your kind or at least a version of your kind is recorded to have populated the planet, Titan, in ages past."
"That's impossible!" Thena disagreed with a shocked look on her face.
"Nothing is impossible. The Kree archives have recorded a race known as the Titans. They are clearly descended from Eternals." he easily lied without batting an eye.
"This is not possible. The Kree must be wrong. The Eternals are charged with protecting humans from the Deviants. That has been our sole purpose." Thena fiercely disagreed.
Interesting, thought Cerion.
He was really throwing out the theory of Titans being descendants of Deviants and Eternals to see whether it'd stick. Apparently, that was a wrong theory if Thena was to be believed unless she was purposefully lying to his face.
The Kree archives held almost nothing about Titan's history. Sure, the archives held plenty of information about the planet and the Titans, but not their history. Unfortunately, the Kree never managed to find out the history of the Titans. If anything, the Kree Empire took great care not to antagonise the Titans and pretty much stayed away from the planet in their ever-expanding war in the cosmos.
One could almost say the Kree respected the Titans or even feared them. The most likely conclusion was that the Kree had already been in wars with Xandar and Shi'ar from time to time. They might have wised up and tried to be diplomatic with the Titans just as they did with the Asgardians.
Unfortunately, Cerion could not confirm whether Titans were descendants of Deviants and Eternals. His knowledge of Marvel Comics was shoddy at best. He was no fan of Marvel Comics and tended to focus on Batman in his 'earthly' childhood. Even this bit of 'advanced' knowledge regarding Deviants and Eternals came from some snippets of conversations among his old friends.
Keeping that all aside, he decided to prod the woman.
"Charged with the protection of humanity…? Charged by whom?" he asked curiously.
Before he could get an answer from Thena, the control panel in his suit began to vibrate. A red blip was also present on his wrist panel, which was not good.
"Excuse me for a second." he said as he attended to the warning.
Flicking open the panel, he was met by the video feed of Hulk smashing up Koron in rage.
"It looks like I'll be busy for a while. Can we rearrange this meeting for another time?" he asked, looking up from the disheartening video feed of Hulk thrashing up his place.
"I didn't realise we were in a meeting." said Thena with an amused tilt in her voice.
"Point. But we are going to continue this conversation, right?" asked Cerion as he felt the scouter hovering over the house.
"Sure. Whenever you are comfortable." said Thena, shrugging her shoulders.
"In that case. Toddles."
Cerion nodded before flying straight out of the house and slipped into the scouter through an open hatch.
"To Koron!"
The hatch sealed itself as he sat on the command chair and the ship blasted away straight into the open skies at full speed.
A few moments later, he gaped at the destruction wrought on Koron. The newly constructed pillars and a small section of the city were in the process of tumbling down. All thanks to one big green rage monster.
"Oh, fuck!"
When he transported the Hulk to his island, he had hoped the creature's rage would subside, and Banner would return. His slight miscalculation left him with more work in the coming days as he traced the trail of destruction the Hulk left on Koron.
Cerion cursed as he noticed Hulk was now eyeing his scouter.
Not a moment later, Hulk threw a full-blown tree straight towards the ship. Cerion immediately positioned the ship away and prepared himself for another bout. But this time he picked up a small black pyramid and secured it on his suit's tactical belt before dropping down from the opened hatch.
Air rushed into his face, but that didn't keep him from seeing the huge tree Hulk threw at him from the island. Red-hot laser beams blasted out of his eyes, bisecting the tree. The two halves diverged away from his position.
He flew straight unimpeded by the attack to attack the Hulk, who had picked up another tree and held it like a baseball bat.
'What is it with this guy? Does he have a grudge against trees?' Cerion mentally groaned.
Just as Cerion closed in, Hulk swung with all his might, but Cerion cut the tree with a concentrated laser blast before quickly catching Hulk in a chokehold.
"Calm down!"
Cerion whispered as he wrapped his arms around Hulk's neck and brought the head of Hulk to ground level.
"I'm here to help you."
Unfortunately, his appeal fell on deaf ears as an elbow to his nose was the response he got. The blow hardly fazed him as he was prepared this time. Unlike their previous fight, he was exerting more physical powers to combat the Hulk since he knew the creature could take some punishment.
"Okay, that was not nice." he muttered, pushing away the Hulk.
He narrowed his eyes when he saw the Hulk smirk as if he had won a great victory.
"Okay, big guy. Let's stop this dance and calm down. You won't like it if you piss me off." Cerion warned.
Once again, his warning was not much of a deterrent for the Hulk, who jumped high into the air with an animalistic roar.
If he was anyone else, he'd be running for his life, but he was a Kryptonian.
As Hulk plummeted towards him with two raised fists intent on crushing him into the ground, he let go of the kiddie gloves, so to speak.
Cerion rose up to meet the Hulk head-on and slipped inside Hulk's guard easily. The problem with taking on mindless berserkers in a fight was that they tend to be a walking destructive force with no care whatsoever. The Hulk was a classic case in this regard and this was one of the reasons why he held back in Louisiana.
But, over here on this depopulated island, he could take his chances.
Cerion drew his right hand back as he slipped in easily under Hulk's wide exposed guard and punched straight on Hulk's abdomen. When his fist connected with the Hulk's skin, the air around them compressed under the weight of his attack, and the Hulk let out a grunt.
With a boom, the Hulk was swept away under the force of Cerion's punch. He didn't wait around to see whether the Hulk would recover. Instead, he quickly followed the big guy as he punched through a row of trees and sand.
Cerion quickly caught up to Hulk and had the big green rage monster face down with his leg over the Hulk's spine. Instantly, he slapped the black pyramid on Hulk's body and caught two of Hulk's arms. He began to pull the arms back while keeping his leg on the Hulk's spine.
The roar let out by Hulk made him frown but he kept exerting pressure. While he kept the Hulk pinned down, the pyramid began to do its work.
The pyramid began to deconstruct itself and spill all over the Hulk's body. As the pyramid spread all over the Hulk's body like a painted suit, Cerion slowly began to decrease the pressure he was exerting.
The Hulk thrashed around a bit but clearly, he could see the big guy was slowly calming down. A few minutes later, the Hulk was asleep and slowly began to phase shift to his human form.
The 'pyramid' was a polymorphic suit he designed specifically to deal with the Hulk. It worked by covering the entire body of the Hulk and releasing a powerful breathable sedative. The suit kept the sedative trapped inside thus forcing the Hulk to breathe in the chemical agent. He had no idea whether it'd knock the Hulk out, but he was lucky enough for his sleeping agent to work its magic.
Letting out a sigh of relief. Cerion stepped back from his downed opponent and looked around the island.
Looking at the total devastation that Hulk dealt to Koron, he cringed. On second thought, it could have gone better if he had just led with the suit.
Bruce rolled around in his comfy bed quite happy. It had been ages since he felt this comfy and peaceful.
Wait a minute? A comfy bed!
Bruce's eyes opened wide in alarm, and he jumped out of the bed with a wild look on his face. He gawked at the surroundings with an open mouth.
He was sure he was in a forest the last time.
The forest!
Then everything came back to his mind. He had been running through the woods, and he distinctly remembered tripping over a tree root on the ground.
"Where am I?" he wondered aloud.
"You are in Koron, Dr Banner."
Bruce was astonished to hear a robotic voice from the corner of his room. A small octahedral-shaped metallic box floated to his side, causing him to scoot back into bed in fear.
"Please don't be alarmed. I'm only here to help you."
Bruce eyed the robot with equal parts wonder and fear. Sure, he had seen many crude attempts at robotics, but the best of them tended to be automated arms. The robot he was seeing was far more sophisticated and advanced.
For Christ's sake, the bot was defying gravity, and he could see a feminine face on its interface unit.
"Who are you?" he asked, trying his best to keep his heartbeat under control.
"My name is Optima. I'm an artificial intelligence interface created by Cerion Vex."
"Who is Cerion Vex, and where am I?" he asked incredulously.
"You are in Koron, Dr. Banner. As for my creator, he is waiting for you. But first, please put on some clothes," said Optima before the bot opened a closet by his bedside using metallic tentacles that grew out of the bot, making Bruce flinch.
It was then Bruce noticed he was stark naked. The whole situation was bizarre, and he dressed himself in a pair of black pants and a white shirt. Reluctantly, he followed the bot out of the room.
The building he found himself in was a maze. There were long stretches of hallways, and he was provided with a small hovering car to travel. The bot floated beside him as the hovercar took him through a maze of passageways. On the way, he saw hundreds of bots of different sizes and designs working diligently on their stations. Some worked alone while others worked in groups.
He even passed by a large foyer filled with giant machinery that looked far too advanced for anything he had ever seen in his life. Finally, his trip came to an end before a giant metallic door that held the insignia of a giant stylish X.
"Please step out of the speeder, Dr Banner." said Optima.
"Oh! Okay. So, it's called a Speeder. Like Star Wars, huh?" asked Bruce
"Mr Vex is fond of that movie." said Optima before a small metallic arm stretched out from the bot, coupling with a small port by the door's side.
"What is this X door? My holding cell?" Bruce tried to joke even though there was a large part of that fear in his mind seeing all the tech causally shown.
"That is not an X. This is the symbol of the House of Vex. It stands for resilience, the foundation upon which the noble House of Vex has thrived and survived for eons."
The door immediately dissolved before Bruce's eyes, making him blink in wonder.
"Ah, welcome, Dr Banner. Please do come in and take a seat."
A welcoming voice called from within the room.
Stepping inside, Bruce was taken aback by the scenery before him. The whole room was surrounded by lacquered glass that gave him a view of the outside. There was a sandy beach in the distance on the right side, while on the left, all he could see were tree leaves.
Right in the middle, there was a silver roundtable with cushy seats here and there. On the far side of the room, there was a walled section with a doorway and a small square hole in the wall.
"Please take a seat, Dr Banner. I gather you are quite hungry."
A man stepped out of what Bruce assumed was a kitchen with two plates in his hands. The man was tall and had a youthful face. Truthfully, the guy looked like a college student in his early twenties with sandy blonde hair.
On first look, the guy looked harmless, but Bruce felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up as he approached him. Bruce took a cautious step back even as the guy sat down on a seat and placed two plates on the table.
"Come, please sit. Have some breakfast. I hope you are fond of veggies. I made Ratatouille." said the guy before pushing the plate towards Bruce.
"Who are you? What's going on?" Bruce asked hoarsely.
A pair of stormy grey eyes stared into his own, making Bruce gulp.
"Quite rude of me not to introduce myself. I'm Cerion Vex, and I'm afraid I'm the only one who can help you."