Fire Seed Awakens

If Hulk could barely still be considered humanoid, then Abomination was a monster through and through. He was no smaller than Hulk, with vicious bony spikes running along his spine. His face was ugly and wicked, drool slowly trickling from the corners of his mouth and out of his gaping maw, dripping onto the ground and drawing despairing screams from the crowd.

Abomination's birth could be called a coincidence. A soldier named Blonsky happened to possess an extraordinary obsession with power. Stunned by Hulk's immense strength, he risked his life to inject himself with Hulk Serum. But his birth could also be called a deliberate act by the military. They hoped to recreate Captain America's miracle and create stronger, more controllable super soldiers, rather than failures like Hulk.

And so, using Hulk Serum, they successfully created another failure.

The consequences were catastrophic.

Two immensely powerful, incredibly tough monsters fought a bloody battle through the streets of New York. After battling for ages, neither monster had suffered the slightest injury, but buildings, cars, and everything else could not withstand power of that level. The destruction was immense, and countless unprepared civilians were killed or injured.

The army did not dare use heavy weapons, or they would destroy the city. Damaged buildings were one thing; massive civilian casualties were another. Every one of those military leaders would be court-martialed.

More importantly, heavy weapons would not have worked anyway. Even missiles had no chance of killing those two monsters. Theoretically, apart from nuclear weapons and high-yield fuel-air explosives, ordinary methods were of little use against Hulk and Abomination.

People in the distance climbed to the tops of buildings and watched the devastating battle through binoculars. Some reporters who feared death even stirred up trouble, urging the helicopter to fly closer so they could broadcast live.

"What exactly are those two monsters? Does anyone know? I'll pay a huge reward!"

"They must be the product of some research facility."

Someone said he seemed to have seen reports about that green fellow before. He was some kind of experimental monster, and the military had been hunting him for a long time, only to suffer heavy losses.

Everyone's faces immediately changed. As though they had found an outlet for their anger, they began berating the military for incompetence and wasting taxpayers' money. What use was an army like that?

Others believed the monsters were simply too powerful. Weapons made by humanity were mainly meant to deal with humans, not monsters. These monsters existed on too high a level for humanity to defeat them with conventional weapons.

"There are still civilians trapped over there," someone said worriedly.

Hulk and Abomination crashed into each other again, unleashing a deafening boom. The two monsters had no fighting techniques, nor did they need any. The angrier they became, the stronger they grew. They needed no skill; brute force was enough to solve everything.

After several consecutive punches, Hulk was knocked to the ground, smashing a huge crater into the street.

Abomination let out a roar and shouted madly, "Hulk, I'm stronger than you! I'm not who I used to be anymore! This time, you're the one who dies!"

Before undergoing the experiment, he had taken part in the hunt for Hulk as an elite soldier, but he had failed and nearly died as well. He had become a monster this time for the sake of revenge.

Abomination no longer cared about anything else. It only wanted revenge, and no one could stop it.

Donnie hid behind an overturned small truck, blood flowing from his ears as they rang incessantly. His hearing had been badly damaged. When two monsters whose punches started at hundreds of tons exchanged blows, the shockwaves they unleashed were catastrophic. Glass and bricks shattered at the slightest touch like paper, let alone ordinary human flesh and blood.

The middle-aged man was bleeding from both ears as well, and simply fainted.

Donnie barely managed to keep his eyes open. Inside the truck's cab lay a husband and wife, their necks snapped, clearly beyond saving. Memories of their family of three appeared in his mind. Before setting out, his parents had put him in the truck bed to watch over the cargo. That was why Donnie had escaped disaster, though he had still been severely injured in the fall.

There had been an almost identical scene in his previous life, his greatest nightmare.

Pain and despair left his mind in chaos. He could no longer tell which was real and which was a dream: his previous life or this one.

He gasped rapidly, his vision blurring as a miserable smile appeared on his face. He had already died once. When he was given another life, he had thought he could finally find happiness, only for his family to be destroyed again. A battle on Hulk's level was something ordinary people could never take part in. Not only had his parents been caught up in it and died, but he himself would die too.

Whether in his previous life or this one, his parents had perished in a car accident. Only he had survived.

Donnie struggled and reached out to touch the familiar vehicle. It was his truck. He saw a scratch on its body. Some brat he did not know had made it, and Donnie had beaten him up afterward. His parents had scolded him afterward too, saying there was no need to bully a child like that. Then he looked at his sleeping parents. Blood covered half their faces, blurring their features until they seemed both real and unreal.

His mind pounded wildly as countless memories of their days together stabbed at Donnie's nerves.

The two monsters' battle killed people with even its stray shockwaves. Donnie did not know when he would die. Maybe the next second.

"Damn monsters. I still have dreams I haven't achieved. I wanted to earn my own money and buy a big truck. I was killed in a crash in my previous life, crossed over here, and the moment I opened my eyes, everything was destroyed again..."

Donnie gently touched his beloved truck. It was his final emotional anchor, the result of his family's hard work. It held their blood, sweat, and tears, and had been the most important thing keeping their family of three alive in this life. Now it was utterly wrecked, barely hanging on like him. The three of them and the truck would probably die together.

He wanted to crawl over and get one last close look at the parents who had died in this life, but he could not move.

"We're finished! It's the end of the world! We're all going to die!" A survivor with a broken leg bled as he completely broke down.

There was nothing left. If Donnie had never gained anything, it would have been one thing, but gaining something only to lose it was the most painful thing of all. Memories kept surfacing in his mind, quietly telling him of every little moment shared by a family and a truck. Their life had been plain and poor, yet warm.

Now there was nothing left.

Donnie looked at the two monsters. Their battle had destroyed so much, and crushed the dreams of even more innocent people.

Fear and grief pierced his battered heart. Death toyed with his soul, and in the darkness, something terrifying seemed to have been stirred.

Unwillingness gradually filled his will. With a crisp crack, some kind of shackle broke open. A monster awakened, opened its eyes, and was released. Donnie touched the truck. Heat seemed to rise from the battered little vehicle, though perhaps it was only an illusion. Donnie felt that this truck belonged to him. Since his parents had passed away, it should belong to him. The feeling was so intense that something mysterious in his mind flowed through his hands and into the truck. He felt that the truck was his, and even more so, an extension of his strength and will.

"The green one is done for. He's too weak. He's no match for the other one!" a military reporter said into a microphone aboard the helicopter.

The elderly general's expression was grim, filled with deep regret. In the end, he slumped in defeat. "Pilot, get us out of here. Take Betty away. It's not safe here."

"No, Father! He only just injected the medicine. He's still in his weakened period!" A girl clutched the general's arm and begged repeatedly. Her name was Betty Ross, Dr. Banner's girlfriend. But Banner had suffered a terrible accident years ago. During an experiment, he had been exposed to massive amounts of gamma radiation and mutated into Hulk, a mindless beast.

Suddenly, a soldier tremblingly pointed somewhere and shouted excitedly, "Look! What the hell is that?!"

In the night, a clear sound pierced through the air. It sounded like some kind of massive machine operating. But the area had long been surrounded by the military. Where could such a sound have come from?

The helicopter's lights shone down. When everyone looked over, they were dumbfounded. They were all terrified stiff, as though witnessing a miracle—or watching a new demon being born with their own eyes.

Within the beam of light, an astonishing transformation was taking place!

A battered little truck, originally completely unremarkable, was rapidly reconstructing itself. Its entire body split into one interlocking component after another, and those components reassembled with one another, changing the truck's form at an astonishing speed.

In the end, a humanoid robot stood there. Beside it was a somewhat small figure. Donnie stood with difficulty, forcing his eyes wide open as the fury and hatred in his chest nearly burned him to ashes.

The truck was called Optimus Prime, a name he had personally chosen. It was an extension of his faith and will, and it had ultimately followed him here from his previous life!

The small figure stood there, insignificant as it should have been. Yet for some reason, an invisible force swept across the area. Everyone who looked at him felt as though a massive mountain had pressed down on their chests, leaving them unable to breathe, nearly suffocating them to death. Their bodies trembled, their souls seemingly trembling as well, wanting to collapse to the ground.

Sand and stones flew through the air. The earth trembled and groaned without cease. Astonishing ripples swept in all directions, surging out into the world on a vast scale, leaving humanity shaken!

This was the roar of will!

At Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters in Westchester, New York, a bald old man suddenly opened his eyes and exclaimed, "This fluctuation... what astonishing power!"