Tony put on his armor. Once his faceplate slid shut, JARVIS spoke.
"Sir, a Quinjet is landing on the lawn. Nick Fury and Mr. Banner are talking."
"Oh? That boiled egg came over himself?" Tony pushed lightly off the ground, flames shooting from his thrusters as he flew out through the passage.
On the lawn, the Quinjet's hatch stood wide open. Nick Fury stood there in his trademark black leather coat, hands in his pockets, his single eye fixed on Banner.
"You can't go," Nick Fury said firmly. "The thing inside you is too unstable. If it loses control again, we'll have a disaster."
"Hulk won't lose control," Banner interrupted, his voice unexpectedly calm. He raised his head, his gaze serious. "I've talked to him."
The corner of Nick Fury's mouth twitched. "You talked to a big green guy who smashes buildings at the drop of a hat?"
Tony landed, opened his faceplate, and tilted his head as he looked them over. "What did I miss?"
Banner ignored Tony's teasing and looked Nick Fury in the eye.
Nick Fury explained, "That thing in Harlem has your genes in its blood. That old bastard Thaddeus Ross found Mr. Blue and used your blood to make an improved Super Soldier Serum, then injected it into a lunatic named Blonsky."
"Blonsky?" Tony frowned. "Who's he?"
"It doesn't matter anymore. He's turned into Abomination, and he's hunting Thaddeus Ross. If he can't find him, he'll take it out on the civilians in Harlem."
Silence hung in the air for a few seconds.
Nick Fury remained silent, his single eye lingering on Banner's face for a long time. Finally, he sighed. "You stay on standby in the Quinjet. Don't jump out without my orders."
Banner turned and walked toward the Quinjet. "I've already made up my mind."
Watching Banner's retreating back, Tony scratched the chin of his metal faceplate. "He's a completely different person from before."
"What did Li Ang do to him?" Nick Fury asked.
"Who knows? That guy has more secrets than your black leather coat." Tony pushed off and flew up. "Let's go, Nick Fury. Keep dragging your feet, and Harlem will have to be renamed the Rubble District."
"Boiled egg?"
The Quinjet took off, with Tony leading the way. The two aircraft cut through New York's night sky, racing toward Harlem.
Not long after they left, the green statue began to tremble slowly.
Inside the statue, Li Ang kept his eyes tightly shut, carefully sensing the stirring within his body.
At last, that power began to merge gradually, and as time passed, the energy inside Li Ang began to gather.
Crack...
The green substance cracked apart layer by layer and began to lose its color!
After reaching a certain critical point, it burst apart.
Fragments flew everywhere. Li Ang floated out, a glint of green flashing through his eyes.
Down on the ground, Harlem had descended into utter chaos.
Sirens, gunfire, and screams mingled. In the distance, something was smashing through an apartment building's glass curtain wall from the inside, sending bricks, stone, and rebar raining onto the street.
Traffic was completely gridlocked. People abandoned their cars and ran. A woman in high heels fell to the ground, but no one stopped to help her.
Because that thing, over two meters tall and covered in gray-green scales, was slowly walking out of the rubble.
Abomination.
He looked more hideous than the version Li Ang remembered, with a row of thick, short bone spurs running down his back. He stepped onto the roof of a sedan, and the metal caved beneath his foot like a soda can.
"Thaddeus Ross... I know you're watching!" Abomination tilted his head, his eyes rolling. "You can't escape. I'll tear this city apart inch by inch until I drag you out of that miserable hole."
A few people at the street corner hadn't managed to get far. A fat man, whose legs had gone weak with fright at his voice, braced himself against a wall and tried to stand. Abomination turned and bared his gums and sharp teeth at him.
"Have you seen Thaddeus Ross?"
The fat man shook his head frantically, unable to get a word out.
"Then you're no use." Abomination raised a hand. Several bone spurs sprang from his fingertips, and he casually flung them out as easily as snapping matchsticks.
That was the scene Tony arrived to find.
"How friendly." He landed directly in front of Abomination, charging his repulsor. "Hey! Green-skinned bastard! Look up here!"
Abomination turned his head and grinned when he saw Tony. "A tin can? Thaddeus Ross sent you to die?"
"Sent me? I volunteered." Tony fired his repulsor straight at him. The laser struck Abomination's chest, pushing him back two steps and carving two deep furrows in the ground.
As the dust cleared, Abomination brushed the dirt off his chest. His skin hadn't even broken.
"That's it?" Abomination cocked his head.
Tony's expression tightened. That blast had used seventy percent power. A head-on hit should have blown the top off an armored vehicle, yet Abomination looked as though he'd merely been sprayed with a water gun.
"JARVIS, adjust the power distribution. Add armor-piercing mode."
Tony took to the air again, circling Abomination. Both wrists fired small missiles simultaneously, striking the back of Abomination's head and his knee with precision.
The explosions lit up half the street.
But Abomination merely swayed, then turned, seized Tony's lower leg, and slammed him hard into the ground!
"Shit!" Tony smashed sideways into a nearby pickup truck, leaving a human-shaped dent in its bodywork.
"Sir, Mr. Banner has jumped out of the Quinjet."
Tony turned his head and saw a figure in a torn T-shirt plummeting through the air, his skin turning green at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Then he crashed heavily into the rubble...
Tony: ?
Nick Fury: ?
Abomination: ?
Just as everyone thought Banner had been flattened into a pancake.
"ROAR!" Hulk threw off the rubble, which flew across the street and smashed the signs of three shops opposite him.
He stood up, faced Abomination, and threw back his head in a deafening roar!
Abomination licked the dust from the corner of his mouth and walked out of the rubble. They stared at each other from over ten meters apart, the air thick with tension.
"Banner," Abomination said, his voice low. "You know what? I have you to thank for turning out like this."
Hulk didn't answer. He charged straight at him!
Hulk punched Abomination in the jaw. Abomination's head jerked sideways, and he swung an elbow into Hulk's ribs. Hulk grunted and staggered back two steps, stamping two holes into the asphalt.
They traded punches and elbows, hammering each other's heads. Every collision made the streetlights along the road jump.
Hulk was clearly at a disadvantage. Abomination lunged, grabbed Hulk's head with both hands, and smashed it into the ground!
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The ground shook with every blow. Hulk broke free and climbed to his feet, white vapor jetting from his nostrils as he ran toward Abomination.
Abomination had just risen from the rubble when Hulk lunged in front of him and punched him in the face. Abomination stumbled one step sideways, then grabbed Hulk's wrist. He spread the fingers of his other hand, and bone spurs sprang from his fingertips, plunging straight into Hulk's shoulder!
"ARGH!" Hulk roared in fury.
Abomination tightened his grip on the bone spurs and exerted his strength, forcibly pinning Hulk to the wall behind him!
Hulk struggled, the bone spurs churning inside the wall as loose stones clattered down.
"All right." Abomination released his grip and turned, his gaze sweeping toward the Quinjet in the sky. "Thaddeus Ross's turn."
His muscles swelled, his knees bent as he gathered strength, and the ground cracked. He launched himself upward, leaping toward the Quinjet!
Just as he was about to reach the Quinjet's landing gear, a streak of blue light shot out of the distant clouds!
The light trailed a long wake, moving too fast for the eye to follow.
The blue light slammed straight into Abomination's waist, knocking him out of the air!
Abomination crashed back to the ground like a cannonball, rolled several times, and smashed a bus into a twisted wreck.
The blue light slowed and hovered in midair, gradually revealing a figure.
It was Li Ang.
A layer of pale blue frost coated his suit. The skin around his eyes shone with a faint, cold light, and his breath condensed into white mist in the air.