"What's wrong?"
Fenris raised an eyelid. Why was this guy getting so worked up just from hearing New York?
"Well..." Banner suddenly stood up and began pacing across the floor. A moment later, he smacked his palm. "No, brother, I have to leave."
"How far is this from New York?"
"I have no idea." Fenris spread his hands helplessly. The car did not have navigation, and he had just been following road signs the whole way.
"Brother, I'll be honest with you. The military is hunting me right now. I just escaped from New York." Banner's expression was serious. "I can't drag you into this. Give me your contact information. I'll pay you back for the car later."
"Hunted by the military?"
Banner saw Fenris's expression instantly turn unfamiliar and guarded. He had expected that reaction, but he still could not help feeling disappointed.
"New York. Hunted by the military. Physically absurd, but right now you seem like a normal person..."
Fenris's gaze kept roaming over Banner's body, making Banner's scalp prickle.
"Dr. Banner?"
Fenris asked tentatively.
"Huh?!"
"How do you know that?"
Having his identity exposed so suddenly, Banner instinctively stumbled back several steps.
As his emotions spiked, his skin even began to take on a faint green tint.
"So it really is you."
Fenris finally understood.
He had suspected it from the start, but he had not dared jump to conclusions too quickly.
Judging by Banner's current state, he had probably only been exposed to gamma radiation not long ago.
Without that period in Brazil, hiding from place to place and painstakingly learning to control his emotions, the current Banner really was like a ticking time bomb, ready to go off at any moment.
"It's nothing strange. The military's after me too... maybe." Thinking of Stryker behind the Alkali genetic research facility, Fenris carefully chose his words. "I just escaped from a secret military base."
"I see." Banner lowered his guard as well. "My name is Bruce Banner."
"Fenris Etherreal." Fenris smiled.
"Thank you for saving me, but I really have to go now."
Banner quickly gathered what little he had. "There's a problem with my body. If I stay around you, I might end up hurting you."
"Goodbye, Fenris. I can tell you're not a bad person. I'll definitely get in touch with you someday."
"Okay."
Fenris did not try to stop him. He went down to the car and found a few clothes he had lifted from the base, then handed them to Banner.
For someone in Banner's current situation, clothes seemed to be the most important thing in the world.
"Thank you, Fenris. Really, thank you so, so much for your generosity."
At the edge of town, Banner clutched a mixed stack of bills and gave Fenris a hard hug.
Ever since that accident, Betty's injury, General Ross's hostility, and the endless running had left him utterly exhausted in body and mind. This was the first time anyone had helped him so selflessly.
"No need to thank me. Everyone needs help sometimes."
Fenris let out a light laugh. "Bruce, safe travels."
"Thank you. Thank you!"
Even after he had walked a long distance away, when Banner turned back again, he could still see that blurry figure standing there, watching him from afar.
"Fenris really is such a good person."
Banner felt deeply moved.
"I wonder what he did to end up being hunted by the military."
"Probably the same kind of thing as me..."
With a helpless smile, Banner waved hard at the distant silhouette.
Fwoosh!
Just as he turned to leave, a rocket trailing a long tail of flame slammed with perfect accuracy into the man standing at the edge of town.
The violent explosion instantly swallowed Fenris whole.
In the distance, Banner's smile froze on his face.
"No!"
At that sight, an indescribable grief surged up from the bottom of Banner's heart. Before he even realized it, the bag of clothes in his hand fell to the ground.
From sorrow to rage took only an instant. His heart rate shot past two hundred, and Banner's body began to swell at terrifying speed.
Very soon, a green monster roughly two and a half meters tall stood in his place.
"Hulk!"
Seeing the U.S. military forces rapidly closing in from the distance, Hulk rubbed at his reddened eyes, let out a thunderous roar, and leaped straight at the incoming helicopters without a second's hesitation.
Boom!
Bang bang bang!
Gunfire and explosions rang out without end.
In an instant, the once-peaceful outskirts of the town became a battlefield.
"Roar!"
Consumed by fury, Hulk tore apart a combat force of several hundred men in less than five minutes.
Severed limbs, broken steel, and twisted wreckage littered the ground. The smell of blood mixed with diesel, and even the earth itself seemed stained red.
Hulk slowly made his way to the spot where Fenris had been standing just moments before, but he could not find so much as a scrap of cloth.
After a long while, under the eyes of the town's residents, the monster let out a mournful roar and soon vanished beyond the horizon.
...
"I got careless. Didn't dodge."
In a patch of woodland about five kilometers from town, Fenris rolled his slightly stiff shoulders.
Taking a rocket to the face had not done any real damage, but pain was still pain.
"Ross... hurting innocent people and dragging me into it too. I'll settle that account with you eventually."
After taking a rocket out of nowhere, Fenris found another squad Ross had sent to lie in ambush. Without another word, he went straight after them.
Against Fenris, those well-trained soldiers had absolutely no power to resist. In under two minutes, the whole unit was wiped out.
"So getting close to these protagonists really does bring bad luck..."
When he returned to town and saw that the once-flat land outside now looked as if it had been plowed into trenches everywhere, Fenris could not help sighing.
If some ordinary person had been the one to save Banner, they would have died on the spot.
The next day, after hearing from locals that Hulk had already left, Fenris also drove out of town early.
Now that the Hulk had been born, it meant the chaos of this world was only just beginning. A catastrophe was slowly drawing open its curtain.
And while his current power was decent, it was nowhere near enough. Against normal humans, he had no problem. But against aliens and gods, he would probably come up badly short.
Finding a place where he could steadily grow stronger had become urgent.
"New York, here I come."
After confirming that he was in northern New York State, Fenris followed the road signs and kept driving forward.
Although he ran into a blizzard that had already lasted for weeks halfway through the trip, he ultimately made it through the snowfield thanks to his strong sense of direction, his excellent driving skills, and the sheer performance of the vehicle.
But as time passed, his early excitement gradually turned to numb disbelief. Watching the surrounding plant life shift from broadleaf forests to conifer forests, feeling the temperature plummet, and going who knew how long without seeing another soul, Fenris finally realized something was wrong.
"No, this can't be right. Even in the middle of nowhere, it shouldn't be this empty. Where the hell did I drive to?"
"Is this even still New York State?"
After crossing mountains and wilderness the whole way, he had managed to hold out thanks to his tough physique, but the car's fuel ran dry soon enough.
On the fifth day of pushing the car forward through sheer stubbornness, the instant Fenris finally saw signs of people again, he felt hot tears welling in his eyes.
"Brother, can you tell me where in town I can get more fuel?"
Fenris randomly stopped a passerby to ask.
"Not far up ahead."
The man answered warmly.
Looking at the road-worn Fenris, he reached out and handed him a bottle of liquor. "Couldn't have been easy coming all the way from America, huh? I could tell from your accent. Have a drink, it'll warm you up, brother!"
Fenris froze. "From America?"
Northern New York State was already close to Canada. Did he really end up driving into Canada during the blizzard?
"Yeah. This is Alberta, Canada."
The passerby gave Fenris a strange look. "Suit yourself. There's a match at the bar today with Wolverine, the boxing champion, so I'm not taking you to fuel up."