Disclaimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don't worry, I am completely sober).
Wakanda[October 2014]
–Jack Sullivan–
'Shit!' He winced as soon as he heard the words Hulk and Johannesburg in the same sentence. He didn't even waste a second as a series of barriers interposed on his sling ring and a portal opened in front of him leading to Johannesburg.
Once again, he thanked his younger self that he made sure to travel the world using his powers so that if such an occasion arose, he could travel to most parts of the world using the sling ring without having to fumble around with the location.
The first thing he noticed when he came out of the portal was the sheer cause that hit his senses. Not just the general cries of shock, and screams, mixed with bullets, but also the Chaos Energy that tingled at his senses.
"Of course," He shook his head as he headed straight to the source of the roars. With a sonic boom, he arrived just in time to stop Hulk from throwing a truck straight at one of the nearby buildings.
He felt his barriers hit something as if he had passed over a thick jelly-like substance, only the jelly was mystical in nature. He had a hunch what that was but he had no time to ponder on that as his barriers worked on stopping the Hulk from breaking through.
His eyes widened as he felt the Chaos Energy tinging the Hulk's aura, turning him into a green and red monstrosity. He could feel his barriers simply withering away under the onslaught of the Chaos Energy, the energy itself burning away at his powers.
Thankfully, the process was rather slow but he did not like it one bit. So, to end this soon, he cocked his fist back and hit the Hulk point blank in the chest with all the strength he could muster. A huge phantom arm had appeared around his barrier as he punched at the Hulk, knowing that his strength was nowhere near enough to overwhelm the Strongest there is but the sharp edges of the barrier should be able to make him stumble a bit at the very least.
He counted on his barriers entering the Hulk's body and then being able to manipulate them from the inside to cause catastrophic damage. Damage enough to force his body to shut down.
Something that should have worked but…
Apparently, Chaos Energy and the energy from the Guy Below were not a good mixture for him because he watched The Hulk, with remarkably red eyes, with green veins bulging all around his face, look at him with a smirk as he grasped the barrier that had failed to even draw blood, and then squeeze.
His eyebrows shot up in disbelief as he rapidly retreated as his barrier somehow had cracks all over it. That should not have happened. He dispelled the barrier before Hulk could destroy it but he had a feeling that the Hulk was just as capable of breaking his barriers as he was capable of cracking it.
"Well, fuck…." He muttered as his barriers finally told him that the city was somehow empty. No, not the entire city but as far as his barriers could sense it.
He winced as he felt his barriers get cut off from his range as soon as they passed through that magical CHaos Energy jelly that he had entered when he came to face the Hulk. No, he didn't enter the area, he was allowed to enter the area.
This was an ambush, and as he looked at the steadily increasing green that surrounded the Hulk's body, it was a damn good ambush.
Well, nothing told him that he had to face the Hulk here. There were plenty of ways to deal with him, the easiest was to use the infinitely convenient tool of portals. He flexed his fingers, trying to open a portal to Mars when he noticed his finger feeling warm.
He looked down only to see the Sling Ring becoming red hot, slowly sizzling his skin from below.
He sighed. Of course, Wanda would account for that, he thought to himself as he slowly removed the ring and threw it to the side, pieces of his skin still attached to the ring. He watched in fascination as the ring slowly disappeared into nothingness.
'This Hex was remarkably advanced.' he thought grimly as he looked at the approaching Hulk, each and every one of his footsteps feeling as if a localised earthquake had gone off.
Well, no choice but to take this head on, then.
No time for theatrics here, so he turned into his medium sized Gundam form and just leaped into the air, trying to create distance between himself and the perfect physical combatant on this side of the galaxy, especially with the way things had gone. He had noted a disturbing lack of madness from the Hulk this time, no tantrums, nothing.
No, all that he could see was a cold cruel smirk that kept its gaze locked on him as the Hulk took a step forward and then jumped.
His eyes widened as he felt the fist hitting his barriers before hearing the sonic boom as the Hulk had somehow covered all that distance and was now battering his barriers with all its might.
He immediately disengaged from the fight and leaped up into the air, but the Hulk somehow began following him, using the air pressure generated by kicking his legs in the air, the cold smirk still etched on his face.
Something had gone seriously wrong and he had no way of stalling the Hulk.
Or maybe…
Well, that could work, he thought to himself as, instead of fleeing, he turned around and flew straight at the Hulk. The smirk widened as the Hulk reared his fist back, the fist somehow glowing an ominous green, and then aimed it straight at him. He barely had the time to tank the blow and then create a barrier beneath the Hulk which latched onto him and then expanded to cover his entire body.
He flexed his will and then sent him soaring into the air, planning to throw him out of this Hex that Wanda had somehow created in Johannesburg. It was quite big as well because his barriers could not sense people for blocks on end. He did not know what was going on outside the Hex but one thing was for certain, if this Hex was here, Wanda must be here as well.
The Chaos energy swirling around the Hulk meant that Wanda was the one who was, at least partially responsible for Hulk's current abnormal state. He had a hunch that the Guy Below had some vested interest here as well.
His eyes narrowed as he felt the cocooned Hulk simply burst apart with a huge wave of green that made him look like a Super Saiyan as he destroyed his barriers.
'What the fuck was happening? Did everybody somehow gain the ability to get past his supposedly indestructible barriers?'
He thought grimly as he jumped out of the way of the rapidly approaching Hulk who was making very skillful use of his raw power at the moment. The sheer air pressure generated from his swipes was causing the area around them to crumble.
He tried to cast spells that might help the Hulk calm down but he was never really good at the Sorcery Part of his skills and what spells he did know were either so low level that they wouldn't even get past the shroud of Chaos Energy or required time to cast.
Time that he didn't have, what with him being busy with the Hulk.
He just hoped that T'Challa and the others had taken the Avengers out of stasis and brought them here. Tony's VERONICA alone would be a huge help, if it could even handle this enhanced form of Hulk, at all.
Damn, they needed Thor for this, he thought to himself as he watched another layer of barriers shatter under the relentless barrage of the Hulk. The Hulk was not just strong now, he was fast too. Mjolnir's Uru composition and ability to pin someone down in place would have been immensely helpful.
There were sonic booms all over the place as he simply created barrier after barrier to try and fend off the blows from the empowered Hulk. This was clearly not normal.
No Sling Ring. No Romanoff "Hey big guy, Sun's getting real low". No Hulkbuster. No way to cover him in his barriers.
Nothing.
He just fought with the Hulk with his barriers, never really getting close because the green aura around the Hulk was increasing by the minute, making it easier and easier for him to just shatter his barriers.
There was a reason he was just flitting around from place to place, drawing the Hulk's attention away from him. He was trying to find the end of this Hex or find Wanda, either of them would help, and both would be the best.
He didn't know how he was gonna kill Wanda without the help of the Ancient One but he had to at least try. This incident showed him that she was just too dangerous.
"Oh, bite me!" He roared at the Hulk who had just now broken through his barriers with a single punch, the first time that it happened ever since their fight began. He had to do something and fast.
He had never really tried this before but well, no time like the present, he thought to himself with a nervous grimace on his face as he summoned his barrier but unlike his usual normally indestructible ones, this one took a long time to cast.
The time he didn't have because the Hulk was breaking through his barriers as if they were just concrete and not hyper dense Gamma barr–-
His thoughts screeched to a halt as the barrier shroud finally surrounded his body, sparkling blue and yellow, as he crossed his arms and tanked the overhead blow from the Hulk.
He grinned as his barriers didn't even budge from tanking the blow, as the ground beneath them cratered, burying them deeper as the Hulk somehow hit dozens of times in the short amount of time it took for him to gather his bearings with this new barrier and then punch the Hulk straight in his chest because the Hulk had grown more massive ever since the fight began.
As his punch hit, he could feel the energy of the barriers converging at his fist and then…explode.
GAles of wind rushed around him as he launched the Hulk straight into the air, his massive glowing green form carving a ravine through the land as he flew deeper into the city.
He finally realised why his barriers were breaking apart so easily. Of course, how could he forget?
His powers, while granted by the ROB, came from the Hulk's blood being used as a base. Gamma and Hulk were synonymous. His barriers were also manifested using Gamma as the extension, using Cosmic energy as the base.
The Guy Below interfering explained the cosmic energy being overwhelmed and the Gamma being helpless in front of the Hulk was self explained.
Damn, he was actually the worst suited opponent for this fight, especially with the lurking threat of Scarlet Witch hanging over his head. He couldn't completely focus on the fight because who knows what she might pull out of nowhere.
This was all clearly very advanced stuff, something that requires years of grief, for her to tap more and more into the Chaos God's powers, and even then, the Darkhold was probably necessary to truly perform this level of reality warping.
She had to be somewhere here. The Shroud now gave him the chance to actually fight back against the entire situation aligned against him. With an animalistic roar, the Hulk leaped back into the fight but this time, instead of creating a series of barriers to help stop him, he jumped straight at him.
Their fists clashed with each other, making booming noise as dozens of punches were exchanged by the time they both crashed into the ground. With a thunderous punch, his neck was snapped to the side but his barriers held on, despite transferring some of the force to his body.
He threw his entire body behind the attack as he pushed the Hulk with all his might, through the surrounding buildings and then some more, as his shiny new barriers continued to bear the hammering blows that the Hulk subjected them to.
While they didn't break apart or even crack, the massive force behind the Hulk's blows was somewhat transferred to him, causing him to cough up blood inside the barrier. The shockwaves alone were no joke.
He couldn't even imagine tanking the blows directly with his body.
Just a little more, he thought to himself as he kept on taking the Hulk up and up, the Hex now visible to him as he looked down.
Getting out of the Hex was certainly felt by him but he couldn't feel much in the way of obstruction when he came out of it, probably due to the new barriers.
Still, he knew they had a limit and his was fast approaching. He had to throw the Hulk out into space before he ran out of juice.
He had no other option other than that. He couldn't even throw him on the moon, just in case he crashed into Attilan and committed genocide on the Inhumans.
Bruce would quite literally prefer dying to killing so many people. Already, the poor man will be crushed by the deaths and injuries that probably happened in Johannesburg before he arrived.
This would all be solved if he had just kept his Sling ring on him.
STUPID STUPID!
His barriers began flickering, returning back to the normal green instead of the shiny blue ones as they finally began approaching the darkness of space.
"Bleugh," He coughed out another mouthful of blood as the Hulk's blows had gotten increasingly desperate, probably sensing what was going to happen.
Finally, with a thunderous blow, the Hulk broke through his barriers and smashed into his lower back, almost breaking his spine as he shot straight down. Thankfully, his blurring vision saw the Hulk flying back from his blow as well.
They were almost out of the atmosphere as well. This was all he could do, he thought with blurry eyes as he tried to make out where he was heading.
All he could see was blue as the Hulk's blow had smashed him back into the atmosphere at very high speeds. He could feel his healing working overtime but it was slow going.
Due to the massive blow or due to the leftover energies from the blow, he did not know.
All he knew was that he would die if he hit water at that speed, without his barriers.
Fortunately, there was a simple solution to this. One that would help him survive the initial contact but not the rest of it.
With a flex of his will, he closed his eyes and then extended his senses through his barriers, standard Green as they were. He did not have the ability to do anything complex, he could already feel his mind slipping as is.
All he did was create a cone around him, with the sharp end pointed at the ocean.
It took all he had to focus on the cone as he finally crashed into the ocean. Once the momentum was reduced, he shot out of the water and opened his eyes briefly, and grinned weakly as he spotted land.
What the land was, he did not care, as he sped towards the piece of land as fast as he could.
He covered himself in his barrier as he reached the island.
Thankfully, he crashed into soft sand, probably creating a crater around him but that was fine.
His barriers flickered as the exhaustion of the fight began seeping in.
Damn, that was the hardest fight of his life. The Hulk truly was the worst matchup for him.
With a final glance at the blue sky, his eyes closed as he finally passed out.
Word Count - 2746
If you guys would like to support my writing or just want to read ahead of the public release, you can head on to my P*treon or Ko-fi .
I already have upto 15 extra chapters published there.
Thank you for reading!
Toodles!