S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, Low Earth Orbit
Phil Coulson looked at the ultra-clear display with a completely horrified expression on his usually calm face.
His heart was an incredibly chaotic, tangled mess of panic and disbelief.
He slowly turned his head to look at Director Nick Fury without a single trace of composure in his eyes.
Huh, Coulson noted internally.
The Director's dark face had turned a sickly pale shade, looking genuinely frightened to his core.
Coulson quickly gathered himself and calmly faced forward as if he hadn't noticed the Director's fear at all, swallowing down his own rising panic.
'It's over,' Coulson thought to himself in sheer terror.
'Even if the Avengers team can be officially set up, would they even be able to catch this guy?'
He already knew the grim answer; there was absolutely no need to think about it.
The bridge agents, including Maria Hill, stared blankly at the massive screen.
The confidential documents, steaming mugs of coffee, and datapads they had been holding fell directly from their numb hands to the floor.
The crisp, shattering sound of porcelain couldn't even attract a single shred of their attention.
Absolutely all S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel on the Helicarrier were completely dumbfounded by what they had just witnessed.
Besides them, the high-ranking military leaders in the Pentagon and the millions of ordinary civilians sitting in front of their televisions were equally speechless.
Only the dedicated comic fans were actively reveling and shouting in joy.
Some were so incredibly excited that they couldn't help but boo the defeated monster right there on the spot.
Back on the battlefield, the Abomination didn't feel any hatred or anger at all in that exact moment.
He only remembered preparing to smash his massive fist forward, and then absolutely nothing else happened.
If there was any movement to be felt, it was a terrifyingly quiet, eerie stillness.
Only his fierce, jagged mouth felt a little bit cold in the night air.
Before he even had the time to look down at himself, an abyssal chill violently swept across his entire body.
'I'm dead?'
The Abomination felt a bit embarrassed by the sudden realization.
He truly didn't even know if he was actually dead yet, but his consciousness vanished entirely along with that final, fleeting thought.
In everyone's horrified line of sight, the Abomination was torn apart exactly like tattered cotton wool.
The disintegration started cleanly from his abdomen and rapidly spread throughout his massive body.
It looked more like an over-inflated balloon suddenly exploding without any warning.
The onlookers truly didn't know which physical description was more appropriate for the carnage.
In short, they simply couldn't find the correct words to describe the horrific, impossible scene they had just witnessed.
The massive splash of biological blood fell heavily over the street exactly like a torrential rain shower.
A macabre, bloody rainbow appeared completely out of thin air, adding a twisted bit of color to the ruined, grey street.
Saitama stood amidst the gore, looking deeply depressed after throwing his punch.
"It ended with just another single punch."
Although it was ultimately decided by just another punch, he only needed to know that what Light Inksworth had said to him was true.
This new world should eventually let him go all out and do his absolute best against worthy opponents.
"Big brother, what's your name?"
The little girl he was holding safely in his arms looked up at Saitama and asked the innocent question.
Her dirty face was stained with the monster's blood, but there was absolutely no trace of fear in her eyes, only a look of pure worship.
He was the hero.
He was the absolute most powerful hero she had ever seen.
Saitama gently put the little girl down onto the pavement and patted her blood-soaked hair.
He smiled slightly and answered, "Saitama. Let's go."
"Hee hee hee," she giggled happily.
The little girl had completely forgotten all of her previous fears.
As long as she had Saitama standing right by her side, she felt extremely, undeniably safe.
She took his gloved hand and walked alongside Saitama toward the police barrier line set up in the distance.
But the catastrophic matter in Manhattan was far from over.
A violently aggressive aura suddenly rose up from the ground, causing the sky above to change drastically.
Thick storm clouds rapidly overlapped each other, completely covering the bright sun.
A deafening thunderbolt crashed in the blue sky as dark, ominous clouds loomed aggressively over the city.
A dry, incredibly heavy atmosphere violently enveloped the entire Manhattan skyline.
The incomparable, suffocating pressure was simply unspeakable.
The media reporters hovering in the helicopter high in the sky suddenly felt a severe shortness of breath.
Ignoring the frantic shaking of their expensive cameras, they urgently ordered the pilot to hurry up and fly them far away from this place of right and wrong.
The rapidly falling, oppressive sky caused Saitama to stagnate his casual footsteps.
The little girl let go of his hand and walked out on her own to find cover.
Knowing perfectly well that she couldn't help him fight, the little girl ran safely behind a concrete bunker to hide, only popping her small head up to watch.
Saitama calmly looked back over his shoulder.
The solid concrete surface located not far away began to violently crack.
Rubble violently burst upward and splashed everywhere as a huge, hulking green monster jumped completely out of the crater.
The original, rational color in the Hulk's eyes had disappeared entirely.
A vibrant, glowing touch of pure green filled his pupils.
His massive hands hammered violently down onto his fierce, jagged mouth as he unleashed a roar completely full of primal anger.
"HULK!!"
Right now, the Hulk had completely and utterly lost his human reason.
The suppressing effect of the chemical inhibitor was no longer functioning in his bloodstream.
Bruce Banner's fragile human personality had been violently kicked entirely out of the driver's seat.
With a fierce, murderous gleam in his green eyes and a hideously enraged face, his already massive body visibly enlarged by another three points.
Thick, white plumes of hot air were aggressively exhaled from his flared nostrils.
He looked exactly like a completely crazy, unstoppable beast.
"INVINCIBLE HULK!!"
The Hulk took a massive, heavy step forward.
The incredibly hard ground instantly collapsed beneath his foot to form a deep pit.
The fierce behemoth leaped aggressively into the air and unleashed another deafening, fierce roar.
The surrounding air was suddenly squeezed out to form a massive, suffocating vacuum zone.
An overwhelming, physical wave of sound suddenly erupted outward.
The earth's surface was instantly overwhelmed, violently lifted and peeled back exactly like a circular fan opening.
The jagged rubble shot out into the air like a lethal shower of shrapnel.
The heavy concrete ruins were violently blown away directly by the concussive force.
Even the established superheroes, such as Iron Man, were violently blown backward again and again by the sheer power of the air waves.
However, Saitama simply stood directly in front of the beast like a majestic, immovable mountain.
The gusty wind howled aggressively around him.
The lethal gravel rainstorm was completely stopped by his presence, unable to leave a single scratch or trace on his suit.
The little girl hiding safely behind her bunker wasn't hit by a single gust of wind or flying stone.
She looked at his unmoving back as if she were staring at a literal god, her face completely full of absolute worship.
"A weird person in this new world really is incredibly weird."
Saitama, who was currently dangling his dead, salted-fish eyes against the howling, strong wind, was actually a little bit surprised.
He always felt that this kind of raw physical mutation was a genuinely amazing ability.
Although the Hulk looked a little bit more human in shape than the Abomination, there was absolutely no doubt in his mind.
This was a proper, textbook green-skinned monster straight out of his weird world of villains.
"Hey, Light Inksworth explicitly said that the greener and angrier he gets, the stronger he becomes," Saitama recalled smoothly.
"And absolutely no one currently knows his upper limit so far."
"Will he eventually grow to be as strong as... that specific alien warlord with hair shaped like a pineapple?"
Saitama patted the side of his shiny head, revealing a little bit of genuine curiosity and mild doubt.
Such highly adaptive, weird people were truly rare even back in his home world.
The Hulk thumped the shattered ground with his knuckles exactly like a massive, enraged gorilla.
He aggressively revved his biological engine up to the absolute limit.
With a roar that caused the surrounding buildings to sway like fragile trees, his dense bones and muscles directly expanded outward in another massive circle.
He violently smashed his fists downward with a terrifying, low growl.
BANG!!
Facing the supposedly unstoppable, descending fist, Saitama didn't change his bored face at all.
He still raised his red-gloved hand incredibly slowly, without a single ounce of panic.
He then simply opened his palm, seemingly aiming to block the Hulk's huge fist very casually.
With such a vastly different body shape, Saitama's extended hand looked extremely fragile and easily broken.
But just like this, the Hulk's devastating attack was completely stopped dead in its tracks.
There wasn't the slightest shaking in Saitama's arm as his palm firmly clasped the massive green fist.
The Hulk, who had left a trail of torn wind behind his strike, could only watch as the rolling wind pressure of his fist was directly blocked.
The violent, swirling airflow suddenly stagnated and died completely.
The Hulk opened his massive mouth wide and snarled furiously right into Saitama's face.
The gamma-irradiated cells all over his body were aggressively called up to produce more power.
The thick green veins on his arms were directly violently bulging.
But despite this monumental, world-shaking effort, he simply couldn't make Saitama step back even a single point.
It was exactly like a massive, immovable mountain was standing directly in front of him.
The Hulk's incredible strength was not even worthy of polishing the other party's boots.
The dark green color in his eyes was rapidly replaced by a bloody, murderous scarlet.
The Hulk's monstrous, world-breaking anger violently broke out once again.
His entire body swelled until he was significantly taller and wider than the Abomination had ever been.
The dense muscles of his whole body violently swelled to cartoonish proportions.
Its sheer explosive strength could be easily detected by anyone watching from the outside.
Hovering nearby, Tony Stark estimated through J.A.R.V.I.S. that as long as that fist even rubbed the edge of his Mark VII armor, the suit would be instantly scrapped.
Tony's brilliant mind began to frantically conceive of new ways to deal with enemies of this incredible size.
The preliminary blueprints and schematics for the heavy-duty Anti-Hulk armor were already being modeled in his database.
The Hulk's massive right fist blasted aggressively toward Saitama once again, carrying a terrifying, deafening sonic boom.
Saitama did not choose to defend with his palm or immediately counterattack.
He simply slid his shiny head slightly to the side and effortlessly dodged the strike.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Frequent, deafening sonic booms exploded relentlessly across the Manhattan skyline.
The Hulk launched an absolute, stormy barrage of rapid-fire attacks directly toward Saitama.
However, Saitama easily evaded every single one of them by simply shifting his footing by a single inch.
The more the Hulk hit empty air, the more blindingly angry he became.
The more completely useless anger that filled his pounding heart, his whole body violently became stronger and stronger again and again.
This escalating power cycle actually made Saitama feel a little bit moved.
'How strong should I punch at him?' Saitama wondered casually.
_______________________________
Word count: 1989
Comment below on what you think so far.
If anyone of you is interested in reading some advanced chapters, you can check out my p@ tr*on.
p@tr*on.co m/Rai_jin
Thanks for reading guys!