Harry Potter The Mutant Obscurus Gamer - Chapter 90

After the van returned everyone to the site where the Hammer had once been located, Harry walked up to Coulson and stated, “I’m calling Obscurus again for a ride back to New York.”

Coulson conversationally asked, “Why didn’t you call him when the armor appeared?”

Harry smiled and replied, “I could have, but do you remember how that ended when I called him for Stark last time? In the end, he chose not to take my payment, but instead, with Stark’s permission, took that armor and those rings. What exactly do you think would’ve happened if I called him today?”

Coulson only took a moment to answer back, “He might have taken that Asgardian armor as well.”

Harry nodded and said, “The situation wasn’t bad enough to call him and I would’ve felt awkward if he gave a repeat performance.”

Coulson nodded again, getting the impression that Harry couldn’t really control Obscurus and that calling him may not be for the best unless things really went south. That being said, Coulson replied, “Many Shield Agents were severely injured and Shield Property was damaged. That’s not a good enough reason?”

Harry smiled. “Ah, but you’re missing the bigger picture. There is no way Loki could’ve sent that thing here unless he sat on the Throne of Asgard. I doubt he is sitting there now, with Thor having returned, but it was still a decision made by the Throne of Asgard, something which should be protecting Earth, not taking actions to harm it.”

Coulson frowned at this, not getting why Harry seemed to think this was a good thing.

Harry elaborated, “Think of it this way, if someone’s boss, superior, or company did something unlawful which caused great harm to their employee, what could that employee do?”

That had Coulson’s attention. He answered, “Sue, demand compensation.”

Harry nodded. “In this circumstance, there is no problem demanding compensation with greater value than the damages received. In other words, on behalf of Shield, you can demand that armor as compensation. Technically, it still belongs to Asgard, but if you make such a demand, then the Throne of Asgard must either let you keep it or provide another form of compensation. In this way, by Asgardian Law, they can’t take it back meaning Shield can do whatever they want with it fair and legal.”

The possibility that the Destroyer could be taken back had not occurred to Coulson, but now that Harry brought it up, this was in fact not a bad idea. However, he asked, “So if we claim the armor, then this balances the debt Asgard owes for the lives harmed and the destruction dealt?”

Coulson replied, “That’s fair. We weren’t expecting anything of Asgard. A way to ensure the acquisition of such ȧssets would be valuable. However, I’m surprised that you don’t have any interest in it yourself.”

In truth, Harry really didn’t have any interest in it. The metal the Destroyer was made of wasn’t something Harry was familiar with, but it wasn’t the same as Thor’s hammer. It was basically a battery, the metal was capable of storing vast amounts of energy.

Harry figured Odin used it to store Odin Force which was how the Destroyer attacked. However the metal had an upper limit which, though impressive, wasn’t enough to interest Harry. Harry may not have better batteries, but he had an infinite inventory he could use to carry more batteries making this metal not nearly as valuable to him.

As for the Odin Force, Harry had no interest in it either. He had enough Power Cosmic stored up to last until he reached level 300 and then he could start on Time Energy.

Besides, Odin Force was not difficult to track. Even if Shield made a powerful weapon using the metal Odin Force battery, Harry would be able to find it if the weapon found itself in unsavory hands.

Harry shook his head in the negative and answered Coulson, “I have enough on my plate as it is.”

And with that Harry walked off. After walking some distance from the Shield site he pulled out a cell phone and called his Speeder Bike. Half an hour later, the bike flew over to where Harry was with a hologram of Obscurus on the front seat. Harry got on the back and the bike took off into the sky. Once out of range of surveillance, Harry turned off the hologram and took the driver’s seat himself. Rather than use a portal, Harry simply enjoyed the flight at hypersonic speeds back to New York. He enabled another hologram over himself to look like Obscurus and one behind him to look like himself without the disguise, in case anyone saw him. Doing so only took the flip of a switch so it didn’t count as overkill.

After returning to New York and putting his Speeder into his inventory, Harry headed over to New York University to speak with Dr. Sterns. According to what Link found, Sterns had been in contact with Bruce Banner over the last few months in order to find a way to permanently suppress Banner’s greener half.

After several failed tests, Sterns stated that in order to do so he needed data on the myostatic primer designed by Dr. Betty Ross and the details on the experiment itself.

Before the start of classes for the day, Harry headed over to Sterns’ lab and found the door unlocked. What he didn’t expect to find was Sterns and Conners working together in the lab. Conners was looking over Sterns’ shoulder as the latter typed into his computer terminal and the pair were discussing the readings.

Harry quietly entered and stood behind Conners to check out what was so interesting on the computer.

Sterns pointed at a string of numbers and said, “The only noticeable difference between these sets is the increase in gamma radiation.”

Conners replied, “But we initially hypothesized that too much would do more harm than good.”

“Yes, and clearly we were wrong. The rats which survived the higher levels of exposure clearly showed a more pronounced effect than those that were exposed to the safer levels.”

Conners shook his head and countered, “But even the survivors died afterwards. They had no way to store or process the radiation.”

Sterns nodded, “Yes, but I believe this is the right direction. Rather than too much, perhaps the survivors didn’t get enough to maintain and regulate the adaptive tissues.”

Conners added, “You mean there is a minimum threshold for success which is still impossibly lethal? How did Banner even survive this?”

Sterns shook his head, “Do you want to meet him?”

Sterns let out a sigh of understanding and scrolled down further and said, “Has the data been of any use?”

“Ha, only for reference as a list of things not to do.”

Harry added from behind, “Well of course. Your research is about changing the genome into something to add a specific effect while this is about enhancing what is already there to get as much out of it as possible.”

Conners nodded, “Exactly, there is-”

Both scientists turned around to see Harry standing there leisurely looking over the data on Sterns’ computer.

Sterns eloquently stated, “Uhhh, this isn’t what it looks like.”

Harry snorted, “I hope so. Because if this is what it looks like and you didn’t invite me to take a look, I’d be quite offended.”

Sterns and Conners shared an awkward smile. Harry didn’t know if he wasn’t invited because they didn’t want him to know what they were working on or if they didn’t want someone a decade younger than them taking the lead in their research.

Sterns then gave a forced smile and asked, “So what can we do for you today Professor Potter?”

Harry answered, “Well, I heard the Hulk took a walk around Culver University and wondered if we might get a visit from everyone’s favorite jolly green giant.”

Sterns’ face changed so abruptly Harry almost thought he’d been slapped. The man obviously needed to work on his poker face if he wanted to do secret research in the future.

Deciding the jig was up, Sterns and Conners came clean with what they had been doing and planning.

After hearing the whole story, Harry asked, “What protections do you have on the research and the cloned blood?”

Sterns asked, “Protections?”

“Yeah. If the government walked into your lab and demanded everything, what have you done to make sure they won’t take your work for themselves.”

Sterns chuckled and said, “I think you’re being just a bit paranoid.”

Harry gave Sterns a level deadpan stare that had the man go from chuckling to nervously fidgeting around.

Since it was obvious to Harry nothing had been done, Harry walked over to the expensive protein synthesizer the lab possessed and started typing. After three minutes of lightning speed typing Harry clicked enter and the machine began processing. It’d take a few hours but that’d be fine.

After he finished Harry said, “After this finishes synthesizing, introduce it into every batch of Banner blood you have. If you want to do something with it, make the antidote and administer it, don’t make any in advance. This way no one can steal your work.”

Harry also updated the encryption on Sterns’ hard drives. He figured there was a good chance the army would find Sterns and he didn’t want the man’s carelessness to cause any more damage.

As for Banner, he’d meet up with the man himself. He’d already come up with a plan, it just required a few trips to the grocery store, the apothecary, and a few hours in the kitchen.

Thankfully it was finals week so although the students were panicking messes, Harry had a lot of free time. For the classes without anyone who’d notice, Harry replaced himself with a hard-light hologram run by a dumb AI who’d pretend to look for cheaters. This was pointless of course as every test had different questions and the room could not receive signals from anything without getting caught. The tests were even open book and open notes, so without internet access and other than getting someone to answer the questions for you, there really wasn’t a way to cheat.

The next morning, the military had increased the security in and out of the city so the bridges and tunnels were packed with traffic due to the guards checking the faces of everyone who entered.

Harry had his own invisible drones scouting around and an hour before noon, one of the drones Link flew spotted Bruce Banner and Betty Ross crossing the Hudson by boat. Harry pulled up the feed on his tablet and rolled his eyes. How the hell did that Watcher informant go from a gala attending playboy in California to a fisherman on the shores of the Hudson on the other side of the country?

In any case, Harry knew where to go. After casting a technopathy spell to prevent facial recognition from working, Harry apparated close to the docks it appeared they would be heading towards. After checking out the streets, Harry pulled a chair out of his inventory and cast a notice-me-not over himself and picked a spot to sit and read from his tablet.

About ten minutes later, Banner and Betty walked over to the kiosk Harry was sitting next to. It had a map of the city and the subways lines.

Betty pointed at a spot on the map and said, “Long way to go. Subway’s quickest.”

Betty nodded and answered back, “Right. Let’s get a cab.”

Without looking up from his tablet, Harry said, “The cabbies of New York are worse than the subways.”

Bruce chuckled and answered, “I think I’ll take my chances.”

Betty on the other hand froze for a moment after taking a look at Harry.

Bruce noticed this and asked, “Betty?”

The latter asked, “Are you Professor Potter?”

Harry smiled, put his tablet away and stood up. “That’s me alright, it’s a pŀėȧsurė to make your acquaintance Dr. Ross.” Harry turned to Bruce and said, “And you as well Dr. Banner.”

Bruce took a step back at being recognized and Betty didn’t know what to say.

Harry continued, “Didn’t expect you to come across the Hudson. You came to meet Mr. Blue right?”

Banner frowned and asked, “Wait, you..”

Harry answered, “Dr. Sterns is a colleague of mine at NYU. In any case, I wanted to help you solve your big green problem.”

Betty quickly asked, “Do you think you can?”

“If nothing else, I am more qualified and have more experience than Sterns does.” Harry got out his tablet and showed some pictures of Ben Grimm, the Thing of the Fantastic Four, before and after he was subjected to the machine Harry designed. Sure, Doom built and used it, but it was still Harry’s design.

Harry let the pair look at it and stated, “I offered to remove the powers of all the Fantastic Four, but after some time they decided to keep them. Only Ben asked to make his appearance more manageable which I was more than happy to help with. Sterns on the other hand is taking shots in the dark. I’ve seen his research and the best it could do is suppress your greener half temporarily.”

Banner asked, “And you’re not with the military?”

Betty answered that one for him as it was apparent Bruce had been out of the loop on local events. She said, “Um, Professor Potter is somewhat infamous for not making weapons. He is also a known spokesman for Mutant rights and protections.”

Harry nodded and said, “I’m pretty against the military of any country gaining anything that can break the status quo of the balance of power in the world.” Even if Shield used the Odin Force battery metals of the Destroyer to make weapons, they would not be able to make many, and the ones they did make certainly would not be sent to the front line of any war.

Betty added, “He’s also British.”

Bruce smiled and said, “Yeah, I got that from the accent. Fine. I’d like to see what you got.”

Harry nodded and passed a glass vial to Banner who hesitantly took it and asked “And this is?”

Harry answered, “Draught of Serenity. The effect is as great as the taste is terrible.” It was a combination of the Calming Draught and the Draught of Peace. It had a shelf life of half an hour but when stored in Harry’s inventory that wasn’t an issue.

Bruce frowned again but considering the look of anticipation Betty was giving him, he decided to down it. “Oh god, that’s terrible.”

Harry nodded and said, “Give it a moment.”

Banner handed Harry back the empty vial and shook a bit. “Wait, what? My god.” Banner’s perpetual frown lightened and he actually smiled. He turned to Harry and asked brightly, “Where can I get more of this?”

Harry shook his head and said, “Sorry, I’m the only person who can make it. It also has no shelf life so forget about storing it.”

Betty asked, “What is it, what’s happening?”

Bruce smiled at Betty and said, “I’m calm! I feel like I can be smacked with a baseball bat and stay calm!”

Harry said, “For a normal person the effect would probably last a few hours, but for you I wouldn’t bet on more than an hour. We’ll use the time to hit the subway and head to my house.”

Bruce smiled and followed Harry towards the subway line with Betty in hand.

Using the subway it took about a half hour to get to Harry’s place. Bruce wore a hat Harry gave him which had another spell on it which made him difficult to photograph or capture accurately on film or camera.

Harry walked the pair to his front door and invited the pair in. Once inside he showed the pair down to his basement and it was around that time the potion wore off. Harry was impressed with Banner’s metabolism.

Harry already got samples of Banner’s blood from Sterns so the first thing Harry asked was, “What do you know about your mother and father Dr. Banner?”

“You can call me Bruce. And my father was an ȧss-hole and my mother died.”

“What did your father do for a living?”

“He was a researcher, I guess. I used some of his old books going through College. Why?”

Harry brought up Banner’s DNA and said, “Well, one of your parents experimented on their own genes and you inherited their partial work.”

Bruce froze at that and Betty asked, “How can you tell?”

Harry highlighted the section he was pointing out and said, “Process of elimination. Sterns said what happened to you was a freak accident. He said that since no one has successfully reproduced what happened to you. And oh yeah, they have tried. I’ve seen freak accidents before, and this is something else. Your gene was already slightly altered from the day you were born. General Ross’s Bio-Tech Force Enhancement Project happened to be compatible with whatever you already had in you.”

Betty asked, “So what does this mean for Bruce?”

Harry liked that she went right to the point so he answered, “Well, to fix someone, I use gene therapy to change who they are into who they used to be. However, your baseline, ‘who you used to be,’ wasn’t the same as other baseline humans. You brought the data you got from Culver right? Let’s see if we can figure out what happened and what you used to be.”

Betty nodded and inserted a flash drive into the computer Harry showed her. The numbers, files, and photos scrolled rapidly through the computer screen and Harry watched without blinking to the amazement of the pair.

After it finished, Harry Paused to crunch the numbers and once done, unpaused.

Harry sighed and said, “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

Banner’s eternal frown returned in full force and he asked, “That bad?”

“Whatever your father did was not only incomplete, but unstable. Despite your perceptions on your current state, you are still more stable than what you were before the accident. In fact, I’d say you had a ninety percent chance of dropping dead before the age of forty if the accident hadn’t happened.”

The pair shouted, “What?!” Banner started taking deep breaths to calm himself down.

Harry continued, “The way I use to fix people is easy to use changing someone from unstable to stable. Is hard to use from one stable form to another stable form. And is almost impossible to use to change a stable form to an unstable form. Any means of permanently ridding you of your greener half will either kill you in the process or best case scenario, still cause you to die not long afterwards due to your previous genetic instability.”

Some of the ways Harry could use to fix especially difficult cases was to either clone someone and put their soul into the new body or use magic or the Elixir of Life, but Bruce really would die not long after if he did so which was why he wasn’t going to bother trying.

Betty asked, “Then can you seal it? Make sure he never changes? You said you’d help Bruce.”

Harry shook his head. He said, “Let’s have dinner. I’ll invite a special guest over and we can discuss the matter with him.”

Betty didn’t even notice the Immobulus spell he sent at her. When Harry removed the spell, she still hadn’t noticed she’d been frozen and Banner was standing next to her, also unaware of what had just transpired.

Harry walked the pair upstairs and took a seat at the table. When Betty and Bruce walked into the dinner room, the pair froze. Sitting in a massive chair wearing a large t-shirt and pants was the Hulk. He already started eating from the massive pile of dishes on the table.

Harry pointed at the two empty seats opposite the Hulk and said, “You can sit down there.”

Neither moved. Bruce said, “That’s impossible.”

Hulk turned to look at him and sneered. He said, “Stupid Banner. Thinks he’s so smart.” He then turned back to pick up a whole turkey leg and started eating it.

Harry said, “Sit already. I went through quite a bit of trouble arranging this.”

The pair hesitantly approached the table and sat down. Betty was a bit less nervous than Bruce but neither had any idea what was going on.

After the pair sat, Harry said, “Before we talk about permanently sealing the Hulk, why don’t we ask for his opinion?”

Hulk lifted a large mug of cold cola and emptied it. A floating Corgi holding a metal cylinder in its mouth floated over and tipped its head to refill the Hulk’s mug. The Hulk nodded and said, “Stupid Banner. Wastes his life. Hulk protects Banner, but Banner stupid. With no Hulk to protect, Banner will get caught. Get cut up. Locked away forever. Stupid Banner thinks with no Hulk, can return to normal life. Stupid Banner doesn’t know. Hulk always protected Banner, even before.”

Banner’s expression shifted continuously from offended to incredulous to shocked and back. He’d never had a conversation with the Hulk, for obvious reasons. When the Hulk controlled their body, he suppressed Banner. When Banner was in control, he suppressed Hulk.

He obviously didn’t like being called stupid all the time, but from the Hulk’s perspective, Banner’s actions really seemed idiotic. However it was that last comment that got his attention.

Betty asked before Bruce could, “What do you mean? You were with Bruce before the accident?”

Hulk ate a few more mouthfuls and swallowed before answering. He looked Bruce in the eye and asked, “You can’t recall when your father beat you.”

Betty asked, “Brian?”

Banner answered, “My father. He what? No, he…” Suddenly Bruce recalled a series of doctor visits and visits to the infirmary from his childhood. He never really questioned why he was there, but he didn’t think it was because he was a clumsy child.

Hulk continued, “I was there. I endured. When he tried to kill you. I endured. When he killed your mother in front of you. I endured. Now, I don’t endure. Hulk strong. No one can beat Hulk any more. Not Now. Not Ever!”

Harry pushed some more food into Hulk’s plate. It contained a calming draught and wit sharpening potion to give the Hulk the needed smarts and Harry noticed his vocabulary was getting better as the meal progressed.

Bruce looked lost.

Hulk actually smiled at Bruce’s dumbfounded state. He knew exactly what Bruce was thinking and continued. “Stupid Bruce. Thinks he’s smart. Thinks he’s special. Thinks he’s not crazy. Thinks Hulk is sickness. Thinks he can cure Hulk away.”

Harry added, “Hulk has access to the same mind you do. You’re different perspectives from the same soul. Yes, you have one soul. I can tell. The main difference between you two is that Hulk is sick of being pushed around and now that he has the strength to push back, he’ll use it. And to be honest, there’s nothing wrong with that.”

Bruce asked, “But what about the damage he’s caused, the people he’s hurt?”

Hulk sneered. “Hulk can’t think when Banner pushes Hulk. Stupid Banner makes Hulk stupid. Stop pushing, and Hulk can be smarter than Banner.”

Betty asked, “Would that really work?”

Harry answered, “Two minds fighting against each other is not the most effective way to control a body. Bruce never acknowledged Hulk’s mind, so he always fought for control which effectively made things worse.”

Betty continued, “Is that why Hulk can articulate now? Did you separate them?”

Harry laughed, “Oh no, I didn’t separate them. As for what I actually did, I’m afraid that will have to remain a secret.” Harry turned to Banner and said, “Also, Hulk has to go back when the meal is over. So now would be a good time for you two to come to an arrangement. If you strike up a deal, I can help make sure it’s followed by both parties.”

Bruce was not having a good time. Nothing made sense anymore. The Hulk had basically called him out on denying the truth for so long and the fact that his denial basically caused most of the problems he’d had in the last five years. He certainly wasn’t expecting that the Hulk existed before the accident. He’d been diagnosed more than once with dissociative identity disorder after the accident, but Bruce denied that the Hulk was a personality. The reason he denied it was because if it was true, the monster was a part of him and he refused to accept that. But Hulk isn’t a monster. He never was.

Banner sighed. “You’re right. I’m an idiot.” Then he chuckled. He was calling himself an idiot. Then he laughed. He’d really wasted five years trying to get rid of a part of himself. He laughed louder. He had spent five years trying to get rid of someone who, not only was a part of him, but had been protecting him his whole life. He started laughing hysterically.

Hulk smirked. Banner was finally getting it. Hulk then chuckled too. Then he started laughing along with Banner. The pair ended up laughing for a few minutes until tears started coming down their faces.

Betty had no idea what was going on. Harry knew of course. Sanity was the illusion that everything in the world made sense. Discarding sanity allowed people to stop pretending the world made sense and start seeing it for what the world truly was. It had its uses for the masses but Harry felt sanity was highly overrated to begin with.

Once the pair calmed down, Bruce said, “Well then, let’s try this. Hello Hulk. My name is Bruce. It’s nice to meet you.”

Hulk smirked again. “Maybe Banner isn’t so stupid after all.”

The pair then spent the remainder of the meal just talking. Bruce asked Hulk what his favorite food, drinks, movies, tv shows, and music were. Surprisingly, he had favorites of them all which were different than Bruce’s.

Betty could tell Bruce had somehow just changed. It looked as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, but different. If she asked Harry, he’d tell her that Bruce was a crazy person in denial, pretending to be sane. Now that he’d accepted he was crazy, a lot of the stress from pretending was lifted away.

The pair spoke about their life and about how they each experience the same events from different perspectives. Betty felt Hulk might be a bad influence though since Hulk often stated how Bruce should have reacted with violence against some of the stubborn, stupid people he encountered, and Bruce was actually listening and seemed to be considering it.

Eventually the feast ended. Other than some drinks Bruce actually didn’t eat anything since he wasn’t hungry, and Betty didn’t have much of an appetite while watching the Hulk devour plate after plate.

Harry led Hulk into another room and then returned without him. Bruce of course asked, “Where’d he go?”

Harry handed another potion to Bruce and said, “Drink this.”

Though this one was different from the previous one, Banner still decided to trust it and downed it. Thankfully it didn’t taste as bad.

A moment later, he shook his head again. “Oh. Well that’s a bit weird.”

Betty asked, “What now?”

“I can hear the Hulk in my head and even see some of his memories. I can remember having that conversation as the Hulk now, which is a little freaky to be honest.”

Betty looked over at Harry who was directing a trio of floating Corgis to put the dishes away. She asked, “Okay, how did you do that?”

Harry shrugged and said, “The answer would make your head hurt, so try not to think about it.” He wasn’t going to tell them he froze Betty, drugged Banner out cold, made Banner Hulk out and bribed him with food, and at the end of the dinner used a Time Turner to take Hulk back in time and turn him back into Banner to attend the same dinner with the Hulk and unfroze Betty so she wouldn’t notice the switch. The food contained a lot of potions to make it work but it was effective.

Betty sighed and wisely decided not to pursue the matter. She turned to Bruce and asked, “How do you feel?”

Bruce smiled and said, “Well, I can feel the Hulk. I think I can probably change to him if I wanted to without getting angry.”

“What about changing back?” she asked.

Banner smiled, “Well, that’s the Hulk’s decision. As long as he doesn’t hurt anyone, it doesn’t really matter if he stays around if I don’t have anything better to do. I guess you can say we’ve come to an agreement.”

Harry then walked over and gave Bruce a watch.

Bruce examined it for a bit and said, “Okay, I’m almost afraid to ask. What does this do?”

Harry smiled, “A lot. For one, it is a wifi hotspot that works off a pseudo-quantum entanglement signal connected to my main hub. Untraceable. Two, it comes with a holographic interface which can browse the web. Don’t use it in public, I’m not selling this to others. It can act as a phone, GPS, and tell the time of course. It stretches so if you shift to the Hulk, it will still be on your wrist. And last but not least, it comes with a hologram projector which will not only give you clothes if you find yourself nȧkėd, it will also give Hulk clothes and make him look caucasian rather than green. He’ll still stand out, but not nearly as much.”

The watch could only do so much because it had a built-in pocket space which housed most of the hardware and the battery. It was quite a bit heavier than a normal watch, but Harry doubted Bruce or the Hulk would mind.

After Bruce heard everything Harry listed off, he asked, “Was that a joke?”

Harry rolled his eyes and tapped three times on the glass which brought up a hologram for the user manual. Swiping his finger over the hologram would work to navigate.

With this, even if Hulk or Banner hid at the ends of the earth, he could still keep in touch.

Banner started scrolling down the instructions but before he could get very far, a massive explosion occurred outside.

Harry sighed and enabled the security cameras and launched the drones.

Holographic screens appeared in the living room showing the back of NYU which looked like it had been struck by a missile. Flashes of gun fire were surrounding a massive figure in the distance the drones were struggling to keep pace with.

Bruce was the first to break the silence, “What the hell is that?”

Harry started rewinding the footage and accessed other cameras he had placed elsewhere. The rewound footage showed tanks and military officials surrounding the Science department of NYU. Apparently there were tanks outside in the street right now. None of them knew Banner was at Harry’s house.

Harry considered what happened but realized the answer quickly. Sterns probably did something stupid because he wanted to see if he could. Harry made sure Sterns followed his advice and boobytrapped the Banner Blood, but if Sterns willingly applied the counter-agent, he could still use it to do something stupid.

Harry answered Bruce’s question, “You sent Sterns some of your blood right? It looks like the military found it and probably asked Professor Sterns to do something with it. Considering his personality, he probably would just to see what would happen.”

Bruce said, “I have to stop him.”

Harry said, “Yeah, but before you do, let’s go blackmail General Ross a little.”

One of the drones showed the General shouting orders nearby. Bruce asked Harry, “You got a plan?”

Harry gave a mischievous smile and answered “Well, more of a prank.”

The trio left the house and thanks to a subtle bit of magic, got through the guards and walked right up to the General.

Bruce shouted, “General, congratulations.”

The elder Ross turned towards the familiar voice and asked, “I thought you would’ve run away by now.”

Bruce smiled and said, “Oh. I’m done running.” He looked over to where the giant hulk wanna-be seemed to be destroying a street of cars while being shot at by tanks and rifles and said, “Looks like you finally got what you always wanted General. Your very own, perfectly controllable super soldier. You were right all along, General. Just think of how great America will be after if we turned every soldier into one of those. I bet you must’ve chosen the best of the best too. Definitely better than a civilian nerd like me right?”

At this point a helicopter had arrived and was shooting the brute from above, but the creature picked up some debris and tossed it at the helicopter, damaging one of the blades forcing the helicopter to retreat.

Bruce continued, “So I guess you won’t be needing me anymore General. You’ll have your army of perfect, loyal, unstoppable super soldiers who will follow your every command without question.”

The abomination roared and the sounds of screams could be heard.

Bruce turned to Betty and said, “It was nice seeing you again Betty.”

Betty smiled and said, “Goodbye Bruce.” She then turned to her father and asked, “So when are you going to tell that guy to stop destroying New York?”

Bruce looked like he was about to turn and walk away and got two steps before General Ross shouted, “Wait!”

Bruce looked back with amusement, “Yes?”

The elder Ross looked like he had just eaten something fowl as he said, “I can’t stop it.”

Bruce replied, “Of course you can. He’s your loyal soldier. I bet he is a dozen times more loyal than the type of soldiers you intended on using to mass produce the Hulk with. Why would you possibly make another uncontrollable monster?”

Ross shouted back, “He changed! He isn’t listening! He’s gone crazy with power!”

Bruce gave Ross a smug smile and said, “So you want me to stop him?”

“Yes. You’re the only one who can.”

Bruce pulled out a piece of paper and said, “Sign here.”

Ross looked at the paper. It was a standard release form. Basically it said Ross was legally releasing Banner from his custody meaning Bruce was no longer a wanted fugitive.

Ross confirmed it didn’t have anything extra and signed it.

Bruce then took it and before the eyes of everyone there, the paper turned into a Pokeball. Banner then threw the Pokeball and shouted, “Hulk, I choose you!”

At the location the Pokeball landed, a blinding flash of light appeared and when people could see again, they saw that the Hulk was standing there without a shirt and in stretched and torn blue pants.

Hulk shouted, “Hulk!” and ran towards the abomination.

Everyone then turned to look back at where Banner was and saw that he was gone.

Betty, the only one who knew what had just happened, did her best not to laugh at the shocked look on her father’s and the other soldier’s faces. Banner turned into Hulk easily enough and Harry, using what he claimed were holograms, made Hulk invisible and made himself look and sound like Bruce. She didn’t know how Harry knew all those things about whoever that abomination was, but he clearly got the point across to her father.

Still, she had no idea why Hulk went along with his prank. He said the Hulk should still pretend to be stupid to make others underestimate him and he should shout his name or attacks out loud like some kind of cartoon character.

Harry himself had already returned home and was watching the fight on his monitors. Spiderman had actually just shown up and Harry figured the fight wouldn’t take long with the two working together.

Harry figured Ross would nullify the paper he just signed as soon as he could, but that was just a distraction. Harry had Ross’s signature and with a bit of magic, could use it to forge a large number of papers which would completely clear Banner from being chased. If Ross fought it, Harry would make sure every skeleton in his closet was unearthed until Ross himself was buried with them.

As for the damage caused by the fight, Harry figured he should start an Insurance Company to cover monster fight damage. As a PR stunt he could repair all the damage caused by this fight for free, and maybe do a few upgrades on NYU while he was at it.

In any case, he had helped a man spiral down into madness, he used telepathy to mindfuck and blackmail a general, and he’d gone all out on a prank which had probably caused untold amounts of property damage. It had been a good day and just think, Summer was right around the corner.

Harry still needed to tie up loose ends of course. According to Ross’s memories, the man who took roid rage to the next level was called Blonksy. Harry started synthesizing a little something he’d covertly inject into the soldier once the fight was over which would slowly strip the man of his new abilities and return him to normal.. As for Sterns, he’d deal with him tomorrow.