"BOOOOOOOOM!"
The sky split open.
Not just with sound, but with force. An eruption of gamma energy exploded from the Hulk's body like a primordial scream from the gods. The blast column roared skyward, a swirling, viridescent pillar that pierced the heavens. The very air distorted in concentric rings of heat and pressure, rippling outward and warping the light like glass under flame.
Above, the storm clouds didn't scatter, they obeyed. They funneled inward as if being devoured, drawn to the epicenter like water spiraling into a cosmic drain. Thunder clapped in protest, but even that sound seemed dwarfed by the sheer presence of the Hulk's unleashed fury.
"BOOM... CRACK!"
With one step, he moved.
His titanic foot descended like the fist of an angry titan, and where it landed, the earth fractured like fragile porcelain. Thick spiderweb cracks rippled outward, splitting the ancient bedrock beneath. Each tendril of fracture glowed faintly green from residual gamma energy, like the world itself had been poisoned by his wrath.
"BOOM... CRACK!"
Another footfall. Another cataclysm.
The already fractured earth screamed as it gave way. Chunks of the shattered mountaintop dislodged and plummeted down the slopes, only to be vaporized as they touched the raw heat radiating from below. The mountain, once proud, tall, and unmoving, was now a crumbling husk, its integrity eroded by shockwaves that threatened to tear the very crust apart.
"RUMBLE!"
The Hulk stood at the lip of the colossal crater he'd created, its basin glowing with lava veins and laced with ruptured tectonic scars. The ground beneath him shifted like something alive. Massive spirals of jagged stone burst upward around him, jutting into the air like broken ribs from the planet's corpse.
Every breath he took now altered the environment.
The very moisture in the air began to shimmer and hiss, boiling away into clouds of steam as it came too close to his molten aura. The temperature rose in an instant, the winds died, and silence fell for a heartbeat before the earth groaned under the pressure.
"HRRRRRRRRR!"
A monstrous growl rolled out from deep in the Hulk's chest, a sound no throat should have been capable of producing. It wasn't just heard. It was felt. It vibrated in bones. It rattled the sky. The sound was primal, ancient, like the first growl of life emerging from chaos. His head rose slowly, eyes aglow with violent intelligence, locking onto his target like a predator focusing on prey.
Across the ravaged battlefield stood William.
He had not moved. Not flinched. He dared to remain standing.
Aura surged around him, a brilliant conflux of red and gold. It did not flare wild and uncontrolled like the Hulk's; instead, it was honed, refined, wrapped tightly around his form like a second skin. It shimmered like liquid metal, pulsing in rhythmic harmony with his heartbeat. Every inch of his skin reflected the volatile light, and for a moment, he seemed more myth than man, an ironclad warrior forged in celestial fire.
His legs widened. His shoulders lowered. Fingers curled into fists as he took a defensive stance. Breathing deep, William drew the heat and pressure into himself, the air trembling around his body like it was caught between two gravitational forces. His voice cut through the choking tension:
"KAIO-KE—"
He never finished.
In the time it took his tongue to shape the next syllable, the Hulk vanished, blinked, and reappeared before him like a demon breaking through the fabric of reality.
"CLASP!"
Hulk's hand snapped forward with impossible speed and snatched William's entire head in his massive green palm. Fingers closed like a vice of living granite, completely engulfing William's skull.
The sound was deafening. Not just the clasp, but the world reacting.
Silence cracked like glass.
And then—
"KRRAAAAASHHH!"
William was slammed downward with a force no equation could quantify. The moment of impact fractured not just the ground, but reality itself. From the point of contact, the earth exploded in a ring of molten fire and gamma light, a dual blast of orange lava and sickly green radiance that blasted the terrain for miles.
A shockwave spiraled out, shearing the tops of trees, turning lakes to steam, flattening hills like sandcastles under a tsunami.
The crater deepened.
The clouds recoiled.
While gamma storms raged below and titanic forces clashed with cataclysmic power, not all eyes were on the battlefield.
Two figures, silent, sharp, and deliberate, were already in motion.
Far above the chaos, suspended in air disturbed only by the tremble of wind currents and explosive updrafts, Peter moved first. His hands worked swiftly and with surgical precision, guiding strands of his unique spirit silk around his body like an artisan sculpting armor from light itself. The silk shimmered as it wrapped around him, not pure white, but glistening, semi-transparent threads interwoven with micro-filaments that refracted light at impossibly complex angles.
With each layer, Peter vanished more and more from sight, not invisibility through magic or tech, but through mastery of physics. By the time the cocoon had sealed, his silhouette had ceased to exist. He was absent from reality as far as any normal eye could tell, an invisible ghost within a shimmering distortion field.
Somewhere else, dancing through crumbling shadows and sonic shockwaves, Kara made her move.
Her expression was focused. Not tense, but razor-sharp, like a blade drawn just before a killing blow.
"We've got one shot. One clean strike. Better make it count." The thought flashed through her mind like lightning across glass.
She didn't hesitate.
With a burst of motion that tore through the sound barrier, Kara launched herself forward. The boom that followed was deafening, but she was already long gone, streaking through the air as a comet of blue and red light. Her trajectory wasn't random. She zeroed in with surgical accuracy on the golden hovercar, the ornate, levitating chariot upon which the self-styled Emperor had made his entrance.
The hovercar gleamed in the harsh light, adorned with golden trim, pulsing plasma coils, and energy field stabilizers, but none of that stopped Kara.
In one smooth motion, she reached behind her, fingers locking onto the thick shackles that bound Caiera, the stoic and silent prisoner locked at the emperor's feet like a trophy. With a powerful yank, Kara tore through the bolts holding them in place, the metal screaming as it was shredded by sheer force.
"KKRRRAAAANG!!"
The shackles broke free, splintering into fragments mid-air.
Then, with barely a pause, Kara spun, her eyes locking onto a specific vector in the distance, one invisible to everyone but her and Peter.
She hurled Caiera into the sky, toward seemingly nothing.
There was no one there. Just empty air.
And that's what made it perfect.
The passengers aboard the emperor's hovercar barely had time to register what happened. Confusion swept over the guards, their weapons twitching in hands too slow to respond.
Then the Emperor's voice shattered the tension like glass under hammer.
"GET HER! GET THE HULK'S WIFE BACK! WE NEED HER, NOW!" he bellowed, voice cracking with desperation, fury, and something deeper: fear.
But Kara was already ahead of them.
Even as the emperor screamed, a low hiss started to rise beneath the carriage.
"SPPSPSPPSPSP!"
A strange stuttering noise. The engine, an elegant fusion of alien alloy and anti-grav tech, was dying.
Unseen to all but Kara, a searing lance of concentrated heat vision had just been fired moments ago. She had aimed it with microscopic precision, no explosive theatrics, just a thin, focused beam hot enough to slice a hole through solid metal like butter. The core was compromised.
And now, the hovercar was falling.
It listed sideways, the golden trim twisting as gyroscopic controls failed. Lights flickered across its underbelly. The air crackled with warning sirens. Panic spread across the royal guards as their once-pristine sky chariot turned into a glorified brick.
"KKKKTTCCHHHHHHH!"
Below them, the battlefield's broken terrain rose to meet them. The shattered dirt and rock, tossed high into the air by the Hulk's rampage, collided with the falling vessel.
A massive chunk, easily the size of a car, slammed into the side of the hovercar.
The impact was devastating.
The gilded outer shell warped and fractured. The emperor was thrown sideways, grunting as he slammed into the energy barrier that barely activated in time. It flashed bright blue as it cushioned the blow, barely.
"AAGGHH!"
The emperor shrieked, not just in pain, but in a mixture of humiliation and fury. He shoved himself upright, one gauntleted hand wiping blood from the corner of his mouth. His crown had slipped, and his pride was slipping faster.
He followed the path of Caiera, now airborne, weightless, vanishing into the sky.
And then, from nothing, a ripple of color appeared in mid-air. A distortion. A shimmer.
The cocoon of light peeled open, and from it emerged Peter, red and black spandex glinting under the sun. His arms reached out and caught Caiera mid-air with inhuman grace. One smooth motion. No stumble. No wasted movement.
The emperor saw this.
And he snarled.
His face twisted with rage, eyes bloodshot, voice venomous.
"GET THEM NOW! I WILL NOT BE DENIED MY CROWN!"
His scream echoed not just across the battlefield, but into history.
Because in that moment, his empire, built on fear and control, had begun to crack.