The planet groaned.
Not like a mere world in pain, but like a dying god, its breath ragged, its heart grinding to a halt. The molten core slowed further, tectonic plates screeching as they tore across one another in continental agony.
Then, without warning—
"KRRAAAAAAAAAHHH!"
Monstrous geysers of molten rock exploded from the depths, clawing toward the surface in incandescent fury. Vast, fiery pillars tore the sky apart, ripping open old wounds and carving new ones into Sakaar's trembling crust.
At ground zero, Hulk moved without thought, only instinct. He threw his massive frame around Caiera and their newborn, becoming a living bulwark against the storm of annihilation. Lava sizzled on his skin, smoke rising as gamma-forged flesh defied death once more.
Peter, eyes glowing with cosmic resolve, raised both hands and conjured walls of spirit silk, ethereal sheets of shimmering light that hardened into a radiant cocoon around the small family. The half-shell flickered with strain, deflecting the worst of the blast, but Peter's brow beaded with sweat.
Somewhere far above, Kara was hurled backward like a leaf in a hurricane. The raw blast tore her from the emperor's body, leaving only scraps of metal and the shattered collar of his mech suit in her bloodied hands.
The emperor himself pinwheeled through the sky like a cursed soul in a tempest, his golden armor battered, life support systems flaring in a desperate attempt to preserve what was left of his pathetic existence.
Across the continents, millions screamed. The chaos that had been war was now dwarfed by doom itself, not delivered by armies or gods, but by the natural order coming undone.
The end had come for Sakaar.
And then—
They arrived.
Four burning crimson lights, sudden and untraceable, cut across the vacuum of space like stars torn loose from heaven. They fell like judgment, streaking through the atmosphere and crashing toward the dying world below.
One of the lava geysers rose to consume them, but the lights didn't falter.
They swam through fire.
Unharmed. Unrelenting.
Like phoenixes dancing in magma, they slipped through the molten chaos and disappeared into the very wound from which it had erupted.
At the center of that wound, at the place where the planet's heart once beat, floated William.
Arms and legs spread like a crucified titan, his body hung suspended in the dim glow of the dying core, magma and molten ore beginning to cool and fuse around him.
And then—
"TING, TING, TING, TING!"
The lights struck him, not as attacks, but as gifts.
Two gauntlets clasped onto his forearms, forged from obsidian-metal, etched with veins of lava-fire that pulsed like breathing embers. His fingers curled into fists, and then came the echoes.
A pair of flame-like constructs bloomed beside him, semi-ethereal hands that mirrored his every move. The constructs seemed alive, flickering with sentience, shaped by rage and tempered by purpose.
His feet, too, were consumed, encased in plated sabatons of obsidian steel, similarly aflame from within. Each breath he took radiated heat, and every motion cracked the air like a forge hammer striking star-metal.
"WHOOSH!"
With a sudden thrust, William shoved both arms and legs outward.
The flame constructs followed suit, slamming into the half-solid walls of the cooling planetary core.
"BOOOM!"
The impact rippled across the core like a tuning fork struck by a celestial hand. The metal shimmered, heat returning where there had only been cold death.
But the core was stubborn.
It resisted.
William screamed. A primal roar—"AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!"—that echoed not just through the planet, but into it.
He began to spin his limbs, rotating with impossible speed, the flame constructs amplifying every revolution. Heat spread. Pressure grew. But it wasn't enough.
Not yet.
He needed more.
With a deep breath, he reached out, not with hand or ki, but with will, and summoned an old companion.
"CRACKLE!"
Zarielle's Requiem tore through the veil of space, descending like a divine lance. It halted before him, hovering in reverence.
William smiled. And as his fingers wrapped around the hilt, the spear responded, exploding into life.
Flames mixed with lightning.
The green arcs that danced across the Zarielle's Requiem became something... wilder. Uncontrolled. Alive. It no longer moved like lightning. It lashed like a flame possessed.
With one final cry, William slammed Zarielle's Requiem down into the wall of the core. The shaft extended outward, piercing to the other side of the planetary heart, creating a lever as ancient and rudimentary as it was cosmic in scope.
Flame-veins spidered across the spear's length.
William's aura exploded into a corona of green flame and golden ki, his Super Saiyan 3 energy roaring back to its apex. The pressure around him bent space, and the magma began to ripple outward as if fearing him.
And then—
He pushed.
With every ounce of might, every scream of his soul, William leaned into the spear. His muscles flexed like cable steel, gauntlets glowing brighter, and the core beneath him, the very soul of Sakaar, began to shift.
It moved.
The heart of the planet, once stilled, now groaned back to life.
Despite all his effort, the core barely moved.
The monstrous heart of Sakaar groaned in reluctant defiance, shifting only fractions beneath the full might of a Legendary Super Saiyan 3 enhanced by divine flame and obsidian armor.
William roared.
"HAAAAAAA!"
His aura exploded outward like a collapsing sun, brilliant green laced with veins of crimson. The air twisted around him, and the very structure of the dying planet warped from the pressure. He reached deep into his arsenal and ignited the Kaio-ken, threading the technique through his unstable but ferocious energy form.
"FWOOOOOSH!"
His emerald aura became a maelstrom of red-edged fire, crackling violently around his armored body. The added force made the core groan louder, its sluggish rotation gaining precious speed, but even as the tectonic agony began to abate, his body screamed in protest.
The Kaio-ken, so violently incompatible with his current power level, began to tear at his muscles, overheat his cells, and twist his nerves into flaming wires.
"GAAAHH!"
He had to stop. He had to.
The burning red edges of his aura sputtered and collapsed, and the green light flickered like a candle fighting a storm. And once again, the core slowed.
Desperation took hold. His obsidian gauntlets flared, not orange now, but pure blue, burning so hot they hissed like starfire. The sabatons fused deeper into the metal beneath him, anchoring him in this losing battle against inevitability.
"TSHHHCHHH!"
William gritted his teeth so hard he nearly cracked his own jaw. Sweat mixed with blood. His bones trembled beneath god-forged armor. His muscles cried for mercy.
He was slipping.
The planet was winning.
And then—
A shadow.
Two massive green hands appeared beside his own, clasping Zarielle's Requiem with a weight and presence that made the entire core jolt in response.
William blinked, eyes wide.
He looked up, and what he saw pulled breath from his lungs.
There he was, Hulk, returned.
No longer the shrinking protector. No longer the grieving father. This was the World-Breaker, reborn in glory. Gamma radiation poured from his veins like sunlight through cracked jade. His back arched, his muscles flexed, and his teeth were bared in a snarl that shook heaven.
He met William's eyes, not with rage, but with resolve.
Together, they pushed.
"RRRRRRAAAAAAAHHH!"
Zarielle's Requiem vibrated with the weight of their combined might. The core, that colossal heart of stone and molten metal, shuddered, then moved.
"RUMBLE!"
This time it really moved.
Not by inches, but by miles.
It turned like a gear catching teeth, releasing stored kinetic force back into the dying body of the planet.
Far above, the chaos paused, as if the entire world had held its breath.
Lava jets waned. Earthquakes slowed. The tremors that had wracked continents dulled to low rumbles. Cracks in the crust ceased growing. And then—
stillness.
The tectonic plates settled, clashing one final time before locking into a new, stabilized formation, as if Sakaar itself were being reforged, its very shape remade by the will of these two titans.
Below, amidst sweat and fire and blood, William exhaled.
And above him, Hulk did not speak, he only nodded.
They had turned back the apocalypse.
For now.
Their feet dug deeper into the fractured mantle, molten light flickering up from below like the breath of a slumbering god. William's hands trembled, not from weakness, but from the sheer, impossible resistance they fought against.
And still, they pushed.
Together.
Zarielle's Requiem, now glowing with dual energy, green gamma flame and red lightning, pulsed like a beacon in the depths. It vibrated with the resonance of two titanic wills, neither willing to yield, neither capable of surrender. The veins of flame that ran along William's armor synced with Hulk's gamma-fueled fury, creating a rhythm like a second heartbeat for the planet.
Above them, the core, once inert and cooling like a dying star, now began to churn.
It was slow, at first. Glacial. But each second of resistance seemed to fold upon itself, compressing into momentum.
"Push harder!" William shouted through grit teeth, his voice guttural and raw from exertion.
"RAAAAGHH!" Hulk bellowed, veins glowing blinding green, muscles bulging to the edge of rupture. His rage was no longer a wildfire, it was a furnace, controlled and focused, an engine of willpower.
The pressure mounted.
The temperature surged.
Their combined power began to not only rotate the core, but to reignite it.
"KRAKOOM!"
A pulse of white-hot energy exploded outward from the spear, vaporizing the surrounding magma in a radius of miles and sending a tremor of resurrection through the planet. The very poles of Sakaar flickered with magnetic life for the first time since the battle had silenced them.
"Don't stop!" William cried, sweat evaporating off his face instantly. "We're bringing the heart back online!"
The gauntlets on his arms began to glow white-blue, pushing far beyond their original limits. Cracks spiderwebbed through the obsidian plating, exposing raw divine flame beneath. The sabatons anchoring him to the core now hummed with seismic force, each step shaking the world.
Zarielle's Requiem vibrated violently, lightning-fangs snapping outward like celestial whips, arcing across the exposed mantle and up toward the sky.
Above, the planet began to change.
Clouds spun. Wind screamed. Gravity stabilized.
The magnetic field, reawakened, began deflecting cosmic debris. The sky turned from ominous crimson to a slow, simmering gold. Sakaar was being reborn.
"More!" Hulk growled, his hands now buried wrist-deep into the metallic shaft of the spear. "We... finish... this!"
Together they leaned in. Muscles tore and repaired in real time. Bones cracked and re-knitted under divine strain. The force of their will pressed down on the very laws of nature, forcing movement from what should have been immovable.
And then—
"VOOOOOMMMMM!"
The core turned. Fully. Completely.
A roar echoed from deep within the planet, not a sound, but a response. The planet had awakened. The pressure equalized. A shockwave of golden light erupted outward from the planetary heart and radiated to the very ends of the crust.
From the stars, one could see it, a burning golden line racing through fault lines across continents like veins pulsing with renewed life.
Sakaar had a pulse again.
Exhausted, William collapsed to one knee, the obsidian armor on his limbs steaming and cracked but still whole. Hulk fell to one side, resting against the core wall, chest heaving like a bellows.
And there they stayed, two mythic titans, not just destroyers, but saviors.
The heart of the world beat once more.
"WHOOSH!"
From the rising dust and shimmering heat, a streak of white and crimson burst through the fractured crust of the world like a divine spear of mercy. Kara, her white unitard scorched and glowing faintly at the seams, emerged in full flight, a guardian angel with the strength of a goddess and the urgency of a sister-in-arms.
Trailing ribbons of steam, her arms were outstretched, each bearing a burden the world itself had nearly crumbled under: William and the Hulk, unconscious, scorched, and battered, but victorious.
The ground itself trembled as she set them down gently at the edge of the broken wound that once housed the core, now reborn and humming with residual heat and power. As if responding to the two warriors' return, the crater's rim cracked audibly beneath their forms, sending trails of obsidian ash spiraling into the cooling air.
"CRACK!"
A synchronized pulse of energy escaped their bodies, their immense auras collapsing inward like dying stars as both warriors shrunk down, no longer hulking avatars of destruction and power, but simply men again.
Still bruised, still steaming, still breathing.
Hulk sat up slowly, his breaths rasping like gusts of wind through broken trees. Yet his gaze, clouded moments ago with primal rage and fury, now burned with something pure, purpose.
His eyes found her, Caiera.
She sat not far from the ruined battlefield, cloaked in tatters of ceremonial armor scorched by war and time. In her arms, bundled in shimmering strands of spirit silk, was the most fragile and radiant thing left on this world.
Their child.
As Hulk approached, the flickering orange light from the nearby lava pools danced across his face. It illuminated the conflict written across his features, the beast still lingering behind his eyes, the killer buried beneath the calm, and yet... the father. The protector. The man.
Caiera's eyes shimmered like a starlit lake as she looked up and gently asked, "Do you want to name him?"
Her voice was soft but steady, breaking through the silence like sunlight through ash.
The great Hulk, Worldbreaker, Gladiator, Monster, fell to his knees with an earthshaking thud, cracks spiraling out beneath him like a spider's web. His hand, trembling, rough, and impossibly large, reached out.
The bundle giggled.
And from its folds, a pair of off-grey, perfectly formed little hands emerged and grasped his finger.
Hulk froze.
Not from fear. Not from awe.
But from overwhelming peace.
A peace he'd never truly known.
A single, immense tear swelled in his green eye and dropped onto the silken wrappings below, hissing quietly as it met the scorched earth. But this tear did not bring more destruction.
It brought healing.
And laughter, the baby's joyous giggle echoed across the cracked battlefield like church bells tolling for hope after a long war.
In the background, William stood beside Kara and Peter, all three silently observing the moment. Their wounds were many, their energy drained, but there was something restorative about this sight. Something eternal.
Beside them, a golden streak descended from the sky, glinting with righteous brilliance. With thunderous momentum and quiet reverence, Beta Ray Bill landed on the ground beside them, his hooves cracking the stone. Stormbreaker, his hammer, hummed at his side, radiating curiosity and solemn honor.
Bill said nothing at first. He simply watched as Hulk gently cradled his son, his monstrous fingers moving as delicately as petals.
"I've seen him tear moons apart," Bill finally muttered, "and now... look at him."
William, still panting softly, chuckled hoarsely.
Back at the center of it all, Hulk pulled his son closer, lovingly held his massive forehead gently against the baby's.
Then, with a voice deeper than any forge, yet tender as falling ash, he said:
"Sakorian. I name you Sakorian."
As if in response to the name, a gust of wind swept across the battlefield, carrying ash into the sky like stardust, and for the first time since the cataclysm began...
Sakaar was silent.
Not in fear.
Not in mourning.
But in reverence.