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The outcome was inevitable.
This Hulk wasn't the seasoned gladiator who'd spent years on Sakaar, learning to channel his rage intelligently. This was raw, primal Banner-monster—getting angrier with every hit, refusing to acknowledge defeat under any circumstances.
And anger was the Hulk's fuel source.
Red Hulk had the advantage early. Ross was a career soldier, decades of combat experience translating into efficient, brutal technique. But technique only mattered when strength was comparable.
It didn't stay comparable for long.
Every blow Green Hulk received made him stronger. Every moment of pain fed his fury. His body began to grow, muscles swelling beyond their already impossible proportions.
Red Hulk couldn't match that progression. His power increased only through absorbing gamma radiation—a resource the battlefield didn't naturally provide.
The military tried to help. Depleted uranium rounds—normally reserved for penetrating tank armor—were the only munitions they hadn't already tested against Hulk. The rounds generated six thousand degrees of heat on impact, carried radioactive payloads that would kill normal humans through radiation exposure alone.
Neither Hulk was a normal human.
The projectiles couldn't penetrate their skin. But they did carry gamma radiation. Red Hulk actually stopped dodging, letting the rounds hit him, absorbing their radioactive content to fuel his transformation.
It wasn't enough.
Green Hulk's rage-amplification outpaced anything Ross could absorb. Worse, the depleted uranium only made the green monster angrier, and soon even those armor-piercing rounds couldn't break his skin.
Military personnel tried to evacuate Luke's group.
"Sir, this area isn't safe—"
"I'm staying."
The soldier recognized him immediately. Luke Foster. The Fosterium inventor. The man whose Gray Wolf Nanosuits were the military's most anticipated procurement in decades.
You didn't argue with someone that valuable.
"Then we'll provide protection, sir. And try to draw the creatures away from your position."
Luke nodded agreeably, not mentioning that he could probably handle both Hulks himself.
The end came quickly once the strength gap widened.
THOOM. THOOM. THOOM.
Red Hulk was on his back in a crater of his own making, Green Hulk straddling him and delivering hammer-blow after hammer-blow. Each impact generated shockwaves that forced nearby soldiers to cover their ears or risk ruptured eardrums.
Ross's crimson form had stopped struggling. Unconscious, maybe dying.
Perfect timing.
Luke moved.
The Abomination gauntlets materialized around his arms and legs as he sprinted toward the combatants. Enhanced speed carried him across the battlefield in seconds.
Green Hulk never saw the kick coming.
"GET LOST!"
Luke's foot connected with the monster's torso. The Abomination Devil Arm doubled his strength. The impact launched ten tons of gamma-mutated rage into the sky like a poorly-thrown football.
The Hulk would come back eventually. But "eventually" was enough time.
Ross lay in the crater, breathing but broken. His red form was already beginning to shrink, reverting toward human proportions.
Luke reached down and grabbed the general's head.
"Soul, life, spirit, will... give me everything you have!"
[Soul Harvest!]
Power surged. Ross's soul was torn free—a massive sphere of light containing the essence of a man who'd dedicated his life to hunting monsters, only to become one himself.
Luke flooded the soul with demonic energy, erasing Ross's consciousness. Then he pressed the corrupted essence back into the body, triggering the transformation.
With how strong Abomination's Devil Arm turned out, Red Hulk should be even better—
The crimson light faded.
Luke stared at what had formed.
"...What?"
It wasn't gauntlets. It wasn't greaves. It wasn't any kind of armor at all.
A cape.
Black fabric that seemed to drink the light around it, cut in a style that screamed vampire aristocrat. High collar that could hide the wearer's face. Length that nearly brushed the ground—and Luke had grown to over six feet since his demonic awakening.
"A cape? From a military man? From Red Hulk?"
Luke had expected power-type equipment. Weapons that enhanced raw strength, like the Abomination set. Instead he'd gotten... fashion accessories.
Then he put it on.
And understood.
[Devil Arm: Envy]
The cape wasn't just fabric. It was potential.
Shapeshifting. The material could transform into any configuration Luke could imagine—weapons, armor, tools. Like Venom's symbiote. Like Prototype's biomass. Like Spawn's necroplasm.
He had a personal armory woven into his clothes.
Hardening. The cape could become rigid as steel, forming shields or striking surfaces on demand.
Vehicle Integration. The fabric could extend to cover machines, transforming cars or aircraft into something... more. Luke wasn't sure what that meant in practice, but the potential was intriguing.
Optical Camouflage. Color-shifting at will, creating near-perfect visual invisibility.
Sensor Negation. The material could alter its properties to defeat detection—radar, thermal imaging, sonar, anything. True stealth across all spectrums.
Flight. The cape could reshape into wings.
Damage Absorption. A passive effect: attacks that struck the cape were partially converted into magical energy, replenishing Luke's reserves.
"This is..." Luke struggled to find words. "This is an SSR pull."
The name felt wrong, though. Envy. He would have called it something practical—"Universal Weapon" or "Infinite Arsenal."
There were limits, of course. Like how Rebellion could be shattered and Yamato could break, Envy had upper thresholds. Against overwhelming force, it would fail.
But those thresholds could be raised. Feed the cape souls and life energy, let it grow. Or simply become powerful enough that your own strength enhanced the weapon's capabilities.
If Dante wielded Envy at his current power level, even Mundus himself couldn't breach its defenses.
Luke wrapped the cape around himself experimentally, feeling the fabric respond to his thoughts like an extension of his body.
Absolutely worth killing a general for.
Then something massive crashed to earth.
The impact was catastrophic—a crater fifty meters wide, shockwaves that knocked soldiers off their feet, a sound like thunder amplified through stadium speakers.
When the dust cleared, a creature stood in the wreckage.
Tall. Tens of meters, minimum. A kaiju straight out of Japanese monster films, all armored hide and primal menace.
"Golza," Luke said quietly. "The earth-shattering beast."
An Ultraman monster. Apparently his killing spree had generated a hostile drop after all—and the system had decided to go big.
"What is that?" Tifa's voice carried genuine surprise. She'd seen vampires, Reapers, gamma mutants. This was something else entirely.
Skadi was already reaching for her weapon. She'd brought it to the barbecue, because of course she had.
Miles away, Nick Fury watched satellite footage with growing horror.
"What the hell is going on? Where did that thing come from?"
The Hulks had been bad enough. A building-sized monster materializing from nowhere was... something else entirely.
"We were tracking two gamma signatures," an analyst reported helplessly. "Then this appeared. No prior indication. No energy buildup. It just... was."
Fury stared at the creature on his screen—a monster that made the Hulks look like children's toys.
And somewhere in the frame, barely visible, was Luke Foster.
Still eating barbecue.
What have you gotten yourself into, Foster? Fury wondered. Or is it what you've gotten US into?