*POV: Victor Banners*
*Location: Testing Site Gamma, New Mexico*
*Date: October 25th, 2001*
Walking through the base, I was sipping my coffee, passing by a few of my coworkers as they walked and talked. Me, though, loner Victor with his old clipboard and cup of coffee in hand. Today's pot was a bit...bitter if I was being honest, but it did the job and woke me up right away. Either way, today was going to shape up to be interesting nonetheless; today was testing day for a new prototype Gamma-powered bomb. Honestly speaking, I couldn't remember who designed the initial schematics; some rumors swirled around that it was some military Tinkerer or something like that.
If it was, well, they gave us easily copyable blueprints that we can use here and now, hell, I even improved upon the basic design. Mostly on the radius of the gamma blast that followed the explosion. Well, more specifically, to reduce the harmful aftereffects afterward so that the land can be reused again after a bit of cleaning and detoxing it, or as best you could anyway, as the attacks from...from the Behemoth, more specifically, the destruction it left in its wake, hell, I remember when people thought it was a out-of-control parahuman at first, someone that just recently triggered and lost control.
Of course, after Leviathan, that theory pretty much went out of the window, that and the fact that they don't act like your typical parahuman. No, there was always something off about them, a weird feeling you get even on the other side of a screen, you could tell that something was off. Heck, I was more sure of that now when talking to the few parahumans we had on base, mostly security guards, and I think a few Thinkers, mostly due to their own enhanced intellect that allowed them to more easily work in their environment.
Hell, I was pretty sure the only reason this whole thing was still ongoing was to see if we could finally take an Endbringer out with a big enough bomb. Well, that and maybe a few other things as well, but honestly speaking, I was thinking of quitting and getting into a different field, or hell, maybe alternative energy, because honestly, at this point, the future was starting to look bleaker and bleaker every day. I mean, I know the PRT does everything it can to help stabilize the US and help in the fight against the Enbringers...but that's part of the problem, their a US-based organization, not an international one.
Hell, I don't think there has been one, not that didn't immediately fail, I mean, just by the very nature of parahuman abilties it made things chaotic. Hell, for all I know, they could've tried for years only to fail spectacularly in some form or another. Didn't matter, though, as I passed by a few Case-53 workers who were guarding the testing room. Normally, you wouldn't see them working in a military installation, but well, work was work that and they were nice enough, a little rough around the edges, but who wouldn't be.
The one on the right was tall and extremmly muscular with rock-like red skin, hell, the guy had reptile-like skin and scales covering his entire body. I think he had a small tail as well, and he even had a rex-like face, well, one mixed with a human anyway, and it was not a pretty look. I think he calls himself Crimson Dino or something like that as his cape name. Most of us just called him Richard, though, while on the job.
On the left, we had a tall skinny guy who, in certain situations, was a tiny bit deadlier than old Richard. Now, when I say tall, I mean tallll, pretty sure he towered over Richard and could easily touch the ceiling with his long arms/spindly fingers. Freaky to look at, no matter the angle, as he's skin had a strange mucus always on him, it stuck to him like glue to paper, never truly touching the ground. Then there was his thin, frog-like face that seemed to stretch unnaturally on him, and his long, steel-like nails. He never really gave himself a name, but we came to call him Gecko. Started off as a nickname at first, but after a while...well, he came to like himself for some reason.
Either way, I just waved at them as I quickly passed by, a little excited to see if this bomb test goes well, I mean, we put so many hours of work/resources into it, so we were hoping it could pay off. Well, most of the people on the base did anyway, and well, seeing all my fellow scientists' hopeful faces well I couldn't bear to try and shatter it.
In the front row was the General in charge of it all, the most patriotic man in existence, or one of them anyway. Five-Star General Thomas Randall, nice guy overall, a little hardheaded and stubborn, but we like to think it comes from a good place. Well, we all liked to think so anyway, and well...we had a bit of an awkward relationship considering I dated his daughter for a year or two before breaking it off. So when we found out we would be working with each other, well, it made things a bit weird.
Sitting down, I looked at the screen as it showed the large, untamed desert, and it was the perfect testing site. Far enough away from any nearby towns that it wouldn't harm them, and empty enough that any local life here that would be affected was at minimum, alongside the water supply...as best we could anyway. Sipping my coffee, I stared at all the screens, doing one last check alongside all the others, before the countdown began.
[Test Sequence in T-Minus Five Minutes]
Soon enough, a large green light turned on, indicating the countdown as it slowly went down one by one, with the only thing left to wait and watch. I placed the clipboard on the side and drank the rest of my coffee, placing it near it and leaning back, watching the seconds tick by as something was on the smaller screen, the one we didn't really check all that often when doing these kinds of tests, which even then wasn't really all that often.
It-It-It looked like a car, but that couldn't be right, as I wiped my eyes over thinking I was seeing something. That's when I saw it, a red car, maybe something from 1997 or 98, but either way, that didn't matter because what I saw on screen was a young man, maybe in his early twenties, well maybe twenty at least, wearing a torn-up shirt with some jeans and his head back, relaxing with a...bottle of some kind anyway that didn't matter.
"FUCK!!!! SHUT DOWN THE COUNTDOWN< SHUT IT OFF. THERE'S A CIVILIAN ON THE TESTING SITE!" I shouted, getting everyone's attention on the screen.
Thomas, alongside a few of my fellow scientists, looked at the screen, horrified as the General got his radio out.
"This is General Thomas Randall. We need to abort testing, I repeat, we need to abort testing! There is a civilian on-site and in danger!"
I heard some chatter on the radio, but I already knew it was impossible to stop the countdown/test once it's begun. The whole thing was automatic, and even if you got to the emergency levers, it would be too late, so what did I do? Well, I grabbed the nearest set of keys, hopefully to a nearby jeep, and ran out of the room as some of them called out to me.
I quickly ran out of the room and by the guards as I rapidly ran to the exit. I bumped into a few people who said something like 'hey' and a few other things I didn't hear as I ran by. Anyway, I quickly swiped the keycard that opened a large metallic door leading outside as alarms went off, informing the base that a test was about to go off and to get to cover, unforunattly I was not going to be one of those people as I clicked the key a few times hearing a loud beep and I raced to the car, getting in and putting the key in turning the car on.
I quickly put the jeep into drive and rode off, going toward the testing site at max speed, not knowing if I could reach the kid in time. I had an idea of where the kid was, but the only problem was that it would take from a minute to a maximum of three minutes to get there in time at maximum speed. Didn't matter though, the kid didn't deserve to suffer for being an idiot...well maybe a little bit but not like this, not like this! I think to myself as I slam my hand down on the side, as I begin to feel the bumps of the desert road.
Looking around, I saw the dreaded bomb in the distance, the malicious object ready to burst open and kill literally everything around, to see if it had the power necessary to kill an Endbringer. Again, I highly doubted that, but it wouldn't stop the general and my fellow scientists from trying. That wasn't worth it, though; it would be worth sacrificing a single life that had nothing to do with all this. If that was naive of me to think about, then so be it, and I would stand by even then, no matter the cost, even if it was my own life.
That's when I saw him, the stupid kid drinking on a testing field, how the hell didn't he see the various military tents and the goddam bomb was beyond me, but right now that wasn't my main priority. I saw a nice-sized trench ahead of him from when this place was a bit more...unsafe in its testing, it would be big enough to fit his car in case I needed to ram it in, but I still had some time left, so I just kept on going closer and closer to him.
"HEY HEY KID! YOU NEED TO TAKE COVER, GET TO COVER IMMEDIATELY!" I shouted, waving my arms around, and while I did get the kids' attention, he just shrugged his shoulders and went back to drinking.
I honked my horn and did everything I could to get him to notice the sizeable bomb behind me, but he didn't. So I did the one thing I could think of to save his life and rammed full speed into the side of his car, sending it straight into the trench. While I didn't know if it would save his life or spare him from the worst of it, mostly radiation poisoning but it at least gave him a chance.
Right now, though I looked behind me as the bomb went off, the green glow was overtaking the air as a massive explosion went off. Getting out of the now totaled jeep, I looked on as blood dripped down my head, touching it, I felt a new wound on my forehead from ramming the kid's car, I laughed a little as the green glow came closer and closer rapidly, now mixed with dust as while the intial explosion wouldn't hit me, the soot and other shit that came after would be enough to instantly kill a human if they didn't tkae cover in time.
As the energy washed over me, I could feel my cells burn and skin begin to tear itself as everything began to burn in pain. I could feel my skin changing color, and my hair started to...feel different, as though it was both falling out and not at the same time. I smiled as my life passed before my eyes, the beatings and abuse I suffered at my father's hands, my drunk of a mother who eventually killed herself, the school where life...life was miserable and nothing more. The only happy moment for as long as I could remember was my brief time with Rosa, Rosa Randall, my first love and the only person...the only person I ever felt safe around.
I-I-I don't remember why we broke up, not the true reason, but it was something, something important, I know that much, not some bullshit excuse like moving to different places or taking different paths in life, I think...I think it was because I knew deep down I was angry, angry at the world, and I stuffed it all deep down.
Right now, though, I just wanted to smash the world wide open and take control of my life again.
*3rd POV*
On the screen back at the military installation, the scientist and General Thomas looked on in horror as one of their own was dying, after possibly saving the life of a young man at the wrong place at the wrong time. That's when they saw it, for most parahumans, a trigger event was an extraordinary and traumatic situation, how far a person could be pushed before they lashed out and took a bite out of the world. Only...Only this wasn't one of those situations, no, it was much worse than that.
There are two things most people go through when joining the military or military-adjucented project like this: first, they run a background check and see if you have any drugs in your system, and second, they do an x-ray to see if they have a special organ called the Corona Pollentia/Gemma to see if they have the potentional to trigger and rampage through their own forces, killing who knows how many people if they were unlucky which was most of the time.
Sure, sometimes they weren't spotted in time, and accidents did indeed happen, right now though, Banner...Victor Banner didn't have the potential to trigger. However, in this moment, the man who was Victor Banner was mutating, growing larger, more muscular, and angrier.
"HULK SMASH! HULK SMASH STUPID WORLD!"
That was all everyone in the screening room heard as the cloud of dust disappeared and soon enough all the screens showed one singular image. The monster that BAnner became, the monster unleashed by the gamma bomb, the monster the world would come to know as The Hulk.