Chapter 1: Ashes to Abomination
The world dissolved into golden, swirling dust. One moment, Talon Reeve was on his couch, scoffing at the cosmic absurdity of a universe-ending snap; the next, he was part of the void, his body and consciousness unraveling into nothingness. It was a sensation beyond pain, a silent, atomic disassembly.
His last thought was a bitter punchline: It's not fake at all.
Consciousness returned not as a gentle dawn, but as a violent crash. The scent of gasoline, burning rubber, and ozone assaulted his senses. The sound was a cacophony of terror—screams, shattering glass, and the deafening crunch of metal. Talon pushed himself up, his hands scraping against rough asphalt. He was no longer in his apartment. He was in the middle of a war zone that used to be a New York street.
No. Not just any war zone.
His eyes widened, tracing the path of destruction. A block away, a monstrous, spined behemoth—the color of dried blood and raw muscle—was methodically tearing the front off a city bus.
"Abomination," Talon whispered, the name a cold stone in his gut. This wasn't a movie. The scale was wrong, the details too sharp, the fear too palpable and sour in the air. He had theorized about multiversal travel during late-night philosophy debates, but this was no intellectual exercise. This was Harlem. And he was trapped in the opening act of The Incredible Hulk.
Panic, cold and sharp, threatened to seize him. He knew this world. He knew it was a place where gods walked and where entire city blocks could be reduced to rubble before lunch. Superheroes were as common as tabloid scandals, and the existential threats were a weekly occurrence. This was a world where survival wasn't guaranteed; it was a desperate, fleeting prize.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Abomination's heavy, percussive footsteps shook the ground, each one a closer, more final drumbeat. The monster seemed to delight in pure chaos, swatting a sedan aside like a toy, sending it tumbling end over end in a shower of sparks.
"God, help me!"
"Somebody! My leg is trapped!"
"Don't look at it! Just run!"
The chorus of human despair was a knife in Talon's heart. His own body thrummed with a fight-or-flight response. As a world-champion-level Sanshou fighter, his instincts were honed for combat. But this… this was beyond any opponent he had ever faced. This was a force of nature. His training screamed at him to stand his ground, to find an opening. His survival instinct screamed louder: Run.
He turned, muscles coiled, ready to sprint down a side alley.
He never made it.
The air itself seemed to tear. A sonic boom hammered his eardrums a split second before a green comet slammed into the street twenty feet in front of him. The impact was seismic, launching a shockwave of concrete and debris that sent Talon stumbling backward. A jagged piece of pavement whistled past his head, close enough to feel the displaced air. A fraction of a second slower, and it would have taken it off.
That was too close.
From the smoking crater, a massive, green hand, large enough to crush a engine block, slammed down on the fractured asphalt. Fingers dug in, cracking the street like dry clay. Then, he rose. The Hulk. He was even more immense in person, a mountain of emerald muscle and pure, undiluted rage. He paid no mind to the tiny human in his path; his burning eyes were locked on the other monster.
"ROAR!"
The Hulk's challenge wasn't just a sound; it was a physical pressure that vibrated in Talon's bones. Before he could even process the sight, the Hulk's other hand, moving with impossible speed, swatted him aside. It wasn't a targeted attack, just an unconscious flick of the wrist, like shooing a fly from his launch path.
The world became a blur of sky and street. Talon crashed into the side of a news van, the metal panel buckling around him. White-hot agony exploded in his side. He felt a rib crack, and his left arm screamed with a wrong, nauseating pain. Dislocated, maybe broken. His head rang, his vision swimming with black spots.
He fought to stay conscious, pushing through the pain just in time to see the two titans charge.
The street became their battleground. Abomination and the Hulk met in the middle with a cataclysmic CRUNCH that dwarfed all the previous destruction. The collision generated its own localized shockwave, shattering every remaining window for a block. Talon, still slumped against the van, was caught in the periphery. A piece of shrapnel, flung out from the epicenter, sliced a deep gash across his thigh.
He cried out, spitting blood onto the street. It was coppery and real. This was no dream. As he watched the two behemoths trade earth-shattering blows, moving further down the avenue in their personal hurricane of destruction, a cold, hard resolve solidified within him. This helplessness, this pain, this feeling of being an insignificant insect… he would never feel it again.
He whispered through bloody lips, the vow a stark contrast to the chaos around him. "I will remember this. Every second of this pain. I will pay it back a thousand times over."
"Ding! Gene Extraction System activated."
The voice was clean, mechanical, and utterly alien in his reeling mind. For a moment, he thought it was a hallucination born from a concussion.
System?
He was familiar with the trope from the web novels his friends had tried to get him into. A cheat code. A lifeline in an impossible situation. Was this real?
"System?" he mentally probed, his focus narrowing. "Can you make me stronger?"
"Ding. This system allows the host to extract and integrate the genetic templates of humanoid subjects, thereby enhancing the host's physical and metaphysical capabilities."
"How?" Talon demanded, the spark of hope fanning into a desperate flame. "How do I extract them?"
"Ding. Primary method: The subject must willingly permit genetic extraction. Note: Physical contact is required for the process to initiate."
Talon almost laughed, the motion sending a fresh spike of pain through his ribs. "You're joking. Willingly? Who in this madhouse would willingly give up their power? That's their identity, their leverage!"
"Ding. Alternative methods include subjugation of the subject until compliance is achieved, or opportunistic contact during periods of subject incapacitation. Methodology is host-dependent."
The logic was cold, brutal, and perfectly suited for this world. His mind, a fighter's mind, began analyzing the possibilities. "Can I extract from animals? Something simpler, to start?"
"Ding. Negative. Genetic source must be a sentient, bipedal humanoid."
The hope dimmed. It was an all-or-nothing proposition. He needed a powerful gene, and he needed a moment of supreme weakness.
His eyes, sharp and focused despite his injuries, tracked the path of the battle. He saw a military gunship roar overhead, its miniguns strafing the Abomination with a torrent of lead that did little more than annoy it. The scene was familiar, clicking into place from his memory of the film. This was the final act. The fight was moving to its conclusion.
He knew how this ended.
Gritting his teeth, Talon used his good arm to push himself up. Every movement was fire, but the promise of power was a potent anesthetic. He began to move, a limping, determined shadow following the trail of wreckage. He found a vantage point in the shattered lobby of a building just as the two monsters crashed into the ornate, circular structure where the final confrontation would occur.
He didn't have to see it to know what was happening. He heard the Hulk's guttural roar—"HULK SMASH!"—followed by a colossal impact that shook the very foundations of the street. Then, an eerie, relative silence fell, punctuated only by the weak, struggling snarls of the Abomination.
Now.
Talon moved, blending with the few stunned onlookers and emergency crews who were cautiously emerging. He saw it. The Hulk, victorious, had the thick, heavy chain of a construction crane wrapped around the Abomination's neck, pulling it taut. The monster's eyes bulged, his powerful limbs flailing weakly against the unbreakable stranglehold.
As the Hulk prepared to deliver the final, lethal twist, a woman's voice cut through the tension. "Bruce! No!"
It was Betty Ross.
The Hulk hesitated, the conflict between his rage and the echo of the man within clear on his face. With a final, frustrated roar at an incoming helicopter, he released the chain. The Abomination slumped, defeated and gasping, utterly drained. The Hulk turned and leaped away, a green ghost vanishing into the night.
All attention was on the departing hero.
This was his only chance.
Talon broke from the crowd, moving quickly to the side of the fallen monster. Up close, Emil Blonsky's transformed state was even more terrifying. The sheer mass, the raw, exposed bone, the animalistic hatred in its eyes. Talon's heart hammered against his broken ribs.
He knelt, his voice low, urgent, and devoid of fear.
"Blonsky," he said, the name cutting through the monster's labored breaths.
The Abomination's head lolled, its reptilian eyes focusing on the insignificant human beside him. A low, dangerous growl rumbled in its chest.
"I have a proposition," Talon continued, his voice steady. "A way for you to get your revenge on the Hulk. But it requires your cooperation."
The beast just stared, its intelligence warring with its fury.
"I can borrow your strength," Talon explained, his hands hovering, ready. "I will become what you are. And then, together, we can hunt him down. I give you my word."
He saw the calculation in its eyes. The desperation. The all-consuming need for vengeance. It was a gamble, appealing to the one thing this creature valued above all else.
"Your power will remain yours," Talon pressed. "This is a copy. A partnership. All I need is your consent."
There was a long, tense moment. Then, the Abomination gave a single, slow, grudging nod. "Do it."
That was all the permission he needed.
Talon placed his hands on the creature's thick, cold, scaly hide. The contact sent a jolt through his system.
System, extract the Abomination's genetic template and integrate it with mine! Now!
"Ding. Genetic template of subject 'Abomination' successfully extracted. Commencing fusion."
The voice was the last coherent thing he heard.
Then, the universe exploded inside him.
It wasn't a transformation; it was an annihilation. Every cell in his body seemed to tear itself apart, screaming in protest as a foreign, overwhelming power flooded his being. His bones felt like they were being hydraulically stretched, his muscles fibers snapping and re-knitting with impossible density. His skin tightened, feeling as if it were turning to stone and leather. It was a pain beyond anything the Hulk's casual blow had delivered, a pain that scourged the very essence of his soul.
Talon Reeve threw his head back, his vocal cords shredding as a scream, not entirely human, ripped from his throat. It was a sound of agony, of death, and of a terrifying, brutal rebirth.