Taking the full force of the bloated Sebastian's explosion left both Abomination and Hulk in bad shape.
The two bruisers lay on the ground for quite a while before barely managing to climb back up. Hulk had the stronger constitution. His body swayed a little, but not enough to matter. Abomination, the knockoff, fared worse. Several pieces of the armor-like exoskeleton across his chest had been blasted apart, and dark-brown blood kept spilling from his mouth.
With no outsider interfering, the two monsters immediately turned their attention back to each other.
"We're leaving!" The crowd of "ordinary New Yorkers," most of whom seemed to exist for comic relief, scattered in every direction. Their target appeared to have been the mutated Sebastian alone. They showed no interest in enemies such as Abomination, Hulk, bioengineered humanoids, or vampires.
From a distance, Bella saw the elderly Chinese man with the banana preparing to leave. In the end, she could not suppress her curiosity and called out, "Hey, sir! Will I ever see you again?"
Wade Wilson, who appeared to living beings as an elderly Chinese man, had absolutely no desire to speak to her. Bella, a god of Secrecy, did not dare probe the secrets hidden behind the R.I.P.D., while the R.I.P.D. agents were equally worried that their identities might be exposed.
"Drop dead! I don't want to see you!"
The words were extremely crude, but after layer upon layer of concealment, distortion, and transformation, what reached Bella's ears was, "When spring comes and the flowers bloom next year, that shall be the day you and I meet again."
The sentence left Bella completely bewildered. It sounded as though it carried some profound meaning, yet also somehow did not.
Unable to figure it out for the moment, she set the matter aside.
She ordered all her subordinates to disengage. "Quick! We're withdrawing too!"
The Brotherhood members were all experts at searching for supplies. They had swept through the vampires' manors, houses, secret rooms, and cellars. Now every one of them carried bags large and small, making the retreat look as lively as a mass relocation.
The assassins used every conceivable method to withdraw.
Several assassins of Indian descent displayed a national specialty. Loaded down with packages of every size, each grabbed onto a tank with one hand and simply hung from it as the vehicle carried them away.
Several Native American assassins, meanwhile, built a human ladder shaped like the Chinese character 众, meaning "crowd." They did not use the main road at all, but climbed straight over a wall to leave the battlefield.
Some used grappling hooks, some went down into the sewers, some rode bicycles, and others pedaled tricycles. Seeing how much initiative her subordinates were showing, Bella, as their Mentor, was extremely pleased!
The movement of so many people was quickly noticed by Hulk and Abomination. Two streets away, U.S. soldiers and police were also rapidly closing in.
Bella needed to buy her people time to withdraw. Looking around, she spotted a young man eating instant noodles on the fifth floor of a nearby building. He was standing at the window with his bowl in hand, watching the excitement.
You'll do!
Bella pointed casually. Invisible, intangible psionic energy moved like a hand and snatched the man's bowl of instant noodles out through the window.
"Me? ...That is—what? ...!"
Before the young man could understand what was happening, he saw his instant noodles floating through the air until they arrived directly above Hulk and Abomination. Then, "Bang!" Bella flipped the bowl upside down and cast Enlarge!
Enlarge worked differently depending on the target. Metals such as mithril and adamantium were almost unaffected. Even ordinary metals enlarged poorly, with a low magnification and a short duration. Noodles were different. Bella had once used this trick to tease little Kitty, and had made the girl cry...
The broth poured down like a rainstorm. Noodles more than one meter (about 3.3 feet) thick came smashing down with repeated thuds. The sight was honestly a little frightening.
"Hulk! Smash! Smash? What's this..." Thick noodles slapped Hulk all over the head and body. Under the influence of psionic energy, the instant noodles kept growing until they completely surrounded both him and Abomination. The two monsters looked as though they had fallen into an ocean of noodles.
Greasy broth covered the street. Hulk's foot slipped and he dropped straight onto a thick noodle behind him. It was soft and springy. He thought it was rather fun.
"Smells pretty good!" Hulk inhaled deeply and was surprised to find that the aroma was not bad at all.
As it happened, the fight had made him hungry. That earlier explosion from the bloated Sebastian had been hard for even his physique to endure, so he might as well replenish some energy now!
Abomination was more badly injured. He was attracted by the smell of the noodles too, but he still had a little more control than Hulk. Gamma radiation had distorted many of his thoughts, but he had not developed a new personality. He was not so far gone that the sight of noodles could stop him in his tracks.
He shoved aside the thick noodles piled in front of him and forced his way toward Hulk.
"Smash! Smash you! Smells good... slurp, slurp... Hulk hungry!" Hulk was covered in greasy broth and did not care whether any of it was clean. The Hulk personality was little different from a child. He fought while eating.
Maybe it was his mood, or maybe he was simply hungry. In any case, after a couple bites of noodles, Hulk felt himself growing stronger and stronger. He was gradually beginning to gain the upper hand over Abomination.
What was happening? He could not lose! Could not lose! Absolutely could not lose! Abomination repeated the conviction over and over in his mind.
Gamma radiation already had his head spinning. Now the aroma of food seemed magnified hundreds of times, and even he was starting to lose his resistance to the temptation.
I'll eat too!
No matter how much energy his cells contained, some basic laws still had to be obeyed. Expending energy meant replenishing energy. Without any outside temptation, that would not have mattered, but with fragrant food right in front of him, he still gave in, at least partly, to his body's instincts.
Abomination swung his fists and hammered Hulk twice, then grabbed the extremely rare piece of beef from the instant noodles and started gnawing on it.
"Rrroar—" After two bites, Abomination roared in dissatisfaction. The thing tasted strange. It was not good.
He was unhappy, but Hulk was even more unhappy. Hulk had finally found a little meat in the noodles! Do you know how hard that was? And this guy still wanted to steal it? Hulk smash you! He grabbed a noodle and whipped Abomination with it.
Abomination was just about to fight back when he noticed something unusual in the sky. Both monsters instinctively looked up and saw a bowl of chicken curry rice magnified countless times before crashing down again.
Hm? Chicken! Meat! Huge, huge pieces of meat!
Abomination immediately forgot about Hulk and jumped up to grab the giant chunks of chicken. He had not expected Hulk to be even faster. With a whoosh, Hulk sprang upward and caught one enormous piece of chicken in each hand. Abomination hurried over and began trying to tear them away.
They fought in the streets of Manhattan while the U.S. military and New York police retreated one after another.
For food, and to vent the anger in their hearts, fist against fist and muscle against muscle, the two monsters transformed by gamma radiation once again launched into a bloody battle on the streets of Manhattan.
"Martial Aunt? What exactly are you doing...?"
Several masters of the Mystic Arts from the New York Sanctum arrived in front of Bella. Looking at an ocean of noodles mixed with chicken curry rice, they had no choice but to admire the depth of Bella's magical accomplishments. Two entire city blocks had been completely clogged, with piles of food rising three stories high! An ordinary mage could never produce something this outrageous.