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The green colossus smashed into the Cursed Warrior like a falling meteor!
BOOM—!
The ground caved in.
Straddling the Cursed Warrior, Hulk's green fists—each the size of a sandbag—hammered down like a pile-driver.
"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!"
Every punch carried fury; every punch meant to flatten the foe.
The Cursed Warrior was pounded into the Earth.
"Hulk! Strongest!!"
The jade giant howled to the sky, declaring supremacy.
However—
the next second—
a charred, massive hand burst from the rubble.
The Cursed Warrior sat up in the crater.
The cursed fire in his eyes blazed fiercer than ever.
A forbidden art that burned life itself.
Lava-like muscles swelled, forcing his frame up several feet until he towered even over Hulk.
"Haaah—!!"
The Cursed Warrior roared and stood his ground.
When Hulk's fist shot forward again—
he reached out and caught it head-on!
"Slap!"
A dull thud.
The huge fist stopped dead.
Hulk froze, disbelief flickering in his green eyes.
No one had ever stopped his punch like this.
"Had enough… Beast?"
Algrim's voice sounded like it came from hell.
He twisted his wrist, locking Hulk's arm, yanked him in and drove a knee into the green gut!
"Gah—!"
Hulk doubled up like a shrimp, drool spraying.
What followed was a tempest of counter-attacks.
Algrim was more than raw strength—he was the Dark Elves' mightiest warrior, armed with millennia of battlecraft.
Fists, kicks, elbows, throws.
Hulk became a green ball, bounced from wall to wall down the street.
"Hulk!! Slash!!"
Hulk tried to fight back; his rage—and power—kept climbing.
Yet every time he tensed, Algrim shattered the attempt with brutal precision.
It was a one-sided suppression.
"Bang—!"
The Cursed Warrior's fist hammered Hulk's jaw.
"Aargh—!"
Hulk catapulted skyward, a tooth spinning free.
Algrim leapt, caught his ankle mid-air and whipped him down like a sack—
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Left slam! Right slam! A final Earth-toss!
He smashed Hulk clean into the New York sewers.
Lying at the pit's bottom, Hulk's gaze blurred.
He'd been battered senseless.
Always before, unstoppable strength had crushed all foes.
But today he'd met a monster harder, stronger—and a far better fighter.
"Crack—BOOM!"
Lightning split the clouds overhead.
Thor had arrived.
Through the Convergence window they'd returned to Earth.
After stashing Jane somewhere safe, he rushed to help.
"Your fight's with me, ugly!"
Whirling mjolnir, Thor hurled a blazing bolt of god-lightning straight down!
"For the glory of Asgard!"
"Slap!"
As the hammer was about to land, the Cursed Warrior casually back-handed it.
"Bang!"
Thor—and mjolnir—flew back faster than they came, carved a perfect arc across the sky, punched through the Avengers Tower logo and vanished into the Hudson in a geyser of spray… silence gripped the field.
Iron Man was out cold.
Captain America lay gravely wounded.
Hulk had been steam-rolled.
Thor was swatted away like a fly.
Earth's mightiest heroes had fallen, one by one, before this alien monster.
The Cursed Warrior stood amid the ruins, looking around.
"Anyone else?!" he roared.
No one answered.
Despair descended again.
Every cadet edged back.
Who could stop this Beast now?
Right then—
"ahem… cough…"
A ragged cough came from the rubble.
A pile of scrap-metal shifted.
Tony Stark.
He wasn't dead yet.
He crawled from the shattered Mark 42, face bloodied, stumbling.
Yet he didn't retreat; from the thigh-storage of the armor he pulled out a green syringe with shaking fingers.
The ace Anthony had given him—T-VEX.
"Looks like I'm about to become Captain Iron." He raised the injector to his neck.
He wasn't alone.
Far off, Steve Rogers propped himself against a wall and stood, an identical green tube in hand.
One by one the cadets of the team produced their own T-VEX.
Without hesitation Tony jammed the needle into his carotid.
"Sss—"
Plunger to the hilt.
In that instant his pupils contracted.
A savage heat—like an enraged fire-dragon—rushed through every vein. It felt awful, tearing, but beyond the pain came intoxicating power.
Muscles he never bothered to train now ballooned, veins bulged beneath the skin; shattered ribs crackled back into place under the drug's might.
"Huff…"
Tony exhaled a cloud of white into the cold air.
He looked at his bare hands—no armor, no repulsors—only flesh.
Yet at this moment he felt he could crush the Planet between them.
Behind him the same scene repeated.
Steve Rogers, the super-soldier already at peak human perfection—
when T-VEX hit his system the reaction was exponential.
His tight uniform tore under the strain as back-muscles ripped the fabric. Save for grime, not a scratch remained.
Pietro felt the World slow to a crawl, nearly frozen.
The scarlet woman Angela's flames shifted from orange-red to white-hot blue-white.
And behind them the dozen cadets once cowering now had eyes glowing green.
Fear? What was that?
Dopamine and adrenaline ruled everything now.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa…"
The lone exception, Wade Wilson, stared down at his groin.
"Look! It's back—like bamboo after rain!"
His lower half had regrown, but his suit hadn't; pasty, ugly skin met the air.
"Hey! Control-room, can we get a mosaic?" he hollered at the news-drone.
"Haaah—!" Hulk leapt from the crater; the monster ruled by rage caught the fever in the air.
Though drug-free, he could smell the surge of power—and it made him wilder.
"Hulk! Not! Lose!!"
His frame bulked up another notch, his green hide turning darker still.
CRACK—!
Lightning struck.
Thor flew back from the river, Mjolnir in hand, shaking water from his hair, eyeing the group in bewilderment.
"You… look… different?" he frowned.
No one answered.
Every gaze, magnet-locked, fixed on the black monster amid the ruins.
Algrim, mightiest Cursed Warrior of the Dark Elves, felt a chill for the first time.
A sensation unknown to him.
As a Cursed Warrior he knew no fear; his life was destruction.
Yet now every instinct screamed—
RUN!
YOU'LL DIE!
"Hragh—!!" Algrim tried to roar the pressure away, crushing a chunk of concrete in his charred fist.
Steve Rogers stepped to the fore—no shield raised in defense, its edge pointed forward like a spear.
His voice, no longer gentle, rang with raw violence.
"Vought Heroes…"
"…ASSEMBLE!!"
BOOM—!
The ground erupted.
The T-VEX-charged super-humans surged like ravenous zombies straight for the Cursed Warrior!