-Broadcast-
[On the Rainbow Bridge, Skurge stood in front of the ranks of undead soldiers, his executioner's axe Tiamat gripped tightly in both hands. He shouted forward with commanding authority: "Heimdall!!!"]
Heimdall heard the threatening call and turned to look back over his shoulder, his heart sinking as he confirmed what his all-seeing eyes had already told him—the road behind them was completely blocked by enemy forces. They were trapped.
[Skurge stretched out one hand forward in a demanding gesture, his voice echoing across the bridge. "That sword!"]
The undead soldiers behind him began to charge forward in a wave of ancient armor and rusted weapons, their movements unnaturally synchronized. Skurge tightened his grip on Tiamat, the massive double-bladed axe gleaming with deadly promise as he prepared to lead the assault.
[Inside the grand hall of the palace, Hela had gained the upper hand completely. She grabbed Thor's neck with one hand, her fingers digging into his throat, and pressed him violently against a marble pillar, the impact cracking the ancient stone.]
"Let me tell you something, brother—there's a difference between you and me!" Hela's voice was filled with bitter triumph and long-suppressed rage. "I'm Odin's eldest son! The firstborn! The rightful heir to the throne! The savior of Asgard who conquered the Nine Realms!" Her eyes burned with fury. "And you're nothing!"
[Hela emphasized her point by lifting Thor high up in the air with one hand, demonstrating her superior strength, and then threw him down to the ground with tremendous force. Thor's body hit the stone floor with a sickening thud that echoed through the hall.]
Thor struggled to his feet, breathing heavily, blood trickling from his mouth. He looked up at Hela approaching him with slow, confident steps, like a predator savoring the final moments before the kill.
[A Sword of the Night Sky materialized in Hela's hand with a shimmer of dark energy, and she slashed toward Thor with lethal speed and precision.]
Thor's combat instincts kicked in. He raised his left hand desperately to grab and hold her sword arm, stopping the blade inches from his throat, and struck at her arm hard with his right hand, trying to break her grip or at least knock the weapon away.
[But Hela easily deflected his strike with a twist of her wrist, showing how outmatched he was, and thrust her sword upward toward him in a vicious counter-attack aimed at his ribs.]
Thor dodged sideways at the last second, the blade whistling past his body close enough to tear his clothing. He immediately retaliated, punching her in the face twice in rapid succession—left, right—his fists connecting solidly. He prepared to throw a third punch to press his momentary advantage.
Unexpectedly, Hela's counterattack was lightning-fast and brutal. The sword slashed through his wide-open, undefended torso before he could complete his combination.
"Ugh!" Feeling the sharp, burning pain of the deep cut, Thor half-crouched on the ground, clutching his bleeding stomach with both hands, trying to hold his wound closed.
[Hela turned her back to Thor dismissively, a look of profound disappointment crossing her face. She had expected more from Odin's favorite son.]
"Your movements are so obvious and clumsy, even a blind person could see them coming!" she said mockingly, her voice dripping with contempt.
[As Thor turned his head to look at her through pain-blurred vision, Hela suddenly spun around and swung her sword at his face in one fluid, devastating motion.]
["Ah!!!!" Thor screamed in agony as Hela's blade carved across his face, and his right eye was brutally blinded by the Goddess of Death! Blood poured down his face in rivulets as he collapsed to his knees.]
"Ugh... you remind me of my father right now!" Looking at Thor's current appearance—bloodied, one-eyed, defeated—Hela's lips curled downward into an expression of disdain mixed with dark amusement. "How poetic that you should share his weakness."
-Real World-
"Oh my God! Thor!" Wanda covered her mouth with both hands and exclaimed in horror, her eyes wide with shock at the brutal injury. She couldn't help but feel sympathy pain, imagining how terrible it must have been.
Thor's face in the viewing dimension also looked distinctly uncomfortable, his hand unconsciously moving toward his own right eye. The memory of that pain was still vivid, even after all this time.
"It looks like you've followed in your father's footsteps after all—losing an eye! Just like Fury did!" Rhodes observed with a slight shrug, trying to lighten the mood despite the grimness of the scene.
Tony reached over and patted Thor's shoulder consolingly. "It's okay, buddy. If you ever lose an eye in our timeline, I'll design you the best prosthetic eye money can buy! Top of the line Stark tech, guaranteed!"
Thor rolled his remaining eye with exaggerated annoyance. "I won't give her the chance to blind me! I'm much stronger now! So keep your prosthetic eye for yourself, Stark!"
"Okay, okay!" Tony didn't take offense, raising his hands in mock surrender. It was just friendly banter anyway, a way to cope with watching their friend suffer.
-Broadcast-
[On the Rainbow Bridge, a large number of undead soldiers continued their relentless attack, clashing violently with the Asgardians at the front of the refugee group who had drawn their weapons to defend their people. Steel rang against steel, and cries of pain echoed across the mystical bridge.]
Valkyrie continued to fire sustained bursts at the giant wolf Fenrir from the Commodore's turret, the energy bullets creating small explosions of light across its massive body. Fenrir was clearly enraged by her persistent attacks—she could see the fury in its yellow eyes—but the beast could do nothing about the spaceship hovering in the sky above, safely out of reach. Frustrated and angry, it had to vent its rage on the group of terrified people directly in front of it instead.
Valkyrie looked down at the enormous wolfhound, which had been shot countless times—hundreds of rounds, maybe thousands—but the barrage hadn't even scratched its magically-enhanced hide. She shouted in helpless frustration:
["This damn dog just can't be killed!!!"]
Inside the Commodore's cockpit, Banner sat in the pilot's seat, his hands trembling on the controls. He began to hesitate, paralyzed by a fear that had been growing since Sakaar. He was terrified that if he transformed into the Hulk again, he would never be able to change back to Bruce Banner. He'd be trapped as the Hulk forever, losing himself completely to the green monster.
The crowd of refugees watched in mounting terror as the massive wolfhound rapidly approached them, its jaws snapping, its claws tearing up the surface of the bridge. They shoved backward in panic, parents clutching children, the elderly struggling to keep their footing. Meanwhile, those on the other side of the trapped group also retreated continuously, pushed back step by step in the face of the relentless attacks from the undead soldiers.
[They were huddled together like this in the middle of the bridge, compressed from both sides, with nowhere to retreat! The trap was closing, and death approached from both directions.]
Banner piloted the spaceship with white knuckles, following Fenrir's movements as it bounded toward the helpless civilians. As the wolf approached the crowd, mere seconds from tearing into them, Banner finally made up his mind. His jaw set with determination, and he left the pilot's seat, putting the ship on auto-hover.
Heimdall stood at the front of his people, watching Fenrir approach from his position on the bridge. He slowly reached up and pulled off his protective hood, then raised the great sword Hofund high in both hands, holding it in a defensive stance, ready for what would likely be his final battle.
He knew with absolute certainty that he couldn't retreat. Behind him were his people—men, women, children, elderly—all the refugees who had trusted him to lead them to safety. He had to stop Fenrir here, even if it meant his death. He would buy them time with his life if necessary. That was his duty as their protector.
Banner walked over to where Valkyrie was operating the turret and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. He tried to sound confident and comforting despite his own fear. "Everything will be fine! Just look at me! Don't you want to know who I am? My secret?"
"What are you talking about?" Valkyrie asked, confusion evident in her voice.
[Valkyrie looked at Banner in complete bewilderment, wondering what was wrong with him? Why was he acting so strangely at a time like this?]
Banner looked down at the massive wolfhound below, took a deep breath, and said calmly into the rushing wind, his hair whipping around his face, "You'll understand in a moment!"
[After saying this, he jumped off the Commodore , his body falling through empty space toward the bridge far below.]
-Broadcast-
The giant wolf Fenrir was getting closer and closer to the refugees at full speed, covering ground with terrifying swiftness. Just as it was about to reach them, about to sink its fangs into defenseless flesh, a person suddenly fell from the sky like a meteor and landed directly in front of the charging beast with a loud "crack" as his body hit the bridge surface, startling Fenrir into momentary confusion.
The wolf skidded to a halt, its claws scraping across the bridge. It lowered its massive head and sniffed Banner carefully with its wet nose, only to discover that Banner was lying completely motionless on the ground, arms and legs sprawled at odd angles, as if he had fallen to his death from the impact.
Fenrir nudged Banner's limp body again with its nose, pushing him slightly. But seeing that Banner still didn't react—no movement, no breathing, nothing—it bared its fangs in a growl of disappointment and turned away, refocusing on its original prey. It began charging forward again toward the defenseless crowd.
Heimdall, holding Hofund in both hands with a warrior's grip, slowly took two purposeful steps forward, placing himself directly in the wolf's path. He vowed silently to fight Fenrir to the death, to give his life meaning in these final moments.
[The crowd of refugees behind him was so frightened by the approaching monster that they desperately pushed backward, crying out in terror, trying instinctively to get away from this nightmarish creature even though there was nowhere left to go.]
[Just as Fenrir was about to pounce on Heimdall, its muscles coiling to spring, it suddenly seemed to be caught by something invisible and stopped abruptly in front of Heimdall, its forward momentum completely arrested.]
Fenrir instinctively exerted force with all four of its powerful limbs, trying to anchor itself to the ground, its claws digging deep into the mystical surface of the bridge. But the force coming from behind was far too great, impossibly strong.
Even though its razor-sharp claws carved deep gouges in the bridge surface, sending up sparks, it couldn't stop itself from being dragged backward against its will.
[The next second, the entire wolf—easily weighing several tons—was lifted completely off the ground and slammed down heavily onto the bridge surface on the other side with earth-shaking force, the impact creating cracks in the crystalline structure.]
[After Fenrir struggled to its feet, shaking its massive head to clear it, it saw that the one who had thrown it so easily was a big green humanoid, muscles rippling with barely contained power.]
The Hulk roared loudly at Fenrir, beating his chest with his fists, the sound echoing like thunder across the bridge. Valkyrie in the sky above opened her mouth wide in shock and sudden understanding, finally comprehending what Banner had meant!
[Fenrir, its pride wounded and its fury ignited, angrily responded to Hulk's challenging roar with one of its own and rushed toward him at full speed, determined to tear this green creature apart.]
Hulk threw a massive haymaker punch with his right fist, putting his full strength behind it. But Fenrir was faster than he expected—it dodged under the blow and bit down hard on Hulk's arm with its enormous jaws, its teeth sinking deep into green flesh. The force of the bite knocked Hulk off balance, sending him crashing to the ground. Both combatants slid across the bridge surface from the momentum.
[But Hulk was no pushover, and he wasn't about to let some oversized dog get the better of him. Even with Fenrir's jaws clamped on his arm, even through the pain, he was able to grab the wolf and flip it over his body with raw strength, reversing their positions. The force of the throw sent both of them tumbling off the edge of the Rainbow Bridge, and they fell together into the dark sea far below with a tremendous splash.]
[While Valkyrie was distracted, watching in fascination as Hulk fought Fenrir in the waters below, several undead soldiers took advantage of her inattention. They had secretly climbed up the side of the Commodore using their weapons as makeshift handholds and were now on the hull, beginning to sabotage the ship's systems with their ancient weapons.]
[Valkyrie spotted them in her peripheral vision and quickly rushed back to the control seat. She grabbed the controls and manipulated the spaceship to spin rapidly in place like a carnival ride, trying to throw the undead soldiers off through centrifugal force.]
-Real World-
"Banner! Are you here to make people laugh?" Rhodes couldn't help but complain as he watched Banner's ungraceful landing—the splat on the bridge, the complete lack of transformation. He shook his head in disbelief.
"The wolf thought you were some big guy falling from the sky and was actually scared by you for a second! Hahaha!" Tony also laughed heartily, unable to contain his amusement at the anticlimactic moment. "That's got to be the least heroic entrance I've ever seen!"
"Hahaha!" The others joined in the laughter, and Banner rubbed his hands together awkwardly, his face flushing with embarrassment. He had genuinely thought he would transform into Hulk during the fall through the air, that the adrenaline and fear would trigger the change immediately.
He didn't expect Hulk to refuse to come out on time, stubbornly staying hidden until after Banner had thoroughly embarrassed himself by face-planting on the bridge! This was really mortifying! Of all the times for Hulk to be uncooperative...
"Hulk also has his own intelligence and personality, you know," Natasha said gently, her expression understanding. She'd spent more time with both Banner and Hulk than most people. "If you don't have a good relationship with him, if you don't treat him with respect, he will definitely not let you get what you want! He can be quite petty when he feels slighted."
Wanda nodded thoughtfully in agreement. "Yeah! Indeed! His likes and dislikes are very obvious and straightforward, like a child in some ways. And after two years of living on Sakaar as the champion, his wisdom and intelligence have also improved significantly! He's learned, grown. He's not just a mindless rage monster anymore."
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