On a shattered New York street, two colossal figures clashed with bone-rattling force.
The fight was chaos incarnate — an unstoppable disaster for anyone trapped nearby.
The green-skinned Hulk roared as his opponent, a monstrous figure sheathed in jagged bone-like protrusions, slammed a fist into the pavement. The shockwave sent cars tumbling end over end like paper toys. What had once been sturdy steel was nothing more than ammunition in the hands of these giants. Vehicles were lifted, hurled, and smashed apart in moments.
Susan Storm was one of the unfortunate civilians caught in the blast zone.
She had only come here with her brother, Jonathan, to take care of a few errands. Neither of them could have imagined stumbling into a war between forces no human army could hope to contain.
And now, the fight was moving closer.
The siblings had taken shelter in a small storefront, but the building shook with each impact. Outside, debris rained down as another car was flung like a fastball. The front doors of the store had already been shattered under the first wave of destruction, leaving only a twisted frame and bent metal. Escape seemed impossible.
Then, with a gut-clenching whump, the bone-covered giant — Abomination — hefted a sedan in one clawed hand and hurled it straight at the store. The vehicle smashed into the doorway, crumpling it inward and ripping open a jagged gap.
"Quick! Susan, we need to go!" Jonathan grabbed his sister's arm, pulling her toward the opening.
They had barely moved when a second car came hurtling toward them. This one had no doorframe to slow it down. It was coming fast — too fast.
Susan froze. Her face went pale, her muscles locked in terror.
"Susan! Move!" Jonathan shouted, panic edging his voice. But she couldn't. Her body refused to respond.
The car's shadow swallowed them. In the split second before impact, despair hit both siblings.
And then —
FWOOOM!
A sword of searing blue fire carved through the air, slicing the car cleanly in half. Shards of molten metal skidded across the pavement.
"My little secretary's in one piece," a voice drawled lightly from inside the store. "If anything happened to you, I'd be just devastated."
Flames flickered at the doorway, and from them emerged a man. His entire body was cloaked in fire, but this was no ordinary blaze. The flames curled and locked together like the bones of an ethereal skeleton, forming an armored shape over his frame.
"Kurogai…?"
Susan's eyes widened in shock. It was him — Kurogai Blackwood — but she had never seen him like this.
Jonathan's jaw dropped. "Whoa! Dude, what is that? CGI? Special effects? This is— this is insane!" He stepped forward like an awestruck kid at a movie set.
"If you want to your hand turning to charcoal," Kurogai said with an easy smile, "go ahead and touch it."
Jonathan yanked his hand back instantly, grinning despite himself.
"Jonathan! Behave!" Susan scolded, her voice snapping him out of it. She turned to Kurogai, still trying to piece her thoughts together. "Thank you for saving us… but why are you even here? The store was empty a second ago — everyone ran out except me and my brother."
Her mind was spinning. She had been trying to figure Kurogai out ever since meeting him. First, she had assumed he was just a spoiled rich heir chasing women for sport. Then, his business dealings had shown flashes of real ambition, changing her impression to that of a flirtatious but driven entrepreneur.
But this… this was something else entirely. What stood before her now wasn't a normal man at all.
"You didn't send me a message?" Kurogai asked with a raised brow. His gaze flicked to the ground, spotting a crushed silver bracelet lying near Susan's feet. The instant he saw it, he understood.
"You must have dropped it when you panicked," he said. "That's how I knew something was wrong."
Susan blinked in confusion. "What do you mean?"
"It's not important," he said softly. "All you need to know is that with me here, nothing is going to harm you."
Her breath caught for a moment at the certainty in his voice. She looked away quickly, hoping he hadn't noticed the faint blush on her cheeks.
Jonathan, however, noticed something else entirely. He eyed them both with suspicion. "Okay, seriously, what is going on here? Because I am sensing… something."
Susan kicked him in the shin before he could finish. Kurogai just smirked and let it go.
The ground shook violently again.
This time it wasn't a car — it was a tank, hurled through the air like a child's toy. The military's reinforcements had arrived only to have their armor ripped apart and used as weapons by the two rampaging giants.
Without hesitation, Kurogai moved.
Susan and Jonathan watched as the flaming skeletal armor around him condensed into a long, curved blade of blue fire. With one precise strike, he cleaved the falling tank in half.
Jonathan's jaw dropped again. "That's… okay, that's just cool."
"It's too dangerous here," Kurogai said firmly, his eyes still locked on the battling monsters. "Get out of the area. I'll come find you later."
Susan hesitated. "What about you?"
He turned his head just enough for her to see the small, confident grin on his face.
"Me? I'm going to go knock some sense into those two idiots."
Then his gaze locked onto the Hulk and Abomination. The flames along his armor flared brighter.
And he stepped forward to meet them.