Hulk Smashed part 1

[AT2000]

In honor of St. Pat’s yesterday, here’s the beginning of a story with something green in it...and a nice Irish boy.

Part 2 can be found at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HulkSmashed/

Thanks for reading!

Note: I'm new at posting here and sometimes the posting process strips out the formatting.
So, apologies if you are conftonted with a wall of paragraph-free text or lines of text that abrubtly drop to the next line for no logical reason, pasting into another
text editor might help if this happens.


Bruce Banner watched cautiously from concealment. He was just inside a thickly wooded, dark
forest that appeared to border a public park.

Minutes earlier, he had awakened nearby on the forest floor. Now, he was trying to figure out
where the Hulk's latest rampage had landed him, once the beast's rage had spent itself enough to
allow the unstoppable green powerhouse to transform back into the trim, sensitive physicist.

The park was nearly deserted. Still, the half-naked man was reluctant to show himself. The
army's Hulk-Buster unit was probably combing the country-side in search of his alter ego and
drawing attention to himself before he was able to find some suitable clothing was not a good
idea.

He hunkered down lower into the undergrowth as someone came running toward him. At first
he was afraid he'd been spotted, but the young man approaching at a run, veered slightly and
entered the tree-line along a trail that led deeper into the woods.

The kid appeared to Banner to be twenty-years old at the oldest. He had close-cropped coppery-
red hair and a light dusting of freckles on his arms. He was even skinnier than Banner, but
appeared to be close to the same height. Which made the fact that he was clutching a duffle-bag
of the type one might use to carry a change of clothing very interesting to Banner.

Bruce decided to trail the kid and see if he might leave that duffel unattended at some point,
long enough for the desperate scientist to make off with it.

The kid slowed once he was well into the woods. He was wearing baggy, athletic shorts and a
tank-top that had "Middleton Maulers" printed across the chest in red letters. Banner refined his
estimate or the young man's age to somewhere in the range of a high-school upperclassman.

The totally lost physicist tried to mentally place a city or town called Middleton in order to glean
some insight into his whereabouts. Unfortunately, he wasn't familiar with any such locality.

The kid came to a stop in a small clearing. He stood for a moment, breathing heavily, then
moved to take a seat on a large rock, tossing his duffle to the ground beside him.


*****


Christopher Sean O'Malley took a seat in the small clearing in the woods by Greendale park. It was a place
he often came to when he needed a little solitude. A senior this year at Middleton High School,
he had just washed out at the try-outs for the school's foot-ball team for the fourth and final
time.

Even though Chris had always been the oldest kid in his class (he'd be nineteen in three
months), he had always been a late bloomer. Kids two years his junior often out-performed him
in sports and all his pubescent growth, which had FINALLY begun to manifest itself, was
coming in the form of added height. Not that his current five foot, ten inches was really all that
tall, but at least he was no longer so noticeably shorter than his classmates. Still, this was small
consolation for having just been so totally humiliated by no less than three sophomores and even
one freshman in the football tryouts.

The other boys seemed to progress effortlessly in their physical training endeavors. Ironically,
Chris had become infatuated with the sport of bodybuilding at a very young age, and decided, in
the way that young kids do, that he was going to be one when he grew up. For years, Chris
exhausting himself regularly with a pretty intense weight-training program, yet no amount of
lifting seemed to have the slightest impact on his stick-like limbs. Frustratingly, it seemed that
all around him, kids years younger were proudly tearing the sleeves from their old team work-
out shirts to showcase growing muscles to both approving coaches and admiring girls.

Being denied the latter never really seemed to bother Chris, a fact that he subconsciously
avoided considering, but the fact that none of the school's coaches ever had any reason to notice
him was a constant source of frustration.

On top of all this, Chris's comparative frailty made him a natural target for every belligerent
miscreant in three grade-levels. As a result, he kept mostly to himself and had come to
grudgingly accept a position as something of an outcast.

Sometimes Chris wanted nothing more than to be able to overpower those bullies and maybe,
just once, humiliate his other class-mates who were, to the last guy, so physically superior to
him. Realizing that he would never have what it took to succeed in bodybuilding, he dreamed of
excelling at SOME manner of sport. Unfortunately, the only thing he came close to lacking
more than physical prowess was athletic talent.

Chris contented himself with reading for amusement and studying. He wasn't a stellar student,
but he did Ok. He loved the sciences, but tried to keep that passion under wraps. There was no
bigger tell that screamed "total geek" than being a science nerd, and he had enough working
against him in that department.

As if the odds weren't stacked against him enough to keep him from blending in with his
classmates as an equal. He had recently discovered himself to be a mutant. Something that, if it
became known to anyone else, was sure to make him even more of a pariah. Being a ‘mutie', as
people like him were disparagingly referred to, was not only isolating, but dangerous. Especially
since the mutant ability he manifested seemed about the most useless ‘power' imaginable.

Chris stood and picked up a fragment of a decaying tree-limb from the ground. He thought he
heard movement in the undergrowth nearby and stood motionless, listening until he was
convinced no one was around. Holding up the limb, he concentrated and an aura of ghostly-
white light formed around the limb. The aura quickly spread up his arm and soon engulfed his
entire body as well as the tree-limb.

Rearing back his arm, Chris hurled the limb away into the woods. But the white-aura remained
around the limb, it stretched into a kind of tether that connected him to the branch. The tether
stretched thinner until it slowed, then stopped the limb in mid-flight. Then with a strange
elasticity, the ethereal tether snapped the limb back toward Chris, who deftly caught it in the
same hand he'd used to hurl it away.

Chris examined the limb then smirked. "Couldn't have been the ability to fly or shoot lasers
from my eyes." He said, derisively. "No, I get the ability to turn anything I want into some kind
of weird yo-yo." Chris shook his head. "Just my luck. For this, I get to be an even bigger freak
than I was before."

"Us freaks need to stick together." A voice said from behind Chris, causing him to jump and
turn around.

Banner had decided that this discouraged youth might be as much in need of a friend as he
himself currently was, and that direct engagement was probably the way to go. He emerged
from his hiding place and approached.

"You...you were spying on me?" Chris asked disbelievingly. Then, more angrily. "You know?
You know about me!"

Banner held up his hands, trying to calm the boy. "It's Ok, I wouldn't tell anyone, I promise."

The thought of being exposed as a mutant by this interloper, as well as the lingering humiliation
of being beaten yet again by younger guys in the football tryouts combined to fan the anger Chris
felt at being spied on into a fiery rage.

When he charged Banner, throwing a punch at the older man's exposed mid-section it took
Banner completely by surprise. Bruce felt the boy's punch land home, but instead of the
wrenching pain he expected to accompany the gut-punch, he barely felt the hit at all.

Banner was so used to being thoroughly trounced in any sort of physical confrontation that it
took him a moment to realize that this kid was far weaker than even the slender scientist.

Years of pent up rage boiled to the surface inside Chris and he hurled himself at Banner, his
arms a flurry of ineffectual punches.

"Look, kid..." Bruce began, but trailed off, momentarily amazed at how easily he was
withstanding the young man's continued pummeling of his abdomen. "...I know what it's like to
be different."

Bruce abandoned his attempt to communicate and fell silent. The kid was so lost in channeling
his anguish into his assault that Banner didn't think a rational discussion was possible. He
decided to just let the young man vent.

Also, it felt odd to be so much more powerful than someone else. It was strangely gratifying to
shrug off such an intense assault with such ease. He felt his brutish other half stir somewhere in
a dark corner of his mind. The feeling of relative strength Banner was experiencing must have
resonated strongly with his powerful alternate persona.

Chris's punches slowed. He stared in frustration at the strange man's lean and surprisingly
strong abs, then to the look of concern on the man's face. There was no sign of discomfort at
all. The younger man gulped as he gave up on his attack. He wondered with dread if their was
going to be a counter attack from the slight, but obviously more powerful man.

"Feel better?" Banner asked. He smiled, concentrating on not letting that smile slip into a smirk
of superiority.

Chris was suddenly very glad that he'd never taken his father's advice to punch out the next
bully that picked on him. His father was constantly giving him pointers on how to throw a
punch effectively and urging him to take the fight to aggressive bullies.

But If this guy could withstand such an all out effort on his part, then his only hope for surviving
an attack on some of the powerfully built jocks that tormented him in school would have been
for them to collapse from laughter before they broke him in half.

Chris stumbled back from the other man. He looked like he was about to flee the raggedly
dressed stranger.

Again Banner held up his hands and tried to calm Chris. "It's alright. I'm not angry and I'm not
going to tell anyone your secret. But I would like to ask you if you have some clothes that I
might....borrow." Bruce gestured toward the duffle nearby on the ground.

"It's not like I could stop you from taking them." Chris managed with resignation.

Banner's smile widened. "Don't feel too bad." He said rubbing his abs, casually. One of the
benefits of being fairly scrawny was that it could really make a guy's abs stand out. "There are
times when guys a hundred times as strong as you couldn't do any better."

Chris just stared at Bruce with confusion.

"Uhm...that power you were using earlier..." Bruce said, trying to distract the boy from his last
comment, as well as gain the boy's confidence. "...might be that there's more to it. Sometimes
mutant abilities can take a while to develop fully. My name's Bruce, by the way."

Chris was slowly starting to accept the man's claim that he meant the boy no harm. If the guy
had wanted to, the boy reasoned, he could have clocked him and then took what he wanted by
now.

As Chris's mind calmed, questions about the older man began to form in his head. "What
happened to your cloths?"

The man wore only the tattered remains of a reserved pair of khaki pants. Incongruously, Chris
could see what appeared to be a racy, bright purple pair of underwear through the shredded
material of the pants.

"It's a long story." Bruce said then pointed at Chris's duffel. "May I?"

Chris shrugged. "Sure."

"Thanks." Bruce said, sounding relieved. He scooped up Chris's duffel and started pulling out
the clothing inside. After briefly survey the removed contents of the bag, he stripped away the
remainder of his khakis, revealing the completely undamaged purple underwear beneath

Chris watched the man pull on the pair of jeans and the t-shirt he found inside. The clothes fit
the wiry stranger snugly, Chris noticed grudgingly. The same clothes hung loosely on him even
though the two men were close to the same height.

For Banner's part, he wasn't used to this sort of trendy clothing. The low-riding jeans and the
vintage t-shirt fit him perfectly. It was a revelation to him that he might actually be able wear
something like this well. He was approaching his mid-thirties, which wasn't that old, he
reasoned. But it would have never occurred to him under normal circumstances to try on such
clothing and he was surprised at how well it suited him. He was by no means a muscle-head, but
the fitted nature of the outfit seemed to enhance his lean body to maximal effect.

"What did you mean earlier? When you said us freaks have to stick together?" Chris asked
taking a seat once again on the large rock.

Banner took a moment to consider his response. He had what he needed from the boy, so he
didn't see any reason to involve him further in his plight. "Well, it's hardly normal to be lost
and barely dressed in the middle of the woods now is it?"

Chris looked disappointed. "So you're not a...a..."

"Mutant?" Banner offered. "No, not exactly."

"What? Were you kidnaped or something?" Chris asked.

Banner grinned, ruefully. "Something like that, yeah." Banner changed the subject. "What's
your name?"

"Chris." The young man replied, reluctant to divulge his full name to this odd stranger.

"Chris." Banner said with a nod. "Can you tell where the nearest city is?"

"Chicago is about 75 miles north of here." Chris offered.

"Great." Banner sighed. He was several states from his base of operations in New Mexico.

Clothed, but still barefoot, Banner started to head out of the woods then remembered how Chris
had helped him out. He stopped and turned back to the kid.

"Umm, Chris. Thanks a lot for the clothes." Banner patted the pockets of the jeans he now
wore. "Do you have anything to write with?"

Chris pulled a scrap of paper and a pencil from a side pocket on his duffel-bag and handed them
to Banner, who proceeded to scribble down some information. "Contact this address and I'll see
to it that you are reimbursed for your clothes." Banner handed the paper and pencil back to the
boy. "If you're interested, I can put you in contact with some people who'd be able to help you
to deal with your mutant ability." Banner offered cautiously, wondering if his passing
acquaintance with Professor Charles Xavier might be enough to justify steering the boy in the
educator's direction.

Chris's eyes widened with fear. "NO! You said you wouldn't tell anyone."

Banner put a calming hand on the boy's narrow shoulder. "And I won't." He assured him. "It's
totally your call."

Banner wasn't sure what else he could do for the boy, particularly if he wasn't ready to accept
help. "I've got to go, but remember that if you ever change your mind...."

Chris shook his head emphatically to indicate that he wouldn't.

"...alright then." Bruce relented. One more bit of guidance occurred to him that he might offer
the boy. "If you're determined to go it alone, you need to work to make sure you understand the
scope and nature of you mutant ability."

Chris looked confused.

Banner tried to explain what he had in mind. "There are some pretty useful meditative
techniques that I've used in the past to...umm, to manage anger."

Chris couldn't imagine that this gentle-seeming man would have much of a problem with his
temper

Bruce continued. "They basically just involved learning to clear your mind and focus on the
nature of whatever it is that troubles you. The technique is also helpful in allowing you to
control and explore certain things - like your mutant ability."

"I don't think I understand." Chris replied, looking lost.

"Maybe a demonstration would be better, here." Banner motioned for Chris to follow him to a
nearby grassy area. "Just lay here and relax."

After Chris hesitantly did so, Banner knelt by the boy and continued. "Clear everything from
your mind, don't try and force this to happen, just imagine your thoughts all falling away.
Concentrate on one thing - like the sound of your breathing - until it's all there is."

Chris lay still and silent. He seemed to become more relaxed by the second. After several
minutes Banner broke the silence. "Looks like you're a natural at this." Banner said softly.
Chris opened his eyes and blinked. He almost seemed surprised that Banner was there at all.

Banner continued his coaching. "Now try the technique again, but this time, instead of
concentrating on your breathing, concentrate on your mutant ability. When you're totally
focused on it, use it...explore it."

Again, Chris closed his eyes. The random thoughts in the back of his mind all dropped away.
For a moment, Chris wondered how to concentrate on something as abstract as his mutant
ability. He decided to imagine his power as a perfects sphere. He visualized that sphere, then
concentrated on it. He willed his power to activate and in his imagination the sphere began to
glow.

Banner watched as the glimmering glow he'd observed Chris generate earlier returned to Chris's
hands, then spread to the rest of his body. Bruce smiled slightly and softly whispered "Thaaaat's
right. Good man."

Chris scrutinized the sphere in his mind's eye. At first it was perfectly round and continued to
glow with luminescence like a soap-bubble. Subtle, swirling detail in the sphere's surface
showed that it was spinning slowly.

Then it began to wobble slightly. Chris noticed a second, much smaller sphere had appeared out
of nowhere. It was adhered to the larger one. Unlike the larger sphere which had begun to glow
when the boy had switched his mutant ability on, this new sphere remained dim. Chris focused
his attention more onto the smaller orb and it began to grow. The non-glowing sphere was soon
nearly equal in size to the other and it was growing faster and faster. The analogy of soap-
bubbles again seemed the best way to describe how the two spheres stuck to each other.

The growing sphere quickly dwarfed the first one and swelled larger and larger. Soon the
rapidly expanding dark orb seemed to blot out the horizons of Chris's imaginary space. It
loomed over him like a great alien moon. Chris's heart-rate quickened as he tried to understand
what was happening. He reached out with his mind to try to will the massive and expanding
sphere to stop.

Instead the sphere lit up like the first one had, only the light from the growing sphere was
blindingly bright - to the point of being painful.

Banner watched with growing alarm as Chris's tranquil expression became more and more
troubled-looking. He had just decided to rouse the boy when the eerie glow surrounding him
vanished and Chris sat bolt upright with a loud gasp.

"Chris? What's wrong?" Bruce asked, wondering how the relaxation technique could have
ended up distressing the kid instead.

Chris clambered to his feet, breathing heavily. "I - I don't know." The boy looked very upset.
"I think you'd better leave." There was something almost threatening in the boys tone.

"I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what's wrong." Banner demanded firmly.

Chris tried to push past Banner and leave himself, But Banner grabbed the boy by the shoulders.
"Oh no you don't" Banner admonished as he held the struggling boy in place. He was concerned
for the kid, but he also had to admit that his ego welcomed the opportunity to further test his
strength against the young man. He found that he was easily able to overpower him.

Chris struggled, but Banner held him easily. "Look, you wanted me to explore my mutant
abilities and I did." Chris replied angrily. "I didn't want the first power and now, thanks to you
I find out that I have another one!" Chris struggled more frantically.

Banner shook him slightly to better get his attention. "What do you mean? What kind of other
ability do you think you have?"

"I don't KNOW!" Chris shouted. "Knowing my luck I can probably smell like a skunk cabbage
on demand...just...let me GO!" With a surge of effort Chris slipped free of Banner's grip and
stomped off.

Bruce didn't want to leave Chris alone in such a state...and he found himself oddly miffed that
the kid had broken free from his grip. Bruce sprinted after Chris and caught him by one arm.
Spinning the thinner man around he bear-hugged him, pinning his arms, then lifted him bodily
into the air and carried him back to the clearing. "You need to talk about this!" Bruce urged the
boy firmly.

"Let...ufff...let me go!" Chris squirmed futilely as he protested.

"Struggling is going to get you nowhere." Bruce explained confidently. He squeezed until Chris
let out a groan that trailed off into a whimper. "Awright...awright." He pleaded in surrender. "I
give."

Bruce was getting so caught up in the heady feeling of power he was getting from humbling the
younger man that he was almost sorry Chris had given up. "Promise?" Bruce asked, prolonging
the demonstration of his superior strength a bit longer.

Chris's face went red as he ran out of breath. But Bruce could feel him nodding his head
vigorously. That's when Banner felt something odd. Chris's soft, almost spongy feeling arms
and torso went rigid inside his bear-hug. It was as though the boy transformed from helpless
foam-rubber dummy into a writhing bundle of coiling sinew.

Bruce released the boy even as he felt him seem to find this strange, inner reserve of energy. He
reluctantly let him drop to the ground. Banner found himself relishing the idea that the boy
might be able to offer more of a challenge to him.

Bruce was surprised to see Chris almost immediately double over in pain. "Sorry, I didn't mean
to hurt you there, Chris." Bruce said, a hint of haughtiness creeping into the his concerned tone.

Chris clutched at his stomach as he felt waves of strange and intense pressure course through his
body. Even as his hands pressed into his middle in an instinctual attempt to somehow alleviate
the unpleasant sensations, he felt his soft gut tighten and grow firm. He could feel ridges of
muscle coalesce beneath his hands as if by magic.

As he grew accustomed to the strange sensations running rampant throughout his body, he ran a
hand along his upper arm. He stared at his arm in shock. It didn't look much different, but it
definitely felt different

The boy smirked. "I think I know what my other mutant power is." He straightened up and
stared challengingly at Banner.

"Well, good" Banner said as Chris approached closer to him. "You know what they say;
Knowledge is power." Bruce slapped Chris on the back in an outwardly friendly manner, but put
a lot more force behind it than was strictly necessary, as a way to remind the boy who was
physically in control of this encounter. The scientist didn't like the defiant look the kid was
suddenly sporting since picking himself up off the ground.

Seemingly unaffected, Chris spread his arms and faced Banner directly. Those arms didn't seem
quite as thin as before.

Chris felt his anger return at Bruce's not so subtle attempts at physically cowing him. "Thanks
for everything Bruce." Before Banner could react, Chris had enfolded the other man in an
apparent embrace of gratitude. "Maybe I can give you some insight into what power is in
return." With a small grunt, Chris actually lifted Banner off the ground.

Again Banner decided to put the kid in his place and returned the embrace. Again he squeezed
Chris hard in order to take the wind out of his sails. But this time, it felt like trying to squeeze a
fence post.

The boy laughed and inhaled deeply. His torso expanded to what felt like an impossible degree,
forcing banners arms open wider and then Chris gave Banner a squeeze of his own.

"Arrrgh, Chris..." Banner grunted. He tried to free himself but it was no use. "Chris that hurts!"

Chris continued laughing as he released Bruce, shoving him backward slightly. "And how about
this? Does this hurt now?" Chris fired off a surprise punch into Banner's abs, but unlike the
dozens of punches Bruce had easily absorbed from the boy earlier, this one slammed into
Bruce's stomach with authority and knocked the wind out of him.

"Unnnnfffff! H-how did you..." Bruce stammered as he struggled to remain upright against the
pain in his abdomen.

Bruce felt himself become angry at what he considered to be such an unfair surprise attack. He
threw a reprisal punch of his own at Chris's stomach. His fist was stopped dead as though it had
encountered the side of a house.

Banner drew back his hand and rubbed his fist, which felt a little numb.

Still smiling, Chris hoisted his shirt at the hem, revealing actual visible abdominal muscle where
before he had only ever had a flat, but featureless stomach. "Looks like I'm finally going to be
able to keep up with my class-mates." Chris raised one arm right in front of Banner's face. "I
wonder how many of them will be able to keep up with me now." Chris flexed his biceps and
his formerly stick-like arm jumped into muscular relief. He looked like a well-trained member
of a high-school swim team now.

Moving swiftly, Chris placed the stunned Banner into a headlock and squeezed.

Banner gripped Chris's forearms with one hand, his the boy's lead-pipe biceps with the other
and strained in futility to free himself. Banner felt his face turn red from the pressure...and from
his alarmingly increasing anger levels. "Chris....Chris. You have to stop." Banner gasped for
the breath to continue. "...you're putting yourself...in danger." Banner tried to explain.

Chris just laughed at Banner's perceived threat. He released the older man and shoved him once
again, sending him stumbling. The boy was even more intoxicated with his newfound relative
strength than Bruce had been. He advanced on Banner again and, slapping a hand on the other
man's chest, he clutched a handful of the borrowed t-shirt.

"I'm not sure why you think I'm the one in danger." With that and a growl of effort, Chris
hoisted Banner off his feet with one arm. Bruce wriggled helplessly, suspended in mid air. He
flailed for something to grab onto, finding only Chris's suddenly very sinewy arm. That arm
trembled only slightly with the effort of holding Banner aloft. Otherwise, it was as though Bruce
had grabbed onto an oak yardarm.

"Now THIS is what I call a mutant ability." Chris chuckled with approval as he shook Banner
slightly to reinforce his obvious, newfound physical superiority. "And I think I'm still getting
stronger." Chris performed a biceps pose with his free arm. Instead of a champion swimmer,
that arm now looked like it might belong to a fairly powerful quarterback.

Just then, Banner began to scream as if in excruciating pain. This shocked Chris enough that he
dropped the man back to his feet, whereupon Banner immediately crumpled to the ground. He
curled into a virtual fetal position and began to make strange gurgling and growling noises.

Chris recovered a little from his shock. "C'mon, you're not THAT fragile." Chris advanced and
hauled Banner to his feet. He was further surprised to find that Banner was now a good foot
taller than he was. The older man's face had taken on a more chiseled, primitive aspect and he
was ever so slightly beginning to turn...greenish.

"What!" Chris gaped. "What the hell ARE you?" Chris released the ever more hulking man
and sprang back from him as Banner reared taller and became more intensely green in color.

Chris watched as the cuffs of the jeans he had loaned Banner earlier rode up on the man's
lengthening legs, then split open against calves that were the size of bowling balls and still
getting bigger. The t-shirt was splitting along dozens of different tears and in moments it
shredded to ragged strips against Banner's rippling, swelling torso.

In a matter of seconds, the slim, lost man Chris had just met had transformed into a seven-foot
tall mass of bulging green muscle. As the beast leaned back in a ground trembling roar of fury at
the sky, Chris realized who...or what, he was now confronted with.

"You...You're the Hulk?!" Chris exclaimed hoarsely, his throat constricting with fear. The boy
finally overcame his shock and turned and fled at top speed.

[omelissokomos]

This is good, but part 2 in his YahooGroup is even better.

One small part of me, however, was hoping "Hulk Smashed" meant he was getting pissed drunk. That would've been fun to read.

[AT2000]

Thanks for the feedback. If succeeding chapters aren't better than the previous ones, then what's the point

...which I guess means the pressure is on for part 3


The Hulk on a bender huh. Hmmmm. He might need it after part 3.

Thanks again.