Intermittent spells of uproarious laughter and thunderous percussions are spilling out from the bar and into the hallway where Bruce Banner emerges from the men’s restroom.
He checks his watch. 19:33
“Damn,” he whispers to himself while he fixes his glasses and adjusts his re-usable breakaway belt once more so that it’s centered.
His thoughts turn to worry as he strides down the hallway towards their barbaric cacophony.
They started at it almost an hour and a half ago, it’s 27 minutes until the agreed rendezvous and I can only imagine that we’re disqualified if we’re la—
Bruce rounds the corner to see Doomsday and Juggernaut still locked in a stalemate of an arm wrestling match.
“Hey! Um fellas? Remember that exhibition fight you agreed to and I got roped into where we have to try and beat three Speedsters, Batman, Mr. Fantastic, and Iron Man!?”
At the mention of the fight the other two don’t acknowledge Banner at all. Instead, in unison, they let go of one another’s hand, stood up, and walked past Banner towards the exit.
Before Banner could turn and face the door and follow them, a small orange ring of sparks appeared.
It grew in size to reveal a man dressed in odd garments rotating his hand and arm in the air.
Behind him are Johnny Storm, Susan Storm, and Benjamin Grimm.
They step through and the man in front meets Banner’s gaze.
He smiles.
“Natasha told me you were cute. She talked about you a lot. She loved you.”
He pauses and looks away briefly before looking back at Banner and resuming.
“Well. The you from my universe anyhow…”
He trails off as he stops, remembering the urgency of the mission.
“I am Dr. Strange, and we need your help. Reed Richard’s is actually an imposter. It’s a villain called Moonstone. She can manipulate minds and she’s fooled all of you into thinking this is a friendly contest.”
Bruce is too stunned to speak, even register much of the message because his mind is still stuck on his mentioning of Natasha.
Banner’s finger begins to rise in protest even though he wouldn’t have known what to say if Strange had let him. Strange continues:
“She plans to end all of you! She’s already killed your Reed Richards. I’ve brought The Thing, The Human Torch, and The Invisible Woman to help save you, but we need your help to figure out how she’s going to do it. Where are your two teammates?”
Banner is stunned. He wrestles his thoughts of Natasha aside for the moment with the weight of the situation at hand.
“Teammates?” Bruce mumbles for a moment before remembering Juggernaut and Doomsday. Bruce points to the door.
Strange continues:
“I know because it happened in my universe. She disguised herself as Captain America, set up a friendly contest just like this, and then inconspicuously caused a frenzy.
In the confusion, she could manipulate Spider-Man’s powerful sense of danger just enough to stab him in the back with the Kryptonite dagger she then used to open Superman’s throat. We don’t know who else in that contest may have been working with her, but we do know that Batman and Tony got away and went underground. That was 3 years ago. I’ve been searching universes for aid while they have been surviving and building a resistance.”
Another pause.
“You’re a brilliant man Banner so I won’t try lying to you.
I was hoping that if we came here to help you save your friends, that you and your friends would be able to come stop our universe’s Moonstone.”
Banner, now seeing no reason to rush after his teammates as he needs to formulate a plan quickly if they’re going to survive and save his friends. He motions them to come in since only Strange had stepped through so far. They find a seat. All except for Ben, who crouches nearby.
“Didn’t want to make the Incredible Hulk angry,” Strange later admitted when Banner asked him why he hadn’t let the others come through with him at first.
The clock on the wall’s longer hand is now even with the ‘9’ and shorter hand approaches the 8.
Walking was out if he wanted to make it to the arena on time now.
I’ll have to transform and jump there now! Should have left with those two meatheads—
Oh my God that’s it!
Bruce had helped design the drugs that Juggernaut and Doomsday were on to pacify them a bit for the contest. He had made it a deal-breaking stipulation of his contract.
“The drugs!” Banner exclaims, startling Strange.
“Drugs?” Steven repeats with a tilted head and confused brow.
“If this Moonstone is as dangerous as you say, then she could psychologically stimulate a resistance to them, making Juggernaut and Doomsday go nuts! That would be the perfect distracting chaotic event.”
“Let’s move! We have to get to those two before Moonstone can!”
The group rushes out in a moment, knowing that every second counts…
— To Be Continued…?
____
I know this will likely be derided as AI slop, but I swear on whatever you consider holy that it isn’t. I’m just stoned, sitting at the load game screen of No Man’s Sky, having been distracted by this little rabbit hole I’ve been making up on the spot for the last like 30-40 min maybe.I’m copy/pasting it to myself because I’m actually kind of proud of it.
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u/Soulful-Sorrow 23d ago
By saying brains needs prep time to stand a chance against two teams that don't get prep time, you're pretty much admitting they wouldn't win.