Chapter 40

I had to admit, out of every possible outcome that I had in my mind; the one in front of me was somewhat low on the list. Probably because it was so cliche or because of how likely taking such an option could blow up in Sterns' face.

"RAGH!" Seriously, turning Jennifer into She-Hulk? Sure, it likely caused emotional damage to both Hulk and Banner due to their whole 'this is all my fault' bullshit they had going on but there was no way he thought that he could control her forever, right?

"Might as well end this." I said to myself and pressed my fingers to the side of my head in the classic telepath pose, trying to get inside She-Hulk's mind and end this little forced family quarrel. Only to meet an endless torrent of rage that forced me out of her mind.

"That's surprising." I said to myself as I rubbed the bridge of my nose, having been unprepared for the feedback I had gotten but ready to try again. "Let's try this again."

Even though I was more prepared, the feeling of the mind that seemingly contained only anger was still jarring. If this was how it was for a merely mind controlled She-Hulk, I didn't even want to imagine what was the mind of the real deal was. Each moment inside her mind was akin to getting sucker punched and then getting punched again; ridiculous, full of pain and miserable. Yet among all of that, I could feel a glimmer of something deeper inside her mind.

Something bright and untainted by the rage that Sterns was forcing her to feel. Light, optimistic, happy.

"Hello there." I muttered to myself and entered the glimmering part of her mind.

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"STERNS!" Hulk raged at the grinning egghead while trying to keep the now gamma mutated Jenn off of himself. Which was rather difficult as Jenn was now strong like Hulk and Hulk did not want to accidentally hurt Jennifer.

"Isn't it just glorious, you have caused her to be that way Banner. She is ruined by your hand, just like any other thing you have ever cared about." And Sterns' words were definitely not helping. Every time the living slime opened his mouth, Hulk could feel himself get angrier and closer to losing control; closer to hurting Jenn.

"Halt villain!" Only for the ceiling above them to suddenly break apart and for the so called back-up to hover down.

"What?!" Which seemed to have made Sterns very uncomfortable so he was cool with it. "How did you defeat Vector and Vapor without me realizing it?!"

"It's simple, villain!" Hercules declared as he pointed at Sterns with a huge smile on his face. "We did not!"

"...what?" Sterns blinked at them before his eyes widened and started yelling. "You! You! You don't just do that!"

"I believe we just did!" Only for the son of Zeus to throw a punch with no care for Sterns' opinions, which ended up being deflected by the invisible barrier around the gamma mutate.

"It doesn't matter! I still have my She-Hulk! And she will kill you all, unless you heroes can bring yourselves to kill an innocent woman!" Sterns yelled with a deranged smile and bulging eyes as he started to laugh while pointing at the battle between cousins.

"I don't think that will be necessary." Only for Damian to walk into the room with a relaxed smile, right before She-Hulk let out one final bellow before seemingly shrinking unto herself and passing out on the floor, now looking more like a muscular woman with green skin rather than Hulk with long hair. "It probably would have been better if you had used a constant feed of wrath into her mind instead of the single huge shot of rage. One pump chump much?" He said with a smile but Hulk did not care about that or Sterns' reaction.

No. Now that Jen was okay, for a definition of okay anyway, there was only one thing left to do.

"KILL STERNS!" He roared out with all the rage he had been holding back against Jen as he pulled his fist back and threw his punch, right as Sterns' cocky smirk turned into horrified realization and a huge cracking sound echoed throughout the air, and with a flash of light; the barrier protecting the gamma mutate broke apart, sending the egghead flying back to wall.

"Uff, that looked like it hurt." Damian said with a laugh. "You ready to surrender now? It does seem like things are done for you."

"Done?" Sterns gasped out as he got up and pulled a remote-like device out of his belt. "I'm not done, boy. As a matter of fact, this is only the beginning!" He declared with a shout as he held the device out.

"...of my escape." And then pushed a button on it, causing a huge green light to cover himself for a second before... nothing changed?

After the light dimmed down, Sterns was still there; only looking confused as he pressed the buttons a few more times, only for nothing to happen. "Weird, that usually works."

"You mean your spatial displacement pillars around the building, the ones that would have used your gamma signature to teleport you to safety?" Valeria asked with a smile as she walked towards them. "I am sad to inform you that I disabled them before coming here."

"...that's impossible." Sterns said with a glare, more concerned with Valeria's statement than he was about the fact that he was in punching distance of Hulk. "I designed the firewalls and security measures of the pillars myself, and I'm the smartest man on the world!" His voice got steadily louder till he was shouting with spit flying out of his mouth.

"Good for you, but I'm no man." Which Valeria did not seem to care, looking at her nails with disinterest. "Besides, I think that you have bigger issues than your little ego." And that was when Hulk's hand clamped down on Sterns' throat and the egghead found himself face to face with the green goliath. Ready to snap his neck with the smallest twitch of his thumb.

"Slow down big guy." Only for Damian to put a hand on Hulk's shoulder and smile up to him. "I think I have a better idea for this piece of shit."

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