The Hulk drew a deep breath into his mammoth lungs, held it, and exhaled. Then he heard a voice.

  Her voice.

  “Hey, big guy, we did it.”

  Black Widow. Her voice and face came in loud and clear over a Quinjet monitor. The Hulk walked slowly toward the front of the vehicle, staring at Black Widow as she spoke.

  “The job is finished,” she continued. Her voice cracked with emotion. “Now I need you to turn this bird around, okay?”

  He could have spoken at any moment, even grunted to acknowledge that he’d heard her. Anything to let her know that he was fine, and that he would listen and come back to his team.

  But that wasn’t in the cards. Not today. From inside the Hulk, Banner knew he had to get away. As long as he could transform into the rampaging Hulk, no one would be safe around him—least of all, his friends.

  “We can’t track you in stealth mode,” Black Widow said. That was true. The Quinjets were capable of traveling almost anywhere without being followed. “So help me out.”

  The Hulk stared at the image of Black Widow on the screen. She looked tired from the battle with Ultron. Most of all, she looked concerned for her friend. The Hulk sensed this and reached out to the screen, as if he were going to touch her hand.

  “I need y—”

  The Hulk gently pressed a button on the monitor, cutting off Black Widow midsentence.

  Alone, the Hulk sat on the floor of the Quinjet as its engines whined, the automatic controls sending the mighty ship through Earth’s upper atmosphere and into the deep unknown of space.

  CHAPTER 2

  One does not simply walk into the Realm of Fire.

  Unless the one in question is the son of Odin. In that case, one simply does walk into the Realm of Fire.

  Of course, there are consequences that go with so rash a decision.

  “Perhaps if they called this the Realm of Eternal Summer,” Thor muttered to himself, “they might have more visitors.” Thor grinned. He wished someone, anyone, had been around to hear what he had said. He was sure they would have laughed. After all, Thor was quite amusing, if he did say so himself.

  But there wasn’t much laughter to be found here in the Realm of Fire.

  Among Asgardians, it was more commonly referred to as Muspelheim, one of the Nine Realms. It was a land like nothing else. A world of eternal, ever-burning flame, where heat reigned. Water was not to be found on Muspelheim, not anywhere—in its place, bubbling pools of lava dotted the rocky landscape. The skies were rife with the stench of sulfur, and minute particles of ash constantly blew in the hot winds.

  A vacation spot Muspelheim was not.

  How Thor had come to be at Muspelheim was… what did Earth people like to say? It was… complicated. For the last few years, the son of Odin had been splitting his time between the realm of Asgard—his home—and Midgard. You might know it as Earth. On that world, Thor had found a sense of responsibility that had eluded him in Asgard. A responsibility to help people, those who could not otherwise help themselves. He had also found friendship and comrades in the form of the Avengers.

  It would not be so bad having them for company right now, thought Thor as he plodded along the searing soil of Muspelheim. He pulled at his beard, now grown long. His garments were worn, tattered. The Thor who walked into Muspelheim was not the same polished Thor who had joined the Avengers.

  The Avengers. It had been some time since Thor had fought beside his teammates. The last challenge they had faced was Ultron. The android had an agenda of extinction that he had attempted to force upon the Earth. Alongside his teammates, Thor fought with valor befitting an Asgardian, shattering Ultron’s plans once and for all.

  In the middle of that epic battle, however, there had been the vision.

  On the surface, the vision seemed to have been caused by Wanda Maximoff—she whose powers could cause a person to have incredibly realistic, disturbing hallucinations. But there was something so vivid, so real about the vision that had come to Thor—something so hellish and frightening that it disturbed him to his very core. He could not, would not believe that the vision was solely the result of another’s hallucinatory powers.

  In that vision, Thor glimpsed an eerie room full of Asgardians, his friend Heimdall among them. Heimdall, the so-called Watcher of Worlds, controlled the Bifrost—the bridge that allows beings to travel swiftly from Asgard to the other Realms. Thor had seen Heimdall in this vision, but Heimdall had not seen him—for the Watcher of Worlds was blind. It was clear that some awful, terrible fate had befallen the Asgardians, but what it was, Thor knew not. For as soon as the vision had come to him, it fled, banished to the shadows of his mind.

  But still the vision lingered within Thor. He wondered what it meant. It was not merely a hallucination caused by Wanda. It must have been an ill omen, a portent of something to come. A glimpse into the future of Asgard, a warning to Thor.

  Perhaps that explained in part why Thor had made the possibly foolhardy decision to enter Muspelheim alone. Something about the vision had led him to this place. Something that he had seen in his mind’s eye but now could not quite recall. He knew he had to be here, right now. And at least in Muspelheim he would find a welcome distraction. Something to take his mind off the vision. And what better distraction was there than walking through an inhospitable inferno filled with fire demons?

  He had yet to encounter any demons, of course, but then, he had only just arrived in this fiery land. It would take the demons some time to realize that an Asgardian had dared enter Muspelheim. Thor wanted—needed—a battle… something that would draw his attention to the here and now, allowing him to stay in the moment. He saw not a soul as he trudged along the molten ground. Here he had gone to all the trouble to steal into the Realm of Fire, and no one had come to greet him.

  “Unbelievable,” Thor said out loud, and he rolled his eyes. So he did what any Asgardian who had just appeared in the flaming world of Muspelheim would do.

  He introduced himself

  as only Thor could.

  Summoning the power of the storm through Mjolnir, Thor brought down lightning from the sky to meet the scorched earth of the Realm of Fire. He did this repeatedly, causing multiple arcs of pure electricity to strafe the ground.

  The sound of the thunder was deafening.

  The lightning stopped. Then there was silence.

  But only for a moment.

  For in the distance, the savage roars of the fire demons could be heard. Closer and closer, the sound came.

  Thor smiled.

  CHAPTER 3

  Hulk’s head hurts bad,” the Hulk muttered unhappily. He rubbed his skull with a thick green hand. His eyes were closed, and yet a bright light burned through his eyelids.

  These were the first words the man-monster had uttered in who knew how long. Certainly, they were the first words he had spoken since before he boarded the Quinjet and tossed Ultron to the winds. Before he’d turned off his comm and cut himself off from Black Widow. From anyone on Earth who might find him. Before the Quinjet had taken the Hulk into the depths of space. Before . . .

  The Hulk opened his eyes slowly. Harsh sunlight poured in. Quickly, he rose to his feet, still holding his head with one big hand. He took several tentative steps, pounding the ground, and immediately tripped over what looked like a giant old wheel.

  For the first time, the Hulk looked at the landscape around him, and saw that he was standing in what looked like an enormous garbage dump. As far as he could see, debris from the wormholes were scattered everywhere. It fell continuously, raining trash from the universe all over the desolate ground.

  Where was he? Why did his head hurt so much? Why was it so hard to think? Why did the Hulk want to think, anyway?

  Wait.

  The Hulk wasn’t in the Quinjet? But if the Hulk wasn’t in the Quinjet, what had happened? Had the vehicle crashed somehow? Had the impact knocked the Hulk unconscious?

  Was he back on Earth?

  The Hulk tried to remember, but that was always difficult for him. Remembering things, like thinking, was more Banner’s speed. But somewhere inside the Hulk’s clouded brain, there was Banner, wondering, analyzing, always the scientist.

  The wormhole, Banner thought.

  Banner had seen it through the Quinjet’s cockpit. He’d known what it was the moment it had appeared there in space, plain as day. It was similar to a black hole, but full of color. It swirled, brilliant, beckoning. Banner knew it was a wormhole.

  The Hulk? He had no idea it was called a wormhole. It was bright and colorful, and he didn’t like it.

  That was unfortunate, because that was exactly where the Quinjet had headed. The Quinjet had burst through the wormhole and somehow deposited the Hulk here, in this strange, unfamiliar place.

  The Hulk’s head still hurt, and he was tired of Banner, tired of thinking.

  The green Goliath plodded along the rocky surface crowded with trash. The Hulk looked up at the sky, expecting to see the sun that had woken him up so unceremoniously. And there was a sun, to be sure. But there was also something else.

  A vast array of swirling lights—like holes in the sky itself.

  Wormholes, Banner thought from inside the Hulk’s mind.

  The Hulk grunted in assent as he watched the wormholes swirling in the sky. A steady stream of objects seemed to pour forth from them. He watched intently as all manner of debris escaped the confines of the swirling lights. Strange crafts, asteroids, satellites, and more were being perpetually ejected from the wormholes, falling down to the surface in rapid succession.

  “Where Hulk?” he said, his voice bouncing off the dunes and sounding unnaturally loud, even for the Hulk.

  Banner knew that he was no longer on Earth. Unlike the Hulk, he put two and two together and realized that the wormhole was a singularity. An interstellar passageway, connecting two disparate places. A “space shortcut” between worlds. The Quinjet must have passed through the wormhole and deposited him here. Wherever here was.

  “I’ve got one,” came a voice from beyond a piece of metal debris. It looked like a ship of some kind. It was twisted and smoking.… Was it the Quinjet? The Hulk couldn’t tell for certain. There were so many ships partially covered in the wasteland. It was like some kind of galactic graveyard. “I’ll bring him in,” said the voice.

  The Hulk curled his upper lip into a savage sneer and grunted. “No one has Hulk,” he scowled, and he meant it.

  Then he saw her. It was a woman, her head popping over the debris, staring directly at the Hulk. She wore armor, and her arms were bare—the Hulk could see she had markings of some kind on her face. The woman started to walk forward, and as she grew closer, the Hulk could see she wore something on her hands that looked like elaborate brass knuckles.

  Weapons.

  Weapons meant fighting.

  Fighting was something the Hulk understood.

  An inhuman growl escaped the Hulk’s mouth as he bounded toward the woman. Raising his right fist, the Goliath brought it down into the spot where the woman stood.

  She didn’t flinch as the Hulk’s fist drove right into the ground in front of her. It was like she had been expecting the Hulk to do exactly that, and so stood in place. The Hulk’s momentum carried him through, and he hit the ground, rolling end over end.

  This made the Hulk angry.

  “Fight,” the Hulk snarled.

  The woman started to walk forward once more, holding a fob-like device in her right hand. “Fight is exactly right,” she said. “You’re here to fight. The Grandmaster will make sure of that.”

  She advanced on the Hulk, and the man-monster balled up both fists in anger.

  “Leave Hulk alone,” the Hulk yelled, and he meant it.

  “Oh, you’ll do nicely,” the woman said. “He’ll pay me handsomely for what I’m going to bring him.”

  The Hulk was getting madder by the second, as somewhere deep inside, Banner was asking questions. Questions like Who’s the Grandmaster? Who is this woman? What is that thing in her right hand? But the Hulk had a way of getting Banner to shut up and stop thinking and asking so many questions.

  The jade giant clapped his enormous hands together and expected the woman to be blown off her feet by the resulting shock wave. But this did not happen. She hadn’t moved even a millimeter. Whoever she was, she had incredible strength.

  This both impressed the Hulk and made him really angry.

  He threw another punch at the woman, but she easily ducked it. The Hulk staggered, thrown off balance. Turning around, he saw the woman waving the fob in front of his face.

  Banner had realized what was going on a while ago—the woman was playing some kind of game with him. She was using the Hulk’s anger against him, making him so mad that he kept slipping up. It was driving the Hulk nuts.

  So when the woman waved the fob in the Hulk’s face again, the Hulk was sure he had it figured out. He didn’t move. He planted his heavy feet in the hot sand and did nothing as he sneered at his foe, daring her to do something.

  Which she promptly did.

  She activated the fob, and it fired something right at the Hulk’s neck. A moment later, the Hulk’s muscles tensed, his teeth began to grind uncontrollably, and the worst pain that he’d ever felt coursed through his veins like poison.

  And then everything went dark.

  CHAPTER 4

  You dare to enter Muspelheim, Asgardian?”

  Thor’s smile grew wider. The air around him was thick with ash as the first wave of fire demons descended, and the son of Odin couldn’t have been more pleased. Thor stood his ground, legs braced, brandishing Mjolnir before him. Mjolnir, which had accompanied him into countless battles on countless worlds against countless foes.

  The fire demon’s voice crackled with the sound of an inferno. “None of your kind are welcome in our realm, Asgardian.”

  “That may be, but I was in the area and thought I might drop by for a visit,” Thor said casually.

  The fire demons looked at one another, not sure how to respond. Humor was not a known commodity on Muspelheim. It must have gone up in smoke, along with everything else in the Realm of Fire.

  Eventually, the fire demon said, “Stay a moment longer and face death. Your own.”

  “Not this day,” Thor shot back. He tightened his grip on Mjolnir.

  And just like that, the fire demons were upon him.

  A battle begins with but a single blow. In this case, it was not Thor who drew first blood, but the fire demons.

  A single demon lunged for Thor, its flaming hand gripping his left arm. Thor let out a gasp of pain as the fire demon’s touch seared his flesh. A sharp blow from Mjolnir dislodged the fire demon from his burning arm. Thor clasped a hand over the burn, rubbing it. He clenched his teeth. That, he thought, cannot be allowed to happen again.

  Thor cast a glance at the smoldering ground, focusing on the fire demon he had just struck. When he looked up, he saw hundreds more flaming demons just waiting to attack. He gazed at the horizon, and it was fire demons as far as the eye could see.

  As he had done so many times before, Thor began to hurl his hammer around his head as fast as he could. The twirling of the mallet kept the fire demons at bay, but that was not Thor’s true intent. The hammer whirled faster and faster, picking up speed, until at last Thor released Mjolnir.

  Like an arrow, Mjolnir flew straight and true, striking down one fire demon after another as it soared away from Thor and into the distance. The demons struck by Thor’s hammer knew defeat that day. But the other demons were moronic enough to see Thor temporarily deprived of his hammer and think him easy fodder.

  Fire demons could be such fools.

  A moment later, Mjolnir returned to Thor’s hand. Along the way, it had taken out countless more fire demons. Thor reclaimed his enchanted hammer and looked at the sea of fire before him.

  Settle in, he thought. You’re going to be here awhile.

  In the heat of battle, one tends to lose track of things. After the skirmish with the fire demons began, Thor lost track of how long it had been since he entered Muspelheim, and how many fire demons he had faced. Had it been an hour? A day? A hundred fire demons? A thousand? More?

  Wave after wave of incendiary hordes came upon Thor as he slowly advanced along the molten surface of the Realm of Fire. Each stride brought him closer. Closer to earning the attention of the one Thor had come to see. For he had no interest in the fire demons, other than as a diversion.

  Mjolnir was in his right hand. Thor let the hammer slide loose, grabbing it by the leather thong that was attached to its grip. He held out his left hand, keeping the fire demons away from him even as they continued to advance in droves. Thor twirled the mallet once with incredible force, then released the thong. Mjolnir flew from his hand, colliding with a row of at least fifty fire demons. The hammer hit them hard, casting each aside as if they were insignificant ants.

  No sooner had the hammer left his hand than it soared back, returning to its master. Thor caught Mjolnir in his right hand and surveyed his work, nodding slightly.

  “I’d like to see the Hulk do better,” he boasted proudly.

  CHAPTER 5

  The Hulk was angry, even by Hulk standards.

  The thing that had hit him in the neck—whatever it was—hurt. It actually hurt the Hulk.

  He wasn’t used to things hurting, and he really wasn’t used to being beaten.

  So: angry.

  “Hulk’s whole body hurts,” said the Hulk.

  After the horrendous pain, the Hulk felt something else he hadn’t felt before: paralyzed. He couldn’t move at all. He kept telling his enormous limbs to move, to smash, but they wouldn’t listen. And when the woman strapped some crazy-looking goggles over his head, the Hulk couldn’t do anything to prevent it. With the goggles on, the Hulk couldn’t see anything, either.

 

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