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"People's lives don't end when they die, it ends when they lose faith."
- Itachi Uchiha, (Naruto Shippuiden)
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<{Yuma Desert, Arizona, United States of America}>
<(Omniscient POV)>
"HULK SMASH!" A familiar green giant yelled at the top of its lungs before landing a heavy earth-shattering hammer fist right on top of Juggernaut's huge ugly face.
The massive mutant was thrown back a couple of feet due to the direct hit before landing on its back with a loud thud. However, before he could try to get up on his legs again, a bulky metal arm suddenly held his head from the back and smashed it further inside the Earth, resulting in the can-headed metahuman getting trapped inside a large crater on the ground.
"Normally, it would have taken me an hour to defeat him, and that too would have resulted in a lot of collateral damage, but the two of us were able to do it in less than ten minutes. We make a good team, Hulk." Colossus, aka Piotr Rasputin, spoke with a heavy Russian accent while holding up his fist for a fist bump.
Hulk, however, was slightly surprised at how friendly the huge metal guy in front of him was. By now, he had found out a lot about humans, either through Banner's own memories or by having met them himself in his green form, but most of them with the exception of a few like Betty, were either always afraid of him or just looked down on him for some reason. Some even outright hated or were disgusted by him. Piotr, on the other hand, was different. Despite being one of the physically strongest people Hulk had ever met, powerful enough to even take on a punch or two of his without getting turned to mush, Colossus acted humbly most of the time, choosing to treat Hulk with respect and a tone of warmth in his voice, something most people never bothered to do. And Hulk was glad for this.
"Metal man also strong." The Hulk declared with a happy grin on his face before bringing his own fist up and throwing it out in a fist-bump, but unfortunately for Piotr, the punch was too strong for a simple knuckle bump, resulting in Colossus getting knocked a couple of feet away by the punch. "Heh, but Hulk stronger." The big green brute smirked.
"This is way too funny for an experiment." A girl in her mid-teens, standing a little distance away from them, chuckled before looking at another blonde girl beside her. "Illyana, look at that. Your brother fits right in with the Hulk. Both of them are like two cute teddies. I just wanna hug them." She jumped up and down excitedly like a kid on a sugar rush.
"Don't try it though, you WILL get smashed to paste if you do. They might sound like two lovable teddies, but they are two of the most durable beings on the planet." Illyana muttered with a straight face as she continued to monitor the situation as they were instructed.
After Atem had rescued the still-alive Bruce Banner from Harlem the night he was thrashed by Abomination, they had been doing their best to help the scientist recover and gain control over his strange... power. In their endeavor, they had outright tried to erase the Hulk's personality at first but soon discovered that it was a very bad idea to mess with the Hulk's mind. If it wasn't for Jean and Wanda's quick thinking about putting his entire brain into a peaceful sleep-like state, they would have been in big trouble that day. So, they had to quickly stop trying to remove the hidden personalities inside Banner and instead try to help him in some other way.
It was then that Atem himself came up with the idea of forming a psychic link between Bruce and the Hulk so that the two could communicate with each other whenever they wanted and sort out their differences. The New God believed that Hulk wasn't truly evil or destructive. He was just an angry kid throwing a tantrum, and Bruce, instead of always behaving like a wronged victim, should instead try to act like his parent and show him the right way. Only then could he ever hope to gain control over the Hulk inside him. Bruce, of course, wasn't too happy about the idea, but considering that Atem was the guy keeping him safe from the US army as well as the monster inside himself, the genius had to agree to avoid annoying him.
