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Marvel MK: CH 99 – The Weight of Strength
🕑 Added 2025-05-31 14:28:12 +0000 UTCFlames licked the sky. Streetlamps flickered. Rubble crumbled like sugar under boot heels. Hulk charged Abomination—teeth bared, fists ready. But Abomination was faster. He sidestepped, then planted a boot right into Hulk's chest.
CRASH!
Hulk flew backward, smashed through a car, and slammed into the side of a building. Bricks exploded like confetti.
Tony Stark, hovering midair beside Jack, winced. "You said he'd win."
Jack, casually popping the last few kernels from his half-burst bag of popcorn, spoke with no urgency. "He will. In time."
Tony looked around—flaming rooftops, trapped civilians, total carnage. "Yeah? Well I'm out of time." His helmet snapped shut, repulsors flared—FWOOOSH. Iron Man launched toward the battlefield like a missile dipped in swagger.
Jack watched him go, chewing slowly. "Suit yourself, Tony."
Abomination roared, stalking toward the downed Hulk. "That's it? That's all you got?" Then—BOOM. Several missiles detonated on contact, covering him in fire and smoke. Tony descended through the haze, repulsors aimed downward, smoke curling around the red-and-gold. "Time out, ugly." He scanned the brute's body. "You need to lay off the steroids. Your back looks like a science experiment's migraine."
Abomination exploded from the smoke, swinging. Tony weaved sideways, jet-boosted left. SLAM. A concrete column shattered behind him as Abomination missed. Tony retaliated with a repulsor blast to the ribs—Abomination grunted, stumbled. The brute swung again—a wide haymaker. Tony ducked, rolled, and delivered a high-speed uppercut to the chin. The armor cracked slightly. "Alright, point for you," Tony muttered.
Abomination grabbed Tony mid-air and threw him through a bus. CRASH! Tony tore through steel and upholstery, alarms going off. "Ow." He pushed himself up, HUD flickering.
J.A.R.V.I.S.: "Systems operating at 74%. Chestplate compromised."
"Yeah, yeah, file a complaint."
Above—Jack Hou now hovered closer, standing tall atop Zephyr, drifting lazily into the scene. His laugh broke the air like a cracked bell. "KEKEKEKEKEKE! That looks fun!" His tail twitched behind him. His sleeves flared. "I changed my mind. Big guy—you wanna spar with me?"
Abomination growled, eyes narrowing at the new intruder. Then—HULK roared. He was back. Emerging from the wreckage, face bleeding, fists twitching. Jack looked between them. "Ohhh, 2 v 1?" He clapped his hands, delighted. "I'm okay with that."
The ground of Harlem didn't shake anymore. It warped. Every step from Abomination cracked the asphalt like egg shells. Every punch from the Hulk dented parked buses like aluminum cans. And every laugh from Jack Hou sliced through the tension like a flute playing over a funeral march. The three figures stood amid flaming wreckage and gutted buildings.
Above them, Iron Man hovered in a tight orbit, HUD flickering with data as he ran scans on all three. "Okay, just to recap," Tony said into the comms, "we've got Ragezilla, Mutant Shrek, and whatever the hell 'Kung-Fu Monkey' is supposed to be." No one responded. They were already moving.
Abomination struck first. He lunged at Jack like a cannonball with legs, swinging a lamppost like a club. Jack dodged with a delicate twist, feet skimming the pavement like he was dancing across oil. CRACK!
The lamppost tore through the air where Jack had been and embedded itself into a fire hydrant. Water burst upward like a geyser. Jack cartwheeled once—on one hand—and landed upside down on a mailbox, tail coiled beneath him. "KEKEKEKE! Come on, is that all you got? You hit like a disappointed dad!"
Abomination roared and charged again, swiping wide. Jack vanished. No teleportation—just speed. Pure footwork, pure insanity. He appeared behind Abomination and tapped him on the back. "Tag."
Then elbowed him in the spine, backflipped midair, and sent his heel crashing down on Abomination's neck like a guillotine. The beast stumbled forward, teeth clenching. "What are you?" Abomination hissed.
Jack landed gracefully, brushing nonexistent dust from his shoulder. "Oh, just your neighborhood hyper-evolved monkey god. Nothing big."
Then—BAM.
Abomination twisted suddenly and caught Jack with a lucky backhand. Jack's body launched through the side of a building, punching a Jack-shaped hole through drywall and brick. The dust hadn't even cleared when a voice echoed. "Rude. KEKEKEKE!"
Jack exploded out of the wall, flipping thrice in the air, his staff suddenly extending mid-spin and crashing down onto Abomination's shoulder.
BOOM.
The street cratered. The monster howled. Even in pain, Abomination tried to grapple Jack's midsection, but Jack twirled his staff like a baton, spun over the grip, and landed knee-first on the monster's head. Still laughing. Still clean. But Jack didn't have time to celebrate.
A green blur tackled him from the side with the force of a train engine. HULK. His body moved purely by instinct and rage, fists hammering like pistons.
Jack took the first punch straight to the ribs. It should have shattered a metal. Instead, Jack bounced backward off the impact, tail wrapping around a traffic light pole mid-air, slingshotting him back into the fray. "That's it, baby! That's the kind of greeting I LIKE!"
He slammed into Hulk with a palm strike to the sternum—one that made shockwaves ripple through nearby puddles. Hulk grunted, staggered, then grabbed Jack by the face and slammed him through three parked cars.
CRASH. CRUNCH. CRUNCH.
"Ooooh, yeah," Jack groaned, upside-down inside a convertible, grinning through bent steel. "That one had flavor." He backflipped out of the wreckage—still pristine, still smiling, not a speck of blood on him.
For a split moment, Hulk and Abomination turned to each other. Then—both lunged at Jack. And Jack laughed and ran straight at them. Like a lunatic. Like a god who'd been bored for far too long. They met in the center of the block like a collision of stories.
Abomination went high, Hulk went low. Jack went sideways—literally, sliding on Zephyr which darted across the ground as a shifting mist board. He flipped between their combined assault, using Hulk's shoulder as a springboard, landed midair, spun, and kicked Abomination in the back of the head.
WHAM.
Then he spun and caught Hulk's fist with his bare palm. Held it. Just for a second. Hulk's eyes widened. Jack's smile dropped just slightly. "You're getting better, Bruce." Then he let go, twirled under the next punch, and fired a low spinning sweep that actually knocked the Hulk off his feet. He didn't hit harder. He hit smarter. And he was still limiting himself.
From the sky, Iron Man tracked every motion. "Jesus, this guy's got anime physics and Looney Tunes energy." He fired precision missiles at Abomination when he tried to sneak behind Jack, staggering the brute. He used concussive repulsors to buy Hulk space to recover. "Keep him busy, monkey man. I'll play sniper."
J.A.R.V.I.S. pinged. "Warning: Structural collapse imminent."
Tony muttered, "That's a given, buddy." He loosed another spread of arc bolts, keeping the battlefield just barely contained.
Jack now stood on Zephyr mid-air, staff planted like a spear. Below him, Hulk and Abomination growled from opposite ends of a smoking crater. Jack inhaled deeply, tail curling with slow precision. "Now this... is what I call a workout."
A long pause. The wind shifted. Smoke curled over burning cars, shattered concrete, and flickering lamplight. The night carried the heat of a battle nearly finished, its fighters momentarily winded.
Jack Hou stood calmly atop Zephyr, arms folded behind his back, his pristine black cheongsam still as sharp as when the fight began. Beneath him—Hulk and Abomination now stood a few feet apart, eyes narrowed not at each other, but upward.
Jack smiled down. "Why are you guys friends now?" he called.
Abomination's lips curled. Hulk looked to his side. The green giant blinked—realizing what Jack meant. They had, unconsciously, begun fighting together… against him. But the moment shattered.
Abomination snarled and lunged, grabbing a length of thick iron chain ripped from a nearby construction rig. With a spin of brute strength, he whipped it toward Hulk, the links screaming through the air.
CRACK.
Hulk growled, crouched low, and leapt, crashing into Abomination with another collision of pure rage. The battle resumed.
Jack laughed. "KEKEKEKEKEKE! Ah, back to what you're good at."
Tony Stark hovered nearby, suit scuffed, HUD flickering with readouts. He turned to Jack, his voice half-disbelief, half-wary admiration. "Okay. Seriously. What the hell are you?"
Jack didn't answer right away. He just sat on Zephyr like a man settling into a warm bath—legs crossed, chin resting on his palm, body impossibly still. "It's interesting," Jack said softly, "the way they started working together once they realized…" He raised one finger toward himself. "…I'm far stronger than both of them."
Tony's visor flicked briefly. "Yeah. That's just human nature."
Jack smirked. "You would say that." He gestured toward the chaos below. "But would they still call themselves human?"
Tony didn't answer. Down below, the fight approached its end. Hulk had locked Abomination in a crushing rear choke, legs wrapped, muscles flexing like tree trunks.
Tony watched. It was over. He powered his jets… then hesitated. A beat passed. Then—he cut the thrusters. "Hey," Tony said, still floating. "Thanks."
Jack tilted his head, blinking. "For what?"
"For what you said last time we met. About... my issue. It stuck."
Jack's smile widened. Just slightly. "KEKEKEKE... Anytime, Metal Man. How about hiring me as your therapist?"
Tony's lips curled in a dry smirk. "Don't push it."
His helmet closed, and without another word, he soared away, vanishing into the night like a comet with a conscience.
Jack watched him go, chuckling. "KEKEKEKE... he really needs one."
…
Abomination was on his last breath. Hulk's arms crushed tighter. The chain lay broken nearby. The monster's claws dug trenches into the asphalt. Then—a chopper's rotors echoed. Betty Ross ran out from the landing zone, hair whipping in the wind, voice cracking. "BRUCE!" General Ross followed, slower, grim-faced.
Hulk turned. He saw her. His grip loosened. He dropped Abomination's limp body and slowly stood. The green titan's chest heaved. His eyes softened as he took one, hesitant step toward her. But just as Abomination began to stir again, fingers twitching—BOOOOOOM. The air quaked.
A massive, monolith slammed down from the sky like divine judgment. It landed with enough force to crater the entire intersection. The Ruyi Jingu Bang. True size. True weight. Unforgiving.
Abomination didn't scream. There wasn't time. He was simply—gone. Crushed beneath the myth made metal. Jack now stood beside the towering staff, resting one palm casually on its warm surface. He waved toward General Ross with his other hand. "Hi, General! Don't worry, I cleaned up!"
General Ross stood stunned. Motionless. Hulk turned back to Betty—his hand outstretched. Then he paused. His massive shoulders lowered. A silence passed between them. And then—Hulk turned away. He leapt, soaring skyward, disappearing into the dark horizon, leaving Betty behind in the flickering aftermath.
The dust hadn't settled yet. The massive golden Ruyi Jingu Bang, now firmly planted in the earth like a holy spike, steamed softly against the cracked pavement. Its surface still glowed with residual energy, reverberating in the bones of every soldier nearby.
A mangled, pulpy mass—once Abomination—lay beneath it, unrecognizable. Flattened into something more red than human.
Jack Hou exhaled calmly. Then—with a small twirl of his fingers—he approached the divine weapon and gently touched its base.
The monolith shrank, shrinking in on itself like origami collapsing into a single staff of myth. It spiraled upward into his palm until it became no more than a thin gold bar, which Jack slipped casually to his ear. Now an earring. A divine weapon disguised as an accessory.
"Oof," Jack muttered as he glanced at the remains. "I assume you'll mop that up?"
General Ross said nothing at first. He stood rigid, fists clenched, lips thin, gaze locked on the mess that was once his genetically-modified enforcer. "I gave you twenty-four hours, Jack."
Jack smiled, eyes alight. "For what? A warrant?" He waved lazily. "My clone will always be at Golden Peach. You want to arrest someone? Be my guest. KEKEKEKE."
He crouched. Then—jumped upward, a vertical blur, tail streaming like ink through the night sky. Zephyr caught him midair, shifting into form beneath his boots, and the two vanished into the haze like a dream dissipating in smoke.
Ross didn't speak. He couldn't. The truth gnawed at his pride: he couldn't do a goddamn thing to Jack Hou. So instead, he turned, swallowed the lump of frustration in his throat, and walked slowly toward Betty, who stood at the edge of the wreckage with glassy eyes. They exchanged no words. He just took her gently by the arm and led her back toward the waiting helicopter. The battle was over. But none of them had won.
…
Jack landed. Zephyr folded and dissolved into mist, drifting toward the koi pond like it was heading for a nap.
Jack stood at the gate of his home—now, finally, it looked like proper house.
The dust was gone. The wreckage cleared. His mansion had taken shape—a traditional Chinese siheyuan, restored with reverence. Sloping, terracotta roofs, perfectly aligned. Intricate wooden lattice carvings that caught moonlight. A crystal-clear koi pond, the fish gliding in slow meditation. Bamboo stalks rustling in harmony with a soft breeze. A fresh, cedarwood gazebo, empty and waiting.
Jack let out a long, satisfied breath. "Alright. Let's relax, shall we?" He walked inside, kicked off his shoes, and moved barefoot across polished stone. He reached for his phone—a battered but high-end model, with a cracked case and too many unread notifications.
Tap.
He opened social media. And began to doom scroll. Casually, comfortably, like a divine being settling back into absurd, mortal rot. His tail flicked once. Somewhere, a meme made him chuckle. "KEKEKEKE… bunch of idiots."
