---

Colorado Springs
Some time ago

The Hulk landed with such force that he left an impression in the ground. Switching from leaping to walking, he trod the soft grass to where he could see fresh water springing from the ground. As he walked, calmly, slowly, his body began to shed mass. His skin reverted from green to pink and his features once more looked like Bruce Banner. Doctor Banner knelt down and took a sip of water from the spring. He had no idea how he had come here or where here was, but he was thirsty and the water was clean and refreshing. Dream-like memories of an ‘Inheritor’ began to fade from his waking mind*.


Looking around, Bruce spotted an old trail that led away from the springs. His thirst was quenched but was replaced now by hunger and he hoped the trail led to a town where he could get food and try to contact Betty. The trail looked like it went on for miles, though, without any signs of civilization around or, at least, none that he noticed. Had he looked up in time, he would have seen the robot spring out of the tree above him and land behind him on telescoping legs and then he might have had time to dodge before the robot reached out and grabbed him by the back of the neck. He might have had time to be agitated and revert into the Hulk before sedatives were administered into his blood stream through needles in the robot’s ‘fingertips’. Doctor Bruce Banner blacked out and was aware of nothing after that.

---

Westchester County, New York
March 28, 1972

The mansion of Professor Charles Xavier was gone. A demolition crew had already bulldozed away the remainder of the rubble that had once been the mansion. Today, a construction crew worked on erecting the framework for a new mansion in the same spot. They had never seen this Professor Xavier, but had dealt with his executor, a Mr. Scott Summers. Unbeknownst to them, the same Scott Summers was even now beneath their feet, in the shielded basement level of the X-Men’s headquarters.

Scott sat, as he had for several days now, hooked up to Cerebro, Professor X’s mutant-detecting computer. Nothing was happening, yet Scott ached from concentrating. Concentration and sorrow.

“Scott,” Robert said upon opening the door to the room. “We found Hank!”

“Finally!” Scott said, taking the helmet off his head and switching Cerebro into stand-by mode. “What took so long?”

“Well, he’s…you’ve just gotta see this for yourself, Scott. But prepare yourself for a shock.” Robert stood to the side.

Scott stood up and braced himself as he saw, through his ruby red quartz glasses, a dark, hairy, werewolf-like creature stalk into the doorway.

“Scott, don’t!” Robert shouted as Scott raised his hand up to his glasses to remove them and let his optic beam loose.

“I think I’ve had it rough enough these past two weeks without being blasted by an old friend upon our reunion,” said the beast.

“…Hank?” Scott asked hesitantly, stepping forward.

“Indeed it is,” Hank said, stepping further into the room as well. “It seems I have earned some bad karma returning to work at Brand instead of spending my days helping you search for Jean full-time. There was an accident and…well, this black fur is not a new costume, I am sad to say.”

“Oh, Hank…I’m so sorry…” Scott said, slowly raising a hand to Hank’s hairy shoulder.

Hank shrugged, though not so much as to brush off Scott’s hand. “Now I’m a mutant and a mutate. Hopefully it’s just temporary and, at least, my mind seems unaffected. But what of you? Last I heard the team was heading out to find Jean, wherever she may be, but now you’ve returned here?”

Scott pinched his eyes closed and raised his glasses high enough to rub his eyes. “I don’t know where else to look, Hank. We’ve been over half the country and haven’t turned up any sign of her, and there’s no telling if she’s even in the U.S. Those blasted Sentinels could have taken her anywhere!”

“But, Cerebro?” Hank asked, pointing to it with a clawed hand. “Scott, you’re not telepathic. How will you interface with the computer?”

“My last hope was that my psychic rapport with Jean would trigger Cerebro, but it’s not working. Hank, I know you’ve got…this to deal with for yourself, but I need you. The Professor is still missing. You’re the only one who can do this. I need you to help me adjust Cerebro.”

“I…I don’t know if what you’re trying can be made to work, but we’ll try, old friend,” he said, taking Scott’s hand.

Robert had sat in a small chair in the corner of the room, leaning forward with his chin resting on his palm. “That’s great, guys, but we can’t just sit around hoping Cerebro will solve everything for us. I’m going out there and joining the others in their search.” Robert hopped out of his chair and headed for the door, but paused and turned to say, “But I hope your plan works, Scott.”

“Me too, Rob…” Scott said.

---

Mount Pleasant, Westchester County, New York
Five minutes later

Lorna leaned into Alex as they stepped out of a local ice cream shop where they had just split a sundae. Alex looked happily on the smiling face of his girlfriend, glad that the ice cream had done the trick. Lorna had been sad and depressed all morning about Jean, but the surprise treat seemed to have swung her mood back to positive.

“What?” Lorna asked, gazing up into Alex’s eyes.

“Nothing.”

“No, what were you thinking?” she asked, still all smiles.

Alex’s thoughts were actually all over the map – their kidnapped friend, Warren’s slow recovery from his broken wing, the still absent Professor, and his own concerns that Lorna might start trying to pressure him into marriage again soon – but instead he answered more safely with, “I think all that fudge made me thirsty.”

Lorna started to laugh when she looked up into the sky and her expression changed. She grabbed Alex by the hand and pointed up to the sky just as a shooting star flew by, in broad daylight, and then faded from view.

“What on earth is that?”

“I don't know, Alex, but it sure disappeared fast.” *

---

Elsewhere
Around the same time

Jean was strapped down to a medical bed and kept under sedation. Scorpio watched a machine nearby that monitored Jean’s brainwaves. As far as Zodiac’s scientists could tell, she had been unable to use her telepathic powers while unconscious.

“How is she?” asked Taurus from the doorway.

“Sleeping.” Scorpio turned to face him with a purple metal face mask which revealed no features save for the red scorpion on the front.

“Then, all is well.” Taurus looked up at the bank of monitoring equipment. “With the threat from alien invasion and the Avengers breathing down our necks – this mutant could be our ace in the hole.”

“Yes,” said Scorpio. “Something like that.”

“Let me know when you are ready to proceed with Project Sweep.”

Scorpio bowed, giving Taurus respect as he left. Minutes after he left, she rose and laughed. It was a laugh that could have frozen the blood in her captive's veins.

---

Valley Hospital, Ramsey, New Jersey
March 29, 1972

The redheaded woman lay still in her hospital bed; monitors nearby showing her body functions were stable. The nurse nearby looked expectantly at Alex Summers but Alex just shook his head. “This isn’t Jean,” he said.

“Too bad,” the nurse said and sounded like she meant it. “When you called about our Jane Doe, we were hoping you knew her.”

“Just another false lead,” Alex said with a sigh. “Thanks, and good luck finding her family.”

Alex stepped out into the hallway where Lorna was waiting with Robert and Warren. They could all tell by the look on Alex’s face that this had been another dead end. Lorna rested her hand on Alex’s arm to comfort him.

“It was probably too much to hope the Sentinels would take her and then just dump her over the New Jersey border,” Warren said quietly. He shifted uncomfortably, unused to his wings being slung tight to his back again after his convalescence.

“I'm worried about Scott,” said Robert. “He's just gotten married, he's been left in charge of the school and he’s not even got a moment's break to enjoy with Jean because of her being kidnapped.”

Lorna nodded her head. “He's got a lot on his shoulders, just as Alex has.”

“Excuse me,” another nurse said from the nearby desk. She held up a phone. “Is one of you Alex Summers?”

Alex came to the phone. “Alex here. Scott? No, no luck here. Any news–”

“I’d better let Hank explain it,” Scott said on the other end as the phone was passed.

“Scott is trying to give me too much credit,” Hank said. “Without the Professor, Cerebro alone doesn’t have the range to find Jean. But, combined with the Avengers’ communications satellite that they’ve let me use, we’ve boosted Cerebro’s range enough that I think we have a good lead as to where she is.”

Alex gave a ‘thumbs-up’ to the others. “How good a lead?” he prompted Hank.

“I can narrow it down to a 25,000 square mile area in Colorado,” Hank said.

“That’s good enough for me,” Alex said. “Tell Scott to prep the jet…we’re going to Colorado!”

---

Six hours later

Doctor Banner awoke with a mild headache and feeling woozy. It didn’t take a nuclear physicist to figure out that he’d been drugged. Glancing around, he could see that he was strapped to a table and an I.V. drip was attached to his arm and that he was shirtless.

Scorpio, her face still shrouded with a featureless mask and wearing an orange blouse and matching red sport coat and skirt, came over to look at Bruce and laughed. Though he could not see her face, her tone told him she was a cold and deadly woman.

“You should let me go,” he said calmly. “I can...be a dangerous man when I am angry.”

“Really?” Scorpio ran a hand across Doctor Banner's thin and scrawny chest. “You are no danger to me, Doctor Banner.”

“What do you want?” asked Doctor Banner.

“The Hulk.”

“I don't see how I could help you there...”

“Oh, I know you inside and out, Doctor Banner.” Scorpio removed her hand from Doctor Banner's chest. “I know that you are the Hulk.”

Bruce could not mask his surprise. His secret was known to the U.S. military, but by few other people on Earth. “How…?” he began to ask.

Scorpio placed a fingertip against his lips. “There are things you should never ask, Doctor Banner, and now I take my leave as my colleague here draws out your alter ego for programming.”

Bruce strained to look past her to where she motioned with her hand and saw a man in a lab coat at a computer console.

“You won’t get away with this!” Bruce cried. A bright green light began to fill his otherwise brown eyes.

“Shan, I do hope you are ready,” Scorpio said calmly. “It looks like we’re about to have some hazardous company sooner than expected.” She backed away as Bruce Banner’s small body began to increase in size, his skin changed to green and his hair became a matted mess.

The technician, Shan, frantically threw switches to lower the ray projector that would, hopefully, calm the Hulk and make his behavior programmable, but the Hulk snapped his bonds without effort, leaped up, snatched the ray projector descending from the ceiling like a child breaking a twig and threw the projector straight at the technician. Shan went flying from the impact and did not get up afterward.

The Hulk had bent the metal table while jumping off of it. Now, as he landed, he scowled at Scorpio and ripped up the bent table from its bolted moorings. “You think you’ve trapped me, lady?” asked the Hulk. “No one traps the Hulk!”

The Hulk threw the bent table at Scorpio and she barely evaded it. The entire far wall was knocked down from the impact. Scorpio pressed a concealed stud on her mask and the Sentinels in the next room came online.

“Now it really begins,” Scorpio said, still amazingly calm.

---

Twenty thousand feet above Colorado
Ten minutes from Denver by jet
One minute later

The X-Men, all in uniform, rode in their private jet and all hoped that they would find Jean soon once they landed.

Hank scratched at his uniform, which now fit poorly over his furry body. “Uh-oh,” he said suddenly.

“What’s the matter?” Alex asked.

“I was just thinking…if we were able to detect Jean from cross-country, could the Sentinels not detect us at this range?”

Just then, the jet was rocked by the turbulence of four Sentinels flying up past it.

“Oh my stars and garters! I hate being right!” Hank moaned.

---

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To Be Continued...

Next: In X-Men #9: X-Men vs. Sentinels vs. Hulk vs. Zodiac!

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