234 - Secret of the Hulk!

Determined to really find Hulk this time, especially after seeing how the world was reacting to this invasion, Bruce decided to take drastic measures.

Almost everyone who played ESW knew about NedTheKing and his two best friends, PParker and Hulk, two players who had innocent and interesting personalities that made the three of them quite famous.

Bruce knew about them too, so he waited for Ned to open a stream to see where they were so he could go to them.

Normally, Ned was always around a lot of people, because with an audience of millions of players, it was only natural that a large number of fans would want to interact with him and appear in the stream.

So Bruce knew that in order to interact with them, he had to be the first to meet them when Ned opened the stream.

For the last 3 days, Bruce had been busy watching Ned's streams, going to the location and disconnecting where Ned had last disconnected.

His idea was to try to connect with Ned and his friends at ESW before Ned opened the stream so the fans wouldn't get in the way.

The first day was spent just getting to where they were, as the ESW map was too big to accommodate all 3 billion players.

The other two days he tried to stake out the place where the three had disconnected, but despite being online for 8 hours he couldn't find them because he had to work.

So on the third day, he had to go to where they had last been and try again, luckily this time he got lucky, as soon as he arrived in the town where they had last been streaming, he saw the three of them connect to the game at the same time.

But unlike him waiting for them, they weren't waiting for anyone, on the contrary, instead of waiting for other people, they were running away from people who might recognize them, so as soon as they logged in, they started leaving the city.

Feeling that it wouldn't do to shout their names in the center of town, Bruce followed them without saying anything until they were out of town.

"Wait!" Bruce yelled at the three of them, causing them to look at him, worried that he was an annoying fan.

To deal with these people, Oasis had a mode called Streamer Mode, where the player could activate an option that would hide players who weren't on their friends list from the screen, giving them room to walk around without bumping into a person for too long.

Typically, Ned didn't use this feature for the entire stream, leaving it off at the beginning and end of the stream so he could interact with the audience.

"Hello." Ned greeted with a smile, hoping Bruce wasn't an annoying fan.

But to his surprise, Bruce ignored him and walked over to the Hulk.

"I finally get to talk to you, Hulk." Bruce said, surprised that the Hulk Orc looked so much like him in real life.

"You're a Hulk fan?!" The Hulk asked, confused and a little excited as he put a big smile on his face.

But Bruce didn't deny or confirm, he just explained. "It's me, Hulk, Bruce Banner."

Hearing that name, the smile on the Hulk's face faded and he sulked as he turned to leave.

"Let's go, Hulk doesn't want to talk to Bruce." Hulk said as he grabbed Ned and Peter's shoulders so they could go somewhere else.

Seeing this, Ned and Peter were worried because they had never seen Hulk act like this before.

"What happened Hulk, who is he?" Peter asked.

"Nobody." Hulk replied, snorting.

"Wait Hulk, we need to talk..." Bruce said as he followed them.

"Hulk doesn't want to talk!" Hulk said angrily as he started to walk faster.

"We have to talk Hulk, we can't stay like this..." Bruce tried to talk.

"Didn't Bruce want Hulk gone? Now Hulk is gone and he's never coming back!" Hulk said without looking at Bruce.

"I'm sorry Hulk, I didn't know you could think..." Bruce said, but as soon as he said it, he saw the Hulk get even angrier and start walking faster.

Even Ned and Peter were hurt by Bruce's words.

"Wtf bro, how can you say that to the Hulk?!" Ned yelled angrily at Bruce.

"The Hulk is just a kid! Are you the father that traumatized him?" Pete also shouted angrily.

Seeing his friends defend him like this warmed the Hulk's heart and lessened some of his anger, but he was also hurt by Bruce's words.

Realizing he had misspoken, Bruce began to apologize. "I'm sorry Hulk, I didn't mean to hurt you..."

"Get out of here brother, you have no right to talk to the Hulk now, go away!" Ned tried to push Bruce away, but Bruce became more and more desperate.

"You don't understand, I need to talk to him..." Bruce tried to speak, but Ned was too angry.

"Why? Go and mind your own business! Hulk is living very well now, I give him money and he can do what he wants with it. You've been neglecting him all this time, and now that he's doing well, you're going after him?" Ned pushed Bruce.

"I don't want money, the Hulk can't even spend money..." Bruce said.

"What do you mean he can't spend money?" Ned asked.

"The Hulk can't spend money because in real life he lives in my body..." Bruce finally explained, causing Peter and Ned to stop, causing the Hulk to stop for a second before turning and walking away on his own.

Walking back to the Hulk's side, Ned was now curious and asked. "What do you mean, he lives in your body?"

Seeing Ned's attention and curiosity, Bruce realized this was his "June chance" and explained. "I'm a scientist who was trying to replicate Captain America's super-soldier serum when something went wrong and I was hit by gamma rays that caused a second personality to be born in me, something that could use those gamma rays to get stronger and destroy everything in its path."

Upon hearing this, Ned and Peter were shocked and asked. "And that second personality is the Hulk?"

Bruce just nodded.

With Bruce's confirmation, Ned and Peter looked at Hulk to confirm with him, but Hulk also just nodded as he snorted and continued walking.

This revelation shocked Ned and Peter into realizing that their best friend in the Oasis was not at all what they had imagined!