☢ au info for omniumsanctorum
- Within the Sanctuary Network, there is a world of fascinating creatures. People with abilities that can't be explained live - or attempt to, anyway - in a world that barely knows of their existence. The key word being 'barely'.
Various governments are very much aware of the strange powers at work, and where there is power, there's those who'd wish to harness it for their own ends. The United States government, in an attempt to do just that, initiated the Bioforce Enhancement Project in an attempt to produce and control their personal Abnormal army. The research was overarching, including several compartmentalized smaller groups and each with its own specific approach to the Abnormal problem. However, due to the highly classified nature of the project, many of the nonmilitary scientists recruited and contracted to the work were misled as to the true goal of their work.
Case in point, one Dr. R. Bruce Banner.
A research fellow at Culver University in Virginia and a well-established genius in his various fields of study, he and his long-term girlfriend Dr. Elizabeth 'Betty' Ross were recruited and instated as the dual heads of the 'Gamma Pulse Project' by Dr. Ross's father, General Thaddeus 'Thunderbolt' Ross. Told their endgame was to boost and protect infantry from the effects of depleted uranium, the two went at their work with gusto.
Spurred on by early successes and rapid advancement, Bruce volunteered himself as guinea pig in the next stage of trials. Betty attempted to argue with him, but he was determined and convinced her everything would be all right. So he was injected with Betty's cell-boosting primer and set himself up to be bombarded with gamma rays.
...It didn't go well.
Instead of resisting the rays as was their intention, and instead of dying in the lab, something entirely different happened. The combination of circumstance caused Bruce to change... Drastically. He grew into a barrel-chested, muscle-bound, hulking green giant with an implacable rage and fury. Said Hulk proceeded to demolish the laboratory, killing no few interns and severely injuring both Betty and the General before running for the hills.
Several days later, Bruce woke up as himself with only vague scattershot memories of what had happened. After making his way back and planting himself beside Betty's hospital bed, Ross drew him away and cornered him. It was then that Ross revealed the true aims of the project, and his desire to turn this unexpected disaster into a weapon. Bruce refused, and so started running.
He stayed on the run for five years, traveling the Americas from the Arctic to Brazil and back again. All the while he tried to stay a step ahead of Ross, who'd gone over the Ahab edge for his green whale, and he tried to find a cure for himself. He wasn't particularly successful at either of those things, as every now and again either Ross would track him down or some streak of bad worse luck would fall on Bruce's head and he would find himself forced to change into the Hulk... Forcing him to pick up and try to find another out-of-the-way hole in the wall to start over in.
Of course, as the Gamma Pulse Project was put under the highest classification following the Hulk incident and the task force put after Banner even more so, to the world at large, the Hulk isn't much news. Every now and again there will be a report of a destructive green Sasquatch, at least when the military hadn't gotten there quickly enough to cordon and confiscate and confidential it up.
And now, as the world's going crazy, Bruce Banner has come to Old City, hoping to hide himself among the press of people. He's got no idea what's going on with all these new arrivals, nor how close help may actually be...
All he knows he has is a pair of really stretchy pants.