A Nascent Kaleidoscope.-Chapter 606 - 548

Nicholas Fury, Shield Director POV

"Hill, I want eyes on it; tell me what I'm looking at."

"We have four different satellites looking down on the anomaly, Director." Maria Hill answered. "We're commandeering another two weather satellites as well."

I could see it on the screen, but I had no idea what I was supposed to make of this.

"What do we know?"

"Our scientists are saying that it's a completely unnatural storm," she replied. "We don't exactly keep meteorologists on payroll, but it's about the consensus we're getting even from the private sector that we've reached out to."

"So a freak storm appeared over the entirety of Wakanda in a matter of minutes without any warning?"

"It would appear so, sir. Our agents nearby have confirmed it as well. Skies were clear and sunny, and then suddenly the clouds rolled in out of nowhere."

Typical.

And this week was nearly finished.

"Is it similar to what happened in New Mexico?" I asked, frowning deeper.

"Every report we see shows temperatures remain within normal parameters, considering it's a...'normal' storm, not a snowstorm. And we haven't had any similar atmospheric readings indicating another wormhole over Africa."

Alright, it seems Coulson's little project still has his Weapon of Mass Destruction under lock and key.

Regardless of how that annoyed me, I could at least check that off the list.

"We're also not detecting any foreign crafts in our upper atmosphere; the chance of alien incursion is low," Hill noted.

I grunted in response. "Small mercies."

If there was going to be problems arising, I'd much rather it be something of our own fault rather than aliens or whatever nonsense is crawling out of the woodwork these days.

I don't believe in coincidences.

And even if I did, I wouldn't miss all the red flags if I lost my other eye.

Something is happening in Wakanda, something unnatural.

If the large hurricane-like storm that sat on top of the country wasn't enough indication.

"Has Nasa responded?"

"Nasa said that they have the same data, but sent it over anyways."

"CIA, Interpol? Hell, anything from Egypt's GIS?" I'd take a farmer with a pair of binoculars, anything at this point because we were blind.

"No one seems to know anything, sir." Hill replied, doing her best from her own workstation. "They're sending us questions too, this has already gone public. It's trending on the news and various social media."

Of course it has.

"Also the council is wanting a response, they want to know what you're doing to cover this up. They're demanding immediate action."

"And what the hell do they expect me to do? Kindly ask the storm to stop?" I snorted. "Or maybe they want me to take out the classified Weather Control technology that the homeless man wearing the tinfoil hat at the corner of the block thinks we have?"

Though, admittedly, we had something like that locked down. It was less.....weather control and more chaotic weather Armageddon with a side of broken alien tech. Thankfully, I managed to squirrel that ticking time bomb away before the council got wind of it.

Not something they need to know about, along with the other stuff I kept in my personal vault that only I know about.

I'm surprised they haven't ordered me to nuke the damn storm yet.

I rubbed my temples as I looked at the unchanging screen. Satellite images couldn't get a view of what was going on underneath and our Agents hadn't entered the country yet.

"Hill, what's our legal status with Wakanda?"

"They're not a signee of the UN agreement, Director. We need probable cause to enter their borders so blatantly. I don't think a freak storm is going to hold up if they take it to international court."

"Of course." I grunted, that would make it too easy. Though, that did raise the question. "Hill, what's the GDP of Wakanda?"

"Do you want an exact number, sir?"

"Give me a rough estimate of where they stand worldwide." I shook my head.

She messed with her systems a bit more as I continued to study the unchanging storm. "They're near the bottom, low bottom. Their primary export is livestock, goats, and cattle, and sheep. I don't have the numbers, but—"

"That's enough." I cut her off. "So, they're a country of farmers and herders."

"That's accurate, sir." Hill looked confused as to where I was going with this.

"And how much foreign aid have they received from the UN in the past...five years?"

"In the past five years..." Hill took a moment. "They've received 53 million in various aid packages through the UN.

"Compare that to the surrounding countries." I frowned.

"Compared to the surroundings, it's...slightly less? Wait...."

"What's wrong, Hill?" I turned around towards her.

"The surrounding countries, their aid throughout the past 5 years, and if going back further, have shown a steady increase. But Wakanda's aid remains nearly the same." She looked up at me. "It's strange, but I don't see what's relevant, sir."

"Tell me, Hill. If you were in a backwater country, a dictator, or maybe a leader wanting to help his country. Would you ever just be content when people were throwing money at you? Wouldn't you maybe fudge some numbers, maybe try to scrape as much out of the bowl as you could?"

"Maybe the current king doesn't believe in asking for handouts." She countered.

"Then he wouldn't be accepting aid in the first place." I snorted. "We have a king who has received aid, millions of dollars—pounds, whatever currency you want to use. But he's never pushed for it to increase. Maybe he's just not a greedy person; maybe I'm overthinking it." freewebnσvel.cѳm

"Stranger things have happened." Hill noted.

"Tell me, Hill. Out of all the countries in the region, all the ones receiving aid. How many of them signed the treaties letting Shield operate with impunity in their borders?"

".....all of them." She said quietly, looking at her own screens. "All of the countries in the region that have received aid from the UN have signed the treaties, sir."

"And there you have it." I'm not surprised we missed this. If something like this never happened, who would have put this together or looked closely at a country of farmers? "Because they're scared of losing their money. So, what does that tell you about Wakanda, Hill?"

"That they don't care about the money." She said pointedly.

"That...." I narrowed my eyes at the screen. "And that they're hiding something."

Before Hill could answer, she quickly answered a call that went through the terminal for priority one. "Squad 24, this is a priority call, designation Alpha-Alpha-Two. State your purpose of urgency."

"This is squad leader Reid – code: Four-Four-Gamma. Permission to report."

"Code acknowledged, security protocols engaged, permission granted." Hill responded.

"Agent Reid, this better be important. If you don't got priority one intel, I'm sending you lot back to bootcamp with the idiots who threw around grenades like they were toys." I said sternly.

"Sir, we have a visual." Reid replied, ignoring my threat. "I...permission to be blunt, sir."

"Permission granted."

"There's a big-ass cat that we can see from our position. And behind it, we can see a city line that looks like nothing we've seen before."

My first instinct was to call him an idiot, but this week had been...testing. "Explain clearly, Agent."

"We moved two clicks east of our deployment, sir, to secure the highest vantage point in the immediate area. Until a few minutes ago, we weren't able to see anything; it was...odd, sir. And then, suddenly, it was like a surge of energy was pulled down from the sky, and we got visuals of objects we couldn't see before. Like they were hidden behind some type of cloaking tech."

Hill and I shared a look.

"Send in the images." I said immediately. "Direct them to one of the priority-one drop boxes."

"On the way, sir." Hill nodded, sending orders to their end on how to send the encrypted files.

"I'm getting them, Director." Hill stated. "Bringing them up on the screen."

I looked at the main screen, and I could see what he was talking about: a massive black cat—more like a panther. And the vague silhouettes of a city line that shouldn't be there.

However, before I could comment, the images disappeared.

"Hill?"

"That's not me, sir." Hill began to frantically operate at her station. "Someone's in the system, files are being deleted, and everything we have related to Wakanda is disappearing."

"How deep are they?"

"I can't tell; I'm getting locked out." Hill said in panic.

"Agent Reid, send the images again." I said calmly, going to my own desk and opening up a cupboard in the corner, pulling out an old printer and blowing on it to get the dust off.

"Sir—" He was cut off; it sounded scrambled, as if someone was disrupting his signal.

"Switch devices, Agent." I told him, despite not being able to hear his response. Damn cords, where's the damn power strip? "Switch deposit location. Input code Zeta-Gamma-Beta-Tango-four-three-four." It was one of my old and personal systems that I still kept connected to the Shield main systems.

I sat down in my chair and put my feet up on my desk and relaxed.

After a moment, the printer started up, cranking like it had been since the 90s.

"Files have been deleted again, sir." Hill looked up at me, then at the printer that was pumping out copies of the images.

I looked at her with a big grin. "And you keep giving me shit for keeping this hunk of junk in my office."

Sometimes, you can't beat low tech.

"Start purging the front-facing systems. Pretend like we're doing backups on the second-level stuff and cut off all devices to the third tier and above until we can plug any holes in our security."

"Sir, do you think it was Stark?" Hill asked. "His AI could have easily torn through our systems like what just happened."

I scoffed, grabbing the physical copies. "Stark is many things, but he isn't that amateurish." Deleting the files right as we're looking at them? The mark of an amateur, if I ever saw one.

No, if it was Stark's pet AI, they would have quietly disappeared right under our noses without us ever realizing it happened until it was too late.

I tossed the pictures onto Hill's work station. "Regardless, Wakanda has some questions to answer." I walked out into the main control room, looking out onto the main floor, mostly empty. "Get everyone on board; we're getting this Helicarrier in the air and setting it right on their doorstep."

It was time to get some answers, one way or another.

[***]

T'Chaka, King of Wakanda POV

I looked at the piles of vibranium that had been tossed to the side like trash, and I felt my throat go dry.

He did not take a single ounce of it.

"Well, this was certainly an adventure." The woman who appeared, wearing the garb of monks and a shaven head. She looked at me without a hint of surprise, nor Wakanda in general. "It's a shame we met under these circumstances, King T'Chaka. I would have liked my second visit to Wakanda to have been a bit more pleasant. Certainly much has changed since I was invited by your ancestor—King T'Chatta. Was that 1200 or 1300 years ago?" She looked thoughtful. "I suppose it doesn't matter."

Second visit?

King T'Chatta?

I recognized the name, for it is tradition for each king to memorize the names of their predecessors and pay tribute to them through the ancestral rites before taking the mantle of king.

"He was particularly arrogant, but he had a large heart. You should have heard the way he boasted about his heart-shaped herbs when he took me to see them." She chuckled, looking away from me.

How....how could an outsider know about that? Not even all Wakandans know about the Heart-Shaped Herbs, much less seen them?

"Goddess Bast." She said politely, as our Goddess looked at her. "Kamar-Taj thanks you for the peaceful resolution."

The Goddess let out a snort. "Return to your temple, Sorcerer."

She nodded, and through the same method she arrived – what appeared to be magic – a portal opened, and she stepped right through it, disappearing entirely.

Ancestors....

Whom have we angered?

Our armies lay defeated.

Our precious treasures are treated like trash.

Our heritage was trampled.

And...Wakanda is revealed to the world.

I fell to my knees as I realized the gravity of the situation.

It should have been exaltation to bear witness to our Goddess in the flesh. For each king that consumed the Heart-Shaped Herb has met her when taking the Mantle of the Black Panther; never in our history has she appeared like she has now.

We should have revealed it in her honor, but no one celebrated.

No one heaped upon her our thanks.

Under her orders, we had admitted defeat, and in our hearts, we knew that no words could argue with it.

Our pride lay shattered.

Wakanda, for the first time in history, has suffered defeat. Our vaunted weapons, our superior technology, and even Vibranium were all found wanting.

The large shadow cast overhead slowly diminished.

The great form of the Panther Goddess began to shrink until it was but the size of a person. Yet, no one stood up; no one dared to raise their head as the thousands of my people prostrated before her.

"The last time I appeared personally within these lands, it was to acknowledge a promise." The voice of Bast was not loud, but it reached the ears of everyone here. "When your ancestor prayed and begged for help. The warring tribes threatened to consume everything your people loved and cherished. So, I bestowed upon him my blessing; he became the first Black Panther."

It was the story everyone knew.

The story that every Wakandan child is told when they go to sleep.

Bast took slow steps towards me.

She was the size of a normal panther, yet I couldn't help but feel her size truly didn't change.

"Do you know what he promised me, T'Chaka?" She spoke, not expecting an answer. "He said that the Black Panther would be a protector. The guardian of Wakanda. What have you protected this day, Guardian of Wakanda."

I could not answer.

She let out a roar, one befitting a mighty cat.

And with a swing of her paw, the earth was sundering, nearly blowing away my people from merely the force of the shockwave.

"Your people attacked the Princess of Asgard!" Her roar reverberated through Wakanda. "Do you know how many worlds have been turned to fire and blood because of their warring nature? Do you know how many Pantheons have fallen to the Gods of Asgard in the days of old?"

"....I didn't know." I whispered.

Her eyes bore down on me, a weight I felt down to my soul. "If it were the old days, they would not care about Wakanda. They would have demanded answers from me. War, T'Chaka. A war between gods the likes you couldn't imagine. Worlds would be destroyed. Many of the stars in the sky would disappear. And it would have been your fault."

She looked up into the air, the sky still clouded, darkened with rolling thunder and lightning.

"And it would not have been only Asgard. There were other blessings upon him; others have claimed him." She looked back down on me. "Even our old foe—a taboo not spoken within our halls—was at his side. Why is it, T'Chaka, that in a conflict between your people and a demon, the demon is the reasonable one?" Her voice carried with it another furious cry, shaking the very air around us, drowning out the thunder above.

"It's my fault. I will repent with my life; please don't blame Wakanda, Mighty Bast." I managed to push the words out despite the fear in my heart.

Her visible rage abruptly disappeared, but her piercing yellow eyes glowed with anger yet. "If you had done what you did out of petty actions, I would be less upset. But what angers me most is that you let your pride blind you when taking actions you fully believed were for the sake of your greater good."

She walked forward and I pressed my head to the ground, waiting her judgement.

I felt her paw touch me.

Then, I felt something seep deep into me, a pain like I have never felt; I could not scream. It was as if the time I had ingested the heart-shaped herb, yet I felt strength leaving me rather than entering.

My heart hurt, my bones ached, I felt a weight land on my shoulders, and I collapsed under the strain, barely able to push myself back up.

Floating between us, a heart-shaped herb appeared.

Slowly, it turned to ash and disappeared unto the winds.

"I take from you my blessings. The mantle of Black Panther is now forever barred from you. Be thankful that I still allow Wakanda its protector, for I still remember the promise I made to your ancestor even if his descendants are...lacking." She looked me deep in the eyes, penetrating my very soul.

"Thank you, Goddess Bast!" I hit my head against the ground, tears in my eyes. The pain was nothing compared to the relief knowing that at the very least, Wakanda would not be without its protector even if I failed.

"Do not thank me yet, king." Her voice carried her remaining anger. "The punishment is not over. The mockeries at the borders of your lands, you will not remove them. The means by which you hide from the world, will no longer be allowed." She tilted her head to the sky and roared.

The Storm clouds above dispersed, the sun peeking through once more.

"If your people can't survive any future hardships, then so be it. If you can manage to persevere, then you will remember this lesson." She declared, and no one dared to argue with her. "This is the last act of mercy I bestow upon you and your people, King T'Chaka." Her voice became faint, her body slowly disappearing from sight. "You will not like what happens if I am forced to return like this again."

[Line Break]

A/N

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