I had no idea what to do or say. It was happening again. Exactly like Kamar-taj. “I… please,” I started, my breath hitching in my throat. “I can explain.”
“Be silent!” Okoye snapped, levelling her spear at me.
I looked past her to King T’Chaka, my expression pleading. Frowning back at me, he glanced down at the final frozen image projected by Shuri’s Kimoyo bead. “Explain then. What was that? What did you do?” he asked, his voice terse.
“I’m sorry. Okoye was being… stubborn, and I didn’t think I was going to be able to speak to you. I changed her mind.” I looked at King T’Chaka and sighed heavily, my shoulders slumping. “I’m not trying to excuse it, it was a violation of a trust we hadn’t even earned yet. I’m sorry. We’ll just leave.”
“You are not going anywhere,” Okoye spat, the tip of her spear now sitting just above my collarbone—I could feel the sharpness of it against my skin. Just a little pressure and it would bite into my neck.
“Please don’t make me make this worse,” I pleaded, looking at her with a pained expression. “We can just leave.”
T’Chaka shook his head. “You will wait in a cell until I decide what is to be done with you,” he said firmly. Behind him, there was a chorus of approval and agreement from his advisors.
I could feel my chest constricting, magical energy bubbling up in response to my emotions as my heart thundered in my ears. I felt like I was about to throw up. We were going to have to fight our way out of here. They were leaving me with no other choice. W’Kabi grabbed my arm roughly, pulling me back, and I let my power explode outwards in response, a sudden wave of red chaos magic sending people tumbling like bowling pins.
W’Kabi and Okoye caught the worst of it, the former losing his grip on me as he was flung across the room to land painfully on the stairs leading up to one of the galleries. The latter had her spear snap back, the metal haft hitting her hard in the face as she was blown back into another of the Dora Milaje, the two of them going down in a tangle of limbs. I turned to see that Pietro had reacted immediately—likely predicting what I was going to do. He’d darted back a dozen feet to get out of the blast radius, slamming his shoulder into the stomach of one of the door guards in the process.
His hands still bound behind his back, he blurred and took down the second guard with another full-body rush, then turned and shot me a ‘what the hell are you waiting for’ look. I gathered power in my hands and focused on the thin vibranium bands at his wrists, sending a spike of chaos magic spearing into them. The mechanism buckled, resisting for only a moment before it was wrenched apart.
“Wanda!” he yelled in alarm, then blurred toward and past me faster than I could track. I turned just in time to see him land a nasty-looking right hook on T’Challa’s jaw, sending him staggering backwards. The Black Panther had lunged toward me while my back was turned, taking advantage of my distraction, but hadn’t been expecting Pietro’s speed.
Pietro paused for a moment, a half-dozen Dora Milaje closing in a circle around us as the Wakandan advisors scattered and fled. The Dora Milaje are formidable warriors—highly trained, strong, fast, and skilled. But, in the end, they were only mundane humans. As far as Pietro was concerned, they might as well have been standing still.
Calling more magic to my hands, I sent it up my wrists to my own cuffs. It was a bit trickier to manage this sort of thing when I wasn’t able to see what I was doing, but I took a few moments to visualise it properly while Pietro dismantled the royal guards. I managed to free myself just as one of the doors on the galleries opened and another group of Dora Milaje stormed in.
One of the women immediately hefted her spear and threw it overhand at me. I flung out a hand and stopped it dead, leaving it hanging in the air a foot away from me. With my other hand, I swept tendrils of magic toward the charging warriors and wrapped it around their weapons as well, telekinetically twisting and yanking them away so that I had an arsenal of six spears hanging above my head, dripping wisps of red magic. To their credit, they barely faltered, continuing their doomed advance. A blur shot past me and Pietro was suddenly among them, laying them out left and right.
I turned back toward the throne in time to see that T’Challa had pulled himself to his feet. “Stop,” I told him. “Stand down, I don’t want to fight you.”
He ignored me and lunged again, leaping at least a dozen feet through the air toward me, hands outstretched like claws. I felt a flash of anger as I flicked a hand toward him, telekinetic energy wrapping around one of his wrists. He was yanked backwards mid-jump, dangling in the air for a moment before I swiped my hand to the side and sent him crashing back into one of the panther statues that framed the bay windows.
King T’Chaka stood behind his throne—he hadn’t fled or attacked but was standing in a loose stance, ready to fight if he had to. “This isn’t what I wanted,” I said bitterly to him. “We came here to make allies, not more enemies.”
“Then you have failed.” His tone was hard, with a sense of finality to it.
Okoye was finally staggering back to her feet, bleeding from a nasty-looking cut through a long bruise that was already forming down the front of her face. Behind her, T’Challa was recovering from his close encounter with the statue, eyeing me warily as he pulled himself up. I looked between the two of them and shook my head. “This is over. You can’t beat us. Just stop. We’ll leave. You’ll never have to see us again.”
“You think you can come here—our home—lie to us, assault our king, and then just walk away?!” Okoye snarled at me.
At a gesture, four of the vibranium spears floating above me shot forward, each slamming into the exposed rock in front of the throne, their razor-sharp tips biting several inches deep. Clenching a shaking fist, I pulled forward and the spears cut through the floor, tearing long gouge marks in the red stone so that it looked almost as though it had been clawed at by the paw of a massive beast. “I want to make this very clear,” I said, my tone deadly quiet as my two remaining spears floated forward slightly to level themselves at Okoye and T’Challa. “We came here to help you. You threatened us. You attacked us.”
I flicked my hand to the side and the spear in front of Okoye suddenly streaked away to bury itself a full foot into the wall, an inch in front of Shuri’s face—the teenager had been creeping along the outskirts of the room toward the door. She shrieked and fell backwards, eyes wide.
“I don’t want to hurt anyone here,” I said. “I think it’s pretty obvious what I could do if I wanted to. But I don’t. I just want to leave.”
King T’Chaka closed his eyes for a moment, exhaling sharply before he spoke. “Then leave.” He looked over at Okoye and said something in Wakandan. She turned to look at him, surprise and anger warring on her features. She stared for a moment, then gave a single sharp nod of acknowledgement. Raising her voice, she said something else in the same language. I turned to look and the few royal guards who had managed to make it back to their feet paused, lowering their heads and weapons. Pietro blurred to a stop next to me, looking around the room cautiously to make sure that all of them had actually stopped. He was breathing heavily; not quite out of breath, but it was still actually kind of impressive that the Dora Milaje had pushed him that hard.
Looking back at the king, I nodded my head slowly and took a deep breath myself, trying to release the ball of anger that had built up in my chest. “Thank you.” At a gesture, the spears I’d been using—less the one that had been flung near Shuri—gathered themselves into a bundle and resumed floating in the air near my head. “I’m taking these,” I said abruptly, turning on my heel and stalking toward the main door.
It was childish and petulant, and when it came right down to it a set of five vibranium spears weren’t that useful to me, but it felt better than walking away, again, with basically nothing except a slap in the face. In fact… no. This time I wasn’t going to walk away with nothing. I’d already burnt my bridges with Wakanda, it seemed, so pushing things a little further would hardly make a difference at this point. We’d be making one small stop before we left the country.
Pietro fell into step beside me, head still on a swivel as he kept looking alertly around for any sign of danger. As we reached the door, I took one last look back at the occupants of the room. Every single one had their eyes fixed on me. The anger radiating from them was almost palpable. I wanted to apologise again, but I knew it wouldn’t matter. ‘Sorry’ just wasn’t going to cut it here, and I was still feeling pretty pissed myself so I wasn’t sure any apology I could make would even sound sincere. Instead, I just turned away and walked back out into the corridor.
“Where are we going?” Pietro asked.
I didn’t answer, focusing my mind on the destination I had decided on. I’d seen Black Panther four or five times in my past life—I’d liked the movie a lot—and I felt like I could do a pretty good job of visualising the place I wanted to go, but I had no idea if that was good enough or if this was going to work. I knew that I didn’t need to have visited a place to open a portal there, and I knew that sling rings had some sort of conceptual element that let them open portals to people without knowing exactly where, but I hadn’t actually tried to open a portal based purely on my pre-Wanda knowledge before.
As I visualised the space as best I could, I exhaled slowly and started to gesture with the sling ring. It took a moment or two longer than normal, but after a handful of seconds red threads of magic came together, a portal sparking into existence. I allowed myself a small smile of satisfaction and gestured for Pietro to go through.
He shook his head. “So you can get bonked on the head again? No, you first.”
Despite my mood, a small smile tugged at the corner of my mouth and I acquiesced, sending the vibranium spears through the portal first and following close behind them. Pietro was through a moment later, and I dismissed the portal with a wave of my hand.
The rich, earthly smell of the chamber we’d appeared in filled my nostrils. We were standing in a circle of loose red sand in the centre of the chamber, ancient stone walls and ceiling above us, a nearby spiral staircase of hewn rock leading up to the surface. Tree roots spread from cracks in the stone, and the place was lit with burning torches and braziers. All around us, plants with glowing purple flowers flourished in well-tended garden beds. This was the Wakandan City of the Dead—the sacred garden where the Heart-Shaped Herb was grown.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
A half-dozen attendants, women in rough but elaborately patterned robes, gaped at our arrival. I spread my hands, summoning a deliberately intimidating display of red energy over me as I brandished the vibranium spears. A few shrieked and fled in fear, some cowered and hid, but one straightened up, looking at me with steel in her eyes even as her hands trembled. She said something in Wakandan and I shook my head, ignoring her.
Instead, I stepped toward the nearest garden bed, my eyes roving over the glowing plants within. Some seemed in different stages of growth, but there were a few where the cup-like flower had opened enough that I could see a purple-petalled bulb within. As I reached down toward one, the defiant attendant snapped something and took a step toward me, but immediately froze again as my orbiting vibranium spears relocated to the space between us, threatening her more directly.
The interruption dealt with, I carefully reached into the flower and felt around the base of the bulb with my fingertips. It only took a slight twist and bit of pressure for it to come loose—less effort than picking an apple from a tree. Withdrawing my hand, I cradled my prize, looking at it closely: tight petals, like a partially-opened rose, wrapped around a central bulb that glowed with a rich, purple light.
I gently closed my hand around it, then turned back toward Pietro. “Let’s go.”
--
“Finally,” Baron Wolfgang von Strucker said quietly as he sat in his cell, a slight smile playing across his lips as he listened to the muffled sounds of gunfire and shouting. Standing up as the noises drew closer, he dusted off his clothes and folded his hands behind his back, watching the cell door and waiting patiently.
He didn’t have to wait for long. The metal of his cell door screeched in protest as something smashed into the lock hard enough to dent and pop it open. Standing just beyond the open frame was a man wearing heavy black body armour with a face‑concealing helmet. The only clue to the wearer’s identity was the image of a skull and crossbones spraypainted in white across the helmet and chest. He’d wondered who it would be that would break him out. Though they’d worked together several times in the past, Brock Rumlow had honestly not been very high on his list of potential rescuers.
The armoured man flicked his head in a ‘come on’ gesture. “The way’s clear. Let’s move.” Without waiting for a response, he turned and stalked off down the hallway.
Strucker nodded belatedly and hurried after him. Initially, he had thought maybe the twins would come for him. They’d wisely retreated when the Avengers had attacked the research base but, when they failed to appear after the first week, he assumed that they must have also been captured. He had been extremely pleased when the Black Widow had come calling on him, seeking their whereabouts. With them still at large and the sceptre kept safe, the loss of the base and his temporary incarceration were minor setbacks at worst.
Their AI research was lost, of course, but Strucker doubted that the Sokovian government had moved quickly to relocate their lab equipment and drone prototypes, so there were likely assets at the fortress that were still recoverable. While he was grateful for the rescue, he resolved to distance himself from Rumlow once he’d secured some resources. The former SHIELD agent had been building a reputation for his own HYDRA cell through a series of terrorist attacks, styling himself as ‘Crossbones’, which was much too attention-grabbing and flashy for Strucker’s liking.
Still, he mused as he watched Rumlow crush an unfortunate guard’s ribs with a single punch from the interesting-looking contraption reinforcing his wrist and hand, there were times when flashy wasn’t a bad thing. They linked up with the rest of Rumlow’s team, a group of four heavily-armed men in unmarked black fatigues, before extracting from the prison and into the nearby woods.
Strucker had begun to relax, thinking that they’d made it free and clear, when a loud, clear voice rang out. “Stand down!”
Melting out of the woods around them were at least a dozen soldiers, rifles levelled at their group. Strucker looked around wildly, realising that they’d somehow been out-maneuvered and surrounded by a group that had them utterly outmanned and outgunned, and his stomach sank as he recognised the military fatigues and markings of a Sokovian death squad.
Next to him, Rumlow had settled into a low, wary stance and Strucker tensed, hoping that the man wasn’t stupid enough to raise a weapon or make any other foolish move. They were surrounded and caught without cover. If this turned into a firefight, he didn’t rate their chances at all.
“Baron von Strucker, so nice to see you again,” said a familiar voice as its owner stepped out from behind a tree. The man was dressed in a black leather overcoat with a fur collar, with a textured but otherwise featureless purple mask covering his entire head save for a pair of holes for his eyes. The mask was instantly recognisable, identifying both its wearer and the soldiers: The squad was EKO Scorpion, one of the more infamously brutal and effective tools of the Sokovian regime, and the man before him was Colonel Helmut Zemo.
“Baron Zemo,” he said cautiously. “It is, as always, a pleasure. May I ask if we are being detained?”
“I would not dream of it. However, there are some things we need to discuss,” the masked man said, gesturing widely with a hand. “I hope it would not be too much of an imposition if I asked you and your men to come with us?”
Strucker allowed himself a small sigh of relief. Zemo and he were peers—literally, in this instance, with both of them being of equal rank in the Sokovian aristocracy—which meant this could have gone, and could still go, either way. Many among the Sokovian nobility would jump at any opportunity to unseat a rival, but it was also customary to close ranks when one among their number was accused of wrongdoing. Their families weren’t overly entwined, but he’d had relatively profitable dealings with Zemo and his father in the past, so perhaps that would be enough to sway the man.
He looked at Rumlow, catching the man’s eye, and nodded encouragingly. After a few moments of hesitation, the armoured man eased up and signalled for his men to lower their weapons with a wave of his hand. Zemo signalled his own men and they moved in—not completely unthreateningly, but with seemingly no intent to disarm or capture.
Strucker straightened his back, lifting his chin, and strode directly up to Zemo, extending a hand in greeting. Zemo took it with no hint of hesitation, shaking it firmly. “Your allies took a bit longer to liberate you than I’d expected,” the masked man said casually as he gestured for Strucker to walk with him. “I admit I was starting to get a little bit impatient.”
Strucker barked out a short laugh. “That makes two of us.” He eyed the other man with a sidelong glance. “I was briefly worried that NATO was going to get its way.”
Zemo gestured dismissively with a hand. “NATO can bark and growl all they like. Sokovia does not answer to the likes of them.” He pointed ahead. “The airfield isn’t far—we can talk once we’re in the air.”
Nodding, Strucker fell silent as he trudged through the forest. Unfortunately, Zemo had been exaggerating when he’d said their destination wasn’t far—it was 20 minutes of solid walking before they emerged from the treeline to see the small military airfield, with several jeeps and what looked to be a small private jet parked on the runway. Strucker watched with some satisfaction as the airfield’s guards studiously ignored their approach.
Zemo dropped back several paces as they continued forward. “Mr Rumlow, was it? Your men will be safe with mine—a larger plane will be arriving shortly for them. Sokovian nobility prefers to travel a bit more comfortably,” he said, gesturing to the plane as it started warming up its engines. “You are most welcome to join the two of us or stay with your men, at your option. My second can brief you if you choose to stay.”
The skull-painted helmet bobbed between Strucker and Zemo. “I’d like to know what’s going on now, actually.”
“Of course,” Zemo said, not missing a beat. “You are not being detained by Sokovia and are free to go if you wish. However, we have some mutual interests—the Enhanced produced by Strucker’s program. The Americans are extremely interested in them, and so are we. We’d like your assistance in tracking them down.”
Rumlow was thoughtfully silent for a moment. “We might be able to help you with that,” he allowed.
“Excellent, my friend.” Zemo reached up with both hands and removed the purple mask. He ran his fingers through his hair, straightening his appearance before he looked back at Rumlow and tilted his head toward the jet. “Will you be joining us?”
The other man shook his head. “I’m not leaving my men.”
“Understandable,” Zemo said. “As I said, my second can brief you on what we currently know.” Waiting at the base of the jet’s steps was an elderly man, dressed in the formal attire of a butler. Zemo smiled at him as they approached. “Hello, Oeznik.”
“Welcome, gentlemen,” the servant greeted them. Zemo held out his hands and they lightly embraced, kissing each other on each cheek.
They parted ways with Rumlow and his team, with just the three of them—Strucker, Zemo and his man Oeznik—climbing aboard the main cabin of the jet. The interior was well-appointed, with polished wood panelling and comfortable leather seats. Once they’d settled in and were in the air, Oeznik brought them each a glass of crisp, sparkling champagne.
Strucker let himself lean back in his chair, enjoying the feeling of freedom and a return to sorely-missed creature comforts after an unseemly couple of weeks in the less-than-stellar accommodation afforded by the Sokovian penal system. “So, you are looking for the twins and you’d like my help?”
Zemo nodded and shrugged. “The official line is that you escaped—we have the footage and casualties to prove it. Unofficially… well. I find unofficial assets have much more breadth of flexibility.”
“And deniability,” Strucker said evenly.
Zemo leaned forward to toast, clinking their glasses together with a smile. “I’m glad you understand our position.”
Strucker took a sip of his champagne, savouring the taste for a few moments. “Where are we going?” he asked, tipping his head toward the clouds outside of the window.
“New Delhi. There was an altercation between your Enhanced and the Avengers in the city less than 24 hours ago.”
Strucker looked thoughtful. “New Delhi? What were they doing there?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
“No reason I can think of,” Strucker said, tapping his glass absently as he thought. “There are no HYDRA assets they would be aware of there. They fought the Avengers?” His assessment had been that they weren’t ready for a stand-up fight with the American group. The weaker ones would, of course, have stood no chance, but the likes of Thor and the Hulk were extremely difficult problems to work around.
“My sources indicate that the Maximoffs retreated, though not before inflicting some damage.” Zemo sipped at his drink. “I’d like to discuss strategy and resources. You know these Enhanced better than anyone alive—what will we need in order to bring them in?”
Strucker half-smiled at the question. “That won’t be necessary. Wanda and Pietro were some of our most dedicated volunteers. If we can locate them and get in contact, I can bring them on board easily enough.”
“Of course. I have every confidence in your ability to bring them in. However, I prefer to be prepared for every eventuality. Should they prove… uncooperative, I would like to understand how best to counter their abilities,” the other man said smoothly, running the tip of a gloved finger along the rim of his glass.
Understanding dawned on Strucker’s face. “You don’t want to recruit them,” he said slowly. “You want to dissect them.”
Zemo didn’t respond, simply watching his reaction. After a moment, Strucker shrugged and nodded. He’d invested a lot of time and resources in developing the twins, but when it came down to it, he cared little for their wellbeing. While it would be annoying to start from scratch, he would be satisfied so long as he got his hands on Loki’s sceptre.
“Wanda’s powers are strong and flexible but, if you catch her off-guard, she’s no tougher or more durable than you or I. A well-placed sniper should be able to take her down with one shot—a tranquiliser round if you want her alive, or a bullet if not.” Strucker said, looking thoughtful. “The brother is trickier. He needs to concentrate to regulate his speed properly, so area denial weapons that disorient and stun are most effective. Flashbangs, sonic cannons, things along those lines.”
“Excellent. I knew that you would be happy to help your country,” said Zemo. He held up a hand, calling his manservant back over to refill their glasses. “Let us toast, my friend, to what I hope will be a long and fruitful partnership.”