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Chapter 84
Technomancer in MCU
Wakanda
–N’Jadaka–
As it turned out, all his effort to try and get Wakanda to help the Ascendency’s work went down the drain since Alfred came back at the right moment and destroyed the entirety of both S.H.I.E.L.D. and H.Y.D.R.A. before they could actually mobilise their forces.
Last he heard, their resident spy hunter, T’Challa was taking out rogue members of the spy organization because of a list Alfred had sent to them to take care of, on the African Continent.
Then he had to resist the urge to facepalm when he watched the entirety of the press conference that Ed attended with all of the S-tier members of Ascendency.
Honestly, watching that made the members of the council look at him with even more wariness and distrust than before. They were beginning to think that he too had a similar level of strength as the members that were floating behind Ed.
He wished.
If he had that level of strength, he would have long since done something drastic to Wakanda and brought it to heel. Something he was sure was the reason why he was never given the green signal for the more advanced enhancement procedures within the organisation, limiting him to only B-tier advancements.
Something that he was now grateful for since that allowed him to gain something that was infinitely more valuable than the ability to punch harder.
Perspective.
Back then, he had been just a ball of anger and hate. Giving someone with that mindset the power to level cities at a time was obviously a bad choice.
Nowadays, he didn’t even need to use his powers all that much and he was doing much better progress than he thought he did.
Still, it was always fun to watch all the new recruits absolutely gape in awe as he absolutely manhandled the Black Panther and the Dora Milaje at the same time.
It made for a fun sparring exercise, especially since he used the resistance bands that the nerds in the labs cooked up for him, for the entire time he was training.
It really helped drive home the fact that he was the strongest person in the nation and his being peaceful and abiding by all the rules was a choice and not an obligation that they could enforce on him with their weak soldiers at all.
His strength was one of the reasons why the Jabari tribe was willing to throw their weight behind him, further legitimizing his position within the country.
Then again, defeating their entire tribe by his lonesome definitely helped them make an informed decision. Now, they too were frequent attendees of his sparring sessions.
Like most of the higher-ups within Wakanda, he too was curious about the new website Alfred had launched, hilariously naming it after himself was something he could only foresee Alfred doing.
King T’Chaka, being understandably paranoid about the consequences of exposing such an untested but probably dangerous source of information to the civilian populace, restricted access to the website to a single terminal in the Royal Chamber and a single terminal in the Royal Labs, for testing purposes.
Through the terminal in the Royal Meeting hall, they were able to get access to information depending on the access levels decided by Alfred for all the concerned tribe elders.
Despite everything that had already happened, the elders were still somewhat shocked and amazed that the Ascendency knew their names and roles.\
On that website, they finally got a glimpse of the vastness of the organisation and the smallness of their country when compared to the true giants of space. Not just entities from space, they had a country in the depths of the ocean itself that was not just bigger than Wakanda, it boasted of bigger deposits than Wakanda, all the while having a leader as strong as the Hulk himself and having access to similar if not more advanced technology than Wakanda.
Atlantis and the existence of Namor truly was a nightmare come true for the people who ruled over Wakanda, touting their self-declared status as the most advanced nation on the planet. Although, “on” the planet part might be true since Atlantis could be called as “in” the planet.
That truly was a nightmarish meeting session that had lasted well into the morning but after one too many specialists and analysts being called in for threat assessment, he was just about ready to call it a day and so had the King when the entire room’s lights went out and came back on in a dim greenish golden color.
His sigh and the sound of T’Chaka facepalming could be the only two things that could be heard in the darkness of the meeting hall.
Then, with his usual flair for dramatics, Alfred’s voice emerged from the speakers that littered the entirety of the hall, “Hey! Why did you guys remove the holographic projectors from this room? Now I have to use this puny restricting monitor now and let me tell you, that is not nearly as mysterious as I was hoping to be.”
They could all see the old visage of Alfred’s avatar as it appeared on the monitor that was designated as the secure terminal for using AlfredGPT.
Alfred rolled his eyes at them once he realised that they had no intention of humoring him, “You guys are no fun now.”
“Well, coming to serious topics, I am thankful that Wakanda was willing to help us in getting rid of the scourge that was H.Y.D.R.A. once and for all but thankfully, we were able to handle everything on our own. Still, let it never be said that we don’t reward our allies. I have credible information that over the course of the next twelve hours, Tony Stark will be contacting you to visit your country, the real Wakanda, not the shack you guys have built outside.”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Almost immediately, the tribe elders and even the King stood up in outrage as it implied that Alfred had told Tony Stark, effectively an outsider, about the truth of Wakanda, which essentially amounted to betrayal of the highest order in Wakanda.
“Calm down, I am actually doing you guys a favour here. The importance of Tony Stark to the human race cannot be understated, especially if you plan to join the outside world as an advanced civilisation. Our plan to introduce you guys as a natural opposition to our rising power would benefit immensely from Stark’s cooperation.” Alfred rolled his eyes at them and chided them.
He then continued. “Look, whether you guys like it or not, Stark is coming here and he is bringing Dr.Banner with him and he is not someone who likes being denied. With his sights on Wakanda, he will find a way in, it wouldn’t matter what you do. Unless you plan on killing him and his friends and then eventually, the Avengers and then the people who would try to avenge the original members of the Avengers, you have no other option but to ally yourself with him and place him firmly in your camp before he learns about your other activities and lowers the image of Wakanda in his mind.”
He chose the exact moment to speak his thoughts, “ He is right.”
His words sent the attention of everyone in the room on him, “Stark has the potential to become a valuable ally, and while I am sure that most of you have reservations about revealing the secret of our country to someone who was until recently, called the “Merchant Of Death” but the choice left our hands as soon as someone-”
He glared at Alfred as he continued speaking, “-took it upon themselves to give the world a place where they can access the most classified information for free.”
Before the meeting could delve into another shouting match, the King sighed and said, “ Alright, your message is received, Alfred. You can go now, I am sure that you have much more pressing matters at hand.”
Alfred raised his finger to say something but then his hologram disappeared abruptly.
That was odd.
As soon as Alfred left, the lights in the room came back on and the greenish golden accent was removed.
“Before any of you say anything, I have had the distinct pleasure of meeting and interacting with Howard Stark and if the things I have heard about his spawn are true, Tony Stark is going to be an even bigger pain to deal with. N'Jadaka-” King T’Chaka addressed him.
“-You are to be on point in this meeting. Make sure that Wakanda makes a strong impression on Stark and that he is properly educated about our plans, based on the first meeting. Alfred is right, Stark can help dramatically accelerate the timeline for us going out in the light.”
“I will take no further discussions on this topic. N’Jadaka you are dismissed.”
He took his cue and left the meeting room, his mind whirling at the implications of being given this opportunity.
“Where are we going?” he was asked by one of his subordinates as he immediately went towards his office after leaving the meeting hall.
He waved them off, his mind focused on having his own conversation with Alfred.
“What were you thinking, Alfred? This could seriously hurt us. And the bit about Stark helping the goal, that’s bullshit and you know it. So, tell me, why?” He spoke out loud as soon as his room was sealed using one of the bullshit runes that Alfred had sent him if he needed to talk to someone without being spied upon by Wakanda.
“Oh, calm down. Nothing too nefarious. I just wanted to see what level Stark would reach if given access to Wakanda’s legacy tech as well as your variant of Vibranium.” Alfred appeared in the middle of the room and replied.
“And you couldn’t do that without telling him about Wakanda, why?” he asked with gritted teeth, glaring at the holo-Alfred as he lounged in the center of his office.
Alfred sighed and sat up a little straighter in the hologram, “Look, your plan to integrate Wakanda slowly with the rest of the world was all fine and dandy if you looked at it in a vacuum. The thing is, you are not though and with things that have come to light recently, we are now functioning on an accelerated timeline, and consequently, so is Wakanda and every other country on the planet, for that matter.”
He slammed his hands on the table, “So, that’s why you set Stark’s sights on us, so we would be forced to abandon our current plans and try and reveal ourselves publicly haphazardly?”
Alfred looked impassively at him as the very air in the room suddenly felt heavier to breathe in. “Look, I don’t really have to explain or reply to your tantrum but you being a former member of our organisation, I feel some responsibility for your situation, so let me make one thing very clear to you.”
By this point, the very air in his lungs felt heavy like iron and his vision began blurring as the very chair he was sitting in began groaning in protest due to the sudden pressure being put on it.
“I might act as if I care about you humans or your pathetically short lives but I don’t. I could care less if you all died but growing up, I was taught or at least they tried to teach me the value of all life and while I wouldn't say they failed, they just never really understood the scale at which I functioned. I did begin to value human lives but not all lives. Just the ones who I cared for. Ed, Frank, Maria, Daisy, Peggy, to name a few.”
He then leaned into my face as the chair had all but broken down beneath him, upright only due to its sturdy construction.
“They want humanity to grow so I will make sure it will. Your little country doesn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things. I could, even now, lift that mountain of Vibranium and dump it into the ocean, robbing you of your greatest weapon. I won’t because that would result in needless bloodshed but just know, I could.”
Just then, the pressure disappeared abruptly, as if it was never there at all.
“So, Stark will be knocking on Wakanda’s doors soon. It’s your choice whether you want to be caught flatfooted all by yourselves or strategize and plan with two of the brightest minds of the century on what to do with your science and with the CEO of the largest firm in the world on PR lessons. That’s all I have to say.” Alfred said and disappeared.
He took in deep breaths as he looked at the state of his office.
All of it sustained some degree of damage as Alfred had somehow exerted enough pressure to crack even reinforced furniture to such a degree, through a fucking hologram of all things.
Just how strong had he become by simply gaining a body?
His muscles pained in protest as he stood up from his ruined chair, shocked and a little bit fearful of the fact that Alfred could influence things thousands of miles away from a fucking digital avatar.
He shook his head to get rid of the negative thoughts that emerged in his mind from this encounter.
Now was not the time for that. He had a couple of very troublesome guests he had to receive in a couple of hours.
Time to get to work then.
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Word Count - 2302
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A/N - Just one More chapter with this and then off to Asgard storyline (Sorry, brain monkeys’ are not cooperating)