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Wakanda
–T’Chaka of the Golden Tribe–
He, along with his Queen, were on their way to meet their daughter. Shuri had grown by leaps and bounds since then. Since the day that exposed him to the danger of the world and reminded him that while he still had a lot to do, he would do it, for his daughter.
He could still remember the day as if it was yesterday. It had been years since the Green Guardian's feet had first graced his country and he would never forget that fateful day until the day he moved on to the Ancestral Plane.
After that meeting when Jack, someone who was a child back then, showed him the error of his and his ancestors' ways, he had turned things around. Not at once, no, that would bring about more damage than it was worth it.
No, he had begun slowly. As his first order, as was appropriate after the stern warning Wakanda had received from someone who could wipe their strongest warriors with a mere thought, he had suspended all further kill orders on targets of “national importance”.
National Importance, he scoffed to himself. Those were just fancy words they used to justify themselves. It was murder. Plain and simple. They were murdering people of their own race because some of them had gotten too close for comfort, to reach the level of technology that Wakanda had.
Thankfully, nobody had the bright idea to build a Vibranium detector of some sort. That would have certainly led to a war, no matter how hard he tried to delay that. Even he might have found himself deposed if he tried to stop Wakanda in that sense.
No, while the current technology advancements were very rapid, accelerated by the combined genius of Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Amadeus Cho, and more. Sooner or later, once these geniuses got their tracks set, they would build technology surpassing what even the greatest of Wakandan scientists could build, in that past that is.
He looked over at his daughter’s creations in her personal lab with immense pride in his heart. He was skeptical at first when he heard SHuri’s request for immense resources to be diverted to make a state of the art lab according to her specifications. But looking at the sheer number of advancements she had made in the wide breadth of sciences lit a fire in his heart.
He was almost giddy with happiness. Of course, none of that showed on his face.
“So, Shuri, you wanted to show us something?” he looked at Shuri as she finally finished showing them her pet projects, as they were. While the advancements made here were enough to leave the scientists at the Wakandan Royal Academy scratching their heads for weeks, they were not the main focus of the day.
The main focus was something else, a surprise, as Shuri called it. While he was reasonably certain that Shuri was smart enough not to experiment on anything dangerous, he had still had the Head of the Royal Lab appoint someone who could look over all her experiments and then greenlight them based on the danger associated with the experiment.
So far, the designated scientist guard had nothing but praise for his genius daughter and once again, he could not overstate it, he was so so proud of his little gem.
Shuri was the reason he was not the slightest bit worried about the outer worl- the rest of the world, he had to consciously break his habit of separating Wakanda from the rest of the Earth, they were a single species, period.
The reason he was not worried about the rest of the world catching up to Wakanda, despite their immense growth rate, was simply due to Shuri. Shuri was the one who was going to lead Wakanda into its Golden Age, together with his son.
Their unbreakable bond meant that the future of the country was in safe hands, regardless of his decisions. So, he had vowed to try and reduce even the slightest bit of burden that might fall on their shoulders in the future.
Shuri was the one who outright invented the field of science that was capable of detecting space. Yes, Shuri had equipment in her lab that could actually detect the emptiness of space. She could quantify the seemingly empty matter that surrounded them.
She was still working on manipulating said space and she was confident in not just blocking Jack’s portals from working when she got that working, she was also going to replicate the portal making ability of Jack for herself. In her words, “Just imagine the number of French pastries I could get for myself if I had that portal ability. Fresh out of the oven and into my tummy,”
“This way, Royal Father,” Shuri said as they entered a secret hallway, well, secret in the way it was hidden, not in the sense that they didn't know about it. They knew most of what their daughter did in the Lab, only the surprise she deliberately kept from everyone was what was kept out of their knowledge.
They encountered multiple locks on the way before they finally entered SHuri’s personal space. In this place, she kept her notes, her servers, and her favourite anime records, all entombed in indestructible Vibranium-backed archive servers.
Apparently, his daughter liked to “Ride the seven seas” as she was, when it came to online pirating.
“Tada!” Shuri walked past multiple pieces of weaponry that glowed otherworldly colours before gesturing to a small, seemingly empty place. He was about to ask if Shuri was seeing things before the seemingly empty place began smoking before reality itself glitched in front of them.
His eyes widened as he felt Ramonda squeeze his hand. A seemingly smoking piece of metal appeared in the empty space, its entire form glowing for some reason before it became inert.
“Shuri, what is that?” He hoped his voice didn’t break the way he thought it did. If this was what he thought it was, this was going to be groundbreaking.
“Yup, that right there, Father and Mother, is the first teleportation device. Don’t worry too much about the smoking metal, it only does that for the first object. Once a connection has been established, anything can safely go through it. Look–”
His heart leaped into his throat as his daughter, just a few inches away from his outstretched hand, shoved her hand into the machine that had spit out nearly molten metal.
“SHURI!” Ramonda was not as shell-shocked as she found the strength to move her feet and pulled Shuri away from the teleportation device, looking all over her body to check if she was alright or not.
“Mother, I am fine. I checked it beforehand obviously. It was fine, ask him,”
His eyes met the scientist assigned to Shuri, promising pain for not informing them beforehand about such a groundbreaking discovery.
“Shuri, promise me, nothing like this will happen here, do you hear me? This is not the right way to do things. You are a princess and you will act as such,”
“Fiiine,” Shuri pouted as she ran away to fetch a tablet and excitedly began telling them about the dizzying number of concepts and sciences that Shuri had overlapped over each other to outright invent another field of study under the study of space. Shuri had figured out how to create small sized portals, with tested ranges exceeding the total length of Wakanda.
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“Still, it is nowhere near as versatile or powerful as The Green Guardian,”
And there it was, the hero Worship. Apparently, the fact that the Green Guardian had fought for them and had repelled an alien invasion almost single handedly had cemented his position, not just in his children’s minds but also in most of the Wakandans’ minds. The fact that he was still a child when he accomplished all that was another factor that lit a fire under Shuri and T’Challa. It provoked them to be better, to do better.
And where Shuri channeled all that energy into creating new and improved technology, helping Wakanda maintain its lead over the rest of the world, her brother used the same energy to protect their borders and kickstart the pilot program that he and T’Challa had built together, after he had taken the warning that jack had given them, about the rest of the world finding out about them sooner or later.
“Shuri, never forget, I am proud of you and always will be, no matter what you do, alright?” He said as he patted Shuri’s head as she seemed genuinely sad that she was unable to replicate her role model’s powerset completely.
He chuckled gently as she immediately ran towards her console and began working on something, completely forgetting them, “Remember, Jack Z. Sullivan is not someone who you should aspire to be. You should aim higher, as your brother says, aim for the stars and you might land among the stars,”
“Now, my child, I seem to remember something about a father daughter dinner that someone promised me, in exchange for some outside experiments,” He laughed at the sheer delight that filled Shuri’s face at the mention of experiments she could conduct outside of Wakanda’s border.
“With supervision of course,” Her face dimmed before she perked right up. Hmm, he smelled something afoot.
“Thanks, Royal Father!”
‘See you at dinner, Shuri,” He said as he waved her goodbye, Shuri already typing away furiously on her personal keyboard, one that she made herself. The normal layout being too slow for her.
Ah, Geniuses and their perks.
“You do realise what this means, right?” Ramonda asked him as they walked in the long hallway that led to the Royal Palace.
“Yes, this just paints an even bigger target on Wakanda once we are inevitably exposed to the world,” He confirmed her fears before falling into deep thought about the danger of opening up their country to the world, even as slowly as they were doing that.
“I will join you in a moment, my Queen,” Ramonda smiled in understanding as she left him in his throne room. He sat on the uncomfortable throne as his mind continued to ponder on the current state of things in Wakanda.
He had devised multiple steps on how to open up their country properly to the rest of the world.
Firstly, within a week of Jack’s visit to Wakanda, he had called forth a meeting between the brightest political minds of the country, sat them down with the medical experts, and gave them one task: Figure out a way to disseminate the numerous cures that Wakanda has, to the rest of the world without any hint of Wakanda coming through.
They had the answer ready for him within a week, all with a list of endorsements for some truly incredible organisations that were dedicated to researching cures and then making sure that unprivileged people had access to the same cures as the privileged ones did.
That plan had already been implemented. Last he heard, the first wave of cancer cures should hit the open market in the next 2-3 years, given that nobody tried to maliciously become a roadblock in such a wonderful mission. He had assigned the WarDogs for that of course. The more good deeds he could do, the better T’Challa’s position would be when he will have to negotiate with the outside powers, one day or other.
The second thing was T’Challa’s pilot project, which was to take down warlords that had been installed by outside forces and then propping up someone with better intentions and morals. The thing was that, if anybody tried anything remotely similar, they were killed mysteriously. This time, with Wakanda backing them, the tribes managed to stick together and protect themselves, eventually absorbing other tribes, killing their obviously corrupt warlords, and then helping each other.
So far, they had taken over 16 such warlord tribes and put them on a path to a better life.
The first two steps alone had not been easy. That was fine, he knew that it was always going to be incredibly hard to begin at all, let alone start with such groundbreaking practices. He had encountered significant, nay, stiff resistance from the council, particularly the Merchant Tribe elder. He had been suspicious of that but unwilling to investigate someone who had been with him the day he became King T’Chaka.
T’Challa, however, had no such reservations, and as such, when he presented to him irrefutable proof of the Merchant tribe elder’s dealings with the same Western powers that were responsible for much of suffering around their home, he had been despondent. It was as if he had aged years in mere minutes.
There he was, trying to erase some of his sins so that the next generation was not burdened by the deeds of the previous generation and there was the Merchant Tribe elder, exchanging goods and information with an informant of some king, in exchange for what? Humans.
He was disgusted with the elder and more importantly, with himself, for having had such close contact with a vile and reprehensible person.
And yet, still, his weakness won over as he couldn’t do the deed himself, having to rely on his son to kill the elder. Because there was no other punishment to be given, other than death, for a sin so grievous.
After that, he ordered all the tribes’ dealings with the outside world to be heavily investigated. The other elders, once shown proof of their peer’s activities, relented and allowed the investigation to occur unimpeded.
That was how they found themselves with an all-new council. Yes, the crimes of the other elders were not so serious as to warrant capital punishment but he had asked all of them to resign all the same, letting young faces to enter the council.
He was doing all he could to make sure that T’Challa would have a much easier world with the outside world.
Some would say, including his inner thoughts echoing the same sometimes, that he didn’t have to do all that. He didn’t have to act the way he did, acting on decisions he made when the Green Guardian, Jack Sullivan, was still alive. Someone who could single handedly force the entire country of Wakanda into compliance.
Someone who could kill the Black Panther with a mere thought. Someone who could teleport themselves and more importantly, entire armies with weaponry straight into the heart of Wakanda itself, with no way to counter them.
That someone was no longer alive.
Jack Sullivan was no longer alive and yet, he continued to act on his decisions at the same speed as he did when Jack was still alive.
It was because of the same reason that Shuri and T’Cjhalla held him in such high regard.
The Invasion of New York had opened the world’s eyes but it had reopened theirs as well. They knew about the aliens and the fact that they were not the only ones in the vast darkness of the universe, and yet they had somehow ignored that.
So sure of their defences, they had deigned to not look into the matters of space at length.
That led to the death of Jack Sullivan, the veritable role model to become the champion of the planet.
One more death on his hands. If he could have sent aid in time or if he had prioritized the deep space scanners, Wakanda could have helped locate Loki sooner, helping Jack stop the invasion before it could have happened at all.
That would forever be one of his biggest regrets, his biggest sin. He would always curse himself for letting humanity lose one of its brightest stars.
“Huh, look who’s become a fan as well,” he chuckled at himself by his lonesome in the throne room.
“I hope to not disappoint you. May Bast give me strength,”
He looked up as someone entered the Throne Room with haste.
“My King! My King, it’s-it’s Jack…Jack Sullivan! The Green Guardian is here, he’s alive! He’s alive!”
He was out of his chair and rushing past the messenger as he collapsed on the ground, babbling the same thing over and over again, his mind running a mile a minute as it tried to think of all the plausible scenarios.
He knew, knew, that the chances of it being truly Jack were very low…and yet, hope rose anew in his mind as he watched the blazing green humanoid in a video that the Dora Milaje showed him.
“Bring him inside. Tell Ramonda we have a Royal Guest to host and somebody go get Shuri here. Tell her it’s urgent,” He rapidly ordered as he ran to get dressed appropriately.
The energy signatures had come back positive, it was unmistakable. This was really Jack.
And…he was all the more glad for it.
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Word Count - 2854
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A/N - It’s really fun to put myself into the shoes of other characters and then write their POVs.
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