Wakanda
"T'Challa."
Once again it happens. He has only had this kind of sorrow three times in his life. Once when Phalaesia left Wakanda, when his father died, and now when she has left again, and once more he finds himself chasing, longing for something he can't have.
His mother emerges from the shadows into his room. There she finds him just leaning against the glass, peering out across the glorious expanse of Wakanda but there is nothing to his eyes but pain.
"You are not sleeping again," Ramonda sighs. She smooths out her charcoal garments, sitting with grace at his feet. "T'Challa you must try to close your eyes. I will have one of the Dora bring you some tea?"
"Do you miss father?" He whispers.
Ramonda clasps her hands, rubbing them together. She's not his birth mother. There are parts of her past that he knows but others that she always says were "nothing to inflict upon a child." Like the bullet holes visible near her collar bone.
"I think of him everyday," Ramonda confesses. "Even when I speak with him . . . I long to hold his hands! In mine once again!"
"Does it ever get unbearable painful?"
"My son . . ." She slips her warm fingers into his. "Listen to me. Your beloved is not dead. She's out there, alive. I am in pain always only because I know that until the day my life passes, I too will never see your father again. But you . . . if you love her . . ."
"It's driving me mad . . ."
"Then find her."
A defeated sigh pours out of him as his chest slumps. "She specifically warned me against doing that. She said she was in danger, a danger that would bring Wakanda to its knees if she was ever found here. I promised her umama. I promised her. But there may be another way."
"What other way?"
"An old ally, eager to prove himself again."
"What?!" She shrieks Down the phone as the car goes hurtling forward narrowly missing a motorbike. "But Stephen literally just told me it was fine!"
Wong murmurs back down the line to her but she's fuming. "Of course he's disappeared! I did tell him to be careful but of course I'm just a woman so what do I know . . . hmmmph. I'm heading . . ."
In the moment that her vision goes black, something tugs on her hand. She brakes, there's a flash behind her, followed by screaming, next thing she knows the car has left the floor completely, and then BAM! The heart gets knocked out of her as she lands with a thud, rolling past the flames.
"Eyes up, eyes up!" Khalide chants obsessively. Her hands close around the sword only to find it ripped with ferocity from her grasp.
"At last . . ."
Dragged upright by her hair, she stares into a pair of stern red eyes. He's seven feet tall easy. The worst kind of strength, lean and powerful with jagged pieces of stained armour covering him from head to toe and a scythe that glows and speaks as a person.
"And who might you be?" She splutters.
His rotten breath saturates her nostrils. "Your worst nightmare Khalide . . . I warned you I would find you. And now you are going to give me the Infinity Stone and I will present it to Lord Thanos a long with your head."
"Oh ok . . . sure!" With the last word she thrusts two fingers into the sockets of his eyes. Rolling forward, she grabs the sword and twists around to face him again.
"Who is he Khalide?" she growls.
"The Reaper, an assassin of Thanos, sent to do his bidding."
He's standing up. "And you aren't going to help?!"
"That scythe . . . keep your distance from it."
"Why . . ." Narrowly missing the blade as she falls backwards.
"It will separate your soul from your body."
"Good to know."
The second the scythe returns to his hand she makes her move. Thrusting through her legs, dealing a powerful kick to his jugular. It's the armour. It's very good. And even as she takes him on, as long as the armour stays on, it is on vain.
And try though she may, she can't break through his defence.
"Giving up yet?"
"For you? Unlikely."
As he comes at her again, she Snatches up a piece of the flaming car. The shield of metal clatters and stings but it holds firm beneath the scythe.
"You always knew how to choose a beautiful host Khalide," he chides her. God he's so heavy! "But you don't know how to hide do you?"
"Uh excuse me, you're talking to me!" Phalaesia reminds him.
"Oh I know," he grunts. "You've left your human stink all over the planet! If Khalide is not willing to turn over the stone, then perhaps you will."
Her fist closes around the vibranium blade once again. She's going to kill this fool. Then all she needs is Thanos' address and she can mail him the head. "And why would I do that?"
"To spare Wakanda, of course."
Truth. Always had a penchant for detecting the truth. But that doesn't stop her. "You evil moron . . ."
"We have blood to spare," He rasps. "Our sights are already on this so called hidden nation. In the moment that you refuse, we will attack. And your utopia, this fantasy you have . . . Thanos will lay it all to the dust from whence it came . . ."
"You're lying . . ." She cries.
"Am I?"
"You're lying!" The Reaper goes flying backwards, hitting a pole but Khalide is already moving before then. He threatens her home. Kills John and Lizzy. And now he tries to wave Wakanda in her face as well? No, he has signed his death warrant. She never wants to see his ugly face ever again.
Smooth fingers curl around his jugular. Part Phalaesia. Part Khalide. But always, always united in this single truth.
"You threaten my family and expect to live?" She rasps. "And how will you tell Thanos of me, without your head?"
The blade is in motion long before she finished speaking. His head hits the tarmac and rolls off into the flames where it sizzles into nothing.
"Well that was quite something."
Phalaesia curses as an old face comes into view. "I knew I was being followed. W'Kabi."
"Phalaesia."
He doesn't half look weird in a leather jacket and a pair of jeans that completely derail the look.
"Your outfit sucks. What do you want?"
"T'Challa sent me to watch over you."
"Oh yes? Well . . . if the flaming car is anything to go by, maybe you should get into fashion design instead."
He pokes her as he walks past, pausing to stare at the remains of the Reaper's body. "How I have missed your viscous tongue. Come with me."
"Why?"
"Because it's clear that Earth is too dangerous a place for you to stay now."