Chapter 8 The Panther's Storm

Not wanting to get lost, I went to find T'Challa, who had told me the location of the control room and that was where he was when he wasn't training or resting.

"Rosalina, you're settled in?" T'Challa asked when I walked into the room.

"Yea, I am," I replied. "Where's the training room? I want to work on a new weapon."

"I will take you there, since I want to train, as well," T'Challa said, leading me out of the room. "What is this weapon you are working on?"

"The fan," I said, taking it out and snapping it open to show him the design that was painted on it. "I wanted to add something different, so I decided this. It's beautiful, the forms I've seen, but deadly."

"Indeed," T'Challa agreed. "Especially when the wielder is also a thing of beauty. Vision is very lucky to have you."

I smiled, glad that, even though it's been awhile and we've had next to no contact, T'Challa and I were still close friends. "Thanks T'Challa," I said.

"No need to thank me," T'Challa said. "I am only stating the truth." He paused. "If you want, after you do some more practice, we could do a sparring match. See how you're doing on the new weapon and also see if you remember the stuff I had shown you."

I nodded. "Sure," I said. "I've been practicing. Hopefully I've gotten better."

"I bet you have," T'Challa said.

We reached the training room and started to practice, him keeping to the side to give me room as I practiced, trying to perfect what he taught me along with teach myself the different forms of the fan.

Once I determined that I was ready to try actual hand-to-hand combat, I cast a dulling spell around the points so that I wouldn't accidentally cut T'Challa and told him that I was ready.

"Try to do a mix of what I had showed you along with the fan," T'Challa suggested. "Be creative."

"Alright," I said as I slid my fan into place on my belt.

We bowed to each other and got into our fighting stances, slowly circling each other, watching each other for a movement that they would attack first.

T'Challa took a step in to punch but I blocked it and countered with a kick, which he evaded and did a sweep kick.

I jumped over his foot and tried a snap kick at his head, but he had rolled to the side and was back on his feet, already aiming a strike at the pressure point on my shoulder.

As his attack came in, I drew my fan and smacked the inside of his wrist, knocking it out of the way as I spun into him and did a quick rap on the pressure point he had tried to hit on me.

He collapsed but hooked his foot around my ankle and pulled it out from under me, turning this into a wrestling match, which I knew was my weak point.

T'Challa managed to pin me down and hold me there, giving him the match point. "You've grown rusty with grappling," he commented as he got up and gave me a hand up.

"It's not something I've really practiced much recently," I said. "I've been so focused on the fan. And with classes, we don't have a really good time to train."

"Understandable," T'Challa said. "But now you have time to practice again. You seem like you've gotten the fan down from what I've seen."

"For the most part," I said. "There's still stuff that I'm trying to perfect that only time and practice will allow."

"Well, now that's time to practice, but don't overdo it. Afterall, don't you also have homework to do?"

I nodded. "Yea, I do," I replied. "But it's not hard for me to do."

We continued to do our sparring session, the beginning seeing T'Challa mostly being on top, but once I started to get back in the momentum, I started to get more match points.

After a bit, we called it quits.

"Now I've gotta test some new recruits," T'Challa said.

"And that others should've sent my work for the day by now along with notes," I said.

We went separate ways and I walked to my room, finding the notes and work on my desk.

I sat down and started to work on it in peace, understanding the work once I had read the notes.

After a while, I finished and laid down on my bed, unsure about what to do: I wasn't tired, I wasn't hungry, I didn't feel like training at the moment, I had just finished a lot of homework and reading so I didn't feel like reading my book, and T'Challa was busy with the recruits so I couldn't talk to him.

There was a knock on the door and I went to answer it, opening the door to show an agent.

"Yes?" I asked.

"Black Panther sent me to bring you to dinner," the agent replied.

I nodded. "Alright," I said, coming out of the room and closing the door behind me.

The agent started walking but I got a weird feeling about him, added by the fact that he was going a different direction that I didn't know about. But then again, I didn't know this base very well. Maybe this was the way, or maybe even a shortcut.

I became more alert as there started to be less agents, but still appearing like everything was normal.

The agent opened a door and gestured for me to go in but I saw that it was empty.

"There's nothing in there," I stated as I watched the agent walk to me, taking a small step away from him.

"Why would I disobey an order from the Panther?" the agent questioned.

"Why would he not get me, himself?" I answered. "After all, he does want to make sure that my stay here is pleasant."

The agent didn't reply, only quickly close the distance between us and shove me into the room, slamming it shut as I hit the ground.

I got to my feet as I heard the lock click and footsteps fade. "Oh, clever," I commented in a sarcastic voice. "I'm never going to get out of here with the all-mighty lock." I cast a spell that broke the lock but when I went to grab the doorknob, it shocked me, causing me to let out a yelp of pain and take a step away.

Sighing, I kicked the door open and stepped out, seeing that I was completely alone. "What was the point in that?" I asked as I started to try to retrace my steps to get to my room and then try to contact T'Challa from there.

But because this was a foreign environment to me, I found out I was going in circles, obvious by passing the door that I had broken out of a few times.

"Ok Rose, calm down, take a deep breath, and think," I whispered to myself. "It's alright. Just use your tracking signal to find your footsteps." I switched my vision to the tracking signal and found the aura I had left, following that, and then upon reaching my room, I saw that T'Challa's energy signal was there recently and following that to the control room. When I got there, I switched my vision back to normal.

T'Challa turned as he heard footsteps, ready to pounce. He eased when he saw it was me. "You finished your homework, Rose?" he asked.

"Uh, yea," I said, a tiny bit confused, since I hadn't told him that I was going to do homework. "I'm finished."

"That's good," T'Challa said. "I was there about ten minutes ago and you said that you were still busy."

"I wasn't in my room…" I began. "An agent had came about an hour ago and said that you had sent him to bring me to dinner. But he locked me up in this room."

"If you weren't there, then who was I talking to?" T'Challa said, confused.

"I don't know, but that means someone is in my room," I said. "And I have information on my mission in there."

"Come on," T'Challa said, already running out of the room.

I followed him and we reached my room, the door open but no one in there.

"Is anything missing?" T'Challa said as I looked through my bag.

"Homework, textbooks, notes," I mumbled under my breath. I looked through my folders that I kept the other information and muttered a curse, turning to T'Challa. "All the information regarding the mission to the college is gone. Our cover is blown. Whoever it is that got that, they know everything, from our classes to the dorms and what clubs we're going to join or are currently a part of. I was going to leave it at the dorm, but Natasha had persuaded me to bring them with so I could work on the paperwork a little bit."

"I'll contact the Avengers," T'Challa said. "You see if you can find any clues as to who got this. You know your room better than me. They can shape-shift, so we need to have a code word when we see each other to know that we are the actual person."

"Assemble," I said.

T'Challa nodded and left the room as I looked around, trying to see if there was anything that wasn't there before I left.

When I was about to give up, I happened to glance in the mirror and noticed something odd on my back the normally my hair covered except when I pull it back, which I had done when I started to work on my homework. I reached behind me and pulled a kind of device from my back.

"A tracker," I growled, using magic to see when it was placed. "Bullseye and Magicseer! Dang it!"

I ran to the control room once I realized who had planted it, where T'Challa was talking to Steve.

"Code word?" T'Challa asked as he turned to me.

"Assemble," I answered as I walked next to him.

"What did you find?" T'Challa said.

"A tracker," I replied, holding it up so that both T'Challa and Steve could see it. "Attached to my clothes. It was put on me when Bullseye and Magicseer ambushed me while coming here this morning."

"And once they got your location, they went in as agents and ransacked your room," Steve said.

I nodded. "But my question is, when I was brought away from my room, why didn't they corner me and kidnap me then? After all, it would've been a perfect time," I said. "Instead, they just locked me in a room, not even bothering to put some kind of magic seal or anything besides the door knob."

"Either way, they have valuable information," T'Challa said.

"What is the plan, Cap?" I said.

"For now, don't be too stressed about it," Steve said. "Keep on the lookout. They know the base's location, and we can't just pick it up and move. If you need help, contact us."

"And what of the mission?" I said.

"It'll still be going on," Steve said. "We haven't completed it yet. How filled out was your report before it was stolen?"

"Up-to-date to the point of leaving to come here," I said. "I was going to fill out the events of today this evening. Sometimes, I wish I wasn't so quick when filling out paperwork."

"Don't let it get you down, Soldier," Steve said. "It's a good trait to have. And you didn't know that it was going to get stolen. It'll be a backtrack for us, but we'll make it work. We'll just need a new way to look at things."

I was about to respond when an alarm suddenly went off. "T'Challa?" I asked, looking at him as he raced to a computer and began to locate the source of the attack.

"Security breach," T'Challa replied. "Perception and Bullseye."

"Magicseer's most likely out of combat for awhile until they get the replacement heart," Steve commented. "Do you need our assistance?"

"We've got this one, Captain," T'Challa said. "They don't know the methods we have to deal with a security breach."

"Then let me know when this is settled," Steve said. "Rogers out."

The connection ended and I turned to T'Challa. "What's the plan?" I asked.

"The agents are alerted and are told to only engage if they absolutely have to," T'Challa said, bringing up a holographic map of the base. "I'm not going to have any casualties. Our defense is set up and ready to go. We're the last line of defense if they actually get this far."

I nodded, looking at the map, seeing the dots where we were and where Perception and Bullseye were, advancing our way, but stopping when something blocked them.

"Your weapons, where are they?" T'Challa asked as he pulled his mask over his face.

"My room," I said.

"We're going to get them," T'Challa said. "But we're going to return here. This is our base-within-the-base."

We went out of the control room and to my room, careful of everything going on around us.

When we reached my room, I went inside and grabbed my weapons.

"Clear," T'Challa said as I stepped out, notching an arrow on my bowstring.

We advanced to the control room, being watchful.

"They're gotten by the first two lines," T'Challa said when we returned, seeing that the two were closer than before.

"How many more lines are there?" I said.

"One," T'Challa answered, drawing two vibranium daggers.

I turned to the door, pulling back my bowstring. "Distress call?" I suggested.

"Not to the Avengers yet," T'Challa said. "First to Ororo."

"Storm?" I said.

"My partner and wife," T'Challa confirmed, pressing a button on the control panel. "She's keeping watch of the base near Detroit with Cyclops and Wolverine."

I nodded, keeping watch of the map. "How long should she be?" I said.

"As quick as the winds take her," T'Challa said. "Not too long."

The final defense fell and the two Dark Avengers advanced to our location.

"We know you're there, Rosalina," Bullseye called.

"Come out now," Perception said. "Chances at success are virtually impossible. Fighting will only lower those odds more."

T'Challa glanced at me as I tightened my grip on my bow.

I mouthed to him, "I'll fight Perception. You get Bullseye."

He nodded, holding his daggers up, ready to strike.

An arrow flew into the room and landed on the ground, beeping.

"Get down!" I cried, tackling T'Challa to the ground as an explosion went off and smoke billowed around the room.

As we got to our feet, a hand grabbed the back of my shirt and threw me into a wall.

Before I could recover to fight back, something was suddenly sprayed in my eyes, causing me to let out a scream of pain and double over, hands covering my face.

"Rosalina!" T'Challa cried.

A wind swept around the room, clearing the smoke.

"Begone, Dark Avengers!" Ororo exclaimed, casting lightning at Bullseye and Perception.

"Our plan has already begun," Perception stated as the two ran to the door as T'Challa raced to my side. "Soon, everything will fall into place." Then the two were gone.

"Rose," T'Challa whispered, placing a hand on my shoulder as Ororo also came to my side. "What happened?"

"I-I can't see," I whispered, my voice shaking as I tried to keep the pain out of it. "They sp-sprayed something i-in my eyes."

"We're going to help you," Ororo said, resting her hand on my arm. "They will not get away with this. T'Challa, get her a chair."

T'Challa nodded, grabbing a chair from nearby and brought it to me, Ororo helping me to my feet and having me sit down, my hands still covering my eyes as it felt like they were on fire.

"I'm going to go get her some water," Ororo said.

"And bring a washcloth," T'Challa said. "She has some blood on her."

Ororo nodded and left the room.

"Is it getting any better, Rose?" T'Challa asked.

I shook my head slowly. "No," I said softly. "The pain, it's horrible. I-I think-"

I never got to finish the sentence as my self-repairs kicked in and I fainted.