The team seemed to be in a somewhat depressing mood as Sam piloted the Quinjet towards somewhere in the continent of Africa.
"Drop to 2600, heading 0-3-0," Steve said as the Quinjet approached a forest.
"I hope you're right about this," Sam said. "Or we're gonna land a lot faster than you want to."
The Quinjet broke through an invisible barrier and before their eyes laid a city much more fancier and advanced than anywhere else in the continent. Or perhaps, the world, even. It was an amazing sight to see. It was like seeing a city from 2030 in 2018. But at the same time, it still kept an ancient culture environment to it.
Percy was mighty impressed. Wakanda's capital rivaled that of Atlantis, and that was coming from an Atlantean himself.
"So, this is where you put … Barnes," Tony said.
"Yeah," Steve replied cautiously. "Listen, Tony-"
"No, don't," Tony interrupted. "I'm long over it. I realized he wasn't really himself. It was all HYDRA."
Steve nodded, but didn't smile. "Still … I'm sorry about how things went down."
"Yeah, me too," Tony said.
The Quinjet softly landed on one of the platforms. The back hatch opened up and they all walked out to meet with T'Challa.
"Should we bow?" Percy heard Bruce ask behind him.
"Yeah, he's a king," Rhodey said, his tone layered with amusement.
"Perseus," T'Challa said, eyes meeting with him.
"T'Challa," Percy greeted back.
"Apologies for the scar," he said.
Percy shook his head. "Water under the bridge now. Besides, we got bigger problems."
"That we do," T'Challa agreed before frowning at behind Percy. "Uh, we don't do that here."
Percy looked back to see Bruce scowling at Rhodey, who was trying to suppress a chuckle, but failing.
"Seems like I'm always thanking you for something," Steve said, shaking hands with T'Challa.
"So how big of an assault can we expect?" T'Challa asked.
"It's gonna be an invasion from a space army, and if we know anything about space armies, they're always massive," Percy said.
"How we looking?" Steve asked.
"You will have my King's Guard, the Border Tribe, the Dora Milaje, and …"
"A semi-stable, 100-year-old man," Bucky finished as he walked up to them.
Percy could see Tony tense next to him as Bucky went to hug Steve.
"How you been, Buck?" Steve said.
"Uh, not bad, for the end of the world," Bucky said. He then spotted Tony as broke away from Steve. "Stark."
"Barnes," Tony replied, his tone stoic, not giving anything away.
"Ah, Mr. Stark," T'Challa said. "It is good to see you again."
"You too, Your Highness," Tony replied.
"And you must be what we are evaluating," T'Challa said, focused on the Vision.
Vision nodded.
"Come on inside, we will give you a thorough analysis," T'Challa said.
Strange, Rhodey, Peter, Sam and Bucky remained outside while Percy, Tony, Steve, Wanda, Bruce, Natasha and the Vision headed inside with T'Challa.
…
Inside a Wakandan lab, everyone watched as T'Challa's sister, Shuri, scanned the stone with our their fancy tech scanners and it displayed hologram of the stone after it was finished.
"Whoa. The structure is polymorphic," Shuri said.
"Yeah, we had to attach each neuron non-sequentially," Tony said.
"Why didn't you just reprogram the synapses to work collectively?" Shuri asked.
Tony frowned and turned to Bruce. "Yeah … why didn't we?"
"We ... didn't think of that, I guess," Bruce said.
"Well, we were kind of in an argument, if I recall," Percy reminded.
"Right … argument," Tony said.
"And plus, there was Ultron to deal with as well," Percy added. "There had been a lot going on."
Shuri raised her eyebrows at them all.
"It was years ago. Any way you can do that right now, Shuri?" Percy asked her.
"I could, but there are more than two trillion neurons here. One misalignment could cause a cascade of circuit failures," Shuri said.
"Yeah, we can't have that," Percy muttered.
"It will take time, brother," Shuri said to T'Challa.
"How long?" Steve asked.
"As long as you can give me," Shuri answered.
One of T'Challa's warriors produced a little ball that projected a hologram of the world. "Something's entered the atmosphere," she warned.
"Hey, Cap, we got a situation here," Sam said over the comms outside.
The capital of Wakanda was shook by something that crashed outside as everyone stabled themselves.
"What just happened?" Percy asked.
"A vessel from space tried to enter Wakanda but was destroyed by our barrier shield," T'Challa's warrior said.
Percy nodded, looking impressed. "Impressive."
"We got more incoming outside the dome," Rhodey warned.
Everyone stood by the windows to watch as more vessels landed outside the barrier, each one producing a wide impact of damage as they landed, taking out entire clusters of trees and such.
"Perhaps we should really think about destroying the stone now," Vision suggested.
"Not happening," Steve said.
"Shuri, you get that stone out of his head, and you keep him alive," Percy said.
Shuri nodded.
"The rest of us are needed outside," Percy said.
"Let's go," Wanda said, next to him.
"Not you," Percy said. "Someone might try to sneak up on Shuri and Vision. You're gonna be here for their protection."
Wanda nodded.
A hand slapped on Percy's shoulder and he turned to see that it was Steve, who was giving a look of approval. Percy smiled at him.
"Everyone, suit up," Steve said.
"A little problem with that," Bruce said. "I can't exactly suit up. Big guy's not agreeing with me for some reason."
"I can help with that," Percy said.
"How?" Tony asked.
"By doing this," Percy said and pointed his trident at Bruce. Everyone clamored for him to stop while he thrusted the trident at Bruce. The next thing Percy knew, his trident was stopped against something strong and green before Percy looked up to see the Hulk roar at him in fury. T'Challa's warriors backed away in terror.
Percy wasn't fazed, though.
"See, Hulk. You need Banner, just as much as he needs you," Percy said, his tone like he was talking to a child.
The Hulk grunted in disagreement.
"That was very dangerous, Percy," Steve said.
Percy shrugged. "I knew the Hulk wasn't going to let him die. They need each other symbiotically. Hulk was just having a hissy fit."
The Hulk grunted at him again.
"Well … I guess that means everyone's suited up," Tony said, wearing his new nanotech suit.
"Evacuate the city. Engage all defense procedures," T'Challa said before pointing at Steve. "And get this man a shield."
Steve nodded at him in reply.
…
T'Challa's troops gathered some thousands of feet away from the border, joining ranks with a nearby rival's, the Jubari, lead by M'Baku, at least from what T'Challa told them. All of these people were ready to defend their land along with the Avengers and Percy nothing short of admired for them.
As T'Challa spoke with M'Baku, Percy turned his attention to Doctor Strange. "You can use it for now, but as soon as we get the other stones, yours joins them and we destroy them all. Got that?"
Doctor Strange sighed in despair. "Yeah, I got that."
Percy joined up with T'Challa, Natasha, Steve and Tony as they walked up to the border where three of Thanos's four servants were waiting for them.
"You're only three," Tony commented. "Where's your other guy?"
Proxima scowled at him but didn't answer him.
"You might as well turn around and head back to whatever scummy planet you came from," Percy said. "This time we will kill you, and I promise you it won't be merciful."
"Give up the stones and we will be on our way, that is our promise to you," Ebony Maw said.
"That's not happening," Steve said.
"You are in Wakanda now. Thanos will have nothing but dust and blood," T'Challa declared.
"We … have blood to spare," Proxima Midnight said, raising her sword as the vessels behind levitated.
It was worth a shot, Percy supposed. He and his other four companions returned to the troops.
"Did they surrender?" Bucky asked.
"Nope," Percy replied.
"Yibambe!" T'Challa chanted as his troops followed suit. They kept chanting it as the massive swarm of alien monsters appeared from the forests.
"What the hell?" Bucky muttered.
"Looks like we pissed her off," Natasha commented.
Percy grimaced as he gripped his trident harder, cracking his wrist in the process. He was absolutely disgusted by the sight of the mindless beasts driving themselves through the barrier that would even chop them cleanly, not caring about themselves one bit. They were like wild dogs, except much more disturbing.
"They're killing themselves," the woman Percy remembered as Okoye said, horrified.
Tony Stark and Doctor Strange took to the air, joining with Sam and Rhodey as they killed the incoming beasts from the air. Meanwhile, the ground troops engaged shield and with their spears, fired at the incoming monsters.
The air combatants did well in taking out a good portion of the swarm but the problem was no matter how many they killed, there were still far too many. For every one alien monster they killed, hundreds seemed to take its place. Percy watched worriedly as they started to make their around the barrier, their intent on surrounding the capital. If they let that happen … there would be nothing to stop them from getting to the Mind Stone. And that was a situation nobody wanted.
"They're circling the perimeter, T'Challa," Percy warned grimly. "If we let that happen … there's nothing between them and Vision."
"Them we better keep 'em in front of us," Steve added.
"How do we do that?" Okoye asked.
"We open the barrier," T'Challa replied grimly. "On my signal, open North-West Section Seventeen." Something was said to him over his comms, to which he reiterated, "on my signal."
"This will be the end of Wakanda," M'Baku muttered.
"Then it will be the noblest ending in history," Okoye said.
Percy had almost forgotten Peter was there until he sighed. "Well … thanks for everything, Aunt May," Percy heard him mutter to himself.
Next to Percy, the Hulk grunted angrily as he prepared to attack. Percy himself dropped the trident into his other hand and it gripped it firmly with both hands. The king of Wakanda shouted a phrase in his language and the army disposed of their shields. Percy focused his attention on the stream about five hundred feet away in front of them and smirked, even if for a small moment in this very grim situation. That seemed like a good place to start the battle.
T'Challa stepped forward in front of his army. "Wakanda forever!"
And with a mighty battle cry, they all charged.