MJ huffs as she scrolls through her playlist on her phone. She's been thinking about that weird kid again: Sans, what a weird name. Everything about him is weird. His bright white hair, dark eyes, his carefree demeanor, everything about him seems wrong, somehow.
And that offer to work together. She still doesn't know what that was about, and at this point, she doesn't think Sans knows either. Aside from a few interactions during lunchtime, he's done nothing. Strange.
Well, MJ thinks to herself wryly, another weird thing to add to the list.
Sans is sitting in a chair. In a giant metal flying machine. Hundreds of miles in the air, and going thousands of miles per second. And unlike that last plane he'd been in—and also the first plane he'd been in—unless he's actually looking out the window, at the landscape blurring as the machine flies past, it's really hard to tell that he's actually moving.
Peter seems enthralled at the landscape under them. His nose almost touches the window as he stares at the sweeping yellow plains and the massive jungles that cover the continent.
Africa, he's been told that this place is called. More specifically, they're going to this country called "Wakanda," which is supposed to be this "technological wonder of the Earth," as Peter described to him.
Apparently the country runs a monopoly on this metal called "Vibranium," which had fallen from space in this giant meteorite thousands of years ago. The people used it to build technology years ahead of their time.
And, instead of sharing it to the world, they hid themselves away to the point that most people didn't even know the country existed until a fiasco a little while ago. That was about the extent of the information that Sans had been told, and now the others were on the end of this plane-thing, talking worriedly with a fierce-looking woman with a shaved head, tattoos and coffee coloured skin.
"hey, look." Sans observes. "those trees are flickering."
"What?" Peter walks over to Sans' position and squints at the dense jungle. "I don't see anything."
"see? right there." Sans says, pointing at the massive patch of trees that were, indeed, flickering like a bad TV, turning blue and transparent once in a while.
"...No?"
"huh. maybe those trees just didn't get the signal."
The pilot, another woman, turns around to look at them before turning back to the front. "What are you talking about?" She asks, with a distinct accent that involves a lot of rolling r's. Hey, another thing Sans can't do, considering the fact that he doesn't have a tongue.
"those trees." Sans points. "they're flickering."
The pilot suddenly sports a worried expression and she starts tapping on a screen. "Okoye!" She calls without looking up. The other woman walks over, and the two have a short exchange in a different language.
"You sure?" Okoye asks Sans a second later, looking at the trees and equally as worried.
"pretty sure. also pretty sure trees aren't supposed to do that."
"No, they are not." The pilot agrees. "But—"
"Are we going into those?" Peter yelps as the plane takes a dive.
"—those are not trees."
Sans watches as the plane passes through the trees and they disappear, revealing a shining city of tall skyscrapers, all made of some sort of metal that he assumes is the vibranium that Stark was talking about.
"Whoa," Peter breathes as he takes in the looming buildings, then turns back to stare at what used to be just trees. It just looks like a plain sky now, although Sans can see a faint blue shimmer in the air.
"that makes sense, actually." Sans muses to himself. Due to what technically is a lack of eyes, most holograms don't really work on him. They tend to look scratchy and faded, enough so that it's really easy to tell that they aren't fake but not enough to actually prevent him from seeing what it's supposed to be.
"What makes sense?"
Ah, so he'd been heard. Time to employ his tried and true deflecting method: he shrugs and grins at the pilot, who had turned back before she could see him.
So he would have to respond verbally. "...holograms don't work on me, really." He settles on. The pilot's head tilts as she works to land the plane and Sans doesn't have to see her face to know she's raising an eyebrow at him.
Instead of touching down on the ground, the plane dives and levels towards the ground in one smooth motion, coming to a controlled hover about a foot above a ledge. The pilot flicks a switch and a ramp descends through the floor, touching down on the ground.
They walk into a giant palace, shiny and metallic. The building looks more like several skyscrapers connected with long passageways that spiral out to the rest of the city, connecting most of the structures together into one giant network of train lines and flying vehicles.
So much technology here…Alphys would definitely freak out if she sees this place.
In the lobby of the building sits a throne. A lean man reclines on it, smiling with good humor at a younger girl who stands to the side. As soon as they enter the room, however, the man sits up straight, expression shifting to a more serious tone.
"Your Majesty." Stark says. "I take it that you've been informed of the situation here?"
"I have. Your other friends have already arrived." The man greets. "Welcome to Wakanda."
"We thank you for having us on such short notice, King T'Challa." Strange says stiffly. The room is tense, though not in the assumed "this is a bad situation and we might all die" kind of way. More like…they don't know how to act.
The girl shifts as well, seemingly uncomfortable with the formalities. "May I go get the others, brother?"
King T'Challa waves a hand towards her and she slips out of the room. "Please, no need for such formalities." He tells the group. "That is not our way. T'Challa is fine."
"Still seems pretty formal to me." Peter leans over and mutters to Sans, who huffs a small laugh.
"Your Majesty!" The king glances over to the side, where the voice came from and winces. "May I present your guests?" The voice has a teasing lilt to it, and T'Challa groans.
"Shuri, please. Stop."
And just like that, with a few teasing phrases and banter between siblings as Shuri walks through the door, the tension in the room drops. Stark greets the new people as they walk through the door, most of which Sans recognizes from a while ago.
"What's a couple of children doing here?" Sans hears Shuri whisper to her brother.
"You're barely still a child yourself." T'Challa whispers back, distracted. And really, anyone would be distracted when at least three people are trying to talk to you at once. "Can you bring some of them to the lab and explain the procedure? I can not think right now."
Sans suddenly senses something behind him, and turns around the same time Peter does. Peter gives the view outside the window a calculating glance before turning to Sans.
"You feel that too?" He whispers, lifting his head to sweep the room with his gaze.
"weird," is the only thing Sans responds with. Peter quickly takes another glance outside and jumps back.
"Did you see that?"
"see what?
"There was—There was something red! Like a red blur but it was gone before I could take a closer look." Peter squints at the window.
Sans does too, but whatever Peter had seen earlier has disappeared. He activates his magic and pulls all the souls in the surrounding area into a spectrum only he can see. Nothing, except for the multicoloured souls of the people in the room.
Whoever, or whatever seems to have left. "...looks like a literal red herring." He jokes, but the fact that there's something out there makes him uneasy.
"We can't count that out yet. We don't know what that red thing even is." Peter says, taking the joke a tad seriously.
"ketchup." Sans offers. Peter gives a disbelieving snort in response, and Sans grins at him. "excuse me if i didn't have enough thyme to mustard up a better response. i had thought we were in a pickle there. a real jam, you could say."
Peter heaves a dramatic sigh. "Well, if there was anyone there, there wouldn't be anymore. You probably killed them with your puns."
"that was the goal."
"I guess we have nothing to worry about anymore," A grin tugs at Peter's mouth. "All we have to do to kill that Thanos guy is to put you in front of him and let you go off."
"sounds like a sound plan."
Peter takes another look around the room, which at some point during that conversation had almost emptied, save for the king, who's deep in conversation with the two sorcerers. And his guards, who've been standing all around the room with very pointy looking spears.
Sans strolls towards the group.
"—volatile," T'Challa was saying. "It absorbs and releases energy. And while it's mostly kinetic energy it takes in, we cannot be sure that it wouldn't absorb any other energy."
Wong nods. "We underst—"
"whatcha talkin' 'bout?" Sans butts into the conversation with a grin.
Strange sighs. "Hello, Sans. I forgot you were still here."
"We were just standing next to that abhorrently large window over there." Peter pipes up, having followed Sans over to the throne.
T'Challa smiles. "I always liked natural light better than artificial. To answer your question," he turns to Sans. "I'm sure you've heard of how much vibranium is in this city. The special metal can absorb and store kinetic energy, and release it in different ways. Unfortunately, it's a volatile metal and we aren't sure if it can do the same with magic, as according to these two, magic is a type of energy."
"huh. i guess you could say…" Peter elbows Sans before he could say anything else. (And by anything else, he means more puns.)
"Does it absorb and release other kinds of energy? Electric, thermal; maybe chemical?" He asks as Sans opens his mouth again, and shoots him a glare.
T'Challa frowns. "I'm…not sure. I admit that I'm not well versed in the inner workings of vibranium, and how it can be used in technology. If you want," he offers, "you can ask Shuri. She does work with vibranium; she'll have answers."
"Will she know if magic affects the metal as well?" Wong asks.
T'Challa shrugs. "You may as well try." He tells him. The king pushes himself off his throne and straightens his clothes. "I can direct you to the lab."
And, true to his word, he shows them through winding hallways to a simple door. Peter pushes it open and gapes at what it revealed.
Sans peeks at the room under Peter's elbows and gives an appreciative whistle. The place is large and circular, brightly lit from every angle. A central pillar has a winding staircase leading up to a second floor balcony thing, decorated with swirling pictures and bright colours.
The walls have screens and holograms spread throughout. Shuri is sitting on a steel table that looks disturbingly like one of those operating tables that Aphys has in the underground labs, if not more futuristic-looking like everything else in this country. She seems to be explaining something to the small crowd of people with an interactable hologram that's emanating from a large beaded bracelet.
She looks up as they enter. "Don't touch anything" She calls, which immediately makes Sans want to touch something. Some of these devices look interesting…
He refrains, although it's extremely tempting. Wong leads the way to the table. "Is it possible?" He asks Shuri, who shrugs.
"Possible? Definitely. It won't be quick though. Or safe. No guarantees that you're—" She points to a floating red guy that Sans distantly recalls seeing before, but doesn't remember much else, "—going to survive the process at all."
"Especially with a possible time limit. Thanos isn't going to wait if he thinks this stone will be an easy grab." A woman (who's also very familiar but Sans doesn't remember the specifics) with a sleek black bodysuit loaded with weapons and red hair grumbles.
"Yes. Also that." Shuri agrees. "I can put up a shield. There's no way anything would get in without a lot of force. But these infinity stones that you told me about probably have more than enough to shatter it easily. Although, we don't know the effects that they are going to have on vibranium."
"We should get started then." Stark says, prompting an amused snort from Shuri.
"We? You know full well I'm the one doing any work. Now shoo; there's too many people here and I need to focus." Shuri says, ushering most of the people out of the lab. Only Banner, the red floaty guy, Peter and Sans remain. And, the only reason he and Peter's still in the lab was mostly because Shuri hadn't noticed them until she came back from the door.
She sighs when she sees them, but says nothing, quickly pulling up some holograms from her bracelet thing. Shuri directs the red guy onto the operating table and places the beads on his chest.
They glow, covering the operating table and Red Guy (Sans has decided that's his name now; he's much too lazy to run a full CHECK on him) in a blue holographic film.