Chapter 388: Solar Storm
They moved through the jungle in single file, closing on the city at a steady pace.
Batman and Robin kept their speed down to accommodate T'Challa. The prince had trained as a Wakandan warrior his entire life, and even without the Heart-Shaped Herb his baseline was well above the human average -- but there was no point outrunning him when they were operating as a unit. T'Challa kept pace, and neither of the other two needed to wait for him.
An hour later, they stopped at the jungle's edge. T'Challa needed a moment to recover, and more importantly, this was where their paths separated.
Robin's self-restraint had limits. With Batman still present to absorb any fallout, he asked the question he'd been sitting on.
"Back on the Batwing, you said you damaged the sonic weapon circuits because of Shuri. What was that about? Don't tell me there's some Wakandan sibling rivalry over the throne situation."
"No." T'Challa shook his head. "My concern is different. If Shuri realizes I've returned, she will stop at nothing to reach me. That works directly against everything we need this operation to be."
Batman quietly retired the contingency plans he had prepared for Shuri. On the Batwing he had already formulated worst-case scenarios around her. It appeared he'd been overthinking it.
"Couldn't she be useful from the inside?" Robin pressed. "Coordinating with us while you're moving through the city --"
"After M'Baku imprisoned me, he placed Shuri and my mother under guard in a separate part of the royal city." T'Challa's voice was steady, but there was something controlled behind it. "Any attempt to contact her runs a real risk of M'Baku's people intercepting it. I would rather take all of the danger onto myself."
"You know what your problem is?" Robin said. "You're stubborn to the point of being useless."
T'Challa glanced at Batman. He had decided very early that he was not going to debate a creature with a child's sense of humor and a face that looked like living night. Batman offered nothing, so T'Challa kept his reply to a look.
Batman began.
"Robin. You and T'Challa proceed to the Wakanda temple. Don't act without thinking, but protecting yourself and T'Challa takes priority over any other consideration."
"T'Challa. As you described, you need to become the Black Panther first. Robin will protect you through that process. Once it's done, you separate -- you find the broadcast room, the information relay center, wherever a signal goes out to all of Wakanda -- and you announce your return as the Black Panther. Your name and your status, heard across the country. That's the step that changes everything."
"After that, Robin -- your target is M'Baku. You don't need to defeat him. You need to occupy him completely, make it impossible for him to issue orders or respond to developments elsewhere."
"T'Challa, on your way to the temple, describe M'Baku's appearance to Robin in enough detail that he can't mistake someone else for him."
"I'll go to the Vibranium mine alone. Free the Wakandans and locate Klaue."
T'Challa looked up. "I realized I haven't described what Klaue actually looks like. He --"
"Looks like Lincoln," Batman said. "I investigated him before we left."
T'Challa let out a slow breath. He had spent his entire life understanding the value of intelligence before a fight, but this was his first real battlefield and details had a way of slipping through under pressure. Batman had apparently assumed he would forget.
"If everything proceeds correctly," Batman continued, "we regroup on the plain at the front of the city. T'Challa issues a formal challenge to M'Baku and reclaims the throne in front of Wakanda."
"If it doesn't go correctly --" he looked at Robin -- "you're authorized to go Venom or Moon Eclipse Knight. Use your judgment."
"One more instruction. When either of us -- not Robin, but you and I, T'Challa -- completes our part first, the immediate next step is a full-spectrum energy scan of Wakanda. Every corner of the country. We're looking for anomalous readings."
T'Challa studied Batman's face.
"I don't need that look," Batman said without inflection. "When I flew the Batwing into Wakanda's boundary, I had enough time to observe the rough principle behind the barrier that separates it from the outside world. This isn't the moment to explain it. What matters is: I need to find the source of the conspiracy that was arranged here for me. I intend to meet whoever is behind it."
"If what's behind it operates at the level of Khonshu -- or above that level --" T'Challa chose his words carefully -- "that's an extreme risk to take alone. After I become the Black Panther, I may be able to commune with the ancestral spirits. I can ask them if they have any way to assist you."
"You can try," Batman said. "I can't afford to wait for that answer."
T'Challa said nothing more. He brought his right fist up and struck it firmly against his own chest.
Venom Robin had been still long enough. He grinned, dropped low, and in one smooth motion hoisted T'Challa horizontally across his shoulder.
The dust hadn't settled before they were gone -- two shapes diminishing rapidly toward the city, Robin's legs eating ground at a pace that left no question about whether T'Challa would reach the temple in time.
Batman didn't watch them go. The moment Robin moved, he turned, swept his cape out behind him, and walked in the opposite direction.
Half an hour later, Batman lay flat on a rocky hillside, looking down at what sat at the base of the slope.
A facility -- compact, modern, built with purpose. Not a smelting operation for processed Vibranium. An armory. Half of it open to the sky, half carved directly into the mountainside. The kind of structure that was designed for convenience of access and concealment in equal measure.
From this angle, the Wakandan miners themselves weren't visible. But the mercenaries were. He could see them moving between the structures below, weapons up, the casual alertness of men who had been on a rotation long enough to be bored but not long enough to be careless.
"Klaue's position not yet confirmed. Proceeding with Plan Twelve-C."
No king in sight meant starting from the outer ring and working inward. The nearest available target was a sentry on a raised platform less than ten meters away -- armed, positioned to watch the approach from the direction of the royal city, keeping an eye on M'Baku's side of the divide.
The flight from New York was long even at Batwing speed, and it was now somewhere between four and five in the morning. The sky was still dark. The absolute blackness that comes before the first grey begins to separate from the horizon -- the hour that infantry manuals call the worst hour to be on watch, the hour when biological rhythms force even disciplined soldiers toward the edge of sleep.
This one was trying. Batman gave him credit for that. Every five or six minutes the sentry raised his night-vision binoculars and swept the direction of the royal city, checking for movement. He was doing what he was supposed to do.
The sentry yawned. Checked his watch. Five minutes since the last sweep. He picked up the binoculars and pressed them to his face.
He frowned.
Every previous sweep had given him the usual readout -- the distant lights of the royal city, and beyond them the familiar green-tinted landscape of night vision. Clear, comprehensible, nothing unusual.
This time the entire field was white.
The thought that crossed his mind was slightly absurd: is it dawn already?
He pulled the binoculars away from his face to check.
The next beat of his heart never arrived.
Hanging directly in front of him, inverted and utterly silent, was a figure in absolute black. What he had seen through the night-vision optics -- that flat, bleached-out whiteness filling the entire lens -- had been the creature's eyes. Two pale points of light, burning steady in the dark.
The sentry's mouth opened.
The air hadn't yet moved from his lungs to his vocal cords when his eyes closed and he was already falling.
At the same moment, in the outer edges of the Van Allen radiation belt's core region, high above the curve of the Earth:
"I've always felt this mission was too dangerous." Susan Storm stood at the observation window, her arms folded. "All we can do now is trust that Ben's flying is as good as advertised."
At the controls, Ben Grimm kept his eyes on his instruments. "Even during the Cold War space race, neither the Americans nor the Soviets ever cracked the high-energy charged particle problem inside the Van Allen belts. But Reed is smarter than every scientist from that era combined and multiplied together." He glanced sideways. "Ease up, Susan."
"That's right." Reed Richards was smiling the particular smile of someone who had already solved the problem and was enjoying watching everyone else worry about it. "Our purpose here is to use the solar storm as an opportunity to measure cosmic radiation parameters at the outer edge of the belt. I have no intention of flying directly into charged particle concentrations. I'm not an idiot."
On the other side of the cabin, Johnny Storm was staring at his spacesuit with an expression that suggested a personal grievance.
"Reed." He plucked at the sleeve. Deep blue. "You couldn't have designed something better for me specifically? Fire red would have been perfect. Maybe with some patterns. I genuinely would have been better off in my motorcycle jacket."
"Johnny." Susan turned her head. "Not now."
The ship's synthesized voice filled the cabin with flat precision.
"Solar storm arrival in one minute."
Johnny gave the suit one last pained look and pulled his attention toward the instrumentation array. He scanned the readings. Paused.
He looked at Susan by the window. He looked at Reed at the far end of the cabin, absorbed in something on his display. He looked back at the readings.
"Hey." His voice came out uncertain, which wasn't a register Johnny Storm usually occupied. "The solar storm data. Something about it looks... wrong."
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