In the gilded halls of Asgard, the mourning fires had dimmed to a smoldering orange, but the air remained heavy with the scent of roasted meat and strong ale. The Asgardian warriors were feasting again—a desperate attempt to drown the silence left by the destruction of the Bifrost.
Thor, his shoulders broader and his eyes weary with a newfound wisdom, moved through the throng of laughing soldiers. He looked like a man who had finally realized the weight of the hammer he carried. Seeing his mother, Frigga, standing at the balcony's edge, he offered a ghost of a smile, but it flickered out before it could reach his eyes.
Sif watched him from the shadows of a pillar before approaching the Queen. "My Queen," Sif whispered, her voice thick with empathy. "I am so sorry for everything that has happened. For Loki... for the bridge."
Frigga gently patted Sif's arm, her gaze fixed on the shimmering, broken horizon. "Thor is mourning more than just a brother, Sif. He is thinking of her—that mortal girl on the blue planet."
Thor stepped up to his father's side. Odin stood at the precipice where the Rainbow Bridge used to anchor to the palace, looking out over the realm.
"You will be a wise king, Thor," Odin said, his voice a low rumble.
"There will be no king wiser than the one standing before me," Thor replied, his voice devoid of his former arrogance. "I realized too late how much I still have to learn. I only hope that one day, I can make you proud of the man I've become."
Odin turned, his one eye softening as he looked at his son. He placed a heavy, weathered hand on Thor's shoulder. "I am already proud of you, my son."
Later, Thor stood at the jagged, broken end of the Bifrost. Heimdall remained at his post, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword, his amber eyes piercing the infinite dark of the Nine Realms.
"Heimdall," Thor called out over the whistling cosmic winds. "Can you see her? Is Jane safe?"
"She is looking for you, Thor," Heimdall replied. "She is searching the stars for a door that has been slammed shut."
Thor looked at the endless void. "Is there truly no way back to Earth?"
"There is always hope," Heimdall said, his voice echoing with a mysterious certainty. "Loki found paths that did not require the bridge. I am searching for those shadows now. We will find a way."
Five days had passed since Leander Hayes vanished into the walls of the Great Mound.
In the high-tech corridors of the palace, the initial panic had settled into a dull, lingering anxiety. T'Challa still checked the seismic sensors every hour, but the red dot representing Leander had remained stationary for so long that the system had flagged it as a glitch.
In her laboratory, Shuri finally sighed and closed her holographic interface. She tapped her Kimoyo Beads, and the black stealth drone she had been using to scan the mine glided back through the vent. It folded its sleek vibranium wings and clicked into its charging port, looking like a harmless decorative bird.
"Nothing," Shuri muttered, leaning back in her chair. "It's like he turned into stone."
She looked out the massive observation window at the mining floor below, where workers continued to use sonic resonance cannons to harvest the ore. The rhythmic thump-thump of the cannons was the heartbeat of Wakanda, steady and unchanging.
But deep within the northwestern meteorite wall, the "stone" was waking up.
Leander opened his eyes. The small pocket of air he had carved out had expanded significantly as he consumed the surrounding ore. Over twenty-five cubic meters of high-grade vibranium had simply... disappeared, absorbed into his very cells.
The violent purple energy that had initially shredded his clothes and his backpack—along with his favorite book on Norse mythology—was now calm. It swirled around his skin in lazy, ethereal ribbons. Eight solidified vibranium energy "nodes" floated in the corners of the cave, acting like miniature suns that made the small space dazzlingly bright.
Leander looked at his hand. He felt different. His skin had a faint, pearlescent luster, and his muscles felt like coiled springs made of indestructible cable. He reached out a finger toward a jagged piece of raw ore.
The moment his intent touched the metal, it didn't just move—it transformed. The dark, raw black-and-purple rock rapidly shifted into a polished, silver-black metal. Tiny, intricate patterns—resembling micro-circuits or spider-webs—etched themselves onto the surface as the metal softened under his will.
Leander stood up, his naked body floating effortlessly in the zero-gravity field he had unknowingly generated. With a thought, the silver-black metal he had just refined began to flow toward him. It spun into gossamer-thin filaments, weaving itself directly onto his skin.
In seconds, he was dressed in a sleek, form-fitting short-sleeved shirt and shorts. The material felt softer than silk but was tougher than any armor on the planet. On his chest, he allowed a stylized black spider pattern to emerge—a small nod to his friend back in Queens.
He looked at the pile of ash on the floor—the remains of his backpack. "Sorry, Aunt Jenny," he whispered. "I'll get a better one next time."
He walked toward the entrance of his cave. With a casual flick of his wrist, the three-meter-thick wall of vibranium blocking his path slid aside as if it were a sliding glass door. He stepped out into the open air of the Great Mound, and the wall clicked shut behind him, leaving the surface perfectly seamless.
Leander hovered in the air, his Golden Eyes glowing with a brilliance that made the surrounding ore dim in comparison.
[System Status Update]
Control Points: 130
Attributes: Strength 24 | Defense 24 | Speed 23 | Spirit 25
Enhancements: Golden Eyes (100%) | Bronze Skin (100%) | Steel Sinews (100%) | Iron Bones (77%)
The "Iron Bones" hadn't hit 100% yet, but the 77% mark represented a massive leap. His skeleton was now a hybrid lattice of Vibranium and Uru-infused marrow.
He flexed his back, and his Nirvana Golden Wings erupted. They were no longer just pure gold. Now, each feather was tipped with a shimmering purplish-black edge that pulsed with the raw energy of the Great Mound. When he flapped them, they left "after-images" of violet light in the air, looking like a dream caught in motion.
The tips of his wings accidentally brushed against the cavern wall, carving a three-inch-deep trench into the "indestructible" meteorite as if it were wet sand.
"130 control points," Leander whispered, feeling the invisible threads of every piece of metal in Wakanda vibrating at his fingertips. "This... this is what I was looking for."
Suddenly, his stomach let out a thunderous growl. The sheer energy cost of the transformation had left him famished.
"How long was I out? Two days? Three?" He looked toward the palace, his eyes zooming in until he could see Shuri sitting at her workstation in the laboratory. "Well, I guess the guest should say hello before leaving."
In her lab, Shuri was focused on a new weave for the Dora Milaje combat suits. The room was silent, protected by three layers of vibranium shielding and a biometric lock.
Vrip.
A square section of her "unbreakable" wall suddenly unzipped. A boy dressed in a strange, shimmering black-and-silver T-shirt stepped through the opening as if he were walking through a doorway.
The wall sealed itself instantly behind him.
"Hey, Shuri. Hope I'm not interrupting."
"AH!"
Shuri nearly fell off her stool. She instinctively grabbed a vibranium short-sword from her workbench and spun around, her heart hammering against her ribs. "Leander?! How—how did you get in here? My scanners said the room was sealed!"