The brilliant colors filling the sky gradually faded. As Fenris's figure reappeared before T'Chaka, the king, aided by the heightened vision granted by the Heart-Shaped Herb, clearly saw the indifference in the other man's eyes.
Every single aircraft in the sky possessed enough power to casually wipe out a mid-sized nation, yet in Fenris's eyes, they all seemed beneath notice.
"Father? What do we do?"
T'Challa, along with the Royal Guard around him, had all gone rigid with tension.
They knew better than anyone how strong the energy shield was. But the destructive force their opponent had just unleashed with the simplest of motions had still shaken them badly.
"Do not speak."
T'Chaka slowly removed the helmet of his Black Panther suit.
At this moment, the eyes of hundreds of thousands of citizens were fixed on him alone. As king, T'Chaka straightened his spine, and his resolute voice rang out through the amplification system. "When friends come from afar, Wakanda should naturally welcome them with warmth."
"But the four of you forced your way in from Wakanda's border all the way here, and now you float above the skies of our capital, openly provoking Wakanda's authority and trampling on our dignity. That is not how friends conduct themselves."
"Wakanda has remained apart from the world for generations, but we are no soft target for others to bully at will. If you intend to stand above the people of Wakanda and do as you please, then I fear you have chosen the wrong people."
T'Chaka's forceful words carried cleanly into the ears of the Wakandan people.
At once, throughout Birnin Zana, the looks the ordinary citizens cast toward Fenris and the others changed. The morale that had been faltering suddenly surged back to life.
"That's right! Wakanda cannot be defeated!"
"Even if they really are gods descended from heaven, the people of Wakanda will never kneel!"
"What is there to fear? Have you ever seen a god in a wheelchair?"
"Wakanda forever!"
Seeing the momentum shift, T'Chaka immediately raised his arm and shouted with them.
"Wakanda forever!"
Hundreds of thousands of voices roared as one. The overwhelming cry rolled like a tidal wave, shaking the surrounding forests, while hundreds of aircraft tilted upward in unison and aimed the weapons beneath their hulls at Fenris and the others.
"So loud."
Looking at the furious crowd below as the endless swell of voices crashed upward, Magneto frowned. An invisible force field spread out at once, cutting the sound waves off outside it.
"Professor, did you find him?"
As though the protests and rising fury below simply did not exist, Fenris turned his head slightly and looked toward Professor X.
"I found him. The man we want is in an isolated prison below, and he's still alive."
Professor X opened his eyes, the worry in his brow finally easing. He deliberately emphasized the last words. "Very much alive."
Now that they had found the key informant, it would not be long before Bolivar's main base could no longer remain hidden.
"That's excellent."
With a mountain lifted off his chest, Magneto let out a breath of relief as well.
Bolivar, who had gone to such lengths to hide himself in the shadows, was certainly dangerous. But the moment he was dragged out into the open, the threat he posed to mutants would drop sharply.
"Now that we know he's somewhere in the city below, this becomes much easier."
As for Wakanda...
Sensing the extraordinarily active magnetic field around them, Magneto let the protective force field fall away.
Unlike Fenris's booming voice, Magneto's voice was magnified layer by layer the moment it left his mouth until it became thunderous, easily drowning out the voices of the hundreds of thousands below.
"We have no desire to go to war with Wakanda, but..."
Magneto paused deliberately. Only after the noise below gradually died down did he continue.
"Today, Wakanda captured two groups of people who are very important to us."
"King of Wakanda, I know you understand exactly who I'm talking about. Hand those people over to us, and we will leave immediately. We will not violate even an inch of Wakandan territory."
"But if you refuse..."
As he spoke, Magneto slowly raised a hand. "Then don't blame us for what happens next."
In the next instant, a powerful magnetic surge spread out in all directions from deep beneath Wakanda itself.
The magnetic shielding devices T'Chaka had ordered activated turned into useless scrap almost immediately. Before the Wakandans even realized what had happened, the entire city of Birnin Zana had fallen under Magneto's control.
Every defensive measure lay exposed before him, stripped bare and plainly visible.
Wakanda's entire technological civilization had been built on the foundation of vibranium. Against a civilization like this, the current Magneto could deal with it almost effortlessly.
"So that's what you came for."
T'Chaka immediately thought of the unidentified man T'Challa had mentioned, the one with the chip implanted in his brain.
But he was the king. He held the fate of Wakanda in his hands. As the ruler of the most powerful nation in the world, was he really supposed to hand over a man just because Magneto demanded it, while hundreds of thousands of his citizens watched?
If the moment Magneto opened his mouth he casually surrendered criminals who had smuggled away Wakanda's lifeblood, then where would that leave his authority as the current Black Panther? As king?
He possessed the most advanced technology in the world, with a million citizens standing behind him. And the other side had only four people.
Feeling countless expectant eyes on him, T'Chaka slowly held the Black Panther helmet against his chest and declared in a righteous voice, "Magneto, Wakanda does not yield to threats."
"We do not have the people you are looking for. You have come to the wrong place. Leave now, and there is still room between us for peace."
"But if you insist on invading and bringing war to our land, then as king, I am willing to defend every inch of Wakanda with my life."
"Wakanda forever!"
"Erik, you were too impulsive. You should not have threatened their king so aggressively in front of all his people."
Hearing the overwhelming roar rise up once again from below, Professor X let out a sigh.
"Charles, Bolivar's bullet is practically already against mutantkind's forehead, the only lead we have is in the hands of these idiots who can't understand plain speech, and you're telling me I was too aggressive?"
Magneto turned his head in disbelief. He had never expected that at a moment this critical, with life and death hanging in the balance, his old friend would still criticize him from the enemy's side.
"Why waste words on these people? Tear this Black Panther's head off, and what person in Wakanda won't we be able to grab then?"
Even Scott had begun to lose patience from the noise. Without realizing it, his right hand had already come to rest on his ruby-quartz visor.
Fenris said nothing from the side. His eyes were fixed tightly on the space behind T'Chaka, where a string of sparks had already begun to flicker into existence.
The moment Wakanda made the first move, he could seize their king by the throat and hold him up in front of the guns of their own aircraft in the very next second.
"No. I think you've misunderstood what I meant."
Professor X slowly exhaled, then lightly pressed his index and middle fingers to his temple. A vast psychic force radiated outward from his mind in absolute silence, sweeping across all of Birnin Zana in an instant.
"Relax..."
"Lower the energy shield. Put down your weapons."
"Let us in. We are not your enemies."
(End of Chapter)
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