DoorMan (MCU SI) - #123 : Le Killmonger :- Nrgghh--Ack....

Disclaimer - I don’t own Marvel or any of its characters. The Mighty Mouse does =and I hope it is not standing behind me with a shotgun cocked and ready to blow my brains out the second I have the audacity to press PUBLI——

DoorMan #123

Wakanda [May 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

Flying high above the city, they crossed the threshold of that illusion soon enough as he eyed the beefy military installation below, which stopped anyone from going near the boundary of the illusion, as a mountain with a hole in the middle greeted him.

Slowly, he followed Shuri and landed on the edge of the hole, looking straight down to see glints of blue, white, and purple peeking out, with the white lights moving about, which were more likely the trains responsible for moving the Vibranium around.

“It is far deeper than I expected it to be,” He remarked as he leaned forward, trying to take a better look at all the lights in the distance.

“Yeah, this mountain is completely artificial. The Great Mound was originally found deep inside a crater, buried deep due to the impact, and we had to build this mountain on top of the crater to keep it hidden.”

Well, that made complete sense, especially since they did not have access to this illusion tech in the past, but building a giant mountain around something was very easy. “I’ve plans to bury the hole completely, create a layer of support and turn the whole mountain flat so that even if the illusion is removed, outsiders cannot pinpoint the location.”

Also, very smart.

After that, Shuri jumped back, flipping mid air as she rocketed straight down. Rolling his eyes and knowing what was to come, he followed her. Only this time, there was no illusion but a patch of the land around the mountain itself sliding back, to reveal a dark tunnel with no lights, except at the end.

He wondered who exactly made these tunnels and, more importantly, why?

They were completely smooth, with no ridges or platforms to hold onto, so one would just slide through until the end, and with the angle of the tube, it would be impossible to slide. People would just fall through, bumping into both sides, right up until they reached the bottom and became meat paste.

No lights to navigate anything. Nothing.

Before he could voice that question, Shuri flipped herself once more and landed on the ground, her suit glowing with purple veins as the kinetic impact was completely absorbed. Meanwhile, he had to use the Air Door to stop himself, buffeting the area below him with high pressure winds to come to a halt.

“Inefficient,” Shuri snarked at his landing.

“Well, not everyone can have an entire mountain’s worth of Vibranium to dampen any kinetic impact against them.” He snarked right back, looking all around him, at the various doodads, too many screens and the most important of them all, the giant glass panes showcasing the maglev trains and the sonic disrupters they used to transport all that unrefined Vibranium, which was quite a hassle to move around in such large quantities.

“True,” Shuri admitted before throwing something at him. He caught it on instinct, opening his hand to reveal a tennis-sized dark ball, deceptively light.

“Tap it once and place it on your feet,” Shuri instructed and upon doing so, he found the nanites sort of flop around on the feet of his onesie, creating a shoe of sorts, “Wow. Uh, thanks? I guess,”

Shuri rolled his eyes at him as she snapped her fingers, the vibranium nanites returning to their ball shape, “Ungrateful coloniser,”

____xx___

“Woohooo!” He shouted, purposefully, as they sat in one of the empty carriages on the maglev meant to transport all the Vibranium safely to be refined.

“I don’t get it,” Shuri said, her tone bland, “How would this be fun?”

“You don’t get it,” He said without looking back, as he marvelled at the sheer size of the Vibranium meteor here and how blessed Wakanda was to have this at all, “I am in the fastest train on the planet, transporting ore that is worth more than most countries’ GDP, to be used in a country that most people have no idea of, one that is the closest to utopia you can get on Earth.”

He looked back with a grin, “How could this not be amazing?”

“Well, if you look at it like that,” Shuri mumbled as the train finally came to a stop, right at the edge of the visible tracks. After this, it would undergo multiple trips through a dozen chambers with varying conditions and then enter one of the refining factories.

After that, the mine trip was done as they went back to the Royal Castle, where he got ready to leave. But before he left, he only had a single warning to give.

He did not think it would be necessary because this version of Shuri was far more ruthless than T’Chaka but just in case it became necessary, “Uh, Shuri, I think you should know this. You have a cousin of yours, son of your uncle, alive in the outside world. He goes by the name–”

“Killmonger, yeah, I know.” 

He blinked at her in surprise.

A display popped up in front of him, showing a  rather surprising visual. He recognised the background immediately. The valley where the battle between prospective Black Panthers happens, with the winner becoming both King and the Black Panther.

Only this time, it was completely different. Shuri was fighting Killmonger?

And he seemed to be much stronger than before, every single one of his impacts cratering the ground, as he seamlessly switched between weaponry and his own body, training from the military and whatever mercenary groups he frequented coming into play and yet, he could see how this was a one sided battle, how Shuri just seemed to move about languidly, not even taking the attacks seriously, something that frustrated Killmonger to no end.

“Has he taken the..”

“The heart-shaped herb? Oh, yeah. Since they couldn’t depower me with their usual poison, I agreed that it was a fair practice to let him eat the Heart-Shaped Herb as well, something that Bast agreed to as well since he came out alive from that ordeal. Well, not that it helped him in the slightest.” Shuri shrugged, as the video resumed from the small pause it had taken when he had begun speaking.

Damn, Griot was good!

After a while of Killmonger just slamming stuff, cratering the ground, splashing water everywhere, and just roaring in her face, Shuri seemed to take it seriously and began duking it out with him.

Well, duking it out would be a gross overstatement of what he was seeing. She was just taking all the weapons that Killmonger could get his hands on, while pushing him with ease. Everything looked just as he expected it to be, right up until he saw where Shuri was pushing Killmonger.

Uh-oh.

He turned to her and asked, “Did you?”

Shuri nodded, “Obviously. I pushed him off the cliff and then made sure he died after he was rescued, in his sleep, obviously, painlessly.

I am not stupid. Someone like that, who could become a legitimate threat to my position? Of course, I would end him. It just became convenient to do so in front of everyone when he challenged me for the throne with an official ritual. Fight to the death is fight to the death. The idiot should have read the fine print before trying his luck with me.”

He shook his head as the feed resumed and showed him exactly what had happened. The shocked look on his face meant that no one had told him that Princess Shuri was so powerful that taking on the entirety of the Dora Milaje was not beyond her, something that no Black Panther had done before.

If anyone said that it was a bit ruthless to just kill him off, then they simply did not understand how a Monarchy works, and also had no idea just how big a criminal Killmonger was in the outside world.

That blood relation, the potential of becoming King, coupled with that hatred in his mind? Yeah, killing him off was the best option here. The only thing better would have been to bring him back after his father had been killed off, but since T’Chaka was not smart enough to solve his problems before they became even bigger ones for his kids, this was the next best thing.

“Huh, good riddance, I would say, especially because of his crime spree outside of Wakanda. Now, if you do need anything from me, you know my email and if I happen to be in possession of a spaceship that requires extensive retrofitting, I will contact you.” 

Saying so, he just rocketed off, not even waiting to listen to her response, though he did catch the telltale signs of an awed and excited expression forming on her face.

Hook, Line, and Sinker.