Discimer - All the owners have their respective rights. I only own the characters that came from my addled brain (don’t worry, I am pletely sober).

  Wakanda[October 2014]

  –Tony Stark–

  His eyes fluttered open as the mother of all headaches hit him. His eyes squinted as he tried to make sense of where he was and what the fuck had just happened for his head to throb so much.

  Last he remembered….

  His breath hitched as he shot upright, or at least tried to, as his memory finally caught up with the events.

  “Rex, Mr.Stark. Please, calm down,” A voice with a thick Afri at asked him to calm down as somethily pressed down on his chest.

  Calm? Calm?!

  His struggles renewed as he tried to sit upright but apparently, the hand keeping him down was made up of steel because it did not budge at all.

  His eyes finally adjusted to the bright light as he looked in the face of a Bck Chick, with traditional garb and accessories who was looking at him with a stern gaze. He looked around and was so relieved to find everyone.

  He saw Steve as he and talking with some other Bck Chick before everyone. Of course, the Golden Boy before everyone. His metabolism must have woken him up much faster than everyone else, his system burning through whatever it was they put io put them under.

  Np, FOCUS!

  He looked at the hand keeping him down and at the woman. He raised his eyebrows as she removed her hand and then stepped back. IT was at that point, that he noticed the spear just hanging off her back as she then equipped it somehow, and then pointedly gred at him.

  He slowly sat upright, his body not hurting or feeling sore at all but his mind still reeling from the events that happened.

  Last he remembered, they were fighting in that HYDRA castle, against HYDRA soldiers armed with Chitauri tech capable of denting even his suit. Then, Jack disappeared from everything really, as they were forced to fight on their own, much more carefully than sihe prote from Jack’s barriers was gone.

  Then, as if a se straight from his nightmares, the entire ndscape around them ged. The castle did not look like it was built to be lived in. It was a burned nightmare as all the Chitauri soldiers somehow disappeared, and so did every single line of defense of the castle. Not even the giant forcefield that protected the entire castle, the thing that stopped him from just breag their perimeter and then ing the house from within.

  Then Jack came bad a se from a horror movie unfolded in front of him as the ground itself seemed to swallow the entire castle. He was so in shock at that happening that he all but fled the se as Jack opened a portal straight to AVeower, somewhere where the ground wasn’t out to get him.

  Then he remembered a fsh of red hitting him before….nothing.

  That’s it.

  “I assume you are dohinking with that small brain of yours?”

  He looked up to see a snarky teealking to him. He smirked internally. Well, wherever this way, at least he could t on people being cocky and uimating him at least.

  “We don’t have much time, it has been 20 minutes since Jack has left for South Africa. We need you and every help that we gather. Your suit is right there,” She poiowards the side where a giant gss tube held his suit.

  He squi the suit as he saw some additions that were clearly not there. Plus, what did she just say about Jack?

  This was all just being dumped on him without any time to process it all.

  “Yeah, it is quite an exoskeleton but you clearly have your own limitations. I have upgraded a few things for you. For example, the repulsor bsts now have an output equivalent to your UniBeam,” Oh, he could hear the quotation marks amidst the snark and smugness of the girl.

  Wait, what? “That’s impossible. The circuitry is the limit here, not the Arc Reactor. I had to rewire the ehing to create a separate line of tact for the Repulsors just to get the current output.”

  “Yeah, well, I would love to get ity gritty with you but you guys o hurry. Now,” The girl said and then he flinched back as the scary Ban beside him just accosted him up from the bed and then just ied something in him.

  “The Fuck?!” he excimed as he stepped back, away from both of the clearly crazy people.

  “Oh, quit whining. That will help flush all the chemicals in your system much faster since you don’t have the enhanced metabolism of the Captain right there,”

  Speaking of Captaiurned around to see Steve running towards someoh a full uniform and also an unmarked shield of some sort, in quite an urgency.

  “You should go, I have programmed the suit tain e with your AI o leaves our borders,”

  The few minutes were a whirlwind of activity as he was freshened up, given clothing, and then thrust into his suit, which was pletely inactive as far as he could tell. None of his manual gestures were w but he could see the Arc Reactor at full capacity.

  Then, he was transported into a very futuristic looki and then taken out of the pce. He couldn’t actually see anything but judging by the things he had seen so far, he was either on another p, with aliens or there was a hidden Afri society with teology turies ahead of the world.

  He didn't know whie was more shog.

  The jet then came to a stop and he was then unceremoniously carted off the pne and thehere as the jet took off and disappeared mid-way.

  Great Stealth Tech, he thought to himself as the suit came balierabytes of data booting up as his suit finally made tact with Jarvis.

  He sighed in relief as Jarvis’ voice came through the speaker but before he could say anything, the suit just jumped out of the ground and created a soni as he could see the repulsors burning at full capacity.

  “Jarvis?! What is happening?” He asked, his ay rising as he was being thrust into another situation without any uanding.

  At least this time, he could question the one responsible.

  Instead of answering, a video feed opened up, showing a rge red barrier of sorts that covered..Johannesburg from the looks of it?

  “What is happening there, Jarvis?”

  “Sir, approximately an ho, Dr.Banner was seen iy of Johannesburg, in his enraged form,” He winced as the footage of Banner just wreaking havo a city full of people. This was not going to paint a nice picture for Bruce, who was already troubled enough as is.

  Well, that was not the Hulk they knew. At least, not from the data archives that Jarviss just accessed. For ohe gamma radiation ing off of the Hulk right now was five times as the previous highest recorded. Also, the mindless rage is absent this time.

  And then…

  Then there was nothing as he saw the footage of Jack arriving at the site like a shining greeeor and then a huge red sphere that popped up out of nowhere.

  What the hell was that? “Jarvis?”

  “The energy is the same as the ohat was used oa Aveower, sir,” Jarvis’ words only fueled his determination to get there in time and help Jack. Whoever this red menace was, they were clearly powerful. Powerful enough to rattle even Jad now that Jack had to fight the Hulk, who arently amped up signifitly, the ces of Jack beied were very high.

  “New Circuitry detected. Rerouting power. Repulsors: 300%” Jarvis’ voided when he felt a sudden jerk inside his suit, which was supposed to be impossible with the iia celtion system he had created.

  “J..Jarvis?”

  “I judged the new circuitry work resilient enough to hahe load delivered to the repulsors,” Jarvis helpfully reminded him as the clouds passed on his HUD at a dizzying pace. To not get motion siess, which he didn’t know he was susceptible to, he began looking at the data points of the so-called enhanced circuitry that Jarvis, and that teenage girl from earlier were talking about.

  His eyes widened as he saw the amount of energy being elled through the circuitry, almost to the point of overwhelming the repulsors in his suit as he rapidly pushed past his previous high speed records.

  “Just what in the hell did she put into the suit?” He asked out loud as the numbers just kept on climbing, probably only limited by the sheer pressure that was being put on every part of the suit, which was supposed to be a for ter ohe repulsors output finally caught up with the overall iy of the chassis.

  He resisted the urge to whoop in joy as the suit parted the clouds in a bid to reach his destination faster because of the energy readings that were ing from the red dome that had bed a rge portion of the city.

  The energy was airely different breed, matg the ohat artially recorded in Novi Grad, but at a totally different level.

  This was, by all stretch of the imagination, just magic. The amount of stific fields that would have to be ht ied to expin even a portion of what he had seen that day, and would no doubt be seeing today, would vince even someone like him to term it as just “magid call it a day.

  Anyway, suffitly advanced magic will be indistinguishable from magic for lower lifeforms.

  He just called himself a lower life form, didn’t he?

  “From the ss, it would seem that a generous amount of Vibranium has beeo upgrade parts of the suit, MR. Stark,” Jarvis’ words made him blink as he realised what that snark girl was talking about earlier.

  Vibranium? She gave him freaking Vibranium? And for what?

  She mentioned Jack, was Jae sort of hidden Head of some hidden anisation that no one had even heard of?

  He did not know but now was not the time for that, he thought to himself as he finally caught up with the jet that housed Steve Rogers, as was shown on his HUD. He was also able to s the Raptor because he was designated as friendly in their systems.

  Jarvis was able to interface with their systems but only because of how advanced he was pared to most human minds out there. The sheer amount of plex code that was hitting his eyes was magnifique.

  Finally, his eyes met the Dome that had covered Johannesburg, and acc to Jarvis’ ss, corroborated from..Wakanda?

  Wakanda, that small poor try was where this Raptor and that Vibranium, and that advanced facility had e from?

  A crisis for aime, he thought to himself as he read the ss taken from both Wakanda’s much more advanced satellites and also his own personal satellites.

  He soled himself by telling himself that Wakanda was aire nation, apparently turies ahead of the normal tries, and he was but one man. But man, did it burn not having the most advae the p.

  It would seem another round of tinkering was at hand once he went back.

  Finally, he crash nded in front of the dome, uo see or sense what was going on i the tremors that could be felt underh were clearly suggesting that an intense fight was happening inside.

  He felt the Raptor dump Rogers before flying away and o went into stealth mode, it disappeared from his systems as well. So much for Wakanda’s help.

  “Well, Captain, you are the captain here. any suggestions?” He asked Rogers even as multiple, no dozens of drones, piloted by Jarvis, FRIDAY, and some by himself were about to nd on his location, shot out of orbital unch ptforms.

  Built and unched in absolute secrecy, lest they paint him as a warmoo be feared, those were some of the best satellites the world could build, at least until he was reminded of the fact that he had just retly discovered some sort of hiddeist society that either operated out of Wakanda, and its higher ups, or was Wakanda in its ey.

  “Well, we have no information other than what I saw on the way here. We were apparently brainwashed by some person whose powers are all red in nature. We attacked Jader mind trol but he subdued us and then brought us to Wakanda, where they treated us and now we are here.”

  “Brubsp; was not with us, then?” He asked Cap as two drones nded behind them with a thud, armed with the biggest repulsor ons he could make and fit in the drones.

  “No, he was taken by the attacker for some reason.”

  “Is it a she or a he?” He asked even as two other drones, mainly built for stealth and sensory work, arrived at the edges of the dome and began takiensive ss.

  “I would step away if I were you,” He turned around to see Jarvis had remotely piloted the droo float mid air and aim all its repulsors at the person who probably spoke those words.

  It was a woman, dressed in red. Even her eyes were glowing red for Pete’s sake. Seeing the red ensemble, coupled with the red theme of the attacker clued him into the identity of the person in front of him. Faced with someone who could do a lot of very dangerous things, he only had a sihing to say

  “My God, that is a lot of Red!”

  Word t - 2367

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