"Stark, you can try blasting me from here."
T'Challa tapped his own abdomen and smiled.
Whoosh—
The words had barely left his mouth when a beam lanced out from Stark's palm repulsor and sent T'Challa flying.
"Feels… pretty average."
Stark curled his lip—then froze.
T'Challa had been blown back, sure, but he wasn't hurt at all. He stood up perfectly fine.
"No warning before you attack, huh? Then try this."
T'Challa flashed forward. The energy beam from a moment ago had already finished charging his vibranium suit.
A scything roundhouse kick crashed into Stark's crossed forearms.
Thoom—
The impact boomed like a great bronze bell. Even inside a Mark suit, Stark's face went taut as his whole body blasted backward.
"Sir, I'm detecting multiple soft-tissue contusions. Also, the opponent returned the energy from your previous beam to you in kinetic form. Loss rate under three percent."
JARVIS delivered the report without missing a beat.
"Hiss—" Stark's cheek stung. He grumbled, "Skip the scans, I can feel it. Three percent loss rate… His Panther suit's energy utilization is actually higher than my Mark armor."
Only a true engineering savant understood how terrifying that gap was. Sometimes, a single percentage point in conversion efficiency was the choke point that stalled an entire field.
"Vibranium!"
In a flash Stark understood: the man's suit had to be made of vibranium.
Vibranium could absorb kinetic impacts and convert them into other forms of energy.
The reason his Mark armor couldn't replicate that wasn't because Tony Stark lacked brains; it was a materials limit—his current chassis couldn't break that wall.
Vibranium could be shaped like this?
Stark's father had used vibranium to make Captain America's shield. He'd also seen Helen's work—the synthetic body that mimicked human biology.
And now this clothing-type form. What a ridiculous metal.
"Fine. I admit you've got the qualifications to fight me."
Stark stood up, pouting a little.
But Black Panther T'Challa had already dismissed his armor—panther weave retracting into the fang necklace at his throat. The sight made Stark smack his lips.
Compared to the Mark line, vibranium really did have an unbeatable edge.
"Mr. Stark, this is a small gift for you," T'Challa said suddenly.
"Hm?!"
Stark took the device T'Challa handed over—a palm-sized tracker—and blinked.
A gift?
He froze. Then his eyes went wide at the display. Several heavy armored trucks hauling vibranium were already in New York, heading this way.
Truckloads of vibranium—enough to build a whole run of Mark suits.
"This expensive?"
Even the people's favorite billionaire couldn't help whistling. At current prices, a grain of vibranium the size of rice cost a hundred times more than a diamond.
And this was several whole trucks. Even with money, you couldn't buy that much; and even if you could, it wouldn't be cheap.
A tycoon's gift for a tycoon.
The King of Wakanda, T'Challa, clearly commanded resources that outstripped Stark's. Just the vibranium mining alone brought Wakanda a terrifying annual profit—far beyond Stark Industries' returns.
For the first time ever, Stark felt outgunned in pure cash. And he… kind of liked it.
Being a quick study, he also saw the angle behind the gesture.
Saitama.
The bald wallflower who'd been standing off to the side like a bored passerby—Wakanda's king had personally escorted him here. That message was loud and clear.
He was riding Saitama's coattails.
"Much appreciated, T'Challa. Stark Industries is always open to you. Oh, and your Panther suit doesn't seem to have hover capability. JARVIS, run an analysis and generate the optimal flight module for Mr. T'Challa."
Stark snapped his fingers.
"Yes, sir."
As a super-intelligence, JARVIS's compute throughput was monstrous. If you didn't count that whole "Saturday Sale" period, his current speed was nearly half of the world's total computing power.
T'Challa looked genuinely impressed. If Wakanda lagged Stark in any one field, it was super-AI. They'd never cracked something on JARVIS's level—and after that brief "upgrade period," JARVIS was stronger than ever.
In just a few seconds, a brand-new Black Panther suit spec was done. It pushed straight to T'Challa's holo-receiver and unfolded in the air.
The silhouette stayed close to his current suit, but micro-thrusters had been added at the elbows, soles, shoulders, and along the spine. From the outside they were barely-there bumps.
With those micro-engines, T'Challa could cruise at low altitude and inject bursts of power into jumps, strikes, and evasions—amplifying every movement.
"Oh, that's fantastic! Thank you, Stark!"
T'Challa's eyes lit up. The Panther line had wrestled for generations with one annoying problem: no flight. Just like Saitama back in the day. Who knew Stark would fix it in an afternoon.
"You're welcome. We're friends," Stark said with a light smile. He didn't want to feel indebted—though in pure value, that design doc didn't hold a candle to truckloads of vibranium.
"I'll head back then. Mr. Saitama, I hope we meet again—Wakanda will always be your friend."
Before leaving, T'Challa reluctantly said goodbye to Saitama, then boarded his cloaked aircraft and vanished.
Pepper Potts, waiting by the villa gate, stared. Stark felt a bit silly himself.
"Remind me—who told me Wakanda was a barren, backward country with primitive tech?"
He'd never have believed it without seeing it. But that ship—Stark couldn't build something like that yet. Odds were, a lot of its systems used vibranium. Stark hadn't had many chances to experiment with that metal, so his experience was thin.
But now…
Convoys of vibranium were pulling up to the villa. Stark had Mark suits handling transport and perimeter.
He'd be buried in work for a while.
"Thanks, Saitama. Now that I've got vibranium, it won't be long before I cook up armor that can match you, baldy. Heh heh—when it's ready, you owe me a fight!"
Stark even tossed Saitama a formal challenge. He was feeling himself—confidence through the roof.
Pepper rolled her eyes at him. As for Saitama, the bald homebody decided he was bored, wandered back to the living room, and settled in—streaming dramas, mashing buttons, snacking away. The picture of a stay-at-home king.
Meanwhile—
Out in the vast sea of stars, an unknown crisis was racing closer.
Knowhere.
In the skull of a dead Celestial, after absorbing the gem Saitama had left here for safekeeping, the Collector… began to act.
(End of Chapter)
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