A completely ordinary-looking delivery truck slowly descended from the mountain road and came to a stop halfway up the slope, parking quietly not far from T'Challa's villa.
Inside the villa, Nakia was monitoring the surveillance feeds. The truck had stopped in an extremely concealed position—precisely within a blind spot of the cameras.
"Wait."
Inside the truck, the woman began scanning for signals. After more than ten seconds, she finally nodded.
"All clear. We can move."
At her words, Erik immediately got out of the truck and carefully made his way to the villa's outer wall.
Meanwhile, in the surveillance room, every monitor suddenly flickered. The disturbance was brief, and the images quickly returned to normal. Nakia rapidly switched between camera feeds. Everything appeared fine—but an inexplicable sense of unease rose in her chest.
Erik reached the wall, put on the demonic mask he had taken from the British Museum, then pulled out a block of plastic explosive large enough to breach the structure and stuck it to the wall.
Nakia left the surveillance room and hurried downstairs, heading straight for T'Challa and Okoye.
"Something's not right—"
She had just reached them and was about to explain what she'd seen when a deafening explosion rocked the villa. One corner of the building was blown apart, leaving a man-sized hole in the wall. A figure wearing a devil mask stepped through the breach.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Gunfire erupted as bullets sprayed into the hall.
T'Challa immediately tackled Nakia to the ground, while Okoye dove behind a sofa, narrowly avoiding the incoming fire.
At the same time, two more figures entered through the blasted opening and swiftly carried away Ulysses Klaue, who was still bound to a chair.
The Black Panther suit enveloped T'Challa in an instant as he prepared to leap into action—but just then, a grenade dropped from above, landing right in front of him and Nakia.
Without hesitation, T'Challa threw himself over the grenade, pinning it beneath his body.
The explosion was surprisingly muted. All the energy was absorbed by the Black Panther suit. T'Challa only jolted slightly—he hadn't suffered the slightest injury.
He sprang to his feet at once. Purple light rippled across the surface of the armor from the absorbed energy as he lunged forward like a panther, charging toward the shooter.
Erik fired back while retreating rapidly toward the exit. Outside, their delivery truck was already waiting.
T'Challa had locked onto the gunman. Though the man's face was hidden behind a mask, T'Challa charged straight through the hail of bullets, claws extending as he pounced.
Seeing this, Erik fired a grenade launcher at him. In midair, T'Challa had no room to dodge and could only take the hit head-on.
Boom!
The grenade detonated against the armor. Though the energy was absorbed, the force of the impact remained. T'Challa was blasted backward, slammed into a wall, and sent flying.
Seizing the opening, Erik jumped into the truck, which sped away at once. As it did, a ring slipped into view at his neck—an image T'Challa caught clearly.
It was already too late to pursue.
Nakia and Okoye helped T'Challa to his feet. The three of them stared in silence at the direction where the truck had disappeared.
"Shuri, can you track the delivery truck?" T'Challa contacted her immediately.
Far away in Wakanda, Shuri and Tony stood in the lab with heavy dark circles under their eyes, staring lifelessly at the Destroyer armor in front of them.
They had worked through the entire night—and made absolutely no progress.
Vibranium nanotechnology had gone smoothly. Tony had fully mastered it. But uru metal was like Mount Everest—utterly insurmountable. No matter what method they tried, even increasing the proportion of vibranium, uru metal stubbornly refused to be nano-structured. This material, which completely defied conventional physics, had driven both scientists into deep self-doubt.
"Shuri, can you track the delivery truck?"
T'Challa's voice came through again, but Shuri didn't respond. She and Tony stood frozen like statues, eyes bloodshot, dark circles unmistakable even against her dark skin.
Lucas shook his head. He knew all too well how torturous the past night had been for them. Racking their brains and still coming up empty-handed was enough to make even the most brilliant scientists doubt themselves.
"This is Lucas," he said at last. "Shuri isn't available right now. What's the situation?"
Both of them were practically statues—no one could reasonably expect an answer from them.
"I need to track a delivery truck," T'Challa said urgently. "The longer we wait, the harder it'll be."
Lucas picked up the beaded bracelet and slipped it onto his wrist. Operating it wasn't difficult—it felt almost intuitive, as if the device responded directly to one's thoughts.
After fumbling with it for a short while, Lucas grasped the basics and began searching for the truck's location.
But there was nothing.
The truck didn't appear on any camera feed, and no signal could be detected.
"I can't track it," Lucas said. "That truck avoided all surveillance and blocked every signal. You'll have to rely on yourselves."
He knew exactly who was in that truck—the man who would become the Killmonger. Familiar with Wakandan technology, he had clearly prepared countermeasures. Tracking him with Wakandan systems was never going to be easy.
"I understand," T'Challa replied helplessly. "Tell Shuri I'll be back today."
They had been so close. Klaue had been in their hands—only to be taken right out from under them.
With a furious punch, T'Challa smashed a hole in the villa wall. Nakia and Okoye wore equally grim expressions. Having someone snatched away right in front of them was unacceptable by any measure.
---
Upon returning to Wakanda, T'Challa went straight to Shuri's research center. Shuri and Tony were no longer frozen in place, but their moods hadn't improved in the slightest.
The moment T'Challa entered, he noticed Tony's vibranium armor and the Destroyer armor.
It had to be said—mechs were a man's romance.
After a single glance, T'Challa found it hard to look away. The mechanical aesthetic of the Iron Man armor was something the Black Panther suit simply couldn't match. The latter felt more like a combat uniform, whereas this was true mechanized armor.
"Hm… maybe I should redesign the Black Panther suit like this," T'Challa muttered, growing more tempted the longer he looked.
He made a mental note to have Shuri refit his armor with a more mechanical style.
Turning back to Shuri, he saw her and Tony resting their chins in their hands, faces full of despair. Identical messy hair like bird nests, identical dark circles, identical air of exhaustion.
"What's wrong with them?" T'Challa asked, his attention still half-fixed on the armor.
Okoye walked over to Lucas and asked quietly.
"They've hit a research bottleneck," Lucas replied, lounging on the sofa and sipping Wakandan specialty tea. "Two mad scientists got stumped by a single suit of armor. They worked all night and got nothing. Honestly, the fact that they haven't gone insane already is impressive."
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