Although Rosen had already left London via the Town Portal Scroll, he hadn't left it unguarded. Before departing, he had "seeded" the city.
He'd used the surplus from his recent gold liquidation to purchase dozens of mechanical animals from the System Shop. New York was already crawling with them—rats in the subways, pigeons on the rooftops, and stray cats in the alleys. Now, London had its own network.
These constructs were perfect scouts. They didn't need to eat, sleep, or recharge. Without Rosen's direct control, they simply mimicked the behavior of their biological counterparts, blending seamlessly into the urban ecosystem while actively avoiding human contact. But the moment Rosen focused his mind, he could hijack their senses.
They weren't just cameras; they were potential beacons.
In Warcraft, skills like Mass Teleport or items like the Staff of Teleportation allowed a hero to jump instantly to any allied unit. Rosen hadn't unlocked those yet, but the System had hinted that the range in the real world would be massive—possibly planetary. So, turning mechanical animals into living waypoints was a long-term investment.
"It's unrealistic to expect a mechanical rat to cross the Atlantic," Rosen had reasoned. "They're short-legged and fragile. If I want global coverage, I have to plant them manually."
It was this paranoia that allowed him to witness a fight that was never supposed to happen.
The Clash in the Shadows
Through the eyes of a mechanical owl perched on a gargoyle near the Thames, Rosen watched two figures collide in a deserted alleyway.
Black Panther vs. Black Widow.
Unlike the movies, where Natasha Romanoff often fought with her face exposed (a cinematic necessity for star power), the woman in the footage was masked. She wore a tactical cowl that covered everything but her eyes, paired with the iconic black leather combat suit.
"Makes sense," Rosen thought, analyzing her movements. "She's a spy, not a celebrity. You don't show your face on a wet job unless you plan to kill every witness in a five-mile radius."
Even with the mask, the silhouette was unmistakable. The grace, the lethal efficiency, the Widow's Bite gauntlets—it was a Black Widow. Given the timeline (2007) and the sheer skill level, Rosen was willing to bet good money it was Natasha Romanoff.
Facing her was T'Challa. He was young, unpolished, and clearly operating without official Wakandan support, but the suit gave him away. It was a vibranium weave, absorbing every strike Natasha threw at him with a dull thud.
"Why are they fighting?" Rosen wondered. "Did I cause this?"
He was right, but only partially.
T'Challa was in London hunting for clues about the stolen Vibranium artifact. He was following the breadcrumbs of the underworld, trying to find anyone who knew about the "Ghost" who sold gold and stole rare metals.
Natasha, however, was on a different mission entirely.
The underground banks and pawn shops Rosen had robbed? Many of them were fronts for General Dreykov, the head of the Red Room. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Dreykov had privatized the Widow program and built a massive, illicit empire. Rosen's "entrapment" scheme had cost Dreykov millions in liquid assets.
Natasha had been sent to London to find the thief. Instead, she had stumbled upon T'Challa, whose secretive movements and high-tech gear made him a prime suspect.
The Fight
Natasha was arrogant. She had completed hundreds of missions without failure. She hadn't yet met Hawkeye, hadn't yet been humbled by the Winter Soldier. She saw a guy in a cat suit and thought, "Target acquired."
She was wrong.
From the first engagement, it was a slaughter. Natasha was fast, skilled, and deadly. But T'Challa? T'Challa was a force of nature. He had consumed the Heart-Shaped Herb, granting him superhuman strength, speed, and reflexes. Combined with a bulletproof, impact-absorbing suit, he was essentially a tank that moved like a cheetah.
Natasha landed a spinning kick to his head that would have shattered a normal man's jaw. T'Challa barely flinched. He caught her leg mid-air and threw her across the alley like a ragdoll.
She fired her Widow's Bite tazers. The electricity arced harmlessly over the vibranium weave.
If T'Challa had wanted to kill her, she would have been dead in three seconds. But the Prince of Wakanda wasn't a murderer; he was trying to subdue her for questioning.
RIIIIIP.
In a desperate grapple, T'Challa's claws snagged Natasha's cowl, tearing it away.
Red hair tumbled out. A face—younger, sharper, but unmistakably Scarlett Johansson's—was revealed, flushed with exertion and shock.
"Damn," Rosen whispered, watching from his New York apartment. "Young Natasha really was something else."
Natasha realized instantly that she was outmatched. This wasn't a fight she could win with skill alone. She did the only smart thing: she reached into her belt, dropped a cluster of smoke grenades, and vanished into the grey plume.
T'Challa charged through the smoke, his claws extended, but the delay was enough. She was gone, slipping into the sewers or over the rooftops with the practiced ease of a master spy.
T'Challa stopped, his chest heaving slightly. He scanned the area, frustrated. He was a warrior, not a tracker of spies. He had lost her.
But Rosen hadn't.
As Natasha limped away, clutching her bruised ribs, she didn't notice the eyes watching her. A rat in the gutter. A pigeon on the sill. A stray cat on the fence.
The mechanical network shifted, locking onto her heat signature.
"You can run from the Panther," Rosen murmured, leaning back in his chair. "But you can't run from the System."