Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.
DoorMan #74
Ta-Lo [February 17, 2008]
–Colin Baxter–
"Huh," was all Shuri could say when confronted with the reality that while they were advanced, they were also building a wall around themselves. Each new invention that required Vibranium to function, made the wall bigger and wider, crippling their potential of ever becoming an independent space faring civilization.
Leaning back into the chair and looking at the now finished food, he said, "In my opinion, you guys should have already explored the entirety of the solar system and begun working on getting to the outer universe. That," he pointed at her as he telekinetically began wrapping up their barbecue session, "would have made you the most advanced country on the planet, having off planet bases that you could then use to either reinforce your position, creating a bigger moat of technology around your planet or to conquer the rest of the countries."
Shuri was deep in thought so he added his last little nugget, "But no, you guys had to remain steadfast and smug about being born in the right geographical zone at the right time without thinking ahead. I am sure that for the majority of Wakandans, the outside world is still full of savages and backward people." Shuri winced at those words.
He made sure to emphasize those words because he knew those were the exact two words used by the common people in the schools, in reports, and in the stories written by the Wakandan Authors because, as it turns out, the people of Wakanda did not have unfettered access to the rest of the internet, which was obviously just an overall good thing.
He was of the opinion that no one should get to see what the degenerates that are constantly online do on the internet. It was frankly just an eyesore and most probably made people pull their eyeballs out so they wouldn't have to see the level of degeneracy on the internet.
But that censorship created a void of sorts, stopping normal Wakandans from ever relating with the rest of the people on the planet, creating an invisible yet very real divide between Wakandans and the rest of the humans on the planet. It was not like Wakandans were a whole other species or sub species, they were probably millennia away from evolving due to the background radiation that the Vibranium gave off into the surroundings.
"It was the best choice at the time?" Shuri offered a weak defense and he snorted at that, carefully putting away all of the stuff on the mountain. He literally could not litter in this place since they did not have a garbage disposal system. The Water Dragon being the one who fulfilled that role for them, since most of the stuff they used was biodegradable and contained the Water Dragon's essence, making it infinitely recyclable.
Plastic chairs and bags? Definitely not. The Water Dragon would most certainly break that down but why be a bad guest?
Switching tracks for a moment, he decided to give Shuri another hint, "I assume the effect of Vibranium on the surrounding Flora and Fauna and the consumption of said food is heavily researched?"
"Huh? What?" Shuri asked him, clueless and he internally sighed in resignation as he realised something, something that he would unfortunately be unable to tell Shuri.
Still, just as a trial, he continued, "The plants in the Vibranium mine, they must be different from the rest, right?"
"Yes," Shuri nodded enthusiastically, "The radiation that Vibranium absorbs and emits has given birth to some mutated plant species but we usually just collect them and once they are tagged, keep them in storage since they cannot be used in any meaningful way."
He nodded, internally cataloguing her responses.
"Colin boy, it would seem your theory was correct," Jin'Ya spoke in his mind as he gave no outward signs of being in contact with the Psionic Dragon, even as he told Shuri that their next stop would take some time so she should take all the samples and readings she wanted now.
"Yup, Bast is going to be a problem." He confirmed mentally and sighed. Problems on top of Problems on top of Problems.
They continued to pile up. It was nice that at least for the hell vamps, he had two very powerful people who were contractually obligated to protect him, one with even his life.
Seeing Shuri happily work on taking samples of every little thing and recording anything and everything in sight, his mind went back to the time he had this thought for the very first time.
All the way back when he first hacked Wakanda or tried to anyway. All he could do in the first attempt was hit a wall and then try his absolute hardest to stop their reverse hacking attempts despite knowing that he was quite literally magically secure from locating attempts.
Bast. The Patron Goddess of Wakanda.
According to Lore, the one responsible for the creation of the Heart Shaped Herb and then subsequently, the Black Panther who then went on to create Wakanda itself, a carved out piece of country with stable human population providing faith energy to Bast at a steady pace and in regular intervals, given that Wakanda's population had almost stopped growing altogether, stabilising at a cool 5 million people.
He also knew that Gods, overall, had weakened a lot and had made the choice to move to Omnipotence City by severing their faith gathering abilities and becoming humanoid entities with powers, instead of semi conceptual beings whose existence revolved around the people from whom they gather faith energy.
Bast, was one of the very few Gods, who remained on Earth and continued to gather faith energy from a select group of people. She is very smart about it too, refusing to venture out of the small little African country, so very little chance of suspicion as well as retaliation from the Sorcerer Supreme.
But that also meant that her control over Wakanda and its citizens was near absolute because the King had an absolute say in what Wakanda did. The same position that had always been occupied by the Black Panther ever since their country was founded. Ultimately, it meant that Wakanda was in Bast's tightly wound fist.
Their thoughts, their overall sentiments, their mentality, their progress, all of it was controlled or at least encouraged to go a certain direction, by Bast herself.
It was all just a theory, but interacting with Shuri and watching her ignore certain avenues of thoughts, begin acting odd about certain trains of thoughts, refusing to connect the links when he all but fed it to her.
All of it confirmed it for him. Bast was a parasite, one that had unfortunately taken quite a deep hold of Wakanda.
Bast was why Wakanda had never ventured past Earth, never sending a manned mission despite them having the capability to do so well before America did.
Bast was the reason why Shuri, even now, does not do what she should do to advance her agenda of opening Wakanda's borders, i.e., take control by force and make everyone do her bidding.
Bast was the reason why Wakanadans were openly discouraged from going out, from forming bonds with outside people, and why no other deity was allowed to exist inside Wakanda.
Why Wakanda had never made an attempt to help their fellow people, even covertly. He could understand most Black Panthers being indifferent to people's plight but he could not compute a single one of them having a little empathy for the rest of the people on the Continent.
No, it was all just the subtle mental hand of a thousands of years old Goddess who had quietly carved out a nice little seat of power for herself.
And…he did not like it.
Neither did Jin'Ya.
He shivered, as for some reason, he got a flash of an image. Of him grinning in what could only be called an evil way with Jin'Ya being revealed right behind him, in a flash of lightning, grinning in a similar way as well.
Made both of them look quite like the villains.
Looking at the unknowingly compromised Shuri, he shook his head as he resolved to find a way to get Bast either out of Wakanda or get a private compromise of staying away from Wakandan's minds, soon. Very soon.
"I suppose we are leaving for Wakanda, then?" Jin'Ya said, almost resigned and yet, Jin'Ya could not fool the person with whom he shared a literal mental bond. The excitement and the thirst for battle was palpable in the Psionic Dragon.
"As if you even have to ask."
If you guys would like to support me, or just want to read up to 15 chapters ahead, you can head on to my P*treon. It is the same name as my username.