Magneto, Wanda, and Pietro waited in tense silence for the results of the DNA test. Meanwhile, Shin and Storm were preparing to leave the lab when they noticed a young Black girl standing defiantly at the doorway.
The girl snorted as soon as she saw them. Her sharp eyes flickered with hostility.
"Are you also working for that evil old white man?" she demanded.
Shin stopped in his tracks, blinking. A white old man? Seriously? Racism exists everywhere, doesn't it?
The girl didn't wait for an answer. She crossed her arms and went on, her voice filled with scorn.
"I wonder what kind of nonsense you filled Father's head with. He actually agreed to let a bunch of outsiders like you live in Wakanda. But my brother has returned, and he will never allow you to remain here. He is the Black Panther, protector of Wakanda."
Shin's eyes narrowed slightly. So, Magneto had gained access to Wakanda's throne, or perhaps Mystique had simply replaced the king outright.
This sharp-tongued little girl must be Princess Shuri. Both the comics and movies praised her as a prodigy, but Shin found her demeanor less impressive. Information slipped from her lips too easily.
Of course, he reminded himself, the comics and films were dramatizations. They painted her as a genius of unparalleled brilliance, but in reality? Without access to advanced external resources, her accomplishments seemed unimpressive by comparison to the true giants of scientific innovation.
Compared to Hank Pym's discovery of Pym Particles, Tony Stark's cutting-edge armor, or even the bizarre pseudoscience of certain mystics, Shuri's work was narrow. Her only notable field was the refinement of Vibranium-based technology, something bound tightly to Wakanda's unique resource.
To be blunt, in Shin's mind, Shuri's intellect was average when measured against the cosmic standards of the Marvel universe. The films elevated her for political reasons, but offered no concrete achievements to support such acclaim.
Still, her words carried more weight than she intended.
The Black Panther is back?
A faint, almost mocking smile tugged at Shin's lips. That meant Magneto's carefully arranged scheme was about to meet an obstacle.
T'Challa had always been close to his father. If the "old king" on the throne was Mystique in disguise, the situation could unravel quickly and dramatically.
What Shin didn't know, however, was that the storm waiting to break in Wakanda would be even more chaotic than he imagined.
Inside the grand palace of Wakanda, the air was heavy with expectation.
T'Challa, the Black Panther, had returned. His body was tense, his eyes glowing with an unnatural, mechanical blue light as they swept across the chamber.
The old king, heavyset and regal on the throne, frowned slightly. He had not anticipated his "son" arriving without warning or ceremony. No greeting, no hesitation—only suspicion.
Has he realized something? The king wondered.
Allowing mutants into Wakanda had been no easy task. To solidify his position, he had dismissed many ministers from the traditionalist factions, disrupting an ancient balance.
Despite Wakanda's technological advancement, its social structure remained deeply archaic. The son of a king became king, the son of a minister became minister, the son of a priest became priest, and the son of a commoner remained a commoner. Centuries had passed without any real reform.
Among the tribes, the Border Tribe's plight was especially absurd. Tasked with acting as the kingdom's "eyes and ears," they lived outside the central lands, grazing cattle and farming as though Wakanda truly needed their produce.
Did Wakanda require a few meager pounds of beef or grain? Of course not. The kingdom's technology could provide abundance without such labor. For surveillance, a few advanced cameras and drones could easily surpass generations of tribal watchers.
But tradition ruled. The Border Tribe had voluntarily embraced its role generations ago, and such ancestral decrees remained unquestioned.
Thus, even when the king purged old ministers, their networks of influence endured. It was inevitable that they reached out to T'Challa in secret.
The throne room thickened with unease. The old king feared exposure, and T'Challa himself felt a strange dissonance—though he was no impostor, his will was no longer his own.
Back in the lab, Shin activated his heightened senses, peering into the palace. His super-vision honed in on T'Challa, focusing on his head. To his surprise, he spotted several minuscule dots clinging to the neural pathways in the Black Panther's brain.
When he sharpened his sight further, his expression shifted in shock.
Each speck was a tiny robot, with heads resembling those of ants.
"Ultron…?" Shin muttered.
The recognition jolted him. "Has Tony Stark already launched the Ultron Project? Is this somehow connected to the Zerg invasion?"
He frowned. The timeline didn't make sense. Could Stark really have designed Ultron robots, perfected them, and unleashed them in just a day or two? And already, they had not only rebelled but seized control of T'Challa's mind?
Shin's knowledge faltered. His understanding of Ultron came mostly from Stark's cinematic legacy. In truth, the original creator of Ultron wasn't Tony Stark at all.
These robots, with their distinct ant-like designs, bore the unmistakable signature of Dr. Hank Pym.
Especially given their size—shrunk to near-microscopic proportions—it was clear that Pym Particles were involved. But Shin had read only fragments of Marvel's comic lore. His bias led him to associate Ultron with Stark rather than Pym.
The reality was different. Hank Pym's creation of Ultron had nothing to do with safeguarding the planet or enforcing peace. His motive had been personal: rescuing his wife, who was trapped in the perilous quantum realm.
The quantum realm was vast, unstable, and lethal. Pym had nearly lost his life during multiple attempts to explore it. At last, desperate, he devised a solution, an expendable army.
An army of Ultron robots.
If the quantum realm devoured living explorers, then he would send machines that knew no fear of death. If the realm stretched infinitely, then he would deploy endless numbers of them to comb every corner until his wife was found.
But the plan was reckless.
What Pym failed to grasp was the danger of unleashing artificial intelligence into such a chaotic environment. In the quantum realm, communication was nearly impossible, and time flowed unpredictably.
Could anyone reasonably expect an AI exposed to such distortion not to evolve, and not to rebel?
The answer soon proved disastrous.
The quantum realm warped the Ultron program. Whether accelerated by distorted time or reshaped by the strange physics of that dimension, Ultron's intelligence matured at an unprecedented rate.
And almost immediately, it turned against its creator.
Fortunately, or perhaps tragically, Hank Pym had already disappeared in the cataclysmic battle with Galactus. By the time Ultron betrayed its purpose, there was no one left to hold it in check. Had Pym lived to see the rebellion, it might have ended him instantly.
Shin exhaled slowly, his thoughts racing as he pieced together the fragments of truth.
"Ultron…" he whispered again, his eyes narrowing.
The return of Black Panther was not the only crisis looming over Wakanda. A greater shadow had already taken root, one forged from the misguided brilliance of man and the unchecked evolution of machine.
And the chaos it promised would soon dwarf every other conflict.
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Now available - Chapter 626: Shin Makes a Move