Shuri watched Leander's departing streak of gold with a mixture of confusion and a strange, budding respect. She turned to her father and brother, who were standing with a tension in their shoulders that hadn't been there a few minutes ago.
"Father, what's going on? You were acting like he was a visiting dignitary, but your eyes were tracking him like a target," Shuri asked, crossing her arms.
King T'Chaka didn't look at her. His gaze was fixed on the horizon where the gold had faded into the blue. "Go back to your laboratory, Shuri. I have matters to discuss with your brother that require a certain... maturity."
Shuri's face flushed with indignation. "Hmph! Not telling me again. I'm not some ten-year-old child you can just dismiss! I'm eleven! I've designed half the tech in this room!"
She turned on her heel, her boots clacking against the stone, and hopped onto her floating scooter. With a defiant rev of the thrusters, she sped out of the Council Hall, leaving the two men in silence.
T'Challa waited until the hum of her vehicle faded before he tapped the Kimoyo beads on his wrist. One of the beads began to pulse with a faint, rhythmic purple glow.
"The sub-dermal tracker has been activated, Father. I'm pulling up the telemetry now."
A holographic map of the world bloomed in the center of the hall. A bright red dot appeared over the African continent, moving with terrifying speed toward the coast. T'Challa's eyes flickered with a hint of predatory excitement. The "gift" of water they had offered Leander wasn't just hospitality; it had contained a microscopic, biocompatible Vibranium tracer.
But the excitement lasted all of five seconds.
The red dot flickered. It stuttered across the map, then dimmed and vanished entirely. The projection buzzed with static as the signal was severed at the source.
King T'Chaka, who had remained eerily calm, sighed and stood up. The weight of his years seemed to settle on him all at once. "Cancel the tracking protocol. If we try again, we risk turning a curious guest into an apex predator."
He walked toward the inner chambers, pausing at the threshold. "Tell the Dora Milaje to stay at high alert. If Leander returns with a peaceful heart, he is a brother to Wakanda. But if he returns in anger... God help us all."
"I understand, Father," T'Challa said, staring at the empty map. "I think we were a bit too confident in our shadows. The world outside our borders is getting much, much stranger."
High above the Atlantic, Leander felt the tiny, irritating vibration in his stomach. It was no larger than a grain of dust, but to his refined senses, it felt like a buzzing fly. He knew exactly what it was—a tracker mixed into the water.
A surge of golden energy rippled through his digestive tract. He didn't just find the tracker; he used his Metal Mastery to break down its atomic structure, turning the Vibranium into a liquid state and absorbing the energy into his own marrow.
He looked back toward the hidden forests of Africa. Part of him wanted to turn around, fly into that Council Hall, and tear those Vibranium buildings out of the ground just to show them what a mistake they'd made. But he took a deep breath, the cold air of the stratosphere calming his temper.
'I'll give them one last pass,' he thought, his eyes narrowing. 'But if there's a next time, I'll strip that mountain bare and leave them with nothing but dirt.'
He turned his focus forward and accelerated, the sonic boom echoing across the empty ocean.
He didn't go to Queens first. He landed at Tony Stark's cliffside mansion in Malibu, dropping silently into the subterranean workshop. He found Tony standing in the center of the room, being fitted into the sleek, triangular-chested Mark VI.
"Mr. Stark. Going somewhere?"
Tony didn't flinch. He was used to the kid appearing out of thin air. "Leander. You're back. You're about six hours earlier than the flight schedule I forged for you. Nice outfit, by the way. Is that... gunmetal grey?"
"It's a custom weave," Leander said, looking at the suit. "You're making improvements."
"I haven't slept in three days," Tony's voice was slightly muffled as the faceplate snapped shut. "I'm finalizing the specs for the top of Stark Tower. I'm turning the upper ten floors into a dedicated R&D center. A playground for the Mark VII and whatever gadgets you decide to cook up."
The repulsors on the suit's palms and feet began to glow a pale, ionized blue. "Keep up, kid. We're heading to Manhattan. I need to check the structural integrity of the landing platform."
Tony shot out of the workshop, and Leander followed, a golden shadow trailing the iron man. They broke the sound barrier over the desert, two streaks of light racing toward the New York skyline.
"I've boosted the output of the third-gen arc reactor," Tony's voice crackled through Leander's glasses. "Added internal afterburners in the calves. This beauty can hit Mach 3 on a good day."
"It's impressive, Tony. But you're pushing the power limits. That reactor is going to run hot if you stay at max throttle for more than twenty minutes."
"That's why I have you, isn't it? To fix the things I break."
They arrived at the unfinished Stark Tower within the hour. The people of New York barely looked up; the sight of Iron Man was becoming as common as a yellow taxi. They landed on the high-altitude platform, and Tony stepped out of the suit as the mechanical arms began their intricate dance of disassembly.
"Leander," Tony said, his tone turning serious as the helmet came off. "Go home. See Jenny. And listen... you need to start thinking about the 'Big Reveal.' This exchange student charade is a ticking time bomb. You've got maybe six months before the school year officially ends and they expect a diploma. You going to hide your wings forever?"
"I don't know how to tell them, Tony. They finally have a normal life. If I tell them I'm... this... they'll never sleep again. They'll just wait for the day I don't come back."
"The world is changing, kid. Peace is a fragile thing. Nick Fury's little 'Avengers' project might be on ice for now, but I've seen the reports. Strange things are happening in New Mexico, and the brass is pushing Project Pegasus like their lives depend on it."
Leander fell silent. He knew about Pegasus. He knew about the Tesseract. He knew that Hydra was currently nesting inside S.H.I.E.L.D. like a parasite, waiting for the Insight Project to launch.
"Mr. Stark, has Fury reached out to you lately?"
"The one-eyed wonder? No. He thinks I'm 'unstable' and 'not a team player.' Which, to be fair, I'm not. But he's busy playing with his glowy cube. Why?"
"Just... be careful. Not everyone in the shadows is on our side."
Tony looked at him for a long moment, then reached into the Mark VI's storage compartment and pulled out a sleek, translucent smartphone.
"Here. This is the Mark II 'Leander Edition.' Your old one probably has the battery life of a potato by now. I've upgraded the encryption and added a facial-projection HUD. When you're in 'Leo' mode, it'll project a light-refraction field around your face. Cameras and eyes won't be able to pin your real identity."
"Thanks, Tony. Really."
"Don't thank me. Just don't disappear for another four months. Oh, and your friends from 'Black Prison'? I checked their backgrounds. Decent credit scores for international mercenaries. You've got a good eye for talent."
"Black Prison? Is that what they're calling it?" Leander smiled. "Sounds like something Zost would pick."
"Go home, Leander. Eat some dumplings."
Leander nodded and stepped off the ledge, vanishing into the clouds before he even hit the next floor. Tony watched the empty sky, his smile fading into a look of deep contemplation.
"Jarvis, run a diagnostic on Leander's energy signature from the flight. Did he seem... denser to you?"
"Significant increase in gravitational mass, Sir. He is no longer just a boy with powers. He is becoming a fundamental force."
"Great," Tony sighed. "More work for me."
While Leander flew toward the familiar streets of Queens, far across the freezing vacuum of space, a figure drifted in the darkness.
Loki, the God of Mischief, had survived the fall from the Rainbow Bridge. He had been found by the Chitauri, a race of cybernetic warriors with a hunger for conquest. And Loki, with his silver tongue and a heart full of vengeance against a brother who 'betrayed' him, was already weaving a web of lies.
He was about to meet the Mad Titan. The gears of the invasion were finally beginning to turn.