Side Story Arc: The Whispering Zephyrs and the Hidden Kingdom
Chapter 7: A Meeting of the Hidden
The jungle was very hot. The air was thick and wet. It felt like trying to breathe while standing inside a warm bath. Large green leaves hung down from the tall trees, blocking out the bright sun. The ground was covered in dark, sticky mud and twisting tree roots.
Jin and Suyin stood perfectly still. They were far away from their clean, magical home in Ta Lo. They were deep in the heart of Africa, standing in front of the biggest secret in the world.
Right behind them was the invisible wall. It was a giant shield of purple energy that hid a beautiful, advanced city.
Right in front of them were twelve deadly warriors.
The twelve guards wore tight, matte-black suits that covered their entire bodies. The suits looked like they were made of sleek metal woven into cloth. The metal drank the sunlight, making them look like solid shadows standing in the bright jungle. They wore helmets shaped like the heads of fierce black panthers. The eyes of the panther helmets glowed with a faint, cold silver light.
These were the War Dogs. They were the elite spies and protectors of the hidden kingdom of Wakanda.
Every single guard held a long, sleek spear. The sharp tips of the weapons glowed with a bright, humming blue light. The blue light crackled with pure energy. Twelve glowing spears were pointed directly at Jin and Suyin's chests.
Jin breathed slowly. He did not want to show fear. Suyin stood perfectly still next to him. They had dropped their magic weapons. They held their hands up high to show they were empty. They had bowed their heads to show peace.
Now, they waited.
The leader of the guards stepped forward. He wore a black panther suit with small silver marks on the forehead of the helmet. He looked at Jin's empty hands. He looked at the water soaking into the mud from Suyin's melted ice whips.
The leader raised his left hand and made a quick, sharp motion.
Instantly, the other eleven guards lowered their glowing blue spears. They did not put the weapons away. They held them ready by their sides. But they were no longer pointing them at Jin and Suyin's hearts.
The leader reached up to his neck. He pressed a hidden button on his black suit. The panther helmet made a soft hissing sound. The helmet folded back, disappearing into the collar of his suit as if by magic.
Under the helmet was a human man. He had dark brown skin, sharp eyes, and a very serious face. He looked like a strong, smart soldier who had fought many battles to protect his home. He had a small beard and a tiny scar on his chin.
"Keep your hands where I can see them," the man ordered. His voice was deep and strong. He spoke in a local African language that Jin did not know at first.
Jin used his mind to ask his internal System for help. The golden System in his head quickly listened to the man's words. It matched the sounds to languages from the outside world. The System quietly translated the words into a language Jin could understand and speak.
"We will not move," Jin answered in clear English, hoping the man would understand the common outside language.
The man looked slightly surprised that Jin spoke English, but his serious face did not change. "Who are you?" the man asked. He stepped one pace closer. "How did you find this place? No one finds this place."
"My name is Jin," Jin said. He kept his hands raised at chest level. "This is Suyin. We are not your enemies."
"You were in Berlin," the man said. His sharp eyes looked at them closely. "You tried to steal our metal. You attacked one of my men in the dark warehouse."
"We did not attack first," Suyin said. Her voice was calm but very firm. "Your man dropped from the ceiling. He took the metal from the men in the warehouse. We tried to stop him only to see what the metal was. We did not try to kill him."
The man frowned deeply. "My name is Badu," he said. "I am a leader of the War Dogs. We protect the kingdom of Wakanda. You are standing at our border. You have seen our shield. To protect our secret, outsiders who see the shield must die, or they must become our prisoners forever."
Jin shook his head slowly. "We do not want to fight you, Commander Badu. We saw your man in Berlin. We saw his black suit. We saw the metal that eats sound and force. We followed him here."
Badu laughed. It was a short, hard laugh that showed no humor. "That is impossible," Badu stated. "Our flying ships are completely invisible. They do not make a sound. They do not show up on any radar or camera in the world. You cannot follow them."
"Your ship is invisible to machines," Jin said. He kept his voice very steady. "But your ship is not invisible to the earth. The metal of your ship creates an empty space. A hole in the sound of the world. We did not follow a sound. We followed the silence."
Badu stopped laughing. He looked at Jin very carefully. He looked at Jin's simple gray silk clothes. He looked at Suyin's blue silk clothes.
Jin and Suyin did not wear heavy armor. They did not carry guns, radios, or tracking devices. They looked like simple monks from an old storybook, covered in a little bit of jungle mud.
"You followed silence across the whole world?" Badu asked. He clearly did not believe them. "That makes no sense. Who sent you? Are you spies for America? Are you spies for Russia? What machines are you hiding in those clothes?"
"We do not work for America or Russia," Suyin said. She stood tall and proud, even with twelve spears nearby. "We do not care about their cold wars. We do not use machines. We do not have radios, or cameras, or guns."
Badu crossed his arms over his strong chest. "Everyone uses machines," he argued. "If you do not use machines, how did you turn invisible in the jungle? How did you make a vacuum in the air to stop my man in Berlin? I read his report. My guard said you fought like ghosts who ignored the rules of the world."
"We are Watchers from the East," Jin said.
Jin used the cover story they had prepared long ago. He could not tell Badu about the Guardian Dragon sleeping in the lake. He could not tell him about the golden System or the magic village of Ta Lo. The Dragon's secrets had to stay perfectly safe.
"We come from a hidden mountain far away in Asia," Jin continued. His voice was gentle and calm. "Our home is very much like your home. It is a secret. We hide behind a great barrier, just like you hide behind this purple wall of energy. We stay away from the rest of the world because the world is messy and violent."
Badu's eyes narrowed. He was listening closely. "If you stay hidden on your mountain, why are you here in my jungle?"
"Because the outside world is building terrible weapons," Jin explained. He spoke in simple, easy words so there would be no mistakes. "They are building atomic bombs that can destroy whole cities. Our elders sent us out to watch the world. To make sure their terrible bombs do not threaten our hidden mountain. When we saw your man with the special gray metal, we had to know what it was. We had to know if it was a danger to our home."
Badu looked at them for a long time. He was trying to decide if they were lying. He was a master spy, trained to spot liars. But Jin and Suyin looked completely honest.
"Search them," Badu ordered his guards.
Two guards in black suits stepped forward. They kept their glowing blue spears ready in one hand. One guard pulled a small, flat device from his belt. It was a highly advanced scanner. The guard waved the scanner up and down over Jin's body, and then over Suyin's body.
The scanner beeped softly. The guard looked at the small screen. Even behind the panther helmet, Jin could tell the guard was confused.
"Well?" Badu asked, sounding impatient. "What hidden weapons do they have? Where are their radios and tracking chips?"
The guard shook his head. "Nothing, Commander Badu. The scanner shows absolutely nothing. They have no metal on them. They have no wires. They have no batteries or power sources. They are only wearing silk cloth and leather shoes. They are completely clean."
Badu looked very surprised. His eyes widened slightly. He stepped closer to Jin. "You have no technology at all? None? Then how did you fight? How did you turn invisible?"
Suyin looked at Jin. Jin nodded slightly. It was time to show them a small piece of the truth. If they wanted Badu to believe they were not a threat, they had to prove they did not use machines. They had to prove they used nature.
"We do not build machines," Suyin said to Badu. "We train our bodies and our minds. We learn to listen to the world around us. We learn to ask nature to help us."
"Show me," Badu demanded. He rested his hand on the handle of a sharp Vibranium dagger on his belt. "Show me this trick. But if you try to attack us, my guards will shoot you where you stand."
"I will not attack," Jin said softly. "I will just show you the wind."
Jin slowly lowered his hands. The guards tightened their grip on their spears, but Badu held up a hand to stop them from firing.
Jin looked up at the tall mahogany tree above them. He waited for a dead, brown leaf to fall from a high branch.
A few seconds later, a large, dry leaf snapped off the branch. It began to float down toward the muddy ground.
Jin raised his right hand and pointed his finger at the falling leaf. He did not use a lot of power. He used a very tiny amount of his Air magic.
He pulled the air away from the space right under the leaf. He created a very small, perfect empty space. A vacuum.
The leaf was falling fast. But when it hit the empty space, it suddenly stopped in mid-air. It did not flutter. It did not spin. It just hovered there, completely frozen, hanging in the empty air.
Badu stared at the leaf. His dark eyes were wide open. He looked for thin wires holding it up. He looked for a hidden fan blowing air. He saw nothing.
Jin moved his finger to the left. The invisible empty space moved to the left, carrying the frozen leaf with it. Jin moved his finger in a circle, and the leaf flew in a perfect circle around Badu's head.
Then, Jin closed his hand. The empty space vanished. The leaf fell the rest of the way to the ground, landing softly in the mud.
"That is how I stop the sound of my footsteps," Jin explained simply. "I take away the air under my boots. Without air, there is no sound. Without air, there is no pushing force. I do not use a machine to do this. I use my mind."
Badu was quiet. He looked at Suyin. "And you? How did you disappear in the jungle without a cloaking suit?"
Suyin stepped forward. She did not raise her hands to fight. She looked down at a small puddle of dirty rainwater resting in a footprint in the mud.
She focused her mind on the water. She used her Water magic.
The dirty water in the puddle began to shake. Then, it slowly lifted up out of the mud. It floated up into the air, stopping between Suyin and Badu.
As the water floated, Suyin used her magic to clean it. The dirt and mud fell out of the water, dropping back to the ground. The floating ball of water became perfectly clear and clean.
Suyin moved her fingers. The ball of water stretched out. It flattened into a thin, clear sheet. It looked like a piece of glass floating in the air.
"Water can bend light," Suyin said in a soft, clear voice. "If you bend the light perfectly, you can make the eye see what is behind you, instead of what is in front of you."
She moved her hand again. The thin sheet of water wrapped tightly around her arm. Instantly, her arm seemed to vanish. Badu could see the green leaves of the jungle right through the spot where her arm should be.
Suyin dropped her hand, and the water splashed back into the muddy puddle. Her arm appeared again.
"I do not use a suit of special metal to hide," Suyin told him gently. "I wear the rain. I wear the mist. That is how I became invisible."
Badu stood perfectly still. His twelve guards also stood very still. They had never seen anything like this in their entire lives.
The people of Wakanda were scientists and builders. They believed in numbers, metal, and energy. They believed that everything could be explained by advanced physics. They did not believe in magic.
But they could not argue with what their own eyes had just seen. The scanner had proven these strangers had no machines hidden on them. They had moved leaves and water with only their thoughts.
Badu slowly took his hand off the handle of his dagger. The tight, angry look on his face began to soften. He still looked very serious, but he no longer looked like he wanted to order his men to kill them right away.
"You are... very strange people," Badu said. His voice was much quieter now. "You control the wind and the water with your bare hands."
"Just as you control energy and metal with your machines," Jin answered politely. "We are different, Commander Badu. But we are also very much the same."
Badu raised an eyebrow. "How are we the same?"
"We both hide," Jin said. He pointed his hand toward the glowing purple energy wall behind them. "You built this giant, beautiful city. You have science that is hundreds of years ahead of the rest of the world. But you do not share it. You hide it behind a fake mountain. You hide it to protect your people from the greed of outsiders."
Jin placed his hand on his own chest. "My people do the exact same thing. We live on a mountain that the world cannot find. We keep our old ways safe. We do not want the outside world to come and ruin what we have built. We do not want their wars, their bombs, or their greed to touch our home."
Badu listened carefully to Jin's words. He looked deep into Jin and Suyin's faces. He saw that they were telling the truth about wanting to stay hidden.
For hundreds of years, the kings of Wakanda had chosen to keep their country a secret. They knew that if the outside world found out about the special Vibranium metal, greedy armies would come to steal it. Wakanda would be destroyed by men with guns who wanted power.
Badu realized that these strangers from the East understood this fear perfectly. They were not spies sent to steal Wakanda's secrets for America or Russia. They were spies sent to protect their own secret home.
"You call yourselves Watchers," Badu said slowly. He crossed his arms again, but he did not look angry. He looked like a man thinking very hard about a difficult problem.
"Yes," Suyin said. "We watch to make sure the world does not burn itself down. We came here because your metal scared us. We wanted to make sure you were not going to use it to hurt our mountain."
Badu let out a long breath. He looked back at his guards. The guards were still holding their spears, but the blue glowing tips were not pointing at the strangers anymore. The spears were pointing at the ground.
The hot African jungle seemed to sense that the danger was passing. The birds that had flown away when the shield lit up started to sing again in the tops of the tall trees. A small monkey chattered softly from a nearby branch. The heavy, sticky heat felt a little less suffocating now that the threat of death was gone.
The tense standoff at the border was finally starting to cool down. The fierce heat of a fight was fading away.
Jin and Suyin slowly lowered their hands all the way down to their sides. They kept their bodies relaxed. They wanted to show Badu that they completely trusted him not to attack.
Badu looked at the giant purple energy wall behind them. He thought about the shining, peaceful city of Wakanda sitting safely inside the dome. He knew his duty was to protect that city at all costs. Killing these two strangers would be easy. But if he killed them, their people in the East might come looking for them. That could lead to a war between magic and science. A war would bring the eyes of the whole world to Africa.
"You are very lucky people," Badu finally said. He turned his sharp eyes back to Jin and Suyin. "If you were normal spies, my guards would have ended your lives the moment you touched the shield. We do not allow outsiders to see the truth of our mountain."
"We are very thankful for your patience, Commander Badu," Jin said, bowing his head respectfully one more time. "We are glad we could speak before weapons were used."
"Do not mistake my patience for weakness," Badu warned them. His voice was hard and serious again. "You have seen our wall. You know that we exist. This is a very dangerous secret for you to carry in your heads."
"We are very good at keeping secrets," Suyin told him gently. "Our entire lives are built on keeping our mountain hidden. We know the heavy cost of a broken secret."
Badu stared at them. The leader of the War Dogs had to make a choice that would change history. He had to decide if he could trust these magical strangers from the East. He had to decide if they could form an agreement to pretend they had never met.
"We need to talk more," Badu said. He did not put his panther helmet back on, but he motioned to his guards to step back. "But we will not talk here in the mud. And you will not come inside the city."
Badu pointed to a small, dry clearing a short distance away, hidden deeply under the thick green leaves of the jungle trees.
"We will sit there," Badu commanded. "We will talk about what happens next. We will talk about how two hidden kingdoms can share a world without destroying each other."
Jin and Suyin nodded in agreement. The tense meeting of the hidden peoples was just beginning, but the hardest part was over. They had survived the edge of the spear. Now, they just had to make a promise in the shadows.