Arc III Age of Ultron - Stealing some Vibranium back for Wakanda

"Why would you not take me with you?"

"I can hide myself, I can't hide you. We're no Avengers, 'heroing' on foreign soil may brand us as criminals," Eli said with an exhausted sigh.

"Just color my hair, and I'll bring a hoodie instead of a leather jacket. Who would ever find out?"

"Jessie, didn't you want to help out that Daredevil guy you found in the dumpster the other day?"

"Don't change the subject. Fighting a murder robot is more important than beating up some random russian thugs," Jessica said as her frown continued to deepen.

"And you're ready to fight murder robots and the two wonder twins?"

"How will I ever know if I don't try, Eli?"

"Haaa, I'll bring you under one condition," Eli finally conceded.

"Tell me, and I'll do it," Jessica eagerly agreed with a serious nod.

"You wear that ridiculous white onesie with the turqoise edging your sister created for the Jewel hero persona."

"What!? No! Screw you, I won't wear that on a mission in South Africa, or on any mission, ever!" Jessica shouted immediately.

"Huh, wait. Who said anything about you wearing that on the mission? The suit is for after the mission," Eli responded with a playful wink.

"Ugh, fine asshole. You'll get some weird roleplay sex as a reward," Jessica conceded with an exaggerated roll of her eyes.

"Okay, then hear my actual condition. I want you to avoid fighting the twins. Fight murder robots, steal some precious metals or Ultron technology if you can, kill some of the black market weapon smugglers for all I care. But don't fight the twins."

Jessica wanted to protest at first, but Eli looked too serious right now. Albeit a bit reluctantly, she agreed to his condition.

Three hours later, Eli, in his usual outfit with his scarf, sword, and vambrace in their released form and Jessica in black cargo pants and a turqoise hoodie two sizes too big arrived at the coast of South Africa. Instead of pink or her natural black, Jessica's hair was in a turqoise ponytail the same color of her hoodie.

At a place called Salvage Yard, they hovered a good distance away from a marooned container ship called Churchill.

Even though he flew considerably faster than his trip to England and with Jessica on his back, too, Eli was not at all exhausted from the flight. Jessica, however, was completely disheveled, and even five minutes after their arrival, she was still breathing roughly, occassionally cursing Eli under her breath.

"Look over there, the quinjet," Eli pointed towards a small dried thicket about two miles away.

"Just what is your eyesight? I can barely make out a moving dot."

They watched the Avengers infiltrate the Churchill, and not three minutes later, Eli received a message from Tony, or rather Tony's newest AI. It didn't sign the message, so Eli wasn't sure about its name.

It warned him that Ultron was trying to get away with some form of cargo, seven containers filled with dangerous materials that could not remain with the enemy.

"Well, glad I brought backup. The AI asked us to stop those containers over there. Get as many as you can without getting full aggro. Stopping even one container is better than trying to get them all and fail," Eli said as he urged Jessica to get off his back.

"I'll throw you over to the one on the right. Use the dagger, aim for anything that looks like a power source or sensors," Eli ordered in a serious tone as he got ready to launch his girlfriend.

Once he did, Eli moved to clear the Ultron bots of another container. Because he wasn't hit yet, he was invisible and cleared out the four bots on the container in almost an instant with his sword.

He let it fall to the ground and moved to the next container.

"Curious, my sensors cannot see you, but by the attack and damage pattern, you must be the emerald blur. Why are you acting against me? I see no records of you being on the side of the Avengers. You only defended Earth once in its time of need. It was a noble deed. Just as noble as my goal is."

Eli wasn't going to answer just yet. He was still invisible, after all. But Ultron learned quickly. When he neared the second container he wanted to take down, the Ultron bots released short-ranged impulses that knocked Eli out of his path and made him visible.

"There you are," Ultron gleefully shouted as he aimed several blasters in Eli's general direction.

With his sword drawn, Eli dodged most of the shots and sliced through the two bots on one side. Immediately, four more bots shot towards the container to make sure it didn't fall out of the sky, while four additional bots concentrated their fire on Eli.

Eli broke apart Shatterstar and unleashed his full power to make sure the second container would fall as fast as possible. Already, he could see other bots flying to the container he grounded first.

Once the bots close to the second container all broke apart, Eli flew below the container and used all his strength to chuck it close to the other container.

Eli understood his limits. There were way too many robots to go for more. So he planned to play defense with the two containers he managed to save. Ultron only sent one more wave, apparently judged it was futile after Eli easily dispatched it, and left Eli alone with his spoils of war.

Two minutes later, Jessica arrived dragging a container behind her with heavy footsteps.

"A little help?"

Eli took a good look at Jessica. Her hoodie had several holes in it, exposing her toned abs and a black sports bra. Misty's training had really done wonders for her already amazing figure.

Thankfully, from what Eli could tell, she wasn't bleeding anywhere. Well, except for a cut on her right knee, roughly the length of a finger.

"No, you're a big girl going on big girl missions. Just a few more steps, leave the container somewhere close to the others," Eli said with a smirk Jessica couldn't see.

"Ever the gentleman," Jessica 'complimented' with a roll of her eyes.

"Cut on your knee?"

"Tried out a move Misty taught me last week. Turns out a robot is a little harder than my knee," Jessica quipped.

"Who knew? Still a no on the valkyrie style armor?"

"Honestly? Your chances are rising by the minute," Jessica admitted as she finally pulled the third container close to the other two.

"What do you mean, my chances?" Eli asked as he tilted his head.

"Oh please, any kind of armor you wanna give me will just end up being used in the bedroom, like that ugly Jewel jumpsuit I'll have to wear later," Jessica scoffed.

"You have to find out the limits of your range of motion in a new armor, Jessie."

"You make it sound so righteous, you pervert," Jessica said with a blush that was hidden under her scarf.

"I'd love to continue this talk. It was going into a nice direction. But you'll have to see a magic trick first," Eli said as he stood up from the crosslegged position he was in sitting on one of the containers.

"Please don't puke," Eli pleaded with his back to Jessica before he launched his sword so fast it caused a sonic boom in the direction of the Churchill.

Just as fast as it had left, the sword came back to Eli in an arc. He caught it, though it looked like a close call, in a backhand grip.

When Jessica turned to look in the direction of the ship, she could see a one-armed man slowly falling forward and the man behind him clutching his chest, going into a kneeling position.

When the first man landed on the ground, his head left his body and rolled forward as blood began to slowly pool around the corpse.

"Shit! Did you just decapitate someone? Why would you do that?"

"You remember W.I.B.E.'s shitlist, right? He's been number 2 on it for a good decade," Eli said with cold eyes.

"It's shitlist, not hitlist! Why cut off his head, no questions asked?" Jessica was weirded out, Eli had never killed someone in cold blood in front of her. And his decisiveness while doing it felt foreign to her.

"Never wondered why the S in shitlist was written in blood red? Sorry, this isn't the time for jokes. Ulysses Klaue was a terrorist, a warmonger, weapon smuggler, human trafficker and slave trader. He is responsible for arming a majority of all child soldiers in Africa. He had two confirmed abductions of W.I.B.E. beneficiaries under his belt, which is nothing to his previous offenses and the worst offense of all. Klaue was a fugitive of Wakanda. Well, that being the worst offense is highly debatable for us non-Wakandans."

"What's Wakanda?"

"Wakanda is the most technologically advanced country and the main source of Vibranium on this planet. Vibranium is the most powerful metal on Midgard," Eli explained.

"So what, you're going to exchange his head for Vibranium?" Jessica looked uncomfortable with the thought.

"Nope, other way around. We're going to give back most of the Vibranium in these containers if Tony allows it in addition to the head. We're going to give the country some closure and get in their good books at the same time."

Jessica kept staring at Eli like he was someone else.

"...because that's the right thing to do," Eli finished with a sigh.

"You could have given Klaue to them alive," Jessica said with a sad sigh of her own.

"No worries, Jessica. I'm not going to kill every single villain I see. But people like him? I will not lose sleep over ending someone who willingly caused so much misery to thousands. He would have never repented," Eli floated down to hug Jessica close. She shivered in his arms.

"I see. No worries, it will take me some time to be good with it, but much less to be okay with it," Jessica whispered from inside Eli's embrace.

"How about this, I won't kill these two. Will that prove to you I'm still the me you know?"

"Huh, who?" Jessica asked as she left the hug.

"Wonder twins just left the ship. I think their target is the big green guy," Eli said as he pointed to the quinjet hidden in the thicket.

"Guard the containers. Don't let anyone close if you can't help it. Possibly check their contents," Eli ordered as he began to float.

He recast his invisibility and moved closer to Bruce Banner and tried reading the surface thoughts of the twins.

It didn't work on Wanda, and when he read Pietro's thoughts, he needed a lot of concentration. Pietro's thinking speed was constantly changing, going from regular human speed to so fast Eli could barely follow it.

But he pieced together the twins' plan anyway. That made Eli rethink his plan to not kill the twins. They wanted to sic the Hulk on a city of millions of innocents.

Pietro moved close to Bruce in the quinjet with his sister in his arms, but before Wanda could lay her hands on Bruce, something caught her arms in a vicegrip. It immediately hurt her, and it hurt a lot.

"You dare use your unreasonable hatred as an excuse to hurt tens of thousands of people?" Eli's voice lacked any kind of warmth as he spat his question.

Wanda wanted to answer, but she caught sight of Eli's smoldering, glowing green eyes, and the words became stuck in her throat. Her brother didn't see those eyes, though.

"Unreasonable hatred? Who are you to judge us?" Pietro spat back.

"Tony Stark is many things. Arrogant beyond compare, selfish, generous, a genius with no equal. When he was still making weapons for his company, do you know what he prided himself most in?" Eli explained in simmering anger. Pietro would have no remorse. His surface thought reading kept giving Eli the same answers.

"The lives he's taken?" Pietro sneered.

"He prided himself in making weapons that would never fail, you moron."

Eli couldn't see Pietro's expression, but he could see Wanda's, her eyes widened like saucers.

"Just how much suffering have you two caused based on a lie?"

Instead of an answer of either of the twins, Pietro apparently pushed into overdrive. He slapped his sister's wrist free and ran away with her. Though technically, Eli could have done something to stop them, he also took Bruce Banner into account.

Bruce was close to hyperventilating. A disaster was about to happen if Eli didn't stay and calm the scientist down.

"They are gone. They couldn't get to you. Calm down, Bruce," Eli said in a soothing voice. At the same time, he used his empathy to reinforce the feeling of calm in Bruce's head. It worked wonders. Bruce calmed down in seconds.

Twenty minutes later, the Avengers were gathered near the quinjet, licking their wounds. Ultron got away, and everyone but Tony, Clint, and Bruce got another dose of Wanda-mind-control.

Thor was staring into the distance, as if he had seen the end and needed to see it again in order to decide whether or not there was any hope left.

Hawkeye was helping Sharon calm down. The woman looked like she had seen a ghost. Actually, she looked like she had seen a whole ghost town.

Captain America, who should be the one calming her down, was looking at Sharon like a man who had cheated on his wife and was about to confess his sins. He was shivering like a leaf in the wind, which was a weird sight for a man with his massive physique.

Bruce and Tony were discussing next steps with Hill on the phone in hushed voices.

Since Ultron's plan to implicate the Hulk failed, he released some damning audio files, proof that Tony and Bruce are responsible for Ultron or, well, Ultron gave proof of what misdeeds a project of Tony and Bruce had done 'in their name'. The press did not paint a pretty picture. So the Avengers would have to stay low for a bit.

Tony and Eli hashed out how to divide the spoils Eli and Jessica secured some time later. Jessica's argument won out, and Tony barely kept around his own body weight in Vibranium to make a suit with Vibranium casing if needed.

After repacking the containers and leaving a canteen and rations behind for the trip Eli and Jessica were about to take, the Avengers left toward a safehouse. According to Clint's surface thoughts, they were actually going to his hidden home where his family lived to lay low and gather their spirits after Ultron released those files.

Eli strained all his muscles to get under the completely overflooding container filled with Vibranium, placing it on his back. It wasn't that it weighed too much, but the container was unbalanced and way too big.

Jessica carried a bag filled with about twice her own weight in Vibranium and, much to her chagrin, the head of Ulysses Klaue in it.

It took them three breaks and thirteen hours to reach the center of Africa and find the border of Wakanda.

The country might be very isolationist, but W.I.B.E. still had contacts with the royal family. He did not know how or what his mother even did to get this, but they still left the foundation with ways to reach out to people that mattered in the country. One of those ways was a certain border village close to their main entrance point. Only highly trained Wakandans over the Border Tribe lived there. It was their first line of defense. Well, the barrier was, technically, but they were their first human line of defense.

Eli and Jessica landed in a village that looked like any other and immediately caught everyone's attention.

"Watch this, I never talked to anybody in Xhosa before. Oh, that's their mother tongue." They were both exhausted from the flight, so Eli tried to lift the mood with boasting. But maybe because she was cranky from exhaustion and in desperate need of a hot shower and a bed, Jessica only rolled her eyes and stayed silent.

"Who are you, and what is your purpose in coming here?" A villager asked in English with a heavy African accent.

"We have come bearing gifts for Wakanda. This container is filled with the sacred metal stolen by Ulysses Klaue. And this, this is the head of the thief," Eli explained in perfect Xhosa as he held the bloody head of Klaue in front of him after he threw down the container, which created a dull, heavy thud. As much as they disliked outsiders, Wakanda revered strength, and this was Eli showing off some of his strength.

"And what is it you want in return for those gifts?" The same guard as before asked, this time in Xhosa.

"I would like to have an audience with King T'Chaka. My request of him will not be excessive. You have my word."

One of the guards entered a hut, most likely to contact the palace. He came out of the hut five minutes later and told them that they were free to rest in a particular hut. They were served fresh, cool water and fruits to eat.

One and a half hours of rest later, they were ushered into another hut, this one much more luxurious from the inside, and met with the king T'Chaka and his son, Prince T'Challa.

"Greetings, I am King T'Chaka. This is my son, Prince T'Challa. Who are you, our benefactors?" The king asked in English, probably because one of the guards noticed that Jessica couldn't follow Eli's conversation before and had informed T'Chaka.

"Greetings to you King T'Chaka. My name, for now, is Tempest. My companion's name is Alias. We're... well, we are freelancers, vigilantes if you will, that happened to be backup for a mission of the Avengers on the coast of South Africa," Eli introduced himself and Jessica.

"And you happened to find Klaue and a cache of stolen Vibranium in this mission? How did you come to know where to bring it, who to ask for and most importantly, what do you ask for?" The king asked with a kind, disarming smile.

Clearly, he was more versed in diplomacy as his son, who was giving them the stink eye. Maybe it was T'Challa's distrust because they were going to ask for benefits that lowered his opinion of Eli and Jessica or maybe he disliked them because they dared not show their face to his father. To T'Challa, this was surely extremely disrespectful.

"I know of you and Klaue's relation to you because we are part of W.I.B.E., leaders actually. All I ask in return for our gifts is one favor in recreating a weapon. Your country may keep the schematics. And we would ask that you allow us to legally keep the Vibranium in my companion's backpack. Klaue's head and the container filled to the brim with Vibranium are yours to keep."

Eli had more than half a day to think about what to ask from Wakanda. Sure, he could technically just give them the head, and T'Chaka might be okay with it, but the rest of Wakanda would hold a grudge, with him keeping all the stolen Vibranium.

And, technically, he didn't need so much Vibranium in the first place. He had access to enough Uru to arm 5-6 more people, and that's without announcing his real title in Asgard. Least of all, Eli needed even more money.

A favor with Wakanda was worth much more to him. And what he asked for now wouldn't even be the full favor they owed him. He could forge favorable relations with the isolationist country. If played correctly that could work out in favor of an actual sales channel for Wakandan technology for him. Not for resale, but personal use.

Tony was a genius and would reach their level soon enough, but it's always good to have a backup. Not that Tony ever even actually worked for him. Since it was like that, having a hook-up in the form of a grossly overpowered futuristic nation was well worth the container filled to the brim with Vibranium.

"Hmm, it depends on the weapon you seek to create with our help, but these terms are more than acceptable. I feel like you could have asked for more?" The king decided after some musing.

"I'd much rather become a friend of Wakanda than ask for more. And the weapon I seek to have recreated are Singularity grenades. I have three grenades left that I would send you at a later time should we come to an agreement. Their origin are the dark elves of Svartalfheim. They create a high gravity implosion with a radius of roughy two grown men," Eli patiently explained.

"Alien technology with a versatile application. I will agree only if you swear not to give this technology to any criminals or armies on Earth. The damage such grenades could hold would be catastrophic," T'Chaka countered after he thought of all implications such a weapon would bring.

"You figured out they can form a resonance from just my little explanation?" Eli asked in astonishment.

"You would not have asked us to recreate it if it was just that an implosion of such small radius. Any regular missile could do more damage on its own. There had to be a reason and that is the most likely one. Still, I feel that you giving us this technology to study is once again more beneficial to us," T'Chaka said as he narrowed his eyes.

"I'd much rather become a VERY good friend with Wakanda?" Eli asked more than said in a light tone and a shrug.

A few conditions and some small talk later, Eli and T'Chaka came to an agreement. Eli and Jessica were still not allowed inside the borders, but after enjoying an actual traditional Wakandan meal instead of plain fruit, they left for New York. Eli took his time to let Jessica sleep in his arms while he crossed an ocean to get home.