With the help of Dr. Reed Richards, Shuri and her team track the Broker’s island in the South Pacific and fly there. Also aboard are the Fantastic Four and Namor, who suggests their foe will be clever enough to anticipate their arrival. Ben Grimm mockingly tells him not to state the obvious. Shuri points out they will be expecting her, maybe Namor, but not all of them. Niix informs them their long rage scanner just went dead. Crosswave jamming, Reed decides. A random frequency switcher. Flea’s not packing up anything in stationary orbit. Reed remarks even he doesn’t have a cloaked satellite. Not in orbit yet, anyway. Do they need back-up? Johnny Storm asks. Shuri is sure they can handle it.
In Wakanda, a celebration of education turns ugly as the palace gets surrounded by protestors. Ororo feels guilty, but Ramonda points out she was set up. They phone T’Challa, asking where he is. He reminds them he is no longer the king and they are no longer his people. Wakanda and he have become strangers. Have the two of them become stranger as well? his wife asks him. Where are they? They are in hell, T’Challa replies.
That moment, Ororo is arrested for the attack on Ram Metunga. When Ramonda tries to protest, she is told they have fifty armed men outside and the palace is filled with children.
She is being arrested, Ororo tells T’Challa. He reminds her it will be a bloodbath if she fights back. They will crucify her for it. She needs to do the right thing and surrender. May the Panther God protect her, he tells her and breaks the connection. He is told by a scientist that everything apart from his private channel is locked. He just threw the woman he loves to the wolves, he replies.
Shuri’s ship is about to be attacked by what looks like Mandroids. The heroes and Wakandans laugh at the idea until the Mandroids prove they are atypical by tearing part of the ship apart. As they evacuate, Mr. Fantastic wants to help Shuri, who tells him to look after the others. She dons her Panther mask and informs him she is not interested in getting to safety. She jumps out of the exploding plane.
The Mandroids transmit the data to Declun aka the Broker, who in turn is informing Dr. Doom. The Latverian dictator orders him to kill as many as he can but not to risk himself. Should he be touched by his concern? Declun asks. Let’s not descend into fantasy, Doom suggests and tells him to kill Richards last. It would please him to know he saw his friends suffer. The Broker isn’t sure it’s manageable. Buy him some hours, Doom replies. After that, it won’t matter if they live or not. He doesn’t see that as a problem at all, Declun agrees.
A Wakandan agent informs Doom that T’Challa offered no resistance at all. He let them take Ororo and his private plane just left the airport. As he told Doom, he is broken! Doom warns him not to make any assumptions and keep him under constant surveillance. It is time to act. The word has been given. The hour of the Desturi has come!
On the island, Namor warns the Thing of an attack by the Absorbing Man, who gloats at having hit the Thing. Ben reminds him Thor has been handing him his ass for years now. The Absorbing Man gloats that the Broker has improved him. Let’s see what Adamantium can do to his hide. He hits the Thing while two other villains attack Namor.
A Mandroid follows the gliding Shuri, who attacks with what looks to be marbles which turn out to create identical holograms of Shuri. The Mandroid checks for heat-signatures but finds they all have signatures and are all fakes Shuri used to cover her tracks. His contact to the Broker breaks off, as the real Shuri has attacked him and taken away his flying device so he falls to his death.
A man watches the ongoings in Wakanda on screens. Referring to himself as “Desturi One,” he calls his brothers and sisters on this frequency to announce this is the hour of cleansing. Rise! Take back the power that was lost. Silence the voices of heresy. Rise as together they bring their country back to its roots. Wakanda for Wakandans! And all over the country, Desturi take over the authorities, the media, the armed forces and the palace.
Elsewhere: The Broker a tells his assistant Mrs. Tickle she looks nervous. He has to admit this is interesting, she points out. Even with the upgrades, their team is facing a worst case scenario. Declun believes it could be worse. Their foes brought their most predictable players. No wild cards. She muses Doom was right to choose him. Flattery during business hours, he mocks. She can bring it up again tonight, she purrs. Which reminds her: where will they be tonight? Anywhere but here, he announces.
Wakanda: A Desturi agent tells Desturi One that the witch has been taken to the null chamber and T’Challa has left the capital. Desturi One laughs the Broker was right. His spirit is broken! Tell him about the casualties. No fatalities, he is informed. They have the master keys but they will be useless in twelve hours when the system automatically resets. Desturi One explains their patron has provided for that. He gave them a multiphase code. The entire arsenal of Wakanda is now theirs.
The Desturi have also taken the central research facility. They inform Doom that they are trying to break into the security system. There are twelve levels of security. Doom points out the Desturi agents said were only eight. He orders them not to waste time and shoot one of the prisoners in the knee.
Elsewhere: Slowly, the heroes have gained the upper hand. After one last battle, Shuri attacks the Broker himself. Calmly, he announces they took one hour, twelve minutes, forty-four seconds. Namor recognizes him as Walter Declun, former CEO of Damage Control, who went mad and began selling his wares to terrorists. Among other things, he sold mutant growth hormone to Nitro, an act that caused the deaths of hundreds of children and set off the Civil War. Namor swats him aside. Reed Richards figures he’s been taking his own mutant growth hormone. Of course he has, Declun agrees. Plus a little slice and dice with his DNA. When Shuri asks why he attacked her family and people, he suggests she catch up on current news. News reports show that the Desturi have overthrown the Wakandan government in nearly bloodless coup. Declun announces he is just the middleman. She has a much bigger fish to fry and much bigger problems. He teleports away.
In Wakanda, conservative anchorman N’dega is forced to become new press secretary at gunpoint. In the vaults, where eight locks have been bypassed, Dr. Doom teleports in. Doom wants to get into the Vibranium vault but there are still four locks to go.
T’Challa calls Shuri from his plane, telling her they took the biggest risk. But the cockroaches are in the light now. Her plan worked. Their plan, Shuri corrects. Doom thinks they are on the run. But this war is just beginning. Now they stop running and fight!
