(Six years earlier)
Cairo, a time of strife as bomber planes fly over the city. Ororo recalls her father claiming that they fought over land and oil, whereas her mother said they fought over God. David Munroe wondered why would a god need a man to fight for him? Man fights for the selfish needs of man. From below, soldiers turn their weapons on the plane. Not too far away in the rubble, David Munroe photographs the scene, not dismayed by the threatening looks of the soldiers.
Later, he joins his family at home. On Ororo’s wishes, they decide to eat at home, instead of going out, joking that Ororo is already running the house, as she will one day run the world.
Elsewhere, the soldiers finally manage to shoot down an enemy fighter plane. The plane falls and veers towards the Munroe’s house. N’dare who – along with David – is standing close to the window is the first to see the plane coming in. Panicked, she tries to reach for her daughter, but winds sweep the girl under a heavy wooden table. The horrified faces of her parents are the last things she sees as the plane crashes into the building.
Six-year-old Ororo awakes in darkness, buried, trapped as if in a coffin. She screams and screams until she is finally freed. Next to her, she sees the dead bodies of her parents. She shakes her mother’s corpse, begging her to wake up. Ororo finally takes the red pendant her mother is clutching. Helplessly, she turns to the children who freed her, who are looking at her with pity and tells them they won’t wake up.
(the present)
Twelve-year old Ororo wakes up from her dream, tears still in her eyes. The weather echoes her sadness with rain. She hates it when that happens.
Not too far away, the poachers marvel at the appearance of rain in the desert in a clear night. They realize that the weather is being manipulated and that they are near the prize, as the one who had his camera stolen by Ororo states. The prize that eluded his father and his father before him.
He never understood all of their civil wars, one of his companions states. That thing in Rwanda. Hutus…Tutsi… that Ethiopian-Eritrean thing… Sudan… And in America… America probably has the dumbest of it all. Dark-skinned don’t like light-skinned… never will understand that one.
Suddenly, something about a tree they pass seems strange to him. The first man suggests he read Willie Lynch – “The Making of a Slave.” Then, he will understand their mentality. Why they were bred to betray each other. That’s American doctrine, right? the second man asks. They are in Africa. He sticks a knife in the tree trunk.
Truth is universal, his friend remarks. The second man disagrees. He believes that Africans and Americanized blacks are different and don’t have much in common. When Africans were shipped to the New World, slave owners divided the Africans, beat the culture out of them, stripped them naked. Very psychological approach. To further maximize it, slave owners took away the Africans’ gods. Stripped them of what bonded them, religion. Santeria, Candomble, Voudon. Gave them the God they believed in, the God they wanted them to have. Brainwashing 101.
And the point of his little sermon? the first man asks. He was just saying. He talks too damn much, the first man states derogatively. The second man stares at the thief girl that offered to sell Ororo out. L.A. face, East Oakland booty. Been so long since he saw a girl like that…
Suddenly, something grabs his attention. He sees his knife again. The girl’s been leading them in circles. The girl begins to run and scream Ororo! Loyava keeneck qwi! Their warning. “Trouble has come.”
Ororo is startled awake by her rival’s voice. The girl comes running towards her. Ororo grabs the camera and begins to run as well, the poachers after the two. The other girl stumbles and falls, the men almost upon her. The first man sees Ororo and calls her wind-rider, his “prize of all prizes.”
Ororo tries to drag the other girl to her feet. She just shouts at Ororo to run, not to be the slowest zebra. The poacher is pointing his gun at them. The girl shoves Ororo out of the way and is hit by the dart.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend, the poacher repeats her words as he strides towards her. And you are the enemy, she snaps, struggling with the words, as the sedative is already staring to take effect. Nothing but a petty thief, he snarls. Calling him a “thief of nations,” the girl passes out. The other poacher who made the lewd comment about the girl before observes amused that she played him against the stereotype.
The other men leave, chasing Ororo, leaving only him behind with the unconscious girl.
He turns towards the girl, beginning to undo his belt. “Once you go black…” Suddenly, somebody touches his shoulder and he turns around.
A little later, a teenage boy, dressed only in a loincloth, leaves the unconscious man behind and carries the girl somewhere safe to sleep off the sedative. He begins to follow the other men’s trail.
Ororo is still running for her life, trying to evade the darts shot at her. Panicked, she thinks that she doesn’t want to die like this, a thief and not be able to see her parents on the other side. Then the winds lift her as a thunderstorm starts. Terrified, she flies, but loses concentration as another dart rushes past her.
The boy has reached the hunting party and takes out the last man. Ororo is finally hit in the back and falls hard. The first poacher picks up the camera she’d been clutching all the time and calls it a shame her being reduced to being a thief. He advises her not to fight the effect and go to sleep. She will be worth a fortune.
He tells his men to rope her. He plans to keep her tranquilized and, tomorrow, he will contact the Bull. He turns around, as his men don’t react. Instead of them, he finds the teenage boy staring at him. The poacher grabs his rifle, as he demands to know where his men are. The boy tells him to battle like a man. Undeterred, the poacher warns him and tells him to leave. Still, calm the boy taunts him, asking if he is terrified of an unarmed boy. The taunt is successful. He throws away his weapon.
Drowsy, fighting to stay conscious, Ororo watches the battle, admiring the boy’s panther-like grace. Even as a boy, he is already a warrior. The boy takes out the man and turns towards Ororo. As he gently lifts her up, she asks for his name. T’challa, he introduces himself. She thanks him before losing consciousness. Calling her “beautiful windrider,” he tells her sleeping form that she is welcome. Suddenly, he finds himself facing several armed young men.