Sage is running through a jungle. Somebody is firing at her. Firing back at an invisible foe, she curses: why the #*$% did they think they could sneak into Wakanda?
Flashback:
Forge’s jet over Central Africa, an hour ago:
Noriko Ashida aka Surge is putting on an X-Force uniform and Betsy Braddock asks her if she is sure about this. She seems to have been drafted into X-Force. Nori replies she was in pieces after Krakoa… and her cousins getting killed by that thing… the way everyone is scared of mutants… She just wants to do some good.
At the controls, Tank announces they are exiting Tanzanian airspace and crossing the Nigandan border. Ghostfield is working at 100 percent.
Nori continues, saying people need to see mutants are not all… Rachel Summers interrupts, pointing out X-Force is off the books. Betsy agrees. No one sees them. Not even their friends. But they are still helping, right? Nori asks.
Studying the Analog, Forge agrees. The Analog points them to world-breaking events, before they have a chance to spiral out of control. And they have to be fast and surgical about it. There is no time to ask for permission or negotiate with…
Sage joins them and announces she reiterates her objection. The plan is reckless at best, suicidal at worst. These people’s whole civilization is built on stealth. They are minimally five hundred years ahead of the best of the rest of humanity. Including Stark. Including Richards.
Forge repeats that the next fracture is in Wakanda, so Wakanda is where they…
That moment, an alert blares. A moment later, the jet is fired upon and breaks apart and the six of them fall. Tessa is trying to get the pseudonium boot soles of her uniform to work. Forge shouts at her to take his hand. The others scream too, as energy crackles around them. Angrily, Sage reminds Forge she told him!
The two of them land somewhere together and try to process what exactly happened. She finds her goggles are having a hard time collating. Forge studies the Analog. It shows them inside a fracture. It has already started.
A weakened Betsy joins them, explaining that what is going on is magical. Some kind of change spell. Sage supports her, while Betsy continues it’s very old and strong. Her own Otherwold magic is fighting it, but she feels it in her skin and bones. It’s eating her… She cries out for her lover Rachel.
Intruder! someone calls in ancient Wakandan. A Wakandan woman accuses them of entering the secret kingdom. With her are the other X-Force members, their outfits changed as has Betsy’s to a more medieval style. Apparent temporal shifting, Sage mutters.
Tell him she is analyzing this, Forge whispers, only to be told she is never not analyzing.
The Wakanda woman gives the order to capture them. Forge and Sage run as the others give chase. They jump down a cliff and hide. Forge hands Sage the gun, while putting up some holo-cams. Good start, she suggests tartly. How about changing their friends back? He asks her to tell him what is happening here. He can’t build a fix, if he doesn’t understand it. She reminds him Betsy said it is a change spell. The magic that makes her Captain Britain fought it and lost. The two of them seem to be immune. Xavier’s database has two references that apply. Discrete events in Manhattan and Alaska. People and places transformed. In one case a magical artifact was responsible. The second time it was Loki.
If it’s a god, he is going to need a lot of prep time, Forge replies. He needs the jet, his workspace. He means the jet that just blew up? she asks. She muses aloud why the spell passed them by. When she turns around, Forge is gone.
A moment later, she finds herself looking at several spear-carrying Wakandans surrounding her and demanding she surrender. Ancient Wakandan, she remarks and surrenders in their own language.
Sage is brought to their leader, a masked being on a throne. Her teammates stand behind him, wearing old-fashioned Wakandan clothing. For ten thousand years, Wakanda has watched and done nothing, he announces. That ends today. He has rolled the world back several millennia to when they were pure. From here, Wakanda will take its proper place. They will force humanity to greatness. The Black Panther is Wakanda, and he is the Black Panther!
Actually, he is not, Sage mumbles. He is not T’Challa. And that object behind him seems to be the so-called Anansi Drum. While she is pleased to see it is not a myth, a Wakandan royal would never have it on…
He is the Black Panther! the masked man shouts. What can an outsider possibly understand of the drum’s power? Sage doesn’t claim understanding. She loathes magic, but she does know the story:
Anansi, the spider-god, made the drum to trap his sister Bast. It’s supposedly made of stories, though how that’s possible… He made it possible, the man boasts. He! Nketi, the spellmaster! He grabs the drum and boasts that, any time he plays, the magic spreads. By tomorrow, all of Wakanda, and then soon…
The world? Sage suggests. She’s sure Dr. Strange is going to roll over for that. And Victor von Doom? War with them will lay waste to the entire planet!
Nketi beats the drum and calls her a foolish colonizer. If they fight, they will die. Nothing can resist Anansi’s magic. Not the archivists sent to kill him, not her friends! “Mutant,” not “colonizer,” Sage corrects him, and she is floating a hypothesis. Her mutation is so intrinsically linked to the laws of physical reality, it shields her from his spell, mostly. Her goggles are letting her process his magic as data. Proper reality doesn’t like change on the level he is forcing; it pushes back!
Her analysis complete, she has an idea. She draws her gun to fire at Nketi, allowing her to flee. Nketi shouts at the others to bring him her head! Her ensorcelled X-Force teammates assault her and Sage does her best to dodge their attacks.
Present:
When Surge tries to tackle her, Sage grabs her and puts her goggles on Nori’s head. As a result, she struggles with the data input, while Nori is torn out of the spell. Weakened, Sage asks Surge to take the goggles to Forge. He will understand!
Surge protests, saying she doesn’t know where he is. They hear voices about finding another intruder. Sage tells to show him. She orders her to run.
Surge finds Forge with the almost reassembled jet. She talks too fast and then pushes the goggles onto his head. He puts them on and realizes what Tessa meant. Her mutation protected her. The Analog protects him and the Analog, as an embodiment of science, can counter the magic.
In the meantime, Tessa has been dragged back and Nketi promises that, when he completes the spell, he will erase all of them. There will be nor more mu… Do not finish that sentence! Forge orders.
Forge tackles him and moves closer to the Anansi drum. Magic has to push away what is already there. That works in small doses. But, when it tries to shove away reality completely, it takes little to reset the world. The Analog touches the drum. Magic lighting hits the hut and the fracture is sealed, as Nketi turns back into a man in a modern suit. Sele of the Justice Archive immediately captures him and proclaims the judgment of imprisonment in the deep well for the rest of his life.
Sele identifies Forge as their former queen’s former… That’s him, yes, he interrupts, clearly uncomfortable. The big one isn’t known but he and the others are in their database, Sele continues. The “big one” politely introduces himself as Tank.
Sele informs them they are trespassing. They know what Wakanda does to the uninvited, yes? Forge reminds her they just saved Wakanda and Sele gives them her thanks and ten minutes to leave Wakandan airspace.
Nori marvels at the jet being repaired again and Forge explains that, given how often X-jets blow up, theirs is self-repairing. Studying the Analog, he announces they need to be in Cambodia!
Currently, a giant, bulletproof, naked, golden man walks through the city of Phnom Penh.
