To Take From A King

January 27, 2018:

The Killmonger makes his opening move to challenge the rule of T'Challa

Brooklyn Bridge

Characters

NPCs: None.

Mentions: Black Panther, Jessica Jones

Plot:

Mood Music: [*\# None.]


Fade In…

The audacity of a nation.

It is how some describe the way Wakanda operates, but only those who know some small truth of the bigger whole. For much of the world, it is a place of seclusion, wrapped in mystery, with a single export it carefully guards without great need of exporting at all.

Until now.

Overtures have been made. Small excursions known only to a few, that the King of Wakanda is once again outside his boarders. The embassy has seen more activity in a year than it had in all it's time prior, and bits of information have leaked out to those who would covet it most. Those who would make a difference.

It is how Erik knows that one of T'Challa's close advisers is meeting with Lucas Karlsson, a former Swedish diplomat who works for the United Nations Advisory council. A simple meeting about future relations, a cultural exchange, perhaps a hosted dinner. As a matter of course, Sizani is dressed for a meeting and not a night out, though she has entertained the older man all the same with pleasant conversation in his own language, her purple pant-suit so dark it could almost be black, and her demeanor that of someone who is just catching up with an old friend.

The location is spot on. The car's most vulnerable point on it's route was given over to Erik by those who know the truth: This man, this Panther, should not be the King of the Cradle. Here, on the Brooklyn Bridge, Sizani remarks to Lucas her love of the water, though it is one she does not often indulge in.

"There, far below. I often wonder what it is like to sail at night. For all the wonders of this city, it is not something I have indulged in."

Erik Killmonger, as he's chosen to be called during sessions that involve such things as he's about to do, has been waiting patiently for the right time or the right moment. Intelligence has put the vehicle in the place where it needs to be for what he's got planned and there's not a damn thing that's going to stand in his way.

Killmonger pulls off the yellow vest that he's been wearing to disguise himself as a construction worker. When he spots the vehicle in question, he gives a sling of that vest off to the side and reveals his body armored chest and the entire half-camo motif that he's wearing. His appearance is decidedly anti-american in a way that's befitting of a person that's reaching down to grab his lion flavored tribal mask. He pulls it onto his face, grabs some sort of projectile throwing device and lines up his shot.

Even through the tribal mask he can get a deadeye mark on the car that's crossing the bridge. He gets a lead on it and pulls back on the trigger, waiting for the vehicle to pass by and then he pulls back on the trigger. Almost immediately and with more force than it probably should have, a jagged edged harpoon is launched towards the spinning front tire on this vehicular target. The metal cable attached to the end of the harpoon is yanked and extended for a moment or two, the slack disappearing quickly, when the end of the cable is shown to be locked onto the bridge itself.

For all the commotion this is causing, the tribal masked terrorist is already moving again. He's got some people to kill.

The wire goes taught, and the sheer physics of the car scream against being tethered to the bridge. The rear axle rips out, the shot perfect enough to spear it through and wrap the cable, and the car goes into a skidding slide until it powers against a guardrail and spills into part of a construction zone where one lane was already shut down. Traffic suddenly skids to a halt all around, horns honking and tempers flaring. But these people do not know what walks among them. Inside the car, the tail is different.

Sizani had been wearing her seatbelt. Lucas had not. When they had been hit, an arm wrapped around him but he still smacked his head against the car door window, blood smeared along the spiderwebbed damage of the glass. It is still. The driver is unconscious. The single security agent gets out of the car, stumbling, turning.

He sees movement. Odd movement. A lion in the grass. The only oddity in this mind-rocking situation. He draws his gun and aims, shouting at the man who walks as if the world would kneel to his very presence.

"United Nations Security, do not approach!"

Sizani, for her part, is only touching her earring, pulling Lucas towards the opposite side as she hears the yelling outside, and then finally out through the door. He crawls, she hunkers down, speaking only one word as she reaches into her jacket at her lower back for the only weapon she will need in this battle. "Sanura."

Killmonger cares nothing about the horns or the tempers that may be blaring and flaring. He's too far focused and emblazoned with the passion of wanting to put an end to this madness once and for all. How dare the King of Wakanda spend so much time here, in the United States, in the city of this very bridge that he is stalking his prey on? Why would he abandon the people of Wakanda to focus his efforts to safe a nation that prides itself on conquering other countries? More unfit decisions only lead to more anger within the Killmonger.

"Too late." The accent that comes from behind the Tribal Terrorist mask is American though it has been thickened to include a bit of a Wakandan tinge. Perhaps, of course, to those that were in the vehicle with other members of that same sovereign nation. Of course, it is unlike Killmonger to allow the security detail to continue breathing long enough to put anything together. Especially considering the way he continues to stalk towards the vehicle that he's come for. Or, the contents there in. No, he only has time to raise both of his hands, a machine gun held and fired at such United Nations stupidity without a moment of warning or hesitation.

There's a reason they call him Killmonger.

The clip of said machine gun is emptied with the intent to obliterate security foolishness before the damn thing gets tossed to the side. Killmonger doesn't miss a step in his stride. He's focused. He's angry.

He's here.

Machine gun fire rains forth as if the Killmonger's ire itself propels the munitions, and blood begins to explode. From within the car, where the driver is hit, and behind it, where Sizani is crouched and the security guard has made his stand. His pistil returns fire, once, twice, a round slamming into the Killmonger's armored vest with no where near enough force to move a man enhanced the way he is. Then the man standing between him and his prey is utterly obliterated, rounds ripping into his chest and sliding up through his neck before his head jerks twice and all but explodes with gore across the pavement.

Lucas screams.

Sizani waits.

There in a grace practiced from birth she moves into the stream of lingering fire, bullets impacting on her emergency field, absorbing kinetic energy in a purple haze until her vault completes and she hits the ground in front of this man, this usurper, who wishes to tears down all that she loves, and all that she is loyal too.

Her vibranium dagger powers into one weapon, a kick of her bare foot releases the kinetic energy in her shield into Killmonger's other, seeking to disarm him. Looking to put him on a playing field that will force him to kill with hands or blades, as unwise as that may seem. Firearms are an ultimate equalizer, but this woman, immediately recognized as Dora Milaje by the way she moves, the way she fights, chooses another path.

Behind her a metal hulk impacts next to Lucas, something that looks for all the world like a metal panther, comprised entirely of vibranium. A war suit, that even Erik may not have yet heard about for all his connections.

"Sanura! Get him to safety!"

It takes only a moment, and Lucas Karlsson is wrapped in vibranium, as the panther turns into a suit that covers him from head to toe and moves him like a doll. Then the unusual eyes of the Kupaa find Killmonger, eyes from the tribe said to have first gazed upon the vibranium meteor, eyes said to have paid for that privilege with a part of their collective soul, turning them green, a the color of abject sickness. No matter how pretty these might be, they are a reminder of what her tribe has had to cede, and that she, always, will be unwhole.

"You have already failed, little lion. Now let us peel back your layers, and learn the measure of the man who hides from me."

"I prefer leopards, actually."

Disarming is just part of the dance it seems because Killmonger is accustomed to fighting with things that are not throwers of bullets. It has more to do with the fact that he's getting the opportunity to get up close and personal than anything else.

It's fun to kill things with his own bare hands.

The body armor that's worn is decidedly designed out of Vibranium, which may be easy to pick out for those that know of the metal and the way it works. Killmonger, of course, does not seem to be in the business of trying to hide it. He's actually here to prove that there is a better leader of Wakanda, fighting for his opportunity to stand tall and lead that nation to the greatness that it truly should be. There shouldn't be a Wakandan Embassy in the United States. Wakanda should be in control of the United States.

Killmonger's movements are as fluid as the water down below. He doesn't even flinch when blades are brought into the equation, planting a foot behind him and twisting to give himself room to spin away from the familiar fighting style of the Dora Milaje. He knows it all too well. He's studied it for hours into days. He's taken the time to prepare himself for situations that are very specific to the confrontation that he's in at this exact moment.

The first rotation of his spin reveals his face. Killmonger has obliterated those that would give this woman any assistance and he's sure that those around him will not have the opportunity to get close enough to him to see his face and identify him. Still, though, he's been challenged and the tribal mask is peeled off his face during that first rotation of his spin. As he comes back around to give a better look to his opponent, the mask seems to have become something more protection based. The damn thing doubles as a shield.

Killmonger wants more space, though, so there's a second rotation to his backspinning to keep T'Challa's lackey from once more entering into his personal space. On this particular spin, a blade is revealed (who knows where he had it stashed) and spun in his palm, held almost like a spear as he bends at the knee to prime his haunches for cat-like agility and reflexes. The tribal shield held up in a show of defiant challenge.

"Come. So that I may send you back to /him/…" Killmonger motions with his blade and even adds a snarkish wink. "… in pieces."

Those spins do more than reveal the face of the man who would challenge her so. As the suit behind her speeds away, intent on depositing her companion in the safety of the embassy, her gaze grows distant. She blinks, twice, surveying his body as if it were a place to build a home, but instead finding only a lot she knows all to well. He moves like her King. Like a man possessed by the Panther, and it sinks into her mind as a more sinister blow than that threat. It sets the nature of the confrontation, lets her know that physically, she should be outmatched.

This does not stop Sizani of the Kupaa.

Just as his second spin draws his blade, a foot will find the inside of his wrist, bare but strong, lashing out to force it wide for the underhanded blow that comes diving in from her dagger. She is fast, faster than a human should be, but for a man enhanced, she does not reach his speed. This is focus, this is commitment, this is the temporary heights of a woman who knows she cannot let this engagement last. So she cuts for his throat. Does not take any high road, trusting in her equipment to help see her through, while her other hand gathers something close.

Certain her first strike will not connect, she goes for his edges, lashing in what will seem like a wild abandon, but the method of her madness is clear, seeking the unarmored bits of him to draw blood and pain, something that might work if this fight could go on forever, but that simply cannot be. She must met out distraction, to keep him off balance, to keep each blow the mystery of a killer's strike of a dancer's parry.

"Tell me your name, lost child of Wakanda. Tell me so that your family can disown your and your failure, when the time comes."

It is true that Killmonger's physical enhancements are far beyond the scope of mortals and baselines, however, that does not mean that he is untouchable. He falters in a world where there are those with will as strong as he is. He lacks the faith in himself that others have in spades. He suffers beneath the weight of anger, fear and darkness while others rise to the occasion on hope and light. Even when faced with insurmountable odds.

If she were one of his warriors, he would be impressed.

"If you belonged to me, I'd be more impressed." Killmonger states this as a fact when he brings up his blade to knock away that attempt at his throat. His movements resembling that of a jungle cat as he regards his attacker with an amused smirk and an enraged eye.

It may be easy to tell that he's fighting someone else, not her. She's just the surrogate body for whom he wants to run through with this blade. The way he looks at her, it is almost maddening. As if he were seeing directly into the man he wants to be facing.

Killmonger covers up, both hands behind his shield as he takes dagger stabs to the side one after the other. The blood that drips from the punctures is of no use to him and he doesn't seem to cry out in pain. Not while he's preparing. Every time he takes a blade to the side, he inches a bit closer to her, due to being /stabbed/. Repeatedly.

There's a moment when he shifts quicker than he should be able to move, raising his arm to catch the stabbing arm around the wrist, pulling it closer and tighter to his body… even if the blade punctures through his skin again. At this same time, he steps in towards her, one leg aiming for a sweep to her ankles, with more force than a human's capable of doing, clearly hoping to take her off her feet and high enough for his free hand to catch her by the throat for some serious chokeslam to the bridge action.

"I am not a lost child of Wakanda." Killmonger's voice growls with anger, almost seeming to fuel his strength and his eyes damn near glow red. "I /am/ Wakanda."

One of these stabbing motions rips sidelong, shredding skin, but also that shield to peel it from his arm. It frees it for his tactic, and the caught arm falters in that grip, through she does not drop the blade, leaning into the motion, putting his armor to the test. Woven vibranium, and plates beneath, it will hold the killing blow at bay, but inot entirely. It punctures inward, threading the abdominal wall with an inch of metal. Then the choke hold steals her breath, the foot steals her feet, and she finds only hard pavement.

It may have crushed bone. Chipped her spine. Shattered a rib. She cannot care about these things now. Only training and a confidence untold keeps panic away. The blade twists, a foot pushes at the inside of the hand that might drive in for the killing blow, then her free hand uncurls as she turns her face away.

The space around the Killmonger's head will form a sudden vacuum, as all air is sucked from it as a precursor to a sonic blast that would likely shatter the eardrums of a normal man. Likely fracture the skull of a lesser man. It is technology not available outside of the Wakanda Security Service, the height of their technological power reduced to tiny pellets that form a pressure field and collapses it. To anyone else, it is but a loud pop. To the Killmonger, it is the death of his parents ringing in his ears.

Her knee fires up, a leg hooks, and she pries herself over and into a roll that lets her stop just before the guardrail. Vibranium scrapes the blood from her dagger on the ground as she rises, pain searing through the exhalation as she takes stock of three broken ribs and what may be a hairline fracture of her skull. No time. Not for pain. She eases into a crouch, readies her blade to meet Killmonger's own, and her strange green eyes beckon him with an unspoken taunt.

It makes her words harder to hear, but clear enough despite the rattle she's delivered to his ears. "You cannot be Wakanda, Killmonger."

She knows him.

"You do not fight like someone who has never known defeat."

There are things that even enhanced humans such as Killmonger cannot stand. The lack of air in his lungs is enough to send Killmonger backwards. The lost of his shield is ignored for better focusing on the fact that he cannot breathe. However, there doesn't seem to be the panic and terror that would be going through others. He doesn't seem phased by the lack of air on a level beyond physically. His angry glare remains through the entire short period of time that he's without oxygen.

Erik Killmonger is not afraid of death.

Killmonger takes a knee to recover from such a bold and technologically wonderful attack. He grins even though hearing is going to be selective for the next few moments. He even manages to keep up his dark grin as he rises to his feet. The blood from his wounds just continues to stain the Bridge of Brooklyn in much the same way that the Legacy of the Black Panther stains Killmonger's past. A father and a son given everything that was taken from another father and son. The thought of what T'Challa represents refills the rage bubbling up in his body and for the briefest moment, even the blood spilling from his body stops.

Killmonger lunges for the one who dares not respect the true voice of Wakanda. His own blade being tossed from one hand to the one closer to Sizani as he slides across the pavement towards her crouched form. He pops up with a rising swipe of his blade, aiming to cut his way up across her chest as he goes up and over her, balance and reflexes allowing him to land on the guardrail itself with a spin and the reveal of a second blade.

Although, he doesn't press his attack. Which is weird for someone with superior physicality.

"The people of Wakanda have suffered at the whims of kings long enough. I'll give them back their voice when I take your king's head." These threatening words must be a distraction. They have to be. Because behind her, where Killmonger was forced to attempt to recover from the deafening sonic obliteration of his hearing, there is a small, but substantial, explosive stuck to the ground. Probably shouldn't mess with the structrual integrity of a bridge, huh?

That 'detontation' light is blinking faster and faster…

Vibranium meets vibranium in a bone-rattling crash, and Sizani is forced to give ground before The Killmonger makes his leap. She sees it, the fire in his wake, waiting to happen. She hears it, another blade joining the first as she dives away, leaving behind pieces of her suit if the Killmonger means to claim them with a swipe of his blade. Somewhere in the roll her belt buckle comes off, the emergency kinetic shield only having recharged to an meager twenty percent. It snaps to the bomb with a toss, the molecular coupler activating with her voice command.

Then the world is a bright flash, and a sudden failure of that shield as it absorbs most, but not all, of the blast.

It sends Sizani like a rocket towards her foe, her blade diving into a shoulder even as she barrels him over the edge of the bridge…

To slam to a restoration scaffle below. It explains the lane closure, but no workers await them.

Instead, it is only the anger of one of Wakanda's protectors as she rises, mouth bloody. Eyes on fire. She squares off and speaks to him like a child. She squares off, and speaks to him like a woman possessed.

"If you cannot defeat me, you will never defeat our King. Come then, little boy. Come and fail the memory of those who have come before you, all with delusions of grandeur."

Here she steps forward, knife diving in, challenging him to show her more than a feinting slash, more than a whirling riposte. She would see him make that blade sing if he knows the song she dances too, for this is how it was in the days of old. Two people. Metal from the stars. Blood that runs deep with the weight of ancestry.

There are many thing that Erik Killmonger is. Many things that people should fear. That people don't understand. That people do not believe to be true. There are things that, as far as Erik Killmonger is concerned, are things that should be known about him. These are the tales that are whispered across the various villages of Wakanda and those that know of his past.

Those that know of everything that was taken from him. /As a child/. And now, now this woman as the audacity to speak to him as if he were still that same child. A child that was helpless to do anything to protect the man that was simply doing what he must to survive. His father. A child that watched his mother perish without the ability to save her. A child that was unable to do anything to protect and save the people that he loved most in this world.

Unfortunately, for the world, Erik Killmonger is all grown up.

Fortunately, for Wakanda, Erik Killmonger is all grown up.

There is silence from Killmonger when they go over the side and smack into the scaffolding that swings and sways beneath their weighted arrival. They are not down long and Killmonger's physicality has him up on his feet and unwavering even as the scaffold they are on is forced to deal with such quick and decisive movements.

Killmonger's eyes are different now. They are gone. Lost in the past and buried beneath the weight of a world that he remembers very differently than others. He seems to be on autopilot as he takes on a level of speed and strength that is no longer within the realm of punches that are being pulled. Her knife is knocked aside by the palm of his hand and his boot is aimed at her knee to take that particular joint out of her equation with the swiftest and strongest of kicks. He turns on heels of such a brutal sound effect, spinning one blade into a more prone position, turning inward towards her and swiping to slice her across the cheek, almost as if to let the blade speak for him. To be perfectly blunt, he's simply bitchslapping her with a Vibranium blade.

Those movements allow him to continue his spin, planting his foot behind him and giving his free blade a twirl into a more ready position. His upper lip rising into a silent snarl.

The titans clash, but only one of them is supernatural. Only one of them has the rage of loss behind every swing. It lets him knock her blade to the side, and she nearly loses it from the power of the blow. Her knee buckles, wrenches, and a hiss of breath escapes her. She sees the blade coming, leans back as far as she can. Still, it slices a fine line across her cheek, sending his message and wetting his blade with his blood. Again she is on her back, but only for the moment that it takes her to roll over. In her free hand? A spear. A sudden, fully formed spear of energy that she launches at him, made to stun, to incapacitate. But that is not her purpose here.

The spear moves, and she moves too.

Hit or not, she commits to the lunge, her blade flicking out, intent to catching the lead of one of his weapons, but the flash of her spear will prevent her from seeing the other. An acceptable risk. To end this man. To show him that Wakanda rejects him.

It comes as the bite of her dagger under his collar bone. Dug deep and through, catching his armor in the perfect spot to bypass two plates. A blow, that if angled higher, would have driven into his heart.

Sizani will know immediately her error, cast in the look of him, as she stares up and into his eyes.

One of the most important facts about Erik Killmonger is that he is a man that is possessed of a stubborness that borders on supernatural. Perhaps in the way he has been reborn, even his attitude has been enhanced to match his physicality. It comes in the way that he continues to stand his ground, here on the scaffold that likely doesn't want to remain hanging here. He doesn't move. He doesn't bend. He doesn't break.

He stands his ground like a man possessed.

He just allows his armored chest to take the full brunt of that spear. He doesn't give a shit. That much is clear on his face. He doesn't seem worried or even angry… at her. He only seems to be fighting for a past that he cannot return to. He doesn't know if the spear shatters against the Vibranium armor or if the armor buckles beneath the spear. He's not looking down to see. He's not feeling any of the pain that may be flooding his body from it. He's willing to die for his cause. Right here, right now.

It is almost too easy the way the blades clash in a brief moment before she's up close and personal with Erik Killmonger. It is not until her blade doesn't go any further into his armor that he seems to realize that he is no longer watching his parents die. His eyes close for the briefest of moments and when they return, the one known as Erik Killmonger is truly accepting his role in what will likely be a war for the ages. A war for the throne. A war for all of Wakanda.

"I will tell him that you died fighting for his life." Killmonger grins, his eyes filled with the amusement of his victory as he steps backwards, finally moving of his own accord, and slowly removing the thick blade of his weapon from the chest of the woman that got too close to the darkness. The woman that dared to face the man formerly known as N'Jadaka.

"So that he knows it was /your/ failure that cost him everything."

Another step back to give Sizani's body some room to perish and Killmonger only has one thing left to say.

"Wakanda. Forever."

Lids flutter, because it is not the sensation she expects. Cold. Deep. Harrowing. Vibranium feels stranger still than she could have imagined, driven so deep. Tears fill her eyelids, a natural response to the shock and pain of it. He will leave with her dagger in his shoulder, for her hand has no strength to pull it free. She staggers as he speaks, and she has no reply. None summoned, as she marshals the last of her strength. The Killmonger's blade slides out, and with it a crimson waterfall, spilling forth the Kupaa's soul as much as part of her body. A hand reaches out, for railing, for anything, as her mind races for the ways out. The ways to survive. Her microkit is at her ankle. If she drops, if she grabs for it, she will lose her balance and topple. She knows this. The next breath is ragged enough that she knows the blade cut more than skin and bone, blood spilling from her mouth to mimic the wound in her chest, a wound that pierced vibranium weave with the power and rage of a man who's past was no longer his leash.

There is no escape. No recourse. Save for her to reach for her left earring.

The Killmonger will never hear her final word, for her eyes run cold, life draining from her as she hits the rail of the scaffolling and goes tumbling backwards. It escapes from her, a last breath, a last request. Not from her mother, but to the great beyond where her dead sister waits for her in fields of tall grass. Ready to run, ready to fly, as the Kupaa do. But she is not calling to her sister there. Instead she calls to another, here, a bare whisper, recorded as her last and transmitted to the embassy, along with the image of the man who killed her. Her voice is tiny. Her voice is afraid. Her voice is awed.

"…Jessica…"

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