THE WILDERNESS. ❨ T'CHALLA UDAKU ❩

01. | DAZE

ONE.

2016
LAGOS, NIGERIA.

( daze )

"MISS JIWE!" Mari slowly turned to face the owner of the voice that had called her, a soft smile tugging at her lips as her gaze narrowed in on the disheveled form of the new assistant director of tech, Aisha Munro.

"Miss … Jiwe!" She called, wildly waving her hands in the air as she ran towards Mari, panting heavily. She stopped a few feet from the Vixen and hunched over, bracing her hands on her knees as she muttered under her breath. "Jeez, I am out of shape."

Mari chuckled in amusement. "What can I help you with, Aisha?" The young brunette stumbled over her words for a moment, appearing to be quite surprised that Mari had actually remembered her name.

"I-- er," Aisha's eyes widened slightly and she adjusted her grip on the tablet in her arms, biting her lip out of nervousness. "Oh! There's a new shipment of supplies and tech coming in from Uganda, but there's not much considering The Lahliwe managed to infiltrate the Facility down there and steal a majority of the stock; including weapons, diamonds, gold, Vibranium … etcetera, etcetera. We're honestly lucky that there's anything left."

Mari made a contemplative noise at the back of her throat as she nodded along to Aisha's words, jogging down the many steps towards the conference room. "Okay, we need to contact Carlo and have him up security in the Northern and Southern wings, they are the most vulnerable, and these attacks are getting far too close to home base."

"Okay," Aisha nodded and put it in her notes to call Carlo up and alert him of the break in. "One last thing, the lab's testing out some new tech and we'd be really grateful if a certain AD could come on down to monitor the progress?"

Mari glanced over at Aisha's pleading expression and over exaggerated pout, huffing slightly as she said, "I can't make any promises to be there, I have a pretty packed schedule, but if I have the time I'll stop by tomorrow. As for now, we have a meeting to get to."

Aisha nodded and tucked the tablet away into her bag, scurrying after Mari as the elder woman led them into the meeting.

"Let's do this."

• • •

THE MEETING WENT WELL. The board of directors introduced Aisha as the assistant director of the tech department, Carlo arranged more security for the Ugandan outpost, Ravi-- the foreign ties AD, otherwise known as the Ambassador-- revealed the newly formed alliance between Wakanda and what remained of Sokovia.

Everything was going fine.

Up until the end of the meeting during an argument on how to dispose of the Lahliwe. Carlo was adamant that their current security could take care of these ‘pesky little league thugs’-- per his words-- while Kyla-- the communications AD-- insisted that the Dora Milaje could easily wipe them out, and Ravi silently pondered on the thought of the possibility that they were all wrong.

"We could take them out!" Carlo had exclaimed, projecting his words further by rather harshly slamming his palms down onto the wooden tabletop, which resulted in a resounding 'thud' echoing around the room. "They come at us again and they're dead!"