Chapter 44: Ceremony of The Second, Getting to know The First…

The Marube Tribe became a distant memory and slight worry after he left in a rush. For the first time there was a hostility aimed at him that wasn't because he was a Mutant or related to The Wolverine.

Not that it made things better or refreshing. At this point he was just going to swing at the next person that felt the need to look at him crazy.

Well, that wasn't entirely true. Simply because when he walked the streets of Southern Wakanda, somebody called him a Wolfman... which led to a retwist, line-up and shave. He had sideburns that looked like fur and a mop of dreaded braids left to grow for years.

He looked completely different by the end of it. He actually looked nineteen... well, closer to early twenties. He paid the man by giving him his shirt. He was tired of the looks it was giving him anyway.

The sun was more than up by then, and he could feel Laura's impatience. Or maybe it was the rising tensions within Wakanda and flocks of traveling people making him anxious. Either way, he returned. She waited for him at the courtyard, the winds blew her hair and clothing wildly, failing to hide the faintest smile on her face.

Brontë landed with a sigh. Using his powers without music was like flexing a muscle that was atrophied almost entirely out of existence. A bleeding gash on his back was just closing from when he fell into the side of a building.

"You clean up nice, hermano."

"Yea I was looking tough…..and y'all just let me…. For three years. That's wild." Bronte commented as he tied up his dreads at the back of his head.

"You have eyes, don't you?" Laura teased as they watched all manner of military units and special persons pass by.

"Obviously not."

The two shared a laugh before Laura spoke again.

"That Ceremony is happening in an hour." She said.

Brontë looked over at her.

"I heard it being talked about with some of their advisors. They're worried about problems arriving from a certain tribes involvement…. I forgot the name—"

"The Marube Tribe." Bronte didn't need any sort of detective skills that went beyond surface level understanding to know.

Laura looked at him suspiciously.

"They don't like us. They won't like us…."

"Us specifically?"

Brontë nodded, "We aggravate the countdown to war….. a war that's been slowly breaking them down over who knows how long."

Laura sighed, "I'm so tired of this…. Shit. Us being hunted isn't even the worst part most of the time."

"Word up." Bronte agreed whole heartedly as he remembered Illyana's crying face. "But we have to keep going. You said it yourself. We started this journey knowing how grimy it gets. And I'm not stoping until Romulus and Sabertooth….." He trailed off.

"I know. Im not stopping either. None of us are." Laura placed a hand on his shoulder.

"But still…. There's gotta be some way we can help them." Bronte said.

"Yea. Kill the the ones hurting them along with Romulus. They can thank Bast or whoever the hell when we leave." Laura replied.

Brontë didn't say anything.

Laura walked in front of him, forcing him to look at her.

"This isn't Canada, Bronte. You aren't some vigilante mythological monster, ok? Wars are different. Don't do anything crazy because In the long run it can cause more death. Our death. Trust me on this." Laura explained.

"Heard you." Bronte mumbled.

"Now. Don't you have a talk with the Queen?"

Brontë nodded, "Before the Ceremony, y'all save me a seat, we don't have much to discuss."

Laura shook her head, "We're not going. Daken thinks we have no reason. I agree. We're going to take this time to train, and review the files we got from Department K. They have some good equipment here."

"Alright." Bronte finished.

And then Laura hugged him. It was crazy to think there was a time when she was almost taller than him. Now he could almost drown her in his bulk.

"When I met….. Logan, I remember I didn't have the capacity to feel nervous. Assassins weren't allowed to be nervous. But there was still something. I let it become resentment. Daken let the same happen. Communicate what you feel to her. I wish I did the same…. Just do it. Say everything you think you want to. Don't worry about making a fool out of yourself or stumbling over your words. She owes you an ear. Do it because you may never be able to again."

Brontë nodded, his chin tapped her shoulder in the silence before she disconnected from him. When he looked up from her he found The Queen of Wakanda watching in the distance.

Laura sniffed and understood her time was up. She turned and left briefly, sharing a nod of respect with Ororo as they passed each other.

Ororo pointed at him as she approached. "You….aren't wearing a shirt."

"Long story." Bronte replied.

"I heard." She replied cryptically before pulling out a plain black shirt from behind her as if she knew he wasn't digging the royal slacks.

"Thanks." Bronte replied as he slipped on the black tee.

There was a stretch of awkward silence before she spoke again.

"So…. You've learned to ride the winds?"

"Kind of."

"Shall we?" Ororo questioned as she approached the approached the railing.

Brontë hesitated, "I ca—"

Music rose in the distance. Violently cultural and rhythmic. Padded sticks smashed against the stretched skin surface of drums. A collective of shakers gave the sound a backdrop of buzzing as if they were in the Serengeti standing around freshly hunted gazelle being hounded by flies. Men and women in the hundreds sang over it all. A dozen unique voices. Some Mutants. There was no other way they were producing the sounds he could hear.

"What was that?" Ororo asked.

Brontë turned to face her, noticing they were hovering a hundred feet above ground.

"Nothing…"

"Then let us go.." Ororo said before slowly flying off over Wakanda.

It was different this time. Not because he was flying with her. But because of the people below. They flooded the streets just as they did when he first arrived. Men and women of varying tribes came in from all sides to reach wherever the Ceremony would be taking place.

He'd never seen a collective so large. It was unreal. Even the flying jets and shifting skyscrapers ceased motion, making it all feel incredibly human.

"So…. You wanted to ask me questions." Ororo said as the winds ran through her long beaded white dreads and beautiful dress.

"Yea…. I did."

"Ok. You ask I answer. But you may take your time…. The winds are glorious today…" Ororo laid parallel to the ground below and began to fly as if she were swimming.

Brontë watched in silence.

"There isn't too much I can ask. You know what I want to know…." Bronte sank before recovering back to her height.

Ororo straightened herself, "You want to know how you ended up in New York."

He didn't need to clarify for her.

Ororo nodded, "Naturally. Anyone would. For what it's worth, that isn't where your life started."

"It's not?"

"You were born here, Bronte….." Ororo laughed, "So funny seeing you now. So different. You even have a different name."

"I what?" Bronte for some reason didn't expect any of what she just said.

"I'll start at the beginning." Ororo divebombed towards the jungle they flew over.

Brontë followed as she explained everything that led up to his birth.

"Your fathe— Logan…. He was my best friend. We saved each others lives time and time again. He was crafted for war and I was molded by the storms. We were both chaos in some way. Maybe that's how we grew so close. He was tired of Jean and Scott. So he left the X-Men. I followed him. He was a Hero in the simplest sense, and I believed in his brand of Justice. It wasn't pretty but it got the job done every time…"

"Where did you go?" Bronte asked as they zipped and dashed through the empty jungle. Panthers ran with them through the canopy like leaping shadows.

"Anywhere. We were joined by a small unit of other Mutants and Super Powered beings. We did the things the X-Men— Scott wouldn't do, since it risked tarnishing Mutant ascension. We did a lot of good. We put fear into a lot of bad people."

"And then…."

"If you're waiting to hear how we fell in love I have bad news for you, Bronte." Ororo said casually. It would've been jarring if Wolverine didn't have a child to match every season. Metaphorically speaking.

"Nah… I'm already knowing." Bronte replied.

"We loved each other. I may have even loved him. I think I did. But a man like Logan….. I think the word— the feeling of love is changed. Not tarnished but also not empowered after experiencing everything he did. His soul was calloused long before he met me. But he's still one of the best men I've ever known. Which is why I don't regret anything."

"What do you mean by anything?" Bronte questioned. He could feel the bad news coming. This is where he gets abandoned. Shipped off to New York, land of the free and home to drill music.

"I became pregnant with you no more than a year in. I could feel Logan grow more anxious by the day. But I could also feel something more….. to this day it still freaks me out to remember."

"What?"

"Resolve. He wanted to change his ways. Not as a hero. But as a father. He had fathered who knew how many clones and children by the time you were in the making. I never considered how much it ate away at him. He told me it was like, every piece of him was cursed. Even his legacy." Ororo took to the skies once again, her face saddened as she looked down on him. It contrasted heavily with the sun at her back.

Brontë shivered. There was something about that notion. Something incredibly dark and sad.

"He wanted to do better." Bronte said.

"He wanted to be there….. for you. He was searching for Laura in between missions….. he wanted to fix everything." Ororo sounded like she was reliving a happy memory for a moment.

"And then what?" Bronte asked as he found the Marube people traveling below. As if they were a form of symbolism for the bad to come in the story he listened to above.

"The Skrulls." Ororo replied, "They attempted to invade earth armed with advanced weaponry and Klyntar Symbiotes. The Avengers took the battle to them on their planet. The world was without its strongest frontline of Heroes. Evil slipped through the cracks like oil."

Brontë remembered the drills in school they had to practice. And every shake that reverberated through New York was met with hours of severe hysteria. That was ten years ago. The Avengers still weren't back.

"Your f—…. Logan…" He could feel that the self correction was hard for her. "Logan didn't join the Avengers. They were all surprised. He was never a man to shy away from a fight. But he wasn't shying away. He was being responsible. More responsible than ever in my eyes. He knew what was hunting him would come for you and me. I was weakened while carrying you. You sapped my magic like it was baby formula."

Ororo laughed, "Logan used to say, our boys on that premium protein. He was such a meathead sometimes…"

Brontë found himself smiling. He almost sounded like Raze…. Minus the psychotic additional comments.

A droplet landed on cheek and he looked ahead to find Ororo crying.

"He stayed for Romulus…." Bronte finished.

Ororo nodded and wiped her tears.

"He stayed….. because he didn't want his demons to be ours. The way they were Daken's….. and Laura's…. All of them. He wanted so badly to fix it. And I couldn't help."

Brontë felt sick.

"He took his unit of Mutants and went to war here on earth. He fought for the family he wanted to have. He fought for you, Bronte. But Romulus was stronger than ever. He had allies we've never seen. I never knew what happened to him….. but he didn't come back. None of them did."

Ororo stopped over a desert region. Brontë followed.

"I'm not proud of what happened afterwards. For the first time I was nearly powerless compared to what I am now. I felt fear in ways I never knew possible. I ran. In my eyes…. In my soul, I knew Romulus was an Avengers level threat. I knew the X-Men held children… I fled to Wakanda hoping to reach them."

"The Avengers? Why Wakanda?"

Ororo wiped her eyes, "Back then it was only a prototype. But now we have something…. Just short of an intergalactic empire. I came to them hoping T'Challa could use it to find them. I'm not proud of my actions. But T'Challa saved me from execution. He gave me a place to stay even though it nearly collapsed his reputation. And then you were born."

Ororo pulled something out of her pocket, a piece of paper. She handed it to him.

Brontë took it and looked up at her, all she did was nod.

Reflectively, Bronte sniffed the paper. His nose could see things his eyes couldn't. Ororo smiled faintly. He was still trying to wrap his head around a space empire passively.

The paper smelled like wood…. Ink…. Cheap beer, Blood and cigar smoke.

He opened it to find old handwriting. Handwriting that looked more common in the eighteen hundreds.

He didn't waste anymore time and read the letter, "Hey 'Ro, we're riding out again at dawn. Psylock's got a read on Romulus. Somehow he's mentally connected to his Lupines like a game of telephone. His mistake. We're gonna gut him like a fish before sunrise. And when I come back we'll share a beer. Don't worry about our boy. He'll heal…."

There was a massive gap in between the next portion of text. Suddenly the writing was shaky and there was blood on the paper.

"Fuck…. It's not looking good, 'Ro. Romulus rolls deeper than I thought. But, I think me and you both know I don't go down easy. Just in case I do though, I want you to run. I know you…..I know what you'll try to do. Forget it. Run. Contact the Avengers if you have to." Suddenly the thought of Romulus grew scarier.

He kept reading.

"Don't let me repeat my mistakes with him. I know I'm not… the most open book at times, but I care. I do. I even just thought of a name for him, how's James Munroe sound? Maybe he'll be the best of us both. Anyway, duty calls. I'll see you when I see you, 'Ro."

"-Logan, The Wolverine"

"For the next two years, you lived here. T'Challa did everything in his power to keep it that way. We had meeting after meeting trying to pass Mutant Registration and outsider allowance. Even when I was almost executed again for attempting to kill M'Baku."

"Who?" Bronte asked.

"Someone that wanted you dead. That's all you need to know. The point is, we couldn't change Wakanda fast enough for you. I couldn't…. And I am forever sorry for that."

There was a silence for a long time as he watched her. There was mutual pain for different reasons connecting them both.

Brontë held out his hand, "You did what you could."

She took it and pulled him into a hug.

He'd never received so many in one day.

"I know you don't see me as your mother, but I watched you grow through Aneka and W'Kabi's eyes every day. I even spoke to you after your first school fight with the Thompson boy."

Brontë disconnected from her with wide eyes.

"Ms. M…?! Say you swear to god."

"I do swear." Ororo replied in a perfect English accent. "You were sick the moment you were born. I was worried the fight would harm you in more severe ways so I had to call….. as an overseas student counselor unfortunately."

"Right….." Bronte was stunned.

"Three years later and Azari was born. That helped the Mutant allowance given that he was a Prince born from the Panther..."

The Panther…..

Brontë could feel the Ororo knew that's what he was thinking of.

"With T'Challa I felt a love different from Logan. Different in ways Logan probably wouldn't have allowed himself. I understood why he couldn't get too close to me in that way. I pray to Oshtur every night that he feels the same understanding for me…"

Brontë nodded. "This….. is heavy."

"As life is." Ororo replied. "But hopefully we can make things lighter for us all here. Now you know, I too want Romulus' head on a stick."

She suddenly looked like a Queen again with her glowing jewels and fluttering dress.

He stared for a while, only stopping when a blast of lightning fell from the sky behind a pyramid behind her.

Shouts echoed.

"What the hell?"

"The Ceremony must've started." Ororo said as Bronte flew past her.

It didn't take long to pass the pyramid and find hundreds of people gathered around the massive curving wall of a cliff. All trainees gathered at the head like kings and queens. T'Challa sat at the center with an empty seat.

Below them on a massive bit of flat ground split by a waterfall over a dozen men battled. All wearing the colors of their tribe painted on their bare skin and shimmering weapons.

They fought wildly, each strike going for the kill. It was barbaric.

Brontë fought on the road for years. He watched men and women die. He took fathers and mothers from their children. All for a distinct and immediate purpose. It was them or him.

What he watched was something else.

"The winner of the Combative Ceremony may dawn the mantle of the Black Panther. It's a test to see who can perform in battle without the herbs power. Without the blessing of Bast." Ororo explained.

"RAAAAAAGH!!!!" A massive man wearing a white fur pelt roared and beat his chest as electricity danced on his skin, burning it faintly.

Azari suddenly popped out from behind him only to be caught and thrown at a sharp boulder.

The crowd cringed as the young teen bled against the surface. Ororo inhaled deeply as Kymera screamed from somewhere in the crowd.

"Don't do anything crazy." Laura's voice came into his mind like a ghost.

Brontë growled and flew towards the pit.

"Man, fuck that."