TONIGHT, the silence that usually hung over the Alkama Fields was violently disturbed. Pounding feet. Panicked cries of anguish. Swallowed up by shouting voices. And the roar of trucks as they chased her through the trees and dry brush.

Her legs were scorching from the effort of running 36 mph over miles of dry, hard-packed land that sent painful shockwaves up her body with every step she took. She had put a significant amount of distance between her and the convoy, but she couldn't be sure if she was still running in the right direction. Her mind was becoming foggy with doubt.

Contrôle ta respiration et continue au Nord, she told herself. Nord. The shouts and rumble of trucks were getting closer. The drumming of her heart pounding in her ears almost drowned out the noise.

She glanced behind her to gauge how close they were. She was getting clumsier the more she ran and now they were catching up to her.

Her ears twitched. She spun back around and instantly collided with something large and sturdy. She gasped as she fell backward with a painful groan.

Her voice hitched in her throat when she caught sight of what was in her path. The all-black figure of a man towered over her. He almost blended into the inky night except for the silver accents on the face, chest, arms and legs.

     Now, she was trapped between two frightening possibilities: being captured again or the unknown.

     To her surprise, the man kneeled, extending his hand out to her and she quickly scurried back, eyes wide with fear. He seemed to accept her reluctance and gave her a nod before walking past her and toward the oncoming trucks.

     Her eyebrows knit together in confusion. She was unsure if it was a grand display of bravado or stupidity. Perhaps both? She slowly got to her feet. The cars stopped and all she could see now was his silhouette against the headlights. What the hell is he doing? Do I stop him? Before she could come to a decision, the silence was blasted to pieces by rapid gunfire.

     "Non!" she reflexively reached out. She felt a surge of energy flicker within her, but it dissipated just as fast as it came.

     "Don't worry, sweetheart," said a voice from behind her, "He'll be fine."

     She whipped around, coming vis-à-vis with a familiar pair of blue eyes. She clenched her fists at her side at the sight of him. She knew she couldn't run. She remembered overhearing him mention how he had experimented on himself. And she had seen the effects of those experiments with her own eyes when he was angry. The wild look in his eyes now told her that she had better stay where she was.

"Ne me forcez pas retourner. S'il vous plaît." She tried to keep him at bay until she thought of a plan.

"You know that won't happen." Suddenly, she remembered the knife she had stolen feeling like a bag of rocks in her pocket. She took a step back, weight shifted behind her. Then, before he could process, she lunged for him, moonlight glinting off the blade in her hand. "Gah!" He was taken off guard, but he managed to grab her armed wrist and force her to the ground. The knife fell from her grasp as she fell.

Miraculously, her hand found the handle again. However, so did his hand around her hair causing her to cry out as he yanked her to her feet.

      The mystery man knocked a man out with his own gun before spinning around at the sound of her distress. The rest of the men he was fighting had run off.

     Whoever had grabbed her was shrouded in darkness, but he was prepared. His claws were flexed, ready to pounce. Finally, the culprit stepped out of the shadows. His footsteps were loud among the quiet rumble of the abandoned Humvees. His mouth was curved into a faint smirk as he held the barrel of a firearm against the her side.

     "You may be bulletproof, but she isn't," Erich snarled.

     "Release her, Paine." It was the first time she heard him actually speak.

     "I've waited too long and sacrificed too much to just let an opportunity like this pass me by."

     "If she wishes to seek refuge in Wakanda, we will not deny her. You have no place to hold her captive."

      "No, see, it doesn't work like that. This girl here belongs to the Republic of Niganda," he spat, increasing his grip on her.

     "Non!" she yelled, her voice raw with fear, "Je voudrais trouver refuge dans la Wakanda! S'IL VO—"

     "Shut up!" he shouted, pressing the gun harder into her side.

     "Stop! You do not have the right to hold her here, Paine. You do not own her."

     The man let out a demented cackle, "I don't own her, M'Butu does. He bought her and he gave me every right to experiment on her," he smirked, assuming it was the King behind mask. "She will be your downfall, T'Chaka. She could bring all of Wakanda to its knees."

     "M'Butu is a dictator whose ego is too large for his small mind. His word may be law in Niganda, but it means nothing to me." The man stepped forward. "You have threatened the national security of my country, Erich Paine. If you do not release the girl, Wakanda will declare war on Niganda," he warned.

     "Well then, you will lose — AHH!" The woman tumbled to the ground with a groan but got back up just as fast. Paine was clutching his thigh, his eyes wide with surprise.

     He bellowed a cry of rage before flinging his arm at T'Challa, causing an invisible barrier to send him flying through the air.

     The woman had no time to react before a red beam of light came speeding for her and struck her abdomen. The force propelled her off her feet and sent her careening into the trunk of a tree. Her strangled scream broke through the dense thicket of trees as her back hit the bark. The impact shook the breath from her lungs and nearly shattered her spine. She fell to the dusty ground violently coughing and gasping for air.

     "Do you know how hard it is to find subjects as powerful as you? I'm not letting you get away from me that easily," he said hotly as he stalked toward her. Her hand shot out for her blade, but his foot came crunching down on her wrist making her cry out. He snatched another handful of her hair.

    "Walk," he commanded, shoving her forward. She fell to her knees, but her head was buzzing. There was something there in the back of her mind.

     Steely blue eyes. So full of fear and desperation that she would stop the world just to make him smile again. She yearned to be with him. To hold him. To love him. She didn't want to be taken away from him.

     She didn't know what was coming over her, but she couldn't stop it. Rosy light swarmed her vision and engulfed her entire body.

     T'Challa and Erich backed away from the woman. The light grew larger and brighter with every passing second, pulsating to the rhythm of her racing heart. Rage was all she could feel now.

     "No," her voice was lethal.

     "I am not your weapon," her voice grew with intensity with each syllable, advancing rapidly on the man who had served as her tormentor for the past week. She raised her hand and the light soared toward Erich, striking him square in the chest, sending him flying back several meters.

     "And I," she levitated off the ground, "belong," long whips of light uncoiled from her arms, "to no one!" she stated with finality. The whips rose to the sky as if magnetized by the stars and came down with an earth-shattering explosion, leaving a flaming "X" at the man's feet.

"Now leave. me. alone," she gave him one last warning. However, Erich Paine wasn't a man to give up easily. His body glowing crimson, he fired consecutive blasts of energy, each one more powerful than the last. The woman was unperturbed as if they were no more destructive than a spring breeze. She retaliated with an unrelenting torrent of concussive pink energy, burrowing him into a crater. A shockwave of energy pulsed from the spot, flowing from pink to blue as it dissipated.

     The Black Panther was stunned and a little bit frightened, worried that she might kill the man.

     However, before her assault could take his life, exhaustion suddenly weighed her down. She collapsed, falling to her hands and knees. A pair of arms held her upright. "Are you alright?" he asked her in French. Groggily, she lifted her head and met his eyes. It was all she saw before the world fell from existence.