The skies above Wakanda's capital were already empty.
Only a single colossal suit of armor hovered in the air, dominating the skyline.
W'Kabi stared at the massive machine, still trying to assess what kind of power it truly possessed.
He did not underestimate it.
After everything that had happened, he now understood exactly what kind of opponent he was facing.
Regret crept into his heart.
If he had not acted so impulsively, none of this would have happened.
Every death suffered by his people lay squarely on his shoulders. He could not escape that responsibility.
But even so.
W'Kabi's expression hardened.
No matter how this war had begun, he had to win this battle.
It was the only way left for him to atone.
At that moment, the Titan moved.
The weapon ports across its massive body opened almost simultaneously.
"Defensive formation!"
"Hold your ground!"
The Wakandan warriors braced themselves.
Every face was tight with tension, yet not a single person retreated.
They were Wakandan warriors. They were an invincible army.
No matter how powerful the enemy, victory would ultimately belong to them.
Without a sound, countless missiles streaked out from Titan's cannons.
In an instant.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
The earth-shaking explosions swallowed the battlefield.
Smoke and dust blanketed nearly everything in sight.
Through the haze, the Wakandan warriors stared in shock.
This first wave of bombardment killed only a small number of them. Most survived, their energy-shield cloaks absorbing the impact.
"Wakanda will prevail!" a warrior roared.
Just as they believed, Wakanda would not fall.
His shout ignited the others.
The cry spread rapidly through the ranks, not only as belief, but as a way to cast aside fear.
Hearing the voices echoing from the smoke, even W'Kabi allowed himself a smile.
He knew it. Wakandan warriors would not be defeated so easily.
But before he could fully react, Titan's second salvo had already begun.
Titan was already a fearsome war machine, and after Nolan's modifications, it had completely abandoned close combat.
In exchange, it had gained a level of firepower that bordered on the absurd.
Missiles were only part of its arsenal.
Mounted alongside them were precision weapons designed for sustained, focused destruction. This was firepower pushed to its extreme.
Two Gatling demolition cannons adjusted their targeting after the first barrage.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
The second wave slammed into the battlefield.
Nolan watched coldly as explosions bloomed across the ground.
The first salvo had seemed impressive but limited. That was because it had only been a test.
This second wave was when Titan truly revealed its terror.
The warrior who had first shouted "Wakanda will prevail" was swallowed by the storm of fire.
This time, luck abandoned him.
Shrapnel tore through his thigh, yet his eyes remained resolute.
This kind of attack would not break them.
This was Wakanda. Once the central defense system fully activated, that monstrous machine would be destroyed.
But before relief could set in, concentrated fire struck his energy cloak.
A trace of mockery flashed across his face.
Missiles could not kill him. What could this do?
Wakandan warriors never surrender.
The next second, the energy field around his cloak collapsed.
A single devastating round tore through him, reducing him to nothing.
Wakanda's energy cloaks were truly impressive.
Even Nolan coveted the technology.
With his current capabilities, only the Mjolnir armor and Titan possessed true energy shielding.
The system contained shielding technology, but it either could not be miniaturized for individual use, like Titan, or it was prohibitively expensive, like the Mjolnir armor.
Energy defense always had limits.
Once incoming damage exceeded the energy output it could sustain, defense became meaningless.
Red Queen personally controlled Titan.
Its precision fire rained down mercilessly, targeting Wakandan warriors one by one. In moments, hundreds fell.
In the distance, T'Chaka and T'Challa raced toward the battlefield.
As T'Chaka saw the smoke rising from the heart of the capital, it felt as though his heart was bleeding.
Such firepower unleashed within the capital. He could not imagine how many civilians might be caught in it.
"What is Shuri doing?" he roared.
As Wakanda's chief scientist and princess, Shuri oversaw the nation's defense systems.
What he did not know was that Shuri herself was in shock.
Energy defense systems required time to charge.
No one had imagined a full-scale war erupting in the capital without warning.
T'Challa's face was grim.
He knew things had already reached the worst possible outcome.
If Nolan Locke survived this, would Wakanda declare war on him?
If that happened, Wakanda's secrecy would inevitably collapse, and what followed would not be just Locke Technology, but the entire world.
Faster. Just a little faster.
At the center of the battlefield, W'Kabi stood frozen.
The smoke had cleared.
After two rounds of saturation bombardment, the Border Tribe had suffered catastrophic losses.
In Wakanda's long history, such devastation was almost unheard of.
"Nolan Locke!" he roared.
He refused to accept this outcome.
If they had been prepared, if the central defense system had been active, if they had deployed proper heavy weapons instead of sending warriors to die with light arms.
But war had no ifs.
Titan ceased fire, not out of mercy, but because its ammunition reserves were nearly depleted.
Nolan needed to conserve what remained for potential threats.
He had never intended to wipe out Wakanda's forces entirely.
W'Kabi believed preparation would have guaranteed victory.
Nolan thought the same.
This had only been a so-called friendly exchange.
NS-series robots continued their relentless advance, tearing apart anything in their path.
Terminators moved among them, striking the demoralized Wakandan soldiers whenever they appeared.
"Sir, estimated time to eliminate remaining hostile forces is eight minutes," Red Queen reported.
Eight minutes.
Nolan surveyed the battlefield.
"Enemy casualty rate?"
"Twenty-eight percent."
An astonishing number, especially for a nation as technologically advanced as Wakanda.
"That's enough."
Nolan stood.
Strategic deterrence was not about annihilation.
If he truly wiped them out, any talk of cooperation would become impossible.
He had never underestimated Wakanda's technology, rumored to be centuries ahead of the rest of the world.
"Deploy G5 units. Enter the battlefield and capture that furious gorilla."
Two G5 robots were dispatched immediately.
Armed with cold weapons, they advanced through the chaos without restraint.
In less than thirty seconds, they reached W'Kabi.
His face darkened.
His personal guard charged without hesitation.
But the G5 units were not Terminators, nor mass-produced NS models.
They were prohibitively expensive combat machines, powerful enough to rival Abomination himself.
And machines did not hold back.
In an instant, W'Kabi's guards were wiped out.
One G5 unit looked at him coldly.
That single glance felt like a descent into hell.
Then it rushed him.
W'Kabi tried to resist, but his struggle was laughable. He was subdued effortlessly.
The two G5 units turned and raced back toward Nolan.
Along the way, Wakandan warriors saw W'Kabi captured and shouted in fury, trying to rescue him.
Their efforts were futile.
Soon, W'Kabi was dragged before Nolan.
Nolan looked down at him.
"Do you regret it now?"
W'Kabi's eyes were wide.
"Wakandan warriors will never submit!
You think you've won?
No. You only caught us off guard. Soon Wakanda's army will drown you, and the central defense system will destroy you and that cursed machine!"
His roar sounded hollow, like the cry of a defeated beast.
Nolan did not argue.
"I believe you. But so what? If I choose to, Titan can level the entire capital."
His voice was calm.
W'Kabi's pupils shrank as he glanced at the massive machine hovering above.
He had seen its power.
If it stopped fighting soldiers and turned its weapons on the city itself, the capital might truly be destroyed.
Fear surfaced in his eyes.
He regretted it.
This time, deeply.
He had brought disaster upon Wakanda.
"What do you want?" he shouted, forcing down his panic.
Nolan smiled faintly.
"Hundreds of soldiers are dead. Over a thousand are wounded or missing. Civilians may have died as well.
All because you tried to assassinate me.
Every one of those deaths rests on your shoulders."
"You monster! You killed them!" W'Kabi roared.
He refused to accept it.
Nolan scoffed.
"I'm a monster?
I was defending myself. You've seen the strength of Locke Technology. This battle used only a fraction of Wakanda's forces, and these machines are not even my full arsenal.
This is only one company. Beyond that lies the entire world.
While you cling to isolation, the world is advancing at breakneck speed.
One day, Wakanda will be surpassed, discovered, coveted for its vibranium, plundered, and destroyed. Centuries from now, no one will even remember Wakanda existed.
But then I came."
Nolan smiled softly.
"I brought Wakanda a chance to connect with the outside world. Locke Technology would share the burden of vibranium with you.
Without your foolish actions, we would already have reached an agreement. Wakanda would have gained vast technological support. Together, we would have grown.
Wakanda could have integrated gradually, using its advanced science and vibranium to gain an advantage no other nation could ever match."
W'Kabi froze.
Was that really possible?
He fell silent.
Perhaps it was.
Perhaps that future was not so bad.
But Nolan showed no mercy.
"It's over. You brought war between Wakanda and Locke Technology. Your king will never work with someone who fought Wakanda, and I will never bow to Wakanda.
You saw what lies beyond the portal, didn't you?"
W'Kabi nodded instinctively, then his pupils contracted.
His voice turned hoarse.
"There is more than one Titan…"
That fleeting glimpse now made sense.
This was not all of Locke Technology's power.
Regret consumed him entirely.
"Mr. Locke… Wakanda is a peaceful nation," he said weakly. "We fear the outside world. We fear others coveting our resources. I can persuade the king. We can still try to cooperate."
Nolan smiled without warmth.
Too late.
"Such a shame…"
Before he could continue, two figures streaked across the battlefield.
They moved with incredible agility, slipping past even the Terminators.
Both wore combat suits.
"The King. Prince T'Challa," W'Kabi gasped.
"Nolan Locke!" T'Chaka called out. "Please, stop this war!"
T'Chaka was stunned.
On the way here, he and T'Challa had considered every possible scenario.
Heavy damage to the capital, but W'Kabi victorious.
Heavy damage, but Nolan captured.
At worst, a stalemate.
But what they saw now was Wakanda on the verge of defeat.
How was that possible?
How could Locke Technology be this powerful?
No matter what, the first priority was clear.
This war had to end.
Even so, he knew that after such bloodshed, any hope of cooperation might already be gone.
…