Kevin couldn’t hold back his cruel laughter, and even the others whom Wakanda was certain were at least amicable towards him spoke no words in his defense. He looked at the people who were so dependent on their so-called ‘Heroes’ and felt a mix of anger and pity. He wanted to show the progress he had made regarding his ability and how it could be useful, but before he could even speak up he was unconscious.

Just a few days ago, Wakanda T’challa Jones was a savior of this world. Now, however, he was not only viewed as a waste of time and resources but also as a persona non-grata. What had he done to deserve this?

He awoke after his brush with unconsciousness on the outskirts of a city in Ititlis and realized that everything he had been wearing before his ‘excommunication’ had been stripped from him. At least he was wearing some clothes, but they were a far cry from the stuff he had been wearing a while ago.

“Well, this sucks.” Wakanda said with a hint of depression as he got to his feet.

“Indeed.” came an unfamiliar yet also strangely familiar voice that seemed to emanate from all directions around him.

Wakanda spun around but could not pinpoint the source of the voice.

“Who are you? Where are you?”

“I am everywhere and nowhere. As for who I am…” the voice trailed off.

Wakanda felt a tap on his shoulder and spun around to see a… man(?) with a dapper moustache and a monocle wearing a nice one-piece business suit.

“You may call me Lord Wolfenstein. Everyone else calls me that, so you might as well jump on the bandwagon.” the man(?) said as he(?) stared through Wakanda, as if looking not at him but at some other version of him, past, present and future.

“You are obviously not human.” Wakanda stated before asking a question. “So then, what are you?”

“Are you really, really sure that you want to know? Your sanity might not be able to take it, you know.”

“So, an Elder Horror?”

Lord Wolfenstein vanished and reappeared from behind with his(?) mouth up to Wakanda’s ear.

“You cannot grasp the form of what I am. Name anything and everything that comes to mind in a trillion, trillion universe and timelines and you will still be no closer. 😉”

“Wait a minute!” Wakanda stammered. “Did you just speak an emoji?! How the fuck do you speak an emoji?!”

Lord Wolfenstein shrugged.

“Anyways, we’ve deviated enough.” he(?) said. “It is remarkably disappointing that they don’t see your potential. Worse so that they put that on you.” LW then pointed to something on Wakanda’s forehead. “Do you need a mirror?”

“No. I’ve got this.” Wakanda said, somehow completely back to a calm and collected state due to the fuckery of LW.

Wakanda focused his ‘Gift’ and slowly a sterling silver frame appeared in his hand, followed shortly afterwards by the mirror itself which materialized within the frame. Wakanda looked at his reflection and saw a tattoo in the shape of a stylized skull on his forehead.

“The hell?”

“That,” LW commented, “will keep you from every doing business with anyone or any group in Ititlis or Rusk. No one would dare even smile at you after seeing that. Good luck trying to get someone to remove it, too. That is a curse, and only a clergyman from relatively high in the Church can remove it. You are, as you described earlier, persona non-grata. You can’t trade, you can’t work, you can’t be touched or helped save to try and harm and/or kill you.”

Wakanda sighed and looked behind him. The border was wide open; he could just walk across and be out of the ‘Light Lands’. However, he had a feeling that he was under observation and that if he did try and cross the border he would be captured and killed.

“You are correct.” LW said with mild amusement. “Really, you are the smartest, or at least, the least foolish of those summoned this time.”

Wakanda sat down on the grass and looked into the sky.

“So, what am I supposed to do? You probably have some kind of plan for me to stick to, right?”

“No, not really.” The person(?) before him said with a semi-audible chuckle. “I’m just here for shits and giggles. Or maybe not, and I do have a plan for you; who knows? I am sure you can come up with some way to escape this predicament.”

Lord Wolfenstein turned and began to walk towards a tree. As he reached it, he dropped a large duffel bag that he somehow had gained from nowhere. LW looked over his shoulder and gave a thumbs-up before walking behind the tree and vanishing.

Wakanda opened the bag and found that inside it was a bunch of diagrams and blueprints for a bunch of seemingly random things. However, the more Wakanda looked at them the more he realized that they all fit together to create something he could use to get out of his current situation. Smirking and wondering why he didn’t think of this sooner, Wakanda got to work. He would need to work fast, however, because he did not know if or when his observers would get tired and come to kill him.

…

The day had turned to night and back to day again. Wakanda had managed to fight off starvation and thirst due to the bag filled with hardtack and stale wine, a ‘gift’ from the Church that he had not noticed when he woke up the first time. It would seem that they were not totally heartless after all.

He had grown accustomed to working for 24 hours straight occasionally, and now he was about to put the finishing touches on his escape device. Wakanda had wisely created a large box with no windows and only a skylight and ceiling vent so he could hide his work from prying eyes, and looking at what he had made in such a short period of time he was proud that he had taken all those elective classes and studied those topics so thoroughly.

He heard a knock at the thin corrugated steel that was the entry/exit hatch from his box, and slightly slid open a small viewing hatch to see who was outside. Sure enough, there were a bunch of Warrior Priests and Warrior Nuns waiting for him. More precisely, these were the people who had fainted when Kain and the vampiress had shown up.

Wakanda smirked to himself and hopped into his creation. He put the key in the ignition and turned, eliciting a rumble from the engine as the vehicle purred to life. He flipped a switch and the door to the box slowly began to fold down as music started to play.

…

The Warrior Priests and Warrior Nuns watched as the door slowly opened, and inside the darkness of the box, two bright lights could be seen glowing like lighthouses. As they prepared for the worst, a horrendous din boomed from inside the box, just as the metal monstrosity within rushed out and sent several unprepared people flying.

“MOVE, Bitch! Get out the way! Get out the way, bitch! Get out the way!”

Brother Markus only barely managed jump aside as the rectangular metal beast rushed past his prior position. The thing had wheels in front, but some kind of segmented metal tape for a rear wheel which spread out over a wider area. The screaming metal deathtrap barreled away and towards the border, and everyone was still stupefied by what they had seen.

“What in the name of the Goddess was that?”

That sentence was the only one spoken, because shortly after the box that the metal beast had emerged from exploded as though bombs had been placed in its walls and roof. The shrapnel tore everything around to bits and pieces, and thus no one was in any position to stop the former Hero’s flight from the Light Lands.

When the other Heroes found out what had happened from the testimony of one of the few survivors, the vast majority of them cursed their foolishness for not seeing the potential that their former companion had.