OUTCASTS ▻ ERIK KILLMONGER.

02. | FRIGGIN' CAPES

TWO.

"The Avengers?" Anika repeated, her brows raised in surprise and jaw left slack from shock. Swallowing thickly, she regained her composure and said, "What do we do?"

Kuasa turned to give her a sideways glance. "Leave," She answered as if it were obvious, her eyebrows drawn together in confusion. "What else would we do?"

Anika remained silent, and Asha answered in her place, his tone strong and confident as he said, "Fight."

Kuasa rolled her eyes and began to ascend a small stairwell that she could vaguely recall led to an alternative exit. After a moments hesitation, the siblings followed in her footsteps, their paces quickened in attempts to keep up with their leader.

"It's not a terrible idea," Asha went on, oblivious to the glare he was receiving from his big sister. "We could take them on."

"No," said Anika with a disapproving tone, vehemently shaking her head. "we most certainly could not."

Kuasa remained silent and allowed the siblings to bicker it out, pausing when they came to the end of the walkway, a rusted metal door separating them from the way out. Scowling, she lifted her boot-clad foot and slammed it against the door, resulting in a loud creak before the door gave out and opened slightly.

She brushed past the threshold, feeling her already dwindling patience thin even more.

She absolutely, hands down, no doubt hated the Avengers with all her heart. Tony Stark even more. He was an arrogant asshole with no respect and mouthed off on just about anything and everything he could.

But the Avengers, oh they were a different story. And not one for today.

"They have assassins and a super soldier and a Norse God!" Anika exclaimed exasperatedly, throwing her hands in the air to further exaggerate her frustration. "We have me-- an ex-assassin-- you-- a dumb, trigger happy petty thug-- and Kuasa-- despite her badassedness-- we'd be screwed. Royally."

Rolling his eyes, Asha crossed his arms over his chest and quickened his pace so he fell into step with Kuasa, wanting desperately to be away from his sister at the moment.

Kuasa looked up from watching her feet and rolled her neck, a satisfactory sigh passing her lips before a frown tugged them downwards when her gaze caught sight of a few red tendrils in the air, just floating harmlessly, yet Kuasa got the feeling that they were anything but harmless.

And that was why when they drew closer and closer to her temple she reared her head back and stepped away, a disgruntled expression appearing on her flawless features.

Cocking her head to the side, she continued to stare at the tendrils, wondering just what their purpose was-- other than to freak the living hell out of people, of course.

However, Kuasa's attention was quickly diverted from the aforementioned tendrils when a silver blur, well-- blurred past her. Stunned, she glanced over to the siblings and saw them chatting quietly by the end of the walkway, completely oblivious to the silver and red … things-- their previous argument, alongside Kuasa, seemed to have been forgotten.

Kuasa gnawed on her bottom lip, none too gentle as she took a step towards the red and silver blurs. She knew it was a stupid move, really, and she knew she should've just kept walking and ignored the strange occurrences but she couldn't-- her curiosity always managed to get the best of her in the worst situations and she could only hope this didn't turn out to be a bad situation as she followed the red tendrils.

Kuasa felt her breath catch at the sight of an incredibly advanced AI, most likely courtesy of Stark Industries-- that bloody billionaire just didn't know when to quit, though she supposed it was quite a hypocritical thought in her current situation-- holding a tube of Vibranium, flanked by a silver haired male and an auburn haired woman with red tendrils falling from her hands-- Kuasa realised these two must have been the cause of the blurs she saw earlier.

Suddenly becoming aware of just how dire the situation appeared to be-- judging from the death glares and threats the mighty heroes and the trio of weirdos shared-- Kuasa looked around for a moment before her gaze stopped on a room that seemed to have been completely vacated.

As a precaution, she ducked her head down behind the thick railings and out of sight of any prying eyes and dropped into a crouching position, slowly shuffling over to the room.

It wasn't until after she had the door locked and bolted behind her with her back pressed firmly against the wall and underneath the window-- so that she could still keep an eye out and duck for cover if and when anyone approached-- that she allowed herself to breath, her entire demeanour relaxing a significant amount as she slouched against the cold metal wall.

After a few moments, Kuasa felt the room shake as someone or something was tossed against the door-- rather roughly, too-- and saw that the door itself had a few indents from whatever was thrown into it.

She scrambled back and away from it just as the window above her head broke and the glass-- for some really weird reason-- shattered outwards instead of inward.

Cursing, she stood and peaked out the broken window, seeing each of the mighty heroes occupied with a problem of their own and took this as her chance to flee.

Honestly, Kuasa didn't care too much for the fight going on not even ten meters away, she just wanted to get out of that shit show with her life intact. Survival, of course.

She shuffled out of the room, keeping one hand raised in the air as a precaution, occasionally glancing around. Satisfied, she dropped her hand and went to make a beeline for the exit but was intersected by the redheaded assassin that appeared to really have it out for her.

"Kuasa," She said flatly with a roll of her eyes. "I'm not surprised to see you here, illegal operations and all."

The aforementioned woman smiled sarcastically and shrugged casually as if the whole situation was no big deal. Although to her, it really wasn't. Not if she lived. "You know me, always getting involved with the wrong crowd." After taking one more fleeting glance around, Kuasa sighed and turned back to Natasha. "I'd love to stay and fight, but I have things to do."

With that said, she balled her hands up into fists and thanked the stars that Natasha was a well hydrated woman as she manipulated the water in the redhead's system.

She took one last pitying glance at the unconscious SHIELD Agent's body before she carefully stepped over it-- mindful of the spilled water-- and went on her way to the Quinjet that Asha and Anika had prepared in her absence-- she was quite surprised that had went back to the Jet since the last time she had seen them was in the dark hallway when they were chatting quietly before she had disappeared to follow the blurs, but she was thankful that they had followed the protocol on what to do if ever they were separated.

•••

AUTHOR'S NOTE!

Sorry for the mistakes, but this chapter was incredibly rushed as I have been quite busy and promised to update within the week, so here it is.

I'm thinking the next few chapters are just gonna be fillers on what happens before Kuasa actually meets Erik.

Wakanda Forever!
- Queen of Death.