WakandaRoyal Research LaboratoryLate Night
Shuri yawned, her fingers flying across holographic interfaces that floated in the air around her workstation. The laboratory was dark except for the blue-white glow of her displays, casting her face in stark relief.
As one of the smartest people in the world, she'd voluntarily accepted responsibility for monitoring the strike team currently traveling through the Cancerverse to execute their dimensional demolition plan.
The cosmic fault line's exit point wasn't conveniently located near Earth in that alternate reality. Tony Stark's team faced a journey that would take days, even with faster-than-light propulsion.
Someone needed to act as their lighthouse—sending navigational signals, responding to emergency communications, providing tactical support if things went wrong.
She'd been maintaining this vigil for several days straight, sleeping in brief shifts when Eunice could take over.
Of course, this monitoring could have been entirely automated. Azmuth and Friday were both perfectly capable artificial intelligences who could handle the routine communications.
But Shuri had another investigation running simultaneously.
"Let me catch whoever's been stealing our vibranium," she muttered through gritted teeth, splitting her attention between the Cancer Universe telemetry and the security feeds from Wakanda's resource vaults.
Several days ago, she'd noticed the vibranium stockpiled in the laboratory was decreasing.
At first, she'd dismissed it as a counting error on her part. Vibranium got used in experiments constantly—a few kilograms here, a few there. Easy to lose track.
But after several days, the laboratory's entire reserve had been almost completely depleted.
That was when she realized a little mouse had been sneaking into the pantry.
"The last time something like this happened was with that bastard Ulysses!" She felt a surge of righteous anger at the memory.
Ulysses Klaue—an arms dealer with a prosthetic sonic cannon for a hand. For decades, he'd been smuggling small quantities of vibranium from Wakanda, earning himself a global manhunt warrant and eternal enmity from the entire nation.
Norman Osborn had eventually caught the thief and personally executed him, but that had been years ago.
Now someone else was targeting Wakanda's vibranium reserves!
This was absolutely intolerable!
As she contemplated deploying the entire Dora Milaje to sweep the palace, the security monitor suddenly flickered.
A faint, semi-transparent figure materialized out of thin air in the laboratory's storage vault, drifting through the space like a sleepwalker.
The figure moved with eerie grace, its translucent form occasionally phasing through solid objects as though they didn't exist.
"Wait..." Shuri leaned forward, enhancing the image. "Ben Parker?!"
She recognized the alien transformation immediately—one of the forms from his Omnitrix that she'd catalogued during previous encounters.
"I think that one's called Big Chill," she murmured, pulling up her reference files.
But what was he doing in the laboratory in that form?
Stealing vibranium?
Don't be ridiculous!
She immediately dismissed the absurd thought.
Anyone else in the world could potentially be stealing vibranium. But Ben Parker? Impossible.
The amount of vibranium he personally possessed already exceeded Wakanda's entire national reserve.
Years ago, during the Ultron crisis, a massive quantity of vibranium had been stolen from Wakanda's mines. Ultron had used it to create his nearly indestructible body and his army of sentries.
After Ultron's defeat, the stolen vibranium had technically become Ben Parker's property through salvage rights.
Wakanda hadn't formally requested its return because, frankly, they'd contributed almost nothing to stopping Ultron. It would have been embarrassing to demand compensation for a crisis they'd hidden from.
Later, Ben had established mining operations in Antarctica, extracting both the standard vibranium variant and the rarer "anti-metal" isotope. His personal stockpile exceeded Wakanda's total reserves in both quantity and diversity.
There was absolutely no logical reason for him to steal from her laboratory.
Trusting Ben's character, Shuri chose to continue observing rather than immediately raising an alarm.
But what happened next made her question whether she was hallucinating from sleep deprivation.
Big Chill's ghostly form suddenly solidified, returning from the phase-shifted dimension to physical reality.
The moth-like alien reached out with one clawed hand, picked up a rectangular ingot of pure vibranium—approximately five kilograms of the most valuable metal on Earth—and stuffed it directly into his mouth.
Then he started chewing.
CRUNCH!
CRUNCH!
CRUNCH!
Even through the silent security feed, Shuri could practically hear the metallic grinding. Her teeth ached in sympathetic pain just watching.
The vibranium—a metal renowned for being nearly indestructible, capable of absorbing kinetic energy, resistant to extreme temperatures—was being crushed between Big Chill's mandibles like brittle candy.
Shuri felt her entire worldview shatter in rapid succession.
The first fracture occurred when she realized the person stealing vibranium was indeed Ben Parker.
The second came when she understood he wasn't taking it for technological research or monetary profit—he was literally eating it.
The third shattering moment arrived when Ben actually succeeded in crunching the vibranium into pieces, his alien jaw strength apparently exceeding the metal's structural integrity.
Wait, WHAT?!
That's vibranium, not rock candy!
"He just... he just bit through it?!" she stammered to the empty laboratory. "Is that even physically possible?!"
Her hands were already grabbing her phone, fingers shaking slightly as she dialed.
"Brother! Something terrible has happened!" she practically shouted the moment the line connected.
"What is it?" T'Challa's voice came through thick with sleep, clearly having been woken from deep slumber.
Shuri immediately recounted everything she'd witnessed—the mysterious thefts, the surveillance footage, Big Chill materializing in the vault, and most importantly, the casual consumption of their national treasure.
After listening to the entire explanation, T'Challa was quiet for several long seconds.
"Huh," he finally said, his tone suggesting mild surprise but not shock. "After all, it's Ben Parker. He's always doing things we consider impossible with apparent ease."
His voice carried the resignation of someone who'd simply stopped trying to predict what Ben would do next.
"Let him eat it then. How much could he possibly consume? One person's appetite isn't going to bankrupt our nation."
"I'm not worried about the economics!" Shuri protested, though her brother's casual attitude was actually somewhat reassuring. "I'm worried he might get a stomachache from eating pure metal!"
What if vibranium was toxic to that alien species? What if Ben's transformation ended while his digestive system was full of unprocessed vibranium?
"Don't overthink it," T'Challa said, yawning audibly. "He must have valid reasons for this behavior. Maybe that particular alien form requires metal-rich nutrition. You know, like how humans need iron supplements. Same principle."
He waved his hand dismissively despite being on a voice-only call, unconsciously mimicking the Jade Emperor from Journey to the West granting permission for monkey business.
"Just ignore it. Let him eat whatever he needs."
Shuri's face darkened with frustration.
Could vibranium and iron possibly be the same thing?!
One was a common element found in blood. The other was the rarest, most valuable strategic resource on the planet!
"Fine!" she snapped. "Since you've authorized it, I'm not monitoring this anymore!"
She simply turned off the security feed showing the vibranium vault and hung up the phone with more force than necessary.
Anyway, there isn't that much vibranium stored in the laboratory. Maybe a few hundred kilograms total. If he eats all of it, so what? As long as I'm not blamed when people start asking questions about missing inventory.
With that rationalization firmly in place, she returned her full attention to monitoring the Cancer Universe operation.
Meanwhile, oblivious to being observed and then deliberately ignored, Ben had already devoured every last piece of vibranium stored in the laboratory vault.
But the consumption didn't satisfy the craving.
Or rather, it wasn't enough for the developing life growing inside Big Chill's body.
The Necrofriggians were a genderless species that reproduced asexually once every eighty years. During this reproductive cycle, the Omnitrix wearer would uncontrollably and intermittently transform into Big Chill, driven by biological imperatives to accumulate nutrients for their offspring.
Normally, these nutrients consisted primarily of metal—specifically iron and similar elements common throughout the galaxy.
But here in Wakanda, Big Chill's enhanced olfactory senses had detected something far superior. A metal that smelled sweet, that resonated with some instinctive recognition that this element would be extraordinarily beneficial to the developing child.
Yes. Vibranium.
As for how Big Chill's mandibles had managed to crush what was supposedly one of the most durable metals in existence—that modification was courtesy of the Omnitrix itself.
The device functioned as Noah's Ark, existing to perpetuate intelligent species across the universe. Its primary programming directive was ensuring successful reproduction of any species whose genetic template it contained.
The Omnitrix had apparently determined that the Necrofriggian offspring required vibranium to develop properly. In response, it had made some minor physiological enhancements to Big Chill's jaw strength and digestive chemistry.
Minor being relative. The modifications were sufficient to allow consumption and metabolization of vibranium.
Now, having completely emptied the laboratory's vibranium reserve, Big Chill grew increasingly agitated.
The alien form's compound eyes swept across the storage vault, taking in various metals—titanium, tungsten, chromium, various steel alloys—but none of them registered as acceptable substitutes.
Having tasted vibranium, ordinary metals were about as appealing as cardboard after eating gourmet chocolate.
Big Chill's wings spread wide, and he phased directly through the laboratory wall, following the metallic scent toward its source.
The main vibranium mine lay within the mountains of Wakanda, its rich deposits calling to him like a beacon.
The Royal PalaceNext Morning
T'Challa slept soundly through the remainder of the night, his dreams undisturbed by concerns about vibranium-eating aliens.
He was finally woken by a royal guard sent personally by his father, T'Chaka. The urgency in the guard's voice suggested this wasn't a routine morning summons.
Still half-asleep, T'Challa groggily made his way to the palace throne room, expecting perhaps news about the Cancer Universe operation or some diplomatic crisis.
Instead, he found his father, his mother, his sister Shuri, and several other royal advisors all wearing expressions of profound distress.
Everyone looked as though they'd just witnessed the apocalypse.
"What's wrong?" T'Challa asked with growing concern, suddenly much more awake. "Why do all of you look like the sky has fallen?"
"More terrible than the sky falling!" his mother said, her voice carrying genuine anguish.
T'Chaka appeared on the verge of tears, all royal dignity abandoned.
"I never imagined that Wakanda's foundation—built over millennia—would be destroyed during my reign!" His voice cracked with emotion. "How can I face my ancestors? How can I face the great Panther God Bast?!"
"What happened?!" T'Challa demanded, now thoroughly alarmed.
"See for yourself." T'Chaka gestured toward a holographic display.
He pulled up surveillance footage showing... an empty cavern. Rocky walls. Some support structures. But otherwise completely vacant.
T'Challa watched the recording three times, studying every angle.
"I don't understand. There's nothing here?"
"Exactly!" T'Chaka's voice was anguished. "But until this morning, that location contained the world's second-largest vibranium deposit! Our primary mining site! Until some irresponsible person told his sister—and I quote—'It's okay, let him eat it!'"
T'Challa's blood ran cold.
"Wait... what did you just say? That was Wakanda's main vibranium mine?"
His eyes widened to their absolute limit.
Such an enormous deposit... all eaten?!
"Not entirely," Shuri interjected, her tone carefully neutral. "What's been consumed so far represents the outermost layer of the vein. Approximately one percent of our total remaining reserves."
She pulled up geological analysis on the holographic display.
Vibranium wasn't distributed as a single monolithic deposit. When the vibranium meteorite had struck Earth millions of years ago, the extreme heat from atmospheric friction had fragmented it into countless pieces scattered throughout the impact zone.
But one percent of an entire geological vein still represented a catastrophic amount.
"And his appetite is exponentially increasing," Shuri continued grimly. "A few days ago, the small quantity stored in my laboratory was sufficient. Last night, he consumed approximately three hundred tons in a single feeding session."
She let that number hang in the air.
"At this accelerating rate of consumption, it will take him less than one week to eat Wakanda's entire vibranium reserve."
The throne room fell into stunned silence.
"We have to stop him!" T'Challa declared, his voice firm despite the absurdity of the situation. "Shuri, contact Norman Osborn immediately. Request assistance from H.A.M.M.E.R. and the Plumbers. We can't handle Ben on our own."
Thirty Minutes LaterEmergency Meeting - Holographic Conference
Norman Osborn, having been briefed on the complete situation, had summoned every available Plumber agent currently on Earth.
This included Looma Red Wind and Felicia Hardy.
Looma crossed her four arms, her Tetramand features scrunched in confusion as she processed what she'd just been told.
"Why exactly should I help you interfere with Ben?" she asked bluntly, her voice carrying genuine bewilderment.
"As Ben's future wife—" she emphasized the word future with absolute certainty, "—no matter what he does, I will stand by his side unconditionally."
She hefted her reforged hammer, which still radiated heat from Sindra's fire essence.
"So if you want to stop him, you'll have to get past me first!"
T'Challa felt his soul leave his body.
He shot Norman Osborn a look of pure resentment.
I asked you to find help stopping Ben, not recruit help FOR Ben!
Fortunately, Felicia was marginally more rational.
"No, Looma, listen," she said quickly, placing a restraining hand on the Tetramand's massive arm. "I'm genuinely worried something might be wrong with Ben. This behavior isn't normal for him."
Norman nodded emphatically.
"Exactly. Ben's actions are highly abnormal by his usual standards. T'Challa and his people have attempted communication multiple times, but Ben hasn't responded at all. He's completely non-verbal in that form."
That alone was sufficient cause for concern. Ben Parker not talking? Not explaining his actions? That suggested something was overriding his normal consciousness.
"This is completely normal behavior," Looma said, shaking her head with the patience of someone explaining basic facts to children.
"That's simply how Necrofriggians function. Ben must be entering their reproductive cycle. During this period, he requires massive quantities of metal nutrients to support offspring development."
The declaration landed like a bomb in the conference room.
"REPRODUCTIVE CYCLE?!" Felicia's voice reached frequencies that threatened to shatter glass.
Her face had gone completely pale.
"Is my Ben going to become a girl?! No! That can't happen!"
Her mind was racing through catastrophic scenarios.
"And if he really does lay eggs, whose child will it be genetically?! Mine? Yours?" She pointed at Looma. "Or maybe Mary Jane's? Or Eunice's? What about Wanda? Helen Cho? Princess Mera?!"
Felicia rattled off an increasingly long list of names at machine-gun pace, her voice rising with each addition.
The sheer number of potential mothers pouring from her mouth made even Norman Osborn—a decadent capitalist who'd seen everything—blush with embarrassment.
T'Chaka, the tribal chief of an isolated nation, looked like he wanted to flee the room.
This relationship situation is an absolute mess!
"I can't figure it out!" Felicia wailed, clutching her head in both hands. "There were too many people around that night! I can't remember who was where!"
"It has nothing to do with any of you," Looma interrupted, her voice cutting through Felicia's panic. "Necrofriggians reproduce asexually. The offspring has no other genetic contributors."
She shrugged her massive shoulders.
"This happens once every eighty years for their species. But we can all be godmothers if you want."
Felicia's breathing gradually returned to normal.
"Oh. Okay then. That's... that's fine."
Though privately, she thought: Even if I eventually have Ben's child, I want to be the FIRST one!
Peter Parker, having listened to this entire exchange while trying very hard not to laugh, finally spoke up.
"So Ben's actually fine? This is just alien biology being weird?"
His relief was palpable.
"That's hilarious though! I'm going to be an uncle! Uncle Pete! That sounds amazing! I wonder how happy Uncle Ben and Aunt May would be when they find out they're becoming grandparents."
He was already imagining the celebratory party.
"Stop laughing," Looma said, fixing Peter with an intense stare. "Your Omnitrix also contains Necrofriggian DNA. You'll have to go through this exact same process eventually."
Peter's laughter died instantly.
"What?"
His face went through several rapid color changes.
"But... but mine's just a replica! A simplified copy!"
"But the genetic templates are authentic," Looma pointed out with merciless logic. "The reproductive imperative is coded into the species' DNA itself."
"Oh my god!" Peter exclaimed, cupping his face in both hands.
His voice carried mounting horror.
"Then I'll lay eggs too?! What do you think will hatch out—a moth or a spider?! Some kind of horrible hybrid?!"
"You're asking me?" Norman said dryly. "My professional advice: take off that watch."
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