POV Rio
Tony slept for 32 hours, and when he got up, he cleaned himself up and ate the breakfast I prepared for him.
"Uh, sorry about your bathroom. Just send me the bill," Tony says with a slight smile.
"It's fine, I have some cleaning spells that might do the trick. If that fails, I am more than wealthy enough to replace the bathtub and sink... Hmm, I'll actually have to replace a lot of stuff. But anyway, where are you off to next?" I ask asbentmindedly.
"Home for now. It's been a hot minute since I was back home, and despite Pepper working hard, she still has a lot of work I need to catch up on. Then I'll probably start searching Africa for any surviving Xenomorphs. From what Jarvis found, it seems the main hive is unharmed, but the governments are busy panicking over what you did. Don't worry, I won't breathe a word about it," Tony says.
"Hmm, okay, I'll head to Africa as well to check on a few things and maybe get rid of some dangerous artifacts if they are still around," I reply.
"Hmm, well, be careful, the last thing I want to hear is you got eaten by those monsters," Tony jokes, but I can see he's just trying to show he cares.
"Will do," I reply.
Tony goes to put on his armor, but notices I placed an air bubble around it. He looks at me oddly and walks in and instantly regrets it.
"Oh god! That smells horrid," Tony says while jumping out of the air bubble.
"Now you know how I feel. I had to work hard to make my house smell better. I even got complaints from the creatures of the forest," I reply while sipping my Apple Juice.
"Uh... Sorry about that. Uh, could you send me home with the suit?" Tony asks nervously.
"Sure," I say and place my Apple Juice down.
I cast an Air Bubble around myself to avoid the stench and then grab Tony and the suit.
"WAIT!" Tony says as he enters his home, but I leave soon after.
As I leave the bubble, the spell breaks, and that reeking suit of armor is allowed to release all the noxious fumes it contained. Did I do that on purpose? Maaaaybe.
'Okay, now to Wakanda.'
I teleport to the closest location, which wasn't really too far. Tanzania. I was tempted to check on the tribe, but I figured it was pointless. They didn't stand a chance to survive the Xenomorphs, so I figured it was better to leave them be. I made sure I used every last item and tool I had to get into Wakanda undetected. The issue wasn't being detected by tech but rather by Xenomorphs. I was 99% certain that Wakanda didn't survive the invasion, or at least had to evacuate. And from what I was told, Wakanda was never a nuclear target, as there were no signs of a Xenomorph hive existing here.
But what I did find interesting was that nobody reported finding a futuristic city within Wakanda. Which made me believe that the cloaking field was purposely kept on. My guess? The Wakandans would rather endanger Earth by creating the perfect nesting grounds for a Xenomorph hive than risk the Vibranium becoming known to the world.
And it seemed I was right, as when I entered the false mountain, I saw a massive Xenomorph hive that showed no signs of damage or fighting. In fact, from what I could tell, there was no city here either. Which was what I was told the Xenomorphs did. They would devour entire cities and anything remotely human-related and turn them into their weird Xenomorph goo to make hives.
I was very cautious when infiltrating the hive, as it looked to be very populated. I was here mostly to confirm whether or not the massive metroirte was still present or if it had been eaten by the Xenomorphs. And depending on the answer to that steal as much of the stuff as I could store. Thankfully, I was more than capable of that as a Diamond Picaxe worked on Minecraft logic, which meant it could mine and collect anything other than Bedrock. Combine that with creating massive stacks of 64 blocks, and I can store far more materials in a smaller space than I should be able to do. Then I have the non-Minecraft inventory for backup.
Speaking of my system inventory, I had increased it while I was in the FOZ world by letting it absorb several magical artifacts. It was only by another 50 cubic meters, but that still meant I had 325 cubic meters to use. Which, if you add everything together, Minecraft and System I had roughly 2.5 cubic kilometers of storage capacity. Which should be more than enough to take all the Vibranium I could get.
But back to the infiltration, I had far too many close calls as the Xenomorphs seemed to come out of nowhere, so I had to constantly pay attention to where I was stepping. And given the hive was often pitch black, I had to rely on my hearing to avoid detection. Thankfully, I had a strong sense of where everything was in the hive thanks to assimilating a Xenomorph. Which is how I eventually found my way to the Vibranium mines.
'Huh? This is interesting.'
The mines were relatively untouched. Though it could be due to the large Panther statue, which seemed frozen mid swing. Or perhaps it was due to the inability to melt or digest Vibranium. Or even possibly due to the low amount of energy the meteorite gives off. Regardless of the reason, it was better for me as it meant harvesting the stuff would be much easier.
'Hmm, so the statue must be the legendary Panther Goddess Statue.'
I inspected the statue and saw why it was in such an odd pose. It ran out of power. Not power as in electricity, but magic power. Or I suppose to some extent Divine Power. It had some Divine Power left in it if what I was sensing was right, but it didn't use that up, as it would collapse if it did. As such, it entered a low-power hibernation.
'I might be able to use this.'
For now, I left the statue where it stood and kept going. This time, I wanted to find the cloaking device of the city, as I felt it was the best chance to find an intact computer and thus data that I might need. It turned out that what was much harder said than done, as the normal places I expected it would be didn't have it. Eventually, I found where I believe it was, as it was the only chamber I hadn't checked... The chamber that is usually reserved for the Queen. Which meant the areas surrounding it were crawling with Xenos. Not figuratively but literally. They were everywhere, which made sneaking past them really hard. As such, I backed off for now.
'Okay, this makes things tricky. If I want in there, I will have to either distract them... Or I could try to disguise myself, but somehow that seems like a really bad idea.'
Eventually, I come up with an idea. I teleport away, grab an animal, and release it near the chamber I want to get in. And all at once, the entire hive freezes and turns towards the pigs I placed.
"Brother, may I have some oats?" the pig says, or at least the illusion on top of it does.
"No," says the second pig.
"I am starving, brother!" says the first pig.
While the Xeno's approach the Pigs with confusion, I take this chance to sneak past them and into the chambers. The pigs would have a long conversation that should keep the Xeno's distracted for at least two minutes or so. And thankfully, my plan worked perfectly. I was in the chamber, and it housed the cloaking device as well as a still-intact computer.
I quickly appreciated the computer and inserted a hacking device that would start accessing the computer and take whatever it could find.
POV Shift Shuri
Beep Beep
"Huh?" I say aloud while rolling over to the computer that gave off the sound.
I check what the alert was for, and I nearly fall out of my chair in surprise.
"Someone's accessing the network in Wakanda!" I say aloud.
"What? Are you sure?" T'Challa asks.
"Who do you take me for? Of course, I'm sure. Just give me a moment to access the computer to see who is doing it," I reply.
After about a minute of trying to access old and even a bit corrupted software, I get the camera working again and see... Nothing.
"Where are they?" T'Challa asks.
"I don't know. None of the working sensors is picking anything up. Well, except that," I say while grimacing.
A Xenomorph enters the room, and I notice why immediately.
"The screen! Oh crap!" I panic and start trying to turn off the monitor to avoid attracting more Xenomorphs.
The monitor is shut off, and I breathe a sigh of relief, but still use this chance to see what had happened to the city or if any other systems were still working. But the longer I searched, the worse the news got.
"Other than a few senors in the mines, I can't contact anything else. I think they might have devoured the entire city," I say nervously.
"It... it'll be alright. We can rebuild," T'Challa says with an uncertain tone.
POV Shift Rio
After noticing the external access, I didn't interfere. Though I was tempted to do so when I noticed they stupidly turned on the monitor and cast the chamber in the light it gave off. But thankfully, whoever was accessing the computer wasn't an idiot and fixed it shortly afterwards. They also didn't seem to interfere with my work on the computer, though the Xenomorph did make things a bit more annoying. It didn't leave and just stood in the doorway looking at the computer. But even with that annoyance and a few other friends that joined in with it, I was able to get everything I wanted and then some from the computer before I removed the device and teleported back to the caves. As for the Pigs? I left a small magical charm on them; once the illusion wore off, they would be teleported away.
'Okay, now to start clearing out the hive.'
To do so, I had made a good enough plan. I had mana and a large amount of it. And there was a statue that needed mana to move. So why not add them together? I mean, perhaps it could go badly, as it could attack me, but I feel it would be more focused on the present and most recent danger to Wakanda than an intruder that hasn't done anything to harm the people of this land. But then again, gods are fickle beings. But I was willing to take the risk.
Rumble
As I supplied mana to the statue, it started to wake back up, but it didn't move much as it waited for me to finish. That took just about a minute, with me leaving just enough mana for me to teleport home if needed. The panther statue looked at me and then nodded before leaping up the shaft leading to the hive. I wasn't that shocked it saw through my cloak, or at least pretended to as I was physically supplying it with mana, and beyond that, the invisibility cloak isn't infallible. Anyway, while it started its rampage, I got to work mining.
'This is going to take a while.'