A week had passed since the Future Foundation had arrived at Wakanda. Despite the fact that Doom said two weeks, none of them were dumb enough to simply wait and do nothing during the waiting period. Wakanda as a whole was on high alert, shutting down every single entrance to the country, allowing no one to enter or leave.
The heroes, T'Challa and his sister included, spent most of this time conditioning in T'Challa's training facility, prepping themselves for what was about to come in a week's time, preparing themselves for Doom.
Eren was especially taking this training seriously, wanting to learn hand-to-hand combat from T'Challa since Eren was so used to relying on Godspeed to win fights. Eren didn't know the first thing about throwing a proper punch, he just sort of threw his fist at his target and hoped that his powers would do the rest.
However, there were no powers allowed for this training for either of the two heroes. Both T'Challa and Eren wore inhibitor neck braces, stopping both of them from using any sort of super strength or ability that they would not have if they were more than a normal man.
T'Challa taught Eren many of the fighting styles that the young king was taught ever since he was an even younger prince at the age of five. Zulu Stick Fighting, Dambe, Laamb, Capoeira, Tiger Style Kung Fu, Wushu, Taekwondo, and Muay Thai were among the many styles that Eren was taught. Even without his powers, Eren was a natural when it came to learning anything, whether it be a game, sport, or concept in class. However, with Godspeed, his ability to learn was unimaginable.
The power dampener only stopped the boy from using Godspeed during the training. Eren, however, would use Godspeed and his ability to relive memories to play the training in his head over and over, basically image-training himself. It was as if he had undergone months of training, despite it only having been a short week.
Regardless of this fact, his quick learning would never beat years of experience as he would still struggle when sparring against King T'Challa himself.
"You are growing frustrated, Mr. Parker." T'Challa said, holding his shield behind his back as if to taunt the young hero in front of him. The two were sparring inside the training facility, having it set to be as cold as the harshest of winters to make the training even more intense.
He was right, Eren was pissed. They implemented a points system, the person who landed a strike on the opponent's body would be rewarded a point and the first to get ten points will win the bout. Eren had yet to get a single point on T'Challa for their entire sparring session. To make it even worse, the king stopped blocking and simply dodged the boy's attacks with ease, despite Eren implementing the techniques he'd learned perfectly.
Eren said nothing, continuing to attack the king with sloppy strikes due to his emotions hindering him. As T'Challa dodged, he continued to lecture the boy. "Your irritation is not a weapon. It is a weakness." T'Challa told him before swiping Eren's stick away and landing a sweeping attack on the boy, causing him to fall on his back. Had Eren been able to use his Spider-Sense, he would have seen it coming from a mile away, but the normal Eren Parker did not see it coming.
"A calm mind is the pathway to victory. Your brain is the body's most powerful muscle." T'Challa told him, reminding Eren of his father. In fact, that was something his father would tell him very often, insinuating that you don't need powers to make a difference.
T'Challa continued. "If you let that muscle become overwhelmed with negative emotion, your most powerful muscle becomes your most vulnerable." T'Challa extended his hand out to Eren, hoping the boy would understand what he was trying to say.
Eren calmed himself down as he grabbed onto the king's hand, getting back up on his feet before looking to the ground. Seeing this, T'Challa had more words for the boy. "Head up, Eren. Do not be ashamed." he said, patting Eren on the shoulder.
Eren shook his head. "I can't help feeling as if I'm nothing without my powers, especially Godspeed. I've had my moments where I've won without it, but barely..." As he was saying this, he thought about Hydro-Man and how his quick wits were the only thing that allowed him to capture him while the villain was off guard. Similarly, he felt he only beat Connors due to luck and a plan that had many flaws retrospectively.
"I understand how you are feeling. Before I became the Black Panther, I felt weak very often. I was growing frustrated, calling myself not fit to be a king. Do you want to know what my mother told me?" T'Challa said, having a slight smile on his face as he reminisced about the past.
"She told me that it takes more than physical strength to be king. You need a strong heart, my son. You need a mind more powerful than the Vibranium beneath our feet. Only then can you be king. Only then can you be the protector of our people." T'Challa hoped that his mother's words would help Eren on his journey to growing more powerful.
Eren thought about it for a few seconds, nodding his head as he began to understand it. "Your mother sounds like she was wise." Eren told him, bringing a smile to T'Challa's face.
"Oh, my mother was everything. A wise, strong, woman. She was the greatest queen of this nation's history." T'Challa told him, once again smiling reminiscently.
"I hope your wife doesn't hear that." Eren joked, causing T'Challa to lightly slap him on the arm and laugh.
"There is a reason why I am divorced, my friend." T'Challa said with a bright grin before their lighthearted moment was interrupted by Shuri sprinting into the room as if something terrible had happened. The look on her face was filled with terror, immediately signaling that she was bearing bad news.
"Brother! Another message from Doom! Come, quick!" She shouted before sprinting out of the room. The two men removed their inhibitors before following her through the palace and into the war room. It wasn't long before the other members of the Future Foundation appeared in the room along with members of the Dora Milaje and Doom's message was displayed for all to see.
With his hands interlocked in front of his face, Doom looked directly through the projection and at the spectators with a vicious stare. Dr. Doom exhaled impatiently before once again speaking to the king.
"King T'Challa." Doom spoke with his deep, menacing voice. " It would seem that you have not responded to my memorandum. I take it that you would like to move forward with the invasion of Wakanda. Or perhaps you are attempting to call my bluff?" Dr. Doom leaned inward, looking even deeper through the projection.
His voice became colder, even more chilling than it was before as his eyes winded beneath his mask. "If that is the case, allow me to demonstrate a portion of my power. A fraction of my influence.
You may notice an army submerging from your waters as you acquire this memo. They are not mine, but Namor's. Like you, he is the king of a hidden nation. Unlike you, he is a man of action.
Think of what is about to transpire as a reminder that Doom awaits you. Recall that what is about to happen is only a sample of what is to come. You have one more week to call off the incursion of your nation and hand over what I requested.
I'm finished being nice.
That is all.
Farewell, king."
Doom's message ended, sending a jolt down King T'Challa's body as he nearly became overrun by anger though he was able to calm himself. "We need to go to the Golden City." He instructed them.
"I can get there in seconds. I'll go ahead." Spider-Man told him as his costume began to form around his body, receiving a nod from the king. No words were said as Spider-Man transformed into his Godspeed state, before sprinting to the Golden City, the coast where the attack would likely come from.
Once Spider-Man arrived, he couldn't believe his eyes.
A tidal wave, one larger than any building in Wakanda, was approaching the nation, along with an army of hundreds riding the wave like surfers without any boards. Most of them had blue skin and masks filled with water covering their noses and mouth. At the center of it all, there was a man holding a trident, wearing nothing more than a green speedo with gold bracelets and a golden trident in his hand.
Though Spider-Man couldn't see it, the man had a determined and almost hate-filled expression on his face. This man was the king of Atlantis, Namor. He was different than the rest with his jet-black hair, pointed ears, and tan skin. The king from the ocean continued to surf the wave toward the city, causing panic among the Wakandans.
"Reed!" Eren said quickly into his earpiece. "There's a massive tidal wave coming toward the city. As big as the city itself. We-" Before anything else could come from his mouth, a lightbulb went off in the hero's brain.
"Do you think I could stop it somehow using my speed?" Eren asked the scientist, feeling as if it were possible but he was unsure.
"It's possible... but the speed you'd need to run at..." Reed said, sounding doubtful. "I don't even know if you can reach that kind of speed."
Eren felt doubtful himself, his doubts worsened as Reed continued. "If you fail, you'll be caught in the wave... I don't know if anyone would be able to survive something of that size..." Those words inflicted fear within the half-blooded Wakandan, as he had never learned how to swim. He knew that if he were caught in the tsunami, he was likely going to drown.
"Even if it costs me my life." Eren whispered as he thought about the things that people had told him over the many months of being Spider-Man. The advice, the kind words, everything that he had learned up until this point. The words echoed in the boy's mind as he began entering a runner's ready stance.
"Everything you do is a risk. Not doing anything is also a risk. Which risk will you choose, Parker?"
"You need a mind more powerful than the Vibranium beneath our feet... Only then can you be the protector of our people."
"You have grown to be a strong warrior. You may not have been born in the homeland, but you are a true Wakandan."
"That is why we are all so very proud to see you protect your home, as well as coming back to protect ours. Sister always told me you were a good-hearted kid, she was right."
"Your father wanted more than anything to save people... You were his greatest creation."
"Go be the hero that I know you are."
Spider-Man's lenses squinted ever so slightly as he focused on the road ahead of him. "I can do it. I'm fast enough." He said, prepared to run faster than he had ever run before. He was afraid to really push his body, to use every single last ounce of his being while in his Ultimate form, but he had no other choice.
He had to take that risk.
He had to protect his people.
He had to be a warrior.
He had to make everyone proud.
He had to be a hero.
š”šµšµ!
Spider-Man began charging the Godspeed energy in his body, the aura around his upper half thinning while simultaneously glowing brighter around the lower half of his body. He had practiced it once before, this technique, but the speed at which he was moving along with the pain he felt while in this state scared him out of doing it ever again.
This time, however, he didn't care. He needed that extra speed if wanted to achieve his goal.
š½š¤š¤š¢!
Instantly, Spider-Man was gone, leaving nothing behind but a blue streak that disappeared into the city, making its way toward the tidal wave.
In a matter of seconds, Spider-Man, with his Godspeed aura focused around his legs, was running from one side to the other on the Wakandan beach.
Many Wakandans were taking refuge amongst the skyscrapers, hoping to avoid the water that way while others were running away from the wave, though they knew that it would be impossible to outrun it. "Look!" A young Wakanda boy said. "What is that?"
The boy pointed toward the blue streak of light on the beach, as did hundreds of Wakandans who took refuge in other buildings or ran along the streets, all looking toward their savior.
It wasn't long before the Future Foundation and Black Panther showed up, looking over the hill as they watched the blue glint zip back and forth in an attempt to generate enough wind pressure to blow the tidal wave backward. "Honey, he's doing it..." Sue said breathlessly, hoping more than anything that the young hero could stop the tsunami from hitting the city.
Her forcefields were strong, but there was no way she could cover an entire city with one, even just covering a building was a lot for her to handle. If it came down to it, she would have to choose two buildings to cover out of the hundreds in the city, that was her only choice. She prayed it didn't have to come to that.
Spider-Man continued running back and forth along the shore, using everything he had to push the water backward, noticing that the wave began slowing down. "It's working!" He said, though his voice could not hide the immense pain that the boy was feeling going through his entire body.
It felt as if his skin was being fileted off his body with a knife covered in salt, each step feeling as if it could be his last. Regardless, he didn't care how much it hurt him. He didn't care about how it might affect his body. He just wanted to save his people.
"The kid's really doing it!" Ben Grimm said, clapping his rocky hands together and smiling down at the hero from afar.
"That's my boy!" The Human Torch exclaimed, lifting himself in the air with his powers to get a better view, raising a fist. He was certain, Spider-Man was going to send this wave back where it came from.
"You got this, Spider-Man..." T'Challa whispered, hoping that the boy could manage to stop the attack.
Reed said nothing. He couldn't hide the doubtful expression on his face. He calculated the size of the wave, and Eren's highest speed, along with some calculations on Eren's mass, and deduced that it was impossible for him to reach a high enough speed to turn the wave around, not without some serious damage to the boy's body.
However, a human's willpower was incalculable, so Reed let the boy continue.
The blue streak continued, going back and forth as the wave continued to slow down and decrease in scale before everyone's eyes.
The Future Foundation.
The King.
The Wakandans.
They all looked forward with hopeful eyes, looking at the azure streak continuously building up pressure. It was amazing, truly spectacular, to see what looked like a saphirre star moving side to side before everyone's eyes.
He was doing it.
He was š³š¦š¢šššŗ doing it.
Spider-Man, the half-Wakandan, half-American hero from New York was going to save everyone once again!
Until the blue star faded...
That cobalt streak, the one moving at a speed that wasn't even trackable by the human eye, was gone...
The tidal wave, no longer being held back by the pressure being built up by Spider-Man's speed, began picking up its pace once again. Soon enough, the tsunami began tearing through the Golden City, destroying smaller buildings, and picking up vehicles and people as it continued its siege through the town.
The people's screams might as well have been muted as no one could have saved them. Not all of them. Sue tried her best to cover as many buildings as she could with her powers, but she could only protect a few...
The rest of the Future Foundation made their way toward the city, trying to save anyone they could with their abilities, but they could only do so much.
The individuals inside of buildings looked on helplessly as their people were swept away beneath them, drowning, losing their lives in one of the cruelest ways imaginable.
King T'Challa, wearing his Black Panther suit, stood with his fists clenched as the Atlantean army and their king glared up at him from atop the flooded city.
Eren Parker, Spider-Man, floated uncontrollably in the water. Allowing himself to drift along with the tsunami deeper into the city. He had lost consciousness when he overexerted himself, only being awoken by the sounds of muffled screams through the water.
He'd failed.
He failed his people.
He failed Wakanda.
And he failed himself.
'Even if it kills me...' Spider-Man thought to himself before closing his eyes, letting the raging water take him.