The very next day, Sonsi showed me to the Lab. Apparently I was not to be without a guard until I could be trusted, so there were three Dora Milaje with us currently. Two to guard the King and one to watch me while I explore and learn about Wakanda. The Dora Milaje also happens to be the one I fought yesterday, who very clearly wiped the floor with me. Her name is C'inza and she is a total baddass, as are all Dora Milaje.
"So Sonsi, did you tell your son we were coming or no?" I aak and the man pales slightly, clearly having forgotten.
"Erm... I did not. No."
"Great. This'll be fun for sure." I say sarcastically as we walk to the lab, and right as we walk in-
"What are you doing here father?! Unnanounced and with a visitor in tow?" I hear a voice ask and I chuckle at the look of Sonsi's face.
"Bullheaded, huh?" I ask quietly and Sonsi shoots me a dirty look.
"Shut up. Usim, I'm sorry, but this warrants interrupting you. Please come here from wherever the hell you are and say hello to your guest." The king says in a more authoritative tone and I immediately hear Usim grumbling as he makes his way downstairs.
The Man looks much like his father but with sharper eyes and an annoyed look on his face. His eyes are clearly from his mother, who I met last night at dinner. She made a funny comment about how Usim was always shutting himself away in the Lab, working himself half to death, but no matter what she said the boy never listened to her when she told him to take a break.
"Hm? Who is this guy?" Usim says in a curious tone, clearly surprised by my lighter skin tone.
"This is Verdandi Odinson... a visitor from outer space." The King introduces and I watch Usim's eyes go from curious to fascinated in an instant as he processes his father's words, "he is our guest and will be here for the foreseeable future to learn our wakandan ways and learn abkut our culture. Play nice, and have fun talking science. I will now take my leave."
"An Alien, huh? Fascinating! Where do you hail from?" Usim asks as he begins to circle my body and poke my skin, "why is your skin so tough? Are you more durable than humans? And what is this armor made of? It's not any metal I've seen." He rapidfires questions at me as I watch him inspect me like a damn science experiment."
I then turn towards him and hold out my hand, "Nice to meet you Usim. My name is Verdandi, but you can call me Verdan or Verdi, whatever one works for you. And to answer your questions, I hail from a world called Asgard. Asgardians are naturally more durable than humans. We actually have a number of traits that make us superhuman- like the ability to speak and understand any language in the universe, we are more dense than humans, have higher strength, speed, and intelligence on average, and possess higher levels of scientific advancement. Also, that is Asgardian steel."
"Amazing. I hope you will allow me to run experiments! It is not often we get Travellers from other worlds!" He says, much to my amusement.
"Not often? What does that mean?" I ask only for him to laugh.
"We have records of alien beings visiting our more advanced civilization. Most were friendly but there was one that attacked us for our vibranium. We fought them off apparently. Anyways, shall we get started?" He asks and I nod my head.
Hours later, after poking me and prodding me, and after so many god damn questions, he finally finished his tests. However there was one more that I wanted to ask him about.
"Hey, Usim, there's one more thing that I wanna ask you about. I have this thing called a divinity residing in my soul. I have no idea it's origin or what it really truly is, but I wanna see if you can figure something out. Wanna run some tests?"
"Absolutely! I love new things! Learning about the universe is pretty much my only pass time." He says excitedly, and I cant help but admit to myself that me and this guy will get along swimmingly.
"Indeed, as do I! Which is the main reason why I'm even requesting you take a look at all." He's no Shuri, but he'll do.
-
Three days later, and Thor finally left back to Asgard, fascinating the Wakandan's with the rainbow bridge.
"So that's your method of space travel? Awfully high-key, dont you think? And how does it even work?"
"Do you know what wormhole are?" I say, and he shakes his head no, "you're gonna love this then. So basically, gravity doesn't just pull things in. Gravity is something caused by the warping of spacetime. Basically, think of space as a three dimensional grid. When an object has enough mass, then that object warps the grid towards itself! That's why the planets orbit the sun. It's like balls rolling into a sloped hole. Anyways, the theory behind a wormhole is that with enough energy or force, one can puncture a hole through spacetime to anywhere in the universe, creating near-instant space travel. That's what the bifrost is." I explain, trying my best to explain the concept, despite not being an expert on the subject. I know the barebones idea behind it, but that's about it.
"Incredible! I didnt know that great mass warped space! That's so cool! I wonder why that is though? Do you know why high mass warps space? What even is space!?" He says as he begins going down the rabbit hole.
"Oh boy..." I whisper to myself as Usim begins walking off while writing ideas in his notes.
"What did you tell him?" Sonsi asks from my left as we both watch Usim walk towards his lab.
"I gave him the barebones explanation for how my race travels through space."
"Ah."
"Yup."
"He's not coming out of his lab for at least a week now, you know that right?"
"Yup. I guess that gives me more time to train with the Dora Milaje." I say, trying to be optimistic.
"Ah, about that, they have decided to make you their new practice dummy basically. It has been requested you train with ALL of them at least once a day."
"Bruh. At least?! Im so cooked." The king gives me a strange look.
"You are not a meal?" He says, confused by the meaning behind my words.
"Dont worry about it, just weird slang. It means im screwed."
"Ah."
-
A full month later, and I am finally given access to my weapons, and I no longer require a watcher. It took less time than I thought I would need, but I guess having the Prince as a best friend and being super chummy with the King works wonders.
After 3 weeks of training with the Dora Milaje, I was given permission to use Vibranium spears during training- and let me tell you, these things are fucking awesome! I cant use them very well because I only have one hand, and I have yet to get used to the one handed style, but I'm making progress. The other day, I almost- so close- landed a blow on C'inza, who gave me a smirk when I still missed and then proceeded to wipe the floor with me.
Also, can confirm vibraium is able to wound asgardians.
Easily.
The vibranium spear cuts through me easier than asgardian steel, so I have become even more careful when training with the Dora Milaje.
Also, annoyingly, I can't exercise with them because Everything is too easy and the weights arent heavy enough. On asgard we have special weights that weigh in the tons rather than the pounds, and work by compressing matter closer than it's supposed to go. So, safe to say, it's really difficult to get a good workout in.
Thus, my genius Idea of getting axl to send me my weights feom my room- my personal weights and workout equipment that weigh easily ten times the amount that wakanda has.
The weights were delivered via Axl/bifrost, and I gifted him Meat skewers as compensation.
The compensation was more than appreciated.
The progress on researching my Divinity has been slow and painful. More than once has Usim raged out and thrown something at the wall because he couldn't come up with answers. However, it seems his dedication and fixation is relentless, as no matter how many times he gets angry he just picks up the pieces and gets a new idea.
That's actually what I'm doing right now.
I'm currently being watched by Usim as I spar with the Dora Milaje using my activated foresight.
Safe to say I've been on a bit of a winning spree.
"This is bullshit!" Says C'inza as I knock her down to the Floor for the 5th time.
"Yes, yes it is. Why do you think I havent used this power in our duels? I win too easily. A second in a fight is a rediculous amount of time. It's honestly unfair. Although, somehow I still lose against Thor no matter how far ahead I can see. He's just way too strong." I comment with a defeated look on my face as the Dora Milaje chuckle at my joke, many of them having battled Thor only to lose spectacularly, even with their vibranium spears or even two on one. He's just a freak of nature.
"Indeed, Thor is a mighty warrior."
"Don't tell him that Sonsi, you'll make his head bigger than it already is! Haha!" I joke causing laughter to erupt.
"Hey! I got something! Verdi! I finally picked up something on the scans!" Announced Usim as he finally was able to record the energy I was releasing.
The main problem with studying my ability is that the energy I release isn't visible. The only difference that can be viewed is a strange polychromal light in my eyes but beyond that nothing.
"Look! I finally found the proper wavelength! I dont know what this energy is, but it's there!" He exclaims and I make my way to his workbench, only to find the results. On the screen is a recording of my fight, my body is greyed out and the details invisible, but there's a bright green energy lining my body! Not only that, but the energy seems to project outwards and touch my opponent. It doesnt go inside them but rather envelops them and returns to my body once I release the technique. The energy also slowly dissipates over time, seemingly releasing into the environment around me.
"Well, the good news is that your ability doesn't release any kind of radiation. I already made sure, so everyone who is touched by it should be fine. Essentially, from the looks of it, the energy you use is natural, because after you use energy and stop fighting this energy seems to pop into existence around you and enter your body very slowly. Wherever it's coming from or disappearing to I have no clue, but I'm not giving up." He says before writing details of my energy in his notes, how it behaves, how it looks, etc.
"I think I may have an idea of what it is, but I'm not sure... I know my divinity is related to time somehow, but I'm not sure how. I'm about 70% sure that this is what's called temporal energy... but again it could be something else." I say, and Usim puts it in his notes to look into.
Temporal energy is basically the energy that controls the flow of time. Beings like the Time Keepers can control this energy to manipulate reality and universes as they see fit. Cosmic abstracts can manipulate this energy too, beings like Eternity, which is the main reason why I think it is Temporal energy.
Eternity messed with my birth somehow. This has been established, but what we dont know is why. Why bring me here? Why change my divinity? So many questions so little answers, and what answers I do get only lead to more questions.
When will I learn the truth about Eternity's goals?
Only time will tell.