Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to any of these characters. All characters etc. are the property of Disney and Marvel.
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Elsewhere in Wakanda
Natasha Romanoff tossed and turned in her bed, unable to let sleep wash over her. Her skin felt warm to the touch, her sheets were drenched in sweat, and her newly-dyed blonde hair felt suffocating as it covered her face. Her fitful slumber, or lack thereof, had become a habit as of late. She was unused to being stuck in one place for so long, but there was little choice in the matter. Having betrayed Tony Stark in Berlin, she was a wanted woman, and with every satellite and spy on the planet searching for her, Wakanda was the only safe haven. The only solace Natasha found in her isolation was training.
From a young age, she had learned to channel her emotions and frustrations through a demanding physical regimen, practicing karate, judo, and a bevy of other martial arts whenever she found herself troubled. And so it was now, as Natasha found herself walking toward the training simulator at three o'clock in the morning.
The simulator was a pinnacle of technology, programmed from source coding based off what Stark had designed for the Avengers, but with additional Wakandan neural processors that allowed the room to adapt itself to challenge each individual to match their abilities and fears. Depending on the difficulty settings, simulated enemies and terrain appeared, formed from light projectors. These projections were formed from a combination of the user's memories as well as data taken from stored battle analysis and the internet. The projections looked, sounded, and even felt real; Natasha knew from personal experience after having taken more than a few punches on high difficulty settings.
She set the difficulty to 8.0 and open simulation mode, which allowed the computer to select whatever scenario it deemed worthy of the set difficulty level. Entering the ready room in her signature black bodysuit and array of weapons and utilities, she stretched and cracked her neck, hoping a good, exerting training simulation would calm her body and allow her to sleep afterwards. She'd been agitated all day, her face flush and body teeming with energy.
A loud buzzer sounded, and the door to the simulator room opened. Sprinting in at full speed with a Glock handgun in each hand, Natasha immediately encountered two Chitauri soldiers in an urban setting. She dispatched them quickly, kicking in the first's knee before unloading two bullets into its head, then backhanding a fist to the other's face before doing the same.
The computer ended the scenario and re-evaluated her skill level. The two Chitauri bodies disappeared, and the cityscape around her morphed into a wooded area with towering trees all around.
Natasha whipped her head back and forth as she moved stealthily through the trees, trying to detect from which direction enemies might appear. She didn't have to wait long, as a smattering of gunfire erupted from her left. She rolled to her right and took cover behind one of the enormous tree trunks.
Brock Rumlow, otherwise known as Crossbones, emerged out of the darkness and continued firing short bursts of bullets at the tree behind which she hid. He was flanked by four Ultron sentries, their metallic frames glinting in the moonlight. Two sentries flanked left, two flanked right, and Crossbones continued advancing directly toward her position.
Knowing she was done for if she stayed in place against the pincer attack, Natasha chose to go left. Using the trees as cover from Crossbones' unrelenting gunfire, she darted toward the two sentries. As she approached, one grabbed at her. Ducking under its reach, she drew her dual electroshock batons and jabbed one into either side of its torso, disabling it with a powerful surge of electricity. But as she did so, the other grabbed her leg and threw her backwards, propelling her into the nearest tree trunk.
A sharp pain exploded in her back, but Natasha shook it off and grunted as she forced herself back onto her feet. Dodging the second sentry's next attack, she slammed a baton into the back of its head, crushing the circuitry there and shutting it down.
Branches and bark exploded all around her as Crossbones unleashed another torrent of bullets. She crouched low, circling around him toward the other two Ultron sentries. However, their advanced sensors saw her coming, and one smashed through a tree and came right at her. She threw one of her batons, catching it in the throat and nearly severing its head. As it lost power, the sentry's body slid to a rest on the ground in front of her.
The other sentry grabbed her arms, but she jumped up and broke free. Natasha kicked it squarely in the chest with both feet and fell away just as a hail of bullets ripped it to shreds, right where she'd been held only a moment before, Crossbones' shots landing just a second too late.
Pain shot up her leg as one bullet had grazed her thigh, exposing a strip of bloody flesh. She limped away and ducked behind a large fallen tree trunk. Gunfire peppered the trunk, forcing her to keep her head down. She sensed her foe getting closer and closer, and just as Crossbones leapt up onto the tree trunk for the killshot, she backflipped into the air to meet him.
Her legs wrapped around his neck, and she spun her body around violently, twisting him off balance. Both fighters fell together, but both stayed focused and vigilant. As the two hit the forest floor with a thud, Crossbones drew his pistol and brought it up to her chest. He was just a moment too slow, however, as her knife crunched through flesh and bone, embedding itself deep into his neck. Nastasha twisted the blade, and Crossbones' fingers relaxed, his gun falling to the ground. The computer acknowledged defeat, and Crossbones' body and the forest melted away into nothingness, the simulator room returning to its default black metal structures.
Sitting up, she wiped a river of sweat from her face and forehead before evaluating her wounds. Her back was sore from where she'd hit the "tree", but nothing felt broken. She wrapped a quick bandage around her leg where the "bullet" had grazed her, but that too was just a minor wound. Her heart still pounded, and she could feel the layer of sweat trapped all over her body between her skin and suit. Natasha had hoped the training workout would tire her out sufficiently to go to sleep, but her body still felt ablaze with heat and energy.
"Arghhh!" she screamed in frustration to the dark, empty room around her.
She leapt to her feet and collected her batons from where they'd fallen. Reloading her guns and re-holstering them, Natasha stormed over to the control panel in the ready room and spun the dial to the right until the display read 11.5 on the difficulty setting. Slamming her fist into the start button, she waited silently for the door to open. As the buzzer sounded again, she rolled into the room, guns drawn.
Blinding sunlight shone down, her eyes struggling to adjust. She was crouched down on a white sandy beach, calm and clear blue-green waves lapping up against it. A stand of palm trees sprouted close by, and she heard the caws of seagulls flying overhead. Natasha looked for cover or some defensible position, but there was nothing around her. She stood on an empty beach.
What is the computer simulation doing? She pondered. Maybe she had broken it. After all, she'd never tried any training scenarios beyond a 9.0 or 9.5 difficulty. Maybe the computer didn't even know how to cope with the difficulty set to 11.5.
