Who: T'Challa and Stephen Strange When: Shattered Sight Plot Where: T’Challa’s house What: Sparring turns into all out super hero fight! Rating/Warnings: PG-13 for violence? Status: Closed / Complete.
T’Challa studied himself in the mirror. The costume the dreams had given him months ago fit well, if not more so now that he had been going to the gym and sparring on a regular basis. He ran his hands over the subtly textured material - fabric with vibranium threads interwoven, making it virtually impenetrable to most weapons. He would never understand why super heroes needed suits that outlined every muscle in their bodies, but he couldn’t argue with the fact his Panther habit seemed to provide him with more freedom of movement than he expected. The pure black body suit, once he activated the mask, made for an intimidating presence as well.
He was waiting for Stephen Strange to arrive. Today was the day they met for sparring. It helped T’Challa keep the skills he’d gained from his dreams sharp, and simultaneously allowed him to teach Stephen self defense and close combat moves as well. The sorcerer was a quick learner, he had found.
Stephen Strange was feeling … Well. Strange. His mood had been steadily spiraling to the point where everything had irritated him. He’d finally lost it on one of his shop assistants and fired the poor boy, sending him out on the verge of tears, and the Sanctum Sanctorum had been closed until everyone finally learned how to do their jobs.
In a roundabout way, he was looking forward to his sparring with T’Challa. He felt as if he just had a lot of tension to work out, maybe a good workout would calm him a bit. Stephen practically snorted when he walked in and saw his friend.
“I didn’t get the memo and left my own body suit at home.” There was no humour in his voice as he set down the bundled fabric of his levitating cloak.
There were benefits to being relatively antisocial. T'Challa had not seen any of his friends from Valar thus far, and so his temper had been relatively stable - except for that little flare up the other day when he'd had lunch with a fellow professor. He'd uncharacteristically lost his cool, name called the man in his native tongue (rendering the insults moot) and stormed off without paying the check. He'd also nearly flipped over an empty table on his way out just because, but a last remaining shred of sense stopped him.
Seeing Stephen now, acting snippy was enough to have him bristle a little.
"Jealousy does not suit you, Stephen." he remarked dryly. He headed towards the rear of the house, opening the sliding doors that lead to his yard. Normally they would have joked a bit, maybe caught up on each other's business, and readied themselves for sparring. But T'Challa was ready now, and as he looked back at his friend, knew that blowing off some steam might help him regain his usual cool. "Come. Perhaps this time you will allow us to have a decent sparring session that goes beyond the level of a Wakandan child." He smiled in a taunting way that he knew would rankle his friend.
There was a laugh in response, a dry, single hah. “Jealousy,” Stephen muttered under his breath. He followed T’Challa, feeling the magic in his veins spark restlessly. His fingers curled. A Wakandan child. Oh, please.
“I was merely dumbing myself down to suit your needs.” Stephen cracked his knuckles as he walked across the yard. If T’Challa wanted a fight, then the sorcerer supreme was more than capable of offering one up.
T'Challa had outfitted the yard with a heavy duty mat to help absorb the shock of their sparring so one wouldn't land on hard, unyielding earth. Usually T'Challa fought barefoot but the dreams had given him his Vibranium lined boots and he had every intention of breaking them in - preferably across Stephen's face. Competitiveness welled up in him and as Stephen tossed a barb his way his look darkened. What did a sorcerer supreme with barely any magical abilities know about hand to hand combat? Only what T'Challa had taught him thus far (or at least this was T'Challa's thinking) and nothing more. And the Wakandan's dreams had given him much more than what he had thus revealed to his friend.
Standing across from the sorcerer he tapped at the collar of his costume, activating the mask. It quickly wove its way around his face in a manner only seen in special effects films, until the panther mask was complete. He took his starting stance - something between a sumo wrestlers posture and an MMA's - either way it had a catlike resemblance to it. "Let us begin." And within the blink of an eye the man known in their dreams as Black Panther came flying at Stephen with lightning quick speed and agility.
No, Stephen had not had much hand-to-hand training before these sparring matches. He’d gotten into a fight or two in his college days, sure, but not up to the level of T’Challa’s abilities. He didn’t need them. True, his magic had started off rocky, but it was coming to him in waves. Every day he felt more connected to the mystic arts, more supreme. T’Challa would need more than a mat.
The power inside him crackled. Stephen’s own stance wasn’t as technical, but he stood tall. At T’Challa’s charge, Stephen brought his hands up, a surge of power coming between them at the point of contact. A blocking spell invoked too late, but it kept Stephen from getting hit too much. He was pushed back from the force even as T’Challa was thrust away, a few feet put between them. “Don’t. Test me,” he said through gritted teeth.
T’Challa had both been expecting magic and not expecting it; the former perhaps later in the match, and the latter most definitely as he was tossed backwards head over heels by the magic. He rolled and came to a stop, crouched on all fours and ready to go again. Common sense would have told the Wakandan to stop now based on what he knew of Stephen from his dreams, but common sense had gone out the window days ago.
“‘Testing’ would indicate some semblance of knowledge!” T’Challa snarled, and charged again. This time he somersaulted sideways from any potential magic his adversary might throw, and continued to flip, leap and roll around Stephen, searching for a blind spot. He kicked low, sweeping his foot into the sorcerer’s from behind, hooking his boot clad foot into his and kicking the man’s legs out from under him. In the blink of an eye, T’Challa pulled out his energy daggers - new toys from the dreams. The weapons glowed an unearthly purple, crackling with pure energy. He leapt towards the fallen sorcerer, fully intent on figuring out just what they could do.
Stephen hit the ground with a grunt and a clenched jaw. His physical reflexes weren’t as honed, but his mental ones were sharp. One hand shot out to summon his cloak. It appeared seemingly out of nowhere, red fabric twisting around T’Challa to throw him off so the sorcerer could find his footing again.
In his hand, Stephen summoned a glow of magic, letting it grow into something spherical. He shot it out towards the other man, intent on making a critical hit to the chest.
T'Challa swore in a mixture of Wakandan and his native tongue as he tried to untangle himself from the magical cloak. He managed to free one arm and tried cutting at the fabric with an energy dagger. "Curse you, sorcerer!" He shouted in frustration. The cloak reacted suddenly to the dagger before it could be cut, loosening. He freed himself in time to see Stephen launching an ominous looking orb of light in his direction. T'Challa barely had enough time to scramble out of the way. The shot landed so close to him the concussion from the mat and earth exploding sent the man hurtling through the air; all T’Challa saw were earth and sky tumbling about before he felt himself slam into an old tree at the far end of the yard. Were it not for the Vibranium laced suit the impact would have surely broken his back. Instead T'Challa lay in a heap at the foot of the tree, stunned.
The impact was more than Stephen had himself anticipated. With it missing its target, the force that sent T’Challa to the opposite end of the yard pushed Stephen back, too. It was only his cloak, finding its way to its master in need, that eased Stephen’s landing as he went through a fence. Jaw clenched, he groaned. The cloak aided in lifting him but his body protested. At least, he thought, with some satisfaction, his opponent looked in worse condition.
“Have you had enough?” Stephen shouted. Somewhere in his mind, he knew that he didn’t have much left before he hit the threshold of his physical limitations. He was not a quitter, though, and unless some truce was made to call it a draw, he would continue until one of them couldn’t.
T’Challa took a long moment to respond. Opening his eyes, everything was blurry for a few seconds and his head was swimming. Slowly he sat up, trying to clear his head. His back hurt like hell, but the adrenaline hadn’t left him just yet, and stubbornly he struggled to his feet. Across the yard he saw Stephen, having been tossed into T’Challa’s neighbor’s yard through his fence. Wonderful. The damned sorcerer’s tricks was going to cost him a fortune in repairs.
He took a few steps towards him, then halted, his world spinning. His hands rose to hold his head, still clad in the panther mask. He clearly had a bit of a concussion, and the man evaluated whether it was wise to continue fighting if he could be vulnerable at any given moment.
“Get out of my yard,” he shouted back, even though it wasn’t technically his yard. “If you can’t fight like a man, I have no need of you.” And turning he staggered towards the house, wanting nothing more than to lay down with some ice packs. He wasn’t giving up, he just didn’t think the fight was worth getting himself killed over.
Stephen scoffed at the retreating figure. Coward, he thought. The air around him crackled. There was the temptation to decimate the house of T’Challa entirely. Stephen had never done anything like it before, but he could feel it inside him. He knew the power lurked there. In the end, he wasn’t entirely certain what had stopped him from doing it - a sense of pity, perhaps, that a so-called fighter had to turn with his tail tucked between his legs.
The master of the mystic arts would not be so undignified. He strode from the yard with his head high but there was a challenge in his eyes. Something about the man said stay away, and that was what he wanted. He had much to read up on upon returning to his Sanctum Sanctorum, now that he’d realized the potential the power inside him held.