He looked up into her eyes, seeing once more the shining curiosity and excitement reflected in them, and thought to himself that she was not a bad goddess.
"Alright, I will tell you what I know."
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"It all started during the Second World War, when a Brooklyn kid got tired of having his ass handed to him, so he took super steroids to finally win some of his fights."
"And 65 years later, a man-child almost got killed by his own weapon, so he decided to stop selling high-end weapons and instead built a super-armor, stuffed to the brim with weapons, and started doing hero stuff."
Arthur then spent what seemed like an hour storytelling to an overexcited panther goddess.
She interrupted him from time to time, but overall, she was listening and memorizing what she learned.
He explained all the major MCU events to her, talking about Iron Man and War Machine, explaining the Avengers and the Chitauri, the infiltration of HYDRA into S.H.I.E.L.D., the reasoning behind Ultron's creation and the Mind Stone, the clash of egos between the Avengers' leaders and how it led to the Civil War, the arrival of Ebony Maw on Earth, the fight on Titan, the Snap, and the time travel five years later, Tony Stark's greatest heroic act, and how the world had to learn to live with half its population missing for five years.
He also took care to give all the details he remembered about the mentions of Wakanda in all the Marvel films.
Bast was amazed by the possibility that everything she had ever known could be a creation.
At the end, she needed a minute to straighten out her mind and organize her thoughts before giving Arthur a strange look and asking,
"WHY AREN'T YOU HAVING MORE OF AN EXISTENTIAL CRISIS RIGHT NOW?"
"Already had one this week, I only do one existential crisis a month."
"WE'RE TUESDAY."
"Exactly, no more existential crisis this month until Monday next week."
Arthur shook his head slightly, smiling at Bast, before asking what really mattered to him: the power-up.
"I've done my part of the deal. Now do yours."
Looking into the goddess's eyes, he spoke seriously, hiding his nervousness behind some false bravado. In lieu of an answer, she smiled back at him, apparently having seen through his emotions, and slowly got up from her lying position.
"DO NOT WORRY, LITTLE ARTHUR, I WILL NOT NEGATE ON OUR DEAL. YOUR STORY INTERESTED ME EVEN MORE THAN I WAS EXPECTING, SO I GRANT YOU A REQUEST BEFORE YOU WAKE UP."
Arthur was surprised at first, but quickly realized that their exchange, from her perspective, was heavily skewed in her favor. She gained some form of future knowledge, and all she had to give was her simple blessing.
Thinking for a bit, he looked up and smiled, seemingly challenging her before saying,
"I would like for the back door that you have around my power to not exist anymore."
She hummed for a moment before smirking and agreeing with his request.
"VERY WELL, ARTHUR. I WILL GIVE YOU MY BLESSING AND TAKE BACK MY DIVINITY. THE IMPROVEMENT TO YOUR BODY WILL, HOWEVER, STILL BE THE SAME."
Breathing a sigh of relief at this obvious weakness of his being removed, Arthur extended his hand towards the goddess before saying,
"All things considered, it was nice meeting you, Bast."
She extended a paw to him, which he quickly shook.
"YES, IT HAS BEEN INFORMATIVE. I HOPE I GET TO SEE MORE OF YOUR CHAOS SOON."
"And I obviously hope you don't get that particular wish of yours for at least a few years."
She smiled mischievously at him before putting one of her paws on his chest and gently pushing him. Just as his back was touching the ground, Bast and he disappeared from his mind.
Real world
Arthur opened his eyes with difficulty. He found himself buried under what seemed to be red sand. Quickly trying to sit up, his upper body emerged from the sand.
The first thing he felt was pain, a lot of pain all over his body.
'It's like I have a gigantic cramp that strains every single part of my body at the same time.'
Trying to stretch to at least relieve a little bit of the pain seemed to be working.
Finding that stretching helped alleviate the pain, Arthur spent the next hour stretching every muscle, joint, and tendon in his body.
Gradually, his muscles seemed to relax, some of the pain left him, and little by little, a wondrous feeling rose beside the slight pain that remained.
'I can feel and control everything in my body. It's crazy.'
Testing his jumping and speed, he quickly realized that the Heart-Shaped Herb was the real deal.
He got into position and started doing push-ups. Once 200 push-ups had been passed, he stopped. Not even feeling a little strain.
He sat down and smiled at himself.
"I love it when a plan comes together."
He said, completely ignoring the massive fuck-up that had been thrown into his half-baked plan.
'The only real problem I have right now is this fucking sand. It's everywhere. Seriously, what a shitty place to take a nap.'
Grumbling to himself, he quickly took off his clothes to shake all of the sand off them.
It took him almost 10 minutes to finally stop finding sand in his clothes or boots. Finally getting dressed, he distractedly looked at his watch to find that only 4 hours had passed between the moment he set foot into Wakanda and right now.
'The chat with Bast mustn't have followed conventional time. I'm pretty sure I spent days talking to her.'
He took another deep breath before making his way out of the catacombs, taking the stairs toward where he remembered the throne room being.
He started looking around for guards or anyone to follow outside.
Seeing a unit of Dora Milaje making its rounds, he quickly ran after them and followed them.
He was quickly back in the same landing zone he first arrived at. Scanning the tarmac for aircraft departing, he found one almost immediately.
'Seeing my luck, Bast may really have blessed me.'
Getting on the aircraft, he settled himself in a corner and waited to see in which direction the aircraft would go.
'I hope it's to Kenya, because Uganda doesn't have direct flights to New York, and I really want to go home now.'
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