Marvel: King of The Swarm

Harry tapped his foot as he stood on the bow of the retrofitted WW2 German Destroyer, which had served as Hydra's main base of operations ever since they had gone further underground, leading the world at large to believe that they had been exterminated. Though after reading and then subsequently breaking Viper's mind, Harry had learned that the reality couldn't have been further from the truth.

Hydra infiltrated SHIELD during its inception, growing like a parasite from within, using funds and resources that were supposed to be protecting the free world to quicken its demise. That's how they learned about Harry to begin with, and his efforts to create Ascendants. Something they obviously couldn't allow to come to fruition since SHIELD was moving to steal or recruit Harry for his technology.

When their initial assassination attempts had proven unfruitful, Hydra waited for the perfect opportunity to swoop in while also announcing to the world their resurrection by taking down SHIELD. An opportunity presented itself when Maria was given the order to kidnap Harry.

Hydra's planning had been perfect, except for one tiny detail.

Hearing the sound of footsteps behind him, Harry glanced over his shoulder and watched as Viper limped over to him, covered in blood and several gunshot wounds, with her hands gripping a pistol and a knife, "I've done as you requested...everyone on the ship is no longer."

As Viper went to take her next step, her leg gave out, and she collapsed to the deck, though not a moment passed before she started dragging herself across the floor trying to get closer to Harry, who turned around and walked over to her, "Oh, you poor thing, such determination. I believe that deserves a reward."

Kneeling down, Harry placed a hand on the top of Viper's head, which began to glow with bio energy that washed over her like a healing balm. Viper's body visibly relaxed as the wounds across her body healed, leaving behind smooth skin, and she let out a soft moan as a taste of the pleasure Harry had promised pushed back the unfeeling void that had wrapped itself around her nerves.

Harry stood letting Viper bask in the afterglow as he sensed something moving towards him at a frightening speed. A second later, the water in front of the ship exploded upwards in a geyser as a towering figure cloaked in black rose from the depths.

'I did not expect that these would be the circumstances under which we would first meet...Sire,' Scourge replied as he levitated through the air onto the ship before slowly lowering himself to stand on solid ground, a sign of respect as he laid eyes on the one who had created his counterpart and there, by proxy, himself.

'Yes, but things are moving in an unpredictable direction, previous expectations are no longer sufficient,' Harry replied, and Scourge nodded in agreement, though Harry could sense his persona observing him. To be honest, Harry was doing the same; it was a strange but informative interaction talking to a separate but yet collective part of himself, a living and thinking manifestation of select aspects of his personality and psyche.

'It is strange, traveling here to meet you, I considered how I would feel, it is my nature to consider myself superior to all other life forms, whether organic or inorganic. But yet as a scholar I can not deny the fact that you hold a power over me, if you wished, with a thought I would be no more.' Scourge voiced his opinion as he cocked his head to the side, 'But would I continue to exist inside of your psyche, a modus of thinking, or as a train of logic? It is odd contemplating my nature so deeply, when I seek to become the perfect lifeform...though perhaps I should consider myself a cog and nothing more, content to keep turning for the sake of the greater machine.'

The godling fell silent for a moment, and Harry was more than content to let the being process his expanding comprehension of his nature. After a second, Scourge seemed to come to a temporary conclusion and turned his head to stare at Viper, who was still wreathed in a subtle golden halo, 'Is this the mortal you selected...I can sense that her mind is...no longer whole.'

Harry smiled, taking pride in that fact, as he glanced at Viper, 'Yes, I may have been overzealous in my retribution, but her psyche is the least valuable thing about her. I am certain that you can make use of her in some other capacity.'

'Hmmm, your timing is most auspicious. I was in need of a baseline humanoid to experiment on, the war with the ocean dwellers has proven to be far more intriguing than I initially estimated.' Scourge answered as he waved his hand, lifting Viper from the deck of the ship with his psionic grasp, 'Their physiology, genealogy, and paleoanthropology are most interesting and present a mystery worth solving.'

'Oh, do tell,' Harry prompted as he folded his legs underneath him, sitting on the very air itself.

'I have confirmed that the ocean dwellers' most recent human ancestors originated from the Mediterranean area, tracing back several thousand years, coinciding with many accounts of the legendary island of Atlantis, which was said to have sunk beneath the waves in a cataclysmic event.' Scourge began to explain, unable to resist spouting his findings, much like any passionate scholar or scientist, 'However, cementing that fact has only opened far more questions, mainly how an entire civilization collectively managed to develop and evolve the precise traits required to live on the bottom of the ocean. They should have perished within a matter of hours. I even looked for the possibility of mutant genes, but so far, none of the samples I've collected have presented them. Though my sample size is still fairly small, we've only taken over a few villages that Elektra has deemed rural enough that our hostile takeover would go unnoticed for at least a few weeks. Back to the subject at hand, I can only reasonably conclude that there is another x-factor at play, and I believe that I am drawing close to isolating it.'

'If you're investing this much time and resources, I can only imagine the potential of uncovering this secret.'

From within Scourge's hood, two glowing purple orbs of light ignited as an intangible but weighted presence exuded from the god. 'I believe that solving this mystery will be a great boon for my divinity. I can feel myself drawing towards a precipice. I look forward to crossing it.'

Harry nodded, 'I believe that Genesis is approaching a similar point. His followers have been busy; they've almost taken over Haiti through their conversion efforts.'

Scourge let out a satisfactory hum of agreement, 'I've sensed the propagation of Sanctuary slowly spreading across the landmass, though it seems the return on investment is worth it. Though exchange aside, I'm glad that there are those willing to walk into his light, it is one less barrier to achieving my goal of perfection and scouring the universe of its innate flaws.'

Harry opened his mouth to speak before he paused and looked off into the horizon, 'Hmm, they got here sooner than I expected...it seems we'll have to cut our meeting short.'

'Unfortunate, but necessary, it is too soon to leave any possible threads that could be used to connect us, we will converse later within the Hive Mind once the Swarm completes its expansion of the ocean,' Scourge quickly bid Harry goodbye as he rose from the deck and disappeared back beneath the water taking Viper with him who looked around confusidly unable to comprehend what was happening.

Watching them disappear, Harry looked back over the horizon, where he spotted a sleek white ship cutting across the water, moving far faster than any nautical vehicle should be capable of. But that was what Harry had designed the vehicle for, giving the Stealth Class Striker an aerodynamic shape with two massive turbines propped up on wing-like extensions that funneled air into a tight wind tunnel before quickly widening with an exhaust port. The force generated from the rapid expansion of air propelled the Striker across the water at incredible speeds, especially when the wind was in its favor.

Standing up on the deck, Harry sighed as he faced his impending rescue, 'Shame the easy part is over now...gonna have a field day creating a cover story for this whole fiasco...and then dealing with the fact that the entire tower got blown up...and then I'm gonna have to talk with Fury about the whole spying on me and attempted kidnapping...then there's Maria too.'

Scratching his chin, Harry's mind started pulling up the various timelines of events and details he would have to connect to create a believable story. 'I could always just come out and reveal the full scope of Ascend Agencies...though if I do that, my father is almost certainly going to react...and unfortunately, he is still doing decent PR work for the Agency, though if I spin this catastrophe in the right way, it could make up for it.'

As the striker drew closer, Harry continued to plot away, his mind easily envisioning the strands around him that he could pluck and pull to weave the exact scenario he wanted, 'I wonder if this is how Genesis and Scourge feel when working with their devinities?'