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Marvel: King of The Swarm Chapter 76: War of The Depths: Part Two
🕑 Added 2025-07-23 17:57:42 +0000 UTCElektra's eyes were glowing as she stared at the ancient coral-encrusted ruins that the natives had referred to as a Citadel. Inside, she could see their life signatures huddled together waiting to be reaped and assimilated. But beyond sight, Elektra could feel their fear, their unguarded minds practically screaming out in terror as they lived through the worst day of their lives.
Holding out her hands, Elektra closed her eyes and focused on the reservoir of mental energy stored in her mind. As she did, the scales across Elektra's forehead tore apart as her third eye revealed itself with a pupil, so it looked like a massive black opal, 'Hear me now, inhabitants of the deep, I am Elektra, Voice of Scourge, father of the Swarm of Unending Maws. I come bearing a message, an offering. Your way of life is over; however, your life does not have to end. Open yourselves and submit to the enlightenment of perfection and evolution at the hands of Scourge. The strength of the Swarm will become yours and your strength will become the Swarm's.'
Projecting her voice telepathically, Elektra spoke to those in the Citadel as if she were physically amongst them. However, her voice was a Trojan horse, carrying an insidious siren call to those who listened too closely or found themselves persuaded by Elektra's honeyed tone.
But as Elektra poured her mental energy into the telepathic broadcast, a frown marred her otherwise flawless features. As she brushed against the minds of the natives trying to influence them, she found that each one, without fail, managed to absorb her mental energy resisting its effects.
'None of them displayed any kind of psionic capabilities during the ambush...how is it that they have an innate resistance to mental influence?' Storing the discovery away for later, Elektra abandoned her attempts at mind control and instead relied on simple negotiation: 'You have five minutes to decide your fate. Choose wisely, or this Citadel will become a tomb.'
Dropping her hands and opening her eyes, Elektra looked around at the assembled Swarm. They were nearly a hundred strong, a small force dispatched to establish a foothold in the underwater continent. While they could have flooded the land with several thousand from the primary hive, the purpose of the invasion was to simulate how the Swarm would invade other worlds in the future, relying on the ability to amass a fighting force quickly. Like a bacterium, it only took a single Broodmother establishing a nest to cause a deadly infection that would spread and corrupt the host. It was also the reason why a majority of their forces consisted of drones, though to many of the lifeforms on the planet, a single drone would have been an apex predator with a long eel-like tail ending in a sail-like fin, attached to a chitinous carapace, with three pairs of segmented legs allowing them to crawl across the ocean floor and a pair of smaller but dexterous bladed appendages used in the Drones' primary work of processing biomass and expanding the nest.
However, Elektra couldn't help but believe that the native population might prove more of a threat than she had initially thought. 'Their ability to resist my temptation...is quite odd. Even the children and babes seemed to unknowingly absorb my mental energy, though they had no way of utilizing it. My lord was right to request live subjects for study. If the natives have latent psionic powers, it could be a valuable addition to the Hivemind.'
Imagining her lord's approval after sharing her discovery, Elektra smiled, revealing needle-sharp teeth, and had her body not been covered in scales, a deep blush would have spread across her face, 'I wonder if he will praise me, or perhaps even gift me with a mutation, using my body as he pleases to carry out his search of perfection.'
A deranged look made Elektra's eyes glow, and the ocular orb on her forehead pulsed, sending out a wave of psionic energy that filtered through the gathered Swarm until she found the variant she was searching for.
From the mass of Drones, a hulking shape emerged, its long sinuous tail whipping around behind it. However, its primary source of propulsion came from the vent-like openings in its heavily armored body, which siphoned in water before forcing it out in a jet stream, creating the powerful propulsion required to move its massive body equipped with four muscular limbs, each sporting powerful, razor-sharp pincers with spear-like points. The aptly named Charger variant lacked mobility and limited intelligence, but excelled at being a frontline unit for one reason in particular.
As the ten-foot-long swarmling came to float beside her, Elektra extended a single clawed finger to point at the opening of the citadel, which had been blocked off by a large stone slab, 'Breach.'
Receiving the mental command, the Charger snapped its pincers excitedly as its entire body started to vibrate and hum like a motor, and the thick shell across its back segmented and expanded. Floating away, Elektra watched as the water around the Charger was funneled in through the vents in its back. Pressure continued to build, and so did the Charger, until it was nearly doubled in size, revealing massive sacs built underneath its skin to store the immense volumes of water it had absorbed.
Then, when it seemed as if the Charger was about to explode, the direction of the siphon suddenly reversed, sending all the pressurized water shooting back out through the very vents it came through. In an instant, the Charger went from standing still to torpedoing through the water as it wedged all of its pincers together, forming one massive spearhead.
Even underwater, the impact as the Charger slammed into the stone slab was deafening, shattering the dense marble and sending deep fractures tendriling across the entire citadel, collapsing columns and walls. Seeing the openings and hearing the terrified screams, the drones needed no more incentive and swarmed, flooding into the building ready to rend flesh from limbs to feed their expectant broodmother.
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Looking up from his work, as the door to his temporary laboratory opened, Scourge's eyes landed on Elektra, who bowed her head in deference, 'The last of the natives have been dealt my lord, and I've brought the subjects you requested.'
The five subjects Elektra references were currently restrained by her tentacles, though they wouldn't be able to move had they been free, as Scourge noted the needle-like puncture marks across their bodies, 'You've used my gifts well, Elektra, utilizing the paralytic to capture them with minimal trauma was a wise choice.'
A wide smile spread across Elektra's face as Scourge praised her, 'Thank you, my lord, I always wish to serve you to the best of my abilities. I also made a noteworthy discovery about the natives.'
'Oh, do tell,' Scourge prompted as he moved behind Elektra, running a hand along her tentacle, causing a shiver to run through her entire body.
'I...attempted to use a form of mind control on those hiding within the Citadel, but found that it was ineffective. It seems the natives possess some innate ability to absorb psychic energy. Even stranger, they seemed completely unaware of it.' Elektra reported her voice almost failing her as she surrendered her captives to Scourge, who began moving them through the underwater laboratory with his psionics.
'That is rather fascinating, and yet another anomaly within their evolutionary history.' Scourge mused while placing the captives against the wall where they were quickly bound by the creep that had already grown to cover most of the cavern, 'Though with the first pieces of biomass derived from the natives being assimilated in the spawning pool, I believe I've found the reason for their absorption, but also their sudden deviation from homosapiens.'
'Is it something of use?' Elektra asked eagerly to hear what her lord had to say.
'I am not entirely sure as of now,' Scourge replied as a thin needle-like tendril emerged from his back and shot forward, stabbing into the neck of one of the captives. 'But their DNA shows signs of radiation fragmentation, but with none of the adverse side effects I would expect of such extensive damage, if it can even be called damage at this stage.'
Elektra frowned, 'We haven't encountered any radioactive isotopes in the vicinity. Is it possible that the damage is the result of something else?'
'The possibility always exists,' Scourge replied sagely while withdrawing his needle-like tendril from the captive's neck, which was now inflated with blood, 'But I can only base my actions on what I do know, not what I speculate.'
The tendril slithered through the air and injected a dose of blood into several fluid-filled sacs attached the the wall, which started to react in various ways, some causing the blood to become transparent while others seemed to begin replicating the red fluid. 'First, I need to establish that the natives are indeed descendants of humans and determine their genealogy to confirm their ancestry. I believe that their secrets lie in their history, something that they may not even remember.'
Elektra tried to understand her god's perspective but found it eluded her, though she should not have been surprised, 'What do you wish for us to do?'
'What I designed you to do,' Scourge replied as his hooded visage glanced down at Elektra, 'Spread my doctrine of evolution, and Swarm.'
