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Marvel: King of The Swarm Chapter 46: A Talk With God
🕑 Added 2025-06-28 17:40:04 +0000 UTCRivulets of water poured off of Elektra's skin, following the generous curves of her body like channels and hitting the Creep-covered floor that absorbed the liquid, assimilating the substance as it did with everything else. Walking across the spongey material with her bare feet Elektra felt her being resonate with the superorganism as they both celebrated their shared origin. They had been given a purpose by a higher power who had blessed them with the tools to execute his grand vision.
Elektra's pale cheeks flushed and her heart hammered in her chest as she drew closer to her destination walking down a long cavernous tunnel that seemed to lead into the very bowels of the earth. While it had only been a few days since she had been sent on her crusade Elektra yearned to return to her god's side, as simply being in his presence was one of the greatest pleasures she had experienced.
Eventually, the tunnel leveled out and Elektra knelt as she stopped before the door to her god's inner sanctum. The rounded portal was a pulsating mass of Creep decorated with pulsating purple veins and six radial shards of an obsidian-like material that met together in the very center of the door.
'You've returned to me.'
Elektra shivered as she felt the gaze of her god sweep across her body and the immense weight of his mind press against her psyche, 'Were you successful?'
"Yes," Elektra answered breathily as she pressed her head against the floor, "As you have willed it, those who actively seek to extinguish the light, shall find themselves swallowed by the maws of your children."
'Very good,' Scourge hummed a sound echoed by the tunnel around Elektra as the door in front of her opened, the shards of obsidian folding away like the petals of a flower, 'Come, I wish to discuss the future of the Swarm with my firstborn.'
Elektra shot to her feet with glowing eyes as she strode forward and entered her god's realm. The instant she crossed the threshold the air changed, thickening with his presence as it seeped into the very walls and floor. The chamber was also warm enough to make a lesser lifeform wilt, but the temperature was negligible for Elektra and instead, she concerned herself with the majesty surrounding her.
Scourge's inner sanctum was a sanctified crucible where biology was broken, freed from the mold in order to be perfected. Elektra had no doubt that the sight would have spawned countless waking nightmares for those who didn't understand its necessity.
At the heart of the chamber, pulsing like a beating heart, was a spawning pool. However, the structure had been modified to go beyond its original purpose. Tendrils of translucent intestinal tubing spread from its golden-acid core, slithering across the black, floor-like vital capillaries. The tubes carried a thick, corrosive ichor that shimmered with phosphorescent gold as it pulsed toward the chamber's many bladder-like incubation sacks.
The sacks, slick with glistening membranes, bulged from the walls and floor like tumorous growths, their surfaces rippling from the nightmares gestating inside. Monsterous silhouettes stirred within, taloned limbs, insectoid faces, jointless arms that folded back the wrong way. Some of the sacks grew from fleshy stalks, others hung like inverted hives from the ceiling, swaying faintly as if breathing.
Emerging from the surrounding floors and walls the genetic horrors were clustered in loose groupings. Each cluster was paired with an obsidian pedestal, its surface slick and organic. Atop each pedestal rested a monitor, not made of circuits or glass, but of carved black bone, polished to a mirror sheen. Upon their surfaces danced glowing purple glyphs, arranged in fractal patterns.
Each pedestal was tuned to its grotesque purpose. Some displayed genetic blueprints, others projected slow-turning holograms of their monstrous occupants, one with six gnashing maws stacked vertically, another with membranous wings folded like ruptured skin. They were chosen mutations, tailored for specific roles, scouts, assassins, and berserkers.
However at the rear of the chamber loomed the dominant construct, a monolithic command device, towering and alive. The screen alone stretched floor to ceiling, covered in a shifting tapestry of thousands of radiant glyphs, each one blinking and changing every second in dizzying patterns of recursion and randomness. The surface was warm and slick, its edges rimmed with twitching nerve bundles and eye-like sensory nodules that tracked movement.
Floating before it, suspended by coiling tendrils that rose from the floor and wall like vines, was Scourge.
He was still, his eyes never leaving the display as his mind processed the impossible stream of data. His presence radiated command. Not like a ruler seated upon a throne, but like a god interfacing with his altar. His consciousness linked to the entire room, perhaps the entire swarm.
"What do you think?" The god asked Elektra as his hooded head glanced at her over his shoulder, "You are the first besides the Queens to step foot into this place."
"It's...magnificent," Elektra replied breathlessly as she moved closer to Scourge who detached himself from the tendrils and levitated down to hover above the floor, "But the symbols on the screens...what are they?"
"It's a language I made, specifically for genetic information from every single member of the swarm. Every mutation, protein synthesis, and cellular mitosis is recorded and stored." Scourge replied as he gestured to the massive screen, before turning to Elektra once more, "Here...let me show you."
Before Elektra could react Scourge reached out and placed the tip of his clawed finger against her forehead sending a stream of information into her mind from the Hivemind.
For a moment Elektra's body locked up as her brain formed the required neural pathways but then understanding flowed through her as she glanced at the symbols and understood them as well as her native tongue.
Every fractal contained a dizzying amount of information starting from the individual and then narrowing down to the specific organelle of the affected cell.
"Is it necessary to record so much when you can always control the outcome?" Elektra asked her eyes still lost in the flow of information.
Scourge dipped his head, "Yes, I must understand what I seek to control, the infinitely small but endless probabilities of life the very same ones that created me."
Elektra nodded in understanding taking in her god's words like scripture, "And then you experiment, taking what you've learned and bending it to your will."
"Yes, but enough about my work...I wish to hear about your crusade," Scourge informed as he stared down at Elektra through his hood, "Were my gifts sufficient?"
Elektra's heart soared as a broad smile crossed her face, "Of course, they were perfect in every-"
Scourge's aura flared pressing down on Elektra not enough to cause her any level of discomfort but enough to cause her to pause, "I have yet to achieve perfection, so do not use that word lightly. Tell me the truth."
Elektra paused for a moment longer, before nodding, "I was able to dispatch Fisk and his men without any significant complications...however my claws failed to cut through their armor. I had to compensate with psionic energy to enhance their cutting ability."
Scourge wordlessly held out his hand and Elektra stared at it for a moment before gingerly placing her hand in his, "Your fingernails are an organic alloy of crystals and metal that I derived from several animals that line their teeth with metal for protection and biting force...there are stronger metals I can use, but that would require creating new proteins capable of binding the individual atoms...and in greater number."
With a tenderness, Elektra didn't expect, Scourge turned her hand over and held out each finger inspecting with an extreme attentiveness to details that went beyond vision, "Have you tried channeling your bio-electricity into your claws, they should be able to conduct a strong enough current?"
Elektra shook her head, "No, but it worked very well with the chains in my wrists."
Scourge nodded and he dropped Elektra's hand much to her disappointment, "Good, I was able to integrate and enhance the mutagenic change to Electro's nervous system which allowed him to produce electricity. Though I believe your affinity with psionic energy will make it rather redundant in the future."
"I wouldn't abandon any of your blessings," Elektra muttered horrified.
Scourge shook his head, "That is only the nature of things, perfection but nature is stripping away all that is unnecessary. But before that can be accomplished you must try everything first, exhaust every possibility and option."
"Then I believe this would be of some use," Elektra replied as her stomach split open revealing an empty compartment with an obsidian container inside. Taking out the container Elektra shattered it in her grasp revealing a heart inside.
However, the heart was far larger and covered in a dense layer of muscle. Taking the organ, Scourge floated over and tossed it into the spawning pool sending golden vapor into the air.
Scourge then looked over as the codex highlighted a brand new set of sigils which, "How fascinating, it seems his body converted all his calories into muscle instead of fat."
Scourge turned back to Elektra his satisfaction evident, "You've done well Elektra, this is a very valuable mutation and I assure you it won't go to waste."
