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Marvel: King of The Swarm Chapter 77: Masks Off (I)
🕑 Added 2025-07-24 05:50:43 +0000 UTC"I don't even know why I bother asking, but are you 100% sure that you want to go through with the surgery. Once you do this, there's no going back." Harry cautioned as he held out his hands, letting a robotic assistant slide on a pair of thick surgical gloves before turning around and letting the dexterous mechanical limbs tie the laces of his apron into a knot.
"I made up my mind the night I called you Harry," MJ replied, lying on her back in the Cradle, but this time, instead of being encapsulated, she was left exposed with the Cradle's lid fully retracted and its walls lowered. "Now just try not to kill me while I'm under."
When Harry had said that the cradle was capable of carrying out 99.9% of all surgeries, the last 0.01% were the final phases of augmentation. The last five surgeries existed in Harry's mind alone, and he would be the only doctor capable of performing them. There was no need for a surgical team either, as the cradle was capable of carrying out any task Harry directed it to execute.
"I could do these surgeries with my eyes closed if I wanted to," Harry muttered as he looked over the tools arranged on the surgical tray, "You have nothing to worry about."
"That's big talk for someone who just got their MD a week ago," MJ muttered before glancing at Harry and hesitating for a moment, "But say by some miracle I manage to survive...would you want to go out sometime?"
Harry stared back at MJ before chuckling and shaking his head. "So you only managed to work up the courage to ask me out when you think there's a chance I might kill you."
MJ's face blushed, and she looked away. "S-shut up, it's just because I got so tired of you sneaking glances at me; it was so pathetic."
"Uh-huh," Harry replied unconvinced as he moved over to MJ's side and stared down at her. "Well, at least I have some extra encouragement for the surgery."
"R-really?" MJ asked her mask of confidence cracking further as she tried to avoid the heat Harry's gaze ignited across her body, 'God, why did I do this when I'm in a freaking hospital gown?!'
"Well, I can't see you in a cocktail dress and take you out to dinner if you're dead now, can I?" Harry asked rhetorically, as he reached down and grabbed a breathing mask, "Now, I want you to take a deep breath and count down from ten."
MJ glared at him, but her response was muffled as Harry fixed the mask over her mouth and nose. A second later, her eyes were fluttering as she slowly drifted into unconsciousness.
'Well that trick won't work after I'm done,' Harry thought as he removed the mask from MJ's face and gingerly adjusted her arms so they were down by her sides. "Cradle push Isoflurane, Sevoflurane, Nitrous oxide, for general anesthesia and adjust levels for enhanced individual."
'Pushing general anesthesia, and monitoring patients' vitals, you are clear to begin the procedure, Dr. Osborn.'
---
Maria was nervous, a feeling she hadn't experienced in a while. It wasn't just the slight sweating of her palms or the way her heart was audible in her ears; it was the mystery of everything. It was one of the few times that she had disagreed with Fury's actions. 'I understand why he wants to make a move on Osborn, try and curtail him before he can pick up any more steam, but there are just too many unanswered questions.'
But regardless of her feelings, Maria was a soldier first and foremost, and she would follow orders no matter what. Just as she steeled her resolve, the door next to her opened and Harry stumbled out delirious and unsteady on his feet. "Cradle initiate lockdown until patient regains consciousness."
'Initiating Lockdown.'
The door to the operating room closed behind Harry with a hiss and a loud series of thuds from the three-inch deadbolts sliding into place.
"Someone tell me what day it is," Harry muttered as he rubbed his eyes and yawned, looking like he was one second away from falling asleep while standing up.
"You've been in surgery for twenty-seven hours," Madison replied as Harry cracked his neck. "Judging by your lackadaisical attitude, can I assume that the surgery was a success and you haven't just killed your childhood friend and wasted several hundred million dollars of investment?"
Harry sighed, "Yes, she's alive, and the surgery went perfectly. Once she wakes up, we'll have our first Ascedant, so have the PR team start coming up with announcement posts and contact the Chief of NYPD and tell him we want Crimson to work in tandem with his officers to strike against the rampant organized crime in the city."
"Shouldn't that be addressed to the mayor?" Madison asked as she and Harry began walking towards the elevators.
"No, because then I would be supporting my father's opponent, and if he finds out, he'll try to kill me, and I can't have him going to jail now; it's not on my vision board," Harry muttered lightening the very real possibility with a joke, "All I want to do is go up to my office grab my phone and a few other things and then sleep for the rest of the week."
"Well, I've already cleared your schedule for the next two days, so feel free," Madison replied, earning a grateful smile from Harry. "You know I don't say this often enough, but thank you. Ascend wouldn't be half of what it is if I couldn't rely on your consistent forethought and management."
Madison paused for a moment before smiling politely, "I'm just doing my job, Harry, same as you and everyone else."
"Yeah, but not everyone else would trust an eighteen-year-old who says they want to protect the world by cooking up a bunch of superheroes in a basement," Harry muttered, his words slurred slightly as he stifled a yawn.
After a long elevator ride, Harry reached his office, shambling into the room and over to his desk. Rumaging through the drawers, a frown marred Harry's face, "I swear I put it in here to charge before the-"
Harry cut himself off as he reached up and grabbed at his neck, as a sharp, painful pinch made his entire body tense up. With a hiss of pain, Harry pulled out the slim metal dart that a stuck him, "W-what the hell?"
"I'm sorry, Harry," Maria apologized as she stepped into the room and closed the door behind her, "For what it's worth, I think your vision had merit, but your brilliance is too much for the world right now."
Harry stumbled unsteadily on his feet as his vision swam, "M-madison w-what are you doing?"
"My job, Harry," Maria replied, impassively watching as Harry slowly lost control of her motor functions and slumped into his chair, just barely managing to catch himself in time from hitting the floor. "I know it hurts now, but luckily, you won't remember any of this by the end of this ordeal. For you, it will just be like you took a long nap after your surgery."
Struggling to pick up his head, Harry stared at Maria with a betrayed and confused look in his eye, "T-this isn't y-you M-madison...w-whose forcing you to do this? W-we c-can fight them...I-I can...help..."
Harry's voice trailed off as he finally lost his fight against the powerful necrotic. Staring at his unconscious body, Maria let out a long, regretful sigh before reaching into her pocket and pulling out a phone.
Dialing the only number saved in the contacts, the call was immediately accepted. "This is Special Agent Hill. I've secured the target in the office, send in transportatio-"
Before Maria could finish her sentence, there was a loud bang as the office door flew open and the black steel-toed boot responsible for kicking it open stepped into the room.
In an instant, Maria's hand shot down reaching behind her back for the gun holstered in her waistband band only for a silenced round to slam into her chest, nearly knocking her off her feet.
The round hit her dead center and would have turned Maria's heart into minced meat if not for the bulletproof paneling built into her suit.
Falling to one knee, Marria wrapped her hand around her pistol and managed to quickly draw her gun. Though before she could pull the trigger, a second silenced shot rang through the air, and Maria's forehead blossomed with a shower of blood.
A nondescript man dressed in a janitor's uniform stepped over Maria's cooling body and picked Harry up like he was dead weight. Carrying him out into the hallway, the kidnapper stuffed Harry into the trash bag of his shopping cart before affixing a false top littered with trash.
Reaching under the cart, the man pulled out a silver briefcase with a scrolling combination lock. Putting in the code 1500, the man slid the briefcase into the office before closing and locking the door.
Then, without a care in the world, man wheeled the cart down and entered the elevator, swiping a stolen ID and gaining access to the maintenance level.
Once the elevator let out, the man picked up the garbage bag from the cart and carried it over to a waiting unlicensed car. After throwing the bag into the trunk, the man got behind the wheel and started the car while making a call, "Target lifted and packaged delivered. Meeting at rendezvous point in twenty minutes."
Not even waiting for a response, the man broke the burner phone in half before tossing the discarded pieces out the window.
Pulling out onto the street, the man made it halfway down the street before casually glancing at his watch. At the exact moment, a loud explosion rang through the air as a fireball blossomed out of the side of Oscorp Tower.
The man shrugged and used the window to cut through traffic as people stopped and stared back at the fireball.
Meanwhile, in the trunk, Harry was contemplating everything that had just happened, 'Wel,l this certainly complicates things."
