Marvel: Empire of Power-Chapter 97: Californian Harvest, a Digital Demon, and a Captain’s Crossroads

The "Harvest Prime" facility in central California was Senator Brandt's desperate, megalomaniacal attempt to reclaim his shattered super-soldier ambitions. Shielded by layers of corporate obfuscation, private military contractors, and the sheer vastness of American agricultural heartland, it was a viper's nest of illicit research and morally bankrupt science, with the digitized ghost of Arnim Zola as its guiding intelligence. Elias Thorne knew its neutralization was not just strategically necessary to prevent a rogue American superhuman faction, but also a prime opportunity to finally eradicate Zola's persistent technological malevolence and acquire his latest, undoubtedly dangerous, research.

This operation required a delicate balance of overwhelming force and surgical precision. Elias couldn't afford a pitched battle that would draw unwanted attention from mainstream US military or the increasingly vigilant SSR under Peggy Carter. He needed a ghost operation, decisive and untraceable.

He decided against deploying his newly minted True Legionnaires (Marcus, David, Dubois, and Macgregor) for the initial breach. While undeniably powerful, their golden-eyed, demigod-like presence was too distinctive, too likely to raise alarms if even a single operative escaped to tell the tale. Instead, the spearhead would be his "Adamantium Guard Alpha Squad" – Thomas MacIntyre leading the remaining Feral Legionnaire Hybrids, Beaulieu and Lemaire, along with Samuel Miller (whose "Trauma Variant" now made him arguably the most resilient of the group) and, crucially, Logan. This team specialized in brutal, efficient close-quarters neutralization and had experience operating in civilian-adjacent environments. Their more primal, less "perfected" superhuman nature could, if necessary, be attributed to bizarre mutations or rogue experiments rather than a cohesive, engineered force. O'Malley would provide remote technical support and exfiltration coordination from a mobile command unit disguised as a "Blackwood Agricultural Survey" vehicle.

The objective was multi-fold:

Infiltrate Harvest Prime.Locate and neutralize Arnim Zola's primary consciousness core and destroy his Gespenst Kommando drone network.Eliminate Senator Brandt and his key scientific personnel.Secure all research data, stable serum samples, and any viable "enhanced" subjects (for study or Shard harvesting).Sanitize the facility, making it appear as a catastrophic industrial accident.

Anya Petrova, through her "Miss Sharma" persona, subtly fed intelligence to Peggy Carter and the SSR regarding "anomalous energy signatures and suspected unauthorized biological research" in central California, deliberately vague enough not to pinpoint Harvest Prime directly but sufficient to draw SSR resources towards the general area, creating a potential (and useful) secondary layer of chaos and misdirection if Elias's primary operation encountered unforeseen complications.

Dr. Finch, from Montreal, prepared a targeted [Necro-Psionic Dampening Ritual]. He wouldn't attempt a full "Override Charon" like in Nevada (Zola would likely have countermeasures now), but a sustained, low-level necrotic energy field directed at Harvest Prime, designed to subtly degrade complex electronics, interfere with data transmissions, and induce a pervasive sense of unease and paranoia amongst the facility's human staff, hopefully hampering their response times and coordination.

The assault began under the cover of a seemingly ordinary Californian night. The Adamantium Guard, utilizing O'Malley's advanced infiltration gear (including personal cloaking tech derived from Zola's own earlier research), bypassed Brandt's perimeter security of mercenaries and automated sensors with relative ease. Logan's senses, amplified by his renewed bond with Elias, were unerring in guiding them through the facility's weak points.

Finch's ritual, miles away but psychically linked to small, consecrated artifacts Miller had planted near the facility's perimeter, began its insidious work. Lights flickered within Harvest Prime. Data streams corrupted. Security personnel reported feeling inexplicably cold, seeing shadows in their peripheral vision, their comms crackling with strange whispers. The System confirmed: [NECRO-PSIONIC FIELD ACTIVE – TARGET FACILITY (HARVEST PRIME). LOW-LEVEL ELECTRONIC DISRUPTION/PSYCHOLOGICAL SUBVERSION DETECTED. EFFECTIVENESS: MODERATE.]

Inside, the Adamantium Guard moved with silent, brutal efficiency. Thomas MacIntyre, his Barbarian core augmented by Elias's strategic guidance (relayed via neural-implant comms O'Malley had perfected), directed his team. Lemaire and Beaulieu, their Feral Legionnaire senses heightened, silently eliminated internal guard patrols, their bone claws swift and silent. Miller, a grim, unstoppable force, smashed through reinforced doors leading to the experimental subject containment areas. What they found there was horrific: dozens of human subjects in various stages of grotesque, unstable transformation – victims of Brandt's desperation and Zola's amoral science. Most were mindless, rage-filled berserkers, easily dispatched, but their suffering was a stark testament to Brandt's depravity. [Unstable "Brandt Variant" Super-Soldiers Neutralized. Prime Essence Shard Echoes Acquired: +0.8 (cumulative from multiple subjects – tainted/degraded but quantifiable). Total Shards: 5.1 + 0.8 = 5.9/???]

Logan, however, peeled off from the main assault team, his senses locked onto a different scent, a different thrum of power: Arnim Zola's core consciousness unit, hidden deep within a heavily shielded cybernetics lab, surrounded by his newest generation of Gespenst Kommando drones – faster, more heavily armed, and disturbingly, some now incorporating organic components, crude bio-mechanical hybrids.

The confrontation between Logan and Zola's new drone swarm was a desperate, swirling melee. Logan, a whirlwind of adamantium, tore through the drones, but they were numerous, their coordinated attacks relentless. Zola's digitized voice cackled through hidden speakers, "You cannot stop progress, Wolverine! Brandt provides the resources, I provide the genius! Together, we shall create an America answera—!"

His monologue was cut short as Miller, having dealt with the last of the human experiments, arrived like an avenging spirit, his bone claws tearing through the drone ranks from behind, his trauma-forged resilience shrugging off their energy blasts. With Miller creating an opening, Logan finally reached Zola's heavily armored central processing core – a pulsating, biomechanical brain suspended in a nutrient bath. This time, Logan didn't hesitate. He plunged his claws deep into the core, shredding circuits, rupturing bio-tanks, until Zola's digitized screams faded into electronic silence.

[ARNIM ZOLA (PRIMARY CONSCIOUSNESS CORE V.3 – BIO-DIGITAL HYBRID) TERMINATED. GESPENST KOMMANDO NETWORK OFFLINE. Prime Essence Shard Acquired: +1.5 (from Zola's unique cybernetic/AI/residual Hydra energy matrix). Total Shards: 5.9 + 1.5 = 7.4/???]

Meanwhile, Thomas MacIntyre and the rest of the Adamantium Guard cornered Senator Brandt in his opulent, panic-room-equipped command center. Brandt, a portly, sweating man whose arrogance had curdled into terror, tried to activate a facility-wide nerve gas dispersal. Lemaire, anticipating such a move, had already disabled the system with a precisely aimed concussive energy pulse. Dubois simply ripped the reinforced door off Brandt's panic room.

"My... my government will hear of this!" Brandt blustered, trying to shield himself behind a terrified aide.

Thomas MacIntyre fixed him with a stare as cold and unforgiving as a Canadian winter. "Your government, Senator, already suspects your... extracurricular activities. Consider your project... permanently audited." Thomas didn't kill Brandt. Elias wanted him alive, discredited, a political pariah whose subsequent "confessions" (carefully guided by Anya's planted evidence and some "persuasion" from certain Thorne's Guard members skilled in such arts) would serve as a powerful warning to other rogue elements within the US establishment. Brandt was a loose end to be tied up neatly, not cut.

With Zola gone, Brandt captured, and the research data/serum samples secured by O'Malley, Thomas gave the signal. O'Malley's strategically placed charges detonated, not in a single, massive explosion, but in a series of controlled implosions designed to mimic a catastrophic structural failure combined with a chemical fire. Harvest Prime began to collapse in on itself, a funeral pyre for Brandt's ambition and Zola's tainted legacy.

Elias's team exfiltrated flawlessly as the first confused and misdirected local fire departments began to arrive, soon to be superseded by a very interested, and very grateful for "anonymous tips," SSR task force led by a grimly satisfied Peggy Carter. Carter would find the ruins of a dangerous black site, evidence of Brandt's treason, but no trace of "Mr. Blanchard's" operatives, nor the true extent of Zola's horrifying work (Elias ensured the most damning research was "lost" in the fire, while securing copies for himself).

[US ROGUE SUPER-SOLDIER PROGRAM "HARVEST PRIME" NEUTRALIZED. SENATOR BRANDT DISCREDITED/CONTAINED. ALL KEY OBJECTIVES ACHIEVED.]

Elias Thorne, from his Montreal sanctum, felt the ripples of this victory. He had crippled a dangerous domestic American threat, permanently silenced Arnim Zola (he hoped), acquired more Shards (now at a formidable [7.4]), and subtly enhanced his leverage within the Allied intelligence community. The cost: minimal asset wear, and another layer of darkness added to his soul.

But the whispers Anya was now relaying from Washington were even more unsettling. Captain America, deeply affected by his near-death experience and his re-emergence into a morally compromised Cold War world, was becoming increasingly disillusioned with the OSS/SSR's methods. He was asking hard questions, questioning orders, and showing a dangerous inclination towards independent action. He had even, Anya reported, begun his own discreet inquiries into the shadowy "Mr. Blanchard" and the strange, "clawed" operatives who seemed to appear at the periphery of so many critical events.

Captain America was no longer just a symbol or a potential asset. He was becoming a complication, a moral compass whose needle might soon point directly, and accusingly, at Elias Thorne himself. The paths of the shadow king and the star-spangled man were drawing inexorably, dangerously, closer.