Post by jordan on Jan 26, 2015 14:13:30 GMT -5
All Star Marvel Proudly Presents
Lucifer, the Hood, Michael Morbius & Doctor Strange
In
Dark City
Chapter VI
On the Other End of the Line
By Jordan
*
Moments After the Explosion, Somewhere in the Darkness...
"W-where am I?" Parker's voice calls out, cold and alone, searching for sound in the endless darkness. His pale green eyes adjusted to the dim light, or lack thereof. His sweaty palms reach out in search of something in nothing, but he can't find it. He comes to his legs, his knees shaking, threatening to buckle. "Is anyone there? Hello?" Through the clouds of black, Parker sees a faint, solid light.
He shifts his weight towards the light, his eyes focused on the forever beyond. His mouth hangs open, a gentle ringing in his ears. Parker strikes out with his right leg, planting it firmly about a foot in front of his body. A loud clang echoes through the empty halls of wherever he is. Suddenly, beneath his foot, he sees something--carpet?
A dark, rosey carpet, deep and soft. His foot sinks inches in, but still makes a sound. But, despite the intricate design--a portrait painting a battle between a dragon and an army--the carpet has something even more baffling about it. As Parker's legs continue to sink into the soft materials, his mind focuses only on how wet the carpet is.
He lifts his left leg and attempts to step forward once more, but he finds himself caught in the carpet heading through nothing. He can't move. He's bound, without any idea where he is and even less of who he is. From behind him, he hears a voice--familiar and soothing, but jagged and quiet.
"Parker, do not move. Do not turn around, do not look away from the light." The voice, so suave and pleasuring, breaks through the ringing in his ears. He must return to his mentor and his father, Lucifer. He must turn around and he must find him. He tugs and he pulls at his feet against the carpet until, finally, his left leg breaks loose and he pivots on his right to turn his body towards the voice of Lucifer.
He stands still, struck with confusion and an overwhelming sadness. His left leg drops back into the carpet as, standing in front of him, he finds not the body of his mentor, but instead a tall man, face covered by shadows, his head shielded by a fedora. A thick, navy-blue suit covers his body, pink pinstripes running down every side.
"How does it feel, Parker?" The mans peaks, his voice raspy, still playing off as Lucifer's, but with a sinister quality to it.
"Who are you?! Where am I?" Parker's words lash out, spit flying from his tongue with every syllable. His eyes focus on the man's shadowed face, but he can't make out a single mark. Who is this man? And why does he have Lucifer's voice?
"Do you know what you are? Do you know who you are?" Parker feels the rage boiling inside of him, the hatred and the anger coming through his veins to his heart, to his fingers and his toes and every extremity in his whole body. The zipper on his hoodie slowly falls as his eyes shift from a pale green to a deep green to a bloody, hungry red. His teeth sharpen to a dangerous, frightening point. His swirling tattoo shines bright.
"Who are you?!" He hollers again, attempting to break free of the carpet that binds him. "Who are you?! Who are you?! Who are you?!" Suddenly, a long, wispy, black hand lashes out and strikes him across the face.
"Shut up boy!" The man screams, the dark world reverberating with the sound of his voice. In the blink of an eye, the man stands just inches from Parker, his cold, putrid breath exuding from his lips, lapping across Parker's face like gentle waves of some ungodly thing. "What has Lucifer done to you, my boy?" His fingers close slowly around Parker's chin. Cold, slimy, bony and slim, his fingers feel like strands of seaweed strangling him slowly.
"W-what do you mean?" The anger that once overwhelmed Parker disappears in almost an instance, replaced by something far worse--fear. His heart beat slows, his eyes dilate, his breath becomes putrid with fear. Suddenly, the dim silence of the dark world is broken with a high-pitched, blood curdling cackle. Parker cringes, his bloodthirsty red eyes changing back to a deep, dark green.
"You have no idea, do you, boy?" A silence follows these words as the mystery thickens in Parker's brain. What could he mean? What did Lucifer do?
"Well, boy, do me a favor. Tell you buddy 'hi' for me."
"W-who are you?" A large, pearly white grin breaks across the man's face, the only feature distinguishable under the shadows.
"You can call me Cthon." Another powerful strike across Parker's face and everything goes black.
*
Many, Many Years Ago...
Her deep blue glint with a furious red, sparkling with the reflection of the dark stone beneath her. The light from the chandelier above pulsates from the stone, glimming and glittering across the landscape of the large dinning room. For seven years, Michelle Morbius has dedicated her life to finding this stone. After long, hard hours and impossible work, she has finally found it.
Her hands near the shinning surface, but a voice in her head hollers for her to stop. She's never touched it with her bare hands, not even when she pulled it from the rubble of the collapsed mine in Colorado. She had always been warned not to touch it. But why? No one knows what it does, because no one had ever found it before.
"It's...beautiful..." Her co-worker, Rob Maxwell, says in a breathless voice, his eyes focused intently on the object on the table. He reaches out for it, but Michelle slaps his hand away.
"Don't touch it!" She screams, venom oozing from every letter in ever word she speaks. Only she can touch it. It's her right. It's her destiny. She feels the warm breath of her husband in her ear, speaking softly to her.
"Put your hands around it, my love. Take it into yourself and join me on a higher plane." The soft embrace of his hand around her shoulders allows her to calm herself. She hadn't felt her husband's sweet touch since he had left for Washington DC just two days ago. He gives a speech there today. She's so proud.
She reaches out, her closing in around the smooth, perfect stone. Her blue eyes swirling with wisps of red. "Be careful, Michelle." Rob says, worry overcoming his smallish stature. It's okay, she thinks, Michael is standing behind her. Michael is always behind her. She feels the warm glow of the stone sink into her skin, the warm breath of her husband in her ears turns cold, her red eyes sparkle with blue and suddenly nothing is right. Michael is in Washington DC. He will be until tomorrow night and she never heard the door open. That means...
"That's right, Michelle, you are one step closer." The cold breath hisses out like an air leak in a flat tire. The warm, comforting grasp turns clammy and cold, boney and strong. She tries to take her hands from the stone, but she can't. She's stuck. Tears stream from her eyes as she turns to Rob.
"Help! Help me, please!" She screams, the venom no longer present in her voice. Rob jumps into action, his hands wrapping around her shoulders, trying to shake her loose of the stone. But as his hand lands on her left shoulder he feels something clammy and cold, something that shouldn't be there, something that he cannot see. His head turns to the left a figure stands there, its face contorted, scaled, its eyes a dark, artificial red--its tongue long and curling, like a snake's, making its way outwards towards Rob. The long tongue wraps around his throat and twists, and Rob's lifeless body falls motionless to the ground. "W-why are you doing this..." Michelle cries out, streams of tears falling from her eyes.
"Because I want freedom, young woman, and you are my conduit." She turns her head to see a tall, broad man, his face shrouded in shadows beneath a fedora, his body clothed in a navy-blue suit with pink pin-stripes running down the entirety of the suit.
"W-who are you?!" She screams, her voice echoing off the tall walls of her lovely home. But as soon as she screams out, the man disappears, and her hands come free from the stone, a loud "whooshing" noise exuding from the gem. She pulls her phone from her pocket and dials her husband, Michael Morbius. She prays to herself "Please pick up. Please. I just want to her your voice. Your lovely voice." Suddenly, the ringing stops and she hears him.
"Hey there, gorgeous, you get to see my speech?" His voice is smug and confident, and tears stream even harder down her face. She wants to be in his arms, but he's so far away and she may never feel that again. The whooshing sound grows louder with every passing second. "Babe?" She remembers now. Her life is in danger and she must tell him what's going on. Maybe he can save her...maybe...
“Michael. Michael!” Her voice comes out in a panic, screeching loud, she can hear it 's echo in her own phone.
“Michelle, I’m here. What is it?” His voice, so soothing. She can't leave him. She never can.
“There’s…there’s this black stone, we found it on the expedition. We didn’t know what it was, so we brought it back to study. B-but then…then something started happening. This…this man started to appear. H-he was wearing this suit. And th-then he was gone. And it got cold and—" Suddenly, in front her, the man reappears, his eyes a stark red, the only feature able to be made out on his shadowed face. She can't let Michael come back to this. He can never come back to this. "Oh my God…he’s back. Michael, I love you. Please…don’t come home. Don’t!” She lets out a bone-jerking scream and drops the phone, watching it shatter as it hits the ground. She feels the warmth of the stone return to her. "P-please, stay away."
"Don't fight it, Michelle. Let it inside of you, let in engulf you. Become one with your destiny." His breath is warm once more, flowing into her ear, feeling like that of her love. It ends here, and she'd rather go by her own choice, with the feeling of love within her, than be killed by this man. She grasps the stone and a fire shoots through her. Her skin peels from her body, her muscles and her veins showing red, her hair doused with her own blood streaming from her scalp, the stone plunging itself into her chest, carvings scrapping across her body, her screams of agony go unheard. When it is all over, she kneels upon the ground, naked and bloody.
"Who are you?" The man in the suit and fedora asks, his voice light and inviting.
"I am...Michelle Morbius..." She says, using up what little energy she had remaining in her body. A grimace breaks across the man's face, his entire person becoming more visible in her new eyes.
"No, no, that just won't do."
"That...that is my name..." the man walks across the small distance and rests his hand on her head, dark energy flowing from him to her.
"From now on, your name is Mephisto, the Dark. You work for me now."
"And if I work for you, who are you?"
"Cthon. The Great."
*
A Strange Dimension, Very Unlike Our Own...
"N-no...no...NO!" Morbius screams, his voice echoing in the endless swirls of color and monsters. "That can't be right!" He yearns for the power that the stone gave him as the anger boils inside of him. He aches to be able to rip out Strange's heart and feed it to him. He wishes for the ability to curse this liar to hell. "Tell me the truth!" Morbius leaps at Strange, his hands outstretched, his eyes covered in anger and hatred. With a simple wave of his hand, Strange flings him aside.
"Listen, Morbius, what I've shown you is the truth. Your wife was overtaken by the same darkness that threatened to overtake you, and now she is an agent of that darkness." The anger flees Morbius' eyes as he digests this information.
"Where is she? If she's still out there that means we can still save--"
"Stop right there, Michael. It may have only be years to us, but it has been centuries to her. She has traveled through time and dimensions, doing the deeds of the Dark One. She has been warped beyond the woman that you once knew. Saving her may, at best, be a dream." Strange's words silently echo around, ringing in Morbius' ears. His lip trembles as tears threaten to stream down his face.
"Is there...is there any way?" Strange nods his head, but the silence prevails. Morbius is afraid to ask.
"We must exorcise her demons, Morbius. We must pull the stone that resides with her out of her body, and we must seal it away as we have this one."
"How do we do that?"
"I am not strong enough, Michael. I will require the help of an old..acquaintance."
*
Miles Away, in a Secret Hideout Across Town
Don Fortunato sits still, his legs crossed and his eyes focused out the large vanity window behind his desk. His jet-black hair slicked back, his lake-blue eyes starring across the great landscape of New York: skyscrapers reaching up into the sky, lights flashing from building to building, heroes flying across the night sky. This isn't the city that Don established himself in, but it is the city he finds himself living in.
"Hello, Don." The slick, slimy voice seeps into his conciseness. He feels the blood red eyes baring down on him and the warm, blood stained breath on the back of his neck.
"You said I have a week. That week isn't up yet." Don words come out terse, full of annoyance. Why is Mephisto back? His time isn't up yet, Mephisto shouldn't be here.
"I know it hasn't been the week yet, Don, that isn't why I'm here though."
"Then why are you here?"
"It's simple really, isn't it?" Mephisto's words are cold and hit hard on Don's neck as he refuses to turn around and acknowledge the monster.
"No, I don't suppose it is." Don flinches as Mephisto releases a blood curdling cackle, the sound of chalk scraping against a board exudes from Mephisto's mouth pouring into Don's ears.
"I'm here because I need services." Don's eyes light up as he stares out the large window, Mephisto's words ringing pleasurably in his ears. Finally, Don turns his swivel chair around and stares into the bloody eyes of Mephisto.
"I don't have many contracts left right now. You might need to buy several smaller ones to get adequate help."
"Oh, don't be silly Don. I want the best contract money can buy--you."
TO BE CONTINUED
Lucifer, the Hood, Michael Morbius & Doctor Strange
In
Dark City
Chapter VI
On the Other End of the Line
By Jordan
*
Moments After the Explosion, Somewhere in the Darkness...
"W-where am I?" Parker's voice calls out, cold and alone, searching for sound in the endless darkness. His pale green eyes adjusted to the dim light, or lack thereof. His sweaty palms reach out in search of something in nothing, but he can't find it. He comes to his legs, his knees shaking, threatening to buckle. "Is anyone there? Hello?" Through the clouds of black, Parker sees a faint, solid light.
He shifts his weight towards the light, his eyes focused on the forever beyond. His mouth hangs open, a gentle ringing in his ears. Parker strikes out with his right leg, planting it firmly about a foot in front of his body. A loud clang echoes through the empty halls of wherever he is. Suddenly, beneath his foot, he sees something--carpet?
A dark, rosey carpet, deep and soft. His foot sinks inches in, but still makes a sound. But, despite the intricate design--a portrait painting a battle between a dragon and an army--the carpet has something even more baffling about it. As Parker's legs continue to sink into the soft materials, his mind focuses only on how wet the carpet is.
He lifts his left leg and attempts to step forward once more, but he finds himself caught in the carpet heading through nothing. He can't move. He's bound, without any idea where he is and even less of who he is. From behind him, he hears a voice--familiar and soothing, but jagged and quiet.
"Parker, do not move. Do not turn around, do not look away from the light." The voice, so suave and pleasuring, breaks through the ringing in his ears. He must return to his mentor and his father, Lucifer. He must turn around and he must find him. He tugs and he pulls at his feet against the carpet until, finally, his left leg breaks loose and he pivots on his right to turn his body towards the voice of Lucifer.
He stands still, struck with confusion and an overwhelming sadness. His left leg drops back into the carpet as, standing in front of him, he finds not the body of his mentor, but instead a tall man, face covered by shadows, his head shielded by a fedora. A thick, navy-blue suit covers his body, pink pinstripes running down every side.
"How does it feel, Parker?" The mans peaks, his voice raspy, still playing off as Lucifer's, but with a sinister quality to it.
"Who are you?! Where am I?" Parker's words lash out, spit flying from his tongue with every syllable. His eyes focus on the man's shadowed face, but he can't make out a single mark. Who is this man? And why does he have Lucifer's voice?
"Do you know what you are? Do you know who you are?" Parker feels the rage boiling inside of him, the hatred and the anger coming through his veins to his heart, to his fingers and his toes and every extremity in his whole body. The zipper on his hoodie slowly falls as his eyes shift from a pale green to a deep green to a bloody, hungry red. His teeth sharpen to a dangerous, frightening point. His swirling tattoo shines bright.
"Who are you?!" He hollers again, attempting to break free of the carpet that binds him. "Who are you?! Who are you?! Who are you?!" Suddenly, a long, wispy, black hand lashes out and strikes him across the face.
"Shut up boy!" The man screams, the dark world reverberating with the sound of his voice. In the blink of an eye, the man stands just inches from Parker, his cold, putrid breath exuding from his lips, lapping across Parker's face like gentle waves of some ungodly thing. "What has Lucifer done to you, my boy?" His fingers close slowly around Parker's chin. Cold, slimy, bony and slim, his fingers feel like strands of seaweed strangling him slowly.
"W-what do you mean?" The anger that once overwhelmed Parker disappears in almost an instance, replaced by something far worse--fear. His heart beat slows, his eyes dilate, his breath becomes putrid with fear. Suddenly, the dim silence of the dark world is broken with a high-pitched, blood curdling cackle. Parker cringes, his bloodthirsty red eyes changing back to a deep, dark green.
"You have no idea, do you, boy?" A silence follows these words as the mystery thickens in Parker's brain. What could he mean? What did Lucifer do?
"Well, boy, do me a favor. Tell you buddy 'hi' for me."
"W-who are you?" A large, pearly white grin breaks across the man's face, the only feature distinguishable under the shadows.
"You can call me Cthon." Another powerful strike across Parker's face and everything goes black.
*
Many, Many Years Ago...
Her deep blue glint with a furious red, sparkling with the reflection of the dark stone beneath her. The light from the chandelier above pulsates from the stone, glimming and glittering across the landscape of the large dinning room. For seven years, Michelle Morbius has dedicated her life to finding this stone. After long, hard hours and impossible work, she has finally found it.
Her hands near the shinning surface, but a voice in her head hollers for her to stop. She's never touched it with her bare hands, not even when she pulled it from the rubble of the collapsed mine in Colorado. She had always been warned not to touch it. But why? No one knows what it does, because no one had ever found it before.
"It's...beautiful..." Her co-worker, Rob Maxwell, says in a breathless voice, his eyes focused intently on the object on the table. He reaches out for it, but Michelle slaps his hand away.
"Don't touch it!" She screams, venom oozing from every letter in ever word she speaks. Only she can touch it. It's her right. It's her destiny. She feels the warm breath of her husband in her ear, speaking softly to her.
"Put your hands around it, my love. Take it into yourself and join me on a higher plane." The soft embrace of his hand around her shoulders allows her to calm herself. She hadn't felt her husband's sweet touch since he had left for Washington DC just two days ago. He gives a speech there today. She's so proud.
She reaches out, her closing in around the smooth, perfect stone. Her blue eyes swirling with wisps of red. "Be careful, Michelle." Rob says, worry overcoming his smallish stature. It's okay, she thinks, Michael is standing behind her. Michael is always behind her. She feels the warm glow of the stone sink into her skin, the warm breath of her husband in her ears turns cold, her red eyes sparkle with blue and suddenly nothing is right. Michael is in Washington DC. He will be until tomorrow night and she never heard the door open. That means...
"That's right, Michelle, you are one step closer." The cold breath hisses out like an air leak in a flat tire. The warm, comforting grasp turns clammy and cold, boney and strong. She tries to take her hands from the stone, but she can't. She's stuck. Tears stream from her eyes as she turns to Rob.
"Help! Help me, please!" She screams, the venom no longer present in her voice. Rob jumps into action, his hands wrapping around her shoulders, trying to shake her loose of the stone. But as his hand lands on her left shoulder he feels something clammy and cold, something that shouldn't be there, something that he cannot see. His head turns to the left a figure stands there, its face contorted, scaled, its eyes a dark, artificial red--its tongue long and curling, like a snake's, making its way outwards towards Rob. The long tongue wraps around his throat and twists, and Rob's lifeless body falls motionless to the ground. "W-why are you doing this..." Michelle cries out, streams of tears falling from her eyes.
"Because I want freedom, young woman, and you are my conduit." She turns her head to see a tall, broad man, his face shrouded in shadows beneath a fedora, his body clothed in a navy-blue suit with pink pin-stripes running down the entirety of the suit.
"W-who are you?!" She screams, her voice echoing off the tall walls of her lovely home. But as soon as she screams out, the man disappears, and her hands come free from the stone, a loud "whooshing" noise exuding from the gem. She pulls her phone from her pocket and dials her husband, Michael Morbius. She prays to herself "Please pick up. Please. I just want to her your voice. Your lovely voice." Suddenly, the ringing stops and she hears him.
"Hey there, gorgeous, you get to see my speech?" His voice is smug and confident, and tears stream even harder down her face. She wants to be in his arms, but he's so far away and she may never feel that again. The whooshing sound grows louder with every passing second. "Babe?" She remembers now. Her life is in danger and she must tell him what's going on. Maybe he can save her...maybe...
“Michael. Michael!” Her voice comes out in a panic, screeching loud, she can hear it 's echo in her own phone.
“Michelle, I’m here. What is it?” His voice, so soothing. She can't leave him. She never can.
“There’s…there’s this black stone, we found it on the expedition. We didn’t know what it was, so we brought it back to study. B-but then…then something started happening. This…this man started to appear. H-he was wearing this suit. And th-then he was gone. And it got cold and—" Suddenly, in front her, the man reappears, his eyes a stark red, the only feature able to be made out on his shadowed face. She can't let Michael come back to this. He can never come back to this. "Oh my God…he’s back. Michael, I love you. Please…don’t come home. Don’t!” She lets out a bone-jerking scream and drops the phone, watching it shatter as it hits the ground. She feels the warmth of the stone return to her. "P-please, stay away."
"Don't fight it, Michelle. Let it inside of you, let in engulf you. Become one with your destiny." His breath is warm once more, flowing into her ear, feeling like that of her love. It ends here, and she'd rather go by her own choice, with the feeling of love within her, than be killed by this man. She grasps the stone and a fire shoots through her. Her skin peels from her body, her muscles and her veins showing red, her hair doused with her own blood streaming from her scalp, the stone plunging itself into her chest, carvings scrapping across her body, her screams of agony go unheard. When it is all over, she kneels upon the ground, naked and bloody.
"Who are you?" The man in the suit and fedora asks, his voice light and inviting.
"I am...Michelle Morbius..." She says, using up what little energy she had remaining in her body. A grimace breaks across the man's face, his entire person becoming more visible in her new eyes.
"No, no, that just won't do."
"That...that is my name..." the man walks across the small distance and rests his hand on her head, dark energy flowing from him to her.
"From now on, your name is Mephisto, the Dark. You work for me now."
"And if I work for you, who are you?"
"Cthon. The Great."
*
A Strange Dimension, Very Unlike Our Own...
"N-no...no...NO!" Morbius screams, his voice echoing in the endless swirls of color and monsters. "That can't be right!" He yearns for the power that the stone gave him as the anger boils inside of him. He aches to be able to rip out Strange's heart and feed it to him. He wishes for the ability to curse this liar to hell. "Tell me the truth!" Morbius leaps at Strange, his hands outstretched, his eyes covered in anger and hatred. With a simple wave of his hand, Strange flings him aside.
"Listen, Morbius, what I've shown you is the truth. Your wife was overtaken by the same darkness that threatened to overtake you, and now she is an agent of that darkness." The anger flees Morbius' eyes as he digests this information.
"Where is she? If she's still out there that means we can still save--"
"Stop right there, Michael. It may have only be years to us, but it has been centuries to her. She has traveled through time and dimensions, doing the deeds of the Dark One. She has been warped beyond the woman that you once knew. Saving her may, at best, be a dream." Strange's words silently echo around, ringing in Morbius' ears. His lip trembles as tears threaten to stream down his face.
"Is there...is there any way?" Strange nods his head, but the silence prevails. Morbius is afraid to ask.
"We must exorcise her demons, Morbius. We must pull the stone that resides with her out of her body, and we must seal it away as we have this one."
"How do we do that?"
"I am not strong enough, Michael. I will require the help of an old..acquaintance."
*
Miles Away, in a Secret Hideout Across Town
Don Fortunato sits still, his legs crossed and his eyes focused out the large vanity window behind his desk. His jet-black hair slicked back, his lake-blue eyes starring across the great landscape of New York: skyscrapers reaching up into the sky, lights flashing from building to building, heroes flying across the night sky. This isn't the city that Don established himself in, but it is the city he finds himself living in.
"Hello, Don." The slick, slimy voice seeps into his conciseness. He feels the blood red eyes baring down on him and the warm, blood stained breath on the back of his neck.
"You said I have a week. That week isn't up yet." Don words come out terse, full of annoyance. Why is Mephisto back? His time isn't up yet, Mephisto shouldn't be here.
"I know it hasn't been the week yet, Don, that isn't why I'm here though."
"Then why are you here?"
"It's simple really, isn't it?" Mephisto's words are cold and hit hard on Don's neck as he refuses to turn around and acknowledge the monster.
"No, I don't suppose it is." Don flinches as Mephisto releases a blood curdling cackle, the sound of chalk scraping against a board exudes from Mephisto's mouth pouring into Don's ears.
"I'm here because I need services." Don's eyes light up as he stares out the large window, Mephisto's words ringing pleasurably in his ears. Finally, Don turns his swivel chair around and stares into the bloody eyes of Mephisto.
"I don't have many contracts left right now. You might need to buy several smaller ones to get adequate help."
"Oh, don't be silly Don. I want the best contract money can buy--you."
TO BE CONTINUED