Morbius 2099UG #5B

"You--!" Morbius screams, even as he fights the monstrous urge to
consume both of them, his energy-lust so all-encompassing. He claws at
Roman again and again to no avail. The symbiote seems tougher this time,
and there is simply no way that it will ever let Morbius hurt it again.
He flings Roman backward but Roman keeps coming time after time;
Morbius's lust strengthens and he feels the wings protrude from his back,
enabling him to fly. He sees the state of the barrier now; extreme red,
meaning there is very little possibility that anyone can see in and view
their battle. He feels the growing heat inside and sweats profusely.
If he indeed chooses to fly, he would have to watch himself, for fear
he could burn himself against the walls of the force shield. It
unnerves him that he has limits within this area. And he would need room to
maneuver against these enemies.

Morbius sees Thoreau running from Halloween Jack and feels helpless to
prevent harm from coming to the scientist. He punches Roman again and
again but Roman absorbs the blows, laughing all the way. It is amazing
how much Roman has strengthened. Once more Morbius feels the blue fur
sprout over his body and his claws extend out several inches. He
slashes again, and punches Roman in the gut. Roman doubles over just enough
to let Morbius go for an instant.

"Revenge!" Roman cries, charging at Morbius again. Morbius knows he
must act quickly to prevent Roman/Venom from ever touching him again.
His agility is superb, and his wings help him glide along above the
creature. He delivers blow after punishing blow but the effects are not
seen, much less felt. Morbius looks back at Halloween Jack, who converses
with Thoreau, whom he has cornered. He wishes he could help but he is
tied up with his own problems.

But wait! What Morbius has sworn never to do, which is kill, is a very
strong rule. How could it be that Morbius could bend that rule to his
own favor? Could he take an alien life? He doesn't know what the
alien will do to him, if its blood can be poisonous. But he must try or
die. So Morbius stops and swings around Roman, attaching himself to his
back. "You want it, creature? You want my blood? Well I'm going to
get yours first!" Quickly Morbius sprouts his giant fangs and sinks
them deep into Roman's neck, beneath the symbiote, before Roman can
realize what is going on and render himself discorporate. Roman howls with
pain as Morbius attaches his claws where his fangs have sunk in, and
then a wretching tear is heard as the claws dig under the symbiote and
begin to pull it off Roman's body. The leeching of energy from Roman
continues now, and the creature very audibly tears off and falls into
Morbius's hands. He feels it writhe to and fro, having lost its "owner".
Halloween Jack and Thoreau watch in horror as Roman falls to the ground,
his body only partially covered by the symbiote, while the other half,
in Morbius's possession, struggles to free itself from his grip. It
congeals over his hands only to have Morbius rip it off his skin again
and again, until finally the decision is made:

Morbius consumes the creature, taking large bites out of it, until
there is nothing left.

Morbius feels woozy for brief minutes while his system digests the
creature. Whether it will prove to be a safe decision is yet to be known.
In the meantime he picks himself up off the ground, and tends to the
unconscious Roman, still half-covered by the symbiote. He throws
him/them directly at Halloween Jack, who does not have time to dodge.

Immediately Morbius leaps over between Thoreau and Jack. Jack retorts,
rubbing his jaw. "Oww....what the shock did you do that for? Here I
was helping eliminate the guy who helped to distribute that awful V-X
stuff, and you have to throw a Roman in my way! Okay, at least the
shockhead wasn't Greek...!" Morbius punches him again, then, the lust for
energy died down, his wings grow into his back again, and the blue fur
shortens. He passes for normal now.

"No, he is only the one who created the compound. I know who set the
compound on the streets. I'm looking directly at him!"

Halloween Jack looks in trembling fear. "Oh my boy you've got the
wrong man!"

Morbius frowns. "Oh really? I'd have thought a better man of you,
Boone."

Now he calls Jack Boone? How dare he!!! "I am NOT Jordan Boone!"

"Then who," Dr. Thoreau threatens, "was the one who showed up at such a
crucial point in my experiments, and made a break with the V-X
compound, dropping it to some man named Jacen Boone, a noted criminal druglord
who had worked with the black-market version of V-X?"

"You're lying. I don't associate with my brother--!"

"Oh but you do, though you may deny it," Thoreau said. "You are not
Halloween Jack. You have never been Halloween Jack, nor, for that
matter, have you been Loki, the God of Mischief. You've always been the
pathetic little man interested in other realities because you couldn't and
wouldn't dare face the one you're living in. You are a man named
Jordan Nathaniel Boone. Nothing more. Perhaps you are less, but not more."

"You don't know me!" Jack begins to say, then he trembles all over and
a pinkish color fades into him, replacing the deep green. "You don't
know how hard I've fought to be who I am! I am finally free of
everything and you choose to give it all back, to give me back to it! Well you
hear me Thoreau! You hear me?" The pink fades all the way in and his
hair returns to normal, as do his facial features. Halloween Jack is
fading out, quickly being replaced by Jordan Boone.

"He hears you, Boone," Morbius says, hovering above the man who falls
to the ground in mid-transformation. "But you need to listen to
yourself. And this is why you've been following me, hasn't it? Your sick
vision of perfection, the drug which you helped put onto the streets
yourself. You believed what? That I was a product of your virulent poison?
That mayhap I would stop your drug from further infestation in the
populace of this town? What of that was Halloween Jack--and which of that
reasoning was Jordan Boone's?"

"Enough!" Jack/Boone yowls. He contorts himself into a small area,
flesh changing from pink to green and pink again, his whole body painfully
metamorphosing before their very eyes. "You don't understand. You
can't understand. I was supposed to succeed in this. This and the VU was
my life. It was Jack's," he says, noting that he uses Jack as another
separate from himself, "and it was mine. My brother needed me to come
through. He always did. You'll never understand." The man once known
as Halloween Jack, now only a shade of what he has been, now forcibly
stands on his feet and wraps his arms around Thoreau. He begins hopping
up and down slowly at first, then he picks up speed.

"You'll NEVER understand my GENIUS!!!"

With that, Halloween Jack takes a flying leap, Aeneas Thoreau in hand,
directly into the barrier. Both glow eerily as they approach the
barrier. Morbius sees the act but cannot react quickly enough, his arms and
legs leaden, his wings unable to come out. A blinding flash and a huge
explosion ensue as a sound of two men screaming fills the air. Then,
the red glow that has been surrounding the ruins of Alchemax fades like
it was never there. A brief electrical arc surges through the night
air and all is gone.

Morbius takes a deep breath of the night air, and looks all around. He
cannot find any sign of Roman/Venom, and to a point that sickens him.
But what sickens him more is the fact that answers may have eluded him
forever; but vengeance may yet be his. He turns to leave when--

"Morbius! Thor be praised it is you!"

Le'Osha runs atop the mount of damage caused by the destruction of
Alchemax, and she hugs Morbius tightly. Morbius returns the hug and smiles
somewhat, the first sign of emotion he has ever shown that was not
rage. "Le'Osha, thank Thor. I thought you and the others were--"

"Dead? Good as? You better not have been thinkin' that, son. No,
we're strong as you. We survive like you. Our people may have given up
hope, but some are still with us, still supporting you. We are your
friends."

"Friends? Yes, I suppose you are." Morbius looks out at the roughly
fifty people now pledged to him who have not died or left. He smiles at
this knowledge, but alas, work must be done. He turns from them and
lets his wings sprout from his back. He rises ten feet in the air.

"I must go. A...personal vendetta."

"Personal? At this time? You have people you have to look after, not
the least of which is--"

"I don't think you understand the importance of my mission here,
Le'Osha. I will return for everyone, to take care of this infernal charade.
But closure is what I am concerned about. Tell the people here I will
tend to them when I return."

The gypsy woman thinks for a moment. "Godspeed, then, Morbius,"
Le'Osha says, a tear dribbling from her eye as Morbius flies off further.

*******************************************************************

The Dealer, as he has been labelled, waits at the corner for his new
shipment. His labs had done marvelous work thanks to Jordan Boone--his
brother. The labs were able to mass-manufacture the Vamp-X drug and
ship it to him and his employees, ready to sell to the highest bidder.
How easy was it to have a drug sell that had the addictive tendency of
Rapture with the incentive that if you go too long without it or even
take too much--great stakes to be sure--you would turn into a ravenous
beast? Very easy, he thinks.

"Your package, sir?" someone asks from above.

"Sure, man," Jacen Boone replies, and suddenly is seized by the neck
and flown into the air high above in the Downtown area. He then realizes
who has taken him. "Oh, Thor...!"

"Shut the shock up, Boone," Morbius cackles, staring deep into the
Dealer's soul.

"You know?"

"Your brother let me in on your little game. And if you think I'm
going to stand for this any longer, you've got another think coming." He
brushes against the Boone brother's neck with his fangs which lengthen
as they draw along his skin. "The V-X, where do you make it?"

"I don't know what you're--"

"You know damn well what I'm talking about, Boone. The drug. In
Alchemax they made it for study purposes. They haven't let the drug out in
ages. I believe them, I trust them. But your brother Jordan has a
history of stealing things for you, hasn't he? He stole the prototype of
the new synthetic Rapture so you coulds ell it on the black market. He
also allegedly stole the compound which became Vamp-X before Alchemax
could dispose of it. You took the compound and synthesized it using
additional fragments of the Venom symbiote that were leeched from the
symbiote when Kron Stone had it. That's the only way you could have done
it, Boone. The only way this drug could be spread into the streets.
And because this is the only city I know that deals in V-X, I figure you
have a plant in the Downtown area. Care to elaborate?"

The Dealer, Boone, stutters a response: "Y-yeah, I know where the
plant is. I m-m-make the shockin' stuff myself, yes. It's supply and
demand!"

"Supply that is killing the demand, Dealer," Morbius says with a hint
of irony in his voice. "Show me your lair."

"I can't--"

"Don't tell me what you can and cannot do, Dealer. You own the plant.
You know where it is. Nothing could be simpler than that. Show me.
Now." Before another word is said, Morbius lifts the Dealer and flies
with him into the depths of Downtown.

*******************************************************************

Gabriel O'Hara sits on a dirty bench on the wrong side of town. He no
longer wonders what the meaning of his torment is. He has been in and
out of the majority of the houses on this black at one time or
another...all within the course of the last week. He has been sick of life,
sick of himself, and just plain sick. Feeling his jacket to be not a
great source of warmth, he searches around the area without standing up to
find more suitable material to make him not as cold. He finds none,
and only results in binding the coat he has closer to him. The chills
are with him again. He must find a new friend soon. A friend that will
not let him down.

Someone told him that the place he now stands before is like none
other. He would finally feel like himself, they said, and he believed them.
It was a newer establishment, this one, and it had been told that there
were many satisfied customers. Also he had heard that there had been
many dead customers, but Gabriel paid that no heed. He only saw his
blind need, need that had been there in some small part ever since he had
left his family and wandered out due to the loss of Dana D'Angelo. Not
even Jenny D'Angelo, Dana's sister and a priest, could ease his guilt.
Not that he had tried, mind you. Perhaps he had, but at this moment he
can't remember. But could salvation be far behind?

At this moment Gabe sees a gigantic shadow fall over him: bat wings!
They seem to carry another man over the ground and to the house to which
he sought entrance. A few moments later Gabriel sees and hears a
massive explosion come from the building itself, erupting upward and
outward. He sees fire engulf the huge house. But with that fire would go his
hopes of any salvation! So Gabriel, reacting quickly, runs into the
home, dodging the flames and falling old wood and metal, insearch of
happiness.

*******************************************************************

Morbius feels such extraordinary wonder at the scene which has just
occurred. Boone stands there in the corner of the fire-flooded room,
staring into space. It is hard to believe the man had extraordinary
courage and conviction only moments before, on the other side of Downtown;
here he was a common weak stooge. He quivered and quaked in fear as
Morbius set fire to the drug house and its many crates of Vamp-X. He
doused as many crates of the stuff as he could find, and each time Boone
whimpered and whined, "No!" But now all his hopes were soon to be ashes.
Morbius would be redeemed.

Boone tries to get to a cache of the Vamp-X, and to a point he succeeds
in ripping the top off a crate and lifting three vials of the drug into
his hands. Before Morbius can stop him, the Dealer empties all three
tubes into his mouth. And as Morbius watches, the drug's horrible
effects soon become apparent. "Ha ha! Now you see, Morbius, the fruits of
my labors! I will be reborn like you! I--ARRRGH!!!"

Morbius watches as from afar a new man enters on the scene. He has no
smell of evil about him, but he is lost, in search of redemption. How
can Morbius sense this? Morbius barely has time to leap to the far
side of the room as the Dealer's transformation begins. His skin turns
chalk-white like Morbius's, then he grows titanic muscles all over his
body, becoming in fact a hulking behemoth. The skin continues to change
from white to black, and he grows what are in essence horns. Claws
sprout on his hands and feet, and dark hair envelops his body. Now over
eight feet tall, Boone howls in pain, then begins to laugh. He no
sooner smashes some support beams and comes toward Morbius and the other
man, than he keels over in agony. He slumps to the ground and punches at
it repeatedly before ultimately collapsing in death. Then the walls
begin to crash down.

"Let's get out of here!" Morbius screams to Gabriel. He grabs him by
the collar and flings him to a far window. Gabe crashes through and to
the ground with a "thump" just before another huge explosion in the
building. This time the entire place is in flames. A few moments later
Morbius comes through the flames to Gabriel.

"What were you doing here?" Morbius asks.

"I could ask you the same question...I was going for..." Gabriel gets
choked up and nervous. Morbius senses this.

"Drugs," is all Morbius says.

Gabe nods in shame. "Why did you set that place on fire? I could have
been--!"

"--A monster? An addicted monster without a hope of living to see
anything else in life? Take it from me, drugs are not the way. You saw
what happened in there. The Dealer of those products could not stand the
destruction of his property, so he injected himself with the drugs.
Look what it did to him! It changed him into a monster, a monster who
died shortly thereafter! Is that what you want?"

"No," Gabriel says. "I just want to be happy. I was thinking--"

"The point is that you didn't think. Drugs kill you, or change you in
ways you don't want to be. That's all. Give yourself a chance that I
never got. Get out of here."

"You never--? You mean you were--?"

"No, I never was like you. I am a victim. Do not make yourself like
me. You probably have things to be taken care of--friends, relatives.
I have no such convenience. Follow your own path. Redeem yourself.
Go."

"But I don't have the strength!"

"You shall," Morbius says, laying his hands on each side of Gabriel's
head. He knows not what he does, but now he uses the powers in another
way: to force the evil out of Gabriel's system. In all senses of the
word Gabriel is purified from the drugs that consumed his life this past
week. Still not fully realizing what he has done, but feeling
satisfied of his action and his thirst, Morbius leaps up into the sky and
leaves.

Gabriel thinks over the situation and the last week, lucid at last.
Perhaps, just perhaps, he should go see someone he cares about very
much...

(Gabriel's adventures are continued in SPIDER-MAN 2099 #4A)

*******************************************************************

"Oh, I'm so glad to see you! I thought you were dead!"

Conchata O'Hara sees her son, albeit broken and resting, in the streets
in Downtown. He is still in his Spider-Man outfit. It has been
several hours since the explosion, and she has been heartbroken ever
since...until now. After the barrier had been destroyed, Le'Osha had ordered
her to wait for her friend. Later Morbius arrived and said he would do
his best to find Spider-Man. It has been a very long time and the
reunion is sweet for them all. Conchata holds Miguel in her arms, and
looks at the face of her personal savior, who brought her hope when there
was none. She looks at Morbius and says, "Thank you."

Morbius looks down at Miguel O'Hara, now a respected acquaintance, and
says, "It's over, Spider-Man. Vamp-X is off the streets. You shall
never hear from me again. Consider this...my present to you for being
who you are. Continue to be that way...or perhaps again you shall know
the power and ferocity of Morbius. But for now--" Morbius extends his
hand to shake. Miguel takes it.

Morbius takes his leave of the group and walks away. Le'Osha is
waiting for him.

"You be good now?"

"No, Le'Osha. Though I feel relieved the Alchemax mystery is over, I
want to know more about myself. The hope I had is gone. The scientist
that I thought would help me is dead. The man I believed could provide
answers, this 'Dealer', is also gone, as is his brother. I want to
know, and, Thor help me, I won't rest until I know who made me this way
and why. I consider that my life's goal. But in the meantime, what
shall I do?"

"Combat evil like you have so effectively already? You are the new
champion of Downtown, after all. And there does seem to be too much evil
going 'round. Super-natural, you be aware a'that."

"Perhaps," says Morbius. "Perhaps."

*******************************************************************

In the old factory that served as the manufacturing plant for Vamp-X,
the fire is almost out. From the ruins a large black clawed hand begins
to stir...

THE END of THE MORBIUS PROJECT

NEXT ISSUE IN MORBIUS: The secret you've all been waiting for is
revealed -- at long last, the identity of GOBLIN 2099 is unveiled! What's
he hiding, and why? But what's that, you say? You've already been
treated to Marvel's presentation of the facts in SPIDER-MAN 2099 #45? Au
contraire, mes amis! The truth is revealed in a two-part saga beginning
with the introduction of a man named JEHOVAH KIRK and a confrontation
in the Church of Saint Patrick! Does Morbius have faith enough to
survive the "Goetterdaemmerung"?