Experiment, a marvel fanfic

Disclaimer: This fan fiction is semi-Alternate universe though inspired by the storylines of the 616 Marvel comics continuity. The inspiration for this fan fiction came about from reading the Original Sin comic books from the summer of 2014.

The following story is set in Marvel continuity and told from Dracula's perspective.

Experiment:

"Master!"

I almost shuddered to hear the voice calling to me. How grating it could sound and yet so many other people seemed delighted by the one called Deadpool. I can't seem to fathom why anyone might tolerate him at the moment. You would think that shouting the word "Master" would make me at ease from the show of respect but alas, no. I knew all too well what he was doing. And so I found my own hand had already made its way to my face without my willing for it to be there. Fingers lightly messaging the temples.

The masked figure would not be ignored. Amazing that he could sound so clear under that repugnant face-sock he called a mask. It still looked like a poorly contrived mockery of Spider-man's mask but who am I to judge in matters of fashion?

"Master!" He said again, this time more urgently.

I leaned back in my throne with an audible groan that I know he heard. "What is it, Deadpool?"

"De Braaaain, Masta!"

"Oh, for the love of sanity!"

He had contorted himself into a hunched-over parody or caricature of that zeitgeist concept of Igor, Doctor Frankenstein's Laboratory assistant. Truth be told I hated that cultural construct. No such character existed in Frankenstein's tale. Nor did he exist even in the 1931 Boris Karloff film that everyone seemed to think the character originated from. There had never been a hunchbacked laboratory assistant named Igor until the parodies. The first Igor to appear in those films had been Ygor played by Bela Lugosi in Son of Frankenstein and Ghost of Frankenstein. The character had a crooked neck, not a hunched spine.

I suppose at some point Renfield- my own mad ally who had called me Master- had gotten merged with Fritz from the Karloff film and Ygor from its sequels. An easy compilation I suppose since in 1931 Dwight Frye had portrayed both Renfield and Fritz. Also Victor Frankenstein was not even an actual doctor in the original story, he was a student of Ingolstadt University. But I digress...

I clicked my tongue on the roof of my mouth. "For the hundredth time, my mad henchman in Stoker's God-awful book and the films was Renfield. Not Igor. Renfield ate insects. Igor…" Well, what did Igor do exactly? I gestured vaguely with my hand. "…had scoliosis. And do you really want to be Renfield? Are you aware I snapped his neck in that story?"

By now Deadpool had righted himself and was standing like a semi-normal human being (It would not last). "So, what are the plans for tonight? Oooh! I know! I know! 'Same thing we do every night, Pinky! Try to take over the world!'"

I blinked my eyes at him, staring blankly. I did not understand the reference, nor did I care but the notion was amusing nonetheless. I knew there was a reason I tolerated the fool.

"Tonight, I have other matters to attend to."

Deadpool knew me well enough. He knew me well enough to understand that this meant that I was going out and did not want to discuss where or why, nor did I require or desire his company and so he took that to mean he absolutely must pry and ask about it.

"Oooh? Like what? Going to stalk some reincarnated lost lady love or annoy Blade? Can I bring a Piñata? Everyone loves a nice Piñata!"

Somehow I felt like that too must have been yet another idiotic pop culture reference that I could hardly care about and yet the question also seemed sincere somehow.

"The Experiment- Morbius, the so-called 'living vampire' he is starving himself again. If I don't provoke him into feeding-"

Deadpool's gesture was that of a referee in a sporting event. "Woah! Woah! Time out! If I didn't know better I'd say you were actually CONCERNED for someone?! You okay? You didn't get hit over the head with a silver, garlic coated baseball bat did you?"

He interrupted me! How dare he interrupt me!

He was now bouncing around my throne like a child trying to take a peek at the back of their father's head, searching for injuries. "You're not possessed by a superhero, are you? 'Cause apparently Spider-man was possessed by Doc Ock for a while. You never know whose floating around these days. Want me to call in an exorcist! Want me to BE the exorcist?" He cleared his throat. "The power of Sprite compels you! The power of Sprite compels you!"

The damned idiot had found a soda can and was splashing its contents around as if it was a decanter of holy water.

"Those are not the correct words." I said dryly."

"I was being sensitive to your allergies!" He whined. "Can't a guy be nice?!"

"You're splashing carbonated sugar water all over my throne room!"

"Technically its corn syrup but I…" He drifted off in his speech, which made me look at him. He was reading the label. "Oh, wait! This one is actually made with real sugar! Boy, for a guy who only drinks hemoglobin you know your soft drinks!"

I grumbled under my breath and rose to my feet.

He leapt in front of me like a child demanding attention. "But you still haven't explained it."

"Dracula explains nothing to the likes of you!"

"Sure you do! You've been explaining things all evening. By the way, that thing about your deep fondness for wolves- your Children of the Night. Great stuff there."

For a moment I was surprised. I felt my eyes widen. I am sure it was noticeable. "I thought you had been falling asleep when I said that."

"I was, doesn't mean I wasn't listening, just means I ran out of coffee. Which reminds me-"

"No!" I argued.

"But I…"

"No!"

"You're no fun." He whined.

"The last thing you need is more caffeine."

"You're changing the subject." He said abruptly.

"You changed the subject."

"I did not."

"Yes, you did."

"Hey, wait a second!" Deadpool exclaimed. "You're trying to distract me again. My attention span's not that short."

"I watched you play with string… for six hours."

"And that requires a lot of attention. See?" He was dancing up and down on the heels of his feet. "What's the deal with you and Doctor Morbius? Why do you care what happens to him?"

"I don't care."

"Liar! Come on, you can tell 'ol Deadpool. I'll take out my psychiatric pad and you can lay down and everything. It'll be cool. We'll get you back to feeling nice and dark and evil and 'Roar' in no time."

"Roar? Did you just use Roar as an adjective?"

"Yeah-huh. With you it is an adjective. Do you hear yourself when you fight? Its all 'Roar!' and 'Hiss' and 'AGGH! Not the sharp pointy thing! I don't like sharp pointy things!'" He flailed his arms, and then dropped to the floor, pretending to be dead and then he quickly leapt up into a sitting position on the stone floor. "Forget that last part."

I knew he could see me scowling.

"You never lose." He corrected himself by saying that and then crossed his arms in front of himself and then parted them again as if pushing away air. "Never ever!"

Somehow this actually managed to produce a faint smile in me. I wanted to pet the mad man's head as if he was Renfield. I wonder if I am going soft in my old age...

"Soooo…" He said slowly. Strangely this was followed by the sound of cricket chirping which was odd because it was winter time and there were no crickets chirping this time of year in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania. Renfield seemed to be waiting for me to say something and when I did not he spoke up again. "You and Morbius got a Louis and Lestat thing going on?"

Now that was a pop culture reference I actually understood.

"We most certainly do not have a 'Thing!' It merely…" I searched for the right words in the hope that Deadpool would not find some means of using them against me, "would be a blemish upon my entire race should a vampire- even one that is a pale imitation of a proper vampire- created by an unwholesome mockery that is science- make such a display of himself."

Deadpool was sitting on the steps that lead up to the throne, one knee bent and folded over the other. He had found a notepad from somewhere and a pen and appeared to be jotting notes like a reporter or some mockery of a therapist. He nodded his head- definitely a psychiatrist parody this time. "Uh, huh. Mmhmm… Uh, huh. Uh, huh." He was still nodding.

No one must know the truth. Not Deadpool, not Doctor Morbius himself, not even my own Children of the Night…

It had been the summer of 1970 when I first heard about Doctor Michael Morbius. The reclusive yet brilliant scientist who only emerged at night and had an unusual obsession with bats and blood. One would suspect he was already a vampire at that point but no. He merely had traits that would normally make for an exceptional child of darkness. However his particular maudlin personality would stand in the way of that.

His use of Draculin, A glycoprotein found in the saliva of vampire bats (and named after yours truly) in treatments of diseases of the blood was most fascinating. You would think that I would have no interest in matters of science but I could not help but feel a morbid curiosity in seeing a drug synthesized from vampire bad saliva, named after me, and being used to save people with ailments of the blood. There's a certain bitter amusement in seeing a Dracul save someone's blood instead of draining them of it. Ah, well. It's not that I loathe what I am. On the contrary. I love it! I revel in it. I would trade my power and strength for nothing. There is no shame in being one of the Nosferatu race. There is no need for guilt or shame. No. But there is something fascinating in seeing such nobility and for my own name to be used in an aspect of it- my ego could not ignore it.

You would think that such nobility should be rewarded. And I quite agree with you. For this noble pursuit and for the honor of using my name in such matters he probably deserved my gift. He deserved to be a child of darkness. I could have snatched him up in the night and easily made of him my child. It would have been a kindness. You see, I knew he was dying…

When I first saw Morbius even I felt a twinge of pity for him. He was still mortal in those days and he was fading fast. It was like watching one who had spent years in a dungeon living only on the slime he could lick off the stone walls.

He was so frail that the skinny woman with blond hair, walking at his side, looked to be triple his weight and yet he was a good three or more inches taller than her. He had his arm hooked around her own arm, and though she made a show of looking as if they were just happily walking arm in arm I could see that she was supporting his weight as they walked, he leaned against her a little too heavily or has heavily as a man could he looked as if he was only ninety pounds of weight at best. She was all but carrying him- a remarkable woman, masking her knowledge of his suffering, not for social propriety reasons, but for his sake, for his ego and pride. It was… touching. Such a woman, any man would be envious to have her as their companion. I must confess I considered taking her but even I am not that cruel. I could content myself to wait for the poor wretch that she half-carried to die and then in her grief I could rescue her from her sorrows with the offer of eternal life. Surely she would be relieved after having lived so close to frail and desperate mortality.
The woman, Martine, wore a mask of cheerfulness but his expression was of perpetual worry. Could he even tell it was an act? Did he know that she could sense he was dying even though he never voiced it to her? Or did the fool honestly think he could keep it from her in his sorry state?

His dark blue eyes were so much like what mine had been in mortal life, in their color and form, that he could have been my brother. But his eyes were broody and haunted. His dark hair was nearly shoulder length, curling near his chin and there were hints of silver that only one with preternaturally keen senses might detect, woven through the sable locks. The tiny patch of beard in the middle of his chin, what some call a soul patch, did nothing to fill out the hollow cheeks. His clothes sagged off of his emaciated frame. His bones were visible through his thin, pale, skin. He carried a cane in one hand to help him support himself but he seemed to even have difficulty holding to that. Yes, Martine, dear girl. Don't let him fall over. Spare his dignity. Hold him up, dear woman. Beat The Grim Reaper down with your purse. The determination in her eyes made me feel almost as if she, herself, would stave off the frail one's death with a sword or a dagger while he lay there, a helpless damsel of a man. Ah- to have a warrior woman in my court once more!

(Deadpool: "Dracula! Earth to Drac-… Oh, crap. You're having a flashback. Is this gonna be long 'cause I'm getting hungry. Fine. I'll go make a sandwich.")

In Early August of that year I went to the private laboratory of Anthony Stark. I had been visiting him regularly for our on-going conversation about metaphysics and biology. We had been having an interesting debate on if vampirism was physical or metaphysical. He believed that vampirism was likely a sort of virus that he could view under a microscope and analyze. I was bored and he was also bored and I knew he had no real ambitions at that point to be my enemy so I allowed him a sample of my blood to see what he might do with it.

"Were you able to isolate it and clone it as I asked?"

I had asked the man in front of me. I stood back with my arms folded. I did not need to hypnotize him to do my bidding. The man was too drunk to realize just who he was working for anyway.

Anthony Stark, (often called "Tony" by his friends), brilliant scientist, when he was sober, and somewhat brilliant even when inebriated. At the moment he was too drunk to really acknowledge who I was.

"Yeah, kinda."

"'Kinda?' What do you mean 'Kinda?'

"Too drunk to explain…" He seemed to have ample experience in trying to talk with a heavy, slurring tongue. "Hang on, I wrote it down." He passed to me the typed document. I snatched it into my hands and began to read.

"Ah," I said.

Despite the typos it was coherent enough to read. Stark had gone back to chugging the foul contents of the small brown bottle.

(Deadpool: "Hey! Does this fan fiction ship me with Spider-man? Those get kind of awkward.")

"You say here that this complex tripartite nuclei… this thing…"

"Source of vampirism. Yeuup. Told ya it was scientific."

"Bah, you do not comprehend what you play with!"

"I understood it enough to realize it's semi-sentient and symbiotic. It alters your physiology to sustain itself and its need for blood. I was even able to clone it." He held up a vial tauntingly.

"This just proves you don't need a vampire's bite or even to die and be buried to make one of your… uhh 'people.'" He said with quotation gestures with his fingers.

"We'll just see about that." I snatched the vial from his fingers while he was gloating.

"Hey!" He protested "What are you going to do with that?!"

He was inebriated and that made him highly susceptible to my hypnosis. I stared deep into his eyes. I could feel my will touching against his and then forcing it's way through into his mind like a fist. "You will forget we had this conversation and you will forget your experimentations with my blood…"

1971. Doctor Morbius deserved the reward of being made one of my own children, to know how it truly felt to glide on the leather wings of a bat, to feel the air rush under a furry belly. He deserved the ability to become mist or to transform into a wolf. He deserved to be a high ranking member of my court. He deserved to be a true and proper vampire but that is not what he got. My own experimentations got in the way. My own selfish curiosity would intervene in both our plans.

When Morbius went out onto that Yacht the reek of death was upon him. He knew that if his experiment upon himself failed that he would not return to shore alive. I was certain of this fact, myself, though not for the same reasons he was.

Morbius's equipment and theories were sound. What he did not anticipate was that the vial I held of the so-called cloned vampire virus (extracted from my own blood and duplicated by Anthony Stark) as Stark's notes had described it, would be deposited into his own electro-chemical formulae, thus contaminating his experiment in self-preservation and turning him into my own experiment instead.

What came of that contamination was a creature that was vampiric and yet different from my own breed of vampire. Like myself he was durable and his aging appeared to be halted. His disease mutated and conformed to that which I had blessed him with. But this abomination was not Nosferatu in a way my children of the night were Nosferatu. He had no aversion to symbols of faith, no need of an invitation to enter a home. But also unlike us he could not pass for human. His skin was like chalk. His eyes were a perpetual burning crimson, like embers in a fireplace. His fingernails were now claws. His bones had become hollow. His ears were pointed and all together, despite his human-like appearance he also seemed quite bat-like.

And his hunger- ah, that hunger! Such a glorious, predatory power and primal drive- so over-whelming that watching him was as glorious as watching a starved wolf take down a gazelle. That was the glory I felt when I saw him feast upon that friend of his, Emil.

There was such an animalistic, ferial ferocity that I watched in amazed silence. What a glorious creature this could be if he only embraced and accepted his nature…

But that was not to be…

Once Morbius had calmed himself I realized that despite his quickness to adapt to his ability to defy gravity he was not very incline to test his other powers and abilities. This gave him a seeming weakness that most vampires would have found crippling. That obnoxious, lingering mortal guilt could lead to his destruction and all my efforts to save the wretch would be wasted!

It would take him three years to even realize he had a healing factor. Three years to be flung from the window of a house and land in the branches of a tree. I placed my hand to my face and let the fingers slid down in the gesture that is today known as a facepalm though the gesture is actually much older than its own newer term. How could I not?

This train wreck of a creature was not only a half-starved weakling but he was not being bold and daring with his powers. You would think that a man desperate enough to experiment upon himself would be more incline to experiment with his new capabilities but alas, that was not to be.

I would like to say that it was just his behavior that made him an outcast among my children. But no. Like mortals they fear that which they do not understand. And a new breed of vampire means a new competition for the apex predator of the supernatural variety. Even though Morbius could not change his form or summon the wind and thunder the way I and many of my own race could he had a few advantages as well. Let me pause here by pointing out a little seldom known truth. I am the king of my kind but I was not the very first vampire – merely the greatest and like Michael Morbius I was not created via an exchange of blood with a master vampire. No, my origin was a little less explained. I woke in my grave after death with a full acceptance and curiosity as to what I had become. Doctor Morbius… Not so much.

(Deadpool: "I wonder if he'll smack my hand away if I poke his thought bubble…")

Morbius had no aversion to symbols of faith or a need for an invitation to enter a home. Though sunlight was a hindrance for him he did not burn in it the way many vampires do. Also he had the curious quality of developing vampiric abilities incredibly slowly.

Like most vampires he could create other vampires. And though it pains me to acknowledge how long it took the pathetic wretch, he did learn how to hypnotize his victims by 1992. And though he had not "died" per se to become a vampire (though that is debatable) he was not quite alive either. A bullet wound to the neck or a fiery blast to the chest, or being tossed off a high building, these things would only kill him for a very brief time, only a few moments to a few hours at best. He was very much an immortal in his own right. And Stark's notes had considered this as well. The Turritopis dohrnii, the immortal Jelly fish, had proven that biological immortality was not only scientifically possible but did exist within nature. Ah, the wonders of modern science!

Were these- Morbius's powers truly slow to take shape? Why was he so different from myself and yet so similar? Was this the result of that idiot Stark not quite getting the process right in cloning that thing in my blood which makes me a vampire? That would account for Morbius's more bat-like qualities. Or perhaps the fool had mutated himself before the actual vampirism manifested and he had merely superficially been made bat-like by his own experiment before the contamination.

Perhaps I pitied him. Perhaps I was fascinated by him. If his powers continued to grow over time he could eventually be like myself but lacking in some of my more troublesome weaknesses. A new and potentially stronger breed of vampire! No wonder Baron Blood and others were resentful, disgusted, or even frightened of the lowly pretender- my Experiment.

But I created this being, more or less. Intervened with the experiment that might have killed him. I had made of him my child. What was in his blood, whether flawed or under-developed, was derived from my own vampirism even if Stark had somehow botched cloning it. I had to see it through to the end, whatever he was destined to become he was my experiment. He was mine.

(Deadpool: "Oooh! I get it! You're using 'Experiment' as a euphemism for 'Son' because you feel a kingly / paternal responsibility toward him! I get it now! OW! Why'd you slap me?!")

Yes, perhaps I was protective of this curious abomination of a vampire. At one point I lead a slaughter that resulted in the death of his lover, a vampiress going by the name Susanna who took advantage of Morbius's weak heart and even weaker capacity to think things through. After seducing him she stole from him the knowledge necessary to create a virus to puppet, control, and eventually destroy other creatures of supernatural inclination. This threat to our under-world had to go.

The fool, Morbius, could not comprehend why I spared him and it was best to leave it that way. The wretch was pathetic enough. There was no need to break his already trembling and all too human-like heart.

(Deadpool: "Awww! That's so sweet! You know you- …. Ow! You hit me again!")

Deadpool lay sprawled across the stone floor as if it was the most comfortable of beds. "So, you done having your flashback?"

I clenched my teeth and glared down at him.

"What now?"

"Now, I scoop the idiot off the chapel floor where he lays. I shall coax him into feeding while in the form of a bat. He's so delirious right now that he is likely to mistake me as the hallucination of his own hunger compelling him to feed. He will brood and sulk about it later but he will be restored to full strength. That is the extent of my concern for him.

"Uh, huh." Deadpool sounded patronizing. How dare he patronize me! "And how many times have you shown this 'extent' of your concern for him this week?"

I clenched my teeth.

Deadpool stood up right. "That's what I thought. You know if you like the guy just admit it. This isn't a shipper fanfic. I skimmed head. No Hentai or anything!"

I stared at him blankly. I hated when he prattled on nonsense like that. "…What?"

"Never mind. My point is you care about what happens to him."

"I am merely curious to see how it plays out. He could end up being a vampire king in his own right one day once he finally accepts and comes to term with what he is. Perhaps even one day his particular ilk will usurp my own."
'Yeah, Okay…" The word 'Okay' was said in a deliberately deepened voice. "If you see him as competition he'd be dead. You and I both know that."

I chose against answering him.

"There's no shame in admitting you actually care about someone, you know. So you created him, this Franken-pire. And now you watch after him to make sure he doesn't do something stupid like blow himself up. That's actually… Kind of sweet. And no one would ever suspect it from you. So, how many times this week have you reached the 'extent of your concern for him?"

"I have only gone to him and taken the form of a bat to let him think me an hallucination maybe seven times in the past and usually while he is idiotically starving himself and too incoherent to realize I am not an hallucination of his own hunger. Deadpool, let me explain this to you. When a vampire starves himself he's not likely to actually die- as the idiot believes. No. Instead we reach a sort of feral psychosis where all we can think about is the blood. It becomes all consuming. It replaces all reason, all possible concept of right and wrong. All you want is to feed. When the self-destructive little idiot gets into that state he will feast upon anything with a pulse and then whine and brood about it later and the cycle will begin anew. It is best to reach him while he is still lucid enough to select prey that is not as likely to torment him so completely."

"Yeah, see. You just admitted to wanting to protect his feelings. Did it hurt?"

When Deadpool's body hit the wall there were several loud cracking sounds simultaneously. His broken body slumped to the floor. "Ow…" I knew he would be fine.

"If he did manage to somehow prevent himself from feeding when reaching that near mindless hunger state, he would eventually weaken and drift into a quasi-hibernation until awoken, likely by the scent of blood." I continued while Deadpool lay healing himself from the punishment he had sustained. No one mocks Dracula!

"You didn't really answer me there. How many times have you saved his scrawny ass this week?"

"I told you, I only took the form of a bat-"

"I said "saved," not that particular method of saving!"

I muttered the figure under my breath.

Deadpool's mask's white eyes seemed to widen somehow like actual eyes. "Twenty seven times?! …And we're talking about this week?"

"Well, there were the police officers searching for him in Brownsville I deterred through hypnosis. And then there was that 'Totem eater' growing curious about bats instead of his usual Spiders. And then there was…"

"I get it! I get it! He's a bad luck magnet. So why don't you just take him prisoner and force him to 'Embrace it, embrace it.' About being a vampire? You know, snatch him up for his own good." The "Embrace it." Part was said in a singing tone as if he was quoting some sort of song.

I smiled at Deadpool. He seemed somehow disturbed by my smile. And I loved that reaction so very much. "Because my Experiment has not yet played himself out yet."

I spread my arms and felt my whole body compress and contract as everything under my head and chest seemed to rise up into itself. My body lost tactile form and then resolidfied as a small bat.

I fluttered my leathery wings to gain altitude. And then riding over the cold, Carpathian wind currents I glided out the window and into the night.

Deadpool stood there, watching where Dracula had gone. "Awwe… That was sweet." He pretended to wipe a tear from his mask's eye. "Makes me miss my own Experiments. Like that time I put hot chocolate mix in a bowl of cream of wheat or that time I put a Hungry Man frozen fried chicken dinner in the microwave for seven minutes instead of stirring the mashed potatoes at the four minute mark. Ooh, or that one time I ate pop rocks with coke! I wonder if 616 Hallmark has invented 'Happy not-quite-biologically-father-but-still-my-creator's Day' cards yet. We kind of need 'em."

The End