Moon Knight

“I appreciate that you both were willing to meet with me here tonight,” Marc Spector said.

“Where else were we gonna be?” Jake Lockley asked. “We’re three alternate personalities living inside of the same head.”

“Speaking of which,” Steven Grant said, “I thought we had an agreement. Jake and I would stay back as long as you didn’t cross the line. We thought you wanted a strong hand on the tiller.”

“The problem is” Marc responded. “I’m not sure there is a line anymore…”

“What do you mean?” Steven asked. “Last time I checked, slaughtering vampires still didn’t count as genocide. Any updates on that?”

“As long as Marc’s the one who washes the blood out of our costume,” Jake said, “I’ve got no reason to complain.”

“I’m afraid we’ve got blood on more than just our costume,” Marc said solemnly. “We’ve got it dripping from our hands.”

“Nothing new there,” Steven said, shaking his head.

“Except this time,” Marc continued, “it could be the blood of millions.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Jake demanded.

“Do either of you remember The Hood?” Marc asked.

“That wannabe crimelord who’s been terrorizing the Bronx?” Steven asked. “Didn’t we take down his crew a while back, after that whole thing with Alchemax?”

“We did,” Marc said. “But he just showed up again in Thebes.”

“What’s a two-bit gangster like him doing all the way out here?” Jake asked.

“Don’t tell me,” Steven said, laughing with disbelief. “He was the one who killed Apocalypse!”

“No… at least, not as far as I know,” Marc said. “But while we were all busy pointing fingers at each other for the crime, The Hood snuck in and stole something that Apocalypse had been protecting — the Tablet of Death and Entropy.”

“Another stupid magic tablet,” Jake grumbled. “What would he want with something like that?”

“It wasn’t his choice,” Marc said. “He claimed that he’d been sent by a greater power. The entity that fuels his mystical abilities.”

“He’s got his own personal Khonshu?” Jake asked. “Who is it?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Marc said. “What matters is that we managed to catch him before he could escape. And when we did, he just handed over the tablet as if he wanted us to have it all along.”

“Sounds too easy,” Steven said. “What was his game?”

“I think he knew we’d be able to commune with it, thanks to our bond with Khonshu,” Marc said. “And as soon as the tablet was in my hands, strange stuff started happening.”

“Stranger than all the other crap we’ve been through ever since the timelines started collapsing?” Jake asked.

“Way stranger,” Marc said. “I went into some sort of trance, chanting an ancient spell I didn’t even realize I knew… and then the tablet somehow channeled all of the spirit energy that’s been flowing through Thebes. I could finally understand what the countless harvested souls had been screaming for…”

“Yeah?” Steven asked. “What did they want?”

“Vengeance,” Marc replied.

“Our specialty,” Jake said with a grin. “So who’s got it coming to ‘em?”

“That’s the problem,” Marc continued. “What the souls described didn’t make any sense to me at first. They were all blaming Apocalypse for their demise… but Apocalypse never officially ascended to godhood. He may be a powerful Mutant, but he was never powerful enough to commit genocide on dozens of worlds at once.”

“Not even with that weird Faith-Harvesting Engine he built?” Steven asked.

“I wondered the same thing,” Marc said, “but Richards and T'Challa both seem convinced that it’s more of a storage device than a weapon of mass destruction.”

“Okay, so if it wasn’t Apocalypse…” Jake wondered aloud, “…then who?”

“I couldn’t figure it out at first either,” Marc said. “But then the spirits started describing the tragedies that took their lives. Some said their suns were blotted out, causing endless winter. Others claimed their tides violently shifted, drowning entire populations. And a handful claimed that giant chunks of rock plummeted down from the sky, delivering Armageddon.”

“Those all sound like terrible ways to go,” Steven said. “But I’m not sure we’ve faced anyone who’s got that kind of power.”

“Yeah we have,” Jake said, his anger rising. “We face him every damn day.”

“Khonshu?!” Steven gasped. “You’re crazy!”

“And proud of it,” Jake replied. “But this has his bloody fingerprints all over it. I’m not the only one who sees it… right, Marc?”

“Right,” Marc reluctantly agreed. “All of those things — the eclipses, the tides, the rain of debris — seem to have something critical in common.”

“Moons…” Steven said in disbelief.

“And no one knows the moon better than the bird-skulled freak we swore to serve,” Jake said.

“He can’t really be that powerful though… can he?” Steven asked.

“He can… and he is,” Marc said. “We already knew that, when the timelines collapsed, our Khonshu somehow joined together with a bunch of other Khonshu’s from other dimensions to become a unified version of himself. Because of that, his connection to lunar power has remained strong across every fractured reality. So there’s no doubt in my mind that he has the power to do something like this. The question is… why would he? Khonshu usually protects innocents.”

“Are you kidding?” Jake laughed. “Khonshu always protects himself first. And we’ve helped him get away with it for way too long.”

“When he realized that his fellow gods of the Ennead were being hunted,” Marc said, “he fled the Divine Space and retreated to his temple here in Thebes. I have a feeling that he saw Apocalypse preparing his ritual to absorb the faith of unworthy gods. And instead of engaging Apocalypse in direct combat — or summoning us to do it for him — he came up with his own devious plan.”

“I still don’t buy it,” Steven said.

“But his followers did, en masse,” Jake said.

“On dozens of worlds,” Marc continued, “devoted disciples of the moon were condemned to untimely deaths. And as their lives came to an end, their faith in their god was replaced by extreme hatred.”

“And then those angry spirits were harvested by Apocalypse’s fancy engine,” Jake added.

“Exactly,” Marc said. “It was designed to absorb faith in other gods and convert it into faith in Apocalypse. But instead of getting their adoration, Apocalypse ended up getting their resentment instead.”

“And you think that’s what got him killed?” Steven asked. “How?”

“Whoever is out there slaughtering gods seems to have a special interest in the very worst of them,” Marc said. “And if they thought that Apocalypse has just caused an extinction event on a cosmic scale…”

“…then he’d instantly become their prime target,” Jake finished, “keeping all eyes off Khonshu.”

“That coward,” Steven said, his hands clenching into fists.

“I know,” Marc said. “It’s made me question everything. I’ve started to doubt if any of the violence we’ve carried out in his name was truly just, or if we’ve just been complicit in his evil schemes all along.”

“Finally makes sense why he called us to Thebes, though,” Steven said. “He wanted us to convince the other heroes to help bring the Faith-Harvesting Engine to his temple, so that he could use it to reabsorb all of those souls that spilled out when Apocalypse was murdered. That was his way of reclaiming the power he temporarily forfeited.”

“Well, he certainly put a lot of blind faith in us,” Jake smirked “Just underestimated our joint intelligence.”

“So… what do we do?” Steven asked. “We can’t let Khonshu get away with this.”

“You’re right,” Marc said. “But the second he knows we’re onto him, he’ll cut us off from any power he still has left. And as awful as all of this is, if it weren’t for Khonshu, we wouldn’t even be alive.”

“If it weren’t for Khonshu, a lot of other people would still be alive,” Jake argued. “I was glad to be his Fist of Vengeance when it seemed like he was at least vaguely trying to do the right thing. But this can’t be excused. I say we go old-school merc on his sorry ass!”

“We can’t kill a god,” Steven said.

“Why not?” Jake asked. “Someone out there’s doing it already. Might as well join the fun.”

“Nothing about this is fun,” Marc said. “But you’re right. We can’t let these innocents go unavenged.”

“Then we do this the right way,” Steven said. “We work with the other heroes who are here, tell them what we know, and figure out a plan. We’re too close to this, and our faith has blinded us. But they’ll be able to see the situation more clearly and help us verify the truth. Plus, we’ll need their strength to help us guard against any other schemes that Khonshu might have.”

“You really wanna tell those do-gooders what Khonshu did?” Jake asked, indignant. “The second they know the truth, guess who they’ll turn on? Khonshu’s loyal avatar. Us.”

“Do you have a better plan?” Steven asked.

“Actually, I do,” Jake replied. “We forget about that stupid engine and the other heroes, and we go straight to Khonshu to make him pay for what he did. It’s clear his power has waned. I can’t be the only one of us who’s felt it. This might be our only chance to take him out.”

“Even in a weakened state,” Marc said, “we would never be able to face him on our own. And as much as I’d like to trust our allies, we don’t have any solid evidence. And the way they’ve been grilling suspects lately, I worry it’d put more heat on us than on Khonshu himself.”

“Ok if our ideas suck so bad, Spector,” Jake snarled, “tell us what you’ve got…”

“We make Khonshu confess,” Marc said. “And once he does, we bring him to justice.”

“He’ll never admit what he’s done,” Steven said.

“He will if we play our cards right,” Marc replied. “We stay silent for now, then we confront him face-to-face once we deliver the Faith-Harvesting Engine to him.”

“You really think the others will go along with that?” Jake asked. “Please!”

“We don’t give them a choice,” Marc said. “We convince them it’s the only path to victory and the only way out of Thebes. And if they won’t listen… we remove them from play. It might not win us a lot of friends…”

“…but when have we ever been worried about that?” Jake agreed.

“If Khonshu hesitates before absorbing all of the faith,” Marc concluded, “the truth will come out. He knows he can’t risk absorbing the faith without purifying it first. The hatred would corrupt him.”

“He’s plenty corrupt already,” Jake grumbled.

“And when we catch him in the act,” Steven said, “he won’t be able to deny his part in all of this any longer.”

“It’s just insane enough that it might work,” Jake said. “And if it doesn’t, at least we’ll go down swingin’. If this is what you really want, Marc, count me in.”

“Me too,” Steven added.

“Then we’re all in agreement,” Marc said. “We make our stand…”

“And this time, we’re going to have to do it together.”