He was back in Cairo. The desert. The camp. The… the…
The scene switched violently.
He was back in Ammit's tomb.
"I can free you."
The very floor seemed to grow all wavy and twist around him. His mind buzzed with something akin to whispers and a voice cut through. He didn't recognize it, but it was louder than everything else.
"You can be free."
The voice was that of a stranger and yet not so much. It was worming into his thoughts, insistent, alluring, charismatic.
"You are a slave. Let me free you."
Something slammed into his chest. Twice.
He fell.
All he was focused on was the other presence in the blackness, flickering and dying, then coming back to life again.
And then he was on a barge. Boat. Whatever. A vessel cutting through desert sand, endless dunes and nothing but purple sky around him.
It was a world he had never seen. It wasn't his memory. It wasn't Steven's. He was in a place neither man had been to and he knew it couldn't be another alter's memory.
"Welcome to the Duat."
He whirled around, the wooden deck beneath his feet moving gently. "Who are you?!"
The Duat. Marc wasn't the expert on Egyptian mythology; that was Steven. But he had heard of it before.
The underworld? He had never been… not that he could remember.
The pressure behind his forehead rose.
This wasn't… it wasn't his memory!
"You are actually quite dead."
No. No, he had never… when he had been dying… he had never stepped into the underworld. Khonshu… Khonshu had stopped that from happening.
It was a version of the world he had never lived or died in, an alternate reality, really.
"This isn't real!" he shouted.
The barge shuddered and started to sway as if sailing through unruly waters.
And he was in the tomb, standing over the body of Layla's father.
"Killer," the unknown voice whispered. "Murderer. In his name!"
Gun in his hand. Bushman next to him. His former CO clapped his shoulder, teeth flashing white in the light of the moon.
"Let's get our rewards," the man announced.
Marc felt the weight of the gun in his hand, felt another weight on his soul.
The statue of the moon god towered over him, ancient and silent. His eyes found the dead ones of the carved stone and he felt like he was being judged.
He shivered.
"I can free you from this burden," the voice whispered. "Let me set you free."
No. No, he hadn't killed El-Faouly! He hadn't! And he hadn't been a servant of Khonshu back then either!
"This is wrong," he whispered sharply.
The gun fell to the ground.
He lay dying in front of that very statue, could barely breathe, blood trickling between his fingers.
"Your mind. I feel it. Fractured. Broken."
Khonshu's voice was cold and without mercy. It sounded off.
Offering him a deal. But so twisted. So… wrong!
Even at his worst, the moon god had never been this… dark, this cold and merciless, this evil.
This wasn't real!
Khonshu's voice rose, loud and thundering, without emotion, without compassion, and he felt it tear at everything.
He couldn't… didn't take it.
"What a waste."
He pulled the trigger.
Wrong, wrong, wrong! This was wrong!
And he fell into the white room, now cast in the twilight of night. He was surrounded by the dead, gray shells of the men and women he had killed.
"Khonshu's work," the voice said harshly. "Murder! Murder in the name of an unworthy god! I can set you free. Just let me…"
Only to be torn away and he was back on the boat.
Saw Steven go overboard as… things grabbed him.
"Steven! NO!"
He started to run.
But it was too late.
He made a grab for his alter.
Hands touched.
Steven fell, turned to dust.
Marc's anguished scream echoed in the mind plane and he reached again, this time deeper, so much deeper.
Frantic. Painful. Too much to take. Too much to sanely comprehend. And filled with death and more pain.
Something was trying to get to the bond, trying to…
The world whited out briefly.
"Let me take the pain from you, Marc."
Harrow's voice this time. But it wasn't him. It couldn't be him!
"You can be free."
"No!"
"He consumes you. He will kill you."
Something was in his head. Deeper. Looking for a way to break the bond.
He screamed at the top of his lungs and energy rushed through him, consuming him, aggressive and spoiling for a fight.
The need to kill something rose and he whirled around, the cape billowing behind him. The crescent blades were in his hands.
All he saw was death and destruction.
The body of Layla's father. The whole research team.
"Your fault."
"No…"
It was hard.
It felt like climbing a steep, steep cliff.
And then he slipped.
And there was nothing anymore.
Everything grew distant, the sounds muted.
"I feel the pain inside you."
He fought the darkness that threatened to make this even darker.
"Your mind. Fractured. Broken."
The voice was wrong. Not Khonshu's. Harrow's face swam into view.
"Your servitude will erase you," the man said calmly. "It will break you. Aren't you already broken enough? Stop fighting. Let me release you."
The flashes of violent death, despair, horror and pain came back. He saw it all again and again, the countless deaths.
His death.
Steven's.
Marc's strained against the force that kept him in place, that tried to tear into him, break him, and he refused to be broken.
Ever again.
Steven wasn't dead! Steven was his alter, his counter-balance and his shield.
He was back in the tomb. Ammit's. He looked at Harrow, the other's eyes filled with false compassion and a light that spoke of how far gone he was.
Above Harrow, Khonshu hovered like a freaky gargoyle. He looked… wrong. So very wrong. Hungry for death and vengeance. So twisted.
Harrow's eyes turned white with the power of the moon and the ceremonial armor enveloped him.
No! Khonshu wasn't Harrow's! Harrow had rejected him!
"He's mine!" Marc snarled, fury rising to levels he had never felt before. "I don't know who or what you are, but he's mine!"
He reached for Khonshu. He reached for that sliver in his soul that wasn't just a sliver anymore. He felt it tremble, then shake.
Something violently tore into the host and he cried out, but he refused to let go. Marc made a grab for that familiar sliver of power in one violent move, throwing everything he had around the other presence.
Something was trying to slice into that connection twining in his soul, destroy what Marc had sworn he would never lose. It was relentless, dark, cold, calculating, and it hurt. It was an agony he had never felt before.
But the bond didn't so much as fray at the edges.
"Do you want to serve a blood-thirsty god?" the voice that was so much like Harrow's and still not him wormed its way into his head.
Marc wanted to scream at the suffocating darkness that surrounded his mind. His breathing pattern changed; it became rapid. He was beginning to find it hard to get the air he needed into his lungs.
"No! This isn't real!" he finally roared, denial on his lips as the darkness tried again.
"Taking advantage of you? Manipulating your mind? Erasing your soul?"
"No!" he hissed. "No, no, NO!"
"You are a killer. His killer. That is all you are with him. Let me free you of that unholy of unions, avatar…"
The armor suddenly surrounded him, protected him, and he reached for the crescent blades. The metal felt good in his hands. It thrummed with energy.
He would not be torn apart again.
Ever!
At the edge of his vision was another figure, dressed in pure white. Marc nearly blurted his name as Steven joined him, decked out in the suit and face mask that was his version of the Moon Knight. In his hands were the fighting sticks.
Khonshu was theirs.
He wouldn't let anyone take him, and neither would Marc. Never again!
The mental scream echoed through the ever larger growing void.
"This is all your fault!"
"You are a disgusting human!"
Souls fell to the underworld, judged by Ammit.
His fault.
Khonshu's fault.
"NO!"
The voice wasn't his own. He felt another presence, so much stronger than before.
And they suddenly stood back to back, both suited up, both holding their weapons, eyes bright with the power of the moon.
They wouldn't go down without a fight.
Marc glanced at his alter and Steven nodded once. His shield. He was the shield. Marc was the weapon, the Moon Knight. Steven was giving him a chance to get them out of this nightmare, this surreality. He would take care of whatever went at them.
The darkness wavered.
There was a knife stuck in his stomach.
Curious.
It had slipped through the criss-crossed wrappings of the armor, right between the plates underneath the bandages.
There was no blood. Not even real pain. Just… pressure…
Standing in the desert, in full armor, he stared at the knife, then looked up as he caught movement. His cloak flapped around him and there were shapes of pyramids and temples in the distance. No boat, though.
"Marc!"
It was Steven, in full gear as well. The mask was as expressive as always, relaying worry, fear and something that could only be called rage. And there, right where the knife was stuck inside Marc's abdomen, was a bright red stain on the three-piece suit.
"Marc, pull the knife!"
Blood. Blood on Steven. No visible wound, no tear in the vest, but there was blood.
Darkness boiled up around them, still far enough away, but threatening nonetheless.
"Pull the knife!" Steven insisted.
"This isn't real…"
Steven tore off the hood, hair disheveled, face gray and mirroring all the shared pain. The pleading expression in the dark eyes bore into Marc's own eyes.
"I'm real. We are real. This isn't, no. This is bad. Evil. Pull the knife!"
Marc's gaze never left Steven's and suddenly his alter stood right across from him. He closed his fingers around the ornate hilt.
"I can free you," the voice of before whispered sharply. "Of all your pain. Of the god that abuses you! Renounce him!"
Steven shook his head, frantic, pained, so open and real. "It's not real," he insisted.
"Do you want to serve him?" the voice demanded.
And there was Khonshu. Twisted, dark, blackened bones and torn wrappings. Like some horror flic monster, but so much worse. So real, so endless, so powerful and….
"He's not a monster!" Marc hissed, fingers tightening around the hilt.
There were cracks in the darkness.
The image of the moon god distorted, was ghoulish and a living nightmare, clawed bony fingers reaching for him.
"No!" Steven insisted. "That's not us. This is us, Marc. All of this."
His hand covered Marc's now and the surge of power had him whimper.
They grabbed the ornate handle and pulled.
The world collapsed, as did he. His knees thudded to the ground. The darkness rose, dissolving into nothingness.
Someone caught him, caught his fall, his body, his mind, cradling the exhausted form.
Countless linen ribbons fluttered around him, caressing his shaking form as the moon energy dealt with the damage done. A ragged cloak closed around him, cocooning him.
Safe.
Marc closed his eyes.
He… they… were safe.
Moon light flickered from behind closed lids and he felt it spread through his system.
Someone ran a gentle caress over his head.
And then there was nothing.
