[You’re first! Have at it!]

Anyone who thought the night was a quiet time had never been to New York. The urban jungle was a tangle of noises. A baby cried, and was sung to by his mother, their voices floating out the open window. A car horn blared as the last two cars on an otherwise deserted street managed to get in each other's way. Bottles clinked, and men laughed, coming out a basement bar to stagger to their respective homes. An ambulance siren wailed. Dogs barked. Cats yowled.

A woman shrieked.

Moon Knight's head whipped around, called to action by the terrified cry. He moved silently as a ghost, the white cape giving the impression of the same as he moved across the rooftops.

A man, a woman, and a boy were held at gunpoint in the alley below. The thug was most likely lured to them by the flash of white at her neck: a single strand of pearls. The man tried to insert himself between the thug and his lady, but the thug wasn't having any. He levelled the pistol, giving his one and only warning. The man stood firm. The woman quailed. The boy froze.

The thug crunched.

Moon Knight rose from the alley floor, and stepped off of the thug. He'd live, but regaining the use of his legs would be a long, slow, painful road.

"Who are you?" the man managed to ask.

"A guardian of those who travel at night," Moon Knight replied, his voice like gravel. "Stay out of dark alleys next time."

He took the gun, which lay near the thug's twitching fingers, and it vanished into the folds of his cloak. Then he turned to depart, leaving the young family to continue on their way. Only the gods knew what might have happened if Moon Knight had not been there to protect them. But tonight, the gods weren't talking.

Some nights, they wouldn't shut up.

This night, the gods spoke.

”Marc Spector! We have a problem!”

As Moon Knight leaps from rooftop to rooftop, the moon god is there, pointing which way to leap next.

”The servant of the Spider God will explain…”

The Spider God? There was a Spider God now?

Marc followed Khonshu's directions, from one rooftop to the next, as long as he would point the way. He kept an eye out for any spider-god-servant types that might be in the area.

A figure in a black trenchcoat is trying to stand. He reaches for his fedora and wobbles like he’s drunk or concussed.

”That’s…that’s never happened before…that can’t be good…”

A covered face with goggles turns towards Spector.

“And who the heck are you??”

"I'm Moon Knight," Marc said from beneath his mask. Whoever this kid was, he didn't scare easily. Moon Knight terrified most people on sight. "Are you the servant of the Spider God?"

He leans against a heating vent and rubs his head.

”Well normally I go by Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man but…wait…how do you know about that guy? Are you ‘Khonsu’s right-hand man’ he was talking about?’

"Right-hand man, eh?" Khonshu would never give Marc that kind of compliment directly, but it was still nice to hear himself described that way to others. "Often referred to as his 'fist', truth be told. So what can I do for you, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man?"

”Spider-Man will suffice, thanks Mr. Knight…”

He offers his gloved hand to shake.

”Where do I even start? Say…Can we go sit down in a deli and get some egg creams or matzo ball soup while we talk about this? I’m used to clobbering two-bit hoods and fascists but all this mystic mumbo jumbo is way over my pay grade!”

Moon Knight did something very unusual for him: he sighed. This Spider-Man wasn't much more than a kid, and was clearly in over his head. But Khonshu wanted Marc to work with him, so he'd work with him.

"Sure, kid. We'll go get a couple of egg creams and talk this out." The day he ordered matzo ball soup in a deli would be the day Marc's mother came back to life to hunt him down.

He reluctantly pulled his mask off, and folded it up with his cloak. He tucked it between a pair of chimneys, where it ought to be safe for the while.

Spider-Man rubbed his chin.

”I guess it would look weird to show up like this outside of Halloween, huh?”

He pulls off the mask and goggles. Yep, he is a kid! He dons some glasses and turns his shirt inside out, which more of a light gray underneath. He leaves his trench and fedora next to Marc’s stash.


[Fast forward to the deli]

*ssssip* ”…so I opened the crate and there’s this idol from who knows where and all these spiders crawl out of it and one of them bites me. Then I get delirious from the venom and I see this huge….spider thing. It tells me he’s given me his blessing to punish the guilty…”

"I was chosen by my God, Khonshu, in a similar manner," Marc said, feeling a little naked without his mask. This was Moon Knight's time, not Marc's. "Not to say that I was bitten by anything, but that it was sudden and unexpected, with an element of 'Why me?' thrown in for good measure."

Not one for small talk, though, Marc moved the conversation in the direction of the more immediate concerns.

"So, when I found you on the roof, it looked like someone had rung your bells pretty good. What's the story there?"

”…so, the Spider-God sends me this mental alarm when I’m in danger, it gives me an extra second to duck or jump and so on….”

He puts down an empty glass.

”But this time, HE was the one in danger. And I’ve got a pretty good reason why. Remember that incident last winter when a guy named Kravinov brought a actual dragon from Antarctica to show off for money and fame? And just like in King Kong, the monster escaped? The Fantastic Four showed up and everything?”

"Yeah... and what did he call the thing? Ridiculous name... Fin Fang Foom? Every weirdo in a mask showed up for that one."

The spider-god gave him warnings? That was different. Sometimes Marc got the feeling Khonshu liked seeing Marc get sucker-punched from the shadows.

"So, is this Kravinov back in business?"

”He’s on his way back…and when he shows up he’ll have the strength of a god. Along the way he’d stolen a gem from an ancient temple. The gem belonged to a god called…Side-to-rack? No…Cytorrak. The longer Kravinov held it the stronger he got. How strong do you have to get to sucker punch a GOD? He hit my boss so hard I felt it all the way down here!”

"That's... not good." Marc had to wonder if the kid was getting the story straight. Kravinov punched out a god? What kind of weird gem was that? "Do you know where he is now?"

”The only way we could stop his rampage was to have Cloak eject him to the Dark Dimension. It’s not the completely empty void Cloak thought it was, it turns out. Apparently the gods use it to slip between worlds because that’s where the Spidee-God caught  Kravinov to take him back to Cytorrak. But along the way, he broke free. How he gets back to New York? I have no idea…but when he does the first thing he’s gonna do is hunt me down and squash me.”

He shrugs.

”Hey do you mind covering the check? I left my wallet in my coat up there.”

Marc grunted and put a dollar on the counter for the egg creams.

"I get that you need help," he agreed, based on what he'd been told, "but if we don't know where the guy is, I don't know how much help I'm likely to be."

Completely unbeknownst to the two heroes, in the booth next to them Mr. Walter Charles from the Wichita Watcher is taking copious notes.

Sitting next to him are two other trenchcoated figures, splitting a pizza and sharing an ashtray.

One looks like a certain spider-god and has an ice pack on his head. The other looks likes a skeletal bird.

”He has a point…” the portly bald man murmurs.

”His trajectory is nearly random. Not even I can predict where he will appear in Earth-90214B.”

”He’s more likely to land in the wrong dimension than this one!” groans the spider as he cautiously eats his slice of pizza.

”So what you are saying is he is a multiversal threat? asks the bony one.

Walter frowns and the spider winces as he bites down.

”Do you expect me to call on the Spider-Verse?” He points to Khonshu.

”Isn’t Egypt a British territory right now?”

Walter raises his hand. ”I’m going to have to stop you there. We ALL know another Great War is going to happen very soon and I can’t have anyone from an analogous timeline spilling the beans!”

Peter gasps.

”What if he tries coming out the same way he went in?”

He stands up. ”We gotta find Cloak! Kravinov is gonna rip him to shreds…literally! He and Dagger will be in the back alleys somewhere rescuing kids from junkies and pimps…”

He runs past the three huddled figures smoking and sharing a pizza and out the door.

Marc ran after the kid. He was fast, but Marc was pretty fast himself. Besides, he knew where the kid was going.

A few moments later, Marc stepped into the pale moonlight of the rooftop where they'd met, intercepting the kid as he rummaged for his mask.

"Cloak and Dagger, huh? Never heard of them." Marc was lying. He'd heard of the teen duo before. He knew everything that went on in his streets, especially at night. He just wanted to know what Spider-Man knew of them. Maybe it was more than Moon Knight, even.

”They’re some runaway teens who help other runaway teens…” he said as he slipped into his costume.

”From what I can tell they they were picked by some cult for a human sacrifice that went sideways. The girl’s got a facial scar and a magic dagger. The boy’s got a cloak that’s got a huge void inside of it…they use it to vanish and reappear across the city.”

"Huh. Neat trick. All my magic cloak does is help me glide between rooftops." Which was a useful trick, of course. But still.

"So how do we find them?"