In the world you know, the maniacal Carnage went on a rampage across New York, confounding an array of heroes, until they successfully banded together to end his evil once and for all. But before they could do so, Carnage was granted still greater abilities by a Demon Lord known as the Predator, making his defeat all the more unlikely, and the heroes' triumph all the greater in the end. With Carnage defeated, the Predator was left to languish in the Darkforce Dimension he calls home, chastened but undiminished by his defeat.

But in another universe, not unlike your own, the Predator found he had bitten off more than he could chew. As in your own universe, he abducted a trio of heroes — the team of Cloak and Dagger, and the mysterious Moon Knight — and thought himself too powerful to be challenged by their like. Yet, in this universe, the trio made a stand and pulled an amazing victory from the jaws of utter defeat. Though it cost the very life of his Godly patron, Khonshu, Moon Knight and the others were (barely) victorious in their fight. And so, I submit to you the question we now must answer:

WHAT IF MOON KNIGHT HAD KILLED THE PREDATOR?

On a solitary rooftop, during a bright, moonlit night, a swirl of impossible blackness resolved itself into a shadowy human form. It was the young hero known as Cloak, of Cloak and Dagger. Bursting forth from within his ebon depths came his partner Dagger, and the Fist of Khonshu known as the Moon Knight. The three collapsed into a tangled heap together, panting.

"Did we do it?" asked Dagger. Her light powers had made her the least vulnerable to the Predator, and thus the least injured. By contrast, Cloak and Moon Knight were in a sorry state. The Predator had nearly torn Cloak to pieces, and it was only thanks to his new alien symbiote that Moon Knight had survived at all. "Did we really kill the Predator?"

"We did it," Cloak confirmed, rising to his feet and walking a few paces away. "He's dead."

"Killing an elder demon in his home dimension is next to impossible," Moon Knight corrected. "We killed him, sure. But he won't stay dead."

"Then what's to stop him from using Cloak to escape again?" Dagger asked, her eyes wide. There was no way they'd defeat the Predator a second time.

Moon Knight pondered the question. It was a legitimate concern. With Khonshu destroyed, Moon Knight was depowered, save for his alien symbiote. If the Predator returned someday, he'd be vulnerable. He looked deep into himself for the answer, but found only silence where once there had been a chorus of voices. With Khonshu gone, the other identities of the Moon Knight had fallen silent, perhaps also gone. He wasn't really Moon Knight at all. He was just Marc Spector. He was as alone as he'd ever been, bereft of his power, his guide, and his mission. He was empty. And as long as Cloak lived, he was a risk to everyone on Earth.

Kill him, suggested Lunacy.

And Marc did just that.

He hadn't meant to kill Dagger. But she just wouldn't stop. Killing Cloak had been necessary, for the greater good, but she had been unable to see that, and she just kept coming at him. She'd never stop. Then she landed one of her light daggers in his eye, and he lost control. By the time he'd come back to himself, she was gone, strangled with her partner's discarded cloak.

And then he heard the voice. From the vast silent abyss within, he heard the voice.

"Very nice, Marc," said Carnage, or a piece of him. In the silence of his mind, Marc had forgotten that Carnage had ever been there in the first place. But he still had his poisoned barbs in Marc's mind, even after the Predator stripped him of all the others. "I'm proud of you."

Marc was almost relieved. It wasn't him that had killed Cloak and Dagger, he told himself, but Carnage!

Carnage laughed.

"Keep telling yourself that, Marc."

Infuriated, Marc pulled a small key fob out of his belt. He pressed the red button. Miles away, high in the sky, the "Carnage Copter" exploded.

Satisfied, Marc went looking for the other heroes. Spider-Man. Spider-Woman. Daredevil. Domino. Venom. Mayhem. Tigra.

And one by one, he killed them all, in the name of Carnage.

It was the perfect storm of powers, abilities, and insanity. With each new kill, a new persona bloomed in the fractured psyche of Marc Spector, to take his or her place. 'Venom' took control of the alien symbiote invasion. 'Tigra' gave him the skills of the Sorcerer Supreme.

(Spider-Man gave him a horrible sense of humor. He also lectured on responsibility, but really, it was the sense of humor.)

Marc Spector had become the Symbiote Supreme.

Symbiotes went forth to do his bidding. Some took the forms of the fallen heroes, and their identities. And for a time, nobody even knew that they had been killed and replaced. But there were clues, and there were discrepancies, and finally the secret was out. From his captured Sanctum in Greenwich Village, Spector quietly controlled the streets of New York.

Of course, the remaining heroes sought to do something about it. How could they not? And so it came to pass that a trio of Avengers stormed the Sanctum, demanding a reckoning...!

The thing that had been Wong stood by the shattered door, frowning with displeasure.

"I was coming," he said.

"Our way is faster," Iron Man shot back. Thor had 'knocked', technically. "We're here for Moon Knight."

"And he is here for you," Wong replied. "He is here for us all."

"We'll see about that." Captain America strode past Wong and into the front hall of the Sanctum. "Come out!!"

"Who summons me?" asked the red-cloaked figure, standing there as if he had always been. "Ah. The Avengers."

"Moon Knight," said Captain America. "Stand down."

He didn't reply. He didn't so much as move. But light daggers shot forth from a hundred different places about the room. Caught off-guard by such a lethal response, even the fabled super-soldier couldn't block or dodge all of them. He fell in an instant while the other two could do nothing but gape in surprise.

"You bastard!" Iron Man fired his repulsors on full, with enough power to punch a hole through a mountain. But his opponent had already grabbed up the one thing in the room guaranteed to withstand such a blast: the Captain's own shield. Then he split off a symbiote to become a facsimile of Captain America himself, and in the blink of an eye the sides had become even.

"Odin's beard!" Thor swore. He spun Mjolnir and flung the hammer with all his strength.

A portal opened in Mjolnir's path, and the hammer vanished. Neither Thor nor Iron Man noticed the second portal behind the Golden Avenger's head. And as fast as Captain America had been taken down, Iron Man was out as well.

"You will die for this!" Thor bellowed.

"One of us will."

For a minute, it appeared as though Thor would be victorious, as he rained blow after blow upon the mystical shield that had been hastily conjured. Bit by bit, he was driven back, then to one knee. The mystic shield shattered.

"Any last words, villain?" Thor demanded as he raised his hammer for one final, fatal blow.

"Yes: Donald Blake." The wooden cane came down hard, but it was easily caught and contemptuously wrested from the mortal's grip. "I am the master of all the inner voices. Even those not mine."

The counterfeit Captain America beheaded Blake with a single stroke of his shield.

"St-stop." Miraculously, the true Captain America rose to his feet. Though he had been shot through by a dozen light-daggers, he was not dead... though perhaps death was not so far off. "Moon Knight, don't—"

"I am not Moon Knight," he said as he stabbed the Captain through the heart with Blake's walking stick. "I am Bloodmoon."

They came in force after that. The remaining Avengers, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men... but the symbiote army was legion, and each one was capable of wielding the powers of the Sorcerer Supreme, or Spider-Man, Cloak and Dagger, Captain America, or any of a dozen other fallen heroes. And each time a hero fell, Bloodmoon spawned a new identity, transferred it into a symbiote body, and replaced the hero with a facsimile. By the time the moon rose the next night, Bloodmoon reigned supreme.

But even still he was not happy. Even still, he was but a stopgap against the chaos of humankind.

And so he replaced them, as well.

And that is where our tale ends, reader: on a world made of equal parts madness and order, where each and every man, woman, and child is truly but one man in billions of alien bodies. It is a world devoid of crime and war, but also devoid of love or hope.

Marc Spector was a troubled, tortured man, who only sought to protect the innocent. But he became lost, and the abyss he struggled with his entire life grew to swallow the entire world along with him.

11PM
Pajamas: silk.
Dumplings: hot.
Champagne: cold.

Now to choose between RomCom marathon or KDrama?  The Black Cat has been hard at work lately.  Some of it was even good deeds.  It's fun helping the Spider, but Felicia hates doing it pro-bono.  Tonight it's time to have a night for absolutely nothing.

Midnight
Panic grips the city. Police sirens pierce the air for miles around as mobs of rioters loot and pillage their way across town. Makeshift barriers of wooden planks fall easily to the clawing hands of the enraged citizens, who break into stores to steal whatever loot they can get their hands on. The businesses are long empty, any valuables deserted in the owner's hasty exit. The absence of any potential victims only serves to drive the mob into a greater frenzy.

Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together.  Mass Hysteria.
Basically Christmas Eve.
Biggest shopping night of the year and Felicia hasn't prepared a list.  The Avengers are going to contain this and while they do, everyone will be distracted and nobody is going to be paying attention to what the Black Cat is up to. So much for relaxing.  Time to get dressed.

1AM
Suited up and crouched on a rooftop, Felicia gets a look at what's causing all the fuss.  The Spider is there, of course he is.  The Defenders backing him up.  Two Avengers.  Three if you count Hawkeye.  They even already have a cat.

'Damn he looks good in that black suit.'
'Fo-cus Felicia.  He dumped you for that actress.  So he could spend his days playing Peter Parker.  And then he took the mask off anyway.  It doesn't matter if she disappeared with all the others.'


In our timeline, Felicia joined the heroes when she sees the odds against them.

In another, she thinks 'They've got this handled, and I can be off on a little shopping trip.  I bet no one's watching all the Fantastic Four's toys with three of them gone.'

'After all, they've all got powers' (she has promptly forgotten Hawkeye) 'and most of them don't even like me.'

The first victim is Ben Urich.  Without the Black Cat's infiltration, no one knows there's a hostage in the press box.  The Devil is quiet, but not quiet as a cat.  No one's softened up the guards and scratched that purple neck.  He's on his own, and if you'll forgive the pun, he's going in blind.  No one warns him that Killgrave is still nearby when he cuts down Ben's body.  A Killgrave that hasn't been injured by the Cat's claws.  Daredevil will make it through this with the help of the telepathy charm, but the damage that Killgrave does means a trip to the hospital, and at the minimum he's out for the rest of the night.  Ben isn't the only civilian that the Black Cat saves that night, but he's the one with the deepest connection to the heroes.  That matters little to a room of civilians in the stadium when the Carnage-copter crashes in an hour.

3AM
The Heroes for Hire, Morbius, and the Doppelganger hold off endless waves of Bio-preds coming from the portal.  Without the cat's whip, they have dozens more to handle.  Things didn't go well for the Doppelganger, with help.  They go worse without, puppeting it's lifeless body after they finish with it.  Instead of a dying clone being brought to be laid to rest, it leaves one more foe for the heroes to fight.  Some of the extra Bio-preds escape to the sewers and attack the population for weeks later.

5AM
When American Dream tries to detain Carnage, there are two less people to stop her escape.  No one to knock her off-balance while she defends the killer.  No one to take that shield away from her.

Will that make the difference in Kassady's fate?

Felicia is too focused on her new toys to care.