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worldserasingandcreatinginmymind · 8 months

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Bloody Beetle | Part Five

Summary: you journey into the tomb with Steven and Layla, but will you get to Ammit before Harrow gets to you...

Pairing: Steven/Marc x Reader, Layla x Reader, Harrow x Reader

Word Count: 3.3k

Warnings: Heka priests, deaths (I’m sorry 😭), Harrow being Harrow

A/N: as always spelling and grammar are not my strongest skills so please be kind :)

Part Four | Series Masterlist

- - - - -

“Y/N!” the British voice you didn’t realise you’d missed so much. “Y/N, oh thank God!”

You crawl out from under the bed and you just about have time to get to your feet before he’s pulling you in for the tightest hug you’ve ever received. You let yourself sink into his embrace for just a second before pulling away.

“Are you alright?” He starts to anxiously ramble “I thought you were dead-”

“You can drop the act. I know who you really are, Marc Spector. Harrow explained it all to me. He told me you were a mercenary and that everything the police said in the car that night, about how you killed people… It’s all true. And that’s why you pretended to be Steven. Pretended to be my friend-

"I AM your friend..."

"A friend wouldn't have just given Harrow the scarab and left me behind."

“No no no, Y/N, that’s not what happened at all. I lost the scarab while being chased out of there by a jackal that he summoned! I tried to get to you, so did Layla. I would never just leave you." He reaches out for you but you back away. “Please, you have to believe me!”

“I don't know what to believe anymore.” You say sadly.

“Y/N…” he stops talking, his eyes rolling back and when he looks at you again he’s completely different. “Y/N, I don't have time right now but I promise I will tell you the truth.”

“Marc..? What just happened?”

“We need to stop Harrow first and then I will explain everything. I promise.” Marc is interrupted by Maya running back into the tent, her gun aimed at him.

“You need to leave!” She says, trying to sound threatening but you can see pure panic in her eyes.

"Maya, its okay." You try to calm her. "Just put the gun away."

"I can't. Harrow- he'll be so mad at me. This isn't supposed to be happening-" Maya rambles, but when Marc moves slightly she refocuses on him. "You have to leave!"

“No, I think you should leave.” Layla says as she sneaks in behind Maya and yanks the gun straight out her hand. Maya runs and Layla sees you. She looks just as surprised as Steven had. “Y/N! You look good for someone who's supposed to be dead.”

“What are you talking about? Why would you think I was dead?"

"Because that's what Harrow is telling people." Marc says.

"Bu why would lie about that?"

“Because that's just what he does. He lies and manipulates people. which is one of the reasons we have to get to Ammit’s ushabti before he does.”

— — — —

The three of you make your way outside just in time to see Maya disappear down into the tomb.

“Shit, she’ll warn Harrow that we’re here.” Layla says as you run to the dig site. “Ah.” She says once you get to there.

“What's the problem?” Marc asks.

“I wasn’t expecting Y/N to be with us, I only have two harnesses. I can go find another?”

“No, it’s alright. That will take too long. Harness me up and I’ll carry her down with me.”

“Are you sure?” You say, anxiety rippling through you.

“Yeah, it’s not that far down. We’ll be fine.”

Layla gets her harness on then helps Marc get into his. As she's tightening his straps you see his eyes roll like they did before and notice his whole posture change again.

“I have to say, I feel like I’ve been waiting for this my whole life.” Steven's voice says as Layla helps him tighten the straps on his harness, completely unfazed by his changed accent. “The adventure, I mean.”

“We want what we’ve never had.” She finishes preparing his harness and gets ready. “I’m gonna go down first. Before I belay.”

“Right, yeah… what’s belay?” Steven asks, and Layla laughs.

“I still can’t tell when you're joking or not.” She says before clipping rope to the front of her harness and disappearing down the shaft. Steven looks at you.

“Belay?” He says, and you shrug.

“I have no idea.” You half laugh. “Are you sure you can do this?”

“It’ll be fine.” He says, not at all convincingly. He copies Layla, attaching the rope to the front of his harness then gestures for you to come over. You awkwardly put your arms around his neck and he lifts you. Its surprises you how strong he is. He cradles you to him and takes a breath before taking a step. But as he reaches the edge, his foot slips and you both tumble down into the darkness. Steven’s body acts as an air bag as he hits the ground, still holding you tightly. You land with a thud in a cloud of dust and sand. It takes you a moment to realise your lying on top of Steven, your face less than an inch away from his.

“Are you okay?” Layla asks, rushing over and helping you up.

“Yeah, I think so.” You reply, turning to give Steven a hand. “Steven?”

“I’m aces.” He says, grunting as he gets to his feet. “I wish you hadn’t seen that… oh wow, look at you.”

You look at him and realise he’s looking past you. You turn to see the huge ancient sculptures behind you, similar to the ones you used to see every day in the museum. Only these ones weren’t made out of polystyrene just to decorate an exhibition. This is the real deal.

“Oh yeah, they’re gorgeous.” Layla agrees. “Just standing guard for centuries!”

“Right! Look I can’t even…” Steven looks like all his Christmas came at once, he’s so excited. You can’t help but feel happy for him, and wonder if what Harrow said could be true. Could he really fake being this excited. “If they just sprang to life right now and asked me a riddle for passage I’d be thrilled! I’d shit myself, but id be thrilled.”

You and Layla exchange a look, silently laughing at the adorable dork in the room.

Once Steven finished fangirling over the reality of where you were right now, the three of you started to make your way further into the tomb.

“Strange.” Steven says quietly as you follow the winding corridors.

“It’s a maze.” Layla says.

“It’s a-maze-ing.” Steven jokes and you roll your eyes, but secretly want to laugh at his little pun. He is fully loving life right now.

“No, like there are six paths.” Layla explains. She bends down, picking up bullets left on the ground. “What would they be shooting at?”

“Six points.” Steven mumbles to himself, ignoring Layla's question about the bullets as he starts to draw something in the sand. “This whole structure is a symbol.”

You and Layla join Steven and look at what he’s drawn. You recognise it from one of the books in the museum.

“That’s the eye of Horus, right?” You ask.

“The royal symbol of protection in the afterlife.” Steven agrees.

“I mean, the resources needed to build this thing!” Layla realises, “Her final avatar was a pharaoh.”

“Woah!” Steven breathes “A bloody pharaoh!”

“You think it’s a map?” You ask.

“Yeah well… the eye of Horus is also the eye of mind yeah? Representing the six senses, six points. So you got the eyebrow that denotes thoughts. Pupil, sight, obviously. This point here is hearing. Smell. Touch. And this long line ending in a spiral is the tongue.”

“The avatar would be Ammit’s voice.” Layla suggests, and Steven nods.

“That’s right.”

You follow them further into the tomb, to a dark room with a sort of stone table in the middle. Layla shines her torch around the walls, revealing ancient drawings on them.

“Heka priests! Judging by their masks and ceremonial stance. They would have been entombed in here to protect the pharaoh. Sorcerers of their time. They’ve been down here for centuries.” She moves her torch to shine on mummified figures in the wall. “These must be some of the unlucky souls who crossed their path.”

You shine your torch at the stone table.

“Oh my God.” Steven gags. “Oh God, is that fresh blood? Little chunks of meaty bits?”

Layla crouches down to examine blood covered jars and tools before saying “Let’s keep moving.”

You start walking towards the exit but when Steven puts his arm out to stop you, you notice the blood trail leading to a pile of bones.

“Just a minute.” Steven says, any excitement he previously had now replaced by fear. “Im just stating what I see, and I see lots of bones and blood going that way. So I’m just thinking like, what if there’s another…” he shines his torch around the room, stopping and pointing up. “There’s an opening up there. You see that? Should we check it out?”

“Alright, you go.” Layla says and Steven starts climbing up to the platform. “Go with him? So he doesn’t fall again.” She asks you with a smirk and you nod. The floorboards creak as you pull yourself up, following Steven.

“So according to ancient text, Ammit should be bound to an ushabti, those statue thingies.” He says as you look around. Steven starts rambling again about all the amazing ancient things he’s seeing, but Layla reminds him he’s supposed to be looking for an exit. “Oh yeah, yeah we can go this way.”

The sound of guns firing makes you all jump.

“Harrow.” You whisper.

“What are they shooting at?” Steven asks.

“I don't know.” Layla starts, but stops when she hears a clicking sound.

“Hide, hide!” Steven frantically whispers as he helps you find somewhere to shelter. You peer over the side and see Layla duck down behind the stone table as a figure enters the room, dragging a body behind it. The thing lifts the body up onto the table and you realise it’s one of Harrow’s people, the male police officer. He’s half awake and groaning as the thing that dragged him in reaches over and picks up one of the sharp tools from the side. It lifts it in the air and plunges it down into the mans body with a squelch. You cover your mouth and look away, over at Steven who looks just as horrified. You look down at Layla, who is still crouched hiding by the table. Right by the jars that the creature has started putting the man’s organs into. She slowly starts to move around to the other side, away from them but she knocks into a jar, alerting the creature to her presence. Steven leans forward, closer to the edge to get a better look but the floorboard creaks under him. He freezes as the thing jumps up onto the table and then up to cling to the underside of the platform you are on. Steven starts to full panic as you look around for a way out, just as Layla launches a jar at the wall. It smashes, grabbing the creatures attention.

“Run! I’ll find you!” Steven yells down to Layla, who makes an escape out the room. “Help me.” He calls over to you and you help him push a table off the platform. It lands on the creature. “We squished it. We squished it!” He gasps, turning and hugging you in relief.

“Yeah we squished it, what exactly was it?” You say breathlessly.

“Heka priest. We should go before any more of them turn up.”

“There’s more of them?!”

Steven grabs your hand and pulls you through the exit. He leads you through more corridors, occasionally stopping to admire a sculpture or ancient drawing. Eventually you find yourselves in a large, magnificent room.

“Oh my days!” Steven gasps. “First ones here. Tomb fit for a pharoah. Its gotta be one of the bigguns.”

You just smile at him as he continues rambling in amazement at everything in the room. You have to admit, it is pretty impressive. But Steven is the real expert on all this stuff. You cross the stepping stones through the water to the middle of the room where the sarcophagus lies.

“Oh wow, look at that! Look at all these relics. Macedonian? No, what?” He crouches down to look at the inscriptions on the side of the sarcophagus. “No way. That can’t be right.”

“What is it?”

“That's Macedonian. But the only pharaoh…but he insisted on calling him self Egyptian.”

“Steven you're not making any sense. What are you saying?”

“I think were looking at the long lost tomb of Alexander the Great.”

“You're kidding?” You ask and he looks at you in amazement. You don't know why but you both start laughing. “Let's get it open.”

You both place your hands on the top, getting ready to push. Steven takes a few breaths then stops.

“Everything inside me is screaming not to open this thing.” He says.

“I know, but Harrow-”

“Alright, alright, alright.” He places his hands back on the top and takes a deep breath. You count to three then push with all your strength. The lid slides open to reveal a mummified corpse lying inside. Even though thats exactly what you expected to see, it still startled you that that is an actual dead person. The actual Alexander the Great.

“Right so, what are we looking for?” you ask.

“If you're gonna hide it for all eternity, you’d probably put it in a place where the average looter wouldn’t think to look.” He thinks. “Alexander was the voice of Ammit...”

You both look at the head, completely wrapped in cloth.

“You don't think…” you start, really hoping Steven isn’t about to suggest what you think he’s going to suggest. You really don't want to see what the body looks like underneath that cloth.

“I'm gonna try something.” He starts to remove the cloth from the head. “Sorry. Oh God, so sorry. Sorry Mr Great.”

The fabric rips revealing the Alexander’s skull, which Steven apologises to again before prying open its mouth and reaching inside. He searches deep inside the skull, gagging a few times before slowly pulling out the a small statue that looks like Ammit.

“Is that it? You got it?” You ask, hope rising that Harrow might not succeed.

“Yeah, yeah we got it.” Steven says with a smile. You smile back before you pull each other in for a hug. You pull apart when you hear footsteps and look to see Layla enter. “Layla look. We won!” He holds the ushabti in the air, a hug grin on his face. But Layla doesn’t smile. She looks likes she’s been crying.

“Are you okay?” You ask.

“Can he hear me?” She asks Steven, ignoring you completely. Now that she’s closer you can see she looks angry.

“Alexander? I don't think so.” Steven chuckles. “God, I hope not.”

“What happened to my father?” She says, getting closer to him. He looks baffled. “I’m talking to you... I’m talking to Marc!” She shoves him and he pauses, his eyes rolling back.

“Come on.” He says, his deep American voice is serious and he tries to pull Layla with him. “We need to go right now.”

“No!” Layla shakes him off. “What happened to my father?”

“Listen to me. We have to leave right now. I will explain everything, I swear. But we have to go!”

“Did you kill Abdullah El Faouly?” Layla asks and Marc pauses. A tense silence fills the air.

“I’m just gonna- I’ll give you a minute.” You say awkwardly as you back away towards the entrance Layla came in through.

“Stay close!” Marc calls to you and you nod before stepping just outside into the corridor. You can still hear their raised voices but at least you don't feel like a spectator to their private conversation now.

As you stand in the dark corridor, trying not to listen to the argument happening just a few feet away, you're suddenly aware that you're not alone. You spin around to see Harrow stood looking at you. He doesn’t look shocked to see you, but he does look disappointed. Like a parent that has just caught their child doing something wrong. You freeze, like a deer caught in headlights as his disciples start charging past you into the tomb, leaving you and Harrow alone. He doesn’t take his eyes off you.

“As disappointed as I am that you disobeyed my order, I am glad you are here to see me take my victory.”

He starts to move towards you and you bolt, trying to run past him to warn Layla and Marc. But he catches you, grabbing you by the arm and pulling you into the room himself. You’re surprised to find Marc left stood on his own, holding an axe, ready to fight. He falters slightly when he realises Harrow has hold of you. Harrow looks at Marc and smiles, before handing you over to Bobbi.

“Just you. The rest is silence.” He says as he takes a few slow steps towards Marc. “I remember the first morning I woke up knowing that Khonshu was gone. The quiet was liberating. You're a free man.” He walks closer to Marc. “And of course with that freedom comes choice. And right now you have a very important decision to make.”

“Okay.” Marc responds.

“No Marc, don’t!” You shout, causing Bobbi to tighten her grip on you and put her hand over your mouth.

Harrow glances at the disciples to the side of him, who start advancing on Marc, guns aimed at him. Marc just stands completely still until they get close enough then he starts his attack, easily taking out three of them. Harrow steps forward, raising a gun that you didn’t even see him holding and points it at Marc.

Before you have a chance to even try to fight, Harrow pulls the trigger. A bullet hits Marc straight in the chest. He stumbles backwards, pain on his face as his white shirt starts to stain red. You scream in Bobbi’s grasp and Harrow locks eyes with you for a moment before turning back and firing a second, fatal bullet at Marc. It hits, sending him falling backwards into the water.

“I can’t save anyone who won’t save themselves.” Harrow says as he watches Marc’s life’s body float in the water.

You manage to swing your arm around to hit Bobbi in the stomach, causing her to release her grip on you and you rush forward, past Harrow and straight into the water, pulling Marc's body up to cradle him.

“Steven?” You cry, not caring that the mix of water and bloody is soaking into your clothes. “Steven please. Wake up, please.”

Harrow comes up behind you, placing a hand on your shoulder but you instantly push him away.

“Get off me!” You shout, Harrow looks completely unfazed. “Stay away from me! You're a murderer!”

“We must move on.” he holds his hand out to you.

“No! I’m not leaving him.” You argue. “I would rather die than go anywhere with you!”

For the briefest moment you think Harrow almost looks hurt by your statement. But then his face changes again.

“I can see you’re upset, you're not in your right mind.”

“Oh my mind is perfectly right.” You say as you stand up, face to face with Harrow. “I never want to see you again.” You say through gritted teeth before turning your back on him and returning to Marc’s side.

“This is your last chance Y/N.” He warns, and you ignore him. “Very well.”

Suddenly two pairs of hands grasp yours arm, yanking you up to your feet as two disciples drag you away kicking and screaming out of the water and hold you as Harrow and two disciples go to Steven’s body.

“Don't you dare touch him!” Your shout falling on deaf ears as the disciples drag Steven out of the water. Harrow crouches down beside him as the disciple hands him Ammit’s ushabti. He smiles before looking at Steven.

“I’m sorry it had to be this way, Marc Spector, Steven Grant…” he pauses as he places the scarab beetle on Steven’s chest “whoever else might be in there.” He uses his cane to help him stand back up and turns to face the crowd of disciples, but his focus is on you. “Sometimes we need the cold light of death before we can see reality.”

You struggle against the hands that have you restrained but they just hold you tighter, forcing you down to your knees to bow as Arthur holds the ushabti high for everyone to see.

You hear the sound of footsteps as someone runs into the room. For a moment you feel hope as you think it could be Layla with a plan to stop him, but when you see Maya run up to Harrow the hope quickly dies.

“Harrow, sir, I am so so sorry.” She rambles breathlessly. “I was trying to find you, to warn you, but I got lost in these tunnels.” She pauses, looking at him with sad eyes. “I’ve failed you.”

“Yes, you have.” He says, completely emotionless as he turns his attention away from her. From the look on her face you can tell her heart has just broken. She backs away from him and stands alone near the wall.

“Who wants to heal the world?”

The disciples around you get up and start making their way back out of the tomb. Harrow starts walking over towards you but suddenly stops when he hears Maya following.

“Not you.” He says, not even turning to face her.

“S-sir..?” She says, confusion on her face.

“This is the end for you.” He reaches into his pocket and before Maya has a chance to register whats happening he turns and shoots her in the chest with the same gun he killed Steven with. You gasp and try to get to her slump as she slumps painfully to the ground, but the disciples holding you keep you firmly in place, still kneeling on the floor.

“Why- why did you do that?!” A sob escaping your throat as Harrow comes to stand by you. “She was just a young girl!!”

“She let him get to you. She put you in danger… I can’t have that.”

“The only reason I’m in danger is because of you!” You say shakily and Harrow looks down at you. He doesn’t say anything, he just reaches his hand down to wipe the tears from under your eyes. Then he walks past you, gesturing for the disciples to follow. As they harshly pull you up to your feet, you can’t take your eyes off of Maya’s lifeless body. Her glossy eyes staring at you as they drag you away, leaving her forever resting in the tomb of Alexander the Great.

Part Six

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#moon knight #marvel fanfic #moon knight fic #moon knight fanfic #moon knight x reader #steven grant x reader #marc spector x reader #arthur harrow x reader #layla el faouly x reader #layla el faouly #arthur harrow #Steven grant #Marc spector #Oscar isaac #Oscar Isaac x reader #Ethan hawke #Ethan Hawke x reader

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