Owner	Pose
Marc Spector	Moon Knight was on Patrol, or rather for this evening it was Mr. Knight. Steven Grant is on the case, running along the rooftops in his pristine white suit that looks like it's made of strips of funerary cloth. Every jump comes with a surprised whoop of triump as the exhilaration of making forty foot leaps of faith without incident sends the usually well reserved multi-millionarie into a fit of joy.     He looks to his patrolling companion, the pure white of his power infused eyes shining like a beacon in the night. "That is absolutely incredible. And this is on the new moon. I could probably jump two or three buildings at once at the height of a full moon." He lets out another shout of triumph as he leaps again and his legs do that continuing running motion before he lands on the roof of the next building and keeps going in stride.
Layla Abdalla El-Faouly	Layla is soaring overhead, wings glinting in the ambient city lights as she paces Steven, ready to grab him if he missteps in his joy but otherwise just enjoying watching him have fun. She is, of course, also keeping an eye out for anything shady or criminal-like on the streets below. But there's something endearing about watching him in his pure joy of bounding from building to building. Letting out a chuckle, she flashes a grin towards him, "I think the highest I cleared without wings was five stories. I'm guessing that your peak you could double that." She relents enough to do a small barrel roll, enjoying the wheeling sensation in mid-air. Layla swoops a little high to scan the streets as she does so.
Marc Spector	Steven jumps again and lands, bringing a hand up to forestall Layla from going to far ahead. They're wearing comms, of course, so he doesn't have to pitch his voice too much when he speaks. "I'm feeling something... strange up ahead. Something... off. Magic, I think. It... tickles at the back of my head like a nagging itch. Do you see anything from your vantage point?" he asks.     Even as he speaks he draws on the 'gift' he received from Khonshu. The True Sight, the ability to see past illusions and sense the threads of ambient and active magic, trying to get a bead on exactly what is wrong with the city tonight and what its source might be.
Layla Abdalla El-Faouly	Layla halts her forward momentum when he lifts a hand, circling overhead as she she tries to see what made Steven stop so suddenly. She cranes her head this way and that, then starts to widen her circle, "Let me try widening the pattern a bit, some of my vatange is blocked." She'll focus on where Steven is facing, trying to see if she can spot something out of the ordinary. Being Tawaret's Avatar doesn't let her access that side of magic, hers is more of the healing variety, but she still has excellent senses... including a sense of when there are people in trouble or in need of help. That's the Shield part of the Avatar acting.
Jonathan Sims	The magic is... off, to Steven's senses. Wrong. It looks weirdly purplish and mottled, almost like snakeskin covering a portion of a roof ahead of him. Enough of a portion for people to stand over, in a dome shape.     For Layla's part--it's a subtle thing, what she'll notice. New York is full of animals: rats, cats, birds. It's one of the former that she spots, skittering across a roof and then... disappearing, after going past a certain point.
Marc Spector	Steven, or rather Mr. Knight, narrows his eyes. "Get ready, I don't know what this will do... but things might get hairy" he says before honing in on the dome of energy. He makes a fist and one of the two silvery escrima sticks he's taken to using simply appears. "Let's see what's behind door number one shall we?"     He throws the stick, the baton tumbling end over end on a trajectory for the dome weird dome of scaly energy obfuscating whatever is underneath it. He really hopes that if he pierces it someone has insurance, the amount of force he can conjure on a New Moon night is much less than he can on any other. But even so, a metal baton going at over 100 mph is going to leave a nasty mark if it connects.
Layla Abdalla El-Faouly	When Steven says 'get ready', her Marcsense tells her he's going to do something iffy and 'in the air' is probably not the best place to be. Swooping around, she banks and comes down for a landing, skidding slightly and flaring out the wings for a break. Turning back towards him, she watches that baton toss, "Well... shit." Running the few steps forward, Layla throws up both arms, the wings flaring out into a shield that will largely cover them both. "You know, there are some things that you and my husband very much have in common, Steven."
Jonathan Sims	There's a flurry of movement as the baton sails through what to Layla looks like empty space--though it's right around where that rat disappeared. A scream of pain, and suddenly the scaly magic dome disappears and both Steve and Layla can see what was beneath it.     Five people, each wearing dark colors, camoflague meant to hide them in the night. It's similar to what Steven wears, in that it all looks like wrappings, including the winding of cloth around their heads that hides everything but the eyes. They all bear weapons, from daggers to spears to a single khopesh--though the user of that weapon doesn't hold it as confidently or as well as the Archivist tends to. A sixth form lies on the ground, pinned to the roof by the baton Mr. Knight threw, which embedded itself in their shoulder.     "Get them!" a voice cries, and suddenly the five figures launch themselves at Mr. Knight and Scarlat Scarab!
Marc Spector	Mr. Knight's almost featureless mask turns to Scarlet Scarab and the woman just -knows- there is a beaming grin underneath it. "Of course he does, we're best friends" he says as he says as he conjures a replacement baton and its partner to fully arm himself. "Isn't this more fun though?" he says as he moves forward to engage one of the spearmen and a dagger weidling partner.     Moon Knight's attack patterns follow a pattern of overwhelming brute force, nonstop violence meant to overwhelm and disorient his enemies as nothing they do to him seems to truly phase his relentless onslaught. Mr. Knight is a bit different. His moveset favors speed and agility over strength and has a sophistication of form that makes his attacks look almost like a dance rather than an assault.
Layla Abdalla El-Faouly	Layla lets out a laugh and shakes her head, "Of course you are." Bringing the shield down with the attack incoming, she summons up a pair of short swords and chuckles softly as the group attacks. "Okay, yeah, a little bit." Then she's running right alongside him towards the quintet to engage the sneaky would-be assassins. Layla is more lithe and graceful than Marc, but being an Avatar has put more power behind her movements as well. She engages with one of the spear-wielders, alternating between sword and shield on either arm as needed while trying to kick the man's legs out from underneath him.
Jonathan Sims	The group splits three-two, the larger group going after Layla. Dual daggers and a spear for each, and the one with the khopesh--who seems to be the leader--going after Layla. "See that she lives!" this one shouts. "She's the one we're after!"     So Layla goes for the spear-wielder that comes at her, and trying to kick the legs out from under him leads him to leap back into a handspring, getting some distance to try to use the spear's reach to his advantage. This is when the leader and the other dagger-user press in on her, trying to overwhelm her the same way they're trying to overwhelm Steven, a little ways away. They're good, these people--even the one with the khopesh, though he uses it more like an axe than the way the weapon was truly used, does it /well/. Any hits the two superheroes score will find that there's body armor beneath the dark wrappings, as well.
Marc Spector	Mr. Knight spars with the dagger weilder, to one side and the spear on the other. Escrima sticks parrying and diverting oncoming attacks and trying to dispense his own punishment with quick counterstrikes. Even with his agility the attackers seem to be just as quick as he himself. "Rather quick, aren't you?" he asks, witty banter being very much in his wheelhouse.     At some point, his coat has unbuttoned. A quick slash from the dagger weilder forces him to swing both sticks wide to avoid being disembowled and the spear pierces the inside of the coat, going through to the other side. Mr. Knight spins out of the coat, freeing himself from suffernig the same fate. As the coat is shaken free, he notes with clincal amazement that the fabric starts to knit itself together, but doesn't complete its return to normalcy; a black fraying of the cloth around the puncture wound rendering the garment still marred.     "Scarlet Scarab" he says over the comm. "Don't let their weapons touch you... I think they're poisoned." He ducks to avoid another overhead sweep from the freed spear.
Layla Abdalla El-Faouly	Layla has never been more glad that shields come with the wings, letting her deflect the blades of the incoming daggers and khopesh, though at the expense of getting many hits of her own. She's focused on avoiding all three of the attackers. Whirling, dodging, ducking. She's not seen DOdgeball, but she's doing a damn good showing of the 5 D's! "They don't want... to kill me." Her responses are stilted as she tries to avoid every thrust and slice. "They want.. to kidnap me. Again. Say hello.. to the cultists!" Able to flash out with the short swords, she works hard to slash at the dagger wielder before aiming a kick towards the khopesh-user. In perfect Arabic, she mutters, "You don't even know how to /use/ it properly! Learn the weapon before you wield it!"
Jonathan Sims	The khopesh-wielder is kicked across the roof by Layla, and springs to their feet, shaking their head. They spin the weapon in their hands and retort, "I learned from the Avatar of Apophis himself. He has the knowledge of the ancient ways. What do /you/ know? A foreign tongue?" That's a /weird/ way to think of Arabic, vis-a-vis Egypt, but such is the way of cults. Misinformation, to make them think they're special and privy to secret knowledge. They launch themself back at Layla, snarling.     The sixth figure finally manages to wrest the baton from her shoulder, and scrambles to her feet, swaying. She fixes Mr. Knight with a murderous gaze, and hisses a word in a very, /very/ old dialect of ancient Egyptian, before throwing the baton back at him, end-over-end, now wreathed in soruscating purple energy.     The other four keep pressing the attack, seeming not to care for their own safety. This is likely to lead to an opening eventually--they're /good/, but they're not as strong or fast or tough as the avatars of the gods.
Marc Spector	Mr. Knight continues to dodge and juke the attacks of his two assailants but then the woman rises and flings his own weapon at him with a bit of extra to it. He has to think fast in order to avoid whatever additional damage the returned stick has and he decides that one minus one -should- equal zero and flings one of his new sticks to collide with the evil magic infused returning weapon.     He barely manages to avoid taking a slash from one of the dagger weilders and takes a kick from the man on the rebound. Luck is on his side as the kick moves him out of the way of the oncoming spear to his back and he slams his remaining stick down and brings it back up across the attackers face with a satisfying sound of impact dropping the spearman to the ground.     "Avatar of Apophis?" he asks, mostly for Layla. "I thought we killed him in the temple? Did we not do a good enough job?" He is pushed back on the defensive as the daggerman comes with a series of quick strikes that forces him to parry and dodge without an opening.
Layla Abdalla El-Faouly	"I /am/ an Avatar, you idiot! /And/ Egyptian! /And/ an archaeologist! I /literally/ went to school for a phD in ancient Egypt! Gah! Amateurs!" Layla's rant is accompanied by her switching up her tactics and going more aggressively after the cultists. She uses the wing to send the dagger-wielding cultist flying, backhanding them with one wing like a shield bash. Layla looks to the spear-wielder, pointing one short sword towards the khopesh-wielder, "Please tell me this one's new." Then she's whirling around and slashing at 'khopeshi', giving apt description to the phrase 'whirling dervish'. She aims a knee at their stomach then darts back with an eye to the spear-wielder. "It would explain why Taweret's had a nagging feeling that something wasn't right. The man's soul should have passed through her care on its way to judgment. It hasn't." She lets out a sigh and slashes at the spear, looking to chop off the spearhead itself. "So apparently no, we did not kill him enough."
Jonathan Sims	Speed and strength are winning out. The dagger-wielding cultist Layla kicks flies far enough to nearly fall off the building, and lies in a crumpled heap. The khopesh wielder slumps back at the kick to the stomach, dropping their weapon, and both of Mr. Knight's opponents are down.     The batons collide in midair and disappear in a puff of silver smoke. The sixth cultist hisses. "Retreat!" she calls.     "But--" Even doubled over the khopesh wielder protests. "But we need to draw out the Moon--"     "Use your eyes, fool! That /is/ the Moon Knight! And we are not ready to face him!" The magician looks to Mr. Knight. "Our Lord comes for the sun. If your patron would take back his throne, meet his messenger at your Midnight Mission in a week's time. If not, then prepare for the end of all things."     She raises her hands, chants in ancient Egyptian, clearly performing a spell. Their forms begin to shimmer and fade.