▬▬▬▬▬ ❛ ᴍᴏᴏɴ ᴋɴɪɢʜᴛ ❜
✷ :: ❝ we can never be gods, after all —
but we can become something less
   than human with frightening ease. ❞

𝗡.𝗞. 𝗝𝗘𝗠𝗜𝗦𝗜𝗡 ,
𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗛𝗨𝗡𝗗𝗥𝗘𝗗 𝗧𝗛𝗢𝗨𝗦𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗞𝗜𝗡𝗚𝗗𝗢𝗠𝗦

𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒆𝒅 . . . 16th of july ,, ²⁰²³
𝒑𝒖𝒃𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒉𝒆𝒅 . . . 16th of november ,, ²⁰²³
𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒊𝒔𝒉𝒆𝒅 . . . ???

˚ ༘♡. ꗃ﹕ 𝐁𝐄𝐒𝐓 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃 𝐈𝐍 . . .
𝚖𝚘𝚍𝚎  ,, 𝒅ark
𝚏𝚘𝚗𝚝  ,, 𝒈eorgia
𝚏𝚘𝚗𝚝 𝚜𝚒𝚣𝚎  ,, 𝒔mallest
𝚍𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚌𝚎  ,,  𝒎obile

∴ ৎ ָ࣪ 𓄹. ❱ · 𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒  . . . ♥︎ ִ

────── &&.   𝕿𝑶 𝑩𝑬 𝑨𝑵                    
AVATAR IS TO BE SEEN FOR ALL OF WHAT YOU ARE, HANDLED WITH HANDS THAT REACH HEAVEN FROM HELL. Your life becomes their story, fingers trailing dangerously down the crack of the spine that holds it all together. Their gold-kissed hands flick through every page; every achievement; every milestone; every skill; every belief; every emotion; every mistake; every tragedy; every loss etc, and deliver their worshipped verdict.

   Had Rhea Samaras known she was on trial, under the watchful eye of a higher power her whole life, she definitely wouldn't have acted like a bitch so often; to unknowingly place herself on the scales of balanced justice. Had she known, she would have perfected the art of being perfect.

   The Greeks had a passion for order and symmetry, but never denied the unseen world, the old gods. Emotion, darkness, barbarism, a madness induced by said gods. They seemed no less human than we are now; formal, civilised, repressed, swept away by the wildest of enthusiasms — dancing, frenzies, slaughter, sadisms, visions, prophecies. Perhaps that's why their gods and goddesses were so loved and feared all at once, having reached a divinity of something different — something, to all except appearances, inhuman.

   The Gods and Goddesses which look upon today's earth carry the very Greek ideology that what is beautiful is terrifying. For an avatar, they are not looking for clean souls to wash their marble statues with. They look for accomplices in sin, greedy for punishment, to inflict or endure it: obedience without fault, the flawless hubris of heroic guilt, the grace of visitation; and to be stirred by all their god-quests, their idolatries, in the conclave of abiding injuries, sated upon the stillness of the blade.

   They would never admit it, but the Gods were nothing without their human affairs. Even with the power to flee from the disaster of humanity to their pocket dimension, they just couldn't stay away. It was all under the guise of protection, but Rhea knew that was all bullshit. The Gods just wanted to make sure they still had something that loved them, worshipping them above all else. After all, you didn't see the mythological beings making any effort to prevent the Snap from happening — they still had half of the population left.

   Rhea Samaras, unfortunately, wasn't a part of that lucky fifty percent.

   Five years. The universe had robbed Rhea and the other half of the population blind for five whole years. To them, it felt like a split second, living in the era of 2018, but what they came back to certainly wasn't the life they had unintentionally left behind.

   The world didn't wait for them; life goes on, and Rhea learned that the hard way.

   2018. She had it all: money, her successful business, a gorgeous home, physically healthy parents, and a non-official, hot boyfriend who slept with her without any emotional strings attached. Rhea seemed to be swimming (with an ego that was slowly drowning her) in a pool of good fortune.

   Come 2023. Rhea Samaras had little to nothing.

   Her parents got sick and died during years one and two, leaving nothing behind for their only daughter, who had turned to dust. Without Rhea to run her booming business, it was sold and rebranded in year three. Rhea didn't receive a single penny from the sale.

   Unable to pay rent, her home was put on the market a year into the Snap and now belonged to someone else. All of Rhea's possessions had been thrown out and replaced, impossible to find and get back.

   Her non-boyfriend, Trevor, had got married in year five, months before everyone returned. When a confused, lost, and unfortunately desperate Rhea turned up at his doorstep, he was holding his babbling newborn baby in his arms. He would be the one to break the news to her, only able to offer his deepest sympathies before returning to the family he had built whilst she was gone.

   Rhea's only saving grace was the money in her bank account, all the Blipped victims' savings having been put away in the hopes that one day they might return. Rhea felt like kissing the poor banker when he informed her that her account hadn't been suspended.

   Fortunate enough to have previously been a wealthy, young businesswoman, Rhea had enough to restart her life; to build up a new business in place of the old one; to work the hard hours over and over again until she could safely afford a house just like her previous one; to scour the city in search of a man who held no interest other than fucking her, and to become the Rhea Samaras she once was.

   Sadly, after losing so much of what she had tiredly built for herself, Rhea didn't feel eager to.

   The thought of putting in so much work, of exhausting herself for years and years to achieve something, only to have it snatched away in a matter of moments again honestly terrified her. Rhea didn't trust anything and anyone enough to be certain that something like this wouldn't happen again, that the Avengers — or whoever was now in charge — would stop history from repeating itself.

   Rhea was still too arrogant, even after everything, to accept the fact that she had to start over just like everyone else. How could this happen to her, of all people? She had worked so hard to get where she was, to ascend the stairwell of success, to prove everyone wrong. She had sacrificed everything, and this was how it ended. With nothing?

   She refused to start from scratch, to take herself back to the dark days when she was nothing but a poor intern for people who stomped all over her until she eventually climbed up the social ladder and became the boss. In her eyes, she was too good to be put back down on that level.

   She had money anyway, so Rhea didn't feel it necessary to work. Instead, she just moped around in her new home, feeling sorry for herself — as if she was the only one struggling from the hardships of the Snap.

   That was the tipping point. That was when the scales that had been balancing Rhea's fate between two pans for the entirety of her life . . . tilted.

   Some have the liberty of a choice when becoming an avatar, one last illusion of control, but not Rhea. Her God didn't give out choices, nor did she exhibit any mercy when it came to those who fuelled injustice.

   Rhea Samaras' punishment had already been decided, and the long wait for her destruction was finally over. There is a greeting beyond the act. Destiny is the great thing, true lord of annexation and arrears.

   Nemesis was her name. Goddess of divine retribution and revenge, the dispenser of dues. Balance was her objective, the good and the bad — no one was ever allowed to have too much of the other. The Goddess had her eyes on Rhea for a while now, finding her money-hungry ways, lack of compassion, and reluctance to conform to societal behavioural norms disgusting and unjust.

   Rhea Samaras was deserving of Nemesis's punishment, but the goddess chose to give her a rather divine intervention. She needed an avatar, after all, a human perfectly imperfect to carry out her duties, and Rhea was the perfect candidate.

   To live by a God's choice was the mark of the master, a slave to their wars and never-ending fights until they say otherwise. Whether she liked it or not, Rhea was the messenger of Nemesis' power; the executioner of justice and vengeance.

   Gladiatrix. That was the name she went by when serving for Nemesis, the name people would whisper in fear and despair when crossing paths with the merciless warrior. No one wanted to be on the receiving end of Nemesis and her avatar's wrath, only relenting when justice was served and the scales were balanced once again.

   Marc Spector's scales, for lack of a better term, were greatly unbalanced. His mere existence was unjustified, being resurrected by the Egyptian god of the moon, Khonshu, to serve as his avatar.

   In Nemesis' eyes, it was unfair and unjust. She believed that humans only had one shot at life; no revivals, no exceptions, no favourites.

   Marc Spector's existence was a heavy weight on her scales of justice, and it had to be removed permanently.

   Rhea Samaras was sent out to London with one job: find Marc Spector and kill him, maintaining order and balance in the world.

   However, Nemesis wasn't the only ancient god who sent their avatar out on a judgment call. Ammit was on the rise, hell-bent on delivering a divine retribution of her own, an early one that the Greek counterpart of the banished goddess could not ignore.

   Rhea soon finds herself wedged between the morals of mythology; snooping in on Egyptian affairs as she sets out on a mission to prevent Ammit from returning to full power with the very man she had a duty to kill once all is said and done.

   Judgment Day is coming, and Rhea Samaras fears what sentence awaits her as the ancients watch on with a clenched fist ready to swing down on what is fatally flawed and tragically human.

˚ ༘♡. ꗃ﹕ 𝐅𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆 . . .
𝕸𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐄 𝐀𝐕𝐆𝐄𝐑𝐎𝐏𝐎𝐔𝐋𝐎𝐒 𝖺𝗌 ━━━━ˎ˗
𝕽𝙷𝙴𝙰 𝚂𝙰𝙼𝙰𝚁𝙰𝚂 !!  ⊹ ━━
༄ ‧₊˚ ❪  𝗮𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗮𝗿 𝗼𝗳 𝗻𝗲𝗺𝗲𝘀𝗶𝘀 ❫ °୭̥

❛ sometimes, you have to be unfair to be fair ❜

𝕺𝐒𝐂𝐀𝐑 𝐈𝐒𝐀𝐀𝐂 𝖺𝗌 ━━━━ˎ˗
𝕸𝙾𝙾𝙽 𝙺𝙽𝙸𝙶𝙷𝚃 !!  ⊹ ━━
༄ ‧₊˚ ❪  𝗮𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗮𝗿 𝗼𝗳 𝗸𝗵𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗵𝘂 ❫ °୭̥

❛ all i can do is be me — whoever that is ❜

˚ ༘♡. ꗃ﹕ 𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐘𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 . . .
𝗮𝘃𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗼𝗻 𝘀𝗽𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗳𝘆 !!

ᴠᴏʟᴜᴍᴇ : ▮▮▮▮▮▮▯▯▯
⇄ ◃◃ ⅠⅠ ▹▹ ↻

˚ ༘♡. ꗃ﹕ 𝐁𝐄𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐄 𝐖𝐄 𝐁𝐄𝐆𝐈𝐍 . . .
𖥻 ⚔️ ꒱꒱  𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈 . . . this fic will contain strong language, violence, blood, gore, murder, suicide, death, mental illnesses/disorders, physical/emotional abuse, depression, trauma, ptsd, along with other potential topics that some may find upsetting.

please read the warnings and do not read anything you are uncomfortable with.
look after yourself !!

𖥻 ⚔️ ꒱꒱  𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒍𝒂𝒊𝒎𝒆𝒓 . . . i do not own any canon character in 'marvel' franchise, nor do i claim to. all rights go to the writers and creators.
i only own my oc and her backstory.

❪ 𝟬𝟬𝟮. ❫   all of my knowledge on D.I.D is taken from the 'moon knight' show or quick google searches, so some elements of D.I.D portrayed in this fic may be inaccurate.

❪ 𝟬𝟬𝟯. ❫   i am also not american, so please just ignore / go along with any words that are spelt in a different manner than what you're used to.
thank you!

: : ❛ 𝓐𝙐𝙏𝙃𝙊𝙍 𝓝𝙊𝙏𝙀 ❜ : :
╰───╮; i've wanted to do a moon knight fic ever since the show first came out, so i'm finally deciding to go through with it. am i late? probably, yeah, but when am i ever on time with things on this account.

not to get too historical on you guys here, but i'm just going to put something here in case someone comments on it. i am well aware that gladiators originated from roman history and not greek, but i liked the name and thought it suited rhea. plus, the historical documentation of gladiatrix's are scarce in itself, so most believe the concept to be fictional in itself. i just ask that you take the cool name and run with it, because I couldn't think of another name for the life of me that sounded good. i'm not a historian, so please don't think i know what i'm doing for even a second.

anyhoooo, i hope you enjoy reading this fic! i've been teasing it on my tiktok account (trgdycoils.wp *wink, wink*) for ages now, so i'm super excited to have gotten onto the posting stage! it's a miracle, people!

thanks for reading!
love you all!

∴ ✷ ❱ · TRGDYCOILS !! ━━━━
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