Moloch The Corruptor

Moloch The Corruptor's History

15th century

Moloch originally lived in Cortona, Italy, in 1418, where he apparently mesmerized and killed several of the town's denizens. Just after Moloch killed Carlo, an order of monks led by brother Thelonius trapped Moloch in a tome through the Circle of Kayless, hoping the book would never be found in fear that it would release Moloch.

Malcolm

Over five hundred years later, in 1997, Rupert Giles had the book in the Sunnydale High School library. Moloch was accidentally released when Willow Rosenberg scanned the book's text, thus transferring the spell that had bound him to the book. Moloch would have emerged back into the world when his book was read aloud, but the unique nature of his release in this instance made so that he was instead released onto the Internet.

In virtually complete control of potentially any computer system, Moloch went on to woo Willow while posing as an eighteen-year-old boy called Malcolm Black, simultaneously recruiting Willow's fellow computer geeks David Kirby and Fritz Siegel. He also charmed the scientists of Calax Research and Development to help him as he attempted to construct a new body for himself, eventually constructing a powerful robotic body while retaining a wireless connection to the Internet that allowed him to access any information he wanted.

Meanwhile, he had Fritz follow Buffy Summers when the Slayer began investigation "Malcolm" and then ordered him to kill her. Moloch also had Fritz kill Dave when the latter had a qualm of conscience after the attempted murder of the Slayer.

Destruction

Moloch claimed to love Willow due to her releasing him into this new world. He brought her to his facility after the completion of his new body and offering her a place at his side in his new world order, but attempted to kill her after she rejected him.

Aided by technopagan Jennifer Calendar, Giles attempted to bind Moloch back in the book- using a Circle of Kayless based on Jenny's Internet contacts as they lacked the available people to form a physical circle — but the spell initially simply cut Moloch off from the Internet, and it trapped him in the robotic body instead. In the ensuing confrontation, Buffy tricked Moloch into punching into a circuit breaker, which overloaded the body's circuits, caused it to explode, and killed him