Legends of Shazam's Power #6

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Legends of Shazam's Power #6
The Beginning of a New End

Written by Mike Bowen (Spiritofvengeance)
Edited by Daniel Dyer (Spider-Man Beyond)

Captain Marvel, Mary Marvel and Black Adam appeared in the inner sanctum of the Rock of Eternity with a small pop. Black Adam remained unconscious and Captain Marvel took the teleportation with ease, but Mary was doubled over, holding back vomit.

“Take it easy,” the Captain said, putting a strong hand on her shoulder. “It’ll get easier with time. It takes a few moments to get settled after your first time.”

“You... you’ve done this before?” Mary asked between coughs.

“A few... The Wizard usually summons me this way, but she’s...” he looked around in confusion. He’d been here when Black Adam killed the Wizard. He’d seen the blood on the floor and held her empty cloak.

The torches were ablaze and amazingly the devastation caused during his battle with Black Adam was gone, even the hole in the wall was sealed as if it never happened.

“Stay here,” Marvel whispered to Mary. “And keep an eye on him.”

“Wait a minute,” Mary said with a confident tone in her voice. “Can you tell me what the heck is going on around here? Last thing I remember was being held captive by this guy, then a bolt of lightning hits and I’ve got superpowers. But let’s start with who are you and where in the h-e-double hockey sticks are we?”

“I’m sure I can answer those questions, young lady,” came a booming voice from the shadows behind the throne. Out stepped an elderly man in white robes. He was bald, except for a length of white hair that draped from the sides and back of his head, with piercing blue eyes and a long, flowing snow-white beard.

Mary spun towards the voice, but barely had a glimpse before the Captain was between her and the mysterious man.

“I don’t know who you are, Mister, but you are not getting anywhere near her,” Marvel spoke with a hint of anger.

“Calm yourself, Billy,” the man spoke slowly and Marvel felt his power begin to wane. “I’m sure my appearance has changed, but I can assure you it is I who gave you these powers and I can just as easily take them away.”

“Wizard?” Captain Marvel asked in almost a whisper. “But I saw...”

“What? An empty cloak and some blood? You cannot even begin to fathom the power that I command or the gods that I serve. I’ve appeared in many forms over the centuries. He destroyed but one of many. But that is a story for another time.” He was past Marvel’s shoulders before the champion could even blink. “Hello, Mary,” he said softly, but the bass in his voice still caused the chamber to literally shake. “I’m pleased that you heeded my advice and remembered my name.”

Mary Marvel’s eyes grew wide. “But you looked like...”

“Your mother. Just as I did to our champion. Do you remember being rescued from your adoptive parent’s car by him?”

“Vaguely. I remember a strange feeling after he lifted me out of the car.”

“Precisely. In the moment that he touched you, some of the power that I granted him was passed on to you. That is why I visited you. I knew the power resided in you and that you would help turn the tide of the battle to come.”

“But why me? Why didn’t your power go to my dad or mom? He rescued them, too.”

“That is easy. This is something even my young champion does not know, but he has the ability to share his powers. He can grant a fraction of his power to anyone who meets the standards I have set, which is not many. But for the power to be transferred subconsciously there is only one reason for that. You two share a bond, a bond only present in blood relatives.”

“What! That can’t be, Wizard, you know what happened to my family.”

“I know what you know and more. Say the word, champion, and reveal yourself to the young lady.”

“But...”

“But nothing! Say my name.”

Marvel steadied himself and let his head fall to his chest as he let the word escape his lips in a whisper. The bolt of lightning struck, leaving young Billy Batson standing in the center of the chamber.

The tears hit Mary Marvel’s eyes. She immediately recognized the boy who was once her little brother. Years of repressed memories flooded back into her mind. She started to rush forward, but was restrained by an invisible barrier.

“Now you, Mary Marvel. Reveal your true self t...”

“Shazam!” Mary interrupted him and in her place was Mary Batson Bromfield, who quickly rushed to her brother and swept him up in a hug. “Billy! I thought I’d lost you forever!” she said between sobs.

It took Billy a second to get a hold of the situation. Here was his dead sister hugging him in the middle of the Rock of Eternity. Finally, he couldn’t hold back the emotion any longer and broke down crying on her shoulder. “We thought you were dead, Mary. We looked and looked but the police said you couldn’t have survived the river.”

“But I did. I’ve been here in Fawcett City ever since, in an orphanage. I couldn’t remember anything, not a name or a place. But when I saw you standing there it all came flooding back.”

Billy and Mary’s reunion was short-lived as the Wizard stepped in to deal with Black Adam.

“What are you going to do?” Billy asked as he peeked around the Wizard’s flowing robe.

“I’m afraid there is not much I can do,” the Wizard sighed. “I’ve stripped the power from him once, but that doesn’t seem to work. In fact...” He placed his hands on Adam’s unconscious forehead. “... the mortal that awakened him doesn’t seem to exist anymore. There is only Teth-Adam.”

Mary moved herself around to look at the unconscious villain. “There’s got to be something you can do,” she said.

The Wizard closed his eyes and thought for a minute. Black Adam’s limp body began to rise off the floor of the inner chamber and began to rotate wildly. A low rumble began to build and in a blinding flash, Adam disappeared.

“Holy moly! What the heck did you do?” Billy asked his mouth agape.

“The only thing I could do in this situation,” he said. “I banished him to the far reaches of the known galaxy. That should keep him from causing any trouble in the forseeable future.”

Billy looked at Mary, who had a puzzled look on her face and then back to the Wizard.

“SHAZAM!” he shouted and lightning rained down on his boyish form, leaving the hulking Captain Marvel in its place. His sister followed suit.

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Deep inside the tallest building in Fawcett City a diminutive bald man sits, hunched over a work bench, sparks flying off in every direction between bursts of light.

“A few more tweaks and it should be ready,” the man said, setting down a miniature welding torch and examining his work.

He’d heard about the amazing Captain Marvel who was quickly becoming Fawcett City’s favorite person. That was his place. He enjoyed his spot at the top of the food chain in the city. And he wasn’t about to let this do-gooding newcomer take that away from him.

The door to the lab slid open and a wiry young man waltzed in. His white labcoat barely rippled in the breeze coming from a cracked window as he stalked across the room and tossed a device on the workbench, startling the man.

“Another failure, Father,” the man broke down. “Tell me what I’m doing wrong.”

The older man picked up the device and turned it over in his hands. “Calm yourself, Thaddeus,” he snapped. “You’re too impatient. You see.” He held up the device and pointed to a place near what looked like a handle. “This is all wrong.” He pulled out a pair of tweezer and removed a microchip from the handle and the device began to hum with power. “Where is your sister, Beautia, at?” he asked as the young man was turning to leave.

“Ever since you put her in charge of the archeological foundation, she’s been hunkered down in the office, trying to ‘save the antiquities of the world.’” He made quote marks in the air with his fingers. “That girl needs to get her priorities straight,” he said as he shook his head. “But at least she’s busy and out of my hair.”

The young man chuckled as his father’s head was completely smooth. “That’s enough, Thaddeus,” the man snapped. “Get back to work. We need to have something capable of dealing with our problem very soon, I think.”

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Fairfield, Illinois

Dr. Charles Langley sprinted down the halls of Fairfield Nuclear Power Plant with the speed of a man much younger than he actually was. He was late for a very important meeting and didn’t have time to be prudent as he whooshed by colleagues and other administrative workers he passed in the hall.

The doors of the conference room were closed as he skidded to a halt in front of them. He tried to get a quick glance through the windows, but the shades were drawn. He looked at the papers he had clutched in his right hand. He shook them, making sure no other caterpillars were nestled inside like the one he found in his lab. That one disappeared before he could get around to squashing it.

Well, here goes nothing, he said to himself as he pushed open the large oak doors. The sight stunned him. There were only two people sitting in the room, Gerry White, President of the plant and Dr. Wilson Stanchek, his supervisor and the head of the research department.

“Charles, please take a seat,” Stanchek said, his English accent bleeding into his words, despite being in the U.S. for over 30 years.

Langley moved over to an empty seat with a puzzled look on his face. “Mr. White. Dr. Stanchek,” he nodded. “What exactly is going on here? I was supposed to be giving a presentation to the board members on my project.”

“That’s why we are here,” Stanchek said, as he shot a sideways glance at White, who still hadn’t spoken. “Something’s come up. There is some... um...”

White leaned forward, his cold blue eyes focusing on Langley. “To put it bluntly, we’re pulling the plug,” he said. “The project is closed and you are to be reassigned.”

Charles Langley couldn’t believe his ears. He’d spent the better part of the last 12 years working on the Mr. Atom project and now his superiors were shutting things down. “You can’t be serious!” Langley spat. “That’s been my life for the la...”

“We are,” White said. “The subject is closed, and Dr. Stanchek will be contacting you about your reassignment. There also will be a team heading down to inventory everything and place it in storage.”

Langley felt his fists curling into balls under the large table and thought about leaping across the table at White. But his anger was cut short as a muffled explosion shook the room, knocking out the power. When the emergency lights kicked on, the building erupted into chaos and streams of employees were all trying to find their way out of the various buildings at the same time.

Langley used the confusion to bolt from the conference room and sprint back to his lab several floors below. He arrived and tried to scan his ID card into the electronic lock on the door but was met with nothing. The explosion must have knocked the power offline. He was trying to figure out how to get into the lab when a trio of armed soldiers entered the corridor and advanced towards him.

“Step aside, Dr. Langley,” the first one shouted. “We’re under orders to secure this lab and its contents.”

Being a nuclear power plant, soldiers in the halls were not a strange sight for Charles Langley. But being held at gunpoint by them for trying to enter his own lab definitely was. “What’s the meaning of this?” Langley asked with a hint of anger.

“The epicenter of the explosion was in this lab, and that’s all we are authorized to say at this time,” the lead soldier replied, never taking his gun off Langley.

The other two began to work on the door panel. They must have been very skilled techs as they bypassed the complicated security and biometric lock system with ease. The door to the lab slowly slid open, revealing its dark interior lit only by the occasional sparks from the busted computer systems inside.

“I want to know what is going... umph!”

The lead soldier knocked Langley to the ground with a hard shove and the trio stalked into the lab. Before he could react, the door slid shut behind them and locked.

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Captain Marvel and Mary Marvel were flying back to the Batson residence when the sight of an explosion off in the distance caught the eye of the Captain. “Mary? Did you see that?” he asked, stopping in mid-air and pointing off to his left.

“Some kind of explosion... you want to check it out?”

Captain Marvel nodded grimly. “Someone might be able to use our help.”

With that, the pair rocketed off in the direction of Fairfield, but unknown to them, they were about to immerse themselves in a mystery the likes of which neither had seen before.

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

Charles Langley was still pounding his fists on his lab door when Dr. Stanchek and Mr. White appeared in the corridor, jogging towards him.

“Going somewhere, Dr. Langley,” White said between deep breaths.

“Not bloody likely,” Langley shot back. “Your goon squad saw to that.”

White’s face grew red with anger, but the color quickly faded and was replaced by a stunned expression. “What’s that supposed to mean?" he asked.

Langley gestured wildy to the door. “What do you think it means. The three soldiers you sent down here. They held me at gunpoint, shoved me down and locked me out of my lab.”

“But I didn’t send any soldiers down here,” White stammered. “Something’s not right.”

He started to reach for his key card attached to his belt when the lab’s door burst open. Smoke rolled out into the corridor as Captain Marvel stepped out in between the men. “Is everyone all right here?” he asked.

“What’s the meaning of this! What are you doing in my lab!” White screamed.

“Your lab?!” Langley shot back.

“Easy, gentlemen,” Marvel said, gesturing with his hands. “My name is Captain Marvel. I saw the explosion and came to help.”

“Marvel?!” Stanchek piped up from behind White. “The hero from Fawcett City?”

“That’s right,” he nodded. “Now, can someone explain to me what’s going on here?”

Langley tried to rush past Marvel but hit something as solid as a rock and hit the ground. He looked up to see the beautiful Mary Marvel blocking his way.

“I believe the Captain asked you a question,” she said with a small hint of a smile. She was starting to get used to her powers and loved the idea of being a hero.

“There was an, ah, explosion,” Langley said, struggling to his feet. “I came down to check my lab, was accosted by a trio of armed soldiers and then we find you bursting out of the locked lab they entered. Which begs the question of how you two got in?”

Marvel folded his arms across his chest. “First off, there is no one in here but us. As for how we got in, I think it will be rather obvious once you come in and take a look.”

Not waiting for anymore explanation, the three men raced past the two heroes, into the near-destroyed lab. Langley began to try and restart smashed computers when Stanchek tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the south wall of the facility.

What is it now, Wilson?” Langley snapped as he turned and felt his mouth fall agape.

There in the wall was the outline of a large humanoid, at least 10 feet tall and 20 feet wide. The wind blew in through the man-shaped hole.

“My God!” Langley said. “Mr. Atom’s been activated.”

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

The large flat bed truck pulled into a non-descript warehouse in an unknown city. Out of the cab hopped three soldiers who were met by another man.

“The package is here,” the lead soldier announced with a salute.

The new man nodded, but didn’t say anything at first. He ambled over to the back of the truck and peeked under the tarp. “I take it there was no trouble?” he said in a raspy voice.

The soldiers shook their heads.

“Excellent... As for your payment.” He snapped his fingers and the soldiers’ bodies went rigid and collapsed to the warehouse floor. He gingerly walked over to the bodies and withdrew a small jar out of his pocket and knelt down beside each.

After a minute, he stood up and replaced the jar into his pocket. He walked over to the cab of the truck, jumped in and drove off, leaving the soldiers lying on the floor.

—

[Spider-Man Beyond]

The view screen showing the scene in the warehouse slowly dissolved into static.

“Excellent!” a tiny, shrill voice exclaimed. “Everything is going according to plan!”

Continued...