First
He considered himself the world's greatest magician, but he himself didn't believe in magic. It was all gadgets and gizmos, smoke and mirrors, flimflam and misdirection.
Sadly, despite being the colossus of conjurors, he also had a stunningly stupid name. Maybe that's why he'd hidden his identity all of these years, turned to the dark side, earning hate from all those around him. Maybe that was why he was now known only as the Masked Magician, revealing the secrets of magic all across the world's TV screens.
Returning to his dressing room, he sat down, looked in the mirror and pulled off his black-and-white mask, only to recoil in horror as he saw a different face looking back at him. It was that of a man with shiny black hair, albeit receding, and a long thin moustache. It was a face he recognized instantly.
He pulled his mask back on, hoping his distorted reflection would do likewise, but the reflection just looked at him and smiled.
"Ah, Masked Magician," said the man in the mirror, "I'm sure you recognize me, for I am..." the man paused for melodramatic effect, "Abra Kadabra!" And as he said his name, there was a large bang and a puff of scarlet smoke and, when it had cleared, Abra Kadabra had seemingly stepped out of the mirror and was now standing in front of him, dressed in his more-usual garb of a white suit and cloak.
"Nice trick," said the Masked Magician, as he looked around the room for a hidden camera, "though a bit overly theatrical."
Abra Kadabra raised an eyebrow. "Do not be fooled by my style and flair, young man, I am neither your standard magician nor your standard villain," he said, his fingers twirling the end of his moustache menacingly.
"Why are you here? Did the production crew put you up to this?"
The villain's nostrils flared. "I am the great Abra Kadabra, you should fear me!"
The Masked Magician got to his feet. "Listen, bub, you don't scare me. I can guess how you do your tricks, and it's not as if The Flash won't have you back in jail by this time tomorrow."
Abra Kadabra smiled. "You really think that? Then I must prove you so very very wrong."
The masked man backed away as Abra Kadabra's hand reached into his jacket pocket, but then the villain pulled out something that the masked man recognized instantly.
"Pick a card, any card," said Abra, fanning out the deck.
The Masked Magician decided to humor him. He took a card and looked at it. "The Flash will still catch you," he said, as he returned it to the pack.
"On the contrary, he is a costumed buffoon. What if I make him my assistant for this trick? Then would you realize my power? Then would you be afraid of me?"
The masked man avoided answering directly, trying not to show any sign of the fear he was now feeling, as a cold tingle went up and down his spine. "What do you want? My money?"
"No, you still mistake me for a common criminal. I don't want your ill-gotten gains. I just want you to see the error of your ways, repent, stop sucking the magic out of magic."
"And if I don't?"
"You really don't want to annoy me, that never ends well. There was an English writer, who researched all the world's mystics, interviewed us extensively; he was going to put together the definitive encyclopedia."
"The books of magic?" said the Masked Magician. "By that guy with the crazy hair."
"I gave him that hair," said the sixty-fourth-century sorceror, with a sneer, as he pulled a nine of hearts out of thin air. "Is this your card?"
It wasn't his card. The Masked Magician was going to shake his head but now he found he couldn't.
"No, I know that's not the one," Abra said, flicking the card away, as the mask hid the ever-growing panic on the other magician's face.
"I can't move," he finally said.
"Don't worry, just part of the trick," Abra reassured him. "Now you won't be needing this," he added, as he peeled away the magician's mask. "I so hate men in masks."
The unmasked magician just stayed standing there, motionless, apart from the beads of sweat rolling down his brow. "So what did that writer do wrong?" he asked nervously. "Did he misquote you or something."
"He did the worse thing imaginable!" Abra snarled, pushing his face against the inert magician's. "He didn't arrange his encyclopedia entries alphabetically, but rather by the birth date of the magicians. I should have been first! First! Instead I ended up so far back in those books, I almost got lost in the index. Zatara must have been laughing in his grave."
"I'm sorry to hear that," said the magician, deciding that his best tactic might be to make a new friend of his new enemy.
Abra sat down on the chair vacated by the magician, regaining his composure. "That's okay, after my follicle persuasion, he agreed to put it all in alphabetical order for the new updated-and-expanded edition he's releasing later this year."
"Anyone else annoy you?" asked the worried magician.
Abra started to reply, but then found something stuck in his mouth. "Mm mmmm mmmm mmmm?"
"Pardon?"
Abra puts his fingers into his mouth, pulled out an object and carefully unfolded it. "I said, is this your card?"
It wasn't.
Abra tossed the card aside. "There was the Steve Miller Band, wrote a song about me without my permission."
"What did you do to them?"
"Didn't need to do anything? The Joker beat me to it. How about this one?" he said, pulling a card from behind the magician's head. "Is this your card?"
"You know it isn't."
"It isn't? Well, guess that trick didn't work. Guess I better get going. Something tells me The Flash will be here soon."
"But what about me?"
"You'll do what I said. Give up the mask. Nothing wrong with being a proper magician, keeping the audience guessing how you do your tricks."
"And if I don't give up being the Masked Magician, what will you do then? Turn me into a puppet and make me give up?"
"Of course not, why waste my signature trick on you when I can just as easily kill you. Anyway, time to disappear. Sure you'll make the right decision, my boy." And with that, he leapt into the mirror and was gone.
"Think that impresses me?" yelled the magician. "Probably just getting help from your friend, the Mirror Master." He tried to move, but found he still couldn't. "Wait! You can't just leave me like this!"
But there was no answer, and then the door was flung open and a heroic figure sped in.
"Flash!" yelled the magician.
"I got a message that Abra Kadabra had been seen here. Hope I'm not too late."
"You just missed him, he's left me here paralysed..."
The Flash looked at him. "I think I see the problem," he said, looking behind the unmasked Masked Magician. "Something sticking out of your back, probably intercepting your spinal column, disrupting the signals from your brain to your body."
"So, I'll need surgery?" replied the magician, fear in his voice.
"Don't worry," The Flash reassured him, "I should be able to vibrate it out."
"Thanks, Flash," said the magician as the Scarlet Speedster went to work. Finally the magician looked around, grateful that his body was working again. He realized that he'd been stupid to let that incompetent clown Abra Kadabra scare him. Abra's trick hadn't even worked and he could never have gotten The Flash to assist him.
The Flash was looking down at whatever he'd pulled from the masked magician's back, a puzzled look on his face. Finally he showed the magician what he'd found:
"Is this your card?"
It was the next day and Abra Kadabra wasn't happy.
He was standing in his hideout, taking a ball of screwed-up paper out of his hands, and opening it up to reveal the restored newspaper that he'd torn up earlier that day.
The main showbiz story in it told of how TV's Masked Magician had quit and been instantly offered his own residency in Vegas. In the accompanying photo, a familiar face with crazy hair was waiting to interview magic's newest sensation. That in itself didn't bother Abra, but rather the fact that the magician was now proudly using his unusual family surname, going by the appellation Aardvark the Magnificent.
That meant Abra would now be second in the encyclopedia! Second! And as far as he was concerned, that might as well be last. Why could he never ever be first at anything? Every magician in history had come along before him. Even against The Flash, he could never ever claim first place.
As he tore up the newspaper yet another time, a familiar Steve Miller Band song came on the radio.
Abra screamed. Some days he wished he could just disappear, and then he did so, as a red-and-yellow blur swept into his hideout and reached out and grabbed him.
The End