This chapter was really hard for me to write because I was working with something that was already written, so I'm sorry if it's not very good. Please review and let me know what you think about it.
"So, how has training been going with that boy Hotspot?" Darrin asked. It had been a week since their first training session. Mallory had taken the day to spend with her parents.
"He's improving. Honestly, I think our sessions are helping me stay ahead of my own powers."
"I thought you already were ahead of them," Elaine mentioned, setting her glass on the table.
"I am, mostly. But there's something about explaining something to someone else that makes you understand it better. I don't know if that makes any sense or not," Mallory said.
"It does," Elaine assured her.
Mallory smiled. "Hey, let me clean up the kitchen, then we can go do something. I have a whole day without school or the team, and I want to make the most of it."
Her parents nodded, and Mallory gathered an armload of dishes and brought them to the sink. She rinsed them, then turned back to the table. Her parents were gone.
"Hey, Mom? Dad? Why did you leave?" Mallory called, getting the rest of the dishes from the table. She didn't get an answer, and she stopped cold.
"Mom? Dad? Hey, this isn't funny, answer me," she said. She walked into the living room and looked around. It was empty, too.
"Mom! Dad! Answer me!" She yelled, alarmed now. Still, nothing but her own breathing broke the tomb-like silence of the house. She checked every room, looked outside, even threatened to burn the house down in hopes that her parents were just playing a really bad joke on her. No such luck.
Someone knocked on the door and Mallory went to answer it hopefully. It was just the ten year old that lived across the street from her parents. "Hey, Bennie. What can I do for you?" Mallory asked distractedly, her mind still on her parents.
Bennie looked like he was going to cry. "I can't find my parents," he said. Mallory immediately snapped to attention.
"How long have they been gone?" she asked.
"I don't know, not long. My mom told me to clean my room before I ate, and when I went to the kitchen she wasn't there, so I looked around and they aren't anywhere in the house."
Mallory looked at the house. The cars were still in the driveway, so they didn't leave that way.
"Come on, Bennie," she said. She slipped on some shoes and grabbed a jacket and shut the door behind her.
"Where are we going?" the boy asked.
"We're just going to some other houses and see if our parents are there," she said calmly, keeping her fear out of her voice.
At every house, the story was the same. No parents, no siblings 18 or older. After five houses, Mallory stopped and checked her phone. She'd gotten texts from every kid she knew, saying that their parents had vanished.
"Hey, Bennie, why don't you go wait at the Peters' house? I'm gonna go to the police station and tell them what's going on."
The ten year old nodded and walked a few houses down. As soon as Mallory saw the 17 year old daughter of the Peters take the boy in, she grabbed her phone and called Wally.
"Where are you?!" Wally yelled into the phone.
"I'm at my house. Every adult in my neighborhood has disappeared. What's going on?"
"I don't know, but it's not just your neighborhood. It's all over the world. We've been trying to call you for an hour. We're patrolling the streets, bringing kids to centers and getting them off the streets."
"Who's in Metropolis?" Mallory asked.
"I don't know. No one from the team. We're trying to figure out what happened so we can fix it. We need you to come to the cave."
Mallory bit her lip. She wasn't far from the zeta tube. "All right, I'm coming," she said. She ducked into the phone booth and was at the cave in less than a minute. The team was gathered in the training room with Zatanna.
"All right, what do we know?" Mallory asked, joining the group around the holographic screen.
"Nothing, that's what. Every adult on the planet 18 and older is just gone."
Mallory looked at the team. "So what are we going to do about it?" she asked.
"We do not know - yet," Kalder said. "For now, we must keep kids safe until we are able to return their parents to them."
Mallory looked at the screen. It was full of posts about what had happened. "I need to get to Metropolis," she said quietly.
"No, we need to stay as a team and figure out what's going on," Megan said.
"Sorry, Megan, but you don't have a city under your protection, so you don't know what it's like. We need to go protect our cities," Mallory said. She looked for support from her friends, but Robin said, "We need to be ready when we know something. We can't be spread out all over the country. If you want to go to Metropolis, go ahead, just be ready to come back here when we call you."
She nodded and went to get her costume, then rejoined the team. "You know how to reach me when you need me," she said, then zetaed to Metropolis to start patrolling.
"Inferno, where have you been?" Hotspot yelled. Mallory joined him on the street, pulling kids out of cars and telling them where to go.
"I had to go to my team and see if they knew it was going on."
"And do they?" he asked, pulling a baby out of a car seat.
"No," Mallory said solemnly. "All they know is that what's happening here is happening all over the world."
They brought another group of kids to a local high school gym. They were about to turn back to the streets when a loud bang rang through the air. Mallory flew up to see where to come from. Five teenagers were trying to rob a bank a block away.
"I have to go, you get these kids to the high school," Mallory told Hotspot.
She flew to the bank and landed in front of the kids' getaway car. They stopped short when they saw her, the bags in their hands speaking volumes. Finally, the oldest, definitely older than her, said, "Get lost, girl." When she didn't move, he stepped closer and leaned down. "I said, you're in my way."
Under ordinary circumstances, Mallory might have had some fun with them, but she didn't have time for that now. She flamed up where she stood and raised an eyebrow expectantly. The kids dropped the bags and tried to run, but Mallory put a fire jail around them.
"Sorry, boys, but I can't have you trying that again," she said. She brought them to the closest police station and locked them in a cell. She left a note for when, or if, the police got back, and left enough food and water for them to last a few days, taking it from the break room. She returned to where Hotspot was directing kids to a new school.
"The other one's full," he explained. She nodded and surveyed the street. It was almost empty.
"Hey, look," Isaiah said, pointing to an ad screen. Kid Flash, Aqualad, and Robin stood on the screen. Mallory watched as they reassured the kids of the world and told them to stay out of trouble. Isaiah looked at Mallory grimley.
"If this goes on much longer, the kids will go crazy. No adult supervision may seem like a good thing, but these kids could kill themselves and others without it."
Mallory sighed, staring at the familiar faces of her friends on the screen. "I know. We need to patrol the city. I don't want anyone getting hurt before their parents get back."
Isaiah didn't move. Mallory turned to him expectantly, but he looked at her with grave eyes. "What if they don't come back?" he asked.
Mallory took a ragged breath. She couldn't let herself think about that. Superman, Volcana, Red Arrow, Batman, her parents. They just have to come back.
They patrolled the city, stopping kids from looting stores and they stopped some more serious crimes, too.
Mallory's comm clicked on, and she stopped mid-air, holding a hand out to Isaiah.
"Inferno here," she said.
"Mallory, Zatanna's going to try a locator spell to find the magic guys responsible for the adults' disappearance," Wally said.
"You're sure it's magic?" Mallory asked.
"Zatanna says it is. Are you coming?"
"I can't right now. Kids are going a little crazy in Metropolis. I think every store in town is out of snacks."
"Are you seriously making jokes right now?" Wally asked coldly.
Mallory's face hardened. "That wasn't a joke. Kids are seeing this as a vacation. If I leave, there will be absolutely no one keeping them in line. As it is, Hotspot and I are barely holding our own."
Wally sighed over the comm. "All right, I'll keep you updated."
Malllory turned to Isiah. "We need to get the city calmed down. the team's going to need me soon, and I don't want to leave it with all these kids acting like this."
He looked down at the streets. They had gotten the business district pretty calm, and her friends' video had had a calming effect on what was left of the city. There were only a few disturbances left to deal with.
"You take the East side, I'll take downtown," Mallory said. Isaiah nodded and they flew off towards their sections. Mallory was about to fly to hers when her comm clicked again.
"I'm here, Wally," she said.
"Captain marvel just showed up at the cave," Wally told her.
"What?!" Mallory practically yelled into her comm. "Are all the adults back?"
"No, and it turns out Captain Marvel isn't as old as we thought."
Mallory waited impatiently for her friend to explain.
"He's 10."
"Wally, this isn't the time for jokes," Mallory said, starting to fly to her section of the city.
"I'm not joking. You'd better get over here. I don't think I can explain it."
Mallory stopped and looked over at the city. "I don't know, Wally. Superman will kill me if he comes back and his city is a mess."
"Well, he has to come back first," Wally pointed out.
Mallory sighed, conflicted. She wanted to join her team, and she wanted to continue keeping her city safe. "All right, I'm on my way," she said finally. She switched her comm so she was talking to Hotspot.
"Yeah?" he said.
"I need to go. The team might have something."
"I'll go with you," Isiah said.
"No, I feel bad enough leaving the city. I need you to stay here and keep patrolling. I need to go."
She found the nearest theta tube and went to the cave. When she got there, a boy no bigger than Benny stood in front of the team.
"Inferno, this is Captain Marvel," Wally told her when she joined the group. Mallory stared at the boy, not believing that he really was the annoying Leaguer that had been hanging around lately.
"Wow, Mallory, am I really that different?" the boy asked with a grin. Mallory stared at the boy hard. There was something about him that seemed familiar.
"We've already confirmed that it's him," Wally told her. "Apparently he can move between the worlds."
"What worlds?" Mallory asked.
"There's a world with the grown ups and the kids disappeared," the boy said. "Oh, I'm Billy, by the way. Billy Batson."
Mallory's heart skipped a beat. "So, they're all right. How are we going to put the world back together?"
Zatanna looked at the holographic globe. "We've communicated with Batman and Zatara through Billy. We're going to attack the source of the magic at the same time, and once we deal with the threat, we'll figure out a way to merge the worlds back together.."
Mallory nodded. The plan seemed pretty flimsy, but they didn't exactly have any other options..
"We leave in ten minutes. Get what you will need and we will meet in the hangar," Kalder said.
Billy said Shazam and disappeared in a lightning bolt. Robin, Artemis, and Wally went to get supplies. and the rest of the team headed for the hangar. Zatanna had a glazed expression on her face. Mallory caught up to her and gave her a quick side hug.
"We're going to get them back," she told her friend confidently, even though she was just as worried as the magician.
Zatanna mustered a smile. "Yeah. Yeah, I know. They'll be back in a few hours, if everything goes well."
The smile faded off her face and Mallory couldn't think of anything to say that would hold any weight when the girl's only family was in an alternate dimension. But, no. The team was her family, too.
"We're here," she told Zatanna. "You still have family with you." Zatanna smiled again, but this one was genuine.
Wally came over with his snack compartment full, and a moment later Artemis and Robin boarded, quiver and belt fully stocked. "All right, on to Roanoke Island," Kalder said grimly.
They settled into a tense silence for the trip, each thinking about the people they stood to lose if they failed this mission.
The bioship landed a few miles away from the spot and the team got out. Megan linked them, and they planned their strategy. Robin and Artemis would distract whoever was there, then the rest of the team would take them out.
They crept to the clearing, and Mallory sensed the dread of her teammates through the link. "It's Klarion," Wally said. "Stick to the plan," Kalder ordered.
Mallory watched from where she was hiding as Robin and Artemis moved to get their shots in. Klarion put up a forcefield and the weapons clattered to the ground in a heap. "That's the best you can do?" the witch boy asked. He sent some magic at them and they flew backwards.
Aqualad, Superboy, and Wally all ran at Klarion at the same time, and they were thrown back by an energy bubble. Zatanna tried her magic, but she was thrown back for her effort.
Megan and Mallory tried next. Megan threw rocks at the bubble and Mallory summoned everything she had, heating her fire as much as she could and throwing the flames at the enemy. Klarion grinned at her and breathed fire of his own in a circle. It grazed Mallory's arm and actually left a burn. She stared at the irritated skin in fascination and fear. She couldn't be burned, Why was she burned? She looked at Megan just in time to see her dodge the fire.
Inferno continued to try to burn the shield. She flew all around the bubble, making herself a harder target to hit. She saw Artemis shoot an arrow towards Klarion's cat, and she saw the cat turn into some sort of primitive tiger. Conner attacked the cat, but it got the upper hand and had Conner on the ground. Mallory shot fire at it, distracting it just before it dealt a bad blow to Superboy. The cat acted like the flames were no more than a mosquito buzzing around. Superboy nodded his thanks and Mallory went back to burning the bubble.
"I hope the League is having more luck than we are," Mallory said.
Suddenly, Klarion shot them with some sort of blue lightning. Mallory saw Robin and Artemis go down and not get back up, but before she could go to them the lightning hit her back, forcing her to the ground. She was able to shift her position so she could see the rest of the team, but she couldn't get up. Kalder was also in lightning. Wally tried to run into the field again, but he was thrown back. Conner was still struggling against the cat. The realization hit that they were fighting a losing battle, which made the pain of the lighting hit deeper.
Then she heard Billy's voice over the link. "It's the gem. Destroy it, and we win," he said.
"Zatanna, stop!" Wally yelled. Mallory twisted in alarm and just had time to lock eyes with her friend before the magician put the Helmet of Fate on.
The lightning stopped, and Mallory pushed off the ground. Kalder helped her to her feet and she held her side painfully, but her eyes were trained on Zatanna, now Dr. Fate, as she confronted Klarion. Wally and Megan came to stand by her and Kalder.
"What do we do now?" Megan asked as they watched the forces clash.
"We get the gem," Aqualad said. "Megan, get Robin and Artemis out of the way. Once they are safe, we will keep Klarion's concentration split. Everyone, attack from a different angle. We must tip the scales in Fate's favor."
They nodded and went to work. The shield went down a moment later, and Fate had Klarion in magic's version of handcuffs. Wally ran through and swiped the gem, then tossed it to Fate. Fate said a spell, then the pentagon had four other sorcerers besides Klarion around it, unconscious.
Mallory took a breath and looked around hopefully. Yes, there was Captain Marvel, and Zatara, and she was even glad to see Batman.
Klarion jumped into some sort of portal, and Mallory stared at Fate, who didn't make a move to capture him. Wally had been running for the portal, and now skidded to a halt where it had closed.
"Aren't you going to stop him?" the speedster asked Fate.
"To what end? Klarion is chaos personified, he cannot be contained," Fate replied.
Zatara stepped forward. "Fate!" he yelled, then got hold of himself. "Great Nabu. Release my daughter."
"No," Fate said. Mallory felt like every pain she'd ever felt was suddenly concentrated on her chest with that one simple word. She couldn't breathe.
"No!" she screamed. "You can't do that!" Artemis yelled, and Robin said, "She has her own life to live." Wally took a step forward. "Kent would never allow you to-"
"Kent did object strenuously, so I released his spirit to the afterlife. He's gone."
Mallory looked at Wally. She didn't know what that meant, but she knew it was bad. Wally's face was stricken.
Mallory shut her eyes, tears welling behind the lids, but coming out as steam. She couldn't control the anger she felt towards Fate, and she couldn't do anything about it because Fate was using her friend's body. She clenched her fists at her sides, wanting to scream and cry and burn and mourn all at the same time, and yet she couldn't do any of them, so she just stood there, her fists clenched, her eyes shut, and trying to figure out how to breath through all the emotions sitting on her chest and closing up her throat.
Zatara's voice cut through the fog, making her open her eyes.
"Take me, instead," he said, not a hint of doubt or regret in his voice. "My skills are already at their peak, my body physically stronger, better able to withstand the strain of your power."
Mallory looked up at Fate, waiting for his answer.
"All true," Fate said, "but if I remove the helmet, what guarantee have I that you will don it?"
"My word," Zatara said, his voice serious and sincere. He said a word that Mallory didn't understand, and Fate descended and landed in front of Zatara. Mallory watched Zatanna take the helmet off, but the relief and joy she had at getting her friend back was tarnished with the knowledge of what was coming. She steeled herself, determined to be there when Zatanna needed her.
She watched their reunion, fighting her own tears, knowing it was the last time her friend would see her dad. Zatara kissed her forehead, then he took the helmet from her. Zatanna realized what was going to happen and she frantically tried to get the helmet back from him.
"Dad, no, please, DAD!" she yelled.
Zatara put the helmet on, and Fate turned from Zatanna and emotionlessly walked away. Zatanna fell to her knees, the tears streaming down her cheeks. Mallory knelt beside her, wrapping her in a hug. Zatanna just sat there, silently crying as she watched Fate and the prisoners disappear in the sky. Wally, Robin, and Artemis knelt around her, too, and her silent tears cut them all to the core. They sat like that for hours.
Robin left to talk to Batman, Wally and Artemis walked around, cleaning up the mess they made with the fight. Mallory sat with Zatanna until she had no more tears to cry, and even after that, she sat with her friend. Zatanna's face hadn't lost the shocked look.
"I can't believe he's gone," she murmured, her voice breaking.
Mallory looked up in the sky where Fate had disappeared. It wasn't fair. It wasn't right for some long-dead sorcerer to get to decide to take someone's life, to make their families go through something worse than their loved ones dying. At least in death they had closure.
Robin came up quietly behind them. "It's time to go," he said softly. Zatanna took a shaky breath and nodded. Mallory helped the girl up, and they went to the bioship.
When they got back to the cave, Zatanna looked at the zeta tube.
"I don't want to go home," she said quietly. "Not without him."
"You can stay at the cave," Megan said. Zatanna nodded and Megan led the magician towards the rooms.
The team looked at each other. They all felt guilty to go see their parents after what they'd just witnessed. Batman strode in from the hangar. "Go home," he told them. Wally, Artemis, and Kalder headed for the zeta tubes, but Mallory hesitated. She hated to leave Zatanna after what she'd just been through.
"Megan will be with her," Robin said, walking over to her. Mallory nodded. They stood in silence for a moment, then Mallory said, "Hey, uh, I don't know if this is the best time, but I'm not mad at you anymore. I get why you had the collar, and it doesn't matter anymore."
Robin nodded. "Thanks. It was hard to come to the cave thinking that you hated me," he said softly.
Mallory nodded. "I'm sorry I made such a big deal about it. I mean, you're my family, and I should know better than to risk tearing a family apart. They're too valuable a thing to lose. I guess it took tonight to make me realize it."
Robin looked at her. "I'm sorry about the whole thing. I won't keep things like that a secret from you anymore," he promised. Mallory gave him a small smile. "Well, I should go," she said.
"Recognized, Superman, 01." Mallory starred as the man of steel materialized, almost not believing her eyes.
"Hey, Torch," he said, and she literally flew into his arms. She fought the tears, hugging him tight.
"Don't ever leave again," she said quietly. "Metropolis needs you." Clark nodded and hugged her, then set her back on the floor.
"Your parents are waiting," he said, and she nodded and zetaed to her neighborhood. She ran as fast as she could to the house and threw the door open with a bang.
"Mom? Dad?" she called. They came out of the living room and she ran to them. They stood in the hallway, hugging, the front door wide open.
Still, in the back of her mind, she couldn't shake the image of Zatanna sitting alone back at the cave. She shook her head. Not alone. Megan was with her, and there would always be someone with her from then on. She was part of their family, and they looked after their own.