Part V

"Batman folds his pizza," Pedro said for the fifth time, grinning broadly as the movie's end credits began to scroll up the screen. "He folds his pizza! That is just… It's too epic, man. Way too epic!"

Freddy waved away his foster brother's excitement.

"They just put that in 'cause he's from Gotham, and Gothamites fold their pizza," he said. "No one knows if the real Batman eats pizza like that – or even at all."

"I bet Billy could tell us," Darla said, and a muscle in Freddy's jaw twitched. "He got Superman to come to our school, remember? I bet if he asked—"

"What - because he's a superhero he's suddenly best friends with all the other heroes? Is that it Darla?" Freddy snapped, and sighed. "How about we talk about something else?"

The little girl sat back on the couch and crossed her arms. "I just said he could ask," she sulked. Freddy rubbed his face and growled under his breath.

"Sometimes I wonder why they even make these movies," Eugene commented, his gaze fixed on his laptop's open screen. "I mean, it's not like they depict these superheroes as real people. They never give us any clues about their real names, or insights into who these heroes and villains actually are when they're not fighting each other. It's just, like, you know, stuff you see on the news. Only animated, and with more punching."

"And a moral framework," Mary added, smirking. "Hey, Freddy, remember that He-Man show you used to love - the one about the timid prince who said some magic words and became a powerful hero? Every episode had, like, a 'lesson of the day.' Probably so parents wouldn't complain about the 'violence'."

Freddy smirked back. "That really was a cartoon," he said. "You know, I read the only reason the Justice League members let their images and emblems be used commercially like this is because the proceeds from the merchandising stuff goes to repairing city infrastructure. All the smashed-up bridges and streets and skyscrapers and things."

"That's not a bad idea, if it's true," Mary said thoughtfully. "Better than the 'superhero tax' that mayor was talking about starting in Metropolis. And Gotham. And Central City…"

Eugene chuckled. "Freddy has so many superhero shirts, he's probably paid for fixing half those places."

Freddy wrinkled his nose at him. "Very funny."

"I thought so," Eugene teased. "That fight with Ibac today really messed up downtown, though. Think they'll make a movie about us to pay for the repairs?"

"That would be so cool!" Darla squeaked, bouncing in place on the cushion. "Guys, we should totally make our own movie! Then Freddy can post it and we'll get so many views!"

"Calm down, Darla," Freddy said, holding her back to keep her from bouncing onto his leg. "We're not going to make a movie. Not as 'us', anyway. We'd have to be superheroes to make a superhero movie, and that can only happen when Billy decides to share his powers. For now, at least…"

"Where is Billy, anyway?" Pedro asked, sitting up so he could look around the room. "I thought he was going to watch this with us."

Freddy opened his mouth, only to close it in a scowl when Mary shot him a sharp look over Eugene's and Darla's heads.

"Billy decided to do his homework upstairs after all," she lied.

Freddy narrowed his eyes at her, his glare hardening when she ignored him. Pedro shook his head.

"Homework on a Saturday," he said. "Maybe those powers really have messed with his brain..."

"I know, right," Freddy scoffed, looking up as their foster mother, Rosa, breezed into the living room, followed closely by her husband, Victor.

"Hey, kids!" Victor said. "We are completely out of milk and eggs, so your mom and I are going to pick up some groceries."

"Anyone want to come with us?" Rosa invited. "You'll get to choose tonight's dinner!"

"I will! I will!" Darla cried and raced for her purple coat. "I want sesame tofu and green beans!"

"How about some pepper steak and cheesy sour cream potatoes?" Victor suggested.

"No, no! I want tofu!" Darla insisted.

Victor raised his eyes to the ceiling.

"I'll go," Pedro said, prying himself up with a grunt and kicking his training weights further under the table as he followed the little girl to the coat rack. "I want to get some protein bars."

"Anyone else?" Rosa asked brightly. "Mary? Eugene? Freddy? Bi— Oh…where's Billy?"

"Upstairs," Freddy said dryly, casting Mary a sidelong glance. "Doing his homework."

"In that case, Freddy, maybe you should go up and do yours too," Rosa said. "Mary, would you mind watching them?"

"No problem," she said, and Rosa smiled.

"Eugene?" she asked. "You coming or staying?"

"Staying," he said, his eyes firmly glued on his computer screen.

"All right, then," Victor said. "The sooner we get going, the sooner we eat. See you in about an hour, OK?"

"OK! Bye!" the remaining kids chorused.

Freddy held his smile in place and waited for the front door to slam before grabbing his crutch and rising to his feet.

"Great, Mary," he said. "Just great! What are we going to say when they get back?"

"Something wrong?" Eugene asked.

"It's nothing," Mary said.

"It's Billy," Freddy said at the same time, and clenched his fists. "He's not upstairs, OK," he told Eugene. "He's out being Shazam. Without us!"

"So?" Eugene said, still more focused on his computer than his siblings. "He does that all the time, making his rounds, checking for crimes and disturbances. He usually goes out much later at night, I'll admit, but a lot did happen today. He'll call us if there's trouble."

Freddy snarled, grabbed his backpack, and stalked toward the stairs. Halfway there, he threw down the bag and turned to face them.

"No. No!" he exclaimed. "I can't be the only one who cares how totally unfair this is! If you—"

"Yo, guys! Guys, look at this!" Eugene exclaimed, setting his laptop on the coffee table and turning it so Mary and Freddy could see the screen.

"What?" Freddy said bitterly, coming back into the room. "Just tell us, Eugene."

"It just showed up in my rec list," Eugene said. "An article in The Daily Planet by Clark Kent and Lois Lane. And it's about us!"

"Lois Lane," Mary repeated. "She's the reporter who gave Superman his name! I wonder what she says about us…"

"Whoa, this is cool," Eugene said as he scanned his spectacled gaze over the text. "Looks like they listed us by the color of our super outfits. The grey one, they're calling 'Shazam Thunder'." He beamed up at his siblings. "That's me!"

"Then, I guess I'm 'Lady Shazam'?" Mary said, and wrinkled her brow. "Hm. I'm not sure if I like that. Sounds kind of…I don't know… Kind of stuffy. Like something out of a Jane Austin novel, maybe, or the Three Musketeers. 'Lady Shazam'..."

"'Sky'?" Freddy exclaimed, his adolescent voice cracking. "They're calling me 'Shazam Sky'? What kind of superhero name is that! Dude… We have to fix this. I don't care if these reporters named Superman – we can totally come up with better names than this!"

Mary bit at her thumbnail. "I don't know," she mused. "I suppose I could get used to 'Lady Shazam'…" She smiled. "Yeah…the more I say it... It has a sort of romantic, King Arthur kind of feel, don't you think? 'Lady Shazam…'"

Freddy rolled his eyes.

"I like my name," Eugene said, smiling. "And Darla's is pretty cool too. 'Shazam Lightning'! Billy's just plain 'Shazam,' I guess, but they do say some bystanders overheard us calling him 'Captain.'"

Freddy scoffed. "And what'd they call Pedro?" he said. "'Shazam Muscles'?"

"No." Eugene gestured to the screen. "They're calling him 'Shazam Strong.'"

"That's…not better." Freddy grunted. "But still not as dumb as mine. Oh my god, this sucks! I mean, the whole world is probably reading this right now!"

"It's not so bad," Eugene said. "Your costume is the color of the sky, and you fly. Makes sense to me."

"But you and Darla, you get something active!" Freddy said. "Shazam Thunder, Shazam Lightning! Shazam Sky is just…" He shook his head, gripping his crutch until his fingers turned white.

"Thunder and lightning come from the sky," Eugene offered.

Freddy ground his teeth and headed back toward the stairs, kicking his backpack ahead of him.

"You know," Mary called after him, "if you think about it, most superhero names aren't that impressive out of context. I mean: Super-Man – a man with superpowers? Bat-Man – a man who stalks around dressed like a bat? They're kind of on the nose."

"What's your point?" Freddy demanded.

"My point is, it's the hero behind the name that makes it cool, Freddy," Mary said. "Not the other way around."

Freddy pinched his lips together. Then he grabbed his backpack, slung it over his shoulder, and started clomping up the stairs.

"I'll be in my room," he said. "If Billy comes back…" He stopped and shook his head. "You know, screw it. If he's not back home in fifteen minutes, I'm calling his cell. I don't care where he is! I'm done being the one who makes up his excuses!"

Freddy finished his angry climb and slammed the door to the bedroom he and Billy shared. Eugene looked up at Mary.

"What's his problem? All the stuff that's been happening to us – the powers, defeating the bad guys, getting our names in the paper! That's all ridiculously cool stuff!" He blinked at her. "Isn't it?"

"It definitely is, Eugene," she assured him. "Freddy just needs some time to cool down."

"OK," Eugene said and turned his attention back to the screen. "'Shazam Thunder," he said in a fake-deep voice, and laughed brightly to himself. "So cool!"

Mary smiled, but her eyes remained concerned as she glanced up the stairs…


"Pick up, Billy, dammit! Why won't you answer your phone!"

Freddy tossed his phone across his desk and leaned back in his chair, running his gaze over the clipped Daily Planet articles that papered the wall by his lower bunk; his superhero posters; his boxes of comic books and graphic novels; his drawers full of superhero t-shirts and collectable memorabilia. Billy's upper bunk, by contrast, featured a shelf lined with sports stuff: a few bobbleheads, a folded football jersey he'd picked up after sneaking into a game, a signed baseball, some baseball cards he'd taped to the wall…

"Why Billy?" he muttered darkly to himself, swiveling his chair and kicking at the legs of his desk. "Why the hell did he get picked? I'm the one who's studied this stuff – I'm the one who's put in the work to learn every hero's strength, every villain's weakness! I was right here, right in the same room even, and his stupid dead wizard never questioned me. So, what the hell made him so 'perfect'?"

A sudden draft made him shiver, and Freddy glanced around. The window was shut, the closet door closed.

He frowned and shook it off.

"Maybe…" he mused. "Maybe some of the magic does rub off. Maybe, if I said the wizard's name and really concentrated…really believed in the magic…"

Freddy grabbed his crutch and stood, closing his eyes and breathing slowly in and out to calm his racing mind and heart.

"OK," he said. "OK, I can do this. Shazam!" he called out. "SHAZAM!"

Freddy opened his eyes, glanced down at his hands, his legs…

And swore under his breath.

"Nothing. No change," he said and sank back into his chair…only to hear a door creak open behind him.

"Stupid closet," Freddy muttered and pried himself back up again. He raised his hand to slam the door closed, but something was wrong…something was different…

He moved closer, seeing – not the usual mess of winter clothes, battered board games, and loose action figures – but a dense mist that grew brighter as he drew nearer. As he stepped past the threshold, the mist coalesced into a rough and shadowed tunnel of rock that Freddy recognized at once.

"The Rock of Eternity?" he gasped, turning slowly in a wide-eyed circle. "Could I… Oh, my god – did I just open a portal to the Rock of Eternity! Or was it… Billy?" he called out, his reedy voice echoing among the stones as he used his crutch to quickly limp-hop forward toward what he hoped was the throne room. "Billy, are you there? Did you call me? Wha—!"

Freddy felt something in his ears, vibrating his skull, and an image like a hologram filled the space before him: a giant pair of round-lensed spectacles hovering and gleaming like the creepy billboard in that Great Gatsby movie he'd been forced to watch at school.

"…the hell," Freddy gasped, his heart pounding in his chest. "What is this? Who's doing this!"

"Freddy Freeman," spoke a strange, oddly tinny voice – bypassing his ears, it seemed, to sound in his brain like a thought. Freddy blinked and winced at the intensely invasive sensation. "Welcome back to the Rock of Eternity."

"Who are you?" he asked, trying to sound braver than he felt. "Are you, like… Are you the ghost of that old guy Billy met? Are you the wizard Shazam?"

"I have been watching you, my boy," the voice told him, cleanly evading his question. "Evaluating your progress these past months. You have been found most worthy."

"Yeah?" Freddy squinted, trying to see past or through the glasses illusion to no avail. "Most worthy of what?"

"Worthy of being bestowed a mantle of power in your own right," the voice said.

"A mantle…" Freddy shook his head. "You mean, you want to give me superpowers too? Powers like…like Billy?"

"The powers from which the Champion draws rank among the greatest in all the Seven Realms," the voice said. "A heavy burden for one boy to bear alone. Would you not agree?"

"Well, I'm not gonna argue there," Freddy said. "But, if you really have been observing me, you'll know I've studied superheroes and supervillains for years. I'm up on all the tricks. So, if you're like, some kind of cave demon trying to deceive me into tricking Billy into, like, handing over his powers or something, it's not gonna work! You got that!"

The tinny voice laughed in his head until Freddy began to smile and chuckle at his own paranoia.

"Such a clever child," the voice soothed. "You do know that the wizard you spoke of chose his champion in haste. Perhaps, had he more time, he could have made a more thorough search. Alas, he was forced by default to bestow his powers upon the next mortal on his list. What a shame he never met you."

"Wait – are you saying that I was on the wizard's list?" Freddy said. "That it wasn't just Billy – I was in line for an interview too?"

"Batson does come before Freeman in most standardized alphabets," the voice mused sadly. "That's the way the wizard worked his way through each generation, seeking but one champion with the purest, most perfect heart."

"And, you say Billy got picked by default? Why, because the wizard was dying?"

"It is not too late, Freddy Freeman," the voice said. "The wizard's oversight can still be corrected. Should you take the champion's place, no harm would come to Billy, I assure you. Except, the powers that now course through him would, instead, be yours."

Freddy bit his lip until he tasted blood. The temptation he felt was deeply physical, something more than want, deeper than desire. He found himself moving closer…reaching out his hand…

"No," he snapped, stumbling back, and the statue of Envy rattled angrily in its alcove. "No way, man! My real folks made their living as grifters and thieves before they got locked up, and if there's one thing they taught me, it's that if a deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is. This definitely sounds too good to be true. So, whatever your real plan is, it's not gonna work! You're not using me to get to Billy!"

"Such loyalty. I'm impressed," the voice said dryly. "Return to your world, Earth child. I've learned all I need…for the moment…"

The illusion faded and Freddy vanished, reappearing back in his room woozy and disoriented.

"So much for the direct approach," the tinny voice noted. "Seems I will have to be more cunning..."

The vast shadow the voice's owner cast on the wall shrank dramatically as a small, green caterpillar-like being edged away from the flickering torchlight lighting the vast space that had once been the lair of the wizard Shazam.

"The Freeman child will not remember this encounter," the being mused, "but, there is still time to try again. The wizard's champion is learning quickly, but he is not yet at full strength. He knows nothing of the Source, has no idea of his responsibilities – of the true nature and purpose of his powers or how to wield them. That ignorance makes him vulnerable...for now. But, he's still strong. The bonds of family protect him. And yet..."

The tiny being paused at a looking glass, peering past his worm-like reflection to the inside of the Vasquez home - to Mary and Eugene on the living room couch; to Freddy drawing angry doodles in his notebook of Billy's red-clad Shazam being outdone and overtaken by Shazam Sky.

"The seeds are there, the fissures already present," he said. "Like the worm in the apple, I'll crawl in...attack the core...eat out the heart while leaving the surface shiny and crisp. By the time the champion realizes he's under attack, he'll already have lost - crushed by the masterful manipulations of Mister Mind! Bwa ha ha!" The being broke into a tinny, maniacal laugh. "Bwa ha ha ha ha ha!"

To Be Continued…


References Include - Batman vs. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (series); Justice League: War; Shazam: Power of Hope by Paul Dini; Shazam! Volume 1, by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank; Shazam! (movie); Marvel Family Wikipedia article (lists their new names); Justice League Action - The Brain Buster; Batman The Brave and the Bold - The Malicious Mr. Mind.

Next time: Back to the Watchtower. Please review! :D