New SHAZAM in Flashpoint World - Chapter 2

Chapter 2: The Unforeseen Endorsement

The Wizard’s eyes. They were ancient, like looking into twin wells that reflected millennia of starlight and shadow. The irises were a pale, washed-out blue, clouded with age, yet as they focused on Jack, a spark ignited within their depths – not of warmth or welcome, but of an intense, almost desperate urgency. It was the look of a man who had waited an eternity and knew his time was finally, irrevocably up.

Jack froze, a small, insignificant speck in the vast, echoing chamber, pinned by that archaic gaze. His earlier realization – “He’s looking for a Champion” – now echoed in his mind not with awe, but with a rapidly escalating sense of dread. His heart, which had momentarily calmed, resumed its frantic thumping against his ribs, a tiny drumbeat in the immense silence.

Oh, this is bad, his mind stammered, the comic fanboy part of him momentarily eclipsed by sheer, unadulterated panic. This is really, really bad. He knew the script, or at least, he thought he did. The Wizard Shazam, guardian of magic, sought a successor, someone pure of heart, noble of spirit, brave and true, to wield the awesome powers of the gods. Billy Batson was the archetype – an orphaned boy, good despite his hardships, worthy.

Jack, on the other hand…

His internal monologue began a frantic scroll through his own decidedly less-than-saintly resume. He wasn’t evil, not by any stretch. He paid his taxes (mostly on time), held the door for people, and generally tried not to be a jerk. But “pure of heart”? That was a laugh. He was thirty-four – well, he had been thirty-four, now he was apparently twelve – and in those three-plus decades, he’d accumulated a comfortable layer of cynicism, a penchant for sarcastic humor that often bordered on unkind, and a level of sloth that would make a three-toed creature look ambitious.

He thought of the times he’d called in sick to work just to binge-watch a new streaming series. The white lies he’d told to avoid awkward social engagements. The way he’d sometimes “forget” to return a borrowed book if he really liked it. The internal, often scathing, judgments he passed on people in the grocery store line. The sheer, unadulterated joy he took in a well-placed, darkly humorous comment, even if it was occasionally at someone else’s expense. No, he was no Billy Batson. He was… Jack Brown. Flawed, decidedly average, and currently terrified out of his wits.

I’m going to fail, he thought with a strange sense of resigned certainty. He’ll take one look into my soul, see the years of accumulated popcorn grease and questionable internet search history, and send me packing. The image of Dr. Thaddeus Sivana, another candidate who had been deemed unworthy by the Wizard, flashed in his mind. Sivana, driven mad by the rejection, had spent his life chasing the magic he’d been denied.

Well, I’m not going to go mad, Jack reasoned, trying to inject a sliver of his usual pragmatism into the swirling chaos of his thoughts. I’ll just be… disappointed. And then, hopefully, I’ll wake up back on my couch, covered in stale popcorn, with a weird dream to tell my bewildered (and probably non-existent) therapist. He could almost feel the familiar sag of his old sofa, smell the lingering scent of microwave meals and dusty comic books. Yeah, back to my couch I go. Maybe I’ll even clean up that spilled popcorn.

The Wizard stirred, a faint rustling of ancient fabric. He made to rise, his movements slow, arduous, each tiny shift seemingly costing him an immense effort. One hand, gnarled and trembling, pushed against the armrest of his stone throne. The other clutched the wooden staff as if it were the only thing anchoring him to existence.

“Boy,” the Wizard rasped, his voice like stones grinding together, dry and cracked with unimaginable age. Yet, beneath the frailty, there was an undeniable current of power, a command that brooked no argument. It resonated in the very air of the Rock of Eternity, making the faint luminescence of the chamber seem to pulse in time with his words.

Jack flinched, shrinking further into the oversized T-shirt. Here it comes, he thought. The interrogation. The test of virtue. Prepare for epic failure, Jack-O. He braced himself for the questions, the probing gaze that would see all his petty shortcomings.

But the expected inquisition never came. The Wizard didn’t ask about his deeds, his intentions, or the purity of his soul. Instead, those ancient, urgent eyes fixed on him with an almost pleading intensity.

“There is… no time,” the Wizard wheezed, each word a struggle. He pushed himself a little further from his throne, his frame trembling visibly. “The magic… fades. My watch… ends.” His gaze flickered towards the seven shadowed thrones in the distance, where statues representing the Seven Deadly Sins were housed, and a flicker of profound weariness, of a burden carried for too long, crossed his face.

Then, his eyes snapped back to Jack, sharp and piercing. “You!” he commanded, pointing a shaky finger. “You must be the one!”

Jack blinked, his carefully constructed scenario of moral failure and a quick trip back to reality shattering like cheap glass. Me? Must be? What about the whole “worthy” part? Did he miss that memo?

“Take the staff!” the Wizard ordered, his voice gaining a sliver more strength, fueled by sheer desperation. He held the wooden staff forward, its tip wavering slightly. “Hold it! Speak the name! Now!”

Confusion warred with Jack’s ingrained knowledge of the Shazam mythos. This was all wrong. This wasn’t the solemn, considered bestowing of power he’d read about. This felt… rushed. Frantic, even. Like a stressed-out employee trying to hand off a critical task five minutes before the end of a millennia-long shift.

“Wait,” Jack stammered, his newly rediscovered child’s voice squeaking in protest and utter bewilderment. He took an involuntary step back. “What? Aren’t you… aren’t you supposed to ask if I’m pure of heart or something? You know, the whole ‘good person’ checklist? I’m pretty sure I’d flunk that. Spectacularly.” He gestured vaguely at himself, a skinny kid swimming in an adult-sized T-shirt. “I’m not exactly Champion material, old timer. I’m more… slightly above average couch potato material, on a good day.”

A flicker of something unreadable crossed the Wizard’s face – annoyance, perhaps, or maybe just the last dregs of patience wearing thin. “No time for tests!” he rasped, his voice strained. “The balance… it weakens! The Sins stir!” He took a halting, unsteady step forward, then another, his focus entirely on Jack, or rather, on getting the staff into Jack’s hand. “The old magic chose you, boy! It brought you here! That is test enough in these fallen days!”

The old magic chose me? Jack’s mind reeled. What, did it pick my name out of a hat? Was there a cosmic clerical error? He wanted to argue, to explain that there had clearly been a terrible mistake, that he was just a random comic book fan who’d somehow stumbled into the wrong reality. But the Wizard was advancing, a figure of ancient power and equally ancient desperation, and there was no stopping him.

With a final, surprisingly strong surge of effort, the Wizard closed the distance between them. The air crackled with an almost palpable energy. Before Jack could react, before he could voice another protest or try to dodge, the gnarled wooden staff was thrust into his small hands.

The moment his fingers closed around the polished, age-worn wood, a shockwave of sensation coursed through him. It wasn’t an electric shock, not painful, but it was… immense. He felt a humming vibration, a thrum of dormant power that resonated deep within his bones, a power that felt older than mountains, vaster than oceans. It was like holding a sleeping thunderstorm in his grasp. His fingers tightened instinctively.

The Wizard’s grip on the staff lingered for a moment, his own trembling hand covering Jack’s small one. His ancient eyes, now mere inches from Jack’s, held a blazing, almost fanatical light. “Say the name, boy!” he commanded, his voice no longer a raspy whisper but a powerful, resonant command that seemed to shake the very foundations of the Rock. “Say it and become my Champion! Say ‘SHAZAM!'”

The word, the name, the trigger – it echoed in Jack’s mind, a primal syllable of power. He felt a strange compulsion welling up from deep within him, an urge to obey that was almost irresistible. It wasn’t his own will; it was the Wizard’s, amplified by the magic of the staff, by the sheer weight of millennia of duty pressing down on this single, final moment.

His lips parted. He tried to resist, to say “No,” to say “You’ve got the wrong guy!” but the Wizard’s will was too strong, the ancient magic too compelling. The name was there, on the tip of his tongue, demanding release.

“SHAZAM!”

The word ripped from his throat, not in his own childlike squeak, nor in the Wizard’s commanding tone, but in a voice that was somehow both and neither, a voice that boomed with borrowed power and inherent authority.

The instant the final syllable left his lips, a bolt of pure, white lightning, impossibly bright and carrying the scent of ozone and ancient power, erupted from the shadowed ceiling of the Rock of Eternity. It didn’t strike the ground; it struck him.

Jack cried out, or perhaps he didn’t – all sound was swallowed by the deafening roar of the lightning. He felt an unimaginable surge of energy, a billion volts coursing through every atom of his being. It wasn’t painful, not in the way burning or breaking was painful. It was… transformative. He felt his small body dissolving, reconfiguring, expanding at an explosive rate.

It was the second time in what felt like mere minutes that his physical form had been violently rewritten. First, the bewildering shrinkage into a twelve-year-old. Now, this. He felt his bones lengthening, thickening, his muscles swelling with an impossible, instantaneous strength. His perspective shifted upwards, the ancient Wizard no longer towering over him but suddenly, startlingly, at eye level, and then below.

The light of the magical lightning enveloped him in a cocoon of pure, incandescent power. He could feel knowledge, raw and untamed, flooding his mind – the wisdom of Solomon, indeed. He felt strength, titanic and primal, infusing his limbs – the might of Hercules. He felt an inexhaustible wellspring of stamina, as if he could run for a thousand years and never tire – the endurance of Atlas. He felt the raw, crackling power of the storm itself, waiting to be unleashed – the power of Zeus. He felt an unshakeable courage, a resilience that bordered on invulnerability – the fortitude of Achilles. And he felt a lightness, a speed that yearned to break free, to soar – the swiftness of Mercury.

The oversized T-shirt and pooled sweatpants he’d been swimming in moments before were consumed, vaporized by the magical energy, replaced by something else. He could feel fabric materializing around him, fitting perfectly to his new, dramatically altered physique. It felt substantial, yet flexible, like a second skin.

The lightning subsided, its roar fading back into the echoing silence of the Rock. The blinding light dimmed, returning to the faint, ethereal luminescence that filled the cavern.

Jack stood where the small boy had been, but he was no longer small. He was tall, at least six-foot-two, with broad shoulders and a physique that looked like it had been sculpted from marble by a master artist who specialized in superheroes. His hands, now large and powerful, were clenched into fists at his sides. He could feel the unfamiliar weight of perfectly defined muscles, the steady, powerful beat of a heart filled with newfound vitality.

He looked down at himself. He was clad in a striking suit of vibrant red, a golden lightning bolt emblazoned proudly on his chest. Golden gauntlets adorned his forearms, a golden belt cinched his waist, and a short, white cape with golden embroidery billowed slightly behind him, attached by golden clasps at his shoulders. Golden boots completed the ensemble.

He was twenty-four years old. Again. Or rather, a version of twenty-four he’d only ever dreamed of in his most outlandish fantasies, a version that could grace the cover of a comic book.

He was Shazam.

The shock of this new transformation, layered upon the shock of the previous ones, left him utterly speechless. His mind, which had been racing with protests and confusion, was now a stunned, blank canvas, trying to process the sheer impossibility of it all. From a 34-year-old fanboy, to a 12-year-old lost child, to… this. This godlike being.

He raised a hand, flexing his fingers. It was his hand, yet not. Stronger. More defined. Crackling with a faint, residual energy from the transformation.

He was a superhero. Him. Jack. The guy whose greatest athletic achievement was winning a pie-eating contest in college.

It was, in a word, absolutely insane.