[center][img]http://baku-panda.org/images/OU_Billy.png[/img] [color=gold][b][sub]C H A P T E R O N E : T H E L O N G W A Y H O M E[/sub][/b][/color][b][color=crimson][sup][h1]THE DEATH OF CAPTAIN MARVEL[/h1][/sup][/color][/b][/center] [COLOR=deepskyblue][INDENT][B][SUP][SUB][H3]F A W C E T T C I T Y[/H3][/SUB][/SUP][/B][/INDENT][hr][/COLOR][INDENT][INDENT][sup][color=SILVER]November 12[sup]th[/sup], 1987 | 3:57p.m. | The Slums[/color][/sup][/INDENT][/INDENT] There was a broken wrench on the floor. It was weathered. Rusted with age so that it was only vaguely reminiscent of the tool it had once functioned as. The child’s foot kicked it, startling the boy who hadn’t been paying attention at where he’d been walking. He had been paying more attention to the pair of adults sweeping the alley below with flashlights. The piece of rusted metal echoed loudly as it bounced around the wrought iron bars of the fire escape, signaling the child’s flight up the rickety metal stairs that was bolted to the side of the condemned flat. He should have known better than to have gone back to the shelter a second night in a row, but it was starting to turn cold out and Billy was running out of options. Now he was just running. And, yeah, it [b]sucked[/b]. But so did six months and seven foster homes. But Billy had discovered that losing everything you care about wasn’t the worst thing in the world. The worst thing in the world was being entrusted to people who didn’t even pretend to give a damn about you. So, yeah, he ran. And he got better at it each time, too. He didn’t blame the child protective services workers that were after him. They thought they were doing right. And so was Billy. They were all trying to do right. The first time you huddled in a cardboard box, desperate for warmth in a dank alley, eating out of the McDonald’s sack that you just stole from out of the hands of some random guy... you learned just how complicated things like right and wrong can become. Billy wasn’t even sure he could recognize [i]right[/i] if it was standing in front of him. So he settled for doing what he felt he had to do. And, right now, that meant ducking through the wood slats that had been tacked up in an effort to board up the windows. He felt something snag and realized he’d just cut himself on a bit of broken glass that had still been in the rotted out frame of the window. He tried to make a somewhat graceful landing. In his head, he might have imagined the ubiquitous hero rolling smoothly along the floor boards and then rising to his feet like no harm, no foul. Instead, Billy totally wiped out. An assortment of dust clouds and rat feces going everywhere as the boy tumbled ass-over-head as he came crashing through the window. [hr] Breathless, haggard, underpaid, and too old for this shit, Ethel Harris hunched over and tried to catch her breath. She shone her flashlight between the slats boarded up over the window, straining to peer through the cracks in search of the boy... But he was no where to be seen. William Joseph Batson. It was sad but true that he was now Fawcett City’s Most Wanted. His picture plastered up in police stations from Hillsborough to Upton Heights. And for no other crime than being an orphan. Swearing under her breath, the social worker sank back against the fire escape. Part of her wondering just how the hell she’d managed, at her age, to get up here... and how in God’s great holy Jesus name she was going to get down... What Ethel didn’t see, either because she wasn’t paying attention or else he didn’t wish to be seen, was the horse on the corner of 17[sup]th[/sup] and Johnson. Which was rather remarkable in itself, as most horses didn’t stand like a man. His silvery-white mane fell about his shoulders, which had become bowed with age. Leaning against a rather eccentric-looking staff, the Wizard regarded the forgotten slums of yesteryear’s housing developments projects with a sadness that was palpable. Once upon a time, he had sought the knowledge of the universe. Only much later would he realize, the knowledge of what would be came at [b]great cost[/b]. Good heroes tried to save everyone. But a [i]great one[/i] had to know who to let die. It was a choice that he faced now. To interfere or not. To save two lives or not. To stop a friend from making a terrible mistake or not. There were many possible futures. Propelled into being by many different acts of many different beings across many different planes of reality. But, among those, were moments in time that stood out as influencing the course of events to come. The Wizard stood now before one such moment. In the decades to come, Billy Batson would save countless lives. But, more important, emerge victorious where Mar-Vell would fail. It was on that victory that the Wizard now gambled, in order to [b]fight the future[/b]. And all it would cost him was the death of one little boy. Above, a point of light shone like a star in the daylight. It grew bright and brighter still. The atmospheric pressure elevated by the approaching fall of some celestial object. As the star fell, the equine being tightened his grip on the staff he carried. A single tear slipped down his long face. [hr] Nice of the humans to leave these abandoned buildings around. Mar-Vell broke through the ceiling, crashing through floor and floor, pile-driving the creature beneath him as the pair split the structure straight down the middle. Until they’d broken through the foundation and cracked the basement slab laid over the actual ground beneath the structure. Fists bared at the creature’s throat, the demon [b]N’Astirh[/b] seemed to have finally had the fight knocked out of him. [color=goldenrod][b][i]"SHAZAM!"[/i][/b][/color] Lightning came down from the sky. Electrical energy poured over the now broken husk of the building, creeping up along the walls as it seemed to swirl with an otherworldly energy. And then it was gone, along with the demon. Rearing back, the veteran of Kree’s many wars let out a self-content sigh. Stretching his right arm, he tried to work out the slight pain in his shoulder. Cracking through a foundation wasn’t as easy as it used to be. But, all things considered, not a bad bit of business. Something wet hit him, dripping down the back of his neck. Reaching back a hand, the man wiped at the nape of his neck without even really being conscious of what he was doing. Something about it felt [i]wrong[/i]. It was sticky. It was [b]warm[/b]. A sense of dread was forming in the pit of his stomach, as the man pulled his hand away and saw the fingers smeared red. Then the smell of blood hit him. [sub][color=goldenrod]“Oh, no...”[/color][/sub] Overhead, he could see a hand overhanging the hole above. The red-and-blue costumed figure shot out from out of the basement. The feeling in the pit of his stomach rose into his throat, the acid bite of bile nipping at his senses as he cleared a pile of debris with a broad sweep of his hand. There was a boy there. The body badly injured. Mar-Vell’s mind was already calculating the boy’s probability of survival. Internal injuries. Hemorrhaging. The child was dying. What had he done? Gently, the Kree soldier cradled the broken body of the child. The pain slipped as Mar-Vell let loose a cry. A hollow, haunting lament the captured pain and grief, giving both form in the raw emotion uttered in that echoing sound. Craning his head back, the man held the child in his arms as he shouted, [color=goldenrod]“WIZARD!”[/color] The sound of the walking stick striking the ground could be heard, faintly at first, growing lounder until the Kymellian’s three-fingered hand touched Mar-Vell’s shoulder. But he had only [b]cold comfort[/b] to offer. [color=silver]“I cannot stop death, any more than I can create life.”[/color] Mar-Vell looked up at the equine form of the man he’d come to revere, and found that idol worship repaid with only a harsh reality. Shouldered bowed, the Kree slumped forward, his head downcast. [color=silver]“But where life still exists, I [i]can[/i] breathe on the embers... for a time,”[/color] Aelfyre offered, as the old Wizard knelt down beside his most erstwhile pupil. Tightening his hold on the man’s shoulder, the Kymellian added, [color=silver]“As I did for you.”[/color] Tears streamed openly down the face of the great hero that the universe knew as Captain Marvel. The suggested implicit to the Wizard’s words causing the man to stare down at the bronze bands that encircled his forearms. And he remembered being in the boy’s place, once upon a time. Except, he was only a boy. The man turned his head up. His mind was full of questions, but he found his mouth unable to form them. [color=silver]“I cannot make this choice for you.”[/color] The words sank in, as though the Kymellian already knew what Mar-Vell wanted to say. Letting go his apprentice, the Wizard rose back to his feet. Leaning on his walking stick, the horse-like mage looked down and said only, [color=silver]“Where you journey now, you must do so alone. I cannot go with you.”[/color] Mar-Vell looked down. At himself. At the boy. At the bands on his forearms that had for so long been his only lifeline. His last connection to a life he’d refused to give up on when a horse-faced magician had come to him, dying, and asked him [i]if you had only a single hour left in which in life, what would you do with it?[/i] He’d told him then that he’d do everything different. He’d do everything right. And he wouldn’t stop until he’d made a difference. Maybe instead of making a difference, he needed to make amends. [sub][color=goldenrod]“SHAZAM...”[/color][/sub] Lightning crashed, bathing the two in light until it had become blinding. When it had cleared, the red-and-blue costumed hero was gone. In his place, the bronze bands appeared around the wrists of the young boy. [COLOR=deepskyblue][INDENT][B][SUP][SUB][H2]30 Years Later[/H2][/SUB][/SUP][/B][/INDENT][hr][/COLOR][INDENT][INDENT][sup][color=SILVER]The Planet Arcon | The Worlds of the Kymellian Technocracy[/color][/sup][/INDENT][/INDENT] Of course, it just [i]had[/i] to be dire wraiths. The bronze bands around the boy’s reedy forearms crackled with otherworldly energy, as the child ground the advance of the hulking behemoth to a halt. Planting one foot behind him, the young [b]demigod[/b] gave a grunt as he lifted upward. The silvery, misshapen being came off the ground, raised overhead until the child was holding a massive creature no less than five-times his size over his head. He tossed the vampiric bug like an oversized beach ball, the dire wraith slamming into two more that were coming over the ridgeline. He almost took a knee after that. His face flush and his hair slicked back against his scalp, the boy was winded from the effort that was going into pushing back the encroaching parasites from the Kymellian colony on the edge of their space. Except Arcon was pretty far from Wraithworld, so what were dire wraiths doing here? A flash of static energy opened a brief portal, which soon after took on the form and likeness of a Kymellian boy who was close to Billy own age. [color=skyblue]“The technocrat has ordered the evacuation of the colony.”[/color] Billy gave a grunt at that. Levitating himself a few feet off the ground, the boy caught a glimpse of just what they were up against. And it was a silvery tide of [b]thousands[/b] of [i]all very bad things[/i] headed right for the colony. Landing back beside Kofi, it was easy for the boy to say, [color=crimson]“He made the right call.”[/color] [color=skyblue]“Our defense of this world has failed.”[/color] The dejected tone with which Kofi had said it sparked both sympathy and no small amount of desire to try and plow through that horde. Neither was going to make much of a difference however. Nevertheless, the boy adopted a thin smile as he looked over at his companion. [color=crimson]“Don’t think of it as retreating,”[/color] Billy offered brightly, giving a shrug as he explained, [color=crimson]“Think of it as... advancing in the opposite direction.”[/color] With those long faces, Kymellians gave a [i]wicked[/i] sidelong glare by the way. So, Billy just offered a cheesy grin in return. But, the fact that they were rapidly becoming surrounded by large, armored, vampiric [b]cockroaches[/b] was closing in on them fast. [color=crimson]“If they’ve left, so should we,”[/color] Billy offered. A three-fingered hand touched him on the shoulder. A moment later, the pair were vanished in another spark of static energy, right as the dire wraiths came crashing down on them.