[b][color=#87ceeb]| OPERATION LUMBERJACK[/color][/b]
[sub][color=#87ceeb][b]|[/b][/color] January 30, 1945[/sub]

[indent][color=silver][i]You learned to listen for the whistle.[/i]

[i]A boom followed by a whistle meant that the shell was outbound.[/i]

[i]A whistle in the air, growing louder? It meant that the boom was incoming.[/i]

The young man should have still been in high school. He looked like someone who might have been the football team running back or maybe a track star. Possibly both. If he said he was sixteen, then he was lying about his age. As had many other youths in order to join the war effort that had claimed so many of their father’s and brother’s lives.

Bullets whizzed through the air, as the faint echo of something like thunder revealed German machine gun positions. Vaulting through the blown out window of what may have, at one time, been a storefront, the young American all-star flew from out of the structure. Rifle in arms, he tucked and rolled as he ducked behind a stack of firewood.

The structure he’d been in just a moment earlier blew apart in an explosion that momentarily stunned him.

A hand slapped down on his shoulder, roughly snapping the teen from out of his daze.

The boy wore the uniform of a U.S. Army private first class. The stencil on the chest read BATSON.

The hand that had shaken him belonged to a youth who was barely older. Maybe seventeen. He looked like he should have been enrolling as a freshman in college, not ducking German artillery on the Belgium border. The name stenciled on his chest was RAYMOND.

They all called him [i]Toro[/i].

The younger boy tried to breath, found himself choking on the acrid smell of smoke and gave a cough. Turning his head, he spit and then labored to catch his breath. When he finally looked up, he said, [color=#87ceeb]“I thought they said ‘lightly defended.’”[/color]

“The Soviets may have a [i]slightly[/i] different definition of that than we do,” Toro quipped back.

Billy just gave a shake of his head as he sat up. Pulling his back against the wood pile. Cradling the rifle, the youth dared to peek out from one side. A flying flying by his head prompted him to quickly duck back again. [color=#87ceeb]“All right, I’ll go up the middle,”[/color] Billy announced, turning back toward Toro. [color=#87ceeb]“You go over top and...”[/color]

There was a strange sound.

It wasn’t thunder. And it wasn’t a mortar. It wasn’t a tank either. Glancing upward, the two youths were presented by the sight of a rocket taking off into the air. 

That would probably be the rocket that they’d come to [b]stop[/b] the launch of. 

“Change of plan,” Toro announced. The smell of smoke grew strong, as flames started to appear along the teen’s form. Fiery eyes looked over at Billy, as the teen kicked his head to one side to indicate the German machine gun positions. “I’ve got this,” Toro announced firmly.

[color=#87ceeb]“And I’ve got [i]that[/i],”[/color] Billy uttered, giving a heavy sigh. Tossing his rifle to one side, the teen pulled himself into a crouching runner’s start. 

Then he took off from the imaginary starting line. Bullets flew by, but a [i]whoosh[/i] sound told him that Toro had started the fireworks to draw the German fire with some of his own.

Gritting his teeth, Billy’s boots dug into the earth as he put some more distance between himself and Toro, before he shouted, [b][i][color=#87ceeb]“SHAZAM!”[/color][/i][/b]

Lightning came down, arcing with a brilliant flash that enveloped the teen’s form. Thunder rolled as the light faded, revealing a red and gold clad figure with a white cape.

Transitioning from a sprint into a jump, the caped figure launched into the air. Another [i]boom[/i] echoed a second later, as the figure accelerated like a rocket. In the town below -- or what remained of it -- glass could be heard blowing out as the figured sailed through the air in pursuit of the rocket.

The Soviets hadn’t offered a lot of information about just what this rocket was. Honestly, they probably hadn’t wanted to share any information at all, except it was clear that they were afraid of it and only the Americans had been in a position to engage the Belgian border towns. 

Flying through the air, the youth slid up the rocket. Pressing his hands against it, the boy’s blue eyes peered around for options. Maybe he could pull it higher into the air and detonate it there?

No, they were about to go over the English channel.

Angling the rocket steeply downward, the crimson hero split off along the water’s surface as the rocket crashed into the ocean.

A violent water spout erupted a moment later, sending a light sprinkle of salt mist over the youth as he seemed to hover in mid-air.

Billy gave a heavy sigh, before looking back toward the direction that he’d left Toro.

[color=#ffffff][i]Billy Batson[/i].[/color]

The voice of the wizard. 

There was a momentary feeling of vertigo, as though the youth were being pulled away to somewhere else. He felt his body starting to shrink, as he started reverting back to his true self. A now-familiar feeling of dislocation gripped him, the boy began to stammer, [color=#87ceeb]“[i]Notnow. Notnow. Notnow...[/i]”[/color]

It was too late. When the feeling had subsided, the boy found himself standing inside of what looked like a temple hewn from rough stone. At the top of which was a dark skinned old man with a gnarled cane and an unkempt beard. [color=#ffffff]“I gave you my power and you used it to fight a war,[/color]” Shazam uttered, his wearied, aged voice booming like thunder despite his physical frailty. [color=#ffffff]“You must answer for your actions, Billy Batson.”[/color]

Looking down at himself, the sleeves of the Army fatigue shirt he wore extended past his arms. Comically, the boy in the military uniform that was now too big for him looked over and said, [color=#87ceeb]“My friend’s back there,”[/color] Billy barked, hand outstretched as though pleading as he added, [color=#87ceeb]“He could be in trouble...”[/color]

The familiar feeling of dislocation gripped him. The interior of the temple seemed to spin.

When it had stopped, Billy found himself standing in a square pulpit. A dias reared overhead, with three figures looking down at him.

Looking to his left and right, all that was missing was chains. As the scene resolved itself in his mind, Billy understood that he was on trial. In a very literal sense. Turning his head back up, he recognized Shazam in the center of the three. The other had the face of a horse, while the third was a woman with black hair pulled back into a high ponytail.

[color=#87ceeb]“Not to [i]fight[/i] a war,”[/color] Billy offered, picking up on the wizard’s words. [color=#87ceeb]“To put an [b]end[/b] to war.”[/color]

“Do you have any idea how many innocent lives the American bombing campaign has claimed?” the horse-faced figure demanded gruffly. “Can you [i]truly[/i] claim to be the force of good in this conflict?”

Toro was probably still dodging bullets and these three talking heads wanted to have a philosophical debate? [color=#87ceeb]“War is war. Fighting to bring an end to hostilities is conflict,”[/color] Billy reasoned aloud, before adding, [color=#87ceeb]“It’s not perfect and neither are we.”[/color]

[color=#ffffff]“You have known [i]fear[/i],”[/color] Shazam uttered, as the old man stared down on the youth.

Before he could answer, the woman added, “And you have known [b]pain[/b].”

“And you have known death,” the horse-faced figure intoned.

[color=#ffffff]“Good.”[/color]

[i][color=#87ceeb]“Good?”[/color][/i] There was a level of disgust in his voice, which the boy didn’t bother to attempt to mask or hide.[color=#87ceeb]“Good? That I saw men and women -- [i]children[/i] -- their bodies...”[/color] Billy’s mouth hung open, but no words were forthcoming. He had no words that could provide any meaningful description. [b]Hell[/b]. Hell on Earth was about as close as he could fathom. 

Allowing his arm to drop by his side, the youth drew in a breath before saying, [color=#87ceeb]“You can’t imagine what I saw in Poland.”[/color]

“We have seen it,” the woman uttered coldly. “All of it, and more. Many times across countless centuries on innumerable worlds.”

“Did you think that humanity had a monopoly on atrocity?” the horse-faced figure asked sharply.

Billy looked up, a quizzical expression on his face. He looked away for a moment, then back toward the horse-faced judge. But he had nothing to say.

“Perhaps you do begin to understand,” the horse-faced figure noted dryly. 

[color=#ffffff]“He is ready.”[/color]

There was a certain finality to that statement that didn’t sit well with Billy. [color=#87ceeb]“Ready? Ready for wh--”[/color] he began.

The horse-faced figure interjected. “The boy is impatient.”

“So was I, if you remember,” the woman noted simply.

[color=#ffffff]“There is nothing more he can learn from me.”[/color]

[color=#87ceeb]“Learn?”[/color] Billy echoed. What was he supposed to have learned? [color=#87ceeb]“You... you told me to say your name and then I just fought in the war in Europe,”[/color] the boy remarked, confused, as he turned his head up toward the old wizard. [color=#87ceeb]“I still don’t understand what it is that you chose me for.”[/color]

The question hung in the air. The woman stood and walked away. The horse-faced figure did the same. The courtroom seemed to fall away, the familiar sensation of vertigo gripping him as reality seemed to spin around until the boy was back inside of the temple.

Except the old wizard was no longer seated at the top of the dias.

Staring around the darkness inside the temple, the boy asked, [color=#87ceeb]“What am I supposed to do?”[/color]

[i][color=#ffffff]That, Billy Batson, is the right question[/color].[/i][/color][/indent]

[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/DuOFbZI.png[/img]
[sub][color=silver][ Start ] [ [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHG5-GxI_Es]Soundtrack[/url] ] [ [url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/5180439]Next[/url] ][/color][/sub][/center]
[b][color=#87ceeb]| WASHINGTON ELEMENTARY SCHOOL[/color][/b]
[sub][b][color=#87ceeb]|[/color][/b] Present Day[/sub]

[indent][color=#00ffff]“Your human methods of education seem most inefficient.”[/color]

[color=silver]The last bell had rung. Car pools snaked around the front of the school, as kids and teachers filtered from inside and out of the public school complex that occupied this part of the city block.

Billy had slung his backpack down, organizing his books and materials as a boy leaning on a pair of crutches hobbled over to share the table with him.

A weak smile played at Billy’s face. [color=#87ceeb]“You say that, but I definitely don’t remember having this much stuff to memorize when I was going to school before the war,[/color]” Billy offered, even as he looked around to see who might be listening.

With most kids trying to get home as fast as possible. There were not a lot that were lingering in the school yard. And only a few that Billy even recognized.

[color=#00ffff]“With all the interest in the shuttle launch, I’m surprised at the inability to comprehend the basic physics of a Lagrange Point when..."[/color]

As the other boy prattled on, Billy was mildly aware of a strange feeling. Scrutinizing the school yard more closely, at first he thought that he was imagining it, until he saw [b]her[/b].

[color=#00ffff]“Billy?”[/color]

His name snapped him from out of his brooding. Looking over at the other boy, as though confused, Billy stammered a moment before he asked, [color=#87ceeb]“I’m sorry. What?”[/color]

[color=#00ffff]“Is something the matter?”[/color] the deceptively-looking human boy inquired.[color=#00ffff] “You were staring at Courtney.”[/color]

[color=#87ceeb]“Yeah,[/color]” Billy uttered. Then seemed to realize the implication and immediately recanted. [color=#87ceeb]“I mean, no,”[/color] he stammered. Then, trying to explain, added, [color=#87ceeb]“There’s something about her.”[/color]

The other boy just tilted his head to one side, as though slightly taken aback.[color=#00ffff] “Your physical body hasn’t been outside of the Rock of Eternity in several decades. Are you experiencing pubertal development?”[/color]

[i][color=#87ceeb]“What?”[/color][/i] Billy asked sharply. [color=#87ceeb]“No, I mean her corporeal form seems normal, but I’m sensing an energy from her that isn’t human.”[/color]

The other boy turned his head, glancing at the blonde-haired girl across from them in the school yard.

Then seemed to do a double-take.

[color=#87ceeb]“Right!?”[/color] Billy asked, finding both relief and vindication in the other boy’s reaction.

[color=#00ffff]“You are correct. But it is too faint for me to discern the precise origin,”[/color] the other boy remarked flatly. Then, turning back toward Billy, noted,[color=#00ffff] “In either case, our remaining here past the allotted education hours would be an impractical use of our time.”[/color]

[color=#87ceeb]“In other words, you’re ready to bail.”[/color]

The idiom seemed to almost irritate the Kymellian in human clothing. [color=#00ffff]“That is what I have indicated,”[/color] the other boy stated, with a slight shake of his head. [color=#00ffff]“Were you still planning to visit the geriatric care facility that you mentioned?”[/color]

[color=#87ceeb]“It’s called a [i]retirement home[/i],”[/color] Billy corrected lightly, before adding,[color=#87ceeb] “And yes. Once I figured out how to use that Google thing in the library, I think someone I know might be there.”[/color]

[color=#00ffff]“You are soon to be a hundred years old, Billy Batson,”[/color] the other boy stated flatly.  [color=#00ffff]“Members of your species are not typically as long lived. I would encourage you to seek emotional detachment from the people of your former life. These emotional entanglements will only form distractions.”[/color]

Heaving his backpack from off the table, Billy slung it over one shoulder. [color=#87ceeb]“When have you ever known me to be distracted?”[/color] he asked, flashing the so-called [i]Freddy Freeman[/i] a smile.

The Kymellian in disguise, picked up his crutches and prepared to shuffle away. [color=#00ffff]“Would you like that list alphabetically or chronologically?”[/color]

Billy just gave a slight nod of his head.[color=#87ceeb] “You heading back to Friday?”[/color]

[color=#00ffff]“Correct. I wish to complete the book report on this [i]Great Gatsby[/i] and then check in with Kymellia.,”[/color] the alien boy noted.

[color=#87ceeb]“I’ll see you later, then,”[/color] Billy offered.

The two youths walked away from the table.

As Freddy Freeman passed behind one corner of the school, the boy seemed to disappear into thin air.

As Billy passed behind a tree, he seemed to do the same.[/color][/indent]