Earth-shattering lightning flashed from the fingertips of Black Adam, who had invoked the power of Aton to fuel his lightning to even higher power. Shazam saw the electric bolts hurling themselves towards him and he stuck out his staff, swirling it around to catch the lightning on the end of it. Shazam then began to spin the staff above his head, causing the lightning to change from Black Adam's golden fury to his own white light. With a yell, he then flung the staff back towards Adam, who caught it with both of his hands.
"Is that all you can do, old man? You were more of a challenge when--" Adam never finished his words as the white lightning detonated itself upon him, sending the dark god crashing into the platform that was suspended by nothingness. Adam groaned while he struggled back to his feet, meanwhile Shazam held out his hand, his staff returning to him in a flash of lightning.
"Darak de nos!" Shazam roared as he slammed his staff into the ground, causing waves of stone and steel to rise into the sky like waves in the sea, waves that he sent crashing down towards the downed Adam. Black Adam snarled as the waves advanced towards him, and with a roar he drove both of his fists into the oncoming assault, destroying the waves with one blow. He then shot through the rubble and drove his shoulder into the wizard, sending both of them flying into the air.
Black Adam threw a strong right towards the wizard's face, yet a diamond of white magic intercepted the attack. The diamond cracked from the blow, yet the strike never reached the wizard's face. Shazam muttered beneath his breath and in the next moment Black Adam found his hands empty. With a roar he turned to face back towards the floor, where the wizard had already created a magic circle.
"Dos der vandar!" Shazam roared as he placed the staff in the center of the circle. A beam of white magic burst forth from the staff and streaked towards Black Adam, who threw both of his arms up just as the blast reached him. Adam gritted his teeth as the magic tore at his natural defenses, tearing through his body like he was made of paper.
"Teras vos Aton!" Black Adam roared through the pain, throwing out his arms to create a barrier of electric magic that held the beam that the wizard created at bay. With the shield now protecting him, Black Adam hurled himself through the beam and down into the magic circle, slamming into the floor with enough force to shatter the ground and break the circle. Shazam was thrown back by the impact and he landed hard on his back. As he struggled to get his shaking body back to its feet, he watched as Adam emerged from the destruction, barely scratched.
"This is a battle that you know you cannot win," Black Adam said as he walked towards the wizard, who leaned against his staff while he struggled to remain standing. "Even if your power was equal to my own, you are far too old for your body to handle the magic that you are using. Surrender and I will allow you to live." Shazam responded by pointing the tip of his staff towards Adam, defiance flashing in his eyes. Black Adam sighed before throwing himself through the air, bringing back his right fist charged with electric power as he prepared to strike.
"By the might of Geb, I breathe life into you!" Shazam roared as he drove the lighting bolt into the floor, blowing back Adam as a torrent of lightning erupted from the ground beneath his feet. Adam recovered in time to watch as massive stone titans emerged from the very ground on which they fought, all of them filled with the magical power that flooded through the wizard. Each of the titans let out a roar as they charged Black Adam, who roared in return as he and one of the titans threw a blow towards each other. Adam's fist tore through the stone fist of the titan, and with a mighty swing he blew the titan to pebbles with his strike.
"Hades, seal his movement!" Shazam yelled as he pointed the tip of his staff towards Adam, planting it into the floor when bloodied chains emerged from its tip. The chains quickly wrapped themselves around the limbs of Black Adam and immediately pulled him to the ground. Adam struggled against the chains until one of the two titans smashed its fist into his face, sending Adam skidding across the floor. Before he could go too far, the chains went taut, pulling him back into the ground.
"You believe that these chains will be able to hold me?!" Black Adam roared as he pushed against the chains of hell with his might, shattering them with a roar as he freed himself. With a scream of rage, Black Adam tore through the two titans that remained standing before he narrowed his eyes on the wizard. "This ends now, old man!"
"Indeed, Black Adam, this does." Adam realized a second too late what the wizard meant. He flew into a new triangle of magic onto the ground, which, the moment he entered, shot out walls of magic that imprisoned him in place. Adam furiously slammed his fists into the walls of magic, yet they held strong despite his strength. "I see you remember this spell. It is the very same one that I used to banish you to the edge of the universe last time."
"And you believe that it will work again?" Black Adam coldly asked as he placed a hand against the wall while he glared at the wizard. "I have returned twice before, what makes you believe that I will not do so again?" For a brief instance there was hesitation in the old wizard's eyes, and in that moment of weakness did Adam strike. "SHAZAM!" he cried, smirking as the golden bolt descended upon the barrier that held him, shattering its golden walls and hurling the wizard away from him. Black Adam shot forward and caught the wizard, slamming him into the ground before planting his boot onto the wizard's chest.
"This is my victory," Black Adam said looking down to the wizard, who was struggling just to move. Black Adam reached down and grabbed the golden staff off of the ground, lifting it above his head with the lightning bolt pointed down at the old man. "And your powers will now be mine. And with them I shall be the champion that I was destined to be."
"You are no champion!" the wizard spat back, reaching up towards his staff with whatever strength he could manage. "You are a tyrant, a madman who should never have received this power! I do not know what black magic was used upon me to make me believe that you could possibly be the hero whom I searched for all my life, but it truly did blind me!"
"It is funny to hear you say that, because I remember before you bestowed the word upon me, you did tell me that you had never seen such a kind and wise man in all of your years," Black Adam reminded the wizard. Adam's eyes narrowed a bit as he saw the wizard's gaze shift away from the dark one who pinned him to the ground. "I was the only one worthy of the powers! Out of everyone else in my land, I was the kindest and the most noble. You told me yourself many times."
"Yes...but that was before...what I saw...what absolute power would turn you into," the wizard shamefully admitted. "I did not see the darkness that was buried deep within your heart. So, when the day came that I found out what you were capable of..." The wizard stopped there, but Adam looked down at the old man with curiosity in his eyes. He had never seen the wizard like this before and he could tell something was amiss.
"There is sorrow in your eyes old one, yet it is not a sorrow for your actions," Black Adam pointed out before another thought entered his mind, something that he had rarely thought of before. When the wizard tried to stay silent, he pushed down harder with his boot. "What are you not telling me about those days?...In fact...back then, when we first clashed...why did you simply send me away instead of killing me?"
"In your form I could not-"
"Do not give me that wizard. You have been alive for millennia, surely you could handle a man who had had his powers less than a year," Adam muttered, starting to realize that he must be missing something. "And over ten years ago, you had the chance to kill me again, to undo your mistake, yet you cast me away again...could it be that you have been trying to avoid killing me? That you have been sparing me...sending me away to keep me safe?" Adam did not believe his own words for more than an instant, yet the wizard's eyes confirmed what he had been thinking. "Why? Why cast me away knowing full well that I could return?"
"Because..." Shazam began to choke out when Adam applied more pressure. "Because from the first day I met you, I was amazed at how one such as yourself could be so selfless, so caring. And as I taught you how to be a ruler, a protector, I realized that you were everything I had wanted in a family, even though you had a darkness in you. That is why...after all these years of pain and fighting...I have not been able to kill you...to be rid of my greatest mistake," the wizard sobbed out. "Because every time I look upon the face of Black Adam, I still see the young man named Teth who I believed could be the champion of the world. I see my own son."
Black Adam looked down at the wizard with the staff still lifted over his head. There was no emotion on his face, but the reason was, he masked his true thoughts which were a torrent of confusion and uncertainty. Adam closed his eyes for a moment as he thought back to those days, to when the wizard had taught him...had been like a father to him. And Adam had failed him so many times. But then, as Adam's eyes opened they hardened with a pain that he masked well.
"I understand now, but that does not change what I must do," Black Adam said coldly as he lifted the staff even higher. "But before you die, I will allow you to know this. I do not take your power so that I can be the strongest being in existence, but so that I can protect a new world, a world that I care about and watch over. I will do what you never dared to do. I will use my magic to save them. That is my promise!" He drove the staff down as he said this and pierced Shazam's chest with one motion. Shazam screamed to the sky as Adam yelled,
"SHAZAM!"
The staff began to syphon the magic from the old man's body and transferred it to Black Adam, who held on for dear life as torrents of magical lightning decimated the land around them, with the magic bolt that he had called down fusing the wizard's power to his own. Black Adam closed his eyes as everything went white, and when he dared to open his eyes he found that the wizard was no longer beneath him, as all that was left of him was white ash. The staff was twisted metal in his hand, but Adam did not care about that anymore for he was far too fascinated with what had become of his body.
His entire body was covered with white magic that had permeated itself into his suit, turning his black garb into the brightest of whites. His grieves and gauntlets were still golden, but the lightning bolt on his chest now had flashes of white along with its normal gold. But what fascinated Adam the most, besides the unlimited power that he now felt flowing through him, was the knowledge. His mind was filled with spells and enchantments of which only Shazam himself had knowledge.
'Not only do I have his power now, I also have the lifetime's worth of spells and knowledge that he had accumulated,' Black Adam thought to himself as he let the thoughts swirl around in his head while he looked down at his new form. 'But with this power, I could rebuild my nation! I could destroy those heroes and...no, you gave your word to both Celestia and the wizard, this power is to protect the ponies...and any others who seek my help.' He then looked down at the ash where the wizard had lain while the room around him returned to normal, bowing his head with slight respect. 'You may be gone now, but your power will live on through me. And may you find peace knowing that I use this power for others now, not just myself.'
Adam's thoughts sorted through all of the spells that Shazam had accumulated over the years until he found the one that would bring him back to Luthor's secret laboratory. He smirked when the spell cast itself in his mind and he opened his mouth to speak it, before he looked back to the ash with a hint of sadness in his eyes. But then he spoke the word,
"Shazam."
S=H=A=Z=A=M
Luthor had been flipping through his information on the heroes when a massive bolt of lightning went off inside of his lab, throwing him and his equipment across the room. He grumbled to himself as he got back to his feet, but his anger towards what he assumed was Adam melted away when he laid eyes upon the man.
"What happened to you?" Luthor asked with genuine fear in his voice while he looked upon the radiating Black Adam, while his instincts were telling him to run for his life.
"I have achieved what I went to the Rock of Eternity to accomplish," Black Adam said with what sounded like two voices as he floated over to Luthor, who could feel the power radiating off of Adam. He was also aware that Adam was now far beyond what he had been before. And it terrified Luthor. "I have taken the power of the wizard for my own, making me essentially unstoppable. This is the power I needed to protect my new home."
"You...killed the wizard? Shazam, right?" Luthor asked with half a laugh, trying to keep his composure.
"Not exactly, but his name was Shazam," Black Adam answered somberly. Luthor threw himself out of the way the moment Adam spoke the wizard's name, but to his surprise the lightning bolt did not descend like he thought it would. "Do not bother, the magic will only activate when I choose for it to do so. No more tricking me into speaking the word."
"So then, your only weakness is gone now?" Luthor asked cautiously as he rose back to his feet.
"Yes. I am unstoppable now." Luthor did not like the sound of that, for he knew that tricking Adam into saying Shazam was the only real way for someone like himself to stand a chance against the god-like being. But now that that no longer worked... "How are the designs coming along? I would assume with your intellect that you would have made some progress in the few hours that I was gone?"
"Yes, progress," Luthor repeated as he walked over to his computer and flicked it back on, bringing up the new designs of the suits, and how they had been modified to be worn by the ponies according to the information that Black Adam had given him. "I also figured out a way for those...ponies...without magic to be able to access the stasis and the firearms. That was easy enough, but it will take time for me to manufacture so many suits."
"How long?" Black Adam asked as he walked up beside Luthor, causing the bald billionaire to begin to glow white himself.
"At least a month, and that's for the earliest designs. Of course, it might go faster if I could sell the original designs myself and make a profit..." Luthor assumed that Black Adam had no idea that he had already made multiple copies of the suits and the weaponry that came with it, just in case Black Adam did not want him to keep the original designs. Yet to his surprise Adam nodded in reply.
"I no longer have a need for the human versions. Do with them what you wish." Luthor hid his emotions flawlessly, not letting Black Adam see the huge smile that he had on his face.
'You have always been a little easy to pull the wool over,' Luthor mused to himself silently. 'You've always been so focused on your own little problems and your insignificant people to be concerned with what I had planned. But that is why I enjoy working with you.' Black Adam nodded to the designs on screen before he turned and walked towards the center of the room, Luthor able to feel the air change as he prepared a spell. "May I ask what you're doing?"
"I will be heading back to my land until you are finished," Black Adam said.
"Are you sure that is so wise? The other magic users in the League will probably be able to sense your power now even through my walls. Perhaps you should wait and..."
"Even if they could sense my power, they would most likely only sense the magic of the wizard, since my power did originally come from him," Black Adam replied as he looked down at his open hand, which he then clenched. "And if they do figure out it is me, what does that matter? I can defeat them all with ease now. So let them come. Sha-"
"Actually, before you go, there's still the matter of the...gold kryptonite," Luthor reminded Adam, who stopped his spell to look at Luthor. Adam reached down and took the small shard out of his sash and looked from it to Luthor, weighing the options in his mind. He knew that Luthor would most likely try to kill Superman with it, something with which Adam had no issues. But it would be after Superman was dead that Adam had cause for concern. Luthor, despite his insistence otherwise, was a truly evil human and Black Adam worried a bit for the human race if Luthor was aloud to run free without Superman to stop him.
'But remember that Superman was one of the heroes that stopped you from achieving your justice,' the voice of Isis whispered into Black Adam's ear, and Adam felt his hand tighten around the shard. He had promised not to live for revenge anymore, yet...Without another word Adam tossed the shard to Luthor, who caught it with a childlike smile on his face.
"A word of warning, Luthor," Black Adam said to Luthor, who had turned towards his computer the moment that he had gotten the kryptonite. Luthor stopped dead in his tracks and slowly turned to look at Black Adam, who was giving him a dangerous glare. "I care not if you kill Superman, for he has none of my love, but I will warn you now," Black Adam began as he marched up to Luthor, wrapping his hand around his throat and lifting him into the air with ease. "If you cross me or try to kill the innocent of this world, then I will come for you. And unlike the Kryptonian, these stones do not stop me. Nothing can."
He dropped Luthor to the floor as he said this and walked back to the center of the room, where he lifted both of his hands to the sky before looking at Luthor and saying, "So promise I, Supreme Adam. Shazam." A flash of lightning went off and when Luthor could see again Supreme Adam was gone, leaving a scorch mark on the floor where he had left. Luthor fixed the tie on his suit as he stood back up, smirking as he looked down at the kryptonite.
"Oh don't worry Adam, I will have the suits for you, because I am a good business man," Luthor muttered with a chuckle. "Because what will money be to me when I rule the world as a god?" Luthor laughed to himself as he walked over to his computer, where he placed the golden kryptonite under a scanner to begin his research.
S=H=A=Z=A=M
Adam opened his eyes as his spell came to an end and he saw the laboratory in Metropolis in front of him, the last destination he had to visit before he would return to Equestria. He had wanted to return to the Kahndaq embassy, yet making sure the future was secure for the ponies came first. As he opened the locked doors with absolute ease, he flicked his wrist to the side, disabling the security systems and making sure that his presence remained undetected.
'Hopefully, Superman is not in the immediate area...or if he is, I'll settle my debt with him,' Adam thought, yet the Man of Steel never showed himself. Adam walked through the empty building until he reached the vault where all the most valuable inventions were kept. He could have torn the vault open, but all that would do was clue the heroes onto him, so instead he snapped is fingers and his magic provided the key that swung the vault open.
"Here you are," he muttered to himself as he walked over to a strange device that was a cylinder with two handles on the side. He hefted it up as he looked down at it. "Yes, if I am to become the protector that they need me to be...I must no long slay my foes as I once did. And with the prisons hardly able to hold anything stronger than a unicorn, I will need a new prison to keep these criminals. That is why I will need the Phantom Zone...forgive me Isis, but I will not be exacting justice today. There are those who need me right now to keep them safe. Forgive me, if you can. Shazam.' As he vanished in a flash of lightning, he never saw the two red eyes that gazed out at him from the shadows, watching his every move.
"I had wondered what had become of you, but to think that you had lost your desire for vengeance, for the fight!...And I had such high hopes for you," the voice said with bloodstained words that had been uttered to many before. "But if you seek to stop the battles that Luthor may cause in the future, then I must be rid of you. New powers or not Black Adam, you can not defeat me at my own game." The ancient one vanished into the darkness, leaving the laboratory empty once again.