Road to Recovery
He was dreaming again. Billy opened his eyes and found himself in a place he had never been, a city made of the whitest marble and with statues of alicorns everywhere. It looked to be a grand city, with tall buildings and the feeling of class everywhere. He believed that Twilight had called this place Canterlot, capital of Equestria and one of the most glorious cities in all the land.
And he was watching it burn.
Billy looked around at the once great city in terror, seeing the bodies in the pools of blood, the charred ponies that couldn't escape the fire and the rubble that was all that remained of the buildings. He began to run through the streets, calling out for anyone to answer, running past the corpses without trying to look at them. Then he found the others, found them just like all the other ponies: dead. Celestia, Twilight, Spike; all of his friends lying dead in front of him. All the ponies that he had failed to save, those who had needed him and were now dead. Yet that mentally scarring image was not what terrified young Billy the most. What scared Billy was the beast standing in the center of all the death and destruction, a creature that haunted his nightmares. The ten foot, grey skinned and bone bladed creature that was known around the multiverse for killing Superman. Doomsday.
"SHAZAM!" Billy cried out, but to his dismay nothing happened. All his cry did was alert Doomsday to his presence, the monster turning towards him and moving his way, an evil grin on his face. Billy cried out again and again, but there was still no flash of lightning nor sound of thunder, only the sight of the behemoth moving towards him. Billy slowly backed up, wondering what he was going to do when he heard a familiar voice.
'Unless you can learn the greatest magic of all, you will fail to beat the oncoming Armageddon.'
Billy could only watch as Doomsday walked right up to him, towering over the child as he backed away slowly, fear preventing him from moving at all. He could only watch as the monster lifted one arm over its head, a small smile spreading on its face. Doomsday then swung his arm down and Billy's dream faded to black.
{S}
Billy's eyes snapped open and he sat straight up, immediately regretting it as pain raced through his chest. It was worse than the time he had been impaled by Wonder Woman’s sword a few years back, nearly making him cry from the intensity of the pain. He looked around through the tears in his eyes and realized that somepony had brought him back to Twilight's library, even bandaging him up a bit. His body was cut and bruised, but most of the wounds had been cleaned and he had a bandaged wrapped around his chest. He tried to sit up again, this time gaining the attention of a dragon sleeping in the corner of the room.
"Billy! You're awake!" Spike said sleepily, standing up and running over to him. Billy tried to sit up, but Spike pushed him back down into the bed.
"You need to rest," Spike said in a whisper, looking back at the door, making sure that he hadn't been overheard. "I watched as you fell to the Everfree forest and managed to drag your body out of the crater before Twilight and the others found it."
"Urg...you managed to get to me before an alicorn and the fastest flier in Equestria?" Billy asked, a bit impressed.
"No, they were too busy protecting the town from what remained of the Cyclops when it crashed back to earth. When I found you, you were in your angel form, but you changed back for some reason." Billy had been having that problem after the explosion, but he had just assumed that it had been a short time effect. But had that explosion truly fried his powers? Could he no longer transform back into Captain Marvel at will? "I told Twilight that I found you under a pile of bricks. I think she believed me...what are you doing?"
"Stand back Spike," Billy muttered, placing a hand on the bed post and pushing himself back to his feet, biting his lip so he didn't cry out in pain. "I need to try something."
"But if you transform here, then the others will know that you're, well, the angel," Spike protested, placing a hand on Billy's arm. "And you've worked so hard to keep that secret. Also, will the lightning bolt hurt you if you're not at one hundred percent."
"The opposite actually. The lightning normally heals me, but I've never tried it when I was messed up," Billy said with a shrug and a smile, motioning for Spike to back up. He planted both feet into the ground and tossed his head back as he yelled, "SHAZAM!" He stood there for a minute, waiting for the lightning bolt that never came. Spike crawled out from under the fort of pillows he had made and looked around with a confused look.
"Um, does that usually happen to you?" he asked nervously, looking at the ceiling cautiously.
"No, this has never happened before. Yeah, sometimes it hits another object or something, but there's always the boom of thunders and usually a lightning bolt. This...is bad," Billy muttered before collapsing on the ground, his stamina running out on him. Spike rushed to his side and helped lift him back up. "And without it, I can't instant heal or transform." Spike set him back down on the bed, where Billy looked into his hands, trying to figure out what the problem was.
"Can I help in anyway? We have a huge assortment of books downstairs and I'm sure one of them might have the answers," Spike offered, not wanting to see his friend suffer anymore. But Billy shook his head with a smile.
"Thanks for the offer, but this is my problem. I don't want you to get mixed up in this business, especially since it seems someone's got it out for me." Spike opened his mouth to complain, but he looked at what had happened recently and figured that Billy was just trying to help him.
"So, you said that lightning can heal you, as weird as that sounds. What other powers do you gain from the lightning?"
"Well, Shazam was the name of the great wizard that gave me my powers, which are, usually, activated just when I say his name. Normally I get the wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Hercules, the courage of Achilles, the power of Zeus, the durability of Atlas and the speed of Mercury. Along with that I become immune to almost all magic, grow about two feet and age thirty years, not to mention gain the outfit that you see me in."
"Wow, that's a lot of power for a kid to have. So why did Shazam give it to you?" Spike asked in wonderment, moving in closer to the bed so he could hear more. Billy let out a pained sigh and lay back down on the bed, going back into memories past.
"He gave them to me because his previous champion, Black Adam, fell to the seven deadly sins and abused his power. I was told that I was the only person on the planet with a pure and incorruptible heart that was worthy of having the power of Captain Marvel. So I was given the power and Shazam was crushed under a rock."
"How'd a powerful wizard die from getting crushed by a rock?" Spike asked with a small laugh, which stopped when he saw Billy's crestfallen face. "Sorry, were you close to him?"
"Not really. He was killed by the rock because he chose to die in order to atone for his sins of bringing Black Adam into the world, who I had to fight only a few minutes later. I wasn't even told how to activate my powers," Billy said with a sarcastic chuckle, telling Spike about messing up his first super hero fight. The fear as Black Adam tried to kill him, the awe as Superman and the Adam battled it out in the center of his city. The power that flooded through him when he discovered that saying the wizards name transformed him, as well as the embarrassment when he found out that saying the name a second time would change him back to normal, even in midflight.
"Wow, it sounds awesome to have all that power," Spike said with a huge smile. "You could probably do whatever you want, can't you?" Billy shook his head with a frown.
"No, I was given these powers to help protect others and to keep the world safe. To use them for my own purposes would be the ultimate betrayal of Shazam," he said with a stern face, saying what it meant to be a hero. Then he gave Spike a small smile. "Of course, sometimes I use it when I miss the bus for work." Spike laughed at his joke even if he had no idea what a bus was.
"Actually, I have one more question. From what you've described, your world doesn't have talking ponies, so why weren't you surprised when the ponies here talked?"
"Spike, in one day I went from a regular kid to essentially a god that was battling an equally powerful god next to an alien across the skies of a city. I stopped being surprised by weird things a long time ago."
"Wow. By the way, I wanted to thank you for being a good friend....and saving my home as well as my friends."
"That's what friends do, we help each other out," Billy said with a smile.
"Then let me help you," Spike pestered once again.
"No."
"Why not?"
"Cause."
"Fine," Spike grumbled with an eye roll, learning about Billy's stubborn side. He hoped off the bed and walked over to the stairs. "I'm going to get Twilight, she asked me to get her when you were able to speak. She had a few more questions for you." Billy nodded and Spike left to find Twilight. Billy lay on the bed lost in thought, letting the grief that he had keep inside out for just a minute. Tears rolled down his face when he thought of the ponies he had failed to save, even Cyclops. None of these ponies deserved to die, but he couldn't save all of them. Why? Why couldn't he save them all? He was practically a god, he should be able to do better, be faster or stronger. Yet he had seen the bodies and watched Cyclops’s kill himself in Billy's arm. Why?
'Because while you may have the body of a god, you are still a child on the inside and must learn that you cannot save everypony.' Billy quickly sat up, but his body reminding him that he was not healed even faster. He groaned and looked over at the silver mare when he could see through the pain. She was standing in the doorway, looking at him with an interested face from what he could see from under her hood.
"You again?" Billy asked, sitting up as the mare walked over to him. "And what do you mean learn that I can't save everypo-everyone?" She did not answer right away, instead started looking over at his beaten body, shaking her head when she came across a wound or cut.
'Even Celestia, with her ability to move the sun and control the planet, cannot save everypony. She has been alive long enough to know that you cannot make everypony happy, that sometimes you have to make tough choices.' Billy watched her closely, realizing a few things. The first was that she was not breathing, that her body stayed perfectly still as she slowly moved her head. The other was that he could sort of see through her, as if she was only half there.
"I may not be able to save everyone, but I can darn well try!" Billy said defiantly while sticking out his chest, immediately reeling back as more pain coursed through him. The sliver mare looked at him with interest, impressed by his desire to help.
'You say that you will try to save everypony, yet you struggle with the concept of killing. How can you hope to save everypony if you cannot decide whether you wish to spare or finish?' Billy wanted to argue, but he knew that she was right. He was struggling with whether he should still let his enemies live or if he should end them to save others. But how did she know that?
"You seem to know an awful lot about me, even though I'm from another world. How?"
'Indeed I know much about you. I know that you are human, that you are parentless and that all you want is to be accepted,' she said in a cool tone, keeping any emotion from her voice. 'And yet you push away those who wish to help, like Spike, who only wanted to help his friend. Why?'
"Whenever someone tried to help me, it ends up badly for the other person," Billy muttered, thinking back to what had happened with Shazam. "I won't let anyone get hurt on my account. But you still didn't answer my question," he said with a suspicious look.
'You are right to be suspicious. And to answer your next question, it is my fault that your teleporter broke down and that you were brought here in such a manner. I apologize for that.'
"Your fault...fine, I was heading here anyway, but why did you break it?" Billy asked, not liking that he was getting more questions than answers.
'It seems that I was trying to use my magic to open a portal at the same time you were trying to teleport to my world and the two overlapping portals caused a malfunction to your teleporter.'
"Wait, you were trying to bring me here? Why?"
'Actually, I was trying to summon the one called Superman for help, but you were caught in the temporally rift.'
"Makes sense, Superman is usually the one who gets calls for help," Billy said with a small shrug.
'Do not take it the wrong way. I was merely saying that Superman was who I had intended to help us, but you are just as welcome to help in his place.'
"Why did you need me, or Superman, anyway?" Billy asked, wondering what was going on.
'As you have seen, many ancient evils have re-awakened. I needed somepony...someone with the power to stop them. You Billy Batson, are who I have brought to help us.'
"Well I'm sorry to disappoint, but at the moment I'm powerless to stop any more of those ancient evils that are coming back. You'd be better off trying to bring Superman here," he said with a scornful chuckle. "Without my powers I'm nothing." She shook her head and walked up to Billy, moving her hood slightly so Billy could look into her eyes.
'The powers do not make the hero, despite what you may believe. When you find something to fight for again, I am sure your powers will return.' Any comment that Billy was about to make was interrupted when the library door opened and the sound of hooves running up the stairs to the room. Twilight opened the door to his room and walked over to him, passing through the silver mare without a second thought.
"Glad to see you're up," she said with a huge smile, trying to hide the bags under her eyes. "I've been up for days worrying about you!"
"Days? How long was I out?" Billy asked in confusion.
"Three days at least. I was scared out of my mind when Spike dragged you to the library. You looked like you had been caught in an explosion. It was scary for a few hours, we weren't sure if we were going to lose you or not. But you pulled through and have been sleeping ever since." Wow, he had really been out for that long? Billy stood up with some help from Twilight, his stomach rumbling for the first time since he had woken up.
"Seems like you're hungry," Twilight said with a small chuckle. "Come on, Spike's cooking us up something downstairs, let's go eat." She helped Billy to hobble out of the room and to the top of the staircase, where he paused and turned his head around to face the silver mare, who had been staring out the window.
'What will you fight for?' was all she said before she vanished without a trace. Billy looked at the spot where she had vanished, thinking about what she had said before letting Twilight help him down the stairs. What did he fight for? He fought for the ponies, for all who needed him. Was that not enough? What reason could he need?
{S}
Billy walked down the stairs with Twilight to find that Spike really had been cooking and to his surprise, it actually smelled pretty good.
"Hello you two! Just sit yourselves down and I'll have the food out in minute!" Spike called over to them, balancing on the top of a stool while flipping pancakes and balancing a dish on his head. He flipped the pancakes onto his head and started filling up glasses with apple juice, which he also managed to balance on his head as well. He hopped down with an impressive leap while keeping the glasses rom falling when he landed, walking over to the two in a zig zag pattern to keep the plate balanced.
"Wow," Billy and Twilight both muttered as Spike spun the plates off his head and onto the table in front of them, doing a little flourish to spin the drinks onto the table as well.
"Enjoy," he said with a slight bow. Billy dug his fork into the pancakes and tried some, stunned by how good they were.
"Wow Spike, you're a good cook," Billy said with approval, polishing off his plate in a few seconds, much to the amazement of Twilight.
"You sure eat fast," she muttered, watching him down the apple juice in one gulp.
"That was good Spike. What were the pancakes made of, they tasted a little different?"
"Oh, I used hayseed pancake batter and mixed in some herbs that help boost a ponies stamina and health," Spike said with a smile, showing him the box for the batter that had hay and seeds on the front. Billy looked at the box for a minute before he stood up out of his chair and walked out of the library, where retching sounds could be heard coming from him outside. Twilight gave Spike a look who shrugged in response as Billy walked slowly back in, clutching his stomach and his face a slight shade of green.
"You feeling alright, Billy?" Twilight asked with concern. He slammed his head onto the table but still gave her the thumbs up, which she took as a sigh saying he was fine. "Sorry if you don't like hay, our local expert on humans isn't here and it's mostly all I've got. That begs the question, what do humans eat? In fact, what are most humans like?" Billy had to repress what he had just eaten in order to open his mouth to answer.
"Humans...urp...for the most part can eat a variety of things, fruits, vegetables, meat, dairy and sugar are what most eat. We can also eat some artificial stuff. None of its health but it tastes so good!" It was Twilight's turn to practically throw up at the mention of a creature eating another, something that went against every belief she had.
"You don't eat gems?" Spike asked. "Well, there goes my plans for lunch, but I guess I can whip up a salad or something. Hold on." He hopped of the chair and headed back over to the kitchen while Twilight tried to regain her composure.
"Okay, that disturbing fact aside, we have a few things to do today. Now that you're able to move around, I was hoping that we could go to Rarity's and get you some new clothes," she said with a smirk.
"What? What's wrong with my clothes?" he asked, looking down at the torn fabrics and shredded outfit. "Oh, right."
"Alright you two, let's get going. You know how Rarity hates to be kept waiting," Twilight said with a smile, walking over to the door and indicating for the two to follow her. Billy walked after her along with an excited Spike as they headed off for Rarity's, wondering what would happen.
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Hey, you got a chapter out early. Normally I have to wait until around mid-day for a new chapter.
And yet she has a pet owl. And Rarity has a pet cat. And Applejack has a pet dog. And Pinkie Pie has a pet alligator. And there is an entire nation of Griffons that presumably eat meat.
Don't get me wrong, I really like the story so far... it's just that I see the whole "meat eater phobia" thing in a lot of fanfics and it kinda bewilders me.
2585764
Agreed. Not to mention sweet Fluttershy feeding otters with fish or Pinkie Pie using eggs on bakery.
Besides, basic diet (carnivorous, herbivorous or omnivorous) is not exactly a matter of choice.
2587091
And I'll just add that to the mountain of stories I need to get working on. But it is a good idea and I might have thought of a way to do it. Thanks for the idea.
2586106
Not to mention that horses are not strictly herbivorous and can tolerate a small amount of meat in their diet should the need arise.
2585764 Perhaps because it mostly stems from an instinctual fear of predators i.e carnivores.
Wow, so regardless of the intent or context a lightning bolt will always strike Billy whenever he says SHAZAM? So what is the point of DC officially changing his name to SHAZAM in the Injustice game and the new comics? He won't be able to tell people his superhero name because he will transform in front of them; that is, unless they changed things up so that he has to say the word with intent now.
With that thought out of the way, this is a very good and well written story.
2838021
?...
Wait they changed his name to shazam
THOSE BASTERDS!!!!!!
I know, I'll just kill them
3572194>>2838021
OOH! I KNOW THIS ONE!
Because of his name and conflicting copyrights, Captain Marvel's was not allowed to appear on the cover of any DC material e.g. Being called "Shazam" on the back cover of MK vs DC, Superman/Shazam movie, Billy Batson and the Power of Shazam comic.
They did this to allow this hero to get a self-titled book...that got canceled BEFORE it got made because of OTHER stupid changes to the character (such as billy batson being a little D-bag who only cared about himself and exploiting his powers for personal gain)
While i don't LIKE the name change, I do understand it.
Was that alien Superman? Like from the animated short film?
2838021 Wat? What kind of moronic editor got drunk and wrote the papers to do that? Wait, did Marvel sue? Nah, that's stupid.He has been Captain marvel for a long time, AND Marvel had Captain Marvel. Many of them, actually. Mar-vell, the there was this girl, who was forced to Photon(I think) when another Captain was born. I mean what the hell?
3572194
Blame Marvel and Copyright!