In the underworld, where chaos is the norm, a muscular, devilish figure in a dark suit slept upon a throne. Heavy chains pinned his body in place. His white, void-like eyes snapped open. "The Wizard's champion has relinquished his power. These humans are full of surprises. It's time I finally make my move and break through this seal." A black shadow swooped down from above, slipping past the chains with ease.
Within the Rock of Eternity, the Staff of the Gods glowed brightly. Lightning coiled around it, then four bolts blasted into the sky. The staff stood upright, pulsing blue in the darkness. Somewhere in Fawcett City, a black-haired, blue-eyed boy sprinted through the streets with a pack of boys gaining on him. "Get back here, Yousuke! You're dead!" They chased him straight into a skate park. Yousuke launched himself into a front flip over a rail then crashed shoulder-first into a girl with short blonde hair and green eyes.
"Ouch! Dude, why are you just standing there?" She rubbed her knee, glaring up at him. Yousuke blinked, already backing away. "Sorry. Wait you go to my school? Gotta go. I'll pay you back later." He snatched her skateboard and pushed off. "Wait!" She shouted after him, but the boys were still coming. "I swear, when I get my hands on you!" Yousuke hit the stairs at full speed. "This is too easy ahhh!"
He grabbed the board mid-air, flipped with the momentum, and barely stuck the landing. "That was close...." A hand clamped onto his shirt and yanked him back. "Caught you, little twerp." A fist drove into his stomach. Another snapped his head sideways. Blood ran down his lip, and Yousuke still managed a crooked grin. "What's wrong, guys? Didn't like my joke?"
One of them stepped in close and slammed a punch into his face. "You should've left it alone like the other times. Guess you don't learn." Yousuke hit the ground. Boots and fists piled on him. "Hey, leave him alone!" A black-haired, brown-eyed boy stormed in and dropped one of them so hard a tooth flew out. "You're dead!" A punch came at him. He slipped it and answered with a right hook. "Get out of here!" The bullies scattered.
The brown-eyed boy crouched beside Yousuke and hauled him up. Yousuke wiped blood from his nose with the back of his hand. "Yeah." The boy stared at him like he couldn't believe this was real. "The hell did you do to piss those thugs off?" Yousuke spit blood to the side. "They were picking on a girl, so I kinda threw a bucket of piss on them. Totally justified, but probably not worth the beating."
"There you are! Give me back my board!" The blonde girl came stomping down the stairs. Yousuke held the skateboard out carefully. "If you chipped it, you're paying for the whole thing." Yousuke raised both hands like he was surrendering. "So you're that tomboy skate girl at school? Don't worry, I'm kinda awesome at not breaking things most of the time." She snatched the board and shot him a look sharp enough to cut glass. "Whatever. Just don't steal things, especially my things."
Yousuke mock-saluted. "Samantha, right?" She kept walking. "Just call me Sam." Yousuke watched her go, then flicked a glance at the brown-eyed boy. "Thanks again." The boy didn't answer right away. Yousuke waved, already moving off. "Yousuke... and no, I'm good." A few steps away, Johnny lingered, eyes narrowed in thought. "He's good… The way he caught himself mid-air was impressive. Fawcett might be becoming more interesting than Metropolis."
His phone buzzed. Johnny checked the screen and grabbed his bag. "Yeah, Mom, I made it safely. I'm heading to Dad's right now." Johnny stepped into a two-story house. "Johnny!" A small girl grabbed his legs like she was afraid he'd disappear. "Hey, Lia. Where's Dad?" She pointed upstairs. Johnny moved carefully into a dark room. His dad slept with a heart monitor beside him and pill bottles nearby. Johnny adjusted the blanket and backed out quietly.
He drifted into his old room everything still the same, like time had frozen. "Haven't changed it since." Lia padded in behind him, stomach growling. Johnny opened his hands toward the kitchen. "Want some food?" She nodded. Back in Yousuke's Japanese-style apartment, he cleaned his wounds, then sat in the living room with ramen. He lifted noodles to his mouth and the room shook. "…What the." Electric sparks snapped around him. His hair spiked up. Then he vanished.
Yousuke slammed onto cold stone. His ears rang, vision blurry. A hand landed on his shoulder. He turned and saw Johnny. "Hey, you're that guy." Johnny looked around, tense. "It's Johnny. Mind telling me where we are?" Sam appeared nearby, arms folded like she'd been dropped into the world's worst prank. "It's Sam, and I'm just as confused as you." A brown-haired, brown-eyed girl stood a little apart, eyes wide and breathing shallow.
"This has to be a dream. I don't remember sleeping, and I don't know any of you." Yousuke raised both hands, trying to keep the panic from spreading. "Guys, calm down and look at the bigger picture." Sam's stare cut into him. "And that is?" "…Uh." The silence answered for him. "Great," Sam muttered. "I may have been kidnapped, and I'm here with an idiot." Yousuke lifted his hands again, deadpan. "Sorry for trying to lighten the mood." Johnny stepped between them before it got worse.
"Arguing won't help. We need to figure out who brought us here." A finger lifted shakily toward the center of the cavern. "Uh, guys?" The Staff of the Gods pulsed nearby. Yousuke started toward it. Johnny grabbed his arm. "Wait. We can't just walk up to that thing. We don't know what it is." Yousuke squinted at it like it offended him. "It looks like a staff." The brown-haired girl threw her hands up. "That glows. What is wrong with you?" Yousuke kept walking anyway. "Okay, unknown girl, I'm grabbing the staff."
They all edged closer. The girl leaned in, eyes narrowing at the carvings. "Look, there's writing on it." Sam read the words out loud, slow and careful. "Lay your hands on my staff and say my name so my powers may flow through you. I open my heart to you and, in so doing, choose you as champion." Four faces tilted toward the name. "Shazam?" Lightning exploded. Johnny groaned as he pushed himself up. His voice boomed deeper than it had any right to be.
"Did we just get struck by lightning in a cave? Why does my voice sound different?" He stared at his hands bigger. A red suit. A lightning bolt. The brown-haired girl screamed as she staggered up taller now, wearing yellow. Sam flexed her hands, stunned. "What's going on?" Yousuke turned in a slow circle, white suit gleaming, eyes bright like he'd just won the lottery. "Whoa… this is weird. I feel grown up and strong." The girl backed away, shaking.
"If this is some cape thing, I don't want it! How do I change back?" Sam forced herself steady and grabbed the thread of logic. "Calm down. We need to think about what happened." Johnny pointed back toward the staff. "We grabbed the staff." The girl's eyes widened. "And said the name." Her lips formed the word again. "Shazam!" Lightning struck her, and she dropped back into her teenage body. Johnny tried it next. Lightning flashed. Normal clothes returned. "So we change by saying it."
Yousuke lifted the staff like it belonged to him. "That staff gave us powers." The girl stared at his hands on it. "Are you sure you should be holding that?" Yousuke shrugged. "There's nothing saying not to. Plus, I might figure out how it works." Sam scanned the endless cavern. "Okay… new problem." "How do we get out of here?" Minutes passed as the group wandered through the cave until they reached a massive room filled with doors hundreds of them. Some floated in the air. Others were wrapped in chains.
The girl waved at the maze."Okay… pick a door." Johnny didn't move. "I don't think opening a floating door or one wrapped in chains is a great idea." Yousuke didn't even pretend to listen. He opened one. Black tentacles shot out, nearly grabbing him. He slammed it shut so hard the door rattled. Yousuke stepped back, breathing fast. "Okay, that door is definitely off-limits. I think we should be in hero mode for this." They nodded. "Shazam!"
Lightning struck as they transformed into their champion forms. Sam glanced around, thinking hard. "I wonder if we can teleport out of here." Johnny's face tightened. "Maybe these bodies are more than just appearances. I need to get home before my sister starts freaking out." The thought hit and all of them vanished. They reappeared in Johnny's living room. The brown-haired girl blinked rapidly, looking around.
"So we just had to think about it?" Lia stood frozen in fear near the stairs. "Who are you?" Johnny stepped forward in a red suit—way too big for this room. "No, no, Lia, it's me, Johnny." Lia's face crumpled like she was about to scream. Sam grabbed Johnny's arm. "Johnny, you're still transformed." Johnny's eyes shot upward holes already forming in the ceiling from the last strike. "Shazam!"
Lightning blasted through the roof. Johnny dropped back into normal. Lia stared, shaken. "Johnny… what just happened? You were big and wearing a weird suit. And who are these people?" Yousuke leaned back against the couch, rubbing his chin like this was a fun game show. "I'm super thunder… no, rain thunder… no." Sam's eyebrows climbed. "What are you doing?" Yousuke snapped his fingers. "Trying to come up with a name. I mean, I can just call myself Shazam." Lightning struck him instantly. He yelped as he changed back.
"…Oops." He rubbed his head, grimacing. "Welp, my secret identity is exposed." Sam stared at him like she wanted to throw the couch. "Are you seriously an idiot?" Johnny looked up at the ceiling again, dead inside. "Okay… no one says that name inside my house ever again." A little later, they sat in normal clothes on the couch. The Staff of the Gods rested on the table like it owned the place. Sophia's eyes fixed on it. "Why did you bring that?" Yousuke spread his hands. "Because, unknown girl, it might have answers like what powers we have. By the way, what's your name?"
She hesitated, then sighed. "Sophia." She picked up the staff and turned it, studying every groove. "If only we had some way to get information… like a library or something." Sam stood, already done with everything. "Well, that's enough for today. I've got school tomorrow, and I'm exhausted." Yousuke rose too. "Yeah, same. See you guys tomorrow." Johnny pushed the staff into Yousuke's hands. "Wait. You're taking this. You brought it." Sophia left first. Yousuke followed, carrying the staff.
Lia tugged Johnny's sleeve once they were gone. "Bro… are they your friends?" Johnny exhaled. "No. We're just… dealing with something weird." Lia's eyes sparkled. "Like a superhero thing? Like the Justice League?" Johnny didn't answer. Minutes later, Sophia entered a massive house. Maids and butlers waited like they'd been standing there all day. "Welcome back, miss. How was your day?" Sophia didn't slow. "Fine. Are my parents home…? Never mind."
A maid gave a small shake of her head. "There's food prepared for you." Sophia climbed the stairs. "I'll eat later." Her room was lifeless, packed with unopened boxes. She pulled out her phone and scrolled. Mom. Dad. She called both. Voicemail. Voicemail. "As usual," she thought. "If it was going to be like this, they should've kept me in Gotham." She fell onto her bed, staring at the ceiling. The memory of lightning and power and chaos replayed in her mind. For the first time in her life, it had felt exciting. Joyful.
Later that night, in a small apartment, a man, a woman, and a boy sat eating dinner. The air already felt wrong. The man's eyes stayed on the boy. "So I heard you picked a fight today." The boy stiffened. "He threw a bucket of piss on me and my friends. We had to get him back. Then some guy showed up and got in our way." The man's gaze slid to the bruised eye. "And he's the one who gave you that black eye?" The boy touched it nervously. The woman took a slow sip of wine.
The man's voice dropped colder. "And then you ran. I didn't know my son was such a little bitch." The boy shoved back his chair and stood. "Where do you think you're going?" A hand shot out. The man grabbed him by the throat and slammed him into the wall. The boy clawed at his wrist. A punch landed. The boy hit the floor. "If you get into a fight, you finish it," the man growled. "Now get your ass to your room." The boy staggered away and slammed his door. "I swear I'll kill you… and him."
Darkness swallowed the room. A voice seeped into his head. "You want power… to get revenge?" The boy's throat tightened. "Yes." The voice wrapped around the word like it was feeding on it. "Good. I'll give it to you. In exchange, you'll bring me the Staff of the Gods." His bruises faded. Muscles swelled. Power surged through him. A smile crawled across his face. The door exploded open. "What the hell are you doing in here?!" The man stormed in and froze. The boy's eyes were wrong now.
"Hey, Dad." He smiled. "I think you're a drunk, alcoholic loser." The man stepped forward, furious. "What did you just say to me, you little shit." The boy's hand snapped out and lifted him by the throat with one arm. "I could crush you," he said softly. "Now get out of my room." He threw him through the wall like he weighed nothing. Back in the living room, the woman stared over her wine glass. "Adrian… what did you do?"
The next morning, Sam's alarm went off like it wanted to start a war. She rolled over, smacked it silent, then sat up rubbing her messy hair. The hallway outside her door exploded with footsteps. Six kids three boys and three girls ran past her like a stampede. Sam blinked, half-awake, then dragged herself into the bathroom.
A few minutes later, she came downstairs, still looking like she'd rather fight a bear than deal with breakfast. Her mother's eyes immediately locked on her outfit. "Samantha, would you please wear something else? Maybe something more ladylike." Sam didn't even slow down. She popped open a cabinet, grabbed something, and leaned against the counter like she'd been waiting for this fight.
"It's Sam. And why? So I can get a boyfriend, graduate, get married, and have a bunch of kids like you?" Her mother's mouth tightened. "After college, I was thinking you could at least get your act together." Sam stared at her like she'd just been told the sky was green. "Who said I was going to college in the first place?"
"You can't make a living skateboarding." Sam pulled her bag closer, already halfway mentally out the door. Her dad came down the stairs in a suit, adjusting his tie as if he'd learned to dodge arguments for survival. "Dear, this is Sam. She'll figure it out." He leaned down, ruffled Sam's hair, then did the same to the rest of the kids like a quick blessing before battle.
"I've gotta go before I'm late. Be good." He reached for his keys. Sam raised a hand with them already dangling from her fingers. "Dad." He snatched them with a grin and was gone in two seconds. Sam swung her bag onto her shoulder. "Well, if we're done with this talk, Mom, I've gotta get to school." She walked out before the next sentence could land.
One of the boys stared after her, unsettled. "Is it just me… or does she seem a little happier?" At Fawcett High, Sam stood at her locker, swapping books with the speed of someone who didn't want to be here. Yousuke leaned against the locker beside hers like he owned the hallway. "So, Samantha, you're meeting us at lunch, right?" Sam slammed her locker shut hard enough to make the door rattle.
"Sure. And it's Sam." Yousuke lowered his voice, leaning in just enough to make it feel like a secret. "You know you should lighten up a little… since, you know… you're a superhero now." Sam stared straight ahead, then started walking, forcing him to move if he wanted to keep talking. "I'm not a hero. I'm just someone who has bad luck." They slipped into class with the bell.
Lunch hit, and the three of them ended up behind the school where nobody cared what you were doing as long as you weren't doing it in front of teachers. Yousuke paced like he'd been caffeinated. "Where's Sophia? Did you tell her?" Johnny's shoulders lifted in a small shrug. "Yeah. She didn't seem too keen on coming. Can't blame her. This is a lot for teenagers." Across campus, Sophia sat alone at a table, poking at her food without eating it.
"I'm not going." She stared at the crowd like it was background noise. "I just want a normal life. Nothing super-related." Her chair scraped back. She stood there a second, annoyed at herself, then started walking. Behind the school, Yousuke kept glancing toward the corner like he expected her to pop out of thin air. "We should wait for her. She's just as much a part of this."
Sam's arms stayed folded. "Yeah, but if she doesn't want to figure it out, we can't stop her." Sophia stepped into view like she'd been there the whole time. "Alright, let's get one thing straight." Johnny and Sam looked up. Sophia didn't bother sitting. "I don't plan on becoming some kind of superhero. I only want to figure out how to get rid of it." Johnny nodded once, like that was the most reasonable thing anyone had said so far.
Yousuke clapped his hands together like a coach starting practice. "Alright. Operation Hero has been formed. Now we need some kind of place to discuss our operations like a secret base." Sophia's eyes flicked toward the building. "I know a place where we can be without being suspicious." In the hallway, Adrian walked like the floor belonged to him. Someone bumped his shoulder. "Watch it." Adrian stopped. He turned slowly, expression blank.
His hand closed around the boy's shoulder. The punch landed so clean the boy dropped before his brain could process it. Adrian looked down at him like he'd stepped on trash. "No. You watch it." A large boy stepped forward, jaw tight, pulling his friend out of the way. "Hey. You're picking a fight again, Adrian. You know what happened last time you fought me." Adrian's lips curled, barely a smile. His eyes flickered a faint red. "It won't end the same way."
Sophia led them into a small, dusty classroom tucked away like it didn't belong. Boxes filled the corners. Old junk sat stacked like forgotten secrets. Johnny coughed the second he stepped inside. "Has this room always been here?" Sophia moved past a pile of junk like she'd memorized the path. "My dad is the biggest donation to this school. The principal gave me this room." She paused with a hand on a box, eyes distant. "I use it when I need to be alone. I haven't used it at all, but… this is a safe place. I think."
Sam took one look at the walls and grimaced. "It's got character. It also looks like it could use wiping down… and maybe bleach." Her eyes landed on a stain that looked like it had its own story. Before anyone could respond, a scream ripped down the hallway. Yousuke bolted first. The others were right behind him. They reached the crowd. Adrian stood over a boy on the ground, punching him again and again. Every hit made the body twitch, limp like it wasn't even fighting back.
Students screamed. Someone cried. Phones were already out. "Someone get help!" Yousuke shoved through the crowd. "Get off him!" He lunged Adrian's hand shot out, clamping around Yousuke's neck like a vise. Yousuke's feet lifted off the floor. In the underworld, the chained figure smiled like he'd been waiting for this. "So… he chose new champions." His void eyes gleamed. "And they're children."
His voice sank into the dark like poison. "Adrian. Kill the champions." Adrian lifted Yousuke with one arm, holding him up like a trophy. Johnny slammed a punch into Adrian's face. Nothing. Not even a flinch. Adrian's head turned slowly toward Johnny. "We meet again… but now on different grounds." Sophia's eyes snapped to a nearby cart. A glass container sat on it chemicals sloshing inside. She grabbed it and threw it into Adrian's face.
The glass shattered. Adrian screamed deep and wrong, demonic, like something else was screaming through him. Johnny yanked Yousuke free. All four of them ran, shoving past students and rounding a corner out of sight. Lightning lit the world. "Shazam!" They transformed in a flash, the air snapping with energy. Adrian landed nearby with a heavy impact. His body began to swell. Spikes pushed through his skin. Shadows crawled up his arms. His shape warped into something bigger and uglier.
His smile showed teeth that looked sharper than before. "So… I guess you've been chosen too." He charged. Straight at Yousuke. "Bring it, big and ugly!" Yousuke blocked boots scraping back from the force. He blinked, surprised more than hurt, and stared at his hands like they were new. "That didn't hurt half as bad. Guys… I think we have invulnerability!" Johnny's eyes narrowed. "This is no time to be experimenting." He moved too fast. The punch Adrian threw came in slow motion. Johnny dodged instinctively and didn't stop in time.
He slammed into a wall hard enough to crack it. Johnny peeled off the wall, stunned. "There may be more to this than I thought." Sam grabbed a metal pipe off the ground and took off, her speed turning her into a blur. She swung. The pipe connected. Adrian shot through the ground like a missile, carving a trail through dirt and concrete. Sophia's head snapped toward the sound of sirens and shouting. "Guys it's the cops. We should let them handle it!" Yousuke's eyes widened like she'd just suggested they hand a dragon to animal control.
"Handle what? He's got super strength and he looks like he's growing stronger!" Adrian climbed out, shaking off debris like it was rain. Yousuke rushed him and threw punches into his gut and face. Adrian barely reacted. Then his fist came up. Yousuke went flying launched into the parking lot hard enough to skid.
Adrian crouched, then leapt clearing the building in one jump, disappearing into the air like a nightmare with wings. Yousuke stood up just in time to see police surrounding him, guns raised. He threw his hands up fast. "Whoa, guys don't worry, I'm on your side!" Johnny appeared in a blur, grabbed his arm, and yanked. "No time for talking. Run." They vanished in a streak of speed. Sam and Sophia followed close behind.