Champion of Heroes and Magic (Shazam! x Invincible) Chapter 44: It’s Personal
[Third Person Pov]
Captain Marvel and Black Adam both broke through the roof of the house, shooting upward through the air and cutting straight through the steady falling snow. They burst through the dark clouds above the city, the cold night sky opening up around them, before Black Adam suddenly knocked Billy back with a sharp elbow strike. “Back for more, are you?! Well don’t get too clingy. It’s unattractive.”
“And no one likes an obsessive stalker,” Billy retorted, stopping himself mid-air and balancing steadily as he stared at Adam with suppressed rage burning in his eyes. “There was no need to bring my family into this! I was willing to resolve this just between us, but you went and decided to make it personal!”
“Don't you see?! It was already personal long before that!” Black Adam charged ahead with lightning crackling around his fist, swinging at Billy with rapid, powerful blows.
Billy weaved between each strike methodically, his movements precise and controlled. He blocked a punch aimed directly at his face with one hand, the impact creating a loud blast of displaced air that surged outward around them in the freezing sky.
“You were the coward that ran away with your tail tucked between your legs!” Black Adam snarled, throwing Billy backward through the air. He stared at him with pure disdain. “You should have faced your defeat like a man! Because you ran, I had to go and find you. This is only the consequence of your own actions.”
“And this is the consequence of yours!” Billy bellowed angrily as he launched forward with a glowing fist.
Black Adam roared right back and met the attack head-on, an arrogant grin spreading across his face as their fists collided. Every punch landed with the force of thunder, each strike lighting up the night skies with brilliant flashes of light. If any civilians below had looked up at the sudden thunderstorm raging overhead, they would have caught brief glimpses of god-like silhouettes appearing and vanishing within every burst of lightning.
“Just what is so great about you that the Wizard thought you deserved power of this caliber?!” Black Adam shouted, landing a heavy punch across Billy’s jaw and sending him flying back through the clouds. “Power enough to make one a god, and yet you’re not even half a man. You’re less fit to be a champion than I initially realized!”
“You're right, I might only be just half a man but that is still a lot more than you ever were. You fail to realize a lot of things!!” Billy had to shout to be heard over the roaring wind and the constant crackling of lightning. “We’re the farthest thing from gods! We’re something much better than that!”
Unlike the others who went into battle wielding artifacts and magical trinkets against their opponents, Billy’s countermeasure against Black Adam relied on one thing: pure magic. His eyes flared with intense power as he chanted a spell, waving his hands in controlled patterns. Orbs of crackling electricity began circling rapidly around him as he charged straight in.
Black Adam swatted away each sphere of lightning with powerful slaps and backhands from his fists. The orbs increased in speed and intensity, crashing repeatedly against him until they created a thick smokescreen of energy in the air.
Adam clapped his hands together forcefully, generating a powerful shockwave that cleared the air around him, only to find Billy had vanished. In the next instant, Billy speed-blitzed directly in front of him, face to face. In his hands he held two concentrated orbs of power. The first struck Adam hard in the gut, and the second smashed across his face.
The attack sent Adam tumbling through the air for several moments before he corrected himself. He wiped a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth, his face twisting into pure rage as he shouted at the top of his lungs, “If I possess the might of a god! The intellect of a god! The body of a god! Then what else could I possibly be but a god!!”
Lightning erupted from him in a wild frenzy following his bold declaration. Arcs and bolts shot off unpredictably in every direction, forcing Billy to stay constantly on the move to avoid them. Adam moved with imperceptible speed and erratic patterns, like stray lightning strikes themselves. He tackled Billy through the air, the two of them streaking across the skies in a vivid array of colors and energy, following the Earth’s curvature before Adam slammed him hard into a distant mountain range.
Adam’s fists moved like a blur, each hit heavy and relentless, pounding away like a gatling gun. Each impact pushed Billy deeper into the rocky face of the mountain as he held his arms protectively in front of himself, absorbing the barrage.
Adam slid back slightly, then charged forward again in a zigzagging pattern, his fist flaring with blinding static electricity. Billy blocked it with both hands held out in front of him. The discharge of electrical energy erupted violently in every direction, sending a massive wave outward that upheaved the ground around them and reduced solid stone to dust, with smoke curling heavily from the point of impact.
Captain Marvel closed his hand tightly over Adam’s fist. “Why not instead of a god…”
Black Adam’s other fist came charging back at him, but Billy blocked that one as well. “You first become a decent human being!!”
“Ahhh!” Black Adam cried out in pain as Billy twisted his wrist sharply.
Billy followed up immediately with a triple kick that sent Adam skidding backward across the mountain terrain, his feet digging deep trenches into the ground from the force. Billy extended one hand and chanted a binding spell in Latin. A chain of crackling lightning shot out from his palm, wrapping tightly around Black Adam’s body before yanking him forward. Billy moved to meet him at the same time, closing the distance instantly.
Billy’s fist struck Adam’s jaw with enough raw power to level a city block. The air visibly rippled outward from the immense force, and blood sprayed from Black Adam’s mouth as his head snapped violently to the side.
…
Doctor Sivana’s head snapped sharply to the side from the force of William’s punch. He stumbled backward, trying to collect himself, but William was already in front of him again, swinging his fists in a blinding, relentless combo that hammered away without mercy.
Sivana clenched his jaw in fury and countered with a sudden burst of raw power that pushed William sliding back across the snow-dusted street. The doctor quickly took to the air, soaring upward with William following close behind. Sivana weaved aggressively through the city roads below, dodging incoming electrical blasts from William with sharp spins and rounding corners with quick, evasive turns in an attempt to lose his pursuer.
William, not wanting to waste time on a drawn-out game of cat and mouse, made a sharp, decisive turn. He cut through his own alternate path between the buildings to head Sivana off directly.
Sivana glanced over his shoulder, expecting to see William still trailing behind, only to find the space empty. He snapped his head forward again just in time to see William materialize directly in front of him, fist already cocked back and ready. The impact sent Sivana flying backward with his arms crossed protectively in front of his chest. He still landed roughly on the road, the force of it causing nearby cars to swerve wildly around them as horns blared in panic.
“Billy can be considered someone that’s very forgiving. It’s what makes him a great hero in my opinion,” William snarled angrily as he charged back in. “However, unfortunately for you, I’m not Billy.”
He grabbed Sivana by the collar, aimed him toward the distant end of the street, and struck him hard once more. “Nor as forgiving,” he added, the powerful launch shattering the asphalt beneath his own feet as he immediately took off in pursuit.
The two of them battled fiercely through the skies, their thundering fists colliding again and again. Ripples of force rolled visibly through the air with every heavy impact.
“If it makes you feel any better, it’s nothing personal,” Dr. Sivana said, his tone carrying a hint of cold indifference even as they fought. “You’re just standing in the way of something that should have belonged to me.”
Dr. Sivana managed to drive both feet squarely into William’s gut with a powerful kick, sending him crashing straight through an elevated highway section above. Debris crumbled and fell around him as he ragdolled briefly along the broken pavement before quickly correcting himself and regaining control.
“Ahhh!!” A piercing cry rang out from nearby.
William looked up immediately and spotted a car hanging precariously over the edge of the crumbling highway, its occupants clearly terrified.
He didn’t hesitate and launched himself upward to help, but before he could reach the vehicle, Dr. Sivana flew down from above, flying underneath the damaged road with his fist cocked and ready to strike.
William reacted purely on instinct. He flipped awkwardly over Sivana in mid-air, planted a foot firmly on the back of the doctor’s bald head, and used it as a springboard to boost himself higher and faster toward the dangling car.
The move sent Dr. Sivana flying downward, crashing face-first into the ground. His head dug a long groove through the asphalt as his legs were kicked up into the air behind him.
William reached the vehicle just as it began to topple over the edge along with chunks of concrete and rebar. He caught it carefully and gently lowered it back down to safety in the middle of the road, ensuring the people inside were unharmed.
Doctor Sivana pushed himself up with a boot print clearly visible on the back of his head, which was partially buried in the damaged asphalt. When he finally lifted his face, his glasses were shattered and hanging crookedly across his features. “Okay…” he growled, crushing bits of stone to dust under his tightening grip. He stood up fully and flicked the broken glasses aside. “Now it just turned personal.”