13. To Die Another Day
It was like touching the face of God.
Like inhaling a black hole or copulating with a star. Montez knew all these feelings and more as he absorbed the dread and terrible power of Black Adam into himself. Able to absorb electrical charges into his being to be reused, Montez had never dreamt that mystical energies would work on the same wavelengths, yet there he was, drawing power undreamt of. Adam was screaming, eyes clamped shut against the pain, Montez was vaguely aware of that, but it was hard to even feel the earth beneath him when the power of a god ran through his veins; when he could taste pure power upon his lips and tongue.
“Not so sure of yourself now, huh, are ya, big man?” Montez laughed, his body sparking and arcing with pure black energy, “What have you got to say for yourself now, huh?”
Adam's eyes flashed open, as quickly as his lips moved.
“... shazam...”
The whole world seemed to shudder, the ground beneath cracking as a terrible light unlike mortal eyes had seen in an age flashed, eradicating all within its proximity. Montez was blown back across the street and through the building that lay beyond. Element Boy, working on pure instinct constructed a wall of lead around himself, Steel adding his strained liquid metal form to the construct, saving Wildling and themselves from the onslaught as the obsidian lightning exploded outward from Adam's body, destroying all in its path.
Seemingly, an age passed, as the roar of destruction abated and the lightning faded from the air. The lead wall crumbled around Element Boy and the others, barely holding against the onslaught, Steel's worn body collapsing to the earth, Wildling unconcious beside him. From the centre of the destruction, the earth scorched and razed about him, Black Adam strode forward; unharmed... unstoppable. All around him, Creepers scurried to his back, called forth by the lightning; an army of madness.
“Power.” Adam said, the word playing around his lips, “The true power of the wizard. All of it. You children have no idea. You are ants trying to understand the universe, whilst I? I hold the universe within my palm.”
Element Boy was barely standing, unable to gather his thoughts through fear and exhaustion as Adam stood before him.
“...please don't...” Element Boy whispered before Adam reached out his arm at impossible speed, grabbing him by the throat with a strength that defied description. The Creepers laughed and cakled about him, their claws drawn.
“We were not finished, boy.” Adam sneered, flexing his grip with the slightest of movements, slowly crushing the windpipe beneath, “You will know when we are done, for you will know nothing else after. This is death. Not just yours and the fools you surround yourself with. This is the death of defiance. The death of heroics. This is where you...”
“Oh god, SHUT UP!” Black Adam staggered a moment, the voice seeming to eminate from the air itself which hung between Element Boy and himself. “You'd think after all these years you would have at LEAST hired a new script writer!” Adam felt a force, an iron like grip seize his arm and twist, forcing him to release his grip on Element Boy and flip him, twisting his body until he crashed to the ground. Element Boy crumpled to the earth beneath, coughing and wheezing as before him, he saw the very air seem to split as an energy pulsed within it, within the very substance of the air itself; growing, expanding, strobes and pulses of light gathering together and pulling apart simultaneously until a shadow appeared, filling out until before him there stood a fully grown man. He was old, his long white hair and beard betraying his age, yet his body was taut and fit, draped in red and blue, not so much a costume, but almost like the the refinery of a knight in the Arthurian tales that Element Boy liked to read so much.
Black Adam pounced back to his feet like an enraged bull, confused by what had happened, the Creepers gathering together, crazed and ready to kill as Adam's eyes locked onto the stranger before him.
“The Atom.” He seethed through gritted teeth.
“Been a long time, Adam.” The stranger said, a brilliant wildness in his eyes and manner, “But then, you always did have a thing for beating up on little kids, didn't you? How is Billy Batson these days?”
“Crushed.” Element heard Black Adam spat. “You heroes die so very easily.”
“Oh, heroes don't die.” Atom replied, throwing himself at Adam and the army of yellow and red behind him, “We just choose our moments.”
Element Boy felt his eyes close as unconsciousness took him. The Atom. The stranger's name was the Atom.
And as darkness took Element Boy, he could swear he heard him laughing.
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