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Post by Admin on May 7, 2008 17:57:52 GMT -5
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Post by Admin on May 7, 2008 17:58:50 GMT -5
Zatanna
Issue #4 (of 4): “Revenge of the Sis”
Written by Mark Bowers and Brian Burchette
Art by Catsmeow!
Edited by Mark Bowers and Brian Burchette |
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Post by Admin on May 7, 2008 18:00:21 GMT -5
 Now:Nothing but blackness; it enveloped the room, a room filled with silence. Then a single light was turned on – a spotlight, shining onto the magician, her top hat set perfectly on her head, her legs crossed as she sat in a chair. Her demeanor was calm, collected. In fact, to look at her, she appeared nearly bored. As the light came on, she rolled her eyes and reached out into the thin air, plucking a cigarette out of nowhere. “So, gentlemen, do you have any questions, or are you just here for a gander at the fishnets?” The room was full of men, all hidden in the shadows that stayed at the edges of the room. One Kryptonian was standing closer. He was larger than the others, and he stared intently at the cigarette. “Relax, big guy, that wasn’t real magic; nothing more than a simple trick. Give me the spotlight and I just can’t seem to help myself. You don’t happen to have a light, do you?” Zatanna watched as the large Kryptonian began to strain, his eyes focusing intently on the tip of her cigarette. As hard as he tried, he just couldn’t seem to do it. The tobacco stick suddenly lit up as another man stepped forward, his eyes blazing red. “Enough of this!” Zod said as he stepped into the light, impatience obvious in his face. “Where is she?” he demanded. Zatanna inhaled on her cigarette slowly and blew two smoke rings that turned into smoke doves and flew away. “Where’s who?” she asked innocently. “Tamara,” hissed Zod. “Please, that pretender,” Zatanna scoffed as she flicked her cigarette onto the floor and crushed it beneath her heel. “I killed that bitch.” |
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Post by Admin on May 7, 2008 18:01:29 GMT -5
Then:
Earlier that same day, a band of companions were standing outside what remained of the Daily Planet building, discussing how to infiltrate the dark satellite that was the Kryptonian headquarters.
Tamara said a few magic words, while waving a few magic fingers, and suddenly glowing plans for the satellite appeared in the air in front of them.
While the others gazed at those plans, stunned by their alien complexity, Joseph Kent, the son of the late Superman, was using his super-quick mind to assimilate the data. “You know that every structure has a weak point somewhere?” he began, and then noticed the expectant faces of his fellow travelers staring back at him. “Well, this appears to be the exception.”
Zatanna, slightly disgruntled at Joe’s revelation, was not prepared to give up so easily.
“Can’t we just use our magic to attack their satellite?” she suggested.
Tamara shook her head. “No, they’ll have a spell to prevent the use of magic to harm that satellite or any of its inhabitants. Still, the magic we’ve used so far should have alerted them to our position, so hopefully they’ll be coming soon to arrest us and take us there.”
“Or they may just kill us,” added Constantine.
Following John’s comment, the group fell into silence, a silence that was finally punctured by an idea of Joe’s. “I could fly us there,” he offered.
“Your flying could just be the movie spell affecting you,” said a dismissive Tamara. “Almost beginning to wish I’d never cast the thing now.”
“Can’t change the past,” said Zee, suddenly remembering how many times after her real mother’s death she’d tried to do just that. “Wait a minute,” she gasped, suddenly excited, “maybe we can.”
“But there are no spells to do that,” said Tamara.
“Not directly,” replied Zee, “but maybe a combination of spells... naeroLeD raeppa!”
And with those words, not unsurprisingly, a DeLorean suddenly appeared.
“What? You really expect that to travel through time?” asked an incredulous Tamara.
“With your movie spell to help it, what else could it do?” she asked, as she opened a door to reveal the glowing ‘Y’ of the flux capacitor within. “Quick, everybody in!” she added, motioning them in.
“It’ll never work,” said Tamara, as she sat down in the passenger seat, Zee having beaten her to the driver’s seat.
“Plus, it’s a bit cramped,” added John Constantine, as he and Joe also attempted to cram themselves into the two-seater vehicle.
“It was either this or a phone booth,” said Zatanna, and then she, like all of her passengers, suddenly decided to don some sunglasses, and next felt the need to sum up the situation, “We’re sitting in a DeLorean, we’re going to the past, we’ve got a full supply of plutonium, John’s half alight, it’s getting dark, and we’re wearing sunglasses.”
“Hit it,” said Tamara, but just as Zee was about to put her foot down on the accelerator, they all suddenly noticed the plastic cup on the dashboard, half full of water.
“So, is it half full or half empty?” asked Tamara.
Suddenly ripples appeared on the water’s surface.
“Guess that would be half empty,” observed John as the ground began to shake.
Zee looked in her wing mirror and saw a giant blue-and-red clad monkey pounding along towards her. “Beppo!” she gasped and slammed her foot down and the car lurched forward, but it was too late, for the red-kryptonite-transformed super-monkey was smashing his fists on the ground, creating something akin to an earthquake, except more devastating.
The ground opened up in front of them, creating a huge chasm. As the car raced towards it, Zee hoped that it was James Bond time and somehow, against the odds, they’d make that leap. About halfway across, as the car plummeted down into an open chasm, she realized that wasn’t going to happen.
All of a sudden, she found herself grasping Tamara’s hand, or was it the other way around. She looked down at their joined hands, not sure if this way a way to share their last moments together, or for each to steal the magical power from the other.
None of that really mattered though, as she realized that they were no longer falling, but now rising into the air. Beppo looked on in astonishment as he saw the car, carried into the air by a lone figure, silhouetted against the moon.
“It’s Joe,” said Zatanna, realizing that he was no longer in the car, but now carrying it, as they soared up to the stars.
“King Kong doesn’t look too happy about it,” said John, seeing the roaring ape rushing up through the sky to intercept them. Just as Beppo flew in their way, Zee noticed that the speedometer was coming up to 88 mph.
The next nanosecond, Joe was back in the car, as lightning crackled around it, and in the next instant the car was no longer there, leaving just an enraged mutated Kryptonian monkey, howling in the sky, flaming tire tracks burning across his fur.
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Post by Admin on May 7, 2008 18:02:32 GMT -5
The Present:
The door opened as the last whiff of smoke disappeared from the crushed cigarette. A cloaked figure walked into the room. Zatanna couldn’t help but smile, but that smile had an uncomfortable edge to it.
The man spoke. “Have they found Tamara yet?” he demanded.
“One more time, big guy, I killed her. Now, are we all up to date here?”
The cloaked figure took a step back, obviously stunned. “You’re very blunt.”
“Well, I was figuring with this movie spell just rolling right along, honesty was probably my best chance. The idea of Kryptonians dancing around to Stealer’s Wheel while slicing my ear off just didn’t feel like a scene I wanted played out.”
The cloaked man stepped forward, into the spotlight. “You have no idea what movie you’re actually in, do you?”
Zatanna’s eyes grew wide as she saw the face beneath the hood. “I… I didn’t… However, I think I’m catching on.”
The man pulled back his hood. “I am your father.”
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Post by Admin on May 7, 2008 18:03:46 GMT -5
October, 1956:
They were close to deadline and the majority of the Daily Planet reporters were pounding away on their typewriters. Meek mild-mannered Clark Kent, however, being able to type as fast as his keyboard would allow, had already finished and was sitting at his desk, listening to the clattering of keys around him. Suddenly, his super-hearing picked up a familiar shout outside, but not one he was used to hearing as Clark:
“Look! Up in the sky!”
Clark rose as casually as he could from his chair, not wishing to arouse Lois’s suspicions, and stared out of the window. That’s when he saw it: it wasn’t a bird or a plane, but what appeared to be a strangely-shaped car, soaring through the air, down towards the crowds below.
He didn’t have time to find a place to change, and the lives of those people below were more important to him than guarding his secret identity, so he walked straight up to the window, and grabbed his shirt, ready to pull that shirt open and reveal the ‘S’ symbol beneath.
“This looks like a job for-” he began, and then he stopped mid-sentence as he saw somebody familiar fly from out of the car and then fly beneath it, slowing down its descent. “Me?” he concluded.
Outside, on the Metropolis streets, Joe watched the crowds below looking up to him, the way they must have looked up to his father, as he slowly descended from the skies. As Joe set the car down, he saw a familiar face emerging from the building opposite and seconds later he found himself face to face with reporter Clark Kent, who was asking him questions for the Daily Planet.
Joe saw the confusion in his father’s eyes, and wanted to explain things to him, but the thing that he wanted to do most of all at that moment was to hug his father, who he was now seeing, as far as he could remember, for the first time.
Unfortunately, his super-intelligence also told him how dangerous it could be to reveal any of their plan to change history to his father, and the less that Clark knew of their mission the better.
“Stay away from us if you want to live,” warned Joe, as he picked up the DeLorean, and then, as he readied himself to launch both himself and the car into the sky, he looked back at his father for what he knew would be the last time. If they failed to changed history, Clark would still end up dying, and if they succeeded he himself would grow up to be a very different Joseph Kent.
“I won’t be back,” he added, the words almost catching in his mouth, as, trying to hold back tears, he propelled himself and the vehicle up into the bright blue sky of yesteryear.
Meanwhile, Lois Lane had just arrived on the scene, only to seea man flying off into the distance holding some kind of car over his head. “Who was that?” she asked Clark, who, as usual, had managed to reach the scene before her.
“He looked like Superman,” he replied. “But his eyes were different. They were more like...” he began, but then realized he couldn’t finish the sentence, at least not here, not now. “Doesn’t matter, Lois.”
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Post by Admin on May 7, 2008 18:05:12 GMT -5
The Present:
“Father?” Zatanna whispered as she stood up. She took a step forward, but a flash of red in the eyes of Zod stopped her.
Giovanni Zatara smiled a sad smile. “It’s good to see you again, Zatanna, but you shouldn’t have come looking for me.”
“But… but the lantern. You left it for me… I figured…”
“I left it for you to protect. That lantern is extremely powerful. In the wrong hands it would be extremely dangerous.”
Zod turned at this, his eyes lighting up like a Christmas tree, “What lantern? You never told me anything about a lantern. I command you to explain this lantern to me.”
Zatara shook his head. “No. I will not.”
Zod’s face grew dark and he turned, firing a blast of heat from his eyes that pierced Zatanna’s shoulder. She cried out in pain, and her father took a step towards Zod, but was blocked by the large Kryptonian by Zod’s side.
“Do not make me demand again, you will not like the outcome.”
Giovanni Zatara bit his lower lip, considering, and finally realized he had no other choice as he watched his daughter stand up straight again, defiance in her eyes. Eyes that were so much like his.
“It is easier if I show you. The lantern, you see, is a gateway to other dimensions; I will show you when I last ran across it… when it had fallen into the wrong hands.”
Zod’s eyes narrowed. “No tricks.”
“No tricks,” Zatara assured him as he lifted his fingers to cast his spell.
“Is this the part where everything goes all wavy?” Zee asked.
In spite of their situation, Zatara couldn’t help but laugh. “You have your mother’s sense of humor. Now, watch…”
***********
A mountain top in Germany and a young John Zatara had just reached the peak. Out of breath and tired from the trek, he sat down, taking off his hat and wiping his brow. Even in the bitter cold, he was sweating.
“I should have just teleported,” he mumbled to himself. “Once I get this for you, Faraday, I owe you nothing.”
He poked his head up over a large rock he had been sitting behind to see the Nazi soldiers pacing around the large castle; rifles slung over their shoulders.
“More Nazis; these guys are getting annoying.”
John looked around at his surroundings, gauging how far it was from his position to the rear entrance. He also counted three guards; difficult, but not impossible.
He muttered a spell and moved his fingers in intricate patterns, and, to the right of the guards, a young German maiden seemed to appear. She was dressed in a very short and frilly dress, her extremely large bosom was stretching her white blouse, and her blonde hair was tied into pigtails.
She giggled, a mug of ale in her hands, and the guards turned, stunned, bringing their weapons to arm. They were startled to see her, and she giggled again as she ran around the corner and disappeared.
It took the guards only a second to decide on a course of action as all three of them took off after her.
John smiled with pride. “I love that Swiss Miss spell; works almost every time.”
He jumped up from behind the rock and took off towards the door. He was not surprised to find it was locked, but a quick spell eliminated that problem. He had to be careful though, and he knew it. The reason he had climbed the mountain instead of teleporting was in case they had any way to detect magic, and he had now cast two spells. He had to hurry.
Opening the door, he instantly felt the presence of the magical item and, staying close to the wall, avoiding Nazi soldiers as they walked by, he made his way to a back staircase.
He started down the stone steps, slowly, grateful that the lower level was lit by torches along the wall. When he was about halfway down, one of the steps gave way under his weight and he began to fall through. Reacting on instinct, he cast another spell and a large string of energy came from his hand, the end wrapping itself around a support beam above him. He energy whip snapped as it secured itself and John Zatara was able to pull himself up before he plummeted into an apparent abyss.
Continuing on, he got to the bottom of the staircase and looked around. Just one long stone pathway. He moved forward, cautiously, his eyes moving constantly. He stopped once, grabbing a loose stone of the floor and tossing it in front of him about two feet. He watched as what looked like three machete blades burst from the walls and John froze them quickly. He then was able to step over and under them.
The powerful magic was now very close, and he came to a large archway that opened up into a huge cavern. In the middle of it, placed on a large pedestal, was the lantern that Faraday had asked him to retrieve from the Third Reich.
He took a few hesitant steps forward and heard the darts come out of the wall, right toward him. He dove to the ground as they flew over him and he rolled several feet, jumping up right in front of the podium.
Grinning at his own ingenuity, he circled the lantern, examining it from all sides. Finally he took off his hat and very gently placed it over the lantern. When he brought the hat back up, the lantern was gone, and in its place was a white rabbit. His grin widened and at that moment, if he could have patted himself on the back, he would have.
Zatara turned to go when he heard the noise. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as he turned back around to see that the middle of the pedestal was slowly sinking, the white rabbit with it. He looked into the hat and back at the rabbit, his eyes growing wide with surprise.
Just as the ears began to disappear out of sight, John grabbed the rabbit and yanked it back up. “Come on, Alice, we’re getting out of here… both of us.”
Suddenly the entire room seemed to come alive as the earth beneath him shook and the stone floor began to crumble. He leapt forward and made a mad dash out of the cavern, wondering for only a second where the weird and adrenaline-pumping music was coming from. Still… it was catchy.
As he ran back down the corridor, several spears shot out from the wall, but he quickly cast a spell, causing them to turn into bats that fluttered away. His heart was racing, the music was picking up speed, and he realized, as he neared the stone staircase, that a giant wall was coming down from the ceiling in front of him.
Picking up speed, he dove to the ground at the last second and rolled underneath the wall, his hat falling off as he made it safely to the other side. He quickly stuck his hand back through and felt the tip of his hat, grasping it and pulling it towards him right before the stone wall slammed against the floor.
John stood up and dusted himself off, slapping his hat against the side of his pants, as he ran up the staircase and out of the back door.
The guards were there, watching him leave, and for a moment he felt panic again, but they didn’t seem to be moving towards him. He caught his breath and wiped his brow again, curious as to why the guards were just standing there, when he heard the rumble from behind him.
He turned his head and saw the giant circular objects rolling towards him.
“War Wheels! I hate War Wheels!”
*********
“But I had retrieved the lantern, and that was all that mattered,” John said simply as his visual history lesson vanished.
“Wait! Wait!” Zod exclaimed with excitement. “How did you escape?”
Zatara gave him a disdainful look. “Magic, of course.”
Zod curled his lip into a sneer. “Are there any more of these lanterns?”
John nodded. “Unfortunately, every world has one, as I discovered later on in my journeys.”
Like lightning, Zod suddenly disappeared and then appeared in front of Zatanna, holding her up by the throat as she began to choke.
“I want one, and I want one now,” he demanded with a grin.
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Post by Admin on May 7, 2008 18:06:27 GMT -5
1956:
Joe looked ahead as he carried the car, and his companions, through the arctic wastes, but all he seemed to see were endless white snowflakes, all surprisingly with the same pattern, cascading down against the black night sky, as an invisible choir sang in the background. Finally, his X-ray vision cut through them and zoomed in on the sight he’d been searching for: the Fortress of Solitude.
Seconds later, he was carefully placing the car down in the snow outside the fortress, and then his fellow travelers climbed out of the DeLorean, to find themselves standing under a giant golden door with a giant lock. John Constantine looked at the snow drifting down, covering those around him, and himself, even his fiery side, in a shroud of whiteness.
Meanwhile, Tamara, who’d never been one to wait for an invite, said “rooD nepo!” and, as the door began to open, she and the others began to climb up to the entrance, and the darkness within.
“Well, we know the big guy’s not here,” reasoned Constantine, as they clambered through the darkness, when suddenly the lights automatically activated, and he realized that he was wrong, many times over, as an army of Superman robots filled the air, looking at the person they thought was their master for an explanation.
As Joe’s mind raced, thinking what to say, something else came into his mind; something alien, yet somehow familiar.
Meanwhile, Zee, like the others, looked at Joe, waiting for him to respond, but finally she grew tired of waiting for him to talk to the expectant robots. “ezeerF stobor!” she said, and then the robots, just like Joe it appeared, were frozen.
But, while Joe appeared to be frozen on the outside, in the inside he was hearing a woman’s voice in his head, echoing his own thoughts. “It’s just like you remember it from the last time you entered here, all those years hence, only now there’s no longer the RAORAORAORAORAO scratched into the floor.”
“Who? Who is that?” screamed Joe, finally, confusing those around him.
The voice ignored his question, as he looked around the room. “But they’re new, over there,” the voice intoned. “Those large ice sculptures - they’d long since melted when you were last here.”
While the others looked at him in concern, Joe ignored them and walked over to look at the frozen sculptures, almost finished.
“That’s right,” continued the voice in his head. “Whenever he can, Kal-El comes here to his retreat and he works on them; always the same three women: the reporter, the childhood sweetheart, and the Merwoman.”
Joe looks around in confusion, while the others just stare at him.
“Poor lonely Kal. He wants them so very much, he wants to be one of them, to fit in, but he never can. The poor ladies would just break in his hands. This is the only way he can touch them; the only way he can have them. He’s so very, very alone - no wonder he named his home Solitude.”
“Stop it,” yelled Joe sinking to his knees.
“Wait...” said the voice hesitantly. “Kal... he’s... he’s your father?! And, no, this can’t be true. Tamara can’t be right.”
The voice in Joe’s head suddenly fell silent.
He looked again at the others, finally remembering again that they were there with him, and attempted to explain things. “There was this woman’s voice in my head, saying things about my father. Saying that Tamara can’t be right.”
“But I am,” said Tamara. “I know who she is. I think Zee does too.”
Zatanna looked at her half-sister in confusion at first, but then she realized this woman talking to Joe was the same woman that they’d come to find. “She’s from the Phantom Zone,” said Zee. “She’s one of the villains there, using her telepathy to talk to you, just like she talked to your father. Her name’s Faora.”
“Faora?” asked a confused Joe.
Tamara nodded, and then explained further, “She’s your mother.”
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Post by Admin on May 7, 2008 18:07:24 GMT -5
The Present:
Zod stood with his legs apart and his hands planted firmly on his hips. “Give me a lantern now or I will eliminate you and all your friends.”
Zatara gave him a cold look and said nothing, but Zatanna spoke up, “Fine, you want one, you can have mine, but first you have to let me talk to my father. I have questions that need to be answered.”
The supreme ruler pondered this request for a moment, “Alright, fine, but no tricks.”
“No tricks,” she answered. She turned to her father. “You have to tell me, how could you do it? How could you cheat on mother?”
Pain showed in Zatara’s eyes. “You have met your sister; I’m sorry. Believe me, though, when I tell you that Tamara was way, way before your mother. I was still rather young, and foolish in the ways of love.”
“Who was she?”
“She was a passenger on a cruise ship where I was working as a magician… a struggling magician at that. She was… was… wealthy, and beautiful, and engaged to a man who was much, much older than her. I fell in love with her almost immediately, or what I believed to be love at that point. We spent every chance we could get together, and she eventually showed me the ways of black magic… not all… but some. In fact, our final night together, we stood at the bow of the ship, the scent of the salty ocean in the air, and we stood together, our arms outstretched, and that was the night she taught me how to fly.”
“You’re kidding…”
“I believe I’m going to be nauseous,” Zod mumbled.
Zatara continued, so lost in his own reflections that he had forgotten those around him. “That was the night we consummated our love. Our passion was overwhelming, and we could not hold back any longer. It was during that brief moment of love that I saw her necklace, and the lantern that hung from it. I asked her why she would want to marry such an old man, hoping she would reconsider. That was when she told me that the man was the same age as myself… he even had the same name as me.”
“What?!” Zatanna exclaimed.
“Oh yes, she was from a parallel universe and she had seduced me for one reason only, to take my power from me. To absorb my energy and leave my husk, as she had done with so many others before. We fought, a battle that I don’t know how I won. She created an Ice Gollum from the cold air and water around us, but I defeated it. I wasn’t able, however, to do so without the ship being mortally damaged. She had me cornered and I thought I was dead, but I believed at that moment that the lantern was the source of her power. I tore it from her and smashed it, throwing the pieces into the ocean. She screamed in anguish and dove in after it. That was the last I ever saw of her. I believed she had drowned. I was left with the others, on the rapidly sinking ship.”
“Wait! Wait! How did you escape,” Zod demanded, caught up in the story.
Zatara gave him a disdainful look. “Magic… of course.”
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Post by Admin on May 7, 2008 18:08:41 GMT -5
1956, The Phantom Zone:
They should have been out enjoying their short lives, having fun until the day came when their planet exploded, but instead Principal Jor-El had sentenced them - the brains, the criminals, the rebels, the recluses - to an eternal detention in the Phantom Zone, so long, long ago, to try and teach them the errors of their ways. To an outsider, it might seem like they’d had the last laugh on Jor-El, but an outsider could never appreciate the sheer horror of the Phantom Zone, a telepathic realm were they could but float, intangibly, starved of physical contact, having to share their psychopathic thoughts and desires with each other.
Faora had hated it at first, and then hated it some more, but over time, she’d become resigned to her fate, as she’d learned about the others, and finally learned to get along. She’d lost all hope, but then one day her hope had been rekindled, thanks to a Phantom Zone projector in the Fortress of Solitude, that had provided the smallest of conduits, enabling them to reach out with their telepathy to the outside world. First, it had been just to Kal and that dog of his, both seemingly immune to their suggestions. Now, however, there were newcomers to the Fortress, and it was these minds they had now turned their attention to.
Faora looked stunned at the latest revelation, and heard the thoughts of the other Phantom Zone residents as they all turned to her and their mental jaws dropped. She looked at the cool kid, Zod, and was that hurt she saw in his eyes, felt in his thoughts. It didn’t matter - that’s what she told herself - as she looked at them defiantly, while the Zone made her emotions plain for all to see.
Zod averted his eyes from her, and turned his mind to the humans entering the Fortress and their simple minds. The first he visited was John Constantine’s and was struck with an image of himself setting the human on fire.
“He hates me! He really hates me!” thought a satisfied Zod, and then as he delved deeper he realized the truth. “We’re the men of tomorrow.”
Jax-Ur read Zod’s thoughts. “What are we going to do tomorrow, Zod?”
“Take over the world,” was Zod’s simple reply.
But Faora’s and most of the other Zoners’ thoughts were on Joe, Faora’s apparent offspring, the first son of Earth.
In the Fortress itself, Joe, his mind no longer plagued by the thoughts of Faora, was asking Zee and Tamara to tell him the truth.
The Kryptonians, mentally looking on, had already read Tamara’s thoughts by this point. “You want the truth?” they thought. “You can’t handle the truth.”
In the outside reality, Zatanna was of a similar mind. “Trust me, Joe, it’s probably best that we don’t tell you.”
Joe looked at her, his eyes glowing red.
“Feel that anger,” thought Zod from afar. “Your son shows promise, Faora.”
Meanwhile, Joe had begun to unleash that anger. “What? More secrets? Do you think I’m stupid? Don’t you think my super-hearing picked up your conversations in the Batcave and back on the highway about keeping the truth from me?”
“I’m sorry, Joe,” began Zatanna, but Joe wasn’t listening.
“I trusted you, Zatanna. I thought you were different. But you’re just like all the other magic users, keeping me in the dark.”
“Trust me,” implored Zee. “Some things you don’t want to know.”
Tamara smiled. “Aw, go on, Sis, let me tell him,” she said, and then, seeing the look on Zatanna’s face, she fell silent.
Joe however was no longer listening to them, but to the voice of his newly-found mother, that now filled his mind. “Why not let me out?” asked Faora. “I’ll tell you everything.”
Around her, in the Phantom Zone, the other Kryptonians slouching around her, floating in the nothingness, shook their heads. She’d never managed to persuade Superman to let her out, not yet, despite all of her teasing and tempting and taunting; and they saw this as yet one more hopeless attempt. In truth, so did Faora, but she couldn’t give up, and, to her surprise, she found Joe telling his companions to release her from the zone. Her dear ‘son’ wanted to be alone with his mother.
Without consulting the others, Tamara waved a mystical hand, and the Phantom Zone projector flew into Joe’s grasp.
“Careful what you wish for,” she said to Joe, and then cast another spell, taking herself, Zatanna and John outside, leaving Joe alone inside with the device.
Faora smiled as her future son examined the Phantom Zone projector. She’d accepted the fact that she’d had to sacrifice a whole eternity in detention for whatever it was she’d done wrong, but Jor-El saw them as he wanted to see them... in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what they’d found out was that each one of them was a brain... and a criminal... and a General ...and a basket case... and a psychobitch.
Faora took one last look around the Phantom Zone at the strange bunch of killers and freaks she’d somehow begun to regard as friends.
“Don’t you forget about me,” she said to them, as she found herself torn from the immateriality back into the real world.
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Post by Admin on May 7, 2008 18:09:42 GMT -5
The Present:
“And so we come to the final part of the story, and how that sorceress returned,” said Zatara, “although for you to fully appreciate the situation, I’ll need to bring the scene to life.”
At which point, under the eye of a wary Zod, the magician started to conjure up a three-dimensional recreation of events around them, and, as the scene changed around them, they suddenly found themselves standing in a strange landscape where most of the Kryptonians were neither sure of what was up nor down, nor of how many dimensions they were in, as both gravity and reality appeared to wrap themselves inside-out.
As the Kryptonians struggled to overcome the nausea this induced, Zee’s eyes turned from her father, and instead zoomed in on the wise-cracking face of her younger father, from times gone by, as he looked around this building he was in.
“Where are we?” asked Jax-Ur, struggling to comprehend things.
“This is Fate’s Tower,” explained the present-day Zatara, as he looked at his younger self. “I was house-sitting for Kent and Inza Nelson while they were vacationing on a different plain.”
Across from them, the young Zatara took off his shoes, ready to step into a pair of rabbit-shaped slippers, when suddenly he heard a noise coming from upstairs (or possibly downstairs) - a natural noise amongst all the unnatural ones - and was confused since the protection spell he’d cast should have prevented anyone from entering from the outside.
Forgetting about donning his slippers, Zatara rushed out and started running up (or possibly running down) a set of Escherian stairs, only to find himself coming across a masked female in a figure-hugging outfit, her hand pulsing with purple energy. From the creases in her mask, Zatara could make out that she was smiling as, without a moment’s contemplation, she fired a blast of mystical energy at him. Although the attack was quick, so was he, and he mostly managed to dodge, rolling to the ground, his tuxedo now aflame.
“I’ve found an intruder, Mother,” she said, talking into a communication device. “I’ll take care of him,” she added, smiling once again, as she watched the man in front of her ripping his burning jacket off, leaving just a shirtfront.
She attacked him at that moment, saying spell after spell, but he understood every backwards phrase of hers and could counter them, just as she understood every spell of his and could protect herself accordingly.. As the seconds turned into minutes, it seemed that neither of them could gain an advantage.
Suddenly, in the midst of this stalemate, he pulled off his hat and turned the opening towards her, leaving her to be deluged by a waterfall of rabbits.
“Yippie-kay-ay, magic-user,” he shouted, as he levitated over the newly-created hill of rabbits and entered the room above.
As he entered, he was surprised to find his previous opponent, or rather someone just like her, standing there, next to a woman in the shadows. Still, this wasn’t the first time he’d seen her in the shadows.
“It can’t be,” he said.
“Thought I was dead, did you?” came the voice that Zatara instantly recognized. “I managed to get home after you left me lost at sea, but you broke my gateway between worlds. Luckily, another magician used a lantern to visit the land where I live, and eventually I took it from him - sucked all the magic from him - just before he was going to visit his counterpart on this world.” Then she waved her lantern at him. “I was hoping that I could find another lantern here, but you’ll do. Feed my magical appetite some more.”
Zatara lifted his hands, ready to cast a spell on the lantern, when suddenly, from behind, he was smashed over the head with a rabbit, knocking him to the ground.
“Hmmm, the rabbit died,” mused the sorceress, still standing in the shadows, as she saw the lifeless form in her daughter’s hands. “That happened after I met him the last time.”
With those words she strode over to him, and, just as Zatara started to open his eyes, he felt the magic lantern being swung against his head. Just before losing consciousness, he heard the woman order the same lantern to take them home, and then there was a whirlwind of energy and suddenly the four of them had disappeared.
At that moment the image of Fate’s Tower vanished around the Kryptonians and they were grateful to find themselves once again standing in their satellite, Zatara and Zatanna before them.
“And I suppose you then escaped using magic,” concluded Zod.
Zatara, a haunted look on his face, stared into Zod’s eyes. “No, Zod, I didn’t escape. Not for a long time. After we’d left Fate’s Tower, I regained consciousness to find myself falling through the air with the sorceress and her daughters. I just had time to cast a magic spell to destroy that lantern, but that was the last spell I cast for a long while.”
“What happened?” asked Zatanna, looking into her father’s eyes.
“We reached the ground, slowed down by a spell. Anyway, the sorceress tried in vain to magic the lantern back together, but to no avail. She told me that was the second time I’d ruined her life, and then one of her daughters said I owed them big time and cast a spell. Suddenly magical clamps appeared around my wrists and ankles and my mouth was sealed so that they couldn’t hear my screams as they slowly begin to feed on my magical power. As I looked up, the pain unbearable, the girls took off their masks. There was a blonde one I didn’t recognize, but the other... the other looked just like you, Zatanna.” He looked over at his daughter, expecting some kind of reaction from her to this revelation, but she just stared at him blankly, unsympathetically. He almost didn’t recognize her. Once she’d been so different to this other Zatanna, but now she seemed so similar. “Anyway, this other Zatanna looked down at me, smiled at me, as she saw that I recognized her, saw that I finally realized what my connection was with her and her sister. Yippee-kay-ay, mothe-, she began, and then I passed out.”
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Post by Admin on May 7, 2008 18:11:03 GMT -5
1956:
The harsh bitter wind blew with force over Zatanna, John, and Tamara. They stared at the outside of the Fortress, each wishing the place had been built somewhere else… anywhere else… the Brazilian jungle, perhaps.
“So what exactly is going on here?” Constantine asked. “Please tell me we’re not in one of those movies where we end up having to eat each other.”
Zee opened her mouth to reassure him, then snapped it shut. She honestly couldn’t guarantee that, not at this point.
“Well, could someone at least tell me what’s going on with Joe?” he demanded.
“I already told you,” Tamara snapped as she moved closer to the flaming side of his body. “Of course, perhaps I accidentally erased it… that would be possible.”
“Faora being Joe’s mother is going to make this a lot more difficult,” Zee mused.
Frustration came through John’s voice,” Because…?”
Tamara shrugged at her sister, “You can tell him this time. The fun of it is gone, for me.”
“Imagine that Kal is getting lonelier and lonelier, nobody to talk to,” Zatanna started explaining, “and Faora’s constantly intruding on his thoughts… until… until he finally gives in; say in nineteen fifty-nine, for instance…”
“And we get Joe!” Constantine says, slapping his head. “Now that makes sense. He’s just lucky she didn’t… oh crap… she did, didn’t she?”
Zee nodded. “She killed him. She did what all others were not able to do. With his last ounce of strength and speed, he carved her name into the floor of the Fortress.” Zatanna picked up a stick and etched the name ‘FAORA’ into the snow. “Of course, she tried to hide it,” continued Zee. “Grasped Superman’s dead hand to write with and used it to turn the F into an R.” She demonstrated in the snow, changing the word ‘FAORA’ so that it read ‘RAORA’ and then adding further letters so that finally it resembled the list of RAOs that had finally be found at the crime scene. “At that point we can only surmise what she did. Probably killed off any little witnesses that were in Kandor that may have seen it. Perhaps she went back to the Phantom Zone to brag, coming back in some fashion after the other heroes had left. Who knows?”
Tamara snapped her fingers. “Let’s ask her! Right before we kill her.”
Zee gave her sister a cold stare. “We can’t do that! Not only is it just plain wrong, but all of this is just hypothesis on our part. And even if we do kill her, then we kill Joe too.”
“Right,” her sister said with an evil grin. “He deserves it. It was that teenage brat who went all Alex Haley and was gullible enough to release everyone from the Phantom Zone.”
“We’re not going to do it!” Zatanna challenged.
Her sister smirked, “Oh, we will… he’s going to ask us to.” She moved her fingers and shouted one word, “rebmemeR”
Inside the Fortress, as he listened to his mother, memories came crashing through Joe’s mind like a tidal wave. He was one year old, again, yet advanced in ways that would take human children at least four more years to be. There were people all around his mother. They were shouting at her, telling her that they knew she had killed his father. Suddenly they were waving a piece of yellow rock in front of her and she crumbled to her knees, weak as a two-hours-old kitten. Watching from a distance, he blew the shiny rock away, as far away as possible, and then he was flying through those colorful costumed people. Breaking them into little pieces, ignoring the cries of agony as ripped them apart; until finally they were no more.
Then he saw his mother pleading with him to use his heat vision on her. The golden rock had changed her, made her weak. She wouldn’t live as a human, she couldn’t. She would not crawl on the ground when she had been meant to soar so far above them all. He didn’t want to do it, but she begged him, kept begging him, told him to be a good boy…
Then Joe’s mind came back to the present, as he saw his mother’s face, younger, more powerful, staring back at him now, and he remembered that same face being torn apart by his heat vision all those years ago. Joe couldn’t take any more and he burst into tears. “I was a good boy! I was! Wasn’t I, Mommy?”
Faora was taken aback, not sure at first what to do, but then instinct took over and she gently wrapped her arms around her son.
“Of course you were,” she reassured him as she felt the familiar feelings arise.
“Mother… what are you doing?”
“Shhh… Mommy has needs, darling.”
Meanwhile, outside of the Fortress, the tension was rising between Zatanna and Tamara as Zee admonished her older sister for what she had just done to Joe. Tamara stopped as she watched a dark-clad woman crawling up the side of the mountain. Cloaked and carrying a sickle, she lay on the ground, after reaching the top, catching the breath she no longer had.
Tamara nodded at the girl who nodded back. “Sorry I’m late, it’s just that people usually wait to be born before they die.”
“What are you looking at?” Zee demanded.
“Oh just looking death in the face.”
Death shrugged her shoulders, “I see dead people, sue me. You know what, just ignore me, I wasn’t even here. Gotta keep going. Have another appointment soon, party of five… bad salmon mousse and all that.” She continued her trek up to the keyhole.
Tamara looked back at her sister, “Anyway, I think we can kill Faora now.” She saw the confused look on her sister’s face. “I think she just killed Joe.”
“But… but… that was her son!”
Tamara chuckled. “Well, I guess you just can’t change some people. Take me, for example,” she said as she brought her hands from behind her back, the magenta-colored energy flowing from them. “Really, you should never have brought me along. After all, I think you’ve just about worn out your usefulness.”
Zatanna’s eyes widened as she brought forth the dark magic that she had tried so hard to suppress. “Bring it on, Sister!”
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Post by Admin on May 7, 2008 18:13:36 GMT -5
The Present:
“Anyway, now you know how I arrived on this world,” finished Zatara, looking at his surviving daughter. “That sorceress and her two daughters had me captured for years, feeding off my magical energy, leaving me just enough energy left to ensure that I’d survive for my next day of torment.”
Zatanna stared at him, as if she was waiting for him to say something, but Zatara wasn’t sure what words she wanted to hear. As it was, all he could offer was the truth: “I wanted to get in touch with you, so many times, but I couldn’t risk endangering you. Indeed, there were those here who knew of my plight who attempted to contact you, even though I pleaded with them not to.”
“But how could they have contacted me?” asked a curious Zatanna. “I was on another world.”
“Multiverses are no obstacle for The Phantom Stranger and Madame Xanadu, who are aware of their other existences, attune with their counterparts on other worlds.”
“The Stranger and Xanadu,” said Zatanna, with a smile. “I’ll have to find a way to thank them.”
“Indeed you should, for they also helped me to escape my captors. That’s when I came here - to seek protection with the Kryptonians.”
Zatanna looked at him with anger in her eyes. “You’ve allied yourself with these murderers, after all they’ve done?”
Before Zatanna could answer, General Zod interjected. “So,” he said to Zee, “you’ve had all of your answers now, so could I please have that magic lantern of yours.”
“Be patient, Kryptonian,” said Zatanna, her attention still on Zatara. “So, Father,” she began, “I’ve seen the way you’ve been looking at me; the look of disappointment in your eyes, all because I killed Tamara. Tell me, did you love her more than you loved me?”
Zatara looked at her in astonishment. “I can’t believe you could even think that. It broke my heart to be parted from you, while my daughters in this dimension were just mistakes, abominations, who I could never ever love. Believe me, as far as I’m concerned, you’re my only daughter.”
“That’s what I figured,” said the young magician, who suddenly found tears coming to her eyes. “Still, I’ve kept us all talking long enough now. Guess it’s time for one last trick.”
The Kryptonians look at her warily, having had quite enough of her sleights-of-hand.
“You know what the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was, don’t you, father?”
“Convincing the world he doesn’t exist,” replied the confused Zatara.
“Exactly,” she said, as she clawed her nails into her face and ripped the mask away from it to reveal her true identity.
“Tamara?!”
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Post by Admin on May 7, 2008 18:15:16 GMT -5
 1956:
Zatanna raised her arms to cast her spell, the dark magic coursing through her, and she allowed it to; relishing in it for the first time. Sadly, she never got the chance to use it, as Tamara was more than prepared with her spell, and a single magical bolt from her hands struck Zee square in the chest and, when the smoke cleared, all that was left was Zee’s top hat.
“You… you killed her,” Constantine said.
“She’d have killed me. Call it payback,” Tamara said as she picked up the hat and began searching inside. “Let’s just hope that damn lantern is in here somewhere… Ow!... Stupid rabbit,” she cried out as she withdrew her hand to see where Basil had bit her. “Hope you enjoyed that, you furry little cretin, because it’s boiled bunny when we get back.”
“So do we kill Faora now?” John asked.
“No, that was never the plan. We’ve got to get back to the present.”
“What about Joe and Faora?”
“A few words and a magical spell will clear up his remains and put her back in the Phantom Zone, oblivious to it all. Now let’s get out of here before that Death girl comes back for my sister… she gives me the creeps.”
After a quick clean up of the scene, John found himself once again in the DeLorean, being driven through a city that he did not recognize. “So how exactly are we getting back?”
“Well, all the plutonium is gone and this dopey movie magic spell means I can’t power it by magic, which means we need a massive surge of electricity.”
“She should have gotten us a time-traveling phone booth,” John muttered. “Where the hell are we going to find that much electricity in one place?”
Tamara grinned. “Hey, she didn’t send us back to this date in time in 1956 just for the hell of it. When she was going through Batman’s files in Gotham she found one on the Justice League. That’s why we’re here… in Central City, heading towards the police department.”
“Care to elaborate?”
“No time,” she said as she cursed at the movie spell once again and muttered an incantation, a huge lightning rod appearing on the back of the car. “Hold on,” she yelled out as the heavens opened up and the storm hit. She pressed down on the accelerator, the car careening towards the steps of the police station, when a huge bolt of lightning, on its way to a shelf of chemicals in the police laboratory, struck the car and it disappeared, leaving behind a burning trail of tire tracks.
The DeLorean came to a screeching halt as it reappeared in the present, some time in the middle of the night. “Well, that was fun. Anyway, only one way to get to father now, but first I’ll need a disguise.” A second later, John found himself staring into the face of Zatanna. “Now I’m going to have to attract some attention. Oh, and I’m going to have to wipe your memory again. Can’t risk you giving the game away..”
“Now wait a minute,” John Constantine began, but then looked around in confusion. “Wait, where are we? Last thing I remember, we were leaving Smallville.”
“We had a battle… you were knocked unconscious. Don’t you remember?” replied the girl who looked like Zatanna.
Before he could answer, two Kryptonians suddenly appeared from the sky. One was tall and lanky, the other shorter and overweight. Both of them wore darkened protective visors.
A woman wearing a magician’s outfit got out of the car and looked up at the two hovering figures. “Well, how about that. It’s dark out and you’re wearing shades.”
“We’re on a mission from Zod,” one of them stated.
Tamara, looking remarkably like Zatanna, smiled so sweetly that it was reminiscent of her departed half-sister. “In that case, take me to your leader.” |
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Post by Admin on May 7, 2008 18:16:41 GMT -5
The Present:
Zatara felt a knot in his stomach, as he looked into the eyes of his daughter Tamara. Every time he’d looked into them before, she’d been torturing him, stealing his magic, but she’d never tortured him as much as she had done today. “You killed her?” he hissed, as he realized that he’d never see his Zatanna again.
“Sure I did,” she replied, “and, after what you just said about me, you’re next.”
“So,” exclaimed an angry Zod to Tamara, “you’ve just been wasting our time.”
Tamara shook her head. “No, no, my dear general, that was valuable time,” she explained. “My father’s magic has been protecting your satellite, you and your Kryptonian troops thus far, but I’ve been spending the time wisely, slowly siphoning off that magic, subverting it to my needs. Now, me and my friend are far more powerful than you.”
“Friend?” asked Jax-Ur, stepping forward.
“That amnesiac I brought with me,” Tamara explained. “You might remember him, Zod. I believe he’s got a score to settle with you.”
“John Constantine,” said Zod. “I was only half-finished with him myself. Still, despite your bravado, I know that nobody is more powerful than Zod, so, daughter of Zatara, you will bow before me. I’ve had enough of your games.”
Tamara smiled at Zod. “If that’s what you wish, Zod, then ‘game over’,” she said and then mumbled a word.
And with that word, everything dropped into slow motion, as Tamara, her Zatanna outfit now transforming into black latex, leaped into the air, hovering there, before taking her time to kick Zod across the room.
Zatara was surprised to find himself similar empowered, as, before the Kryptonians with their super-speed could react, he managed to leap over them and assume a fighting position.
Then the panicking Kryptonians heard a banging coming from below, deep in the heart of the satellite, as wall after wall was smashed through, and then the banging became closer and more deafening, and suddenly John Constantine, who moments earlier had been securely restrained in a cell below, was standing before them in the room, his flame slowly wafting, as he motioned with his hand for Zod to come nearer. “You’re the one,” he growled at Zod, his flames growing higher. Zod rushed at him, but was smashed back with a flaming hand, that sent him flying back across the room with such force that he crashed through the wall, and then through the next three walls beyond that.
The Kryptonians looked aghast as their leader disappeared from sight, and then their attention turned back to Constantine, whose own attention was now focused on the black-clad blonde opposite him.
“Hi, Honey Bunny,” he greeted her.
“Hi, Pumpkin,” Tamara responded. “Fancy turning the town red?”
And then, as one, in slow motion, they turned towards the Kryptonians, and Zatara watched in horror as the two of them worked their way systematically through the Kryptonians, tearing them limb from limb; the slow motion making the horror seem to last forever.
Finally, after an eternity, the last Kryptonian slowly fell to the ground, and Tamara, drips of alien blood rolling down her shiny outfit, turned to her father, with a smile; but, true to form, it seemed even her latest actions hadn’t made Zatara proud.
“I’ve got to go, Honey Bunny,” said John, kissing Tamara on the cheek. “Unfinished business.”
“Be careful, Pumpkin,” she said flatly, her eyes still locked on Zatara’s. “Zod could still be dangerous.”
“Zod’s dead, baby,” he reassured her. “Zod’s dead.” And with that, he knelt down, and then, with a shockwave, launched himself in the air, leaving the room through the same wall as Zod had, flying through the whole satellite, faster than a speeding Kryptonian, seeking out his nemesis.
A split-second later he encountered General Zod, in a room that turned out to be adjacent to the one he’d just left Tamara in..
“The battle’s over, General,” John Constantine said, as he walked to the General, his black leather trench coat flowing out behind him.
“I know. Doesn’t look like there’ll be any winners,” said General Zod, as he stood in front of a console, desperately typing in the required protocols to the ship’s computer.
“Greetings, General Zod,” replied a robotic voice, as Kryptonian letters suddenly appeared on the console. “Shall we play a game?”
“Yes,” gasped Zod with his dying breath, as John Constantine’s hands gripped his throat. And then, as the general looked at his killer, through the hazy red of his heat vision, the last words Zod would hear came from the ship’s computer:
“Let’s play Global Thermonuclear War.”
As Zod’s world faded from red to black, John Constantine, looked at the console, and listened to its countdown begin, but it wasn’t long before he found the sound of that countdown being drowned out by his own string of expletives.
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Post by Admin on May 7, 2008 18:17:57 GMT -5
They looked across at each other, father and daughter; daughter bathed in the blood of Kryptonians. John Zatara wanted to look away, his body filled with revulsion towards his oldest child, but he couldn’t – or wouldn’t. “Oh don’t look at me that way… Daddy. You’re still going to get your old job back. We’re still family, you know. Mommy and I still want you to feed us all that wonderful energy that you’ve been supplying us with for so long.” As Zatara opened his mouth to reply, John Constantine came running in from the next room. “We’ve got a bit of a problem,” he said, his thumb motioning back into the other room. “Seems as though in five minutes the satellite is going to blow up the Earth, and then take itself out for good measure. Thought you might want to know and all.” Tamara rolled her eyes, “Do I have to do everything around here.” She cast a spell, the dark magic emanating from her hands. She watched Constantine look back into the other room and then shake his head… it hadn’t worked. Giovanni Zatara sighed. “That is my doing, I’m afraid. I cast a spell to make sure that nothing could override the self-destruct sequence… not even myself. Unfortunately, I didn’t know it was going to take out the planet as well.” “Well then,” Tamara said as she grabbed Zatanna’s hat. “I suppose we need that lantern now more than ever. This time if that damn bunny bites me, I’m biting back.” As she leaned forward to look into the hat, she was caught off guard by the fist that flew out of it and struck her in the face, knocking her back. She lost the grip on the hat and it fell to the ground, rolling in a small circle, and then coming to a stop. When it had completed its movement, Zatanna rolled out of the hat, springing up and then placing the hat back on her head. Tamara stood in shock; Zatara grinned proudly and began to applaud. Zee couldn’t help but smile at her father as she took a small bow in his direction. She turned back to her fair-haired sister, her eyes blazing. “Did you really think that I was going to trust you at all? Or that you could defeat me that easily? Just before we left Smallville I set up a spell that would transport me into the hat should you launch an attack against me. It took you longer than I thought, but I waited, listening to all those lies, those transparent manipulations; just biding my time until the moment was right.” Tamara smiled, “Thank goodness,” she said with relief. “It was so unfulfilling the first time; not much of a fight at all. This time, I’ll make sure you suffer first. Besides, I want to make sure that both mother and father are here to witness the moment I destroy you, so I can feel their pride in me. Are you ready, Mother?” “Of course, my child,” came the sultry voice of Tamara’s mother from the shadows. “I’ve waited just as long as you have for this moment.” “No! No, it can’t be,” Zatanna gasped as Tamara’s mother came into the light. Sindella smiled at her. “I told you little girl… trust no one.”  |
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Post by Admin on May 7, 2008 18:19:45 GMT -5
Sindella looked at Zatanna’s dumbstruck face and her smile grew wider. “I really must thank you, child. Not only have you helped Tamara to get here and destroy the Kryptonian defences, but I hear you’ve also brought a magic lantern with you. Better than we planned even. Guess there’s no more need for that movie spell, Tamara dear – we can’t risk giving Zatanna a happy ending.”
As Tamara nodded and mumbled a cancellation spell, Zatanna looked at Sindella dumbstruck, unable to believe how this woman, who’d seemed just like her mother, could now turn out to be so very unlike her. While she struggled to try and comprehend what was going on, Tamara decided to take advantage of the situation and hurled a bolt of mystical energy at her oblivious half-sister, blasting her across the room.
Giovanni Zatara, seeing what was happening, rushed forward, saying his backward words, but nothing happened. As he said them again, Tamara looked over at him and smiled a wicked smile. “Don’t you remember, father? Your words have no power now; I’ve been draining your magic today, storing it away for something like this,” she said, as she flung another smaller bolt at her father, knocking him to the floor. “Just think,” she gloated, “it’s your magic I’ll use to kill your most precious of daughters.”
“No...” groaned Zatara, as he struggled to get to his feet, but another blast of magic from Sindella caused chains to form around him, binding him to the ground.
“Quiet, lover,” said Sindella, walking over to him. “Let’s watch the children play.”
Tamara strode over to where the battered, yet still breathing, figure of her fallen half-sister lay, and, kneeling down, she grabbed hold of Zatanna’s hair, using it to hoist the young magician’s head up. “Wake up. Time to die.”
“You... you need the lantern,” said a dazed Zatanna, struggling to focus.
“That’s why you’re not dead yet,” replied Tamara. “Now, give me the lantern, and I might let you live. Remember your fun year of captivity, Zee, where I kept you drained of all of your magical energy; maybe we could carry on where we left off. This time you’ll have daddy to keep you company... you can watch each other suffer.”
“Hate to interrupt,” said a worried John Constantine, placing a hand on Tamara’s shoulder, “but this place is still on the verge of blowing up.”
“That’s why we need the magic lantern,” replied Tamara, “and my dear half-sister is going to provide us with it.”
Zee looked at Tamara and laughed. “I’ll never let you get your hand-”
“Wrong answer,” Tamara butted in, as she slammed Zatanna’s head against the floor. “Now, please do this, or do you want me to force you to?”
“Never,” she groaned in defiance, as she struggled to push herself back up off the ground.
Tamara shook her head. “There’s no point in playing the hero. My mixed-Earth genes mean I can cross the worlds at will; that’s how I visited you on your Earth in the first place. Maybe I’ll pretend to be you again; have fun with that team of yours. Anyway, there’s no way I’m going to die here today; I just couldn’t bear dying again.”
“Again?” said a confused Zatanna and John in unison.
Tamara looked at them, wondering if there was enough time left for an explanation, but, time permitting or not, Zatanna deserved to know why she hated her so much.
“I once had a twin sister,” she began. “Her name was Zatanna; so much like you. John worshipped her.”
“But I don’t remember...” began John.
“No, you wouldn’t; I cleared her from your memories, to save you all that pain. Anyway, while she and I once did everything together, things changed when she was corrupted by her mystic power; all she wanted was power and more power. Our last meeting together didn’t go very well...” Tamara paused, her eyes looking down accusingly at her half-sister. “She killed me.”
“But... but you’re alive?” said Constantine, edging out of the room slowly, suddenly realizing that he’d seen an escape pod on his earlier flight around the satellite.
Tamara explained to the departing John, “Mother took care of me. Got that Eternity boy to bring me back to life, then wiped it from his mind.”
“Great,” nodded John, realizing that nobody was really taking the satellite’s imminent demise seriously and that he’d be better off on his own. “Anyway, see you around, folks.”
“And this other Zatanna?” asked Zatanna, who was now sitting up on the ground.
Sindella spoke. “I took care of her as well... I still regret it. Now please, Zatanna, don’t make me kill two of you.”
“Maybe a truth spell will make Zee reveal the lantern’s location,” suggested Tamara.
“What would you two know about the truth?” asked Zatanna, looking up at Tamara.
“I let Joe know the truth,” said Tamara, with a smile.
“So, I saw,” said Zee. “I was there, remember.”
“Not every time,” said Tamara with a smile. “You see, poor de-powered Joe wasn’t my mother’s adopted son, he was our slave, as we fed off his super-energy every night, bringing his traumatic memories back just to torture him, and then clearing his memory until the next night when his nightmare would begin again.”
Zatanna glared at Tamara, as she started to rise from the floor. “Do you deliberately want to make me angry?”
Tamara nodded. “Yeah. I’ve got my magic plus our father’s, so I reckon I can make you do anything I want.”
“But two can play at that game,” said Zatanna, her face bowed down in shadow as a smile spread across it.
“You’re bluffing,” said Tamara. “You’ve stolen my power before. Trust me, I’d notice if you tried it again.”
“Yes, but your mother wouldn’t,” replied Zee, as she rose to her feet and then continued to rise as she left the ground, her body starting to glow with magenta mystical energy and her torn costume starting to repair and redesign itself.
Tamara just smiled. This Zatanna now reminded her completely of her long-departed twin sister. Revenge would be sweet.
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Post by Admin on May 7, 2008 18:21:34 GMT -5
 It wasn’t until Zatanna’s comment that Sindella realized just how weak she was growing. She sat down next to the chained-up Zatara, and sighed. “These kids really will be the death of us.” Zatanna deflected the magical bolt that Tamara threw at her and flung one of her own, knowing full well that her half-sister would easily deflect it. This was the just the opening shots, to gauge each other, before the battle commenced in earnest. The only problem was, Zee had very little time. The station was going to blow itself up, and the Earth with it; it might not have been her Earth, but there were still innocent lives hanging in the balance. “You do take to the dark magic rather easily, sister,” Tamara said with a wicked grin. “You know what we could accomplish together?” “Don’t even try that join me and embrace the dark side crap, Tamara, because it isn’t going to happen. It all ends here, and now.” “Very well then, time for you to die, little sister.” Tamara laughed as she pushed her power, a massive wave of purple magic swelling out from the palms of her hands. Zee gritted her teeth as she unleashed all she had, the magenta-colored magic burst forth and met Tamara’s between them. There was very little sound, but everyone in the room could feel the power that was surrounding them as the two magicians clashed. Dark purple and magenta sparks flew from the middle of the battle. Both sisters strained as they focused their will, trying to find the crack in the others defense that would give them the edge. It was a stalemate, Zee knew it, and the clock was ticking. She knew the way out, had it planned, but she had to take her sister down first. She felt her shielding give just a bit and Tamara pressed her attack, her wicked grin growing with the realization. The older sister was continuing to grow powerful, while Zee’s grip on Sindella was beginning to wane. “You should have taken me up on my offer,” Tamara sneered. Zatanna’s eye’s widened in horror. It wasn’t enough power! She could only take so much from Sindella without killing her, and in the end, she couldn’t do it… no matter how much Zee felt that the woman deserved it. The dark magic was enticing her, calling her to do it, but she held on to that spark of good that had always lit the way. She knew that it was a spark that she had been born with, it was the first moment of her creation, and it came from her father and hermother. It was, however, that spark that was about to doom her and her father. Giovanni watched his daughter struggle, knowing that his power, that was being drained by his demented oldest daughter, would be what would kill his beloved Zatanna. She needed more power, and there was only one way to do it; something that Zee would never allow herself to do. He turned slowly, staring at the monster that resembled his beloved Sindella from his world. This one was nothing like her, nothing like the beautiful soul that would have given her life for her daughter… not taken it away without a hint of remorse. Closing his eyes, fighting the nauseating feeling of exhaustion that permeated his entire body, he gathered all his remaining strength and flung his arms around Sindella’s head and pulled the magical chains, that bound his hands, into Sindella’s throat. He felt her body try to fight him off, but he pulled tightly; refusing to give an inch. Tamara saw her mother groping, her arms reaching out to her daughter for help; she chose to ignore it. After all, the woman did kill her twin sister; who was to say she wouldn’t do the same to her someday. “Sorry, Mother, but this is what you would have wanted.” Giovanni held tight, realizing with Tamara’s words that she had not caught on. Did not understand what was about to happen. She was too caught up in her own battle, in proving that she was the better sister. It made him sick; what he was doing made him sick, but he had to… for Zatanna. He would not let her down. Gulping in air, he used his remaining strength to finally crush Sindella’s windpipe, holding on until her body stopped flopping on the ground like a fish out of water. Two things happened simultaneously. The power that Zatanna had been draining from Sindella doubled, as her mother’s life essence poured from her dead body, causing Zee’s magic to darken into a purple, more royal in color than Tamara could have believed possible. It was also at that moment that Tamara realized what her own mother’s death meant for her, and for her own plans. She was about to lose. “ NO!” she screamed in rage. It was too late, though, as Zatanna shattered her shields with a flick of her hand, as if swatting a mosquito away without a second thought. “Now, Basil!” Zatanna roared, her voice magnified by the powerful amount of magic that she had suddenly found herself with. Her familiar leapt from the hat, dragging the lantern out with him, as he worked his way over to Giovanni, whose magical shackles had been obliterated when Tamara’s shields had been destroyed. Tamara’s eyes were wild as she realized that everything was falling down around her. “Two can play at that game,” she cried out as she went to focus her power on her father; prepared to take everything from him for one last time. “No,” Zatanna said simply as her right hand spouted a magical bolt that encompassed Tamara and slammed her up against the metal wall. “You will not kill anymore. You are done. I am the Sorceress Supreme! But I want more… MORE!” she cried, relishing in the power that coursed through her body. Thoughts she had never dreamed of, images of possibilities coursing through her. “And you, my big sister, will give it to me!” Tamara felt her energy being drained quickly. Her body began to wither, her flesh drying up, as Zatanna soaked up all that she was, like a starved sponge that could not get enough. “Zatanna, stop,” Zatara shouted in horror as he watched Zee’s body begin to alter and change. Her skin color was becoming the same deep shade of purple as the magic that she was using; she was actually becoming one with the very nucleus of dark magic, itself. “Shut up, old man!” she roared as her facial features began to melt away, only the vague shape of her nose and mouth now apparent; her eyes gleamed white, however, a sharp contrast to the rest of her body. “Please…” Tamara whispered as her ragged breath began to rattle inside her lungs. The laugh that echoed throughout the chamber was vast, ageless. “ You are actually begging?” Zatara stood up. “Zatanna, my beautiful daughter, please stop… now… before it’s too late.” “ It’s already too late! It was too late the moment Tamara came to our world to try and destroy me! The path was set!” “No, dear child. Your eyes still glow white. There is still a spark of good inside of you. I can feel it, Zatanna. It’s your mother’s love. Your mother’s love; this is not what she would want. Please, child, don’t do this.” For a moment Zatanna swore she could hear her real mother’s voice from deep within her soul; it cried out to her, begging her to listen to her father.” Tamara fell to the ground as the magic that had entrapped her was released. Zatanna let out a scream of agony and then she was gone. “ZATANNA!” Zatara screamed as he ran to one of the windows looking out at the Earth. He watched as the powerful ball of energy that used to be his daughter, surrounded the planet as the energy blast was released from the station, narrowly missing what looked like some kind of escape pod. It struck the massive ball of magic and Zatara could hear his daughter’s cries of pain, but she did not let go. “ Go, Father! Use the lamp, take Basil and Tamara, and leave… now!” “I cannot leave you, my child,” he called out, tears streaming down his face. “ You must, Father. It is what mother would have wanted. I’m doing the right thing, and I will save this planet, but if you die… now… after all of this, then everything that I have gone through will be for naught.” The senior magician walked over to Basil and picked him up, along with the lantern. “I have always loved you, my daughter,” he sobbed. He heard one last cry of pain from the pure dark energy, and then he disappeared. Seconds later, the station self-destructed in a brilliant white light that enveloped everything in its path… including the planet and the magic that so desperately tried to save it… |
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Post by Admin on May 7, 2008 18:22:33 GMT -5
Epilogue
Darkness. It was everywhere, then slowly, she could see light. Her eyes fluttered open and she found herself lying on a soft bed, a face looking down at her, with a worried expression.
“Plastic Man?” Zatanna asked in a dazed and confused voice.
He shushed her. “It’s alright, you’re okay,” Eel replied.
“I had the most horrible dream,” she began. “And you were there.”
“Was I there?” a familiar voice from the other side of the bed asked.
Zatanna turned to see her father sitting there, his tear-stained cheeks red and flushed as she held her hand.
“It… it wasn’t a dream,” she whispered with joy as she sat up, grabbing him and holding onto her father tightly. She too, began to weep, with the joy of relief.
“No, it wasn’t a dream. You made it back. We both did.”
“How… I don’t know how I got here?” she wondered as she pulled away and looked into his eyes.
He shrugged. “Magic, of course.” He grinned at her and she laughed in relief.
She felt something move at the end of the bed and found Basil hopping towards her. She picked him up and nuzzled her face into his fur. She could have sworn he was purring.
“Tamara?” she asked.
“Gone. I grabbed her and took her through the lantern with me, but the sudden explosion sent some kind of rippled effect through the carrier and I lost my grip on her. When I found myself back here, she was nowhere to be seen.”
Zatanna thought about it for a moment and pushed it to the back of her mind. That would be something she would deal with on another day. “You’re back, Father! You’re really back.”
Giovanni Zatara grinned at her. “Yes, my beautiful darling. I’m back, and I’m never going to leave you again. Oh my sweet, sweet girl… there really is no place like home.”
The two embraced each other again, Basil feeling slightly crushed, and Plastic Man quietly left the room. As he shut the door silently he walked down the hallway.
“No place like home? Gag me with a spoon.”
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Post by Admin on May 7, 2008 18:22:56 GMT -5
The End
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Post by Admin on May 7, 2008 18:26:57 GMT -5
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