Mightiest Mortals #10

This issue takes place alongside the events of Speeding Bullet #3!

Beneath Fawcett City
The empty chamber resounded with each of Captain Marvel’s footsteps. He solemnly held a lit torch in his hand, and shivered as he felt the stony eyes of the Seven Sins staring down on him from behind. He thrust the flame into the brazier and watched as it quickly lit up. Soon, the flames grew icy blue and the spectral form of Shazam appeared before him.

“What brings you to call on me, Captain Marvel?” the ghost asked.

“I need answers, Wizard,” Captain Marvel replied plainly. He folded his arms across his chest and stared up into the hazy eyes as they flickered in the flames. “I’ve discovered that Ibac and Sabbac both have magic words. Just like me. I’m not believing that it’s a coincidence, not in the slightest. And I don’t need the Wisdom of Solomon to tell me that you know what it’s all about. Maybe that you’re even involved somehow.”

Shazam nodded gravely as he listened to Captain Marvel’s pointed question. He smoothed his long white beard and then began to speak. “True, my champion. The time has come for you to learn of the Fiendish Game, of the champions that came before you, and the reason for your existence.”

The Plaza
Carl Doherty was busy with the surveillance team as they prepared the equipment and ran checks in preparation. He continued to check his watch as he drank his coffee and helped to direct the men and prepare the schedule of observers.

“Detective, the bugs are in place at Karnes' apartment,” a uniformed officer reported as he closed the door behind him. “All the sound checks are good, I think we’re ready to go.”

“Good, good,” Doherty replied as he finished the coffee and crumpled the cup up and tossed it out. “I need to keep another appointment, and I’ll swing by here later and see how it’s going.”

As he moved to the front door, his phone rang and he pulled it out and answered, “Doherty here.” He stomped down the hall and jabbed his finger into an elevator button. “You sure, sir? I gotta handle something else on another case.” He listened to the response and shot back, “Yeah, but it’s the Oberymyer case, and we got a time limit.” He was interrupted and then answered, “Fine, on my way.” He folded up the phone as the elevator doors opened to let him angrily enter and start for a different destination.

Harbordown
The police cars had the dockside sealed off when Doherty arrived at the scene, storming up and looking down at the victim.

The coroner was present, and kneeling over the body of a lovely blond woman, dressed in fine, though provocative, clothing. Now though, her face was pale and her body had the unmistakable look of death.

“Evening, Detective,” Francis Markow said as he looked up from the body to face Doherty.

“Frankie,” Doherty replied. “Whatcha we got?”

“Ibac dumping,” the coroner answered just as briefly. “Young woman, mid-twenties. Shot twice in the side at point blank range. I’ll know more after the autopsy. Strange thing is this down here though.”

Frankie stood briefly and moved to the young lady’s feet. He pointed to a set of very odd scrapings. “She was tied off to something heavy to keep her down deep. But she…slid out?” He shrugged.

“What do you mean, slid out? They didn’t hitch her up right?” Doherty asked with a skeptical look on his face.

“No.” The sandy-haired coroner in the rumpled blue suit knelt back down and pointed to the abrasions. “Not at all. You’d not get these marks if the ropes weren’t tied tight. These were tied quite tightly. She just somehow…squeezed out?”

“So she drowned?” Doherty said. “She was tossed in alive? Bastards. She was a pretty dame too.”

“No. Detective,” Markow stood up and stared at Doherty with an exasperated and confused face. “She was dead from the wounds. I’d stake my reputation on it. She was dead when they tossed her in. I’d say two men, from the post-mortem lividity marks left on her, probably moving her from wherever she was killed.”

“Damn. Okay,” Doherty said with a heavy sigh. “Fine. Get me the report on this one fast then. Vic will love sinking his teeth into something strange after we’re wrapped up with this other case of ours.” He jammed his notebook into an inside pocket in frustration. “I’ve gotta get to my other appointment right now, and I’ll be back at the precinct later tonight.”

“Right. Talk to you later then, Detective,” Markow answered as he watched the gruff, harried cop stomp off to his car. He looked back down at the dead woman and shook his head. “Let’s get you back home and see what we can learn.”

KWHZ Station
“Fawcett City is a beautiful place to live,” Victor Craize was saying into his microphone, letting his voice build up in passion and tempo as he spoke. “We have every right to be proud of the city we’ve all built and the lives we’ve made. We’ve had our problems in the past, we have our crime and bad elements. What big city doesn’t? But this the Dodge City of the old Wild West, where anyone can slap on some irons and shoot down who they don’t like. But that’s what’s happening. The police were doing a great job of controlling our criminal element. Their investigations were making real headway. These were good and loyal heroes of our city, and now…NOW we have Captain Marvel. Making a mockery of law and order, stirring up trouble, causing dangerously hard feelings and dictating policy to our Chief of Police! Have you all seen the bloodshed out there? The violence? And it’s just going to get worse, I tell you. If this Captain Marvel doesn’t just fly away for good, or get put down by the police, he’s just going to keep making things worse, and ruining what makes this city a shining example for the country. I ask you, my loyal listeners and fellow Fawcett Lovers, step up, shout out and let the city know that you won’t put up with this glorified acrobat any further!”

He took a moment to pause and sipped his water, before finishing up. “So good people of Fawcett, this is the Crazy Man himself with the final word of the day. Until tomorrow, I want you all to be good to each other out there. This is Victor Craize, for Craized Talk, over and out!” He flipped a switch and swiveled his chair away from the table. He stood and stretched and cracked his knuckles and smiled to himself. He felt good, he felt energized and shook his shoulders out.

“That Big Red Cheese was the best thing to happen to me,” he chuckled as he stepped over to the door and pulled it open. He stepped out into the hall and slammed the door behind him, leaving only his producer behind to gather up notes and prepare the sound booth for the next show. And leaving that producer to note the doorknob, and the finger marks pressed deep into it.

Shazam’s Cavern
The wizard’s ghost had stepped from the brazier and stood next to Captain Marvel. With a wave of his arm, the flames leaped higher, and began to form shapes, which then began to turn into pictures.

“Gaze into the fire, Captain Marvel, and learn,” Shazam said gently as he continued to control and shape the fire with his hands. “Back, far back, in the misty dawning of the universe there were two great forces of evil. Each had their turn at one time or another dominating the depths of the Hellish Realms, and each had escaped such intrigues and tiresome activities. While the Earth was still young, they had left such thrones to their younger ilk. One was Shaitan, the other was Ahriman. Between them, there was no evil left untouched, and no darkness undreamed.”

Captain Marvel watched, entranced by the flames as the murky and vague images of these two lords of evil danced and swayed over the universe, and held sway across the Earth for too many years. He watched as the fiends eventually came together and tested each other in direct warfare, and reality itself rumbled.

“You see that these two beasts locked horns and quickly learned that nothing could survive such a battle, least of all each other,” Shazam continued the narrative. “Neither wished oblivion for themselves and so they quit the battlefield. But this left them unsatisfied. And so they held summit between them, to find some way of contesting each other’s philosophies.”

Ahriman, all roiling fury of fire and smoke and raw anger, glared at Shaitan, his mirror and parallel and opposite, clean and precise and staring back with cold, calculating appraisal of his ancient foe. His deeply black appearance glinting with the burning red of Ahriman as the two argued and debated and laughed at the follies of humanity, their mutual prey.

“And so it was deemed that they would compete in contests of pawns. Shaitan and his selected Black King would compete with cool cunning evil while Ahriman’s Red King would move across their chosen boards with fury and brutality.” Shazam sighed and stared at the carnage various kings of these colors wreaked on the tapestry of prehistory and history: ruined cities long vanished from the records of Earth, shattered kings and smashed achievements that slowed and hampered and tormented humanity’s bloody history. “I was still a young wizard, with great promise, when their latest game threatened everything. I was always precocious, far in advance of my peers in my studies. And so I used all the knowledge at my command and crafted a spell. A new spell, one that allowed me to reach out and bind the energies of entities, and instill their gifts in a mortal.”

The images shifted to reveal a young, slender man suddenly struck by a golden lance of sunlight. The energy swallowed him completely, and when gone, revealed a much more powerful figure in his place. “With these gifts, I was able to combat the Fiendish Game during my time. I was called Champion, and I struggled mightily.”

“It was many, many decades later when a new champion was needed, and I cast the spell again. It is a powerful, dangerous spell, and it costs me much vigor and youth, but it is so necessary for this world. And so I cast it again, and granted these gifts onto a young hero of Ancient Egypt, who was then called Mighty Adam.” The flames wrapped and twisted to show a powerfully-built Egyptian garbed in clothing of the era, in black and gold, a great gold lightning bolt hung about his neck. “He fought long and hard, and he did well for so many, many years.” Sadness filled the wizard’s voice as he looked away briefly.

Soon, the flames swept the image of Mighty Adam from sight and into view came a more modern looking world. “It was a long time before the Fiendish Game was begun, but it has, and it was chosen to take place here. And this brings us to Sabbac and Ibac, the Red King and the Black King respectively.”

An image formed of an old, slender janitor in an apartment building, deep in the basement, puttering and futzing and doing little else. “Stanley Printwhistle, selected for meekness, gentility and his loyalty to the tenants he worked for in this building. Stolen away by agents of Shaitan, and forced to house the powers of his Black King.” The fires formed words; much like the tableau of names and gifts Billy was shown that granted him the powers of Captain Marvel.



“With that word, the meek becomes a terrible king of the underworld. While Ahriman chose for his Red King a young man filled with jealousy and envy at the family that took him in.” Timothy Karnes appeared, wanting to be the son for his newfound parents, wanting to the center of their lives like he was for his birth parents. Captain Marvel could see Freddy and Kit appear like a wall to Tim Karnes, and the anger he began to feel for these adults who couldn’t see which of the boys was the best. “He offered a deal to Timothy Karnes, power that could make him the most feared and respected man on Earth, in return for sacrifice. A near and dear sacrifice.” With those words, the fires showed Karnes tinkering the family car, and then a terrible accident and then the words appeared behind him in the flames as well.



“And thus is Sabbac forged from words of terrible power,” Shazam concluded, the fires dying low now. “Such great power bound up in a young man makes for a terrible combination, but also one of great fragility, which is why Karnes returns to his mortal form still. It is not his choice, for Ahriman is a capricious and paranoid terror, and will not grant such power to another without limit.”

Captain Marvel nodded as he took all the information in, seeing a new view of his best friend’s life now. “And that’s why you cast your spell on me, Wizard.”

“Yes. One last time. It took the last of my life, but I was prepared for such a thing,” Shazam answered. “My spirit is bound somewhere safe, and you are able to call me for advice and counsel. You are now my champion. It is up to you to stop this Fiendish Game.”

“I will, wizard,” Captain Marvel said grimly as the spirit in front of him wavered and grew hazier. “You have my word on it.”

Coroner’s Office, Swayze Circle
Frankie Markow entered the autopsy room and brought the microphone down into position. He looked down at the body of the woman Captain Marvel knew as Miss Minerva (not that Frankie Markow knew any of that himself), and sighed at the shame. Young and beautiful, with no business being on this table, he thought to himself. He circled the body and started to make his initial comments, recording her height, estimated weight and age, and distinguishing features.

He paused and sighed heavily again. There should be more I can say about a life then age, height and weight, no distinguishing features, he thought to himself sadly. Something more than ‘features unremarkable.’

Then he pulled a scalpel out and reached down to make his first incision. The blade bit into the cool flesh, to trace a line down the center of her body. But instead, a bizarre, milky liquid began to ooze from the small wound, and then, as if a balloon had burst and its water was released, Miss Minerva’s body splashed apart and much of it flowed from his table to the floor.

Francis “Frankie” Markow stared in absolute shock at the sudden event, as he felt the bizarre liquid fall across his shoes and splash across the tiled floor. He’d seen this just recently, something his forensics team had dealt with not weeks before. He racked his brain, and reached down with his fingers and felt at the odd material.

“Sivanaplasm?” he muttered in shock.

Beckstone
“I still can't believe you got to meet Captain Marvel,” Lori Zechlin said with a shake of her head. “Was he every bit as square as he looks like on TV?”

Mary Bromfield giggled at her friend's comment, giving a light shake of her head. The pair were lounging in the backyard of the Bromfield residence in a suburb of Fawcett City. stretched out on towels next to the built-in swimming pool, enjoying the late afternoon sunlight. Mary looked over at her friend, still remarkably pale despite her recent, forcible, excursion to band camp. “He was totally cool, actually. I think he liked me. He knew my name.” She grinned at that, remembering the day, and the odd connection she felt to the kindly-faced super-hero.

“Ew,” Lori shot back sarcastically. She leaned up on her elbows to look back at Mary. The two thirteen-year olds couldn't be more different: Mary with a fresh-faced look, shoulder length soft brown hair and the sweet look of a sheltered young lady-to-be. She wore a single-piece swimsuit of bright red trimmed in white, and looked every bit as tanned and toned as a teen-age girl who enjoyed playing softball.

Lori was pale, because she did everything she could to make sure the sun's wicked rays didn't damage her skin (well, that's what she told her father; in truth, her fellow 'night crawlers' would disown her if she ever got a tan); her hair was cut short, and spiked, with one long purple lock that hung down over her left eye. She was gangly, her growth spurt starting to run away with her, which made her happy, because it helped to fill out the scandalous two-piece black suit she wore. Scandalous for thirteen-year olds anyway. Her father tried to raise her right, so she had trouble keeping the much skimpier clothing she kept getting her hands on. Her right thigh held a thunderbolt tattoo that she hoped someday might become permanent; for now, it was a rub-on, and right now she kept it hidden from her best friend in the world (not that anyone, including the two girls, understood why they got along. They just did), since she didn't want to explain why she had the symbol of such “whitebread” as Captain Marvel on her skin.

“Not like that, you...” Mary blushed and reached out to playfully smack her friend's left shoulder. She was nearly as red as her swimsuit now and she rolled onto one side. “He...he just thought I was neat, I guess. He mentioned his friend, Freddy.”

“That hunky baseball player over at Sparling High?” Lori grinned and leaned back onto her towel, closing her eyes for a moment. “That's cool. He's hot.”

Mary was redder now and standing up and making a fuss about pulling her towel up and shaking it off and trying to hide the look on her face. “Yes, well...dreamy hitters aside, Cap was cool. And he's my friend, so be nice to him.”

“You met him once. Because of your dad,” Lori teased, sitting back up now. “He gave you a really nice smile because he wanted to make nice. Doesn't make him a friend.”

“You're wrong. There's a bond. I felt it. He's...he's like a big brother or something. I just know it. Not, you know, like literally. Just...I'm sure he feels it too.”

“You sure you just don't want to feel something...?” She got cut off by Mary's towel smacking Lori in the face.

“Stop that! I'm serious!” Mary nearly stamped her foot, but held off, not wanting to look so childish. “You don't believe me!”

“Okay, okay, calm down. No more snark about that. But seriously, Mare...one quick smile. That's not a bond.”

“You're right,” Mary mused as a smile crept over her face. “Come one, we gotta get dressed!”

“Why? I thought we were going to a movie after eating dinner at my Dad's?” Lori slowly got up, curious about what was getting into her friend.

“Why? Because you're absolutely right. If we're going to be good friends, we need to spend more time.” She started to march to the house, Lori dashing to catch up.

“We spend all the time together,” Lori replied.

“Not 'us' you and I, silly.” She held the back door open for her friend then followed Lori in. “I mean 'us', me and Captain Marvel. C'mon, we're going into the Fawcett!”

The Plaza
The surveillance team had settled in, and had their equipment running, recording the arrival of Timothy Karnes to his apartment. They had noted this fact, and reported it to their superiors, who had ordered further surveillance, to record any incriminating conversations or activity.

And so they continued their activities, and made a note of what time someone knocked on Karnes’ door. They made a further note of a young man’s voice charging into the room and shouting at Karnes.

The Freeman boy was there, they mused to each other, and he was yelling at Tim and telling him that his days were numbered. That he had managed to sic the cops on them, and that he was going to see justice at last. The police grew nervous at this, and reported it to their superiors again, unable to reach Carl Doherty at all for some reason. This made them more concerned and they tried to reach Victor Farley, but they couldn’t.

And so they called Chief Kitchens as the argument between the two step-brothers grew louder and more heated and sounds of a scuffle could be heard. Kitchens asked if there was any sign of Captain Marvel as the words grew more heated and the answer was negative.

“Get over there! Quick! Keep the Freeman kid safe at all costs, damn it!” he shouted, as he felt the last of his faith slipping.

As they rose and grabbed weapons and gear, the surveillance team then heard a one-word shout.

“SABBAC!”

And then they heard a strange sound, like a sudden roar of flames, followed by a sickening crack, scream of pain and a heavy thud.