I do not own any of these characters nor any rights to any trademarks mentioned in this fanfic.
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Ever thought about what it would feel like to watch your world crumble—and know it might be wiped out entirely?
Chances are, if you're not a superhero, that idea hasn't crossed your mind—unless it just did because I mentioned it.
That was my life: the world on the edge of annihilation. Me and my friends—we're a team of heroes—had exactly one plan that could possibly save everything.
With no backup options, we rolled the dice on it. One thing led to another, and now I'm stuck in another universe, facing down an army of creatures that can only be described as monsters from some other realm—maybe hell, maybe Tartarus. I call them hell-minions.
Fighting beside me was another god of lightning—but he wasn't Zeus.
This blond guy wielded a hammer instead of a thunderbolt. In my world, he was nothing more than a myth. I'd never met him before, but I'm living proof that the power of so-called mythological gods is very real.
If you haven't noticed by now, my story took a hard dive off the rails—and the other side of it might be just as screwed up.
Damn. Maybe I really am losing it. Because why else would I be standing in a restroom, staring at my own reflection and talking to myself like someone deep in the grip of psychosis, desperately trying to piece together how exactly I ended up here—while convincing myself this might as well be a dream?
But I came from a world so absurd that reality was constantly under threat, with timelines either collapsing, or resets becoming routine. After living through what I did, I couldn't even lie to myself and call this a dream. Not anymore.
Recapping everything that happened in the last twenty-four hours would probably be trauma-inducing—at least for me, considering I'm the one who lost his world and everyone he cared about. So… how about a shorter version?
Wait. Clarification, I meant a brief recap for me. Not you.
Damn it, there I go again.
Whistle.
The sound came from behind me, sharp enough to make me flinch as I spun toward it—only to find the hammer-wielding blond staring back at me, giving me those full-on 'you okay, buddy?' eyes, while clearly trying his hardest not to judge.
This time, his hammer wasn't with him. And honestly, it'd be pretty unsettling if he brought that thing into the bathroom too.
"Pardon me, I didn't hear or see anything." He said awkwardly, making his way toward one of the stalls while still throwing me a sideways glance, like he was quietly questioning my sanity. Then he went about his business.
That's the thunder guy I mentioned earlier. Thor Odinson. Yeah—that Thor. The Norse god of thunder.
Anyway, I should probably get to the point before he starts wondering why I'm just standing here listening to him take a piss.
Oh—right. I'm Billy Batson. Some people call me Captain Marvel, but you might know me as…SHAZAM!!
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Our world was confronted with a devastating crisis, one that pushed us to the very edge of being erased.
The Justice League and I were already losing when we faced the Anti-Monitor. He was erasing our world with a sweeping wave of antimatter, and the worst part was, it had already reached us.
"There's nothing we can do," Batman said. And if he was out of ideas—the guy with a contingency for everything, it meant we were truly out of options. "The antimatter wave has already entered our solar system."
It felt like a kick to the gut. We were Earth's mightiest heroes, yet completely helpless, unable to save our own world.
Tension in the room finally spilled over into open frustration as Wonder Woman slammed her fist into the table during the emergency meeting, a raw expression of rage at being powerless against something so absolute.
"There has to be something," Superman said, his gaze shifting between Cyborg and Batman. Even Constantine looked resigned, staring up at the antimatter wave as it swallowed the sky and pressed down on a world already coming apart.
That's when we turned to our final option.
As the sky dissolved and the wave closed in, every eye landed on the Flash. He was the only one who could still act. The plan was simple, yet it carried a terrifying sense of uncertainty with it.
The Flash was to run back in time and warn the League about the doom awaiting us. Maybe, maybe, that would give us enough of a head start to find a way out.
The real fear was what came after. What if Flash went back… and we still failed to stop the Anti-Monitor? What if all life in our galaxy was erased anyway?
"Frankly, an eternal trip to hell with Constantine is starting to seem like a viable option. Sure, I could take my family to the Rock of Eternity instead, but who wants the Seven Deadly Sins as eternal roommates? More importantly, that's not a life, it's just an endless, boring sentence for them."
In the end, saving only my family wasn't right. The answer couldn't be survival in exile. We had to survive here. In our world.
As those thoughts spiraled—what if Flash makes it back and we figured a way around this crisis, everything just happens all over again like some unavoidable checkpoint in time, like it's the fate of our world?
As my thoughts spiraled, I turned and saw Flash already in motion, racing ahead on his impossible mission.
When I looked back one last time, the wave was devouring Earth and everyone on it. Antimatter chewed through the sky itself, erasing every living atom in our atmosphere. If this were truly the end, I should've been with my family, spending whatever seconds remained at their side.
But I couldn't. I wouldn't. I wasn't about to stand still and place all our hope on one hero while doing nothing myself. If this was going to be my final moment, then I'd meet it fighting—doing everything I could to save this world, right up to my last breath.
Acting on pure instinct to take action, I followed Flash, flying at superspeed just behind him. A burst of light tore open in front of him, like reality itself had ruptured, forming some kind of portal.
He never slowed, rather he charged straight into it. I pushed harder and chased after him, and as I flew with everything I had, I saw the portal beginning to collapse—shrinking fast, moments away from sealing shut forever.
Agh!
With everything I had left, I pushed forward and barely slipped through before the portal sealed shut. I didn't want to die—not like that. Wherever this place led had to be better than being erased without even getting the chance to fight for my world.
Lightning crackled all around me in that strange, unfathomable space, and it felt like my body—no, my cells—were being torn apart by some unseen force.
Aghhh!!
There was a blinding white flash, followed by a violent yank that seemed to grab hold of my entire being. It wasn't just my cape, it felt like every atom of me was being ripped loose. The pain was unreal.
I don't know how long it lasted. Time stopped making sense in that place. Then, suddenly, a pulse of purple light flared around me—and everything changed.
I was falling.
Gravity seized me, familiar and terrifying, and for the first time I realized I couldn't fly. This pull was nothing like the force that had torn through me before.
In this space there was nothing to see, just pitch-black emptiness like I was lost in an abyssal void. I tried to take off, to catch myself midair, but it was useless. I kept dropping deeper into the abyss.
It felt like I fell forever. In my head, it seemed like I'd followed Flash only moments ago—yet at the same time, it felt like I'd been trapped in that dimensional void for an impossibly long while.
As I plummeted through the abyssal void, a sudden burst of white light erupted around me, so intense that I instinctively squeezed my eyes shut, fearing I'd be blinded.
THUD!
When suddenly, my body slammed into a solid surface, the force rattling every bone and sending a shockwave through me.
The ground beneath seemed to crater from the impact.
"Ouch!" I groaned, still reeling from the hit.
For a moment, I was half-blind, disoriented, with no clue where I had landed. All I could make out was chaos—voices shouting mid-battle, the roar of thunder, and screeches that no human throat should ever be able to produce.
Unsure of my surroundings but sensing the danger below, I shot upward, taking to the sky to distance myself from the maelstrom of violence beneath.
As I climbed higher into the sky, my vision slowly began to clear, just in time to catch a voice shouting below. "He must be the commander of these creatures!"
"On it!" another voice responded from a distance, followed by a whirling rush of energy moving at breakneck speed from a distance mid air. I squinted as I tried to make sense of the chaos unfolding.
Gradually, my sight vaguely revealed the blue sky as if looking through a foggy lens, and I spotted something hurtling straight toward me with terrifying velocity.
Instinctively, I braced for impact—and then a solid, metallic strike connected with my face.
The blow lasted only a fraction of a second, but I could feel the potent magic coursing through it.
The force behind it was enough to fling me through the hazy sky, and I tumbled violently to the ground, skidding across the terrain and smashing through trees as my body careened uncontrollably.
"Again, ouch." Dazed and possibly concussed, I tried to figure out what magical object could have struck me—perhaps some kind of artifact. And wondered just who could have done that to me.
I pushed myself to my feet just as a bolt of blue lightning slammed into the ground right in front of me. From the crackling impact, the hazy image of a blond figure in a red cape descended from the sky, the earth cratered beneath him as if he'd ridden the lightning itself.
"...!" He said something, but the words were lost to me, my ears still ringing from the earlier strike.
Clutched in his hand was a massive hammer which had sparks of electricity dancing along its surface as he advanced—clearly trying to intimidate me.
As my vision slowly sharpened, he suddenly lunged forward, launching another attack.
- - -
His hammer connected with a deafening THWUMP that cracked the air like lightning, the force of it echoing in a deep, rolling boom that sent a shock wave across the plain.
"I'm only going to ask this once," the blond man said, gripping his hammer as electricity sizzled across its surface. "You better answer before things get really messy for you. Name yourself." His eyes narrowed as they landed on the golden lightning bolt emblazoned on Shazam's chest, sizing up the hooded stranger in front of him.
Shazam, still disoriented and unsure of where he'd ended up, responded cautiously with a question of his own.
"Where… am I?" His gaze swept over the surroundings instead of the man directly. In the distance, tall buildings pierced the sky, and the park where he stood was in chaos—a group of people battling a horde of strange, monstrous creatures in the distance.
"I said I won't ask again!" The blond lunged, hammer raised high and ready to strike. Shazam's eyes caught the weapon midair. Under normal circumstances, he would have taken the blow; Atlas-strength made him nearly indestructible. But this hammer wasn't ordinary, and its wielder was no mere mortal.
Instead of testing his luck, Shazam moved. One second he was there, the next he was gone—a flash of movement that left the hammer slicing through nothing but air. In a blur, he struck back. A headbutt sent the blond stumbling, followed by a solid blow to the torso that hurled him into a cluster of trees.
Hovering as his white cape billowed behind him, Shazam closed in cautiously. "There's clearly been a misunderstanding," he said, trying to calm the tension, his hood still concealing his face.
The blond recovered, retrieving his hammer and throwing it at Shazam. With a quick swivel, Shazam dodged, puzzled at the weapon's unusual trajectory.
"I—" Shazam began, but the hammer hit him from the back and returned to man's hand. "It… comes back. Noted," he muttered, rubbing his lower back as if to stretch it.
"Misunderstanding, huh? Allow me to help clear it up," the man said, swinging his hammer skyward as he launched himself high above the ground.
Shazam muttered under his breath, uneasy as the crackle of lightning and booming thunder filled the sky. "I've got a bad feeling about this."
RUMBLE
Lightning tore through the sky, striking the hammer, and the blond wielded it with complete mastery. Shazam braced himself and took to the air, instantly recognizing what was coming.
As he drew closer, the bolt of lightning surged toward him, crackling with raw energy. Yellow arcs of electricity danced along his arms, the lightning emblem on his chest blazing with a brilliant golden glow.
He thrust his hands forward, releasing a surge of his own power to meet the blond's blue lightning head-on.
The two forces collided midair like opposing thunderstorms clashing in the heavens, each refusing to yield as sparks and bolts tore through the space between them.
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