章 1114: 12
Chapter 12: Magic Max
Sitting at one of the computer stations at the library closest to his home and school, Max glared at the pages of the notebook in front of him. He had gotten Rose to draw out copies of the markings that they had seen on the segment of the magical tablet they had in their possession.
From there they had gone out to try and find some kind of tool of reference to help them learn more about what they had. It was a long shot, and the more likely outcome to all of this would be that they would find nothing and the stupid piece of rock would sit in Max's secret stash, gathering dust until kingdom come.
While it wasn't Max's ideal way to spend a weekday afternoon, he didn't have anything else to do. And a wish seemed like it would be well worth the effort of research.
If nothing else, he would probably learn something new. Sure, it was probably something that he would never use, but hey, learning was fundamental!
"Haah…" Max let out an exasperated groan and slammed his notebook shut. This was hopeless. If the internet couldn't solve his problems, what could? He pushed his chair away from the desk with his foot on the table, out into the open space of the library, "And people actually do stuff like this for a living? Good God, this is boring."
Why did trying to find the quick and easy way to the top have to be so difficult and dangerous? Didn't that defeat the point of there even being an easy way?
All he had to do was just think about the money… or whatever the hell he would end up wishing for. Because just wishing to be filthy, stinking rich didn't seem to be tremendous enough for a free wish.
"Max?"
Hearing someone call out to him, the undercover thief looked over to the library's main desk to see Barbara from school, waiting as the clerk checked on the condition of books she was returning. She waved and began to walk over to him to say hello.
Inwardly panicking, Max looked over at his computer station from the corner of his eye and waved back at her, "Hey. What's up, Barb?" Under the cover of the friendly gesture, he magnetically manipulated his fountain pen into moving his mouse to 'x' out of his internet browser.
Better safe than sorry in this case.
He doubted she would know what was on the screen or what its purpose was, especially since he hadn't even found what he was looking for. But he didn't have any excuses planned, and he didn't really feel like distorting the truth to one of the few friends he had.
"I didn't think I'd ever see you at the library of all places," Barbara said. Not that Max struck her as dumb, after all, his grades had been skyrocketing over the last few months. But he kept so busy with trying to make ends meet. Most people in their year knew that he had been working part-time jobs almost nonstop. They hadn't heard anything about it in months, but it had still been common knowledge, "I guess you have to find the time to study sometime, huh?"
"I'd do it at my place, but the wireless connection for my apartment complex sucks," Max said with a shrug, "Can't really do any research with it. I might as well have dial-up. It'd probably be faster."
All of that was true. It was also why he used his phone as a hotspot more often than not. Ah, modern technology… and withholding information! Both were equally beneficial to Max at this point of his life.
Barbara frowned. Sometimes it was easy to forget since she saw him almost every day, but Max didn't exactly have things easy. Far from it when you stopped and analyzed his entire situation. He never actually talked to anyone about it, or brought it up much at all at school unless he had to.
Come to think of it, he barely talked to anyone in school at all. It wasn't that he was antisocial and tried to avoid people. Max was generally a friendly sort of person. And it wasn't that anyone else necessarily tried to avoid him. It just happened that way.
"I wish you didn't have to have things so rough," Barbara told him, "I'm glad you're getting along nowadays. You seemed half-past dead every day in school before and now you're doing so much better."
Max chuckled, thinking about how he had stayed up late nights working for money that he never even got to keep thanks to bills and other necessities. He still stayed up late, but his payoffs were considerably better, "Well, I figured nobody's going to solve anything for me. Unless they have a reason to, or it's staring them in the face, people don't tend to care about your problems."
That kind of outlook was incredibly blunt and negative. But it was said with a tone that didn't let Barbara think that Max resented the world for it, "That's a kind of depressing way to look at it," The redhead replied.
"I don't think so. I mean, Bruce Wayne won't just appear out of thin air and give me a scholarship because he likes my face," Max provided as an example, "Oliver Queen isn't going to wake up one morning and announce some gigantic charity in Gotham City for underprivileged kids named Max. You've got to get up and take what you think you deserve, you know?"
His circumstances weren't exactly unique. There were thousands of stories like his just in Gotham City. Most probably didn't end with the kid apprenticing under an infamous cat burglar, but that wasn't the point. The point was that he wasn't going to complain about it and never do anything to change his circumstances.
If he was going to complain, it was going to be because something or another was trying to kill him or otherwise screw him over while he was trying to make his way in the world. And then he would get up and handle that problem, whatever it happened to be.
Hey, it had worked so far.
Max spared a few more minutes to speak with Barbara before she had to go. Someone as affluent as her definitely would have had a tight schedule, and he himself had work of his own to do. He didn't plan to go out as Null that night, but he didn't want to hang around the library for too long. If he was going to take a night off, he didn't want to spend it at the library.
"That girl you were talking to before was cute," Rose pointed out on their way home later.
Max rolled his eyes. Of course she would have seen that and had commentary on it, "You saw that? That's just Barbara."
"Ooh, Barbara huh?" Rose needled with an evil grin. She liked picking on Max and his desperate attempts to carry on a mundane existence while tangling with superheroes and supervillains, "Got a whole 'Degrassi' high school romance thing going on, and you didn't tell me? Sparky, for shame."
"Alright, screw you. That Degrassi crack was completely uncalled for," Max rebutted, with no real heat in his voice, "And it's not even like that. I just have a class with her. I wish though. I'd be lying if I said I don't think about it."
Rose could see what the appeal was for a guy like Max. A pretty little thing like that. Smart to boot. But someone like that just wasn't in his cards, "Eh, she's not your type."
Max had been fairly certain about this already. But for the sake of being a contrarian, he wanted to hear her reasoning, "And you would know what my type is?"
"Definitely not a good girl like she probably is. Your type would be someone that would encourage your bad habits."
"Like stealing, you mean? Or getting my ass kicked by superpowered freaks."
"It definitely makes for a more interesting you, don't you think?"
The path that this conversation was heading didn't make Max feel very comfortable. He didn't know why exactly, but it was probably because of the way that Rose kept looking at him as though she were a cat with its paw on the tail of a mouse. From time to time he forgot that yes, she was his friend, but she was Deathstroke the Terminator's daughter. If she looked like she was thinking about something devious, it was likely that she was.
XxX
(Gotham County – Shadowcrest Mansion)
Zatanna wished Bruce hadn't been so hostile to her when she'd come asking for help. She knew why he was upset, and he had every right to be. The whole memory-erasing thing hadn't been something that she'd have expected to just wind up as water under the bridge after he'd found out about it, and if anyone could hold a grudge it was him.
Still, they had been close. Having him angry at her wasn't something that she could just accept and be content with.
Even with the unfriendly welcome though, he had still allowed her to do her thing and gave her permission to scour Gotham City for the dangerous. Right now, that was the priority.
Felix Faust wasn't going to just sit around and wait. The man was obsessive over acquiring more power. As much as possible, and then even more after that. The very second he got all four pieces, he would take the shards to the most populated area he could reach and… she didn't want to think about it.
"I know he's here," Zatanna said to herself, sitting in the vast library of her family home, researching what little she could find on the slate, "I know it's here, somewhere."
She couldn't let even a fragment of the Miracle Slate fall into the wrong hands. If there was even a chance that someone who would use it for evil could get a hold of it; that was a threat too significant to let go. What was worse, she had no idea how many pieces Faust had collected already.
The one here that he was searching for could be the first he'd found. Or it could be the last one he needed. Either way, it was bad.
It was time to think. What did she know?
One segment of the Miracle Slate was powerful enough to trigger magical reactions in passing. Bruce had told her of the trouble with Solomon Grundy just a few nights ago. Though he resurrected regularly, this time the slate piece was the catalyst for activating the black magic binding the creature to this plane of existence.
The trail of its ambient magic went cold right where Bruce told her Grundy had been killed this time around. She'd checked the area and found no trace of even the general direction it could have been taken off into.
Bruce didn't have it. He'd taken Grundy's body and disposed of it in the same way it always was whenever the zombie died. Robin hadn't even seen it, and he'd been on the scene to put Grundy down in the first place. No one else had gotten near Grundy but them.
…Except for some low-level thief that Bruce told her had been trained by Catwoman. The same thief that had created a ton of problems by stealing Kryptonite of all things for Deathstroke.
…
With an irritated sigh, Zatanna stood up from where she had been studying and smoothed out her stage outfit, picking her top hat off of the table and setting it on top of her head. Now she had to go slumming to search for this boy.
It would have been better if he had been an actual dangerous supervillain. Then at least there would be someone out there who knew how to find him. This way would be much harder, "Tropelet ot Mahtog Ytic!" Zatanna cried out in incantation as she teleported herself back to Gotham City.
She had a lot of work to do.
XxX
(Max's Apartment)
Hanging around with Max was making Rose lazy. When she sat back and analyzed her thoughts on the matter, it was indeed definitely all his fault.
Yes, she still trained, and she trained hard. She never slacked off in that regard. They fought each other pretty much every day, and absolutely went full-contact and then some. But there was just something... not as desperate about fighting with him compared to whenever she had gone up against her father.
Even when she brought out weapons and he started throwing random area hazards at her with his ferrokinesis.
Even when she kicked hard enough to shatter his jaw and he punched hard enough to touch her spine through her stomach.
Whenever it was over, he would bitch, she would laugh, they would figure out what they could get better at, and they would move along. There wasn't any constant fear of disappointing anyone, or feeling of coming up short in impressing someone. None of that mattered.
It felt like a vacation. The closest thing to one that Rose figured she would ever see given her line of work at least. Despite the threat of needing to make millions of dollars to pass her test, it was too easy-going to be considered anything like her other missions.
Case in point, they didn't even wind up parting ways and heading out into Gotham City's nightlife. For once, they both stayed at Max's apartment and did absolutely nothing. For him, it was sort of normal, not lately, but at one point in time it had been the sort of thing he did all of the time. For Rose it was a bit more foreign a concept, but she adjusted to it very well.
Just because they were hanging around didn't mean that they weren't talking business though,
"There has to be someone we can talk to that knows about magic," Max said, poking the irritable girl sitting next to him with his foot, "Rose, come on. We need someone who knows what we need, that won't kill us and take the stupid rock for themselves. You've got to know somebody."
Rose fought the urge to grab Max's foot and break his big toe, instead choosing to dig her elbow into the nerve running down his shin. That got him to stop quickly, "Why do I have to know someone? Why don't you have any connections?"
"Because you're the supervillain's daughter," Max replied, pulling his leg back before more pain could be inflicted on him, "I'm just some asshole with a Metagene."
"Well, you are an asshole at least," Rose remarked, glad that he could admit as much, "Deathstroke always says that magic is nothing but trouble. I'm pretty sure he always stayed away from it when he could. So no, I don't know anyone."
Well then that made the stone piece they had worthless. Screw it. There was no reason to keep it around them if they weren't going to get to use it anytime soon.
Max got up from his seat and went into his room, coming back out a minute later in Null gear, setting the tablet segment into his thief's satchel, "I'm gonna go toss this stupid rock somewhere safe. You want to come with?"
Rose took a moment to think about it. She had honestly been tempted to go out with him and see wherever he wound up hiding the magical slab, but then the commercial break ended and the 'Deadliest Warrior' marathon they had been watching came back on the TV, "Nope. You've got this, Sparky."
Max watched part of the episode along with her while pulling his hood-like wrap over his head to disguise his features, "Wow. Somali Pirates vs. Medellin Cartel. Riveting stuff," He said, getting a grunt out of Rose as he went to the window, opened it, and climbed out onto the fire escape, "…Somali Pirates win this episode by the way," He told her before shutting the window and running off.
"Goddamn it, Sparks!" Rose had the remote raised to throw at him before seeing that he was already gone. With a huff, she settled back down and relaxed on the couch, "…Whatever. They're still showing like ten more episodes after this."
He'd only be gone for an hour to hide the dumb thing. Two at most. It wasn't even worth getting up for. It definitely wasn't worth gearing up for. He'd be back before she even looked up from the TV again.
XxX
One of Selina's first lessons to Max on thief's etiquette; anything that you couldn't flip and convert to cash quickly was best kept far away from you until you actually needed it. It was a good lesson. There was nothing worse than being caught with hot merchandise. If police weren't looking for it, your enemies might be, or even worse, the people who you stole the item(s) from.
Even though Max hadn't necessarily stolen the tablet piece, it was better safe than sorry.
He was extremely disappointed that they wound up getting nothing out of the whole thing, and had absolutely no leads to further their endeavor to snag themselves a free wish. It had always been a long shot, but that still didn't make it any better to let go of. It was a free wish for God's sake!
All the while, the damn thing kept whispering in his head and sending him visions of splendiferous earthly possessions that apparently could be his with great ease if he just figured out how to use it. Now that Rose had pointed it out, it was really very noticeable.
"Shut up, you dusty piece of crap," Null said to the inanimate object, as though it would actually listen to him, "I'd use you if I could, believe me. But I don't know the first thing about you or where else to find the other pieces. So until I can, you're going to go sit in a hole somewhere."
Or until kingdom come. Whichever happened first.
As Null continued to travel on-foot, something felt wrong. The last particular jump that Null had taken felt way too long… by about three whole seconds.
Upon realizing this, reality seemed to warp for Null and he found himself freefalling to the ground below, with just moments to spare before his face touched the pavement.
Letting out a quite unmanly scream of terror he forced his metal attraction powers to drag him to the nearest metal object in the direction of his back, leaving him hovering just about the street. A frightened sweat formed on his forehead. He had managed to stop himself close enough to the ground that bending forward would have caused him to hit his face.
His hovering body did its best impression of the scene straight out of Mission Impossible before he shot himself back into the air with a high up metal object as his anchoring point and threw himself up onto a rooftop, safely landing on his feet.
Null wasn't the violent type of person that particularly enjoyed beating others up, but when someone tried to mindfreak him into jumping off of a building to kill himself it tended to make him quite angry. Angry enough to remove the teeth from someone's mouth with his fists.
He didn't know how the freak in the flowy blue garments wound up on the rooftop, but he didn't care. Clearly, he had some kind of power, which made Null feel less bad about what he planned on doing to the guy.
"You done goofed," Null told him gravely, cracking his knuckles in anticipation of the beating he planned to dole out. The guy looked like he was in his forties, in other words, old enough to know better than to mess with people running around in strange costumes at night.
The man in blue didn't seem intimidated in the slightest, smirking right back at Null as if the boy wasn't trying to threaten him, "Did I now?" He said, holding up his hands and forming two fireballs colored in a sickly, disgusting purple, "Because I believe I've found the foolish whelp in possession of my property."
At the sight of the twin fireballs, Null's attitude changed quickly, "By your property, you mean what exactly?" He asked the man who clearly had some kind of supernatural ability. This had gotten a lot more dangerous, 'My first clue should have been nearly getting killed thirty seconds ago,' "I don't remember robbing somebody like you lately."
And admittedly, this boy hadn't necessarily stolen the Miracle Slate piece from him, but that didn't keep him from thinking that it was still his, and in the possession of the wrong person.
Null took a step back as the fireballs grew ever larger in the man's hands, "The other pieces of the Miracle Slate yearn to be with its separated brethren," The magical man said, a sick grin forming in place of the smirk on his face, "Don't feel put out though, boy! Your corpse will simply be another one of many paving Felix Faust's path to power!"
The first projectile he threw missed due to Null's nimble evasive maneuvers, but Null followed its trajectory and watched it hit the back of a billboard, melting all the way through just seconds after contact.
Having been shot, stabbed, and damn near had a house brought down on top of his head not too long ago, Null could say with some certainty that he'd have rather had any of those other things happen instead of being hit with one of those fireballs.
He shamelessly took off running, and Faust licked his lips before attacking and pursuing. He had waited and waited for the final sliver of the Miracle Slate. A wet-behind-the-ears punk would not be the thing that kept him from using its magic to bolster his own.
With a wave of his hands and a muttered incantation, a massive dragon formed from polluted air, chunks of rock, and same purple fire from before. Its sights were set firmly on Null as Faust took a seat on its back and took to terrorizing the would-be thief from the air.
"You could have just asked for the stupid rock back!" Null shouted at Faust as he could feel something massive pursuing him from behind. Sure, he wouldn't have gotten it back anyway, but Null still would have appreciated having the option of giving it up, "This seriously can't be happening."
Taking on most souped-up villains with freaky abilities was one thing. Most of that was science. It was explainable, even if most of it was lost on him. This wasn't. Not to him. When he thought of magic, he thought of pulling a rabbit out of a hat, or sawing a lady in half.
He didn't think of gigantic artificial constructs of mythical beasts chasing him across his hometown. Enough weird things happened in Gotham City to begin with without adding this to it.
From his perch atop his false dragon, Faust cackled as green lightning crackled between his fingers. The boy was quick on his feet, but was he quicker than magical lightning? "You cannot escape me, boy!" Faust crowed as he began shooting at Null, "I have sold my soul for powers that can bend reality itself. You have no chance."
Null didn't know what that green lightning would do to the human body, but after seeing Faust's sick, discolored fire he didn't want to stick around and find out, 'Who the hell is this guy?'
All the young part-time criminal knew was that Faust wanted the piece of rock that he had. The fact that he had actually named it, the Miracle Slate, meant he knew more about it than Null did, and that by itself put him at an advantage.
Also… the whole shooting at him from atop a dragon mount thing. That was an advantage as well.
Just turning his head to get a look at the guy was dangerous. If Null stopped and let that dragon overtake him, he was toast.
Trying to get enough distance to make himself scarce, he started moving toward some of the taller building in the area. That thing had to be awful at maneuvering through the tight positions that two adjacent skyscrapers would present.
Sure enough, as Null shifted from rooftops and began bouncing off the sides of buildings, lowering his altitude to levels more difficult for his bulky pursuer to navigate, he began getting some space, enough to take a moment to get a good hard look at who he was dealing with. It was then that he noticed something very exploitable.
'This asshole has metal in his headdress thing,' More than that, he was adorned with it in several places on his outfit. With an idea in mind, Null decided to try and at least make an effort at making a stand.
With one grand leap, Null jumped from a rooftop onto a navigational sign that spanned the width of a Gotham City freeway overpass and waited for the dragon to make its way to him. With the time he had, it was enough that he could focus in on what he needed to target.
When the dragon got close enough for him to see Faust on it, he reached out with his hands and magnetically grabbed onto the metal in his headdress to yank him off the back of the dragon.
The sight of Felix Faust, tumbling off of the side of his own creature to the ground below was a sight that left a warm feeling in Null's gut. It didn't last though, as without a pilot, the mindless being decided to try and plow right into him. Null leapt off of the freeway sign as the dragon crashed into it and fell apart into chunks of flaming asphalt and filthy smog.
It caused panic for the cars driving by on the road below, bringing traffic to a halt and smashing into unlucky vehicles that had been underneath it when it had crashed. Hopefully no one had gotten hurt too badly.
One car that had been hit particularly hard caught Null's attention. He ran over to it and tore the door open with his magnetic abilities to check on the occupants inside. No one was dead, though they did seem a bit out of it. Thank goodness for small miracles.
He didn't want something like that to get anyone killed. Even if it was Faust's idiot dragon thing that would have caused it, no one else would have gotten hurt if not for him leading it there in the first place. Null might have been greedy and selfish, but he wasn't heartless.
If he had been heartless, perhaps he wouldn't have fallen prey to one of Faust's magical fireballs hitting him from behind.
*WHOOM!*
The blow caught Null on the back of his left shoulder, sending him spinning around and falling onto his face on the street. Despite being fire, it didn't feel hot. It was cold and piercing. Most importantly, it was painful.
Faust walked up slowly, readjusting the headdress on his head as Null screamed in pain on the ground as he tried to roll and pat out the fire burning into his shoulder, "Magical fire doesn't burn as hot as real fire, but it's infinitely more difficult to put out."
It did much more damage in a short amount of time to inanimate objects, but when used on living beings, the sheer pain it inflicted on them was the most attractive feature of the spell. Eventually, it would eat into the boy's body, but by then he would have died from shock due to the pain.
He would suffer before he died. He would suffer greatly.
Faust ignored the screams and stepped on Null's back, holding him down as he reached for the satchel that contained his prize. Null twisted his body and elbowed Faust in the side of the knee as hard as he could from his compromised position.
Seething in pain from the blow, an angry Faust stepped away and unleashed bolts of magical energy into Null to make him feel even more agony, "Stupid child!" He shouted at his prey, "Did you think you could hide that piece of the Miracle Slate from me? In this place, with all of the dark energy, the evil, malevolent essence settled in the very soil of this city, it's the perfect place for it! You could have placed it anywhere in Gotham, and eventually I would have found it!" He cackled.
Null couldn't quite hear him over the sound of his own screams. He honestly didn't care what he was saying though. He just wanted to make the pain stop somehow.
As Faust continued to torture Null, a clear force field formed in between the two of them. When his magical lightning hit it, it bounced right back at him and blew him off of his feet.
Zatanna landed on the highway and navigated her way around the mayhem that had been caused on the stretch of road, reaching the young man that she could see lit up by the dangerous fire covering part of his body. Acting fast, she pointed at him and induced her backwards incantation.
"Hsiugnitxe!"
Never had Null felt as much relief in his life as he did when the magical flames burning his left arm and left side of his chest went out. His first course of action was to violently vomit and shiver on the ground. Any attempt he made to try and push himself up failed miserably, as his body was just now beginning to try and listen to him again.
Zatanna frowned at the pathetic sight of Null still trying to flee with a body that wouldn't follow all of his commands. She was grateful that they had been so easy to find after the fight had begun. Faust certainly hadn't made any efforts to hide once he honed in on the Miracle Slate piece.
The sound of Faust standing back up caused her to turn her attention to the evil eternal sorcerer, "Attacking kids for magical artifacts, Faust? What's next, taking a sucker from a baby in a stroller?" She asked, prepared for a fight with the dangerous magic user, "He made you work for it though, didn't he?"
"Zatara," Faust spat Zatanna's last name distastefully at the sight of her, "You are still four millennia too young to hope to defeat me on your own."
"Well I'm sure you'll forgive me for at least trying, won't you?" She asked sweetly before pointing her wand at Faust, "Tae Skcor, Tsuaf!" Rapid-fire shards of concrete shot up and flew at Faust, but he was able to move behind one of the stopped and abandoned cars on the highway for cover.
A clawed hand emerged from the ground to grab at Zatanna, but she turned her attention to it for a quick spell.
"Pots!" She shouted, stopping the hand in its tracks before it could tear into her with its taloned grip.
Null sat up against a concrete barrier separating the highway lanes and held his exposed shoulder and chest. The purple fire had eaten right through that part of his suit and had left his skin underneath a raw, angry, red color.
By now he had calmed down, but his body still felt the effects of all of the things that had been done to him by Felix Faust. Now there was this new player that he'd never seen or really heard of before fighting him, 'Well at least it's not me over there,' He thought to himself as he reached into his thief's satchel to feel around for his possessions, 'I've just got to find an opening and get the hell out of here.'
Faust and that girl were too busy fighting each other, and she seemed to be acquitting herself just fine on her own. There wasn't any need for him to stick around. He had absolutely no place in a magical duel.
Just as soon as he had enough faith in his legs to get up and run for the hills without stumbling around and alerting anyone else to his presence, he would make his escape. He needed some kind of medical attention.
With the fight, Faust couldn't believe how things were turning out. Gotham City truly was the town of misfortunes. He was getting fed up with all of these obstacles getting in the way of something that very well should have been within his grasp already, 'Things started with that fool of a boy thinking he could-!' His thoughts turned his attention back to Null, who he saw trying to recuperate.
A vicious idea came to mind. Zatanna was talented. Very much so. Enough to give him trouble. To make things easier, he could just take advantage of that damnable flaw that all of the heroic ilk had.
He fired a barely controlled burst of sheer magical energy at Zatanna that she had to put up a magical barrier to try and protect herself from. But much of the errant magic flew through the air and hit the sides of the already damaged highway navigation sign hanging above the road.
It didn't stay that high for much longer.
With a startled gasp, Zatanna put her shields down and sprinted for Null who also realized what was happening and tried to move, 'I'm not going to make it in time!' She thought frantically.
Much to her surprise though, Null didn't try to run, knowing that in his current state he'd just wind up with some part of him crushed. Instead, he lifted his only good arm up, his right one. It was fortunate that the left was the one injured, because the right controlled his power to magnetically repel metal.
Still, it was a heavy load to take on with only one hand to use as a point of focus, "Hrrrrgh!" Null's arm buckled under the weight, but he didn't need to hold it up. He just needed to direct it away far enough so that it didn't crush him, "I've… got to…"
He couldn't move it. The sign was heavy most importantly too unwieldy for him to keep a good grip on. If he'd had more time to mentally prepare to bear the load, perhaps he could have gotten it, but as it stood now, no. At best he had maybe another second or two before his concentration gave out and it fell on top of him.
Faust smirked at the sight and the prime target of Null, wide open and vulnerable to attack. As he aimed to take a pot shot at the teenager, Zatanna actually did reach him and tackled him to the ground at the same time that she spoke an incantation, "Motnahp Mrof!"
The two of them phased right through the wreckage and even the street beneath them before the worst could occur.
Eyes closed, Null had his teeth clenched tightly in anticipation of his own death, but he never felt it come. He heard the horrible crash of twisted metal collapsing on itself around him, but it never touched him. Nothing touched him except for whatever had barreled into him and the ground against his back.
Cracking open an eye, he found himself underneath the highway looking straight up at the underside of the overpass, and at the very pretty magical woman that had been fighting with Faust moments ago, "…Hi," He said, at a loss for words.
"Hi," Zatanna responded to the younger man, frowning at the sight of the nasty wound on his shoulder. Even if that didn't wind up getting infected, he was going to be hurt for quite some time if that was left alone, "Are you alright?"
"I'm not dead, so I guess so," Null said as Zatanna got off of him. Trying to get up by himself wasn't a good idea. Just trying to push himself into a sitting position before took thirty full seconds of concerted effort on his part, "Gah…" He gasped, right hand moving to clutch his chest and shoulder, "Fuck!"
Timely in his interference, Faust cackled as he descended down from the highway, catching sight of Zatanna standing by his temporary target. This was the chance he needed to kill two birds with hopefully one stone, "You're at a disadvantage! You have to protect the mundane boy and fight me at the same time!" He bellowed, his eyes glowing with his own purple flames within the sockets, "It's just a matter of time until you make that one fatal mistake!"
He had a point. Null was trying. Zatanna could see that. She had no doubt in her mind that he would make a run for it if he could. She wasn't blind. Body language alone told her that he was doing his level best to force his body into some kind of desperate flight. But running as he was now would only give Faust a target, and she would have to stay near him to protect him.
She wasted far more energy spreading her magical barrier far enough to cover herself and Null. If things continued like this, she would wear down quicker, and in a battle of magic reserves with an immortal magician she was already at a disadvantage there.
Null moved himself into a tighter figure behind Zatanna and her barrier, looking through her legs at Faust continuing to push her back with his onslaught. This wasn't working. He was one step above being an invalid at the moment.
'Come on. I don't need the whole arm. I just need my hand,' Null thought to himself. He used his good arm to force his bad one to move in a circle at the shoulder despite the pain running throughout the entire thing. He needed both for more precise control over things. Using his right hand to flex the fingers on his left out to get them used to moving again, he inadvertently caused some kind of reaction.
The responding spark that erupted from between his fingers and shot off into the dark caused him to jump in surprise. That had never happened before.
How did he do that? He'd projected electricity. He'd actually done it.
He repeated as many of his previous action as he could remember to try. True, now wasn't the time to try and have a breakthrough, but Null couldn't help himself from thinking about it. His mind raced through every possibility he could think of to try and find a way to use it to his advantage, but he didn't have much information to go off of as to what had triggered it.
It would have to wait. Zatanna was caught in a situation where she couldn't get enough of an opening to try an offensive spell as long as Null was unable to evade Faust's attacks on his own.
The thing was, she had what Faust was after sitting right behind her, or at least the person who had what he wanted. The cards were hers to deal as she saw fit in this instance.
'I don't have to beat him here. I just have to make sure he doesn't get this piece of the Miracle Slate for the time being,' Zatanna thought, sparing a glance at Null before speaking to him, "Do you trust me?"
Jolted out of his own slapdash power experimentation by her query, Null looked up at Zatanna with an expression that screamed, 'What kind of question was that?' "No!" He blurted out, "Who are you people?"
"Explain it later!" Zatanna timed the dropping of her barrier with a responsive blast of magical energy to buy herself a second. She took off her hat and pointed the opening of it at the ground between herself and the thief, "Ekat su yawa, ot Sal Sagev!"
A portal opened up and Null scooted away from it before it could engulf him. Zatanna rolled her eyes and shoved him back towards it. He was stronger than she figured at first though, because he hardly budged.
Felix Faust saw the portal open up underneath them and his eyes went wide in horror. No. He was not going to search for the slate segment again after the last time some cut-rate magician had teleported it away from him. Forgetting himself and all the finesse that his chosen art had instilled in him, he lunged maniacally at the pair, desperate and completely unwilling to start his search anew, "NO!"
The slight hesitation that had occurred because of Null's unwillingness to go into the mystical, magical hole in the ground gave Faust enough time to crash into them both, sending all three into the portal.
The first thing that Null noticed about teleporting were the colors inside of the mystical wormhole he had fallen inside of. He would have been panicking more, but the majority of his focus was on the hands wrapped around his throat as Faust tried to choke the life out of him.
"You miserable, repugnant little bastard!" Spittle flew from Faust's mouth, madness shone in his eyes as he squeezed as tightly as he could, "You can't keep it from me!"
Null's hands reached up to Faust's face, but instead of pushing, he locked his palms and fingertips tightly around his head and unleashed a full burst of electricity into the man's skull. He howled in pain as his body locked up and he let go, flying off elsewhere in the space-time averting pocket that they were all stuck inside of.
The last thing Null remembered seeing was Zatanna not too far away from him, then a bright flash and everything went dark.
XxX
(The Next Morning)
There was now a new contender for worst night of Max Gabriel's life. Thankfully it was over, and better yet he hadn't died because of it.
He didn't think he would feel so sweaty if he were dead… unless he were in hell. But hell was probably way hotter than wherever he was, because he wasn't exactly in burning pain along every inch of his being. No, just his left arm and that side of his chest.
Null awoke to a mouthful of gritty sand and a burner phone vibrating inside of his suit. Pushing himself up, he spat the sand out and sputtered at the bits still stuck in his nose. He pulled the phone out of his suit as he sat up and took in his surroundings.
It certainly seemed as though he had been transported to a desert. His body had made a perfect impression into the side of a sand dune, and there was absolutely nothing around him to help him determine just how he'd gotten there.
Squinting at the harsh light, he answered his phone. He didn't think he'd get any sort of good reception in the desert, but lo and behold it worked just fine, "Hello?" He greeted, voice tired and raspy.
"Sparks? What the hell? You were just going to hide the stupid rock and I thought you were coming right back. What happened?" She had plenty of reason to feel alarmed. Null had never come back. She hadn't fallen asleep until around four in the morning and he still never showed himself again after heading out for something that was supposed to have been simple.
"Hold on," Null cleared his throat and diverted the path of the conversation to clarify something, "Did you wait up for me last night?"
A very unladylike snort was his answer from over the line, "No. Gross. I just woke up and your ass still wasn't here," Rose told him before making an assumption as to his whereabouts, "You're not dying a ditch or something, are you?"
Null started walking his way up to the top of the sand dune and stopped, staring straight ahead as he quickly figured out just where he was, "No. Not yet at least," He said absentmindedly as he continued to take everything all in, "…I'm gonna have to call you back a little later though. I'm kind of out of town right now."
"Where out of town? Blüdhaven? New York? Metropolis?"
Well, judging from the massive city sitting in the desert that he was looking at in front of him, Null had enough information to make an educated guess, "…Las Vegas," Of course, the iconic welcome sign sitting on the highway a mile away was also a dead giveaway.
Rose's silence over the line spoke volumes. He could only imagine how wide her mouth was probably open at the moment.
"I don't think we should mess with magic again after this," Null suggested in a very small voice, "I'll call you when I'm sure I've lost the hot, magic lady and the crazy, magical douchebag trying to kill me."
"Wait, what? Vegas? What did you get yourself in-?"
Null hung up the phone before she could begin in earnest and turned it off. She would be pissed that he did that, but he seriously didn't have time to break down all of the events of last night to her. He needed something to drink and something to wrap his damn chest and arm in. With that in mind, he began a long walk to the Las Vegas city limits proper.
XxX
(Three Hours Later – Las Vegas Strip)
Null garnered quite a few looks walking down the Las Vegas Strip when he finally reached it, but they were just in passing. No one really cared or gave him a second glance. In a place where you could spot an Elvis impersonator or someone else wearing an equally outlandish costume at all times of the day, his supersuit wasn't particularly notable.
The hood-like wrap on his head kept him from being beaten on by the sun as he wandered around, wondering what he was going to do next, 'I guess I've got to get a plane ticket back to Gotham City or something,' He thought to himself. A quick dig through his satchel revealed that he had a stash of emergency cash on hand, as well as a modest change of clothes.
This was all manageable. He just had to think about it like the time he was alone in New York City, only now it was Vegas, and the only thing that mattered here was getting away from there with the Miracle Slate piece in his possession.
He still had one of the four shards, but the other three belonged to a crazy guy that was out of his league, "Now I've got to find a way to take the other pieces from that Faust guy," He wasn't looking forward to meeting up with that man again, "How am I going to get them away from him? I haven't even seen them with him."
As if dealing with all of the hero and villain comings and goings hadn't been enough to begin with, now magic was entailed.
Smacking his lips, throat dry with thirst, Null opened the door to a convenience store and stepped inside only to find himself in what appeared to be a backstage area inside of some kind of auditorium. He stopped and turned to open the door behind him again only to find that he was nowhere near the roadside gas station store he'd just entered.
"Come on. You didn't even bother trying to hide."
"I figured there was enough weird stuff on The Strip to begin with, who would have noticed something like me walking around?" Null said, before deciding to find out just how close or far he had been to putting all of this behind him with a plane ticket before being taken elsewhere, "I saw planes pretty close to me. Where was the airport from where I was, by the way?"
"About three more miles down The Strip the way you were going, then you would have had to turn left and head another mile. It wasn't that far," Zatanna told him, turning away from the rack containing all of her stage outfits, "Faust would have probably attacked you by now, but wherever he ended up, it either wasn't anywhere near here, or you knocked him out with your little stun gun thing in the portal."
Null looked at the female magician, trying to size up just what her deal was. Very few people cared about his existence until they wanted something from him. Even heroes, which she seemed to be, "I would have thanked you for stepping in and saving me, but then you went and teleported me to Las Vegas. Again, I might have thanked you for that too, but I'm not old enough to enjoy anything cool here yet…" He trailed off, not knowing her name.
"You can just call me Zatanna," She told him, smiling to try and ease his tense demeanor, "And you must be Null. Nice to meet you."
Null sighed, knowing this whole song-and-dance of people that he didn't know being aware of him, "Let me guess, Justice League?"
At the mention of the global superhero force, Zatanna seemed visibly uncomfortable, "Not really. I left a while ago because of some… things. Irreconcilable differences, if I have to call it anything," Her departure from the Justice League hadn't exactly left her on the best of terms with several of the members, "I was looking for you because you have something very important."
Instead of waiting to hear her out, Null reached into his satchel and fished out the Miracle Slate piece that he had almost gotten killed over one night before, "You mean this stupid thing, right?"
"Yes. As long as you have that you're a target," "Felix Faust won't stop coming after you until he gets his hands on that, and I can't let that happen."
"What would he wish for that's so bad that you can't let him have it?"
"More sorcerer's power than you could possibly imagine. If he winds up with that much strength, the entire world is in danger. There might not be anything that could stop him," Zatanna said gravely, trying to get across the seriousness of the situation, "But it's not the wish itself that's the most immediately dangerous thing. It's the granting of the wish."
Null rolled his eyes. It was just his luck. There was always a catch to everything, and it never paid off for him, "Don't tell me it's like some monkey's paw that'll screw you over somehow after you get what you want."
That was a particular way of putting it. Though not exactly how Zatanna would have worded it herself, "If by 'screw you over' you mean kill thousands of people just for the energy to make your wish fit in with reality, then yes, it'll screw you over."
Well that was certainly a cold slap in the groin.
"What?" Null asked. Perhaps she had misspoken. What were the chances that she didn't know what she was talking about? "Are you kidding me?"
Zatanna brushed her fingers across the surface of the stone segment in Null's hand, her eyes fixed in a glare as she gazed upon it. Her disgust at the idea of anyone using it was clear, "The Miracle Slate is dark magic, and you're using it to make something happen that shouldn't be. Do you have any idea how much power that takes?"
Null shook his head. He didn't have any clue. He was still wrapping his mind around the fact that magic was legitimate, let alone that someone could do that much damage by accident, "But… but the visions never showed anything about that. It just tells you that you could get a wish. Anything you want. I thought the cost was just what it took to put the damn thing together in one piece."
"It showed you those things and left out the negative side because it wants to be used," Zatanna explained, "Dark magic is twisted, perverse. It wants to be used. It eats at people to use it, it doesn't care who it is. And if it's powerful enough, it's willing to reward you for it. Trust me, kid. When it comes to the cost of magic, nothing is free."
The thought almost made Null sick. He would have killed how many people exactly? Sure, he would have been filthy, stinking rich. Rich enough to never have to worry about another bill or anything like that for the rest of his life, but he wasn't that kind of a monster.
Even so, he'd gone through all the trouble of getting the slate segment that was in his possession. He'd gotten his ass handed to him just to keep his paws on it. After all of that, he couldn't just get nothing for his trouble. And it wasn't just for him. Rose needed part of the money that they'd been banking on too.
'So I lose again?' When was he ever going to make the big score? Here was yet another time when something so lucrative was almost dropped into his lap, and yet he couldn't take advantage of it because of who it would hurt, 'Maybe I'm just too soft for this whole thing?'
Though Zatanna couldn't see all of his face, enough of it was visible for her to see that he was visibly dejected due to his circumstances, "If you give that piece of the Miracle Slate to me, I can keep it away from Faust. I can put it somewhere he can't reach. If you don't have it, he won't have any reason to go after you anymore. It won't be your problem."
Null let out a sigh of resignation before nodding, "Alright. That's a good idea," He admitted, taking his gaze from off of the floor to level right with the magician's, "…How much are you willing to give me for it?" He said, entirely serious in his proposition.
Zatanna recoiled away from the thief, physically reacting to his startling question, "Excuse me?"
Null had absolutely no problems repeating himself, "How much money… are you willing to give me… for the stupid slate piece," He said, making things as clear as possible, "Did you seriously think I was going to deal with all of this crap and just walk on home with my tail between my legs? Without getting even enough money to cover a plane ticket home? You're out of your mind."
It didn't matter what wound up happening to him. He was not going to absorb a loss on this. He was coming out on top somehow.
It took Zatanna around half a minute to come up with something to say in return, "You're out of your mind!" She exclaimed, still astonished at his level of dedication to personal mercantilism, "Do you understand just how dangerous that thing you're carrying is? What it can do?"
Yes, he did. But it wasn't that Null was callously disregarding human life. Quite the opposite actually. With what he knew now, he wouldn't have used it even if he had all four pieces in his possession. And he wouldn't have sold it to Felix Faust either… even in a world where the man was more likely to buy it off of him that try to murder him and simply take it.
No, he was selling it to Zatanna, a hero. Someone who was afraid of its power and planning to lock it away where no one could ever abuse it. The only kind of person he was willing to sell it to.
Sell it. Not give it. Sell.
Null held up the Miracle Slate shard for visual emphasis that he was indeed thinking with more than his wallet, even if his wallet was leading his train of thought, "I have one piece. I can't do anything with one piece. The jackass in blue can't do anything even though he has three pieces. If I'm picking up on what you're saying, as long as all four pieces aren't together, they're harmless. So if what this thing can do really scares you that much, if you really want it that badly, freaking pay me."
Maybe one day UNICEF would get into the business of pawning magical artifacts. But until then, Null was the man to see. At least as far as this particular magical artifact went.
Zatanna couldn't believe this. Null really was Catwoman's protégé, wasn't he? "He'll just kill you and take it. Or worse, torture you to find out wherever you hid it, and then take it."
Those things sounded unpleasant, but not enough to discourage him, "Well then you should buy it off of me before he does, shouldn't you? You look like you can throw me a good chunk of change for it. You sure don't look like you're hard-up for cash," He then carefully eyed the wand she had on the vanity near where she was standing, "Or are you just going to take it from me by force?"
The fact remained that realistically, Null had little to no leverage. If Zatanna was a bit more aggressive than he'd made her out to be, he didn't have high hopes for his chances of making it out of wherever they were with the slate piece intact. That was just a realistic look at the way things were.
He could try to fight if it came down to it, but he was hurt, and she was magical. She'd probably turn him into a frog or something, just to be mean about it after she beat him. But that was just a chance he had to make if he wanted to make a lick of profit off of the time he'd spent and the pain he'd felt.
"The thought crossed my mind. I could, you know."
"You'd be stealing from me."
"Stealing from a thief," Zatanna shot back immediately, "Face it, you're not leaving my side until you hand over the slate piece, kid."
"I didn't do anything wrong. I haven't stolen anything since I got amnesty," Null waved the enchanted piece of rock around in the air, "I found this, fair and square. I didn't take it from anyone. You would be stealing from me. You gonna add that to the kidnapping?" Zatanna looked at him in confusion, and he was more than happy to explain himself, "You basically kidnapped me."
"What? I most certainly did not!" She seemed offended at the mere thought of such a thing.
Pouring it on thick, Null began ticking off points on his fingers, "Uh, let's see. You threw me into a magical hole in the ground against my will. I'm miles away from home and no one who actually cares about me knows where I am-," The fact that he didn't have anyone who would have cared that much was another point. That wouldn't have lent credence to his argument however, so he didn't bring it up, "-And you won't let me leave until you get what you want. This might not be a kidnapping, but it certainly has all of the familiar dressings of a kidnapping."
When all of that was put together and taken out of context, it did look pretty bad, which was why the entire guilt trip was a part of Null's pitch to sell the idea of her buying the slate piece away from him.
"Like I said before, it's not like I stole it from anyone. It's mine," He said, trying to drive his point home once and for all, "I broke my back for this thing. Why should I give it to you for free after all the time and effort I dumped into it? I'm not that nice."
There were a myriad of things that Zatanna could do at that moment. Turn Null into some kind of defenseless, furry woodland creature, snag the slate piece and send him on his way. Take the slate piece and wipe his mind so that he forgot how he even lost it. Many different solutions.
…But all of them were morally unsound to say the very least.
One solution existed that was well within her means, and all it required was that she part with some money that her family easily had. It was just that paying someone so that she could keep a madman from ending the world seemed so wrong somehow. And yet here they were.
"I can't believe I'm about to do this," Zatanna said, reaching between her eyes to hold the bridge of her nose, "How about one million dollars?"
Null's eyes were luckily covered by his hood, because they went wide at thinking of having so much money available, "One million dollars!?"
Zatanna misinterpreted his exclamation as outrage for being low-balled. If only she had waited for him to recover and give an answer. Unfortunately, she had a need to get that thing away from him quickly, "Fine, one million's not good enough? How about two million?"
Not trusting his voice at the moment, Null simply extended his arm to confirm a deal. Zatanna held back a sigh of relief as she moved across the room and shook his hand.
He couldn't believe it.
'Did I actually win for once?'
XxX
(Metropolis)
Lex Luthor rode in his limousine after checking in at one of his company's many facilities in town, but it wasn't a rest in between his day-to-day responsibilities. Every waking moment was spent making moves, and analyzing. Analyzing his enemies, analyzing every move he could take, and analyzing the results of his own actions.
On the television inside of the passenger's portion of the car he sat and watched a quick thirty second blurb on the evening news about how LexCorp would soon begin a philanthropic project of installing broadband towers across areas lagging behind in internet capabilities across the United States.
"The work will be quick and internet providers in the places where the towers go up will bid for the right to use them for service," The suit-wearing man behind the news desk explained to his audience behind the camera, "LexCorp spokespeople says the company wants to do its part to bring faster internet to rural areas to help bring all of America into the wireless age. If results from the installation are successful, LexCorp says they will look into installing more towers internationally."
"Sir," Luthor's female bodyguard said to him after the story ended and the anchors on-screen moved on to another story, "I'm still wondering why you wanted this information released to the public."
Luthor regarded her for a moment before looking away dismissively, "Miss Graves, there will be no way to hide the construction of my towers. Now just in case the Justice League ends up watching me, everyone else will be watching as well. And what everyone else knows is that these towers are going up for the betterment of America and legitimate business for LexCorp."
It would all be done legally, there would just be a little bit extra inside of the towers, projecting something else.
Everything would work out fine though. After all, broadband towers produced radiation to begin with. Now they would just produce a different kind to go with the usual. A lot more of it.
XxX
(With Null – Las Vegas, Nevada)
Null had underestimated how much money Zatanna or her family had in their possession, because she was able to amass two million dollars for him quickly. Quicker than he'd ever expected. If anything, he'd expected her to try and get a loan from one of the other superheroes who were obviously very well-funded.
But it had taken her only hours to get everything together. And there it sat, two million dollars, crisp, bundled, stacked inside of a suitcase all for him.
This was a thing. It was happening. He was holding it in his hands. It existed.
It looked like real money, felt like real money, and smelled like real money. He so desperately wanted it to be real money and not some magical illusion or mind screw. For the time being, 'two million dollars' was the most beautiful set of words ever put together in the English language as far as he was concerned.
With a casual exchange outside of the venue hosting Zatanna's magic show, Null gave her the Miracle Slate piece and in return gained a black briefcase full of greenbacks.
'I can't wait to get back to Gotham and see the look on Rose's face when I open this up,' Null thought to himself, then envisioning all of the things he could and probably would do with his share of it. Share, because Rose was getting some of it. He had already said that he would help her with her own money needs, and he planned on sticking to that, "Well, I guess that's that then."
He'd gotten a lot out of the Miracle Slate. Not what he'd wanted, but he wasn't offing an entire city full of people for a wish. That wasn't how he ever wanted to operate.
Zatanna was still sore with having to part with a significant sum of money to get the slate piece away from him, but he had given it up in the end and was now bowing out of the picture. That much was something she could show gratitude for. Though he would be taking more of a souvenir back with him than money if she left things as they were.
"Wait," Zatanna said, eyeing Null's dust-covered form. Most notably, his injured arm. He had been walking through the desert and had sand and dust covering the white cloth of the gauze he'd used to cover his wounds, "Not yet. I can't just let you go like that. Let me see your arm," Null curiously handed the appendage in question over, but he didn't know exactly what she could do that would help him out, "Xif siht s'yob mra!"
Just like that, Null felt the shooting pain that had filled his arm left side thoroughly vanish. He waited for Zatanna's spell to finish and peeled away some of the paltry wrappings he'd covered his burned arm with to try and keep it from infecting. There was no blood, no discoloration, nothing. He had full mobility again and everything.
"You fixed it," Null said quietly, working his arm around to make sure that everything was alright with it, "You already paid me. You didn't have to do anything else," He certainly hadn't asked for or expected anything else.
Zatanna shrugged, "I can't just let you walk around like that for God knows how long. I'm sort of supposed to help people," She said with a smile, "You've got to learn to trust some people."
"You kidnapped me," Null helpfully pointed out in regards to his at times rightfully placed sense of paranoia.
Zatanna threw her arms into the air in exasperation, "Again with that? I thought we went over that already. I wasn't kidnapping you, I was-."
She was cut off by the sounds of abject terror coming from farther down The Strip. Faust rode a gigantic sphinx statue brought to life, flanked by dozens of undead, shuffling along in filthy, tattered suits that seemed to be in style back in the 1950s.
"-…Trying to protect you from him," Zatanna eventually finished, "…Holy shit."
Null didn't know what to focus on first; the huge sphinx statue that seemed much sturdier than the dragon he'd tricked into defeating in Gotham City, or the undead folks that comprised Faust's minions for the evening, "Are those zombies? More zombies? I just fought one the other night! That was enough!"
Zatanna had locked her eyes onto Faust and was prepared for a fight, "Well, he's a necromancer, and Las Vegas used to be a pretty big mob town. If he was out in the desert I guess he could conjure himself a nice little force from all of the people probably buried out there," She turned quickly to Null and handed him the slate piece he'd just given her, "I don't want this getting close to him. If it looks bad, get the hell out of here before he can get past me."
She could put it into her storage dimension, but he would break through it if he defeated her. Even if he killed her, he could study her dead body until he learned what he needed to crack her spell. He could even bring her back from the dead with his necromancy and have her take it back out herself. If she wanted to keep it away, just in case, it couldn't be left in her hands.
Null knew he would regret it, but he just had to say it anyway, "You don't want help?"
His body language and manner of speaking signified that he wanted to do anything but, despite his asking. While Zatanna could have done with some backup, a two-bit teenage thief wasn't going to cut it. It would put him in danger needlessly.
"Faust is dead serious. You pissed him off like nothing else last time around," The female magician said as she mentally prepared a series of spells that she planned to open with, "He was strong enough to take on the original Justice League members at one time, and that was before he sold his soul for more power."
Point duly noted, Null stepped back as Zatanna moved forward and pointed her wand at the head of Faust's sphinx statue. He would do as he was told for once and let the big guns handle this. He'd already gotten his fair share of beatdown from Felix Faust. She could handle it. This was what heroes were supposed to do.
The first focus of her spells happened to be the massive fountain out in front of the Bellagio, "Niatnuof fo Oigalleb! Ot em!" Every ounce of water was drained clear out of the fountains and swept around Zatanna in a massive wave that she sent flying down the street at Faust and his zombie horde. The crushing torrent was enough to knock most of them to the ground, but that hadn't been the only reason she'd made that particular move, "Shalf Ezeerf!"
The entire street was covered in a gigantic sheet of jagged ice, with zombies frozen into it every few feet. Even the sphinx statue's legs had been frozen over, but the massive stone creature simply pulled them free and continued to stomp along.
Faust chuckled at Zatanna's attempt to stop him, "A fine combination. You do well tearing apart the undead, but I wonder how you'll handle things when you have to take on flesh-and-blood."
It was then that Zatanna noticed too late what hadn't been an immediate threat. From a distance, she hadn't been able to see it, but as the sphinx drew closer, she had been able to see it better, "Null, don't look at the sphinx's forehead!"
An arcane talisman was dug into the statue's forehead, radiating magical energy with the express purpose of ensnaring anyone who looked at it. Quite an easy thing to have happen when a gigantic statue was walking down the busiest street in Las Vegas at night.
Zatanna counted hundreds of people slowly ambling behind the statue from far off, steadily getting closer. Once they reached her, they would undoubtedly try to kill her, per Faust's commands, and she was quite certain that there were actually far more people involved than just what she was seeing. They weren't exactly moving quickly. He was using them as primary shields. Whatever she did had to be precise enough that it didn't put anyone else in danger, and for the most part she had to keep the fight right where they were.
If the battle moved around, more people would get involved. The bastard.
"So show me," Faust taunted as he began to blast at Zatanna with spell after spell, "Your talent is supposed to be incredible for your age, stronger than your father apparently. So why not use it the way you did in Gotham City? You're only defending yourself!"
Null sat back, out of sight, out of mind. Zatanna was acquitting herself well with the brand new handicap of having to find a way to retaliate without endangering anyone else. He couldn't really just take off and leave her either.
After all, it wasn't like he could just go and catch a plane while this was going on.
While there wasn't much he could do that would actually help in a straight-up fight, Null did take it upon himself to try something. Spotting a manhole cover, he hefted it over to him with his magnetic powers and began compressing the edges of it as tightly as possible. With as thick as the metal was, the task was taking him a while and time wasn't exactly on their side.
Finding a moment for an opening, Zatanna made her move, "Pots!" She cried out, focusing her spell on the sphinx and freezing it in place. At least that was one problem solved, the creature turning Las Vegas into mindless slaves was now stuck in one place.
Faust muttered in annoyance. It was a setback, but not enough of one to stop him. At least not until the head of the sphinx was cut clean off by a metal disc flying through the air. It fell twenty feet to the ground and broke apart.
Just like that, the spell cast over the crowd of hundreds broke, and when they realized what was going on around them they wisely fled, remembering that treating the sphinx statue walking down the street like an attraction wound up with them all blacking out.
Screams and yells filled the air as people ran for their lives. Null's 'Woo!' of success was lost amongst the noise, but Felix Faust was not done yet. Taking notice of the intruding brat, he dropped down from the sphinx, radiating magical energy as he formed an attack meant to cut through the crowd and eradicate Null. Zatanna couldn't take proper aim at Faust due to the people running around all of them.
Null realized that he was being targeted and sprinted away from the people as fast as he could. Faust grinned, as even though he had cleared the crowd he was now a much easier target, "Die!" He avoided the blast, but the shockwave was enough to send him flying into a bus stop bench and awning.
Faust stalked his way towards Null as he got up, posting one knee on the ground. Instead of trying to stand the rest of the way back up, he reached into his satchel and set his piece of the Miracle Slate on the ground. So he was surrendering? What a delicious thought. But it was far too late for that. He would still die, but perhaps he would make it quicker now.
Instead of offering the artifact to the powerful sorcerer, Null held it in place with one hand and lifted his other arm into the air, set to bring it down forcefully. And that was where everything stopped, and this time it wasn't because of a spell.
Faust and Null both froze for long enough to take in the situation.
"…What do you think you're doing, boy?"
"I'm gonna fucking smash this thing."
"What?"
The Miracle Slate had lost all value to Null the moment he was told that it would cost human lives in mass quantity just for it to work. Whether it existed any longer meant nothing to him, and he wasn't going to get killed keeping a hold of it without taking it out on the person who had inflicted his suffering upon him.
He was vindictive like that.
"I sold it to Zatanna. I already got paid for it," The battered thief told Faust, "She doesn't want to do anything but keep it away from you. We don't need it, and without even one of these, you're screwed… so-," Faust made a lunge for Null, aiming his magic his way, only to watch Null drop the point of his elbow down on top of it and shatter it into broken slivers.
The voices in his head telling him about all of the riches that could be his. Every carnal pleasure on earth that he could have for himself. It was all gone.
And good riddance. He daydreamed enough on his own without a glorified rock doing it for him.
Faust immediately stopped in horror. He couldn't believe what he had just seen.
A stupid boy with barely enough raw power to defend himself had been the biggest thorn in his side for the last two days. Not only that, but he had outright ruined everything! He broke it! Broke it like a petulant child who decided that if he couldn't have something, no one could!
Faust could only gasp quietly at his lost tool, "No…" He rasped.
Null was rather surprised that simply breaking it had actually worked, "Huh," He said, standing back up and stomping on what was left to try and turn it into as much rubble as possible, "I was expecting a force field, or a poof, or a demon made of magical gas to come out of it, or something. That wasn't very mystical."
"No," Faust couldn't handle it. Once again, the path to unthinkable power had been closed off to him. After all of that research and work, it was all foiled by one lone hero and a brat, "No. No. No! NO!"
Hearing the dark magician's broken shouts of astonishment was easier on Null's ears than a classical symphony. Still, there was only one acceptable payment for the physical trauma that had previously been inflicted on him.
Null reached out with both hands and clenched both fists, focusing solely on Faust and grabbing a tight magnetic hold of him, "Hey, asshole," He said once Faust was trapped, "You're still wearing metal," He wore a lot more than Null first saw during their fight in Gotham City. And both of his arms worked again.
Using the control that both hands granted him, Null took advantage of Faust's lapse in concentration. He magnetically lifted Faust off of the ground before he could cast another spell and slammed him into the road before he could react.
Then he did it again, and again, repeatedly.
He had a lot of pent-up frustrations to vent that had built up since the night before, and Felix Faust had been the source of a great many of them. Null was a teenager, prone to bouts of reactional anger, he had superpowers, and fewer moral restraints than many other people.
Zatanna had also been shocked by how Null apparently resolved the conflict. While destroying a piece of the Miracle Slate had been well within her capabilities, the part of her that researched the occult had only thought to hide it away safely. Now there was absolutely no chance that someone else could use it again.
"Yeah, setting me on fire was hilarious, wasn't it? I heard you laughing! Well this is what I happen to think is funny!"
But it was time to step in before Null turned a human being into hamburger on the busiest street in Las Vegas. He didn't look like he was stopping until the figure he was lifting and slamming turned a fair enough shade of red to match all of the blue that comprised his robes.
"Okay, okay, okay," Zatanna gently set a hand on Null's shoulder to coax whatever rage he had left out of him, "Let him down," She rolled her eyes when Null simply let him go from twenty feet in the air to fall on his face with a morbid smack of wet flesh off of pavement.
Null felt strangely content with life as he stared down the road at Faust's motionless body, "Did I kill him?" He asked.
Zatanna shook her head as the two walked over to survey the damage, "He's kind of an immortal entity. So no, you didn't kill him," Not for a lack of trying though, "Renosirp egarots noisnemid!" She grabbed her top hat and pulled it up Faust's body, starting at his legs, apparently into a different plane of existence, for temporary safekeeping. He wasn't going to be moving so much as a finger for a while without medical treatment, let alone mounting any escape efforts.
Null didn't really care about Faust's well-being one way or the other, "Eh, whatever," He had also seen enough magic for one night to last a lifetime. He just wanted to leave, "Can I go back to Gotham City now? I need a shower and a bed,"
He had also missed a full day of school, but he didn't care quite as much about that.
"Did you really just destroy the Miracle Slate?"
Null paused at that. If he didn't know any better, it almost seemed like she sounded impressed by him, "A piece of it, at least."
"It's been around for thousands of years. Whole civilizations have been destroyed by it."
"Well, if someone had done that sooner I wouldn't have had to," Max said before eyeing Zatanna speculatively, "...You're not angry, are you?"
"No, just surprised. You did a good thing. Something I should have done the second you sold it to me, I admit," The slate shard might have been playing its mind games on her too to a degree, 'That thing was a nasty piece of work.'
It might not have been able to convince her to use it, but it did enough to make her think that there was a better use for it than destroying it, which would only leave it existing for someone else to possibly use it later.
A bonafide thief had saved countless people, not just in the immediate future, but likely for centuries to come. She wondered if he even realized it.
Chuckling to herself, she held her hat up in front of Null to get his attention and pulled out the briefcase from before, "Ta-da! Don't lose that now. If you do, it's on you."
Taking the warning to heart, he kept a tighter grip on the case than before, even as he looked around at the damage that had been done to the city's most important stretch of road, "So do I have to stick around to help clean this up?"
"Why, did you do any of it?" Zatanna asked rhetorically, "Nope. Go on home, kid. You're nothing but trouble," She said with a quick wink, "Ekat siht yob ot Mahtog Ytic!"
A multicolored hole in time and space opened up right beneath Null's feet, immediately dropping him into it, "Goddamn it, again with the portal!?" He cried out as his voice got farther away inside of his pathway home.
Zatanna couldn't help but grin at Null's reaction to falling into her portal. He wasn't as much of a brat as he seemed. He was still woefully selfish, but he was young and didn't particularly have a reason to have any strong personal sense of justice.
That was fine though. Everyone couldn't be a hero. That was what made the few who were so extraordinary in the first place. But goodness, if there wasn't a well of potential there somewhere inside. She had seen it. She wondered just how many others who had come across him were aware of it as well.
It was hard for her to say if she wanted him to ever realize it or not, because it would either make him a hell of an ally to good or a fitful adversary as time carried on.
"With the way he's wired in that head of his, probably both," She commented to herself before turning to try and begin fixing up all of the destruction caused by Faust. She had time. Between where he was currently imprisoned temporarily and with the number Null did on him in the very end, he wasn't going to be trying anything before she could get him to a truly secure destination.
XxX
(Some Time Later – Gotham City – Null's Apartment)
Zatanna's portal dropped Null at the most recognizable building in Gotham City, the main building for Wayne Enterprises. From there it was fifteen minutes across the rooftops and on the trains to make his way home. He was thankful for that, because he didn't have the energy or patience to waste time trying to get his bearings on where he was.
Dressed in the civilian clothes he had carried in his satchel, Max dragged himself into his apartment, clutching the briefcase in his right hand as tightly as possible. Rose nearly jumped off of the couch once she heard the door open and saw him walk in.
He looked filthy and exhausted, but she wanted answers, "So Las Vegas, huh? And how did you end up there?" Max didn't say anything, slowly shuffling along on the hardwood floor, "Hello? Are you a zombie that took over Sparky's body?"
Max didn't say a word. He'd been battered, bruised, burned, taken thousands of miles away against his will before being hurled back, and had ingested nothing over the last 24 hours other than water and sand. He didn't want to stay up talking about his adventure. He was exhausted and he wanted to go to sleep.
But before that, he took the briefcase in his hand and slammed it on the kitchen table. He was halfway back to his room when he heard Rose undo the latches and open it up with a soft gasp, "One million dollars?" He heard her whisper before she ran to the small hallway that led to the back rooms, "How did you make that much money?"
Max sat his head against the door frame to his room, sorely wishing that he could end this conversation quicker than he already planned on, "It's supposed to be two million. I already took my share," He said, much to her added surprise, "Goodnight."
Rose let him slink off into his room without pestering him anymore and watched him drop face down on his bed, not even bothering to shower or even take his shoes off before falling into a deep sleep.
She could hardly believe it. He meant what he said when he told her he was going to help her pay off the four million dollars on her head. She let out a laugh of disbelief to herself before going her own way for the rest of the evening.
Dropping back on the couch from whence she came, Rose couldn't even be pressed to pay attention to what was on TV anymore, still shaking her head, "You are the weirdest thief I've ever met, Sparks. I swear to God."
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