AU Where Billy Batson Is Investigating Some Random Magic Issue Because His Powers Have Been Depleted

AU where Billy Batson is investigating some random magic issue because his powers have been depleted as a consequence, meaning he temporarily can’t be Captain Marvel, but he somehow accidentally tips off Zatanna who’s working in the watchtower that day. She senses the sudden lack of magic in Fawcett City and tries to contact Marvel to warn him, but he can’t be reached so she calls up a few members of the JL to check it out because they want to make sure he’s okay.

Batman, Zatanna, The Flash, and Wonder Woman start wandering through Fawcett with no plan, just looking for some kind of sign that Cap is nearby, when they see this kid in a tattered red hoodie open a PORTAL, and they’re like what the fuck?! So they slip through the portal right before it closes and suddenly they’re in this infinite magical cave, and the boy is pissed. And he’s really not open to questions.

“What’s your name, kid?”

“None of your business.”

“Where are we?”

“Also none of your business.”

The heroes aren’t idiots, though. They know this kid has something to do with Cap’s disappearance, so they ask him questions until he finally gets tired of them and says, “I’m his…protégé.”

“Cap has a protégé?”

“Yes. That’s me.”

“Prove it.”

“Superman works as a news reporter at the Daily Planet.”

“…Oh shit.”

Batman tries to talk to him about how he shouldn’t know this kind of stuff but the kid hits him back with, “You have like ten kids who know everyone’s identities too. Why are Captain Marvel and I suddenly breaking protocol?” Point taken.

So now there’s this magical kid who’s apparently in line to become the next Champion of Magic who knows all of the JL’s secrets through Captain Marvel, and they still don’t know WHERE Cap is so they take him back to the watchtower and try to get as much info from him as possible. It only makes them more confused.

“Where is Captain Marvel?”

“He’s stuck in eternity.”

“What does that mean?”

“He doesn’t have a corporeal form right now.”

“He- what the fuck? How did that happen?”

“His powers were depleted after a big fight last week.”

“But is that reversible?”

“That’s what I was working on.”

“And what were you doing, exactly?”

“I was…trying to help him get his strength back.”

“Okay? How can we help?”

“Umm, you can’t.”

“Is he okay? In eternity?”

“Yeah yeah, don’t worry about it.”

“How do you know he’s okay?”

“We…have a…shared consciousness?”

“Excuse me??”

“I take it back.”

“You can’t just take that back?!“

“It’s Champion of Magic stuff, okay?! You wouldn’t understand!”

The kid’s story just keeps getting weirder and weirder until he refuses to answer questions, leaving them more in the dark than they were before.