Disclaimer:
~Big thanks to DC comics for making the fun characters, and to Lilith Langtree for making the universe to play in.
Author's Note: The fourth part of Zee's story. It's an interesting chapter, with a little bit of action. A very big thanks to my editor and beta readers for helping with the edits.

Chapter 4

I tried to clear my mind of all distracting thoughts. It was a little difficult to do, since I was still trying to process everything that Dad had told me yesterday. It was difficult to get used to the fact that everything I had known was not as it appeared to be. However, I was doing the best I could under the circumstances.

My dad was having me practice mediation at the moment. He taught me the basics of meditation last night after his great reveal about me and what was going on. He told me that clearing my mind would be able to help enhance my focus, something he tells me that is crucial for practicing my magic. I was a little frustrated that he still hasn’t told me much about it, so that was one of the things on my mind.

One of the other things on my mind was how my body felt weird. I don’t know how to describe it, but it definitely felt out of whack. It probably had something to deal with the fact that I still had mixed gender parts. How would you feel if distinct pieces of you were one gender, while others were the other? I was still confused about why my former form was slowly peeling away.

Elissa guessed that the more I used my magic, the more of my true form would be revealed. She said that it didn’t start until that chase through the school. I think she may have been right, but I think it started the night of the talent show.

I snapped my mind back to try to clear my thoughts again, opening my eyes for a brief moment. Everything around me in the room was floating about a foot off the ground! I immediately started to worry, when I heard things crashing to the floor, including myself. Opening my eyes, I was lucky that nothing ended up breaking; although, my butt definitely felt sore. I didn’t realize that I was floating in the air, either.

As I wondering if anyone had heard the loud crash that was issued by everything falling to ground, I began to pick everything up and tried to put them back to the way they were. As I grabbed my computer games, and tried to reorient the stack, I laughed. I looked around the room and laughed again as I noticed that my room still looked like it belonged to a boy. I shook my head and just tried putting things back to the way they were.

I figured that one day soon most of my stuff would be swapped out for items that belonged in a teenage girl’s room rather than a teenage boy’s. I felt a bit sad, seeing that the life I had known was slipping away, piece by piece. Yet, I couldn’t help but feel a little excitement at the prospect of gaining magical powers. I wasn’t sure when the day of my final change would come, though I was betting on Elissa having a field day when we would have to go shopping for the new things that I would need.

I felt my face flush with embarrassment at the thought of being dragged from store to store picking up things that I would need. I thought to myself, ‘A female teenager being dragged around from store to store getting things that she should have been steadily getting through her life.’ That idea seemed better suited for a primetime comedy than a real life drama.
After I had finished putting my things back into some semblance of order, I felt a tickle in my throat. Instinctively, I coughed to try to clear it. I guessed that my throat wasn’t hydrated enough during the time I spent meditating.

‘Strange, I thought that my saliva trickling down would be enough, since my dad said that it was similar to just being quiet in class,’ I thought to myself.

I cleared my throat again, and began to change out of my pajamas. It was definitely a lot trickier to do now. The pajama pants that I typically wore were more like capris with how they felt, now. My legs were a lot longer, and it was definitely a challenge to find anything that fit me.

I managed to find some shorts that still fit me, even though my now longer legs were going to be cold with so much skin exposed to the elements that what I was used to. I was wondering how tall I was; thus, I went over to my backpack, pulling out a pencil and a ruler.

Heading over to the door frame, I stood up straight and marked off how tall I was with the pencil. Then measuring with the ruler, I was amazed that I now stood five foot and nine inches tall. I was astounded that I had picked up at least twelve inches from my original height. I always wanted to be taller, so this just added to my happiness. Although, as I thought about it, I was probably going to end up costing Dad a lot of money with the new wardrobe I was going to be needing.

I sighed as a began to realize what else was in store for me, becoming who I was born to be rather than who I was appearing as. Though, I found myself wishing the rest of my boy form away from time to time.

After finding a large T-shirt, that now was a lot smaller on me, I made my way down for breakfast. It had been a very interesting night, thinking about everything that Dad had talked about. I just did my best at accepting what he told me and tried to move on from there. But, it definitely wasn’t easy. I mean, how often do you get told that your life is a lie?

My dad was in the kitchen buttering the toast when I walked in. He looked up at me and drowsily said, “Good morning.”

“Morning, dad,” I squeakily replied, and then tried to clear my throat again.

‘That was strange,’ I thought, ‘my voice hasn’t squeaked for years.’

“So, was your first meditation really that painful?” he quipped.

“Yea,” I replied, nursing my bony butt.

‘Was it just me, or did my voice sound higher?’ as I started to wonder if something else was going on.

I continued, “You didn’t warn me and all my stuff would leave the ground though.”

My father sipped some of his hot coffee before replying, “Yep, I probably should’ve warned you that self-levitation and possible levitation of the surrounding area could have happened while in a meditative state.”

I groaned. “Thanks for the warning. Maybe next time I’ll do it in another room.”

He nodded and sipped his coffee again. “Perhaps one of the other spare bedrooms.”

He yawned loudly and then sipped some more coffee. I had rarely seen my dad this tired. Something must be up with him if this was happening.

“Are you okay, Dad?” I asked, clearing my throat again when I thought I heard it squeak.

“Yea,” he said, with a note of uncertainty in his voice, “I’m just having a hard time waking up this morning.”

“Okay,” I stated warily, “but, you’re usually a morning person.”

“I guess I had a hard time sleeping last night, for some reason.”

“Would I be that reason, Dad?”

My dad nodded quickly before drinking more of his coffee. I gulped when he nodded, and cleared my throat again. Something was definitely changing about me, since I felt perfectly fine this morning.

I did feel off by putting my dad through a sleepless night though. Apologetically, I quickly added, “I’m sorry, Dad. I don’t know why all this is happening now, but I know we can get through this.”

I reached out my hand and grabbed his that was sitting on the counter top. He set down his coffee and grabbed my hand with his, looked me in the eye, and replied, “Thanks, Zee. I will do my best to teach you everything that I know.”

I giggled when he called me Zee. ‘I guess it’s the best name that can work for me at the moment, since I’m not exactly one gender or the other,’ I thought to myself with a smile.
As I went about fixing myself some breakfast, I had to clear my throat a couple more times. I was wondering what was going on when Elissa came in for breakfast. We had asked her parents if she could stay the night, and they saw no problem with it.

“Good morning,” she yawned, as she stretched out her body from the sleep before.

“Hey,” I replied.

“Morning,” my dad replied, sipping his coffee.

“What was with the loud bang this morning?” she asked, grabbing some of the toast that I had made.

“I was just meditating,” I replied. “Although, I didn’t know that me and everything would be off of the ground when doing it.”

“Well, next time a little forewarning would be appreciated.”

“I’ll try to remember that.”

As I was munching on my toast, Elissa was looking at me strangely, as if I had grown a second head or something. “Yes?” I asked, feeling like bacteria in a petri dish.

“Something’s different about you today, from yesterday,” she replied, looking at me to see if she can try to spot the difference.

“Oh? What’s that?”

“I can’t quite put my finger on it.”

She continued looking at me while she and I ate our breakfast, and while my dad read the morning paper.

Then, suddenly, she snapped her finger and exclaimed, “There’s something different about your throat!”

“My throat?” I nervously replied, and began feeling it over to see what she meant by that.

As I moved my hands over it, it felt a little more narrow than what I was used to, and there was only a minor bump across the front of my neck, not a larger one where my Adam’s apple should be.

“Your voice is higher!” she exclaimed again.

“You’re right! I was wondering what that tickle in my throat was.”

I thought to myself, as I ate my toast, ‘And another piece of Zane disappears.’

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A few minutes later, my Dad folded up his newspaper and said to me, “After you and Elissa are done with breakfast, it’s time to start the next step in your magical training.”

“Oh? Is she going to learn some magic?” Elissa said excitedly.

I looked at him with eager anticipation. I was ready and willing to begin learning magic. Knowing that I would someday be able to perform the feat of magic that my dad did yesterday, only made me excited about studying magic. I had a really enthusiastic look plastered all over my face, ready to begin to understand what I could do.

“Not quite,” he replied.

That just deflated my excitement a few notches.

“What do you mean?” I replied.

“Well, before you can learn magic, you must learn how your magical energies can be channeled,” he explained. “For me, I simply speak what I want to happen backwards. Other magic users use made up words for various incantations or another language that they wouldn’t normally speak in public. What I want you to do is make a list of how you would want to say your spells.”

I sighed heavily and thought, ‘So much for making magic this morning.’

He continued, “After you have that, I want you to look up the words for the classical elements, since you need to have a good grasp on those before we continue on to more complex magics.”

“Looks like you have to start from somewhere, Zee,” Elissa commented.

I shot her a look and said, “Yeah, and you get to help me.”

“What?” she exclaimed.

“You always said you wanted to learn a new language. Anything that I don’t use you can,” I retorted, sticking my tongue out at her.

Elissa just shook her head and replied, “We’ll see.”

“I have many different language books in the library that you can use to search through, including a few books on cryptography, in case you want to code your words.”

“Zee! That could be interesting, talking in code to cast your spells!” Elissa called out.

I tapped my finger against my face and replied, “I believe it would be. Well, let’s finish breakfast and get looking!”

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I don’t know how long we were at in the library looking at all the books my dad had on various languages and cryptography, but it seemed like an eternity. Elissa and I both looked tired of searching through all the books. There were three large stacks of books in the room.

The first stack was all the books that we hadn’t yet gone through. We pulled off every book we could find that had a foreign language or was about speaking in codes. That stack was a lot taller when we started our task. The second stack of books was of all the books we tossed out that I didn’t want to use for my magic. They were mostly some of the more common foreign languages, such as Spanish, French, and Mandarin.

The third stack of books contained all of my candidate languages. There were also a few speaking in code books mixed in there as well. I was interesting in speaking code, as well as a few of the older languages that I had picked out. In the short stack, there was one book on talking in code, as well as books on Greek, Latin, Celtic, Norse, and Coptic.
Most of these languages I had picked out were from my love of ancient civilizations and their mythologies. Coptic, as I had found out, is the most recent descendent of ancient Egyptian. I had loved watching “The Mummy” and its sequels, so that book was a must in the stack.

The Vikings were cool and I loved how they beat the Spanish to America by four hundred years. Although, some archaeologists were still debating on whether or not they actually had reached the continent.

Greek and Latin were musts, since I loved Greek mythology. The Greeks, in my opinion, were very clever when it came to dealing out various punishments for the people who offended the gods in some manner. Latin was picked out since the Romans pretty much took over the Greek mythos in some manner and that if I learned Latin, knowing French, Spanish, and Italian shouldn’t take too much effort.

Elissa looked over at me and took a huge sigh, “I think we just finished looking at all the language books in your library.”

I took a deep breath and replied, “Good, now we are going to have to put back everything except this little stack.”

I pointed to the small stack on my right that only six books in it.

“From so many to so few,” Elissa muttered under her breath as the two of us began to pick up our mess.

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A couple of hours and good sandwich later, I had drawn up my list of words meaning fire, air, earth, and water. I had only picked them out from Greek, Celtic, and Norse. I also wrote them backwards like my dad does to cast his spells. I just did that on a whim, since I thought that maybe since we were family that it would work for me in a similar manner.
Elissa looked anxious and excited, even more than I was. I think she was just excited about seeing real magic, even though I was the one who would be trying to use it. I guess she was figuring that illusions were nice, but the real deal would be better. I was feeling very nervous. I was betting that a lot could go wrong if I did something wrong, since magic seemed like it could be very unpredictable.

We headed out the kitchen door after lunch, and I had my list in hand. My dad had set up a spell circle outside in the woods. He made told me that he made sure that he respected how nature preserved the clearing within the woods. Dad and I were both Wiccans, which now knowing that we were both spellcasters, made sense. But, being at one with nature and believing in the Triple Goddess, was more than just magic to me. It helped me in defining a spiritual path that my soul was to take, magical or not.

Elissa and I trudged along the path through the foliage to the spell circle where my dad was waiting. The spell circle would serve as a place that I could practice magic outside and not worry about effecting the surrounding environment. He also told me that there was a more advanced circle in the house that he would show me when I was ready.

Dressed in simple clothes, I felt like the bugs would have an easy target if they decided to come after me. My clothes were also loose on me, since using my own magic would probably accelerate the removal of the Zane “skin” from me. As we walked, it felt like my nerves were intensifying as we drew closer to the circle. When we got there, I saw that my dad had laid out five stones in the shape of a pentagram. Upon seeing that, I was now beginning to wonder how much of my magic was related to Wicca or if it was something else.

I saw him sitting there on a large rock nearby, dressed in exercise clothes. I thought that it was not much stranger than what I was currently wearing. He was sitting very still, almost like he was meditating. I glanced at his eyes and they were closed. I hope he hadn’t fallen asleep. My dad said that meditation was critical to practicing and perfecting spellcraft. So, I was guessing that practicing magic was no different than practicing any other kind of physical activity.

“Are you ready to begin?” my dad asked, not moving from his position or even opening his eyes.

Elissa jumped, thinking that my dad couldn’t perceive the two of us arriving at the glade. He got up from his spot off the rock and apologized, “Sorry for startling you, Elissa.”

Elissa held her hand across her heart and was breathing heavily. “It’s okay, Mr. Zatara.” She added sarcastically, “Thanks for getting my blood pumping.”

“Don’t mention it,” my dad replied. He looked over at me and said, “Do you have your list ready?”

I nodded, and said, “Yup, picked out my top four preferences.”

“Good, did you have a good feeling about those?”

“Yea, they were from a few cultures that I have been interested in for a while.”

My dad nodded, and then instructed me to stand in the center of the penticle. He told Elissa to sit on the rock so she can watch, and try to remain quiet so that I could concentrate. He had also set up a candle, a fan, a water wheel, and a small rock on the far side of the clearing.

“What I want you to do now, since you have four different languages chosen with the four elements picked out and some operative words, is to choose one set for each of the elements.”

“Why one set for each?”

“So, we can see which of them produces the best results, to narrow down which tongue you should use for your spellcasting.”

“Makes sense,” I replied, in a low tone.

“When you’re ready, focus on what you want your magic to do, and it will do what you tell it to do,” my dad added.

I glanced through the list of possibilities, with a verb that went along each element. Each of the sixteen possibilities was there, four different languages for the four elements. I circled each of my choices, and then set the sheet of paper down before me.

Concentrating hard, I focused on the small rock. I was focusing on trying to crush that rock to gravel. I tried to envision in my mind's eye the small rock breaking apart into smaller pieces and those pieces then falling away to the ground. I pictured the words that I had chosen for the manipulation of the rock and earth. I began to say the words under my breath, to get a feel for them, and then I said, in the Celtic language, “Crush the rock.”

To my amazement, I saw the rock move hover in the air for a little bit and then saw some cracks starting to form around it. The cracks deepened a little bit as I saw some dust fall away from the rock from where it was beginning to break up.

A few seconds later, the rock fell to the ground and shattered even more. I felt a bit woozy after the rock hit the ground. I shook my head quickly to ward it off.

“Well, that was something,” Elissa said, with a note of sarcasm in her voice.

“What did you expect, a bunch of fireworks?” I retorted.

“Well…, yeah, I guess I did.”

“Elissa, Zatanna is only a neophyte spell caster at the moment. She has the potential for firework-like magic, but she is still learning,” my dad stated. “The overall effect of the rock was good, I take you were trying to crush it?”

I nodded, while breathing a little more heavily than usual.

He nodded and then added, “All right, try another one and let’s see what happens.”

I looked down at my list and picked out the words I had chosen for the element of air. I focused my thoughts on the fan that was sitting next to the shattered rock. It was not moving in the slightest, as there was no breeze blowing through the forest clearing where we were at. I used my mind’s eye and imagined the fan blowing at full tilt in a strong gusty wind. Then, I opened my eyes and said clearly in the Norse tongue, “Wind blow through that fan.”

I looked around and didn’t see anything happen. I felt like that combination didn’t work, when I saw the leaves in the nearby trees rustle. I thought, ‘That’s odd. There was no wind before.’

I quickly shifted my gaze over to the fan, and I saw it slowly begin to move. I then felt a stronger breeze pick up, and began blowing through my hair. The fan began to move faster and faster, as I felt the cool breeze gain strength until it felt like a normal cooling breeze during the summer. The breeze kept blowing for a little while and then everything was calm once more. The fan began to slow down to a stop.

“That was a little cooler,” Elissa commented.

“Yeah,” I agreed, “But, why did it start out slow though?”

“Well, sometimes the wind does that. Don’t you notice it?”

“Not really, I guess I’d better pay more attention to my surroundings.”

Elissa nodded. My dad said, “It was a good attempt, now I want you to try to manipulate the water.”

“The water now?” I rolled my eyes, “This should be fun.”

I sighed deeply, and tried to clear my mind again. It was a little more difficult this time, as I was getting a bit frustrated at my dad’s comments. It was as if he was being impartial about my attempts at magic, and not as supporting as I had known him when I was learning his illusions. There was something strange going on with my dad, and I wanted to know what.

I tried putting those thoughts out of my head and focusing on the water before me. There was water sitting in a small bucket on the ground. There was a water wheel positioned above the bucket, which led from an empty tub where the water had originally been. My guess is that my dad wanted me to move the water back to where it had come from.

I concentrated on the water, and trying to visualize water leaving the bucket and heading back into the tub. I tried to see the water moving up through the water wheel. I opened my eyes slowly, and in the Greek language I said, “Water into the tub.”

Slowly, I saw the wheel begin to turn, and small waves begin to form in the bucket. The water then began a slow ascent into the water wheel and back into the tub. I thought that I had done a good job with that task and then I felt something on my head. I put my hand up there to see what it could be. It felt wet to the touch.

‘Odd,’ I thought, ‘it wasn’t supposed to rain today.’

I looked up into the sky and saw a bunch of clouds hang ominously overhead. Rain began to fall steadily as the water continued to make its way up into the tub from the bucket.

“Great, Zee. I wasn’t dressed for rain,” Elissa said sarcastically.

I rolled my eyes at her and hoped that the rain wouldn’t last too long. Elissa and my dad tried to get out of the rain and under the eaves of the forest. However, about half a minute later, the rain stopped and the water was back in the tub, moving down into the bucket again. I now noticed the small hole in the tube that the water could flow through into the bucket. My guess was that my dad wanted the water to go back through the hole into the tub.

“That was definitely unexpected,” my dad said, returning to his spot on the damp rock. “What did you say?”

“I said, ‘Water into the tub.’”

“Great job, Zee,” Elissa retorted. “But why did it rain?”

“My guess is that Zee wasn’t focused on which water was to go into the tub,” my dad surmised.

“I guess so,” I replied disappointingly.

“Next time, focus on the specific source that you are moving things from and into.”

I nodded and then replied, “Time for the fire then?”

He nodded and let me make my attempt. I thought I had heard a gasp coming from them, but I shrugged it off, intent on lighting that candle. There was only one set of words left on the page, and I already knew those without even having to look at them. I focused on the candle, the remaining object to be used. I saw in my mind’s eye the candle wick igniting with fire. That fire was burning hot and bright. I opened my eyes, and said backwards, “Light the fire on the rock!”

The candle lit almost instantaneously. I was surprised that it happened so fast that I didn’t realize that the fire was burning tall and high. I watched it closely, hoping that it didn’t leave the candle. The flame burned tall for about a minute, before it calmed down and was burning like a normal candle.

I breathed a sigh of relief as the candle fire didn’t get out of hand. Just then, sparks flew off the nearby rocks and fire lit on them.

“Whoa!” I shouted, jumping back quickly.

Elissa and my dad both jumped back as well as the rocks lit up with fire.

“What happened?” asked Elissa.

“I’m…I’m…I’m not sure,” my dad stammered.

“What am I supposed to do?!?” I yelled.

“Put it out!” Elissa yelled.

I tried thinking hard about how to put it out. I looked over at the water tub and bucket, but the flames were blocking my way. I tried to figure out until I realized that I can manipulate the water to put out the flames.

I quickly said backwards, “Water put the fire out!”

The water leaped out of its containers and splashed out against the rocks. The fire was put out quickly. I collapsed down to the ground, feeling exhausted.

“Quick thinking,” my dad said, coming over to me.

“Thanks,” I said, panting.

“Are you alright?”

“Yes, Dad. I’m fine,” I replied, still sounding out of breath.

“Why don’t you head back inside and take a break. Using your magic consciously for the first time can be taxing on the energy of the person.”

I nodded, and struggled to get to my feet. Elissa ran over and let me lean on her as we made our back to the house. As I looked back at the spell circle, I saw my dad was trying to pick up the pieces of my mess. I felt bad that I let my magic get out of control. I knew that I was going to have to work on that, but at the moment, I wanted to lie down and rest. As we headed into the house, I could feel myself losing consciousness.

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A few hours later, I woke up from my bed. Although I didn’t exactly remember how I got there. The last thing I remembered was feeling very tired, and being led back into the house. As I sat up on my bed, I felt refreshed, even more than from a good night’s sleep.

I got off my bed and headed over to the bathroom to wash up. I thought something seemed off when as I walked over there, but I couldn’t quite place my finger on it. Flicking on the light switch, I gasped when I saw my reflection in the mirror.

Looking back at me in the mirror was a very pretty black-haired girl of sixteen years. Her long black hair went all the way down her back. The once loose shirt was now much tighter, as her new breasts had shrunk the space in the shirt. The shorts now were missing a bulge that was there only a few hours before. They also were tighter around the hips now that they had arrived, along with the larger butt.

I thought to myself, ‘Zane is now gone. Zatanna has arrived.’

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Author’s note: Please leave comments at the the bottom of the story. I will appreciate anything you have to say or ask about the story. It doesn’t have to be long and involved, I would just like your reaction to the story. Thanks, your feedback helps!