Fan Fiction ❯ Mumbo Jumbo ❯ The Beginning, or How it all Began ( Chapter 1 )

Disclaimer: This here fic is mostly made of conjecture on my part, and doesn't need to be taken seriously to be enjoyed. I'm also doing it for a friend, who was always wondering why does Mumbo do what he does? So enjoy, and remember, I don't own any of these characters.

 

 

For a moment, the room was silent, and the audience seemed awe-struck. The man on stage looked about nervously, sweat running down his forehead, and the back of his almost-bald head.

 

Then a loud boo erupted, followed by a complete chorus of them, and a series of foreign objects were thrown at him, most of which he avoided, except for a tomato that landed on his forehead, and dripped juice down into his eyes and face. With a practiced restraint, he sighed, and picked up his case, into which he pushed all of his magic show paraphernalia, and walked off, his shoulders slumped.

 

As he walked backstage, he almost collapsed, a mixed feeling of anger, humiliation, and sheer utter depression warring within him. What followed seemed to him like a dream, naturally…he had a tendency to lose touch with reality on nights like this, and that was probably the only thing keeping him relatively sane.

 

He opened the back door to the club, and walked out, still carrying his case, and sighed heavily when he felt a drop of water hit his scalp, followed by another, and another, and another. `Great, just what I needed….rain,' he thought to himself, running his hand over his head and wiping away the tomato residue, wiping that onto his pants. He kept his brown overcoat close to his body as the rain started beating down on him, but a shiver still ran up his spine. `It's not fair….they used to love me, they did….and now? I'm lucky if I don't get tomatoed to death…' he went on in his head, like any man who's vocation was obsolete. `No one really understands the joy of magic anyways…..they're all morons obsessed with their awful teenybopper music and their tween idols….' He snorted then, feeling happy for a moment, as though he was the only person who knew how immaterial all these things were, and that everyone else were just cattle.

 

With a little spring in his step, he started whistling, a happy grin on his face as he headed home, swinging his case by his side and thinking many happy, private thoughts.

 

 

*****

 

Of course, all good things must come to an end sometime, and usually sooner than later, as was the case when he returned to the small building that had become his home. It was a brownstone-styled motel, cheap rents, but even cheaper service, but for him, it was a fairly even trade off, since he had a habit of fixing all of his problems on his own. He walked into the old, smoke-stained lobby, and up a flight of stairs, still whistling a happy tune and swinging his case around, before he reached the third floor, which was where he made his home. He noticed, as he was walking, a white folded piece of paper tacked onto his door, for room 312. He had a dark, sinking feeling as he continued forward, and removed the folded sheet.

 

He flipped it open, and his heart sank as he read it.

 

“To whom it may Concern:

Your rent is more than month overdue, and as this is the third instance of this, you have approximately one month to pick up all of your belongings, and find yourself a new residence, as well as deliver your last payment, before you are thrown out, or reported to the building's owners and banned from the premises.

T. Cluett

Your Landlord.”

 

The man slumped against the door, his hand reaching into his pockets on reflex, digging out his keys after several minutes of moping, and inserted the key into the lock, forcing it to turn after a moment. Then he dragged his case in, dropped it, and locked the door behind him, walking over to a ragged-looking easy chair and plopped down into it, sighing loudly.

 

“What'll I do now?” he asked himself quietly, running his hands over his-still damp head, fingers running along the two pointed parts of his hair, his long nose actually looking like it was drooping for a moment.

 

Then he sat up straight, and turned on the television set, flipping through the channels, bored-like, and stopped on a news channel.

 

“ --And in other news, the Teen Titans foiled a bank robbery by the villain Cinderblock this evening…”

When he heard that, he angrily twisted the knob on the set, turning it off. He decided he'd clean up his props, and check to see if he'd broken anything.

 

He snapped the case open, and started lifting out different things, before seeing something odd.

 

One of the props was a long, thin magic wand that seemed to sparkle brightly. The reason why this was out of place, was because his magic wand was thicker, dull-looking, and faded, and was resting right next to this newer one.

 

“Oh my…” he picked it up with two fingers, and held it loosely, before standing up and giving it a little swish. He smiled when he saw a shimmer of light as he moved his arm. “Wow…this must cost a pretty penny…” he mused, deciding to go into the small bathroom to check out how it looked.

 

 

*****

 

 

Looking at himself in the mirror, he had the sinking feeling he was looking foolish, but tilted his head down to check the wand. “Okay, let's see now….” He started, waving the wand.

 

“Abra….kadabra!”

 

With a sudden poof of green smoke, a stuffed bear appeared in the sink before him. He whistled, his eyes going wide as he reached down and poked it lightly. “Wow…it's real….”

 

He tried again, with another magic word.

 

“Alakazam!”

 

This produced a similar puff of smoke, and changed the bear into a clock.

 

With a grin, he decided to try out the magic words that had marked his career for as long as he could care to remember.

 

“Mumbo…Jumbo!”

 

This time it was a giant woosh of green smoke, which at first set him to coughing as he waved it away. Finally, once it had cleared, he looked down at the clock and saw…a clock. He looked up, disappointed, and his eyes literally bugged out of his head at what he saw.

 

He went into the room a balding (though not bald), over-middle-aged man wearing brown slacks, suspenders, and a white button up shirt with short sleeves, and now he was wearing a black tuxedo with a black-and-red cape, with a top-hat perched precariously on his still-balding head, with a small, pointed white beard. He was also wearing a black eye mask…and his skin was a shade of mostly blue blue-green.

 

“Oh my…” he said to himself, looking as stunned as he could.