Wings of the Eagles

Prelude: And Watch As They All Fly Away…

Or

Why The Mass Media Sucks Eggs

Their names were David, Dylan, and Brandy. All of their parents were very rich. All three of the teenagers had had highly privileged lives. And at the moment, they were trying to light a homeless man on fire.

They had no real reason for this task. Sure, Brandy's mom had recently gotten a divorce and totally remade her body with surgery, while her father celebrated his new found freedom by running around with women not much older then her. And true, David's mom and dad worked so much they barely saw their son. And Dylan's parents…well, let's just say that somewhere in life, they lost the heat in their hearts that provided the certain something that defined humanity.

But despite those surely not very bad problems, the three teenagers had it pretty good. They had all the money they could want, and their parents had friends to ensure no one would hassle their children for small things. Their parents were sure that their kids would grow up to be fine people.

So here they were, squirting lighter fluid on a homeless man, who was either extremely drunk or suffered from an extreme mental illness, as he offered no resistance except for squirming around against the trunk of the tree they had found him sleeping against, wrapped in stinking rags that had once been clothes, and making some muttering groans of protest. The main person behind the idea was David, who wanted to see what would happen. Plus, the idea of doing what he chose to someone else, no matter what it was, gave him a charge that no amount of drugs had been able to provide. Brandy was curious as well, and Dylan, well, he was so stoned it was a miracle he was standing up.

The three had nothing against the guy they were covering with accelerant. But hey, he was a worthless bum! No one would miss him! Hell, they would be doing the world a favour, right?

Perhaps psychiatrists could better theorize on the terrible rage and cruelty these children had within them, and the origins of that sickness. What mattered was the fact that they were going to set a human being, one who had never seen them before and would have never wished them any malice or harm if he had, on fire, simply because they thought it would be a kick.

"What are you doing?"

David had been fumbling for his lighter when he heard the voice, and the stoned and drunk teenagers, still not down from their drug use and the buzz their brains had gotten with the concept of lighting a man on fire, turned around.

The man who had confronted them wore blue jeans and a dark leather jacket that he had zipped up. His hands were in his pockets, and he wore one of those French hats that artists wore (What were their names, David pondered. Barrets? Purvies?) on his head, with a wide brim that covered his eyes when he leaned his head down. He was doing that now, and appeared to be looking at the ground, due to the slight tilt of his head. It was a visual trick however: he was indeed looking at the three teenagers.

"What do YOU care?" David snapped, angered that he had been interrupted.

"Well, I do. Unless my eyes are failing me, and my nose, I think you are dousing that man behind you with some kind of flammable liquid. Now…might I ask…just why are you doing that?"

"Who cares! Go away!" Brandy half snapped, half giggled, her rational mind in a fog from the pot she had smoked, and also, it wasn't that well developed in the first place.

"Um, no. It looks as if you are going to light that man on fire."

"You have a problem?" David said, hunting for the switchblade he carried. He'd show this punk what happened to people who tried to show him up. David had played football for a time, before he had been kicked off the team. His teammates and coach had sucked anyway.

"Yes. I do. It appears we have three little punks trying to commit a murder for no real reason then doing it. From that, I can only gleam two things. You need to be stopped, and damn, are you pathetic."

"WHAT!" David yelled, his anger surging up from the taunt. He finally found his knife and flicked it out. Forget setting the bum on fire. He was going to carve up this guy first.

"Oh, scary." The man said.

And he lifted his arm, and a white line of energy suddenly shot from his palm, striking out at great speed and removing the knife from David's hand before he knew what happened. He gaped at the man.

"Scarier." The man said. He had had both his hands in his jacket pockets before, and one was still in it. His hand twisted, and suddenly the black jacket shook a bit and then the black vanished, replaced by a bright white colour. Removing his hand from the switch that changed the colour, Savior pulled off his beret and let his spiky white hair spill out from underneath the hat. The three teenagers could finally see his eyes, and they did not look happy.

"Oh shit! It's one of the Titans!" Dylan yelled. His cocky arrogance and violent anger had faded as fast as they appeared, an illusion of youth and inexperience, lacking any real substance, David took the path of many a sadist: faced with someone who could fight back, he ran.

For two steps, before Shimmer strands lashed out and wrapped around his legs, jerking him off his feet. Brandy had tried to escape herself and failed as well: Dylan had mostly stood there, his brain so messed up he couldn't figure out which way was up or even that he had been grabbed and jerked off his feet.

Savior crossed his arms as the Shimmer pulled the struggling David in front of him.

"Put me down! Let me go!" David yelled.

"Why?" Savior asked.

"Do you know who I am?"

"Should I?"

"Hey, put us down! We didn't do anything!" Brandy yelled.

"Judging from the way you smell, I'd say possession of some kind of controlled substance. Enough that I could smell you when you walked by. What else, oh yeah, YOU WERE ABOUT TO SET A MAN ON FIRE!"

"But we didn't!" David said. Savior had to bite back the urge to slam David into the ground head first.

"You don't get it, do you? You were about to commit an act of intentional, barbaric cruelty against an innocent, defenceless man. Do you even have any idea what you were about to do? Why?"

"We were bored." Brandy blurted out. She never did know when to keep her mouth shut.

"YOU WERE BORED!?!??!?!" Savior thundered. He gritted his teeth and yanked David in closer.

"I had hoped you people would have learned a lesson from the Final Night. But, as always, you learn NOTHING. Fine then. I guess it falls to me to teach you a lesson!"

"Hey man, leave us alone!" David yelled.

"No. You wanna set people on fire, big man? You think that makes you important? Think it gives you power? I assume by your clothing and jewellery that your parents are probably well off. You know, they ought to declare a law against rich people having kids. Spoiling kids rotten does NOT produce good results." Savior snapped, his anger boiling through him, both at what the children had been about to do and from memories dragged up from his own childhood, of his own peers, selfish and self-righteous, thinking the world owed them anything they chose, that the people without as much money as them were little more then playthings to be used as they chose and then discarded.

And most of all, if it hadn't been for his mother, that Savior, aka Noel Collins, probably would have turned out just like them.

"Let me tell you the truth, you pieces of shit. You are NOTHING. ALL OF YOU. You have no power. Any power you have is an illusion, smoke and mirrors, easily dispelled by someone with true power! Someone like me. This world owes you nothing. But you certainly owe the world something. Maybe your parents didn't teach you this rule, so I will do it now. Actions have CONSEQUENCES. And an act like yours…there is a high price to pay indeed." Savior growled.

Through the fog of drugs and self-righteousness that controlled David's mind, a sudden fear finally bloomed, as his animal mind temporarily gained control and sent David a primitive message he mostly read on a subconscious level: he was face to face with a superior predator, and it was MAD.

And unable to best it on an animal level, David instead turned to the techniques of the higher beings.

"You can't do this! You're a superhero! Superheroes don't do this!" David yelled.

"Yeah, if you do this you'll be a bad guy man!" Brandy added.

Savior's expression did not change.

"Two things, you scum. One, you had better never visit Gotham. And two…I am not a superhero because I have to be. I am because I CHOOSE to be. This is no law bound into my genes or powers that says I can't teacth you a lesson because it doesn't fit with what the classic archetype of what a 'superhero' would do."

"We'll sue you!" Brandy yelled.

"Yes, I am certain you will try. That's the kind of people your parents most likely are. Nothing they do is their fault. It's always the fault of something or someone else. Your honour, my client's children are suffering from severe emotional problems because some bully metahuman wouldn't let them carry out their psychopathic desire to burn a vagrant!" Savior said in a mocking lawyer tone. "Try it, you pieces of shit. I helped stop the Lord of the Night, and I contributed a great deal of blood, sweat, and tears to rebuild this city after he turned it into a charnel pit. The public would turn you into a pariah, and the government, well, they'd throw it out so fast it would probably hit Mach 2. At least, I hope they would. People have notoriously short memories these days."

Savior lifted his hand and started stroking his chin.

"But I know just what will happen if I bring you in. You'll be out in an hour. Your parents will hire lawyers whose great cost is only outnumbered by the great deal of dirty tricks they can use to arrange your release, make the charges go away, hell, even spin the media so it looks like the justice system is picking on some poor rich children. And you go on your merry way to try and hurt someone else for whatever sick reason you have. You know what? I don't care. You children did a bad thing. And if the justice system won't punish you, I SURE AS HELL WILL."

"You can't!" David yelled as Savior shot out more Shimmer strands, grabbing onto the tree. The bum that the three rich kids had planned to burn had already passed back out. He wouldn't even remember the incident when he woke up again. As the three strands extending from Savior's right hand slid across the skin of his arm and stopped at the back of his shoulder, Savior looked at David in absolute disgust from the begging tone, a child who will not accept either reality or the pain of it.

Too bad, so sad. It was time to teach these kids about life.

"WATCH ME."

And the Shimmer retracted violently, throwing Savior through the air. David and Brandy screamed as their sense of vertigo kicked it. Dylan had already passed out: Savior let him sleep. He was the minor one: this boy and girl needed the lesson.

And what a lesson in how unpleasant it is to exert power over others for no other reason then because the person found it fun it was, as Savior flew through the air, tossing out another Shimmer line and swinging along the building. The strands holding David and Brandy bobbed and thrashed, distorting their vision and smashing any kind of perspective they could get as Savior swung, leapt, and bounced along the buildings.

The two kept screaming. Savior ignored it. He dove down, bleeding his momentum away with Shimmer lines before he landed on a truck.

"Hey, run Forrest run!" Savior yelled, and thrust David and Brandy down towards the road. The pain of having their feet dragged at such a speed convinced the two to move their legs like they were running. But humans cannot run as fast as cars, and it quickly developed into a series of "run a few steps, trip, get flipped or spun around by the Shimmer, drag feet until the heat becomes greater then the disorientation, repeat". Savior stood on the truck, manipulating the two like puppets with the Shimmer. He glanced over to the other side of the road and then yanked the two sideways so they were running against traffic. The teenagers screamed as some cars bore down on them…and then Savior yanked them back off as he bounced off the truck and flew up to another building. A Shimmer loop, followed by forcibly changing the energy so it had an elastic quality, threw Savior and the three kids high into the air.

"Having fun yet?" Savior said, as he finished his upward movement. It was quite a sight, as he stood there with his arms crossed, if you could call it standing when you're in thin air and upset side a few thousand feet above the ground. The two just started screaming again as gravity took over and Savior fell. He sighed and flipped over, catching a building and tossing him across a skyline. He grabbed a nearby telephone pole as he flew in his horizontal voyage and twisted himself around and up. Shimmer strands extended and looped under his boots as he landed, and then he began running along the telephone wires.

"AH! STOP! STOP! WE'LL BE ELECTROCUTED!" David screamed.

"No we won't! Birds sit on telephone wires and THEY aren't electrocuted!" Savior said. "Unless, of course, they accidentally touch one of the poles and are grounded-OOOPPPSS ALMOST TOUCHED THAT POLE!" Savior yelled as he leapt over one of the wooden pole attachments that the wires rested on. The very loud scream indicated that the two definitely did not like the joke.

Leaping off the wires, Savior swung back into the city and bounced/pulled/swung his way across the skylight until he finally came to rest on top of one of the tallest buildings in Jump City. It had a tall pointy spire at the top, much like the Empire State building, and Savior balanced on it while he looked at the bright lights of night time Jump City.

"What a magnificent view!" Savior commented. The two teenagers were too busy screaming for help to notice. Savior's eyes fell onto one of the other very tall buildings in Jump City: it was about 1 ½ miles away.

"Hey, do you think we can jump all the way from here to there?" Savior asked.

"NOOOOOO!"

"Oh I'm sorry, today is Opposite Day!" Savior said, as he leapt back. He grabbed the spire with twin Shimmer strands, and then with all the power he could muster, he made the strands throw him forward.

"So this is what it's like to fly…" Savior muttered to himself as he spiralled across the sky towards the building he had aimed for.

And fell about ten feet short, plummeting down towards the street as the two teenagers shrieked in horror.

"Ah nuts, missed it!" Savior said, seemingly unconcerned that he was falling head first towards a hard concrete road. "Now let's see: 78 stories, 10 feet per story, add in factor of acceleration thirty two feet per second per second…that means I have to do this right about…now."

Shimmer lines flew from Savior's hand, striking the ground. Savior fell as they bent under him like a spring, the concrete underneath them cracking as they took up the momentum. Savior's head (or more accurately, his hair) stopped ¾ of a foot from the ground, and then the coiled wires under him sprang and he flew sideways, where he did several flips and landed, the impact driving him to his knees.

He got up, brushed himself off, and then dumped his unwilling passengers in front of him, laying down Dylan gently. Dylan had slept through the whole thing, and Savior knew he was just a tagalong who was too stoned to know what he was doing. David and Brandy had been the ones who had really wanted to see the bum lit on fire. The two were now far too stunned and shocked to move. Savior scooped them up via their ankles and brought them in front of him again, dangling them upside down before him as he lightly slapped their faces to bring them back together.

"Now you listen good, you little fucktards." Savior hissed. "You will go back home. You will get help, or commit suicide, or whatever, I really don't care. You mean nothing in the grand scheme of things anyway. NOTHING. You are a speck of a dust on a speck of dust, and I have a feeling you will always be that way. You're far too weak and pathetic to ever ascend past such a thing. But know this. If I ever find out you did anything like this again, if I ever see your faces on the news or even on the STREET, I will hunt you down. And I'll do more then take you for a ride. I'll reach into those wasted, cruel brains of yours and cross so many wires you'll wake up every day screaming and go to sleep every day crying. This is a city I protect, and I don't care how much money you have or how important you think your parents are. YOU ARE NOTHING. YOU WILL ALWAYS BE NOTHING. And if you think I will tolerate nothings committing acts of cruelty and indifference, you are wrong. Now get the hell out of my sight!"

Savior tossed the two down again. He spat in their general direction and turned away.

And saw the camera.

It was sheer chance, actually. The reporter who was now staring at Savior, a female who had said nothing to avoid alerting the teenager, had been one of many, a small fry at her station, who had been sent to cover some political meeting. But she had gotten turned around when leaving, and had gone out an obscure side door rather then the main door where all the other reporters were. And she, and her cameraman, had stumbled onto one of the Titans dangling two teenagers in front of him while he spoke to them in an angry threatening tone. The camera was too far away to really pick up any sound, but it had certainly picked up Savior's image.

The reporter would have fled, except Savior was over to her side before she could blink, gently looping a line around her waist and the waist of her cameraman so they couldn't run away. The cameraman, a seasoned pro, kept rolling.

"Please tell me that's a tape." Savior said calmly.

The reporter stared straight ahead at Savior. Had she had more experience, she would have started barraging Savior with questions. But she was a rookie, and the concept of being face to face with an angry metahuman scared her. So she said nothing.

But she did shake her head.  Savior's brow darkened, and then she finally spoke.

"We're live." The reporter said.

Savior looked unhappy, and then he reached over and pulled the camera around so it was facing him.

"People of Jump City, listen to me! I am Savior, of the Teen Titans. What you may have just seen will most likely be spun as the act of a power mad teenager, a bully who is abusing the power he has been given. At least, I am certain that is how it will be spun in repeat broadcasts, as sure as this bit will be deleted. But for those watching this initial broadcast, listen and learn. Do not allow these parasites' need for a "great story" cloud the truth, it is folly and it should be below you!"

"Those two teenagers you saw me with, I stopped them from committing an act know in some circles as 'bum-burning'. If you are not familiar with that lexicon, I will explain it. Bum-burning is an act where a homeless person is set on fire. Not for any real reason, but because the person doing it is bored. It is an act of barbaric cruelty, and those two teenagers were doing it with glee. I will not tolerate such things, and I will not allow such acts to go unpunished. So why did I not just turn them over to the law? Simple: they are the children of wealthy people who would have bought their way out of it. I know that to be the truth and so should you! And to the parents to those kids, get them some damn help. They're trying to immolate vagabonds."

"Do I have a right to do such a thing, you may ask? Maybe, maybe not. But I know this. Myself, and my team, sacrificed a great deal for this city, in trying to prevent crime in it and in rebuilding it after the Final Night. But these acts and sacrifices have not come without a cost to us. We will not allow people to harm others, and we will have ZERO TOLERENCE for anyone we catch or stop doing so. So to all the criminals and evil ones hiding in the shadows, remember this somewhat misquoted phrase: If you do the crime, you WILL do the time, and pay the price. ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES. And we will make sure you reap everything you sow. That is all. Now these two will go back to their TV station and spin this so that I am the villain and the ones I punished are the victims. The truth doesn't matter, only the story does. Long live yellow journalism! Long live the mass media!" Savior crowed sarcastically, and then smashed the camera lens.

"Hey! That's expensive!" the cameraman complained.

"And you're going to roast me on a spit because your bloody kind makes a living tearing down people so that the masses can feel better about their tiny, pathetic lives. Send me the bill." Savior snapped. He frisked the two to check and make sure they didn't have a tape recorder that had recorded his last words, and then he stomped off.

He'd gotten about half a block when a shadow portal opened and Raven stepped out.

"Good day my lady. I'd wish you were here for some romance, but I am not stupid. What is it, Raven?" Savior asked.

"Robin wants to see you."

"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING!!!!!!!" Robin yelled at the sitting Savior. The rest of the Titans were there, but they were mostly in the background, trying their best to act invisible.

"I was teaching a few punks a lesson. I think I spun it fairly well, all things considered."

"You hung them upside down and said you would re-wire their brains if you saw them again! In front of a member of the media!"

"And THEY were about to light a homeless man on fire. Quid pro quo. I would never follow through on my threat, and you know it Robin. THEY, on the other hand, would have burned that poor man alive and gone on their merry way if I hadn't shown up. You know it and I know it. I don't think you'd be this unhappy with my choice of punishment if it hadn't been caught on TV."

"That's where you're wrong, Noel. There's a thin line between good intentions and cruel intentions, and you crossed it. Acts like that are beyond the pale!"

"So what was I suppose to do? Let them get away? Give them to the police? HAH! The lawyers their parents could hire would spin the evidence into oblivion. They'd say the guy they were about to burn was no good because he was homeless and I was no good because of…well, I was sure they'd find a reason. Those kids wouldn't be punished. They'd go home to their big mansions and their parents would probably buy them another car to try and make the trauma of being bullied by the superhero go away. You don't give cruelty like that a slap on the wrist. You squash it before it blooms. If you don't, you may very well make another Lord! You want another Final Night, Robin? Because out there are the seeds for another 100 of them, more likely then not, if we don't stop them!"

"By using their tactics? By acting like them? Noel, that's not stopping the Lord of the Night! That's BECOMING the Lord of the Night!"

"You take that back!"

"You stop acting like a lunatic!"

"I will not allow some punk rich kids to get away with such an act!"

"If you don't stop using those methods you will not be on this team any more!"

"And if you don't put some steel in your spine, you will prove to be the weak link when the next lunatic comes along with a genocidal plan to kill us and the world!"

And Robin, much to the shock of the rest of the Titans, reared back and decked Savior in the face. Savior stumbled back, sitting back down in the chair he had been sitting in until recently, holding his nose. Starfire gasped.

For a moment, you could hear a pin drop.

And then Savior's eyes cleared, and he sighed, pulling his hand away from his nose. Blood flowed freely from it.

"Thanks Robin. I needed that. I was crossing over the line." Savior said.

"Quick stop them before…wha? Noel, you think that was a good idea?" Beast Boy said.

"Sometimes being a leader means making some hard decisions, like knowing when a guy really needs a punch in the nose. I did. I was acting irrational and needed a reality check. Thank you." Savior said as Raven handed him some tissue.

"It doesn't change the problem Noel. The press is going to lynch us for this."

"The press is going to lynch us no matter WHAT we do, Robin. That's what the media does. They tell stories. Above all else, stories. And no story is better then tearing someone down from a pedestal. Never mind they put us on that pedestal in the first place…" Savior muttered. "I don't know what to do. After the Final Night, and all the Lord did, I just saw those kids, without any idea what they were doing, trying to kill a man because they thought it would be fun. And it just made me so ANGRY…"

"And it's not the first time." Robin said. And Noel knew it. When he was under stress, he tended to get mean, or worse, cruel. The legacy of HIS life, much like the teens whose own set of improper nuturings had led them to try and set a bum on fire.

"Duly noted. But hey, what can you do? People are going to do bad things, normal and meta alike. And we have to stop them. And sometimes we'll cross the line just like they do…" Savior said.

"Not you Noel. I think you need a time out." Robin said.

The Titans looked at Robin, and then at Savior. Savior had arched an eyebrow.

"How so?"

"I think you need to get away from this city. From this team. The media notwithstanding, this atmosphere isn't proving to be good for you. I think a new environment would benefit you."

"So you're kicking me off?" Savior said.

"Not yet, though if you keep pulling shit like that, I definitely will. But I think you need something else Noel. I think you need some boredom."

The Titans looked at each other in confusion, and then Beast Boy and Cyborg came to the realization.

"Dude, are you gonna…"

"Yeah." Robin said to Beast Boy.

"Dude, I dunno, Noel acted out of line, but I don't think he deserves to be tortured because of it."

"It might not be torture to him." Raven said.

"May I point out I'm still here and cannot read your mind unless I use the Shimmer, and I won't do that if you just explain what you're talking about." Savior said.

"Well Noel, there's this….well, meeting." Robin explained. "You see, for all the good we do, there are a whole bunch of problems we cause. Property damage, jurisdictions, all kinds of legal garbage and red tape that would choke us…but some time ago we managed to work something out. Every year every major team, and any team or hero that wants to act with any "official" backing and not get arrested by the police every time they try and do some good, has to send a member to attend. Basically, it's a very long, very repetitive progress of filling out forms, spending long hours listening to very boring people talk, having meetings with the same people as they talk with very big words, and then doing it all over again with another country, and another. Like I said, it's terribly boring."

"Trust me man." Beast Boy said.

"Yeah. Normally I do it, but one year I was unavailable and we had to send Beast Boy. We nearly got most of our major licenses revoked because he kept falling asleep. Though I fault the setup more then Gar. I think those government bigwigs get a kick out of subverting any metahumans anyway they can." Robin muttered.

"For obvious reasons. You want me to attend this year?"

"It would solve our problems. You get some time to cool off, and the media will lose a lot of firepower if you aren't here."

"I again stress my belief that my problems are more a matter of environment and recent history rather then myself, but I see your point. When does it start?"

"In a few days. I would have brought it up tomorrow at a meeting if not for this little…incident."

"Right. I'll go pack." Savior said as he got up, dabbing the bloody tissue at his nose as he left the room.

Some time later, Noel was debating whether to bring any books or buy new ones when Raven knocked at his door.

"Evening." Noel said.

"Hey." Raven replied. "Um…"

"If you have anything to say about my inappropriate but still very much needed IMODO outburst, just say it."

"Well, not really, though I don't approve…" Raven said, sitting on Noel's bed.

"We all have times where our emotions get the best of us. You should know that all too well. By the way…"

"No. Nothing." Raven said. She still hadn't seen any evidence her father, who had broken free and corrupted her before the Titans had banished him back to his prison some time ago, had managed to re-assume any influence over her. If he did, then her emotions would start causing problems again. But so far, nothing. As far as Raven knew, it would be like that the rest of her life. But better to be careful then dead…inside, anyway.

"Good. So, what do you want to do?"

"I think I'll stay with the Titans. It just needs one of us…and I'd probably be a distraction…" Raven said, blushing.

"That, you would." Noel said, sitting down next to her. He put his arm around her, and she snuggled against him.

"Noel?" she said after a bit.

"Yes?"

"Are you mad at Robin for this?"

"You tell me. You're the mind reader."

"I'm not going to do that. The last time I tried to do that on your advice, you projected all those perverted images of me."

"I did that to bug you, not because I meant it."

"Yeah well, it worked, you hentai."

"As planned."

"Ok, THAT'S IT." Raven said, pulling away and shoving Noel playfully. "You think you're so clever, with all that stuff you read about battle and strategies. Well my dear, there is one possible think you can never plan for or prepare against."

"Oh really? What?"

"The terrible…pillow attack!" Raven yelled, grabbing up a pillow and bopping Noel across the face with it. Noel flew back as if he had been hit with a hammer.

"Ow. Ok, I admit I could have never prepared for the absurd image of you playfully hitting me with a pillow." Noel said.

"So I win?"

"No, I just adapted to it." Noel replied, and grabbed up his own pillow and bopped Raven back. She shrieked and hit him again, Noel countered, and the two started a pillow war.

Oh man, I've having a pillow fight with my boyfriend, acting like a child, and I don't care! Things really have changed! Raven said as she and Noel rolled over the bed hitting each other with pillows. Finally Raven grabbed up some more pillows with her powers and started using them all at once.

"HEY! NO POWERS! THAT'S CHEATING!" Noel yelled.

"You're just saying that because you're losing, wimp!" Raven said.

"Wimp? Doubled, and RE-DOUBLED, Birdy!" Noel yelled as he grabbed up more pillows with the Shimmer. The resulting battle eventually filled the room with feathers and caused Noel's bed to collapse.

With the inside of his room now filled with swirling white, like a winter storm without cold, Noel lay on his now collapsed bed, Raven cradled in one arm. She leaned over and the two kissed.

"I'll miss you." She whispered.

"Absence makes the heart grow fonder." Noel replied.

"You sure?"

"Not really, but I do know familiarity breeds contempt. In this world, there's evidence enough of that." Noel said, blowing away a feather that had landed on his nose. "Besides, you can visit me. It's not like I'm going to be on the moon. Oh wait, you can teleport. You could visit me even if I WAS on the moon."

Raven giggled. The sound, to Noel, was both alien in its newness and joyful in its existence. Even if their relationship didn't work out, Noel would always be glad he had given Raven the gift of feeling whatever she chose, without the need to repress or destroy it.

The feather landed on his nose again. Noel blew it away.

"So…what do you want to do?" Raven said.

"Let's just lie here for a while, and pretend the world is a place…that doesn't need the likes of us." Noel replied.

So they did.

But, sadly, in the end the old adage proved true. If wishes were horses, all beggers would ride.

"Wow. Nice car." Savior commented, looking at the fancy vehicle Robin had driven out of the garage.

"It's mine, but I'll lend it to you for now. Even you can't swing all the way to New York." Robin said.

"How long is this event anyway?" Savior asked.

"It depends on a lot of things. Could be a few weeks, could be a few months, thought it's not like they lock you up during the whole time." Robin said. "And if we really need you, well, you'll know."

"Most likely."

"Noel, do you have a problem with this?" Robin asked.

"Not really. You are the leader for a reason, Tim. As I said, leaders have to make tough decisions. You think I need a break, and you think this will help. I'll respect your opinion. Batman did pick you for his protégé, after all. And considering his mind, I doubt he did it through a lottery. The Titans survived before I was around, they can survive without me. Plus, I can probably handle this just as well as you. My dad did teach me a few things about THESE kind of things, regretfully."

"Hey, Noel…" Robin said, putting a hand on Savior's shoulder. "You're not your father."

"Yeah. But he's a part of me. Raven can certainly attest to that. And I think that recently…that part has been getting too much fuel. I need to put him in his place, and nothing better then filling in Forms A1 through Z600 and then listening to a bunch of lawyers basically find seven hours to tell us that our battles cause damage. If anything, it can bore him to death."

"Indeed."

"But tell ME Tim. Are you doing this for me…or just so you don't have to do it?"

"OK, GET GOING! NOW!" Robin yelled, shoving Savior in the car. He flipped over the door of the convertible and landed.

"Ow. I landed on the stick."

"It doesn't have a stick."

"Then I landed on my keys."

"The keys are in the ignition!"

"Then, um………….aw." Savior muttered, unable to think of another follow up. Robin grinned triumphantly and waved.

Savior started up the car.

And drove over Robin's foot. And though his heavily armoured boot prevented any injury, it still hurt, as he yelled and then actually did the classic "jump up and down while hold one's injured foot" dance.

"Never assume you've won until you're in the history books, Robin." Savior smirked, and drove off.

Robin put his sore foot down as he watched the retreating car. His eyes flickered over the room.

And then he snapped out his arm and hurled a Birdarang. It bounced off a wall, careened off another wall, flew outside and bounced off a tree, and then flew over Noel's head as he drove past, chopping off several spiky white locks.

"ARGH! MY HAIR!"

"Quid pro quo, Noel." Robin smirked.

He watched as the white haired member known as Savior left. That was good, he supposed. One less problem. He would have to adjust his plans slightly though.

As the car drove off, he called up another file. One eye watched the footage while the other watched the screen, as the fingers blurred over the keyboard in the dance only masters had.

There. Everything was in place. He just needed one more piece of data, and he was sure his contacts would get it eventually. Then it would finally begin. He had had some setbacks, but this time, he would succeed.

And if it worked, he would never even see the Teen Titans. It would happen with them thinking it was their enemy known as Slade.

But if but some way they did…he would be ready for that as well.

It was time.

The time for the common man to get back the world that was rightfully theirs.

Alright, Legend Maker here. Some people have said I focussed a bit too much on Savior in my story Black and White. Well then, ask and ye shall receive.

"Wings of the Eagles" will not be a long story like Black and White, but rather a whole bunch of short stories. As you can see, I have one already in the works, and I have a few more. After that though, if anyone has any suggestions, feel free to e-mail them to me. But for now, I am going to show that I can write without Savior, and I have the perfect antagonist for my first short story.

So until it is written, I will say this.

Vox Populi, Vox Del.