Disclaimer: I do not own the teen titans. If I did Shadow would exist, and wouldn't only appear in I also do not own anything else I reference to in this chapter.
Hey everyone, sorry I wasn't able to finish the last one, but I like this sequel to Robin's Shadow better. The Rae Shad pairing will return and stay intact, and I'm gonna bring in Batgirl for Rob. This one will take place during Shadow's time working for the high council and then it will go one after he returns. Instead of being fifty years it's only going to be a few months, for the other Titans at least. For Shadow it will be about thirty. Now on with the story, and I'm really sorry about the other one, I couldn't make up my mind about what to do with it.
'War. Why is it that I hate, yet love it? I despise the reasons most wars are started, but I thrive under the lifestyle of a warrior. The skills I thought had been perfected in the streets of Gotham and during my fight through hell have reached altogether new limits during my first fifteen years in the service of the high council. I have learned how to disguise my fighting style to match the army I'm fighting for, so I will remain undetected until I get close enough to my target. I am still amazed at how many powerful leaders throughout the history of humanity have followed Trigon. First it was the people of Constantinople and Rome. The emperors of Rome had secretly been serving the demon for years before there came into being an army capable of destroying theirs. I marched into battle with the so-called barbarians of the north. They may not have known much when it came to the knowledge of such things as mathematics or language, but they were wise in the ways of the wild, and in the ways of war. They had many philosophies that I agree with. Contrary to the beliefs of most history books in my time they showed compassion and understanding to their Roman captives. They were willing to allow them to join the various tribes of the northerners, but the citizens of Rome had far too much pride to allow that.
Then came the Revolutionary war. That was the war that the council impressed upon me that I had to ensure the victory of the colonists. It was so important that America become a free country, that I was told to reveal myself and my services to Washington. That was a defining moment in the war, while his spy system was fairly impressive for that day and age, I was able to get things done far quicker than anyone else. I became an assassin and spy for the revolutionaries, and I did my job. I allowed the defeat of the worlds most powerful army of the day by some backwoods hunters and farmers. I proved myself pivotal in the history of the country that would one-day house the Titans. I learned that after the surrender of the British Washington looked for me, but I was already long gone, I had other jobs to do and wars to win.
Now I am being called back to the council because they have something to do. They say that they need me for too many jobs and they have finally found the solution. I'm not sure what they have planned, but I hope that it helps me get home sooner.'
Shadow walked into the large circular room that the council worked in. He had often wondered if they slept but now he was almost positive they didn't. He couldn't find a single bedroom in the entire mansion other than his own, well he had found another one but there wasn't anyone staying in it. He looked around at the faces that had started their unnatural stare the moment he opened the door. Strange, he never could get used to that, but he did far better about not showing how uncomfortable he was about it. He had soon learned that there was no way to read their faces. They all had the same pale emotionless masks on and the same completely white mist-like eyes. Whenever they spoke it was with one eerie voice.
"Shadow, we have decided how to help you complete your tasks. You will have your Red X persona removed so that your partner can achieve the tasks we set forth for him. This will also allow you to avoid tasks that will gnaw away at your conscience. Will you allow us to do this?" Shadow was curious as to why he would lose the Red X suit but didn't really care if it would allow him to finish his tasks sooner.
"Go ahead, I'll do anything to finish this sooner." As soon as the words had left his mouth he felt a pain shoot through his spine. He felt as if someone had taken a white-hot knife and was splitting his back in half. Soon afterwards he felt the pain begin to creep through the rest of his body as though he was beginning to crack because of the heat coursing through his body.
To the few people who were observing this strange incident, it seemed as though a red line had been cut jaggedly down his back. As it began to widen, a head appeared from out of his back. Soon the red light from the crack in his back became to bright for normal eyes to see and all but the Councilmen had to turn away. When the light disappeared the others in the room saw two figures lying on the floor struggling to stand and breathe. One was dressed just like Shadow had been mere moments before, with the Red X suit and mask. The other was dressed in a suit of similar design, but it was completely jet black and he had Gurthang strapped to his back. As he was the first to slowly rise to his feet the guards noticed that he had a new weapon attached to his utility belt, a long curved knife that had a very strange handle. Instead of being the normal straight handle it was curved in the opposite direction the blade was and it had a small hole for the index finger to go through. There were strange markings on the sheath in a long forgotten tongue.
"Welcome into existence X. We know you have existed inside of Shadow's mind for some time now, even though you were not yet capable of your own thought. Shadow we apologize for not revealing your alter-ego sooner, but we were afraid you would attempt to crush him into oblivion and we wouldn't be able to do what we just did. X can now take care of the missions you would refuse if asked, and you can remain to the missions you so enjoy, such as fighting wars and demons. You will now be free of your growing dependency on the suit to live because of your mutated abilities, that is now X's problem and you are completely cured of your xinothium 'illness' as you would put it. Now go Shadow onto the mission you were assigned and we will brief X on his." Shadow was still a little woozy because of the torment he had just endured, but he would pull through. His next mission, now that was going to be tough, WWII. Who would have thought that Hitler would have won if he hadn't intervened? But beggars can't be choosers, and he had to go into this one. In fact, he had heard an interesting story about the Justice League going back in time and helping defeat Vandall Savage, hmm maybe he would get to 'accidentally' kick the man of steel's butt again.
X had his assignment and he was thrilled by it. He would get to hurt people, and that was the part he enjoyed. He was the part of Shadow's mind that wanted to become a sociopath, a supervillain, or a psychotic version of the hero himself. HE was the part that slowly went insane because of what the boy had seen, and he wanted to hurt others now, and people were ordering him to do it. Yes, he was gonna love this job.
Shadow was watching as machine gun fire tore through the ranks of the allies on D-Day. He had seen many wars, but this was a new kind altogether. He had never seen so many men killed that quickly, or that easily. This was going to be harder to stay alive in than it was in any of the others he had been in, but then again, he could see just how far his limits actually went. Yes, that was a good enough reason to climb that cliff and take out a few guns before he was discovered, then it would be up to lady luck and his ability to scare most men out of their minds to help him survive.
Shadow was in trouble. It wasn't a question or probability it was pure fact. He had taken out about four of the German's guns, but apparently they didn't take too lightly to having their artillery destroyed by a guy dressed in black. He was now surrounded, by German soldiers each with their rifles aimed at him. But for some reason, none of the bullets were tearing through his flesh as he believed they would. In fact, the soldiers had stopped firing and had looks of absolute terror in their eyes. A few new ones started firing before the others could tell them to stop and Shadow finally realized why they were scared, he was blocking the bullets with his dagger and Sword. He had known he was moving them in a vain attempt to block all of the bullets, but now he realized that he seemed to know where the bullets were going to be aimed at him and he knew which ones would miss because of his body movements. It was as if he had been given precognitive abilities almost over night.
The soldiers just stared at him terrified of what they were obviously considering a demon. In their eyes he seemed to be a denizen from the underworld, not that he blamed them, he did look the part. He decided that it was time to use that element of fear on the men before they had a chance to react. "Now, I want you all to set your weapons on the ground, then run around screaming and warn all of your comrades about me." This was a tactic he had used in the wars he had been in previously and it seemed to work then, so why not now?
The Germans immediately dropped their guns and ran off in different directions to escape the shadow demon. Yes, he was glad the council made him learn the languages of the people he was going to fight against, it always made messing with their heads so much more fun. Now he had to try and locate Hitler. He would have to move slowly and silently to not attract the attention of either side while he killed the man behind the war. This was going to be fun, especially if he ran into that Savage guy. Then he could stop a lot of the problems that were caused by the immortal, besides, Guthang wanted to see if the man could survive his bite, the one that was supposed to kill anything the Blade cut.
X was enjoying himself, he couldn't understand why Shadow had never finally crossed the line, because it was so gratifying when you did. X had had no idea that having control of his life would make him feel this way, he couldn't wait to leave these stupid do-gooders and finally be in complete control and decide his own targets. Being a assassin was a new career possibility that he had been considering, heck why didn't he just do them all? He could be an assassin, supervillain of Slade's caliber, servant of Trigon, and commit genocide. He was going to enjoy killing everyone who had hurt Shadow in the past, the ones that Shadow had been too weak to do anything to. Yes they were very much the same person, but X had no inhibitions, and would be willing to kill if he had to. Now he just had to find a girl to help him out with it. Raven's demon side had appealed to him, but since she kept it on a tight leash he didn't find her as attractive a Shadow obviously did. Why was his alter-ego so weird? No one would ever condemn him for doing bad things because of his life, yet he still struggled to be a stinkin hero! Oh well, why play psychoanalyst when you could be just a psycho?
Shadow had finally found out where that coward of a man was hiding, but he couldn't get to him because of the fact that Savage had frozen him. But then again, what else could he do but wait for the right moment to slice the man's head off once the security people gave him a chance?
Just then the generals walked in and said that they were going to unfreeze the madman in the cryogenic tomb that Shadow was hiding behind. While they were doing their job he listened in on their conversation about how people with special powers had defeated Savage and his invasion of the United States. Shadow smirked, and he had almost thought that Supes had made it up to impress Diana, guess he had been wrong.
Finally, after weeks of waiting the perfect opportunity came for him to kill Hitler. Hitler had just found out that the Americans were closing in on his base and was trying to decide if he wanted to commit suicide. Shadow decided to help him rush the decision.
"Adolf Hitler, You are to be punished for your crimes against the world. You have two choices, I can kill you with a blade, or I can shoot you and make it seem like you committed suicide. Which do you want?" Shadow was not in the mood for playing games, he had finally had the chance to do this without anyone watching, and he only had a matter of minutes before the US army came and took this man in and make him a martyr for the Nazi cause. The council had told him to make it seem as if he had committed suicide because then his people wouldn't think so highly of him.
"I-I… I choose suicide." Hitler was terrified, was this the so-called angel of death spoken of in so many of his history books? Had he really been an evil man? Had he really done horrible things? Were his choices really bad enough for the angel to appear to him? He calmly stood as Shadow sent the bullet into his head and placed the gun in his lifeless hand. Yes, this was just part of the job, the part he hated more than anything.
So what do you think? Please review and I am sorry about Shadows Never Die. I just couldn't think of how I wanted it to go, so I went with another idea I had. I hope you enjoy the stark differences, yet strangely similar outlooks in between Shadow and X. Thanks for reading.
