Disclaimer: I don't own the Teen Titans. I only own my OC, John Smith


A drop of sweat ran down my forehead and reached my eyebrow. It hesitated there for a second, uncertain, and finally dropped on my eye. I cursed inwardly, not wanting to risk a noise, paused for a moment and wiped it away.

Back to business.

I channeled some more power into my sensory enhancement spell and pressed my ear on the safe door, slowly turning the lock. Slowly.The tumblers sounded like distant thunder.

Click…Click…Click…Tong!

Gotcha! 32-left, 4-right, 12-left and…?

Click…Click…Click…Click…Click…Tong!

5-right.

I resisted the temptation to open the safe door. Grenouille was a sly little bugger, and he was bound to have some nasty booby-traps waiting. Instead, I pulled the door open just a bit, unsheathed one of my knives and ran the blade down the crack between the door and the safe's wall. Halfway down, I ran into some kind of resistance.

Wire.

I grinned and unsheathed my second knife. Using the blades like scissors, I cut the wire and checked the crack once more. No more traps, from what I could discern.

Moment of truth.

I pulled the door open, half expecting alarms to sound. When they didn't, I sighed a sigh of relief.

Haven't lost my touch.

I spotted the painting right away, rolled into a metal cylinder. I seethed. The guy called himself an art lover, yet he rolled up an effing Da Vinci! The idiocy of it all. To steal a painting, only to have it rolled up in a safe, where not even you can enjoy it. What was he thinking? What was…?

My eyes were drawn to another metal cylinder, next to the painting. The wire I had cut led straight to it, and on its side was painted the ominous skull-and-crossbones. I nearly wolf-whistled. The guy meant business!

I got the painting and slid it in an inside pocket of SHROUD. I wanted it safe. I sheathed my knives and…

"Ne bougez plus!"

Shit. Shit. Shit. Or, as the French would say, 'Merde!'

"Tournez. Doucement! Les mains dans l'air!"

I got my hands up and rose, turning around slowly.

A Veil? No, it'd take a few seconds to work and he's got a gun. A Paralyzer? No, you'll need to touch him for that. Wraith? Nope. Too much chanting involved.

A flashlight exploded into my eyes like a nova. The guard was an indistinct shadow behind it. He saw my not-so-casual attire and gasped.

"Qui etes-vous? Repondez!"

I took a deep breath and hoped that my French wouldn't fail me. I was fluent, but that was not the point. One slip of the tongue, just one,and the spell would be broken. Better keep it simple, John. Very simple.

"Baissez votre arme. Tout est bien." My voice carried a strong hint of mesmerism. Definitely not enough. Repeat, John. You'll have to repeat something, if you want to drill it into his mind. Come on! Drop the damn gun!

"Qui…?"

"Vous n'aurez pas besoin de votre arme. Baissez-la! Tout est bien." I edged a bit closer, my hand reaching out. The guard trembled as two wills fought for the control of his bodyYou're not gonna need the gun, sport. Drop it. Give it to me. Everything's fine, look. We're friends, right? You wouldn't shoot a friend?

"Je…non…ne bougez pas! Non…"

I was…almost…touching the barrel…Come on,come on…

"QU'EST-CE QUE CE PASSE ICI?" thundered a voice from the door.

Merde.

I jumped forward, while the last tatters of my Mesmerism fell away, grabbed the guard's gun with my right hand and his neck with the left. While the Paralyzer shot up to his mind and knocked him out, I fired two shots, sending the huge man diving out of the doorframe for cover.

"A L'AIDE!" he screamed, and all hell broke loose, in the form of alarms, sirens and blinking red lights. Great.

I heard hurried footsteps from the other side of the door and the sharp snap-snap of a machine gun arming. I fumbled in my pockets for something that would-hopefully-even the odds.

The guard, outside, was ready to jump out of cover and empty his ammo clip on me, when a small metal…thing, much resembling a starfish came flying out the door and landed just in front of his feet, sticking to the floor with a sound like a suction pad. He winced, surprised and leaned in to have a better look.

A small red light came on, right in the center of the star. It blinked.

"Putain de…" he gasped and ran.

The light blinked faster. An urgent beeping froze the blood of the huge guard captain, and he scurried away as well.

The red light blinked once more and was still. Three beeps were heard, in quick succession. The guards fell down, their hands clapped over their heads.

The sound that followed cannot be described. There is no word for it. A good approximation would be…:

Pfuit!

The guards opened their eyes, hesitantly.

Where's the boom? they thought. There has to be a boom…

The guard captain raised his head, cautiously. The small star was still there, the picture of innocence, perfectly dead. And a white-clad figure was racing towards the exit.

"Suckeeeers!" I chuckled as I flew down the mansion stairs, which seemed to be a step by step copy of the Titanic's grand staircase. I heard the bellow of rage of the guard captain, but didn't turn around. The main entrance wasthere, not fifty feet away. Come on, come on…

I burst through the window next to the entrance, in a shower of broken glass. I rolled and recovered, ran for a bit and dove for cover behind a sapling, as a machine gun stated firing. The slugs tore the bark off the tree.

Great. Damn Louis XIV gardens! No cover whatsoever.

I concentrated. Chanting time.

"Gaia, Aerion, Menthos!"

A familiar woozy sensation, the kind you get when you get out of a roller-coaster. I had the impression that reality warped itself around me. My Wraith was there: a perfect copy of me. Just an Illusion, of course, but by far the most useful spell I had up my sleeve.

(You're in trouble.) it said. (Why must I always clean up your mess?)

"You enjoy this as much as I do." I replied, risking a peek at the mansion. A blast of machine-gun fire made me hurry back to cover.

(Of course.) it said. (But there was no need for you to summon me. You can get out of this mess on your own.)

"Oh, yes?" I grinned, high on adrenaline. "If you haven't noticed, I'm under fire. Can you take out that machine gun?"

(Sure.) it responded. (But there is no need for me to. You are wearing a bullet-proof trench coat, remember?)

I paused. He had a point. It was just that a lifetime of thieving's habits were not so easy to break. It was a rule. If somebody spots you, or, even worse, starts shooting at you, yourun. The idea that I could now fight back, was quite novel.

"You always were the strategist." I huffed and reached into my pockets.

(One of us is a thinker.) Wraith winked. It had never done that before. Every time I summoned it, some of my personality rubbed off. It was getting disconcerting. It wasn't that he was getting more realthan me. It's just weirder than you think, talking to yourself. (I can give you a diversion, if you want. 'Get more pieces on the board', sort of thing.)

"Fine with me. Run over there, and make sure they see you."

It nodded and dashed off, runningfast. A searchlight locked on to it, and two machine guns started firing, their bullets raising a trail of dust and gravel as they closed in to Wraith. I made my move.

I left the safety of the tree and dashed back towards the mansion. A guard spotted me, yelled something and started firing, but I was already close enough. I reached back and threw the small star over-arm. Then I fell on my knees, wrapped SHROUD around me and polarized it.

A small red light came on, right in the center of the star. It blinked.

"Merde!" gasped the guard and turned to run. The captain's huge hand landed on his shoulder and held him back.

"C'est pas dangereux." the captain chuckled. "C'est un jeu d'enfant."

The light blinked faster. The star beeped its urgent warning.

"Tirez! Mais tirez, parbleu!" the captain growled and fired his own gun. I heard the slug ricochet off SHROUD and grinned.

The red light blinked once more and was still. Three beeps were heard, in quick succession.

The captain laughed.

BOOOM!

The explosion was not big enough to kill anybody; but it did burn them badly and it did blast them of their feet. A part of the wall, were the star had stuck crumbled.

The captain groaned.

I stood up and grinned, wolf-like.

"Suckeers…" I chuckled.


The bike I had rented was not the GBM I rode back in the States, but it was fast and powerful.

I waited 'till I got safely to the Nice-to-Paris highway, before I called the Louvre, activating my hands-free headset.

They answered right away.

"Allo?"

"C'est moi. Wraith."

"Ah! Monsieur le Fantome! Alors? Vell? Did you get ze painting?"

I never understood these French people. I know my accent isn't bad. I'm goodin French. Why they insist on talking to me in English, especially since their accent isatrocious, I will never know. But I oblige them.

"Yes. I will be there shortly. Is my money ready?"

"Vat do you mean? I tought superheros don't take argent…money…?"

I gritted my teeth.

"You offer a two million euro reward to anyone who recovers your stolen Da Vinci." I snapped. "I have recovered it. I expect my money."

"But of course, Monsieur Vraith." and then, much quieter: 'Espece de…"

"What was that? Did you say something?"

"Oh no, Monsieur Vraith. Rest assured. Your money vill be here."

I terminated the call. Two million euros. Not bad. Just enough for what I had in mind.


A/N: For those not familiar with the French language, here are some translations:

"Ne bougez plus!": Don't move!

"Tournez. Doucement! Les mains dans l'air!": Turn around! Slowly! Hands Up!

"Qui etes-vous? Repondez!": Who are you? Answer!

"Baissez votre arme. Tout est bien.": Lower your gun! Everything's fine!

"Vous n'aurez pas besoin de votre arme. Baissez-la! Tout est bien.": You won't need your gun. Lower it! Everything's fine!

"QU'EST-CE QUE CE PASSE ICI?": What's going on here?

"A L'AIDE!": Help!

"C'est pas dangereux. C'est un jeu d'enfant.": It's not dangerous. It's a child's toy

"Tirez! Mais tirez, parbleu!": Shoot! Shoot, damnit!