Ok well as my reviewer has pointed out I made a few mistakes in the last chapter I hope I have rectified at least a few of them. Still the hard core should like this, we get to see the imergence of our real villains (that is the 'real' ones). Also we get to almost see my fave TT baddie, any guesses?

Part 4: Of books and thieves.

Another night in the Tower. The Titans and Guardian had scoured the city with everything from magical trances from Raven to Starfire just plain flying around. They finally returned, felling dejected. Where had he gone? Normally when villains began an attack on the city they went all out, they didn't just vanish! Finally though they all went to bed, except Raven and Guardian. Who were watching a rather strange film in French, which both were pretending to understand because the other seemed too. Starfire had just gone to bed and they were starting to feel uncomfortable…

"You are sure you can achieve this? Thief." The half yellow mask looms out of the shadows that fill the hanger of the great, plane. The steady thrum of the engines filled the silence as the figure by the open hanger doors looked up, his suit was beyond high tech. It made half the things produced at S.T.A.R. look like they were knocked up in a garden shed by well meaning but incompetent boffins.

The face was a stylised Death's head, slashed with stylised red cross. The new Red X, the hanger was filled with Slade's robots but the figure slouched in such a way that he radiated confidence.

"Hmm, you think I cant?" He waited a moment. "I thought so, don't toy with me Slade, I'm not your lackey. Just be ready with the payment." Red X sauntered over to the open hanger, black and red cape flickering past him the heavy winds. "Be ready." He finished and stepped off backwards.

"Infuriating boy." The voice veritably thrummed with power as the Red robed Archon stepped from the shadows.

"Oh yes" replied Slade moving to look out of the hanger watching the hurtling body. "But very, very good at his job."

Empty air rushed past his visor, far below the great T of the Titan Tower grew in size at an almost alarming rate. People had asked him why he had saved them, he usually made up some enigmatic answer. But really it was simple, they dealt the competition. So long as these poor fools looked after Jump there wasn't a trace of real competition in his league. But this is where his perfect scheme fell down, faster even than he was hurtling even now. He got bored… So incredibly bored it really did defy belief.

Who would believe it? A guy with the world at his feet, the suit and the skills to do anything. It turned out it was exactly like he had feared… At the top of the mountain the world was flat. So when Slade had approached him with a job, to steal what seemed to a trophy theft from the Titans he had jumped at the chance, well he had accepted in a casual laid back manner anyway. Time to work.

Spreading his arms and legs out from his pencil dive, his cape fluttering, tapping a button his wrist, lengths of Kevlar based cloth spread between his limbs soaring down now at near terminal velocity he swept under the arch of the huge T. A pair of steel cables shot from his wrists, grapples styled like red X's near silently rooted themselves into the concrete. Perfect.

Swinging round, the suit taking the strain, he planted his feet perfectly on the top of a doorway, his wrists releasing the cables he dropped onto the balcony near the great arch of the T and looking out to Sea. So nice when preparation pays off. Holding up his right hand, a red X laser cut out and forward. The lock clicked and the glass door opened. The room beyond was pink, fluffy, decorations chosen by an innocent. Red X drifted into it like a corrupting shadow.

"Hmmm, poor Starfire, if only you had met me when you arrived instead of these idiots. We could have been something special." He let out an exaggerated sigh. As he eyes up the sleeping girl. Still he though, not bad to look at. Drifting out into the corridor, silent as the shadow he resembled. It seemed as if a floating skull were drifting down the empty corridors. Ahh yes, third door on the left and… Bingo. His entry point had been irrelevant but a look at the Alien was always worth it, he gave a little snort at the irony as he drifted into the last room on the corridor, Raven's.

The film ended with a dramatic car chase, involving several characters Raven and Guardian could swear that they had never seen before. Raven switched off the huge TV and an uncomfortable silence rolled across the room.

"So then," Raven began, "Apart from hunt this guy what do the Guardians do?" did that sound rude? Did it matter?

"Aha, interesting question," Guardian smiled. "You will have heard of a few of them, though not as Guardians, normally we have kept our identities separate. I suppose the most famous would be Rorek.. Raven? What's wrong?"

"Do you promise you'll still be here when I wake up?"

"You don't want to be alone?" She looked up in to the eyes of the Avatar she had made for him through tear filled eyes. Finally, defeated, she looks down.

"No…"

The beast roared atop the tower, gouts of fire illuminating the sky, throwing everything into horrible flashes of light and shadow. Raven fell to her knees as Starfire was swatted out of the air by one great claw and Cyborg smashed down under a great tail.

" He lied to me...he lied. And I gave him what he wanted…"

"I… I'm fine" No this was that feeling again! How could she be so stupid. "T-Tell me more about Rorek. I think I have one of his books."

"You do?" Guardian sat forward suddenly seemingly oblivious to Raven's discomfort. "Some say he was the greatest of the Guardians, he defeated the Dragon.

"Malchior." Raven dropped in.

"Yes… Malchior was a terrifying creature, a master of Black magic he laid waste to city after city after the Cult of Trigon had awoken him from deep beneath the earth. Finally Rorek confronted him and."

"Bound him in his spell book."

"….Yes… How do you know all this?"

"I have his spell book."

"You have the Lost Tome of Rorek!" Guardian seemed almost to be shaking now. "May I see it?"

"Sure, just don't listen to Malchior, he tells a lot of lies…"

"Of course, of course. Where is it?" Guardian was floating up into the air now, scanning the room as if the book would be just lying around. Raven couldn't help smiling at the overexcited young mage. It was good she decided to find someone else who could read.

"Follow me" She sighed.

Together they soared down the corridor. Landing outside Raven's door. Touching the lock the door opened.

"That's odd.."

"What?"

"I could have sworn I'd locked it.." She said as Guardian soared into the room. Shrugging she entered after him and walked over to the book case. Kneeling down she looked up at Guardian.

"Switch on a light will you?"

As light filled the dark room Raven looked at the empty space in the book shelf.

"Oh no…"

"What is it?" Guardian asked, his excitement stilled by the fear in her tone.

"The book… its gone." Raven said pulling away at the books on either side, there so clear now, the stone of the wall still glowing red from where it had been heated.

A red X burnt into the wall.

So what did you think?