"All right! Anyone makes a move and I'll shoot!" A thug said puling out his gun.
It had started out as a pretty normal day. It was sunny, warm and people were generally in a good mood. The First National Jump City Bank had been making good business that day, as many people were depositing and withdrawing money. Everything was going quite well until a group of thugs came in and tried to rob the place.
Why would regular people try to commit crimes in Jump City? It didn't seem like a very smart thing to do, after all this was the Teen Titans city and they fought super villains on a weekly, if not daily, basis. Were they hoping that the teen heroes were distracted elsewhere? Did these criminals bet on the fact that the Titans couldn't be everywhere at once? Were they trying to beat the odds? If they were, it seemed they were right because no hero was coming to save them.
"Open the vault and put the cash in the bag." The leader growled to a clerk, tossing some large sacks to him.
Another clerk began to slowly reach for a silent alarm button on the underside of his desk. He felt if he was lucky, he might get away with it unnoticed. One of the thugs seemed to notice the clerk's actions as he turned his gun on the man.
"Hey! You think he was kidding? I'm gonna blow your brains out." The thug pulled the trigger.
The gun went off with a loud bang and the clerk closed his eyes waiting for the end, an end, which never came. The thug stared at the clerk and fired again. However, this time there was no shot.
"What the hell?" The thug exclaimed, looking at his gun.
The ammo clip had been removed; in fact, all the other brigands' weapons had had their ammo clips suddenly disappear. A groan from behind the leader caused him to turn. He saw one of his men fall to the ground, unconscious
"What is going on here?" The leader demanded.
The leader was suddenly yanked off his feet by an unseen force and flung towards one of his henchmen. His form blurred as he moved at a high velocity, crashing into one of his underlings. The others suffered a similar fate as they all ended up in one big heap. Both clients and clerks stood stunned at this spectacle. What could have been a very bad situation had been averted, but how? The clerk that had been tossed the bags for the money looked in astonishment as the bullet that had been fired and the gun clips were on the counter before him.
The police and the Teen Titans were called in; the police to apprehend the would-be thieves, the Titans to investigate the 'ghost' that had prevented the crime.
"So why are we looking into this anyways? This thing did us a favour, didn't it?" Terra asked as they watched the security camera for the fiftieth time.
"Even if it did help, we don't know who or what it was. I'd rather know what we're dealing with, just in case." Robin replied.
"How can we deal with ghosts though?" Beast Boy asked.
"We could always call the Ghostbusters." Terra said, nudging Beast Boy.
"If there's somethin' strange in your neighbourhood, who ya gonna call?" Beast Boy sang.
"Ghostbusters!" Terra sang back.
"If it's somethin' weird an it won't look good, who ya gonna call?"
"Ghostbusters!"
"I ain't afraid a no ghost. I ain't afraid a no ghost." They both sang.
"It wasn't a ghost." Raven spoke with irritation as she entered the room.
Her entrance took Beast Boy by surprise, causing him to jump with fright, right into Terra's arms.
"Don't do that!" He admonished.
Raven ignored him and his discomfort. Terra dropped him on the ground, hard.
"How can you be sure it was not a ghost, Raven?" Starfire asked.
"When a ghost stays in the living world, it usually stays to one area. Ghosts that remain are also mostly composed of the last emotion they felt before they died. It's usually very intense and leaves emotional echoes behind. There was nothing out of the ordinary." Raven replied tonelessly.
"Could it have been someone invisible then?" Cyborg asked.
"No, if it had then they would have noticed the gun clips being removed and it doesn't explain what happened to the bullet either. But what if, someone was moving fast; so fast that he couldn't be seen?" Robins said as he began to adjust the security recording. "Cyborg, can you slow this down without stopping it completely?"
"No problem, gimme a sec." Cyborg said as he plugged himself into the security system.
"How could anybody move so fast they couldn't be seen?" Terra queried.
"I'm guessing you never met the Flash, huh?" BB said.
"The Flash?"
"The fastest man alive. He has a top speed approaching the speed of light, or so I've been told." Robin answered.
"There aren't that many meta-humans out there who have super speed and not all of them are good either." Raven interjected.
"So this may have been, the The Flash?" Starfire supposed.
"I doubt it, the Flash is way more… well flashy then this. If it was him, then he'd want people to know it was him." Robin said.
"So the Flash is egotistical, just like Beast Boy." Raven said nonchalantly.
"Hey!" Beast Boy griped.
"Yo, super slow-mo on the video!" Cy interrupted.
The Titans turned and watched the super slow pace of the video footage. A red and white blur, moving at high speed despite the slow motion progression of the footage.
"Can't you get it any better than that, Cy?" Robin asked.
"Sorry man, that's the best I can do. This isn't exactly top-of-the-line video equipment you know."
"Dude, it looks like he's on our side. You always expect the worst of everyone."
"I agree with Beast Boy. This person does not appear to be bad. Perhaps we can meet him or her and they can join us?" Starfire, always the optimist.
"Fine, but I think we should keep a look out for this person. It could mean trouble for us, they haven't introduced themselves to us after all." Robin said grudgingly.
"Okay, now that that's settled and there isn't anything else threatening the world or the city, can we go out for pizza or something?" Terra asked.
The Titans, having nothing really better to do, crime fighting didn't really start until the evening anyways, agreed. Robin felt he could investigate this matter just as easily anywhere. There was a place close by that would serve them and it had vegetarian platters so Beast Boy was happy, mostly happy anyways as Cyborg was explaining in detail about his desire for an all-meat platter. Perhaps it was because of the noise generated by the vegetarian and the meat lover, perhaps it was because he was distracted, but Robin never realized they were being watched.
High above them on a nearby roof, Ravager waited and watched for the perfect moment to eliminate the Titans. Most super villains would create elaborate, detailed and complicated plots against the Titans. Sometimes these plots tended towards the ridiculous and were doomed to failure from the start. Others would try to use direct brute force against them, not the best solution either as the Titans usually bested such opponents. The best strategy was using the element of surprise along with strength and planning. Those plans seemed to work the best and had even encountered partial success at times. Ravager was going to use a rocket-propelled-grenade, an RPG to terminate the Titans. As long as they weren't aware of his presence, he would be able to hit them before they would notice him. Simple and effective, it had a high chance of success as plans went and even if it didn't kill the Titans in the first shot, they'd be so badly wounded that hunting them down afterwards would be a simple matter. Ravager knelt, aiming the RPG at the Titans as they enjoyed their meal.
"Goodbye, Titans." He whispered, firing his weapon.
On the ground, as he was about to take a bite out of his vegetarian pizza slice, Beast Boy's ears perked. Even in his human form his sense of hearing was more acute than a normal person's.
"Hey, did you guys hear some…" Beast Boy began.
Something, a blur shot passed them, followed by a loud boom, the sound of something breaking the sound barrier. Glass shattered and gale force winds blew through the streets. The Titans were carried off their feet by the wind. The grenade flew by them after the wind had past and was thus its trajectory not affected by the wind. It exploded on impact, the force of the explosion was only enough to send the Titans closest to it flying, but otherwise causing no harm.
"What was that?" Cyborg demanded.
"Up there!" Terra pointed at Ravager.
"Raven, Starfire, Beast Boy, get up there now!" Robin commanded. "Terra, can you get the three of us up there?"
Starfire, Raven and BB flew off, BB turning into a large hawk. Terra knelt, and put her hand to the ground, glowing gold.
"Going up." She said as the earth chunk they stood upon rose from the ground.
On the roof, Raven wrenched the weapon from Ravager's hands; Starfire blasted starbolts, which Ravager dodged, by jumping back. Beast Boy fell from the sky in the form of en elephant and Ravager barely avoided being squashed. He whipped out a machine gun and began shooting at the Titans. Beast Boy morphed back to human and ran for cover, Raven and Starfire flew around, doing their best to avoid bullets.
"A gun? Super villains don't use guns, they have hired goons, or robotic minions or laser weapons or freaky powers!" Beast Boy yelled.
"He's still going down!" Terra shouted, jumping off of the earth platform.
As she landed, her body glowing with power, the building shook and the stone beneath Ravager collapsed. Robin rushed over to the hole.
"He's gone." He stated.
"Who was that guy?" Cyborg asked.
"And who saved us? That wind did not generate itself." Raven pondered.
Fast Facts: Over nearly a century of DC history, the Speed Force has touched many people, making them speedsters. Lets have a look at the most famous of speedsters, the one with the longest legacy: the Flash. The first Flash was a man named Jay Garrick. In the mid to late 1930's, he was a college student investigating heavy water; don't ask cause I don't know. There was an accident that released some hazardous fumes. It was these chemicals that apparently gave him his super-speed. He fought as the hero The Flash during World War II along with the Justice Society of America. He eventually settled down with his college sweetheart, who became his wife, though he did come out of retirement every so often. These days, he's an active member of the JSA and is the legal guardian of Bart Allen (Kid Flash/Impulse). To this day, I have no idea how he keeps his hat on when he moves at high speed since it does not appear to have straps on it or anything to keep it in place.