Disclaimer: my standard one I only own Shadow no one else.
Let the story begin.
Robin and Speedy were staring in disbelief at BB and Raven. They had just simply and perfectly described what Shadow looked like.
"How do you two know what he looks like?" asked Robin with suspicion edging his voice. "Did you see him one of the times he came to the Tower to talk to me?"
"No Boy Blunder, I had no idea that you knew who he is. Considering we are talking about the same person, I know him because he sneaks into the tower to talk to me and be a pillar of support when I need it. Oh, and did I mention that I wouldn't have found out about the titans if he hadn't told me you needed members and that I could get a home here?" Raven said in a tone that startled her teammates. It wasn't monotone, it had tenderness and concern leaking into it. "And what do you mean the Justice League is trying to capture him? What did he ever do to them?"
"Dude, my stories the same as Raven. Shadow comes and just spends time with me when I most need someone who I can trust to keep what I tell him silent. He's also the one who brought me to Jump City." Beast Boy said with a touch of maturity and wisdom that most had never noticed before the incident with Terra. They all realized that that was the time he was mentioning, the whole Terra incident, it had touched him far deeper than any of the others. "He's the really cool big brother that I never had. You know, the one that acts all tough around others but shows you a caring, tender, and playful side. He always liked to mess with me."
Robin was just stunned, but also anger was beginning to seep into the far corners of his mind. Who gave Shadow the right to meddle in the affairs of his team! Speedy thankfully noticed that look slowly creeping onto his friend's face and intervened.
"Whoa don't you start going off on some helpless rant man. Shadow had every right seeing how you probably wouldn't have two of your members if it weren't for him. And before any of you get mad about him not mentioning knowing anyone else on the team, I need to tell you something he told me when he came and said goodbye to me after running away from the Bat almost three years ago. He said that everyone needs their own secret keeper and shoulder to cry on, and most want one that they can keep to themselves. So right now lets worry about warning hi-"
Speedy never finished the sentence, because just then his face was pushed to the bottom left corner of the screen. The alarm was going off because someone was attempting a burglary of a shipment full of high-tech equipment down by the docks.
"We'll talk later Speed, Titan's GO!" Robin quickly fell into his leadership role and the others, no matter how confusing this was for them, followed his lead and focused on the mission.
Once they entered the warehouse they quickly saw a shrouded figure moving quickly towards a particular section of the storage sheds. With amazing ease he was running through every security system throughout the complex. Fortunately for the Titans, the devices he was using made it easy for them to follow without alerting the police. As they entered a large storage shed, Robin to the time to yell 'freeze' alerting the thief of their presence and causing him to turn around. What they saw was a figure out of their past, one that had caused many hard trust issues that had taken forever to work through.
Slightly illuminated by a pale shaft of moonlight from the glass section of the roof, was Red X. After the initial shock, Robin and the others immediately jumped into the offense. But every attack just seemed to roll past this guy and not even faze him in the slightest. He seemed to have some new tricks up his sleeve then when Robin was in the suit. Beast Boy came charging towards him as a rhino, but X just stood his ground and placed a palm against the ground. Suddenly the ground had red beams of light travel along it causing the concrete to split open into a fissure and Beast Boy had to quickly call off his charge. Cyborg and Raven came charging down a path between stacks of boxes towards him, sonic cannon and soul self charging together for the assault. X just calmly pointed his palm towards them and a beam of red energy shot out and caught the two sending the energy from their attack into each other.
"Did your wires get crossed?" X taunted in his distorted voice.
After he said that a starbolt blasted into his chest sending him flying backwards smashing into some crates. Red X raised his head and saw the Tamerainian warrior floating above him. "You will come quietly, and you will go to jail." She said in her butchered use of the English language.
"Sorry, but I don't do the whole jail thing." As he said that he shot another X shaped energy blast towards her. Starfire, being caught off guard, was caught head on as the X turned into a giant metal one and pinned her to the wall.
"The only crime here is that you and I haven't gone on a date yet." Once, again X knew just how to taunt the people he was near and get under their skin. Starfire with an enraged expression on her face blasted him with beams that shot out of her flaming eyes. X was caught off guard by this one and flew across the room where Robin immediately pounced on him.
"Who are you and how did you get that suit." Robin yelled as he launched a flurry of attacks. Spinning kicks, punches and birdarangs didn't even touch X as he continued his game of taunting.
"If I wanted you to know who I was, why would I be wearing a mask? But this is a nice suit kid, but I must say it looks much better on me." X quickly mad his escape after he and Robin traded a few more blows, only stopping to grab some sort of scanner and place it in his belt. "Later Kids."
Robin, who was on the ground, got up and started moodily brushing the dust off of his uniform when he noticed Starfire poking him again and again with her fingers.
"Uuh…Star, what are you doing?" Robin asked in a confused voice.
"I am checking to see if you are a hologram, because the last time we fought the X of Red it was you and the you we thought was you was a hologram." Star continued to poke Robin. Finally, she was convinced and announced to the other Titans that he wasn't one.
Beast Boy, not entirely convinced that this wasn't a fake Robin said in a suspicious voice, "But he might still be a robot. Check him for batteries." As soon as BB said this Cyborg pulled a latex examination glove out of nowhere and snapped it on.
AS the Titans slowly walked towards him Robin put up his hands defensively saying, "Guys, I swear it wasn't me." Robin sighed depressively, "Red X was a mistake. A mistake I don't plan on making again." With that the Titans began the trip home.
Once they got back to the tower the Titans immediately began to try and figure out what had been going on. Robin went into the evidence room and sure enough the suit and been stolen but by whom he had no idea. Nothing came up on the security cameras.
"So, someone was smart enough to steal the suit, but dumb enough to take it for a joy ride." Raven quipped in her famous sarcasm.
"Now all we need to do is find out what he stole and maybe we can figure out his plan." Cyborg, being the tech genius he was wanted to know what the scanner was for.
"I already know what he stole. He stole a scanner that tracks down xinothium, the suits energy source." Robin said in a defeated voice. All the Titans, except Beast Boy gasped when he said xinothium.
"Aw man, I hate it when I don't know what everyone is talking about." Beast Boy said with obvious jealousy at everyone else's knowledge.
"XINOTHIUM! You powered that suit with xinothium? What were you thinking." Cyborg began to rant on in an outraged voice. "That's the most unstable compound in the universe man!"
"Like I said, Red X was a mistake." Robin said in his new 'I'm such a failure' voice.
"Alright, X isn't the only one with a scanner. I'll just upload the xinothium's energy signature into our communicators and then we'll know where he's going to stike next." Cyborg, taking control of the tech part of the situation, said in his let's get going voice.
"I don't need a scanner, I'll find it the same way I did last time."
With that, Robin walked out of the tower and into the night.
After having a little talk with professor chang Robin called the other Titans and told them to meet him at a high security, private office building where he had learned X would strike next. Throughout the mission after he had found out where the ore was, Robin's teammates started to disappear one after the other. First, Cyborg didn't show up at the meeting place and his communicator was being jammed. Then once they entered the building, the others slowly began to be picked off. Robin was positive that X was behind it. Finally, as he turned a corner he saw X about to break into a huge vault. X turned when he noticed Robin.
"What are you planning?" Robin asked, the anger and contempt clearly heard in his voice.
"I'm only looking out for number one kid, where are your friends?" X clearly enjoyed egging this kid on. He was wound up so tight it didn't take much to get under his skin.
"What have you done with them!" Robin was getting angry now. When would this guy take something seriously?
"Lighten up kid, I didn't do anything to your precious friends. I haven't even seen them at all so far."
Just then, Starfire screamed. Robin turned his head towards the sound and while he was distracted X pulled some X shaped ninja stars out of his belt.
"So kid, you coming out to play? I mean, after all, they are your toys." X taunted, throwing the X's at the computer that controlled the door behind him. As soon as the doors started to open X did a graceful back-flip through them dodging trough the lasers that would trigger the alarm without even once looking where he was headed.
Robin was at first stunned at what had just happened. This guy was unbelievable, did he have no morals? But he followed after him just as easily dodging the same lasers. As soon as he got to the end of that corridor he looked opened the door he was positive X had gone through. But then X appeared behind him and pushed him onto the floor of the room causing a laser cannon to start shooting at him no matter where he turned it was following him.
Quickly racing towards the only option left to him Robin headed straight for the vault containing the xinothium. But X got there first and closed the dorr on his face with the laser headed straight for him.
As X packed a case full of xinothium, the door to the room was blasted off by the cannon. He turned and saw Robin standing there, with the cannon in his arms and a determined look in his eyes.
Robin whipped out his bo staff and began swinging it violently at X. "What are you planning?"
X backed away and said, "Not everyone likes to play the big villain kid."
The X's on the back of his hands began to glow and X shaped blades grew out of them. Then he and robin began swinging at each other. To Robin's surprise X was much better at hand-to-hand than he had anticipated. Although not as skilled or strong as Robin, X was just a hair faster and had just as much knowledge as Robin did. The two went on fighting like this for a few minutes when all of a sudden someone blasted them both from behind sending them both into a state of unconsciousness.
When X woke up he noticed that he was trapped in some sort of energy cage that Robin had put around him. "You started this mess and now you're gonna help finish it." Robin had that kind of grim determination thing and you could tell that he didn't want to play anymore games.
"Sorry kid, but not all of us like to play the big hero." X wasn't going to let himself fall for this one. He knew that as soon as this was done Robin would try and put him in jail.
"Fine, but you're staying right here until I save my friends, then you're going to jail when I get back." Robin then turned on his heel and started heading towards professor Chang's astronomy tower thing.
After he left X looked and saw the controls for the bars surrounding him within reach of his gadgets. Looks like he was gonna be home free after all.
Robin was fighting valiantly to try and save his friends but it looked like he wasn't going to be able to alone Chang was aiming his cannon directly at Starfire and was ready to pull the trigger if Robin made any attempt to fight back. It was beginning to look hopeless. All of a sudden some red X's flew into the control system for the giant cannon and sent the machine out of control. X jumped down and helped Robin pound the henchmen nearest them into the ground.
"I thought you didn't like playing the hero?" Robin said, and for some reason unknown to him he began to smile as he and X seemed to perfectly mesh into a tag team fighting style. 'Why does this fighting side by side with this guy feel like we were meant to be a team? I know I've fought alongside this kind of style before I just can't place where or when that was.' Robin didn't have much time to ponder on this though because X was making his way towards Chang while Robin was fighting off dozens of rubber-suited freaks to rescue his friends.
As soon as the battle was over, Robin, with the Titans behind him, stood in front of X. "You know I have to take you in now right?" Robin said, challenge ringing in his voice.
"I doubt you can, besides I have enough xinothium to pwer the suit for a good long time." X in his bragging tone of voice held up a tube full of the ore.
"Won't do you much good without this." Robin triumphantly held up the suit's belt.
"Impressive, but how 'bout we make a trade?" X then faster than any of them could react jumped over them and landed behind Raven, grabbing her and putting one of his blades against her throat. "Her, for the belt."
The Titans were stunned, they had just seen this guy help save them and play the part of a hero perfectly and now he had Raven held hostage! So, Robin did the only thing he could do, he made the trade, but what surprised the others, especially Raven was the fact that he didn't argue or hesitate. He just walked up and handed X the belt.
Just before he released her however, X leaned over and whispered something into Raven's ear, something that caused her to blush then put on a face of total relief. As she calmly walked away, X teleported and the Titans wouldn't hear from him for a few weeks.
After getting back to the tower the Titans were completely beat. Most went straight up to bed, others namely Raven went in to get a mug of tea to help calm her nerves that had just been shot. While sitting there she couldn't help but think about X's parting words in her ear. 'See I told you he had a thing for you. And you know I wouldn't hurt you right? I just need that belt so I can lay low for while cause I have a few…items of business to take care of. Later, Rae.'
Raven smiled to herself, not only was one of her best friends alright, but he had been right about a certain Boy Wonder having some kind of feelings for her. Yes, the future always did seem brighter after a conversation with Shadow, and even though he really isn't Shadow at the moment, she always could count on him to help her out.
Meanwhile, Robin was pacing in his room trying to figure out what X had told Raven before slipping away again. He just couldn't figure out what could make Raven so calm after having a knife to her throat. That wasn't a 'Raven' thing to do, ever! 'Why did X go after Raven when everyone suspects that I have a thing for Starfire? Any way, they are kinda right about that. But still, why her, why Raven? Does he think that I have feelings for Raven? Do I have feelings for her? Nah couldn't be that, but then why did I not even think about the consequences of giving him the belt? Why was it, that at that moment, nothing mattered but getting Rae away from that lunatic? Well, I guess he isn't a lunatic just a little off on what his priorities are. Any way, I'll have to keep an eye out for reasons as to why I would have done anything to make sure Raven was all right.' With those thoughts racing through his head, Robin finally fell asleep so that he could be ready for the next day's hero junk. He had to give an interview for the newspaper.
'I wonder what kind of new junk I can make the xinothium do the next time? Half the stuff I did today were things Robin and I had never dreamed of when we were talking about his tech one night. It seems that because of xinothium's highly unstable molecular structure it can become anything I can think of, a nearly indestructible metal, maybe blasts of sheer energy, maybe even red kryptonite radiation, there we go now we're talking. I can't wait to see what xinothium does to big time superheroes who never gave it much thought before. But now it's just a game of waiting for them to find me, I can't even hide forever. They'll find me. but I'm gonna be ready and waiting. I just hope I can count on the others to be as forgiving as Raven was. Man, I just seem to think about her more and more, but so does Robin, and he always gets what I want because he always seems to want it too. Maybe one day I'll be better than him at something, but I know he'll always get the girl.' Red X sighed, he could just never win in the end, could he. But at least he got the belt back.
So what did ya think? I know that the whole Shadow becoming X thing was kinda obvious but it was supposed to be. That way, Robin beats himself up for not figuring it out. I'm trying to decide about whether he's gonna stay X but take back his role as comforter for the Titans, or if he will go back to being Shadow. If you have an opinion on the matter please let me know. Thanks again