Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans, all I own is my OC and he is now disguised as Red X.
Thanks for the reviews that have been given. I hope you keep reviewing because I wont update after this until I get at least two for this chapter. Thanks enjoy the story.
Beast Boy was confused. Red X was Shadow? Then it all made sense to him, Shadow was Red X to hide but had been found any way. And now here he was ready to fight the Justice League without any help. No way was that ever gonna happen, he, Garfield Logan, would fight for his 'big brother' even if it was against the Justice League. Now all he had to do was get the nerve to step in between him and Superman. BB gulped, this was gonna take a lot more nerve than just deciding to help.
"You are honestly ready to throw your life away in front of your brother?" Superman was astonished, Shadow seemed to have made a change of personality along with his change in masks. He was ready to fight the seven most powerful superheroes in the world, what had made him so confidant, he didn't honestly think that the Titans would side with him, did he?
Shadow then spoke without the distortion inhibiting his voice. "If you feel uncomfortable about fighting me seven to one, then how about we make this more even. I fight each of you one at a time, with no interruptions or assistance by the others. You can decide the order. Take your time I'm not in any hurry." The taunting in his voice about them having conscience problems about fighting him was exactly what they needed to prod them into accepting his offer.
The league huddled and considered what to do with him. They could either go against their morals by all attacking him at once or they could play his game of fighting one-on-one. They chose the latter. They were still superheroes after all and believed in fair play. Flash was the first to speak, "Fine, we'll play your little game, but I'm going first. To bad the others won't get their chance at seeing if you can live up to your claims about being so good."
"Fine by me, let's see just how fast the great 'Flash' really is." With the distortion back in his voice, X's taunts seemed even more arrogant. Unknown to every soul present Shadow didn't want to hurt anyone but the man of steel. He still had amazing respect for the Bat. And the others hadn't really ever done anything to him. Wait, he did want the damn martian to pay the price for forcibly entering his mind three years ago. Though he had never told anyone, that was why he had run away from Gotham and tried to disappear. He had told the stupid alien to stay away from his mind, his last place that was his and his alone, the only place he wasn't just Robin's Shadow, but then J'onn had invaded his privacy anyway saying that he needed to know if he could trust him. Blane Grayson would never forgive that invasion of his mind, no matter how much good the alien did for the Earth.
The Flash came charging in hoping to catch the young man off guard, but the X suit was easily able to track his blazingly fast progress, but even with the suit X wasn't able to avoid the lightning quick punches that were aimed at him. After a series devastatingly fast attacks, X fell to the ground seemingly defeated. Suddenly rising with a 'is that all you got' look plainly seen through the mask. Then, faster than even Flash could react, an X flew through the air and pinned him to a wall(picture the one that he used against Starfire to the wall with). Flash then tried to get out of the X he found that it began to constrict the more he struggled. Flash had actually been defeated.
Hawk Girl decided that she would be the next to try and catch the mysterious thief. She flew toward him the energy mace in her hand cackling to life. She began swinging at him with her usual rage and tiring energy. She knew that she couldn't give him the chance to send an offensive attack after seeing what had happened to Flash and so their little fight went on with Shadow trying to find the slightest opening.
While the other Titans and league members were mesmerized by the intricate dance in front of them Robin walked up to Batman for some straight forward answers. "Why are you trying to bring him in? What did he do to have the entire league after him?" Robin was almost livid at this point wondering why the older heroes didn't have anything better to do than harass a younger one.
"We haven't had many problems with the major villains in the past few weeks and Clark decided that we needed to take the time to weed out the tares from the wheat, or some other farmer term like that. So we did some research and found that your brother has been racing his motorcycle in a illegal circuit." It was obvious that Batman was not to pleased with the other's decision to arrest the young man.
"You mean that Superman is using this as an excuse to attack shadow for all the times he disrespected him?" Robin was having difficulty believing that the Man of Steel could be so shallow. He looked up to the guy for Pete's sake.
"That's exactly what I'm saying. Apparently, Shadow didn't quite make the best impression with the other members as well. But don't worry, I'm not going to side with my teammates on this one because Shadow has earned my respect with the skills he has shown over the past few years, and the ones he's demonstrating now." They both turned their attention back to the melee going on in the middle of an intersection as Hawk Girl sweeping in to deliver a final blow stood stunned when X disappeared.
Looking around her she gave a startled cry when an X soared out of the shadows and clamped her arms and wings to her side. The onlookers were stunned, this kid had just taken down two of the league's members! The next on the list was Wonder Woman. She wasn't as used to fighting technology as the others were and soon found out that it was only her superior strength and reflexes that were keeping her from a similar fate as the others.
Batman and Robin resumed their talk with the Bat explaining how they had found Shadow. "Even though he can hide his mind from J'onn now, it is still obvious as to who's mind is his. There is almost a negative space where his mind should be and so far he is the only one we know of on this planet to have that well guarded of a mind. So, all we had to do was find that mind and identify who he was disguised as." Batman was also telling Robin without words that the searching for the negative space had been his idea. He was proud of that fact but didn't flaunt it around.
Robin smirked, he could tell what the unsaid portion of his mentor's story meant. He was impressed my the fact that his brother had the ability to keep the unparalleled telepathic abilities of the martian confused and bewildered.
Raven, who had overheard that last statement was impressed as well. "You mean that he kept the Martian Manhunter's mind from reading his?" there was a slight presence of disbelief written into her monotone. That was a feat not even she had been able to accomplish when she had arrived at this planet. She would have to ask Shadow to teach her that sometime, if he could keep out J'onn without any telepathic abilities, then maybe she could fight away the nightmares that her 'dear father' sent.
"Yes, but it is almost as if he isn't alive to do so, he's buried his mind and thoughts so deep he can be outwardly expressing emotion, but not even someone in tune with other's emotions can actually tell if he is feeling them. I'm sure you have noticed this miss Roth?" Batman was really quite impressed with the boy he had thought would amount to nothing, He now wished that he had spent more time with the boy, then maybe, just maybe, they wouldn't be in this position now.
"So what your saying is the league came after him because he had injured their egos over three years ago?" Robin couldn't believe how incredibly stupid that sounded.
Apparently, neither could Raven, "What! That's why they've been hunting him down is because he didn't worship the ground they walked on like so many other young heroes do!" That was ridiculous! They were ruining his life because they felt that since he didn't think very highly of them he had questionable motives.
"That's exactly why they want him to go to jail. Superman was beside himself with joy when he received the news that Shadow had been involved with something that wasn't necessarily an approvable hobby for a young hero. But it seems as if he has it under control." Batman redirected the two teen's attentions back to the fight. X seemed to have finally imagined a way to defeat the Amazonian Princess. He was sending xinothium energy, crackling in the form of electricity, through his gloves to boost the amount of power he hit with. Soon a very bruised and bloody Wonder Woman fell to the ground unconscious.
Lantern was the next to attack him, and attack he did. Using his ring to try and trap the teen in side an energy field he was able to quickly capture the young man, but X had different ideas and calmly walked over to the side of the barrier and pressed his palm to it. With in a matter of seconds the shield was disrupted by the glowing X on the palm of his hand. Oh yes, seeing that look on GL's face was priceless, X had a camera in his mask quickly take a picture of it to put in a photo album, one day. X then decided that he needed to go on the offensive against this one. Taking lantern by complete surprise with the sudden change in tactics, X teleported himself to where he was right above the hero and threw a handful of his ninja star X's at the league member's back but they only succeeded in letting Lantern know he was there. The older hero quickly used his military training to adjust to the change of temperament and went on his own offensive strike by sending a beam of energy straight for Shadow.
After teleporting himself to safety X used his imaginative abilities to think up a command for the highly unstable xinothium stored in his suit. X spent the next few minutes dodging the blasts by teleporting or cart wheeling out of the way. After a few moments of allowing Lantern to re-adjust to his original tactic of evade and wait for the right opportunity, he teleported himself from about fifty feet away, still looking like he was buying time, to fight in front of the older man. Then quicker than anyone could react he slapped his right palm onto the GL's ring and stepped back, ready for this match to finally come to hand-to-hand combat. GL, seeing him just stand there sent a blast straight towards the smirking boy. But nothing happened, looking down at his ring Lantern saw a red X on top of the lantern insignia. X then laughed in his distorted and creepy voice and blasted another X straight at the League member and it pinned him to a wall right next to Flash.
"Don't worry, it'll where off in a few hours I couldn't spare that much energy into it. I do still have to fight a kryptonian and that'll hopefully take some of my energy to accomplish." Both in the same sentence mocking Superman, and letting the defeated hero know that he had some compassion. That one sentence changed at least GL's view about him, seeing how he noticed that without the ring John would feel more than useless. Turning to Superman he said, once again back to his arrogant self, "You know scientists everywhere are worried about what xinothium might do to you and your cousin supes. Some, think that it might have similar effects to red kryptonite. But don't worry, most think that it just might help the powerless person, such as myself, have a ghost of a chance to compete with you. Am I right in saying that you want next shot?"
Superman didn't even answer, without warning he launched himself at the young boy, not even worried about what he might accidentally do to him since he was only human. X seemed to be waiting for this and disappeared the moment the man was about to smash him with a bone-crushing punch. Using the same fighting tactic that he had against Diana(Wonder Woman), he slammed a fist into the Man of Steel. Turns out, he really does feel like he's made of steel, because X had to teleport away shking his injured hand. He needed to come up with a new trick. He found himself hard-pressed to find even a second to think of one though, because Superman was constantly attacking. X tried everything in his rather heavy book of tricks, but each one failed worse than the last. It looked to the observers that this fight wasn't going to end prettily, when X surprised everyone by pressing both palms onto the kryptonian's face covering the eyes.
"Dude don't, he'll fry your hands with his heat vision thingy!" Beast Boy was the first member of the Titans to speak and reveal who they sympathized with.
Suddenly Superman yanked himself out of Shadow's grasp and screamed in agony. When Superman was finally able to look over at his opponent he saw Shadow show him the X's on his palm with their quickly fading mirrored surface. Shadow had figured out how to disable the lasers that shot out of his eyes, because when he tried to shoot them at him from a distance they didn't work.
"You know, you'll have to let those heal for a few days before you try to use them again. You just damaged your retinas." For the first time she had met him, Raven could actually feel an emotion coming from Shadow. He was happy, he was finally doing something that Robin couldn't, he was fighting Superman and he wasn't dead yet.
Superman came at him with renewed vigor, no one had ever been able to so easily slip under his skin and drive him crazy. Shadow however was calmly remembering one of the few lessons he had been taught by Bruce, 'Try to unnerve your opponent and drive him into a rage, he will then lose some of his critical thinking abilities and rely on pure instinct, which can be exploited.' Shadow had taken that lesson to heart and that was how he fought, by being a taunting, arrogant, yet creepy opponent.
Superman was losing it, even Beast Boy could see that, his attacks were becoming sloppy allowing Shadow to think of a way to stop the enraged hero. Luckily for the League, Batman had banned any reporters from coming within distance to see what they were doing, so the league wouldn't be publicly humiliated. Finally, Shadow thought of a new attack plan and blasted a continuous beam of xinothium energy towards the kryptonian and it seemed to have the desired effect because in the beginning he had made sure fire progress, but the unique radiation from the xinothium ore was seeping energy away from his body and he didn't even notice. He finally got close enough to grab Shadow but the boy had different plans. He grabbed the older man's wrist and twisted him around pinning him to the ground. While Superman tried to figure out where this strength had come from the people watching realized that the xinothium had drained the Man of steel of his strength, temporarily making him an ordinary human being. And Shadow was able to fight any normal human. He then pinned Superman to the wall right next to the others because he now took the time to pin up the two girls as well, his trophy wall. He took another picture, yes this was turning out far better than he had intended, but now he turned his attention to the one he wanted to hurt the most, he wanted to reveal what this alien had done to him years ago, he was ready to teach a lesson to the martian that he should never enter his mind without express permission.
"Now Martian, it's time for you to learn what I do to people who invade my sanctuary without my permission, or even asking for it." The ones who were watching at first thought that Shadow must have some secret cave that he went to and hid all of these awesome things that he didn't want others to see, like robot monkey ninjas, or an advanced genetics lab where he made mutant clones. Okay, the whole lab and ninja thing was only Beast Boy, but no one considered it to be his mind yet.
J'onn then quickly leapt into action, shape-shifting himself into a giant snake he sprung towards the boy to constrict him until he lost consciousness. But Shadow was ready for this and used the same goopy X that was used to stop BB's shape-shifting abilities to trap this one, but he added a special touch. When the goop collided with him and slammed him to the ground J'onn tried to phase himself through it but found that the boy had counted on that, because the second he did the goop sent an electrical charge throughout his entire body. The after effects of the charge left him week and unable to escape. He knew that Shadow would now explain what had happened to the others because Batman had made his choice to not fight his former apprentice, even though he may be the only one capable of defeating him.
Shadow knew this to and cautiously turned around to see the Bat's reaction. What he saw surprised him and brought a feeling he had never felt before and had no experience with, the one you get when a Parent or parent like figure approves of what you did and accepts who you are. Batman was walking towards him and well he seemed like he was about to hug him but then quickly realized what he was doing and just put his hand on the boy's Shoulder and asked, "Would you accept my apologies about how I treated you and think about becoming my son?" While he said this Batman handed him one of the communicators used by the Batfamily, the communicator that he had never been offered whil he lived in Gotham. "You don't have to answer yet but please consider it, we may not have told you this but we all missed your strange habits after you left. You also might want to get on that bike of yours and get out of here, I think Clark's regaining his strength.
"You have know idea how good it feels to finally be wanted by someone, and not just because Rich wouldn't be separated from me. I'll have to think about the offer, but I will do at least that, think about it." Shadow's voice had been relieved of it's distorted quality and he sounded happy. In fact, Raven actually felt that emotion come from him before he shoved it back into the abyss he hid it in.
"Now just so that something gets cleared up I suggest you ask J'onn what I was talking about, he won't be able to lie while he's covered in that goop. And I might be gone for a little while until this blows over and their pride and dignity return, but I suggest you make it clear that the public will know about the next fight and will cover it. Titans, Take care of yourselves, I'll be back in a few months more than likely." With those words said he pressed a button on his belt and Shadewing came rushing out of no where to open her casing and allow him to get in. As if remembering something he had forgotten to say, he turned around to face the only ones he had ever cared about. "Just so ya'll know, I'm gonna keep this suit, but feel free to call me Shadow. Take care of my old uniform bro."
He turned and before allowing the casing of his bike to close around him he pointed a palm towards a wall and fired and X at it. Once the X hit it seemed to tear open the very fabric of space and time opening a portal. He then blasted through the already closing portal. Just barely getting the tail end of Shadewing through before it resealed itself.
While all other witnesses of the strange event struggled to find the words to ask what just happened, Cyborg answered for them. "That dude just created a controlled portal into another time or dimension. I have got to have a tech talk and comparison when he gets back. The others just laughed at the dazed tone of voice he said it in, but Batman silently chuckled to himself and Starfire was just confused at how everything had just turned her world upside down, Red X was a criminal and did not look like the picture of Shadow that friend Robin had shown her(she thought that their masks were a part of their face). And yet everyone had called him Shadow and the Justice League were good guys but everyone was treating them badly right now. Why was everything so confusing? Oh well, She was just happy her friends were happy, and Robin had been noticing her more and more. (A/N: naive idiot. In case you haven't noticed I don't really like Starfire but she hasn't really played a major role yet, but will when Shadow returns.)
They then walked over and got only a little information out of J'onn but they could see why shadow had been so angry, his mind really was the only sanctuary that was his and only his, they would have been angry as well if they were him. Raven however, last all respect for the Martian after hearing the story from him, about how he had forced his way into Shadow's mind and tried to learn all he could about him. He had apparently grown used to knowing what the people he worked with were thinking and had grown nervous when Shadow had resisted his first few attempts and had asked him to stop. 'How immature, why didn't he think of explaining his reasons for wanting to get in to Shadow, shadow would have understood and only shielded certain parts from him, but no, a who knows how old martian had to try and break him. At least it came back and bit him.'
The Titans, plus Batman, went back to the tower to eat and try and guess where Shadow had gone, Beast Boy and Cyborg thought he went to the future, Starfire was convinced he went back to remedy the problems of his past, but Robin, Batman and Raven said that that one was a definite no. He would never change who he was, and was probably going to fix something that had bothered one of them. Little did they know just how close to the mark they had hit, he was in Azerath to learn how to aid Raven in the now impending doom her prophesy brought. What he wasn't expecting, would be the physical changes he would experience from going to that realm.
Hey what do you think? Please Review, this chapter turned out much better than I had planned and I really want your input. The next time he appears will be right after the events of Haunted and Spellbound, and Shadow discovers that they may not need him as much as they used to now that they have lasting friendships with each other. Thanks for reading
Anduril