AN: Danielle is now part of the Titans.
Chapter 7: Red X, The Enigma
Raven shot up in her bed, sweat covering her face.
"That dream, again?" She said to herself.
"What does it mean/"
Suddenly, the alarms blazed red, and she used her powers to get her cloak and teleport to the main room.
"What's the situation?" Danielle asked, the sleep in her eyes being replaced with a gleam of determination.
"Someone is breaking into a warehouse on ninth street. Titans, Go!" Robin stated. Ever since Danielle joined the team, he seemed to have cooled down to just above his usual level of hotheadedness.
The titans arrived at the scene to see a shadowy figure fly through the warehouse door. Cyborg shoved the door open and the Titans entered. Advancing into the room, Robin gave a hand signal, and they all charged forward, Beast Boy taking a second to get his bearings before following.
The caped figure leaped into an elevator shaft, firing a grappling hook at the ceiling to ascend. With Raven's help, the Titans, sans Beast Boy went up in the open elevator car, the changling nearly falling before shifting into a the form a bat to follow.
The thief looked at a laser tripwire, before placing a mirror to reflect it and create an opening in the laser grid protecting the doorway. The Titans gave chase, but Cyborg had to duck to avoid the lasers and managed to knock a few loose, requiring Beast Boy to become a mouse in order to not trip the alarms.
The shadow hidden thief slammed his fist into a control panel, opening a door. The Titans followed him and all minus Danielle gave off a shocked gasp as the thief was revealed in the light, a red X adorning his skull mask and chest.
"Red X? I thought Robin was Red X!" Beast Boy exclaimed.
"Think again." The black-clad criminal said, firing X's from both palms.
"Titans! Go!" Robin ordered.
All the Titans aside from Raven scatter as the projectiles stick in the ground like throwing stars, exploding in quick succession. The dark Titan put up a shield just in time to protect herself from the line of blasts. As she took down the shield, she looked around and found Red X charging at her with a flying kick. Putting up another barrier, Raven prepared to block the attack, only for Red X to disappear in midair and reappear behind her to deliver a low kick that knocked out her legs and sent her tumbling to the floor. Red X appeared in front of her, flicking out a folded X like a switchblade, only for the weapon to be knocked out of his hand by a starbolt. Starfire charged, fists blazing. The masked thief preformed a long, high somersault across the warehouse, dodging every one of the energy bolts before rebounding off the far wall. As he flew over the alien warrior, he delivered a kick to her back to act as a boost. Starfire followed the thief, who jumped from girder to girder while miraculously avoiding every one of her attacks. Turning in midair to face her, he fired a pair of beams from his palms, ricocheting off the crates to form an X, catching Starfire in the middle and shocking her, leaving her down for the count.
Then Beast Boy took his turn, flying in as a pterodactyl before shifting into a large, roaring orangutan. Red X, however, just shoved a rigid X into his opponents gaping maw before leaping away. The changeling struggled with the letter for a moment before turning into a hippopotamus, opening his mouth wider to release the weapon, only to fall off the girder he was standing on due to the extra weight. The green skinned shape-shifter landed on a box of crates with a crash, while the skull-faced villain landed gracefully nearby.
Turning around, the thief saw Cyborg charging towards him. Red X responded by firing an X from his palm. The projectile stopped just short of the mechanical teen's arm, stretching out and latching onto some of the crates before retracting, catching the Titan off guard and burying him in shattered boxes.
Red X stopped as he saw the Titans recovering, Beast Boy turning into a Sasquatch, Cyborg flicking a chip of wood of his shoulder and readying his sonic cannon, Starfire swooping down, and Raven levitating a crate.
"Come on, kids, X marks the spot." The surrounded thief taunted, pointing to the stylized letter on his chest.
Jumping to avoid a cannon blast, Red X used the crate thrown at him as a springboard to dodge a flurry of star bolts before landing in a crouch, before teleporting out the way of two giant green fists. Their owner looked around confused before shrugging at the two females who arrived behind him.
Red X appeared on top of a stack of crates, and Robin took that moment to charge in with a flying tackle, carrying his former villainous alter ego off the stack and into the floor. Both of them landed in a crouch, with the more colorful one whipping out on of his signature birdarangs. Red X winked out of existence to avoid the boomerang like projectile, which returned to its thrower before he was nearly punched in the back of the head. Dropping to the floor, Robin tried to knock him down with a kick, only for the attack to be blocked with one hand. Red X pushed himself into the air from the steel boot soles, flying in a high arc, and bringing him back down to face the Dark Knight's apprentice.
The skull-faced figure stood his ground as Robin aimed a punch at him, dodging at lightning speed at the last second. He caught the next one and went airborne off the extended limb/ As he dropped, he extended one leg straight down for a kick, Laid out flat for a moment, Robin caught the foot and slung Red X bodily across the room to crash into the wall. Before he could move or react, the Boy Wonder rushed over, planting a hand on the masked face.
"Who are you?" Robin growled.
"If I wanted you to know that, why would I be wearing a mask?" Red X snarked before grabbing Robin's wrist, sending a powerful jolt of electricity up the hero's arm to incapacitate him.
That was the moment when Danielle entered the fray, charging in from the rafters and turning intangible. The X projectiles he threw merely passing through her non-solid state as she flew into him, phasing into the thief's chest. His eyes briefly flashed green, and he clutched his head.
"Get. Out. Of. My. HEAD!" Red X shouted. Danielle suddenly flew out of him, and was sent bowling into the other Titans, knocking them over and sending their attacks haywire. Danielle accidentally overshadowed Beast Boy, who got hit in the face with Starfire's star bolt, while Raven and Cyborg were zapped by the others' attacks.
With the Titans down, Red X nudged Robin off of the crates he had been knocked into, and wiped away some of the wreckage to reveal a gun-like device with seven barrels drilled into a cylinder, a larger one in the center. The thief picked up the item and bounded away before Robin could stand up. Once the spiky-haired hero was back on his feet, however, he was moving in a hurry towards Red X.
"I won't let you get away with-" The Boy Wonder was cut off when an X wrapped around his ankles and sent him face first into the floor. Red X stopped and faced him, twirling and holstering the device.
"Better luck next time, kid. And thanks for the suit." Red X said, pressing the button on the center of his belt.
Only to stay there.
Red X hit it again, and said, "Come on, come on!" The device still not working. Robin took that time to get himself upright and break the binding around his ankles, before charging at Red X.
"Great" Red X deadpanned, wheeling into a run before leaping through an open skylight onto the roof. Finally he hammers the button, generating a few sparks. Robin threw himself ahead, but Red X leaped off the roof, seeming to pause in midair.
"Catch you later." He said, pressing the button and disappearing in a blur of black.
As Robin stood on the roof, Starfire landed nearby and looked over Robin before jabbing her finger at his shoulder repeatedly and the other four got to the roof.
"Hey! Star! Ow!" Robin said, grabbing her wrist. "That hurts!"
"Then you are not a hologram?" the warrior princess asked.
"No." Robin said as he let go of her wrist.
The alien gave him a suspicious look, recalling the decoy he had used on them during their first encounter with Red X, before poking at him some more.
"The last time we faced the Red X, he was you in disguise, and you were not really there." Starfire said.
"STARFIRE, CUT IT OUT!" Robin shouted.
"He is not a hologram." Starfire confirmed, beaming.
"He could still be a robot. Check him for batteries." Beast Boy told the resident robot expert, who pulled a rubber glove over his right hand.
"Wait! Please!" Robin said, panicking. "It wasn't me! I promise! It wasn't me."
"Who's Red X?" Danielle finally spoke up.
Robin turned around and walked across the roof. "Red X was a mistake-a mistake I won't ever make again."
"Could someone please tell me what the big deal with Red X is?" Danielle asked the other Titans.
"A while back, when Slade was going after some fancy computer chips, Robin tried to get close to him to figure out what he was planning, so he made the Red X suit and gave it a bunch of gadgets that made our powers useless. Then he stole the chips for Slade, but Starfire found out that the Robin we had seen was a hologram, and we saved Robin from Slade and kicked his butt, too bad that Slade was only a robot double." Beast Boy explained.
"So who's the new Red X, and how could he cancel out my overshadowing?" Danielle asked herself.
To be continued...