Hello. Before the next and final chapter begins, I would like to take this opportunity to say a few things.

The first is this: how did Red X’s belt work if it was Robin’s old one? Some of you may have wondered this, and I will now answer it. It worked because they transferred the Xinothium from his broken belt (thank goodness Beast Boy didn’t break it too much and destroy them all!) to the new one. Viola!

Secondly, remember all those spoilers I gave you? Well, I said in one that Titans East would feature prominently in the new season. Now I would like to say: they might appear in only one episode. I may have misled you on that. Sorry. My bad.

Also, remember the Titans’ movie? Right now, it is titled Teen Titans: Tokyo.

And I also have even more reason to suspect Slade will return in Season Five. You Canadians know what I am talking about. (wink)

Now, prepare yourselves for over 3,000 words of yummy fic goodness. I hope you enjoy the final chapter.

CHAPTER TWENTY

The End

A gentle sea breeze swept toward Titans Tower from the bay, sending its waves to lap against the rocky island. Red X’s tattered black cape lifted up behind him in the wind as he knelt on the edge of Titans Tower’s roof, gazing downward at the ten stories below him.

Though Slade was gone for now, the Titans hadn’t turned around to arrest the thief like he had assumed they would—and had been preparing for. Instead, the Teen Titans were solely concerned with Robin, and had almost forgotten about Red X as they catered to their friend. Not sure of what else to do, Red X had followed them to their home, where Starfire and the others had taken Robin to the Tower’s infirmary.

Well, the others excluding Cyborg, that is. While everyone else returned to the tower, the robotic teen had taken Slade’s butler, Wintergreen, to jail.

Throughout Red X and Robin’s fight with Slade, the unconscious man had lain on the floor, knocked out by a small but powerful sedative loaded into the dart X had fired his way. When Slade was forced to retreat, he had left his companion behind, vulnerable and for the taking. Once Cyborg delivered him to the nearest jail, Wintergreen would probably be facing long hours of interrogations, as the police officers tried to pry all they could from him about his dangerous master.

But Red X knew better than to think they would get anything out of the old man. Slade may have left Wintergreen unconscious and helpless when he was forced to escape his lair, but Red X knew that as soon as Slade got his bearings, his faithful servant would be busted out of jail with ease. Either Cinderblock would come plowing in through the walls, or a guard would be bought off to unlock Wintergreen’s cell door—something would happen. Wintergreen would sit patiently through the police interrogations and lonely times in his cell; it wouldn’t be more than a single day until he was free again.

Slade had gotten away; Wintergreen could be out of jail even before the sun rose if Slade was quick about it. In a way, all of the fighting X and the Titans had gone through had been for nothing.

Red X let out a low sigh. It seemed forever ago since that night at the club, that night when his entire world had shifted and changed; back when he had been snuggling with those two girls, before a lap top was set in front of him and a mysterious stranger asked him for his services. It seemed forever ago since he had slipped into the Museum of Art and History to steal the Quetzal Stone; it seemed forever ago since Red X had run through the night, trying to escape the sociopath following behind him…. The thief known as Red X shivered, and not from the wind, as he remembered what had happened when Slade had cornered him on the rooftop, when the power between the two had shifted and his life was taken forcibly by Slade’s iron grip.

There’s something different about me now, X thought. After his time in Slade’s clutches, he didn’t feel as confident or invincible anymore. All the energy he had put into his actions were now replaced by shame. Slade had taken something away from him, and he didn’t know what it was, or how to get it back…

“Hey.” A voice, soft in the night, spoke up behind him. Red X turned, standing to his full height.

Raven stood a few feet away, her thin form tucked away inside her blue cloak. Her hood was pulled over her head, shadowing her face from him.

“Uh, hey,” Red X said; somehow, he hadn’t heard her coming. “How’s Robin doing?”

Raven almost looked surprised, as if X inquiring about Robin’s health was something she wouldn’t expect of him. “He’s okay,” she said slowly, a guarded tone to her words. “I’ve healed most of his wounds. He’ll be leading the team again before long.”

Right. How does the kid do it? Red X thought. He doubted anyone could just bounce back from an apprenticeship with Slade. Robin would have a few things to work out before he was okay again. Getting captured by Slade was bad enough as far as X was concerned. Getting taken twice, like Robin was, was simply unimaginable.

“But I didn’t come up here to talk about Robin,” Raven said. “I came up here to…” A regretful, guilty expression came over her pale features. “I came up here to apologize to you.”

It was Red X’s turn to be surprised. “Apologize?” he said incredulously. “What for?”

Raven lowered her head slightly. Some of her lavender hair tumbled out of her hood. “For going inside your mind,” she said. “I shouldn’t have done that. It was wrong.”

“You were just trying to find out where Robin was,” Red X assured her, though he still felt creeped-out and violated by what she had done to him. “I wouldn’t worry too much about it.”

“It’s not that simple,” Raven told him. “The mind is a very private place. And I had no right to go there. Just because I wanted to help my friend doesn’t give me permission to go through your memories. No matter the motivation, no matter the cause, it was still wrong.”

Red X was always amazed by heroes, how noble and self-effacing they always were; how they were never good enough for themselves and felt like they had to be flawless beings. As if they could be.

But still, at the same time, it felt good to get an apology. Raven had crossed a line by invading Red X’s mind; he wanted her to feel sorry for it. He wasn’t sure he could forgive her yet, though. But all the same, at least he knew the guilt was eating her up inside. That would do until her good looks reminded him not to be angry with her.

“I accept your apology,” he told her finally, still casual about the whole affair. “And hey, maybe you can make it up to me sometime, huh?” he added suggestively.

Raven gazed up at him, and her softened expression darkened with a sharp anger. “Guess again,” she told him, raising her glowing hand.

Before she could work her magic, Red X dove off the side of the tower, dropping in a free fall through the cold, pure air. He pulled out the grappler gun he had taken from the tower while the others had put Robin to bed, and fired, saving himself from a fatal landing on the island below. It only took a few more shots before he was safely on the ground. He gazed back up at Raven, who was barely visible from his vantage point, and took off before she could follow.

(TT TT TT)

Robin didn’t know what time it was when he woke up. His masked eyes blinked open, and he saw Starfire sitting beside his bed in the infirmary, looking down sadly at her lap.

“Starfire,” he said, sitting up in the room’s dim lighting.

“Robin!” the girl beamed. “Oh, you are awake!”

“Star—why am I—?”

Starfire stood, and pushed him back down gently but firmly against his pillow. “Please, do not exert yourself, Robin,” she told him. “Raven has just finished healing most of your wounds, but she said that you still need to rest—”

“Star,” Robin told her, “I’m okay.”

“Raven says your body is well, but your mind is not. Please, rest.”

Robin was about to argue, but as the memories of the past twenty-four hours came back to him, he realized he did want to lay down, very, very much. He relaxed in the bed, and Starfire sat back down in her seat. The memories coming in more intensely, Robin let out a short breath.

“We have been so worried about you,” Starfire told him. “I am so sorry that we—”

“No,” Robin cut her off sharply. “Don’t even say it, Starfire.”

A hurt look appeared in Starfire’s alien eyes. Robin didn’t notice; he was glaring angrily at the ceiling.

“Don’t apologize, Star," Robin told her. “I don’t want it. Because none of this is your fault. It’s my fault.”

“No! That is not true,” Starfire said. “You did not know what Slade was planning. You—”

“I lied to you, Starfire,” Robin told her bluntly. “When Red X called me up that night, all I could think about was going out to fight him. I promised you all that we would handle him together, remember? But I didn’t care about any of that when I saw a chance to take him down myself.”

Starfire didn’t like what Robin was saying. Eyes glistening, she said, “You were not thinking clearly. That is all.”

“I was thinking clearly. The truth is, I just wanted revenge. I wanted to get back at Red X. And Slade knew that. I let myself become his apprentice again. And I put all of you—the city—in danger because of it.”

Starfire didn’t have an answer to this. She bowed her head again. “In the end, Slade is to blame,” she whispered. “While you did break your promise to us, Robin, and you did lie to me so you could slip away…it was still Slade’s fault for what he did to you. You would never have acted that way if you knew what Slade’s plan was.”

Robin ignored her, even though he knew deep down what she said was right. He didn’t want to go easy on himself—he didn’t deserve that right now.

Sniffling, Starfire wrapped her strong arms around her friend, holding him. Robin tightened for a moment, but then he was embracing her as well. And despite what Starfire had just said a few moment ago, she pulled him up so that their hug could complete itself.

“I don’t care what you have done,” Starfire said over his shoulder. “You will always be a hero to me.”

Robin didn’t know whether to cry, or to smile and hug her even more tightly. So he did both, quieting his tears so Starfire wouldn’t hear him.

But in her arms, he knew that everything was going to be okay.

(TT TT TT)

Some time later, Red X looked up at the building he used to live in. His apartment had been near the top, away from the city below it, but now he was far away from it as well, both physically and mentally. He had been gone for so long that it had undoubtedly been searched and cleaned out; now, it was ready for rent again. Maybe it already was the home to someone else.

I’ll get another place to stay, the thief decided. As a matter of fact, I’ll get a better place. My own place. The city was filled with abandoned buildings—he could find a new home to sleep and work his small criminal activities.

That sounded like a good idea, X decided, a small smile coming to his face. It was time to pick up where he left off.

A small, shrill cry tore through the night, directing Red X’s attention to a nearby alley. The thief backed away from the cry—what the heck was that?

The cry sounded again, and out of the shadowed alleyway leapt a mangy, battered cat, racing toward the thief at breakneck speed. Red X stared in shock, barely able to catch the animal as it leapt into his arms.

“M-Mouschi?” he gasped. “You’re still alive?”

Mouschi was alive, alright, but the cat was in horrible condition. He had a tear in his left ear, and his right eye was almost completely closed shut from some unknown malady. His once-shiny coat was coarse and bedraggled.

“You poor thing,” Red X simpered, looking his pet over. He held the cat out away from himself, studying Mouschi’s malnourished body. “Slade is such an ass. Talk about innocent bystanders.” And with that, the thief held the cat close to him, tucking him away beneath his cape.

“Don’t worry, buddy,” X told him. “You and me will find a place, and I’ll return the both of us to our former glory again. That sound good to you?”

Th cat made a strangled noise. Red X decided to interpret it as a “yes.”

Holding Mouschi tightly, Red X left the shadow of his old building, ready to start a new, better, and much richer life for himself.

THE END…

…UNLESS YOU WANT TO READ THE EPILOGUE THAT IS WRITTEN RIGHT BELOW.

Reader beware—you will find out exactly what Slade’s blackmail for Robin was. If you think it might make you disappointed in Robin or in the fic, DO NOT READ.

THE EPILOGUE

Losing, no matter how much one put up a fight, was always a bitter affair. It didn’t matter to Slade if he lost while having the last word, or if he got away in the end—a defeat was a defeat. Something that should be avoided at all costs.

And most important of all, something that should never be repeated.

Slade had another lair to retreat to, one that had been constructed for use in emergencies. This lair was just as good as his old one, if a little smaller. It had all of the information in its databases that his former lair had, as well as all of the necessary rooms and equipment he required to perform his activities.

By the time Slade had reached his new headquarters, the Titans were gone from his old lair, and Wintergreen had been taken with them. Slade regretted letting his partner fall into their hands, but it was necessary.

Soon, Wintergreen would be out from behind bars again. Slade had already set those wheels in motion.

That left one detail left—his old lair. Using a coded sequence on his main computer, Slade triggered the self destruct that would destroy all of the information his old lair contained—he couldn’t risk any of his knowledge or current plans falling into the Titan’s hands.

Fortune was on his side—the fools hadn’t tried to download anything before leaving. That was a mistake, Slade knew, and one that would come back to haunt them.

When his work was done, Slade retired to a large chair that would take the place of his old one. Like its predecessor, it was a large, metallic throne that fit him well. Slade sank down in it. As he sat there, his attention fell to the trigger that was still on his wrist.

It was entirely useless now. Slade knew that Red X had cleaned himself of the probes while he had been in the Titans’ care—why else would the thief dare to show his masked face in Slade’s presence again? Unlike the Titans, who had once infiltrated his lair still vulnerable to his nanoscopic probes, Red X would have been sure to get the electrodes in his body removed before facing Slade again. He wasn’t noble enough to put Robin above himself.

So the button that controlled the electrodes was useless now. Slade pressed down on it, and knew with absolute certainty that it would have no effect on the thief at all. Too bad.

The other button on the trigger was useless as well, but for another reason.

Slade hadn’t told Robin what his new form of blackmail was for a good reason.

When Slade was first plotting the leverage he could use against Robin, he knew that telling the boy what it was this time around would be an unwise move. Robin could have possibly used that knowledge somehow to his own advantage, as he’d done before by subjecting himself to Slade’s probes. So this time, Slade decided that Robin wouldn’t know what his punishment for disobedience was—the mystery would make it all the more frightening. That was when Slade realized something: fear was all he needed to keep Robin in line.

To put it plainly, there had never been any blackmail at all.

The trigger Slade wore had been nothing but a shell and some useless circuitry. The city and Robin’s friends had never been in any real danger. Slade had set no bombs, had not made any more probes. He had simply made a control that looked as convincing as the last one he had used to dictate Robin’s actions, and he had created some well-designed lies to go with it.

So essentially, Robin had served Slade for no reason at all. Robin had been a slave out of his own fear, and nothing else.

Slade had enjoyed that immensely—enjoyed how Robin had cringed like a wounded pup at the control, as if it actually posed a real threat; enjoyed how even through the boy’s mask he could detect the fear that must have welled up in his eyes. Dominating your enemy was all well and good, but manipulating your opponent’s mind, twisting it and playing it against itself….now that was true genius, and true pleasure.

Of course, Robin had unwillingly called Slade’s bluff in the end. And even if the control had been real, would he have been able to push the button? No.

Slade sank against his chair, and expelled a heavy sigh through the slits in his mask. With a grim anger that bled to his very core, he knew that he had lost the perfect apprentice forever.

What next? his mind wondered.

Revenge, of course, he answered himself a moment later.

And perhaps…a new apprentice wasn’t too much to hope for…

THE (REAL) END