Black and White

Writer's Post Story Note: This story once contain song lyrics but due to a later ban by this website on such things, they have been removed. Since some of them featured heavily into the story, this will lead to jarring gaps. I apologize, but there is nothing I can do. On the tops of chapters I will place SR for Song Removed if there is a gap where a song once was.


Chapter 1: Stranger In a Strange Land

Teen Titans. Fitting name, and not just because of their age. This whole setup bears the certain particular brand of irresponsibility that teenagers live with. Forget a well-hidden cave or fortress on the moon, let's just build a building shaped like a big T! Surely this will prevent any possible sneak attacks!

Then again, this is a group that goes out into the public IN COSTUME to have fun. Not very wise if you ask me.

Still, I don't want a to pick a fight with them. I'm not a bad guy, and besides I'm far too inexperienced. But I have no idea how long these powers may last. I want to try and do at least ONE thing before I possibly lose them. But to do that, I need Robin.

He's there, I know it. I've seen him coming and going with his companions. But considering who he is, he has to head off alone eventually.

Back to Gotham

Back to his mentor.

And as long as I am a meta-human, I want to at least see Batman with my own eyes.

I never really longed to be "special", but as long as I am, I may as well live out a dream or two.

Perhaps my name is too pretentious though…

"You know, being part robot, I thought you would be, you know, in kin with your fellow kind or something…" Timothy Drake said, his masked face a picture in concentration as he ran Cyborg's latest challenge to his video game supremacy into the ground.

"Shaddup!" Victor Stone snapped, as he tried to get back in the lead. A rear-dropped bomb weapon from Robin's car pretty much smashed any hope he had of that. He growled and resisted the urge to sonic-cannon blast the TV and system, but that would just result in them having to get a new one.

Garfield Logan, in the form of a bat, hung from the ceiling, watching with great amusement. He always liked it when Cyborg lost: his reactions were priceless and since he, Beast Boy, usually lost to Victor he rarely saw them. Even if he DID win, Victor laughed it off as a fluke. The best moment he had ever seen was when Robin had mounted a comeback and beaten Victor once again a few weeks ago and Victor had launched into a stream of insults in what Gar though may have been "Ebonics", talking about how he was going to "Forshizzle's Tim's nizzle in the drizzle" or something, and a few other sentences Gar thought had to be gibberish. Victor had been put in his place though, when an annoyed Raven had looked over from her mirror and calmly asked "What the fizzuck are you saying?" Both he and Tim had nearly died laughing.

And Tim won the day again, though Victor refrained from using any words ending in "izzle" to indicate his displeasure. Tim was about to say something in return when something on his belt beeped and he stopped, withdrawing a com link.

"Sorry Victor, Batman's calling. We'll have to pick this up later." Robin said, as he vaulted off the couch and ran out the door.

Victor made a noise of annoyance and got up.

"Cheer up Cyborg" Garfield said as he floated down and transformed back into his humanoid form. "You know how Batman runs him ragged."

"While the thought of a run ragged Tim is amusing, don't forget the reason Robin is leader is because he IS Batman's protégé." Victor said, rubbing his head. Batman had dropped in once to get Tim for something, and he clearly disapproved of the lifestyle they tended to lead. It took a lot to scare Victor, but Batman's glare had done it all too easily.

"FRIENDS!" Came a sudden joyful female yell. Cyborg and Beast Boy would have jumped, if such exclamations hadn't become all too common. Kory Anders aka Starfire bounded in with some plates.

"I have been practicing my Earth cooking! Behold! Breakfast! Shredded swine flesh and fried chicken embryos!" Kory said joyfully, thrusting her cooked food at the two.

"Uh Star, first of all, you make DINNER, not breakfast at this time of day, and also, that's BACON and EGGS…aw man, how many poor pigs died for this..." Garfield moaned, looking at the piles of fried meat strips.

"Do not worry Friend Garfield! I have learned enough of your tofu to use it to mimic the bacon for you! Though the fake eggs did not come out as well...I did not believe food could scream..." Starfire said sadly.

"Some of this is tofu?" Cyborg said incredulously. He couldn't see any difference, even when Kory pointed it out. Gar hesitantly tried a strip of indicated tofu bacon. He would have hesitated MORE, but after trying some of Kory's alien cooking, human food, even made by her, didn't seem so scary.

"Mmmm, on the other hand you actually got this done pretty good!"

"Yeah! Nice work Star!" Victor said as he tried some (real) bacon.

Kory beamed.

"Where is Raven? She should have some too!"

"Still out. I think Robin got a message that she'll be back soon…mmmmm crispy…" Garfield said as he helped himself to more (fake) bacon.

Robin strolled out to his motorcycle and got it started, his cape billowing in the wind as he took off. He wondered what Bruce needed him for.

Intent on his driving and what his trainer wanted, Robin didn't see the white figure remove himself from the position he had been on the T-Tower and throw out what appeared to be a white rope, swinging after Robin as he drove.

Ah, finally! He's heading to Gotham. Now all I need to do is find enough buildings and automobiles to keep him in sight…

Man, I can see why Spider-Man has so much fun, this swinging is a blast! And that's just one of the many things Shimmer can do. Now I wonder…WHOOPS!

The figure in white had mis-timed a throw and missed the building he was going to use as his next swing point, and gravity immediately reminded him that defying it came with a cost as he fell towards a wall.

"YIKES!"

The figure snapped out his right arm and what looked like a white energy "rope" flew from it, twisting around into a spiral shape as the wall loomed up.

The coil hit the wall and bent in, and then sprang away, pushing the figure away from the wall. Problem was, he was still falling.

The figure retracted his arm and then slammed it forward, and the coil of white energy untangled and shot upward at great speed. It reached the top of the building and twisted, forming a crude hook on the roof.

The figure stopped dead, and then the white energy spasmed like a snapped rubber band and yanked him upward, like a bungee jump. The figure flew up past the roof and the white energy twisted, changing his direction and flinging him through the air in Robin's direction. It then removed itself from the building and snapped past the figure to grab it's next foothold, allowing him to swing on past Robin.

"Be more careful Noel." The figure chastised himself as he continued in his pursuit.

Robin drove out of the city and got on the freeway towards Gotham. The costumed boy driving a red-painted supercharged attracted more then a little attention. The figure it white leaping from truck to truck (with an occasional car in between) attracted more. Unfortunately(?) for Robin, it didn't attract his attention during the 45 minute drive, as he finally took an off ramp and headed for Gotham.

A somewhat tired figure kept his pursuit, hoping Robin would stop and go onto a building and mimic his mentor by brooding or imitating a gargoyle or doing ANYTHING that made him stand still for a bit.

Edward Nygma, aka the conundrum spouting Riddler, said it best when he said "When is a man a city? When is a city a man?" in describing what Gotham and it's resident protector were like. A sprawling mass of dark stone and black metal that whispered of secrets and atrocities and marvels that very few normals ever saw. It seethed with the danger of darkness, and yet it reverated with the mystery and thrills that attracted so many people to the darkness. More then a few regretted their attraction, but there would always be more.

In a way, this black city was home for Tim. His father was here, some of his fellow vigilante allies as well, and of course his mentor, whose shadow somehow cast a deeper darkness still. But at the same time it repelled him, whispered to him of the horrors he had seen Batman's many lunatic enemies commit. He hoped the Joker hadn't broke out of Arkham again. The "Clown Prince of Crime" had a habit of mistaking Tim for Jason Todd, the second Robin, who the Joker had murdered, and he tended to go for Tim with a scary intensity, promising that this time he would "stay dead!". Tim shuddered inwardly.

He stopped his motorbike and pressed a few buttons. Roughly several seconds after he got off it, the bike's myriad of super high tech systems would activate and provide the bike with several powerful abet non-lethal defenses in case anyone tried to steal it.

Robin was wondering if Batman would seek him out or contact him with more information when he heard it. It was a very small noise, but Batman had taught him well to determine what type of barely heard noises were bad or not, and this one set off his danger sense.

With blinding speed, his hand flew to his belt and extracted a "Birdarang", his own version of his mentor's "Batarang", as he spun and threw it at a nearby roof. There was a noise of surprise and then a flash of white as a figure came tumbling down from the roof. The Birdarang flew back into Tim's hand as the figure did one last spin and landed, on his feet.

"The next throw cracks your skull." Robin said, his muscles tensing in case he had to make that throw.

"Huh. So you detected me. I guess there's more of your mentor in you then I thought. Relax Robin, I am not your enemy." The figure said as he stood up, hands at his sides to show he didn't have a weapon.

Robin's eyebrow arched. He though, with his red and green outfit, that he stuck out like a sore thumb in the shadows of Gotham. But THIS guy…

He looked to be a little older then Tim, and all he wore was white. Wait, scratch that, his shirt was a light blue. But besides that, white. White boots, white jeans, and a white leather jacket. To top it off, literally, his hair was pure snow white. Also, it was in a strange styled that looked like it required a ton of gel, standing up off his head in spiked locks. The hair reminded Tim of DBZ.

"Ok, if you're not my enemy, why are you following me?"

"I have an explanation. Put the weapon down, please?" Whiteman said. His eyes actually showed a touch of playful pleading, as if he wasn't taking Robin very seriously. Well, that would be HIS problem if he went that course.

"I'll take my chances."

"Ok. I would assume you are Robin."

"One of my teammates isn't here, so I will make the comment she surely would have made. My lord, your mental prowess is absolutely staggering! I am floored you could make such a deduction!" Robin said, doing his best Raven impression.

"Ha ha, cute. It's habit. Robin, I am following you because I want to meet your teacher."

"Batman?" Robin said incredulously. "He ain't exactly the social type, you know."

"So I gathered. But I've read of his work since I was young, and as a fledging, well, human with enhanced abilities, I just wanted to see if I could meet the greatest superhero of all." Whiteman said, his eyes betraying just a tad bit of hero worship.

"Well if that's the case, why didn't you just knock on the door and ask me?" Robin said, finally lowering his Birdarang. He sensed no malice in this man in white's intentions. Then again, if he was wrong and he turned out to be another agent from H.A.E.Y.P or something, he would give him a sound thrashing.

"Because you would call him to ask, and he would say no because he's BATMAN. I've read the few superheroes' who have met him and written book's books. He's so aloof he's…uh…hey, you've gotta be smart to be Batman's protégé! What's an acronym for "aloof"?"

"Uhhhhhhh…" Robin puzzled.

"Never mind. In any case that wouldn't have worked. So I figured I could follow you when you headed back here and arrange a "chance" meeting with Batman, you know "oh hello just passing through…" that kind of thing."

"Why not just go to Gotham and do that by yourself?"

"Because if you're going somewhere Batman is sure to be nearby! If I did this alone I could be running around this city for WEEKS before anything happened."

"Aren't you a little old for hero worship?" Robin teased, his mood lightening.

"This from the guy who I heard fainted the first time he met Superman."

"Hey! I did not faint from the meeting! We'd just had a big battle and I was pretty worn out and…" Robin's protest was interrupted as his com link beeped. "Hold on you, and don't come over here! Or, well, use your imagination!" Robin said as he answered.

"Robin, are you in Gotham yet?" said a dark and cold voice from the com link.

"Yes sir."

"Good. I was calling you because of an elusive group of violent carjackers has been causing me some trouble, I wanted some more hands on it to wrap it up as soon as possible, but when I originally contacted you I had just received a key clue from Oracle. I tracked them down and am in pursuit. Can you intercept?"

"Where are you?"

"On 4th and Main, head north."

"Oh dear, I'm pretty far away…"

"Try anyway!" came a final curt command, and then the link went dead.

"Nice guy." Whiteman muttered.

"Damn, I'm pretty far from his location and the streets are a maze in this area…" Robin said, partly to the man in white and partly to himself. 'I wish I brought Starfire, she could have flown me there…"

"You need to get somewhere quickly? Maybe I can help." The man in white said.

"What can you do? Fly? Teleport?" Robin asked.

"Almost as good. Hold on."

The man in white raised his right arm and suddenly what looked like a white rope of energy flew from his palm and at Robin. Robin nearly smacked the guy with his birdarang again before the energy wrapped around him. But it didn't tie him up, rather it wrapped under his armpits and knees in a crude harness. Then it lifted him up, gently and easily. Robin kept his birdarang at the ready in case the guy had waited all this time to try something funny.

"Want me to grab your bike too?" Whiteman was asking.

"Carry it as well? How much can you lift?"

"At most, about seven tons, but only for a few seconds if it's that heavy, But can carry you and your bike easy enough for half an hour or so…"

"Explain your powers later! Just get me to 4th and Main!"

"Which way is it?"
"THAT WAY!" Robin said, pointing, wondering if he was giving the orders or being carted around like an infant.

"Gotcha."

The white energy rope had come out of the palm of the man in white's right hand suddenly shifted, the emergence point suddenly shifting and literally moving down the man's arm and to his shoulder, so that the rope that held Tim now emerged from the man's back. The man trust out his hands, and twin new coils of white energy rope shot out, flying out and grabbing a grip onto the nearest roof structures.

"Hey, I never asked, what the heck is your NAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMEEEEEEEE!" Robin yelled as the ropes suddenly retracted and literally yanked the man and Robin upward and into the air like a giant slingshot. The two flew up above the roofs of Gotham.

"Whoa! Nice trick!"

"Coming from the great Robin, that's a real honor. Which way?" Whiteman said, as gravity began to take over and the two's ascent stopped.

"That way!" Robin said, pointing.

Whiteman snapped out a new coil of energy and half-swung half-pulled himself across several city blocks, using the ropes to form swings, grappling hooks, slingshots and all sorts of other things as he went in the way Robin pointed. There was a scary moment where he missed a toss and the two began to fall, but the man in white merely formed a coil beneath him as a spring and bounced off the ground, throwing out another coil and grabbing hold of his next target.

"Sorry, I'm still kinda new at this." Whiteman apologized.

Tim would have felt worse if he had been moving more, but unlike Whiteman, who was flipping and twisting and spinning with the aid of his "ropes" as he ran and jumped where Tim told him too, his position stayed solidly fixed. The rope that held him up moved around Whiteman's body to keep from getting tangled.

In a lot shorter amount of time then it would have taken Tim to drive there, the two were at 4th and Main. In fact, they had gotten there so quick that Tim had misjudged exactly where Batman might have, and instead of arriving at where he current was they arrived in front of him. Tim had a moment of semi-panic as he tried to puzzle out where Batman was, and then he heard the cars as they headed his way.

There had originally been four cars, but the Batmobile had already disabled two of them by the time Robin and the still-unnamed Whiteman had arrived. One of the remaining two was causing him some trouble though, as several punks were hanging out the window firing weapons on him. Batman himself wasn't in danger (nothing short of a surface to surface missile was going to put a dent in the Batmobile) but Batman couldn't just drive head-on into the storm of bullets and have a ricochet go through a wall and into some sleeping person's head. So he used evasive techniques, which slowed him down as he and the remaining two cars blasted down the road.

"Hey, can you get me onto that second car?" Robin asked.

"Your wish is my command!" Whiteman said as he grabbed a nearby chimney with energy rope thing and swung out with Robin, the strand that held Robin extending him towards the car. The harness unwrapped and let Robin go as he yanked out his metal fighting staff.

As Robin landed on the firing car's roof and began knocking guns out of hands and kicking teeth down punk's throats, the man in white landed on the first car, the one in the lead.

"Hope you have air bags!" he said as he snapped out a length of his rope, which twisted around and smashed through the driver's side window. A second later another length smashed through the roof itself, and as the punks yelled in surprise and tried to get their guns up the second strand anchored the man in white to the roof even as his first grabbed the steering wheel and twisted it hard to the side. The vehicle did a sharp turn and, as Whiteman leapt to safety, drove into the wall.

Whiteman landed and shot out another length. The lone "rope" suddenly split into several separate strands that flew in separate directions. Four looped around the car and then effortless lifted it, and then three more reached around and opened the door as Whiteman turned the car on its side in mid-air and shook it like a salt shaker, causing the punks inside to fall out amidst a storm of surprised curses.

Whiteman, his energy rope whipping wildly around, walked over as the punks got up. They tried to aim their guns as him.

The rope, as if alive, lashed out, slapping the guns out of two punk's hands before it split and each strand lanced to the side of each punk's head.

"Meeting of the minds." Whiteman said as the strands shoved the punk's heads together with a satisfying KLONK! He spun as the rope retracted and then lashed it under another punk's legs.

"Have a nice trip." Whiteman said as he yanked the thug's legs out from under him. "See you next fall." He added as he did the same to the forth punk. "Yeah, they're terrible puns, but you don't deserve the good stuff."

Punk 4 began getting up.

"Are you still standing?"

The energy rope lashed out like a whip, catching the punk on the side and hitting him so hard he flew into a nearby pile of garbage ten feet away.

"Garbage with gar…" Whiteman said he heard a CLICK.

Punk 3 was back up, and he had a gun, and he was about to squeeze the trigger…

At least before a Batarang smashed into his head, square between the eyes, throwing him backwards as the gun fired into the air. Whiteman exhaled in relief and turned around.

Robin retracted his staff as he landed next to his mentor, his foes taken care of as well.

"Friend of yours?" Batman asked, looking at Robin as the man in white stared at the Dark Knight Detective in momentary awe.

"Kinda. He followed me here because he wanted to meet you."

Batman's eyes narrowed.

"Hey, I just found this out two minutes ago!" Robin said as he threw his hands up.

"Fine. Sorry I brought you here Robin, I made a slight error in judgment."

"Everyone's entitled to them." Robin said, and then shrank back a bit as his teacher gave him a hard look. "Except you of course."

"Excuse me…sir…"

Robin and Batman looked back at the man in white who had aided them. He had approached them and was looking at Batman nervously.

"I know you are very very territorial and don't like to socialize with your fellow, uh, heroes, but I was just wondering if I could please shake your hand, sir?" Whiteman said in a stammering rush.

Batman gave him a hard look, and then offered his hand. The man in white shook it quickly.

"Thank you sir. I will now do exactly what you would want and leave your city." Whiteman said, and turned away.

Robin actually thought he saw a slight smile on Bruce's face. It was small and fleeting, but there, definitely there.

"He's got potential." Batman said, and then turned away. "You can return to your friends now if you wish."

"Um, ok Batman. Call me if you need me…" Robin said, but his mentor was already ignoring him. Typical. He turned and headed after the man in white.

"Thank you Robin. I appreciate this. Do you want me to carry you back…"

"Oh no…" Robin said with a wicked look as he held up a small device. "Don't bother."

A few moments later the motorcycle drove around the corner, by itself, and stopped at Robin's side.

"Remote controlled. Very nice. Well, sorry to bother you…" Whiteman said as he turned to leave.

"Hey wait." Robin said. If Bruce, who was possibly the harshest judge in the WORLD when it came to costumed heroes, thought this guy had potential. "How old are you?"

"17."

"Well then…you wanna come back to the Tower?"

"Your Tower? You mean you'd…?" Whiteman said, his extreme fanboyish attitude he had displayed with Batman coming back a tad.

"Heck, I won't make any PROMISES…" Robin said in a teasing tone. "But at the least we could always use a new sucker, I mean RECRUIT!"

"………….Ok then. Sure, I'll come." The man in white said.

"Ok look look, before anything, we have to get properly introduced. I, as you already know, am Robin. Who are you?"

The man in white chuckled.

"What's in a name? That which we…"

"Can the Shakespeare or I'll leave you here and on top of that I'll drive over your foot."

"Sorry."

The man in white offered Robin his hand.

"I'm Savior."

Robin arched an eyebrow.

"Savior?"

"Yes, and this…" Savior said, as the white energy rope suddenly snapped out of his palm and twisted around him before it's "end" came to float in front of Robin's face. "Is the Shimmer. I think it's semi-sentient, so you might as well say hello to it too."

"Oh. Well hello Savior. Hello…the Shimmer…" Robin said awkwardly.

"Just Shimmer will do. Shall I ride with you or just follow?"

"What? Oh hop on. So, uh, how did your get your powers? And what's with the name? Kinda pretentious, don't you think?"

"ARGH! Look Robin, let me tell you how I got the name and then maybe you'll understand I'm not trying to be arrogant…" Savior said as Robin started his bike and headed back to the T-Tower. Even over the bike their argument could be heard.

"That's still not the best reason to call yourself a…"

"You're named after a bloody bird!"

"The bloody bird who will be your leader if you are accepted, so you are trumped."

"Who says you get to be leader?"

"Hey, don't make me turn this bike around and go home…!"

"WE ARE GOING HOME…!"

So, we witness the arrival of Savior, a potential new Titan! At last I can stop calling him Whiteman because I was saving his name for the end! It sounds so racist! So, what will happen next chapter? Will Savior become a Titan? What affect will he have on the Titans? And considering what Robin said, what effect will the Titans have on him? Uh, that's it! Go away! No more till the next chapter! Why are you still here? You think this is a Titans show and not a story? Fine, to make you realize it is OVER, I will close with the ending credit words! Now go away!

T-E-E-N

T-I-T-A-N-S!

Teen Titans! Let's go!