Highschool was never kind to me [Vi]

[Tim Drake]

Tim walked into the kitchen through the back door, wearing a dark red hoodie and some dark wash jeans, slightly beat up black sneakers on his feet, his hair low and moppy rather than lightly spiked, he held a white paper bag in one hand and a cardboard travel carrier in the other, two each of milk and coffee, one chocolate milk, the other 2% skim, both coffees caramel fraps.

"Morning." he said simply as he walked in and sat across from her, setting the bag (which was filled with donuts muffins and Kolachies) and the carrier down and then looked at her, and smiled; "Help yourself." He said as he took the small jug of chocolate milk out and opened it, took a drink, then pulled out a cinnamon donut and took a bite and chewed before he cleared his throat and looked Violet square in the eye; "Well, it's been one week, and based on your response to my call last night, you want to try my offer out, so I guess the only real question I have is this: Do you really think you're ready?"

[Violet Schultz]

"There's no real way to know that until I try," she pointed out, picking out a glazed donut for herself. "Physically, I'm back to my usual strength. Otherwise, there's no amount of conditioning that can prepare a person for this sort of thing."

She took a bite of the donut and washed it down with a swig of juice, resting her head on her fingertips. Her dark eyes were distracted. That boy she'd fought in the alley that night... She was worried about him. He didn't remember anything, his powers were beyond his control, and she didn't know where he was. What if he accidentally hurt someone? Or worse, it wasn't an accident? She felt somehow responsible for him. She tore her mind away from it.

"Tim, what are we going to do about that kid I fought a couple of days ago?" she asked. "It's kinda been weighing on my mind."

[Tim Drake]

"Good answer, I think you're going to do better than you think." he said before he took another drink of the dark and sweet milk and then started on one of the blended coffees.

Tim downed the last of his donut and then took out a beef and cheese Kolachie and stared on that, his bright, pale blue eyes far off as he stared at the table top then looked at her, with a slightly hard and thoughtful face; "I know what you mean, I've been thinking about it too, and I did some checking, based on all the databases I could think of, there's no record of a Shane Wilson anywhere in the northern hemisphere, and the only one in the southern is an old Australian race car driver who's been retired for the last two years..."

He paused for a moment before he went on, unsure how Violet would take the next bit of news; "The boy was reported to be on the east side, where there was an explosion last night, near a roadside diner... it was late and there where only a few people injured, but... a lot of ground was burned up or blown away... If he gets to be much more of a threat, random or otherwise, it will be up to me and Beast Boy, and likely you, to stop him... I hate to say it but... He may end up being your final test."

Tim looked to Violet, and watched her for her response, since he had picked up on something subtle in her account of the fight...


If Tim knew more about her, and didn't know any better, he'd of suspected that the boy had hit a raw nerve in her somewhere deep inside her, and that she might just possibly hold some form of infatuated feelings for him...

[Violet Schultz]

Violet didn't reply to the news, in words or in body language. It didn't really come as a surprise to her, and she had been expecting that she would have to go one on one against him again. Only a pyro could fight him and come out unburnt. None of the Titans were impervious to fire like she was, and that eliminated half of the threat. As far as she was aware, the only animals that were impervious to fire were the shrimp at the bottom of the ocean. While that might be a bit useful, it would hardly give Beast Boy the edge he needed to take down Wilson. And from her fight, she could tell that Robin's martial arts prowess wouldn't save him, unless he was faster than light. Doubtful.

"I can deal with him," she said after a few moments. "It wouldn't be safe for you, or for Beast Boy. Unless you're secretly fireproof."

She finished off her breakfast and stood. Heading over to the sink, she put the glass in and ran water to rinse it out. Her eyes were clear and focused when she came back to sit down at the table. She wasn't overconfident; she knew that he wasn't a pushover. She was simply certain that if worse came to worse, she could take him.

"Finding him would be easy for me. I can sense fire, and the fire he carries inside of him is unlike natural fire. Just like people have individual voices, the feeling of a pyro's inner fire is distinctive."

[Tim Drake]

Tim nodded and watched her; she was so impassive that he briefly wondered if she had carefully (and secretly) observed Batman, and had simply forgot to mention it...

Still, the way her eyes ALMOST flickered with regret, or rather hinted at almost showing it, (at least as far as he could tell, but again, he could just be reading into this too much) he was unsure as to how she would do against this Shane Wilson, but then it might be her reluctance to harm people needlessly that he was picking up on, rather than any infatuation, and that was likely it, since she really didn't seem the type anyway...

He shrugged at her comments about safety; "My suit is flame resistant, and I have a helmet I can wear to protect my head, and Beast Boy has just mastered how to turn into a Dragon, and that should give him some hefty protection, and I'm not sure I want to risk you getting hurt bad your first mission or on your final test... For now, we just wait and see, but if he endangers any more bystanders, I don't there to be any hesitations, the safety of the people in this city is our number one priority, first and always."

He then considered her comments about his and her powers, then nodded; "Okay, that's good to know... We might be able to use that in fact..." he said as he thought more about that and how it could prove useful...

[Violet Schultz]

Violet nodded at his words.

"I am not certain about what to do," she admitted. "He has amnesia. He doesn't know who he is, he doesn't know what powers he has, and he's scared. I don't want to hurt him, but we can't just let him attack people."

She could still remember the terror she'd seen on his face, and the power of his attacks. Even when she'd been fighting him, she hadn't been certain of whether or not she was doing the right thing. Of course she couldn't let herself get killed at his hands, but amnesia was technically a form of insanity. It wasn't really his fault. What could they do to help someone like that? A spark of uncertainty showed in her eyes as she spoke.

"And how can my ability to sense pyros help?" she asked. "It can help me, but how would it help you?"

[Tim Drake]

Tim thought about that then shrugged; "Well the only solution I can see is that we subdue him, carefully, and then restrain him and block or contain his powers and try to reason with him."

Tim wanted to hope for the best, but a few facts simply glared at him and wouldn't let him hold to tightly to that hope.
"But based on how you described him, he's had a total mental breakdown, at first he was just scared, but when he attacked you, he kept pressing and pressing, and acted far too aggressive for just simple fear and ignorance, since most would have lashed out for a moment and then fled, since the human brain is wired for flight when in doubt."


He leaned back and sighed. This was the problem with leadership; you always had to plan for and look for the worst, and that also meant you where second guessing yourself when you lacked needed information...

"We need a plan." he said at last as he looked from the ceiling back to Violet.

[Violet Schultz]

"I take it that you want to deal with him first, then?" she clarified.

She sat back in her chair, closing her eyes as she reached out with her powers to find the sources of flame in the city. She skipped over the smaller flames (cigarettes, lighters, car engines) and sorted out the natural fires to find the inner flames of all of the pyros in the city. She could feel her own, pulsing with the beat of her heart as all inner fires did. Her own fire was some of the most powerful that she had encountered, not to toot her own horn. Most pyros didn't have the intensity of fire that she did. Shane had fire that was close to it, but the composition was just a little different.The mix of kinetic output was overshadowed by light output, but balanced nicely with the heat output.

She located him across town, near the docks. She could tell that he was moving, but from the feel of it, he wasn't angry. Anger always stirred inner fire. He wasn't in a fight at that second. Reassuring. The lavender glow from behind her lids faded as she opened them and she lost the feeling.

"He's down by the docks right now," she reported. "He seems fairly calm at the moment. So, what do you want to do?"

[Tim Drake]

Tim gave Violet a wiry look and then rolled his eyes; "Oh sure, send the flammable one in first... I want the chance to try and reason with him, but to do that, I'll need you there to help, I think that if I make first contact with him, then we'd have a shot, but I'll need you there as a safeguard, since I have no clue how much my suit will hold up against his kind of fire..."


He looked back over his shoulder at the door and then went back to the sack of donuts and took another out and started on it, as he thought some, before he looked back at Violet and spoke around the last bit of pastry; "Okay, first things first, lets get you to Titans Island, and check you out, I want to know exactly what you can do, and I want to get you sized for some special under -armor, and then get your input for a suit, and not the kind that needs slacks." he smirked at his little joke as he slurped on some more of his frozen coffee and thought some more...

[Violet Schultz]

Violet chuckled at his words, her hair falling in her face as she looked down.

"I meant 'before we do anything else,'" she said, looking back up at him, a smile on her face. "I'm pretty sure that it would be safest for you to hang back until I talk to him."

She looked up at the ceiling for a moment, deep in thought.

"You know, if you want to test your fabric against the fire that pyros use, I could help you out. I'm not about to light you on fire or anything, but I could test the fabric in an experiment whenever you like."

[Tim Drake]

Tim nodded as he stood up and sucked up the last of his coffee; "Hmm, maybe. But back to my main point; you two fought, do you really think he'd be willing to hold still for long if you just came up to him out of the blue? Odds are he'd either attack you again or cut and run, and I don't want him tearing up the city while running from us, which based on your accounts, he's likely to do."


Tim's thinking was based on both training and real world experience, and while things would have been oh so nice and tidy if he and Violet could simply walk up to this Shane guy and explain to him all that they knew and had supposed about him, and offered to help him out, and oh yeah, he was cool about it, Tim hadn't been that naive since he was five.

Simply put this whole endeavor was going to lots of take careful thought and work on both of their parts, and it was, in a way, the first real step Violet would take to becoming a Teen Titan, so her actions and reasoning would be under careful scrutiny...

Turning Tim tossed the empty cup around in his hand, and then spoke as he looked back at her and moved towards to the door;"Okay, well if you're about ready, we can head back to the tower and start your evaluation, and while we do all of that, you can bounce any ideas off of me and if things work out, you might get to meet Beast Boy, he's due back in town some time in the next day or two."

[Violet Schultz]

"No, I doubt that he'll be willing to sit still for a conversation, but I might be able to get him to talk to me if I take away his ability to create fire. If not, I'd take it from there," she conceded. "In any case, it's too risky to try. There's gotta be another way to do this."

He'd been approaching reason when he'd cut fence. She knew that he was capable of it. It was definitely foolishly optimistic to think that he would talk to her right off the bat, but she was willing to bet that he still was curious about her; her abilities and the reason that she wanted to help him out. Truthfully, she wasn't even completely certain of the reason. It was partially what she'd told him, but there was something else that she couldn't quite put her finger on. Pity, maybe? That didn't seem quite the word, actually. Tim's next words tore her mind from that track.

"Whenever you'd prefer, we can go," she said. "I don't have any equipment, so I'm ready to go at any time."

[Tim Drake]

Tim shrugged at her as he tossed the refuse from breakfast into a small plastic sack and then tied it up and tossed it out the back door into a trash can.

"Hmm, in any case, I want to be close, like you I'm good at reading people and their body language, but my skills come from training my natural nack for picking up on things, and I tend to have a way with reasoning with people, am I right?" He gestured to her, in reference to him and her, and while it may not have been the best example, it was the most relevant; Violet didn't have to go him that night, she could have cut and run off on her own, at any time, and based on everything he knew about her, she normally would have, but she hadn't once he had spoken to her plainly and honestly.

Risky to bet on that working again with this Shane guy, but Tim felt that in this situation, reason and kindness could break through to him, and if not? Well, in a fight two sets of fists where always better than one.


"Okay then, I hope you know how to piggy back good." He said as he walked down the steps and down the small pathway to the back gate, where just inside the tall wooden fence sat one of his favorite bits of crime fighting tech: the brand new R-Cycle which, while not quite as fast as the old red one, was quieter and could seat a passenger easier than the old one, and as a plus, it was also more nimble and less trouble to maintain since it ran off of more traditional fuels rather than the hydrogen fired plasma discharge turbine of the old one (which was still in pieces in the basement) which was powerful, but a tad loud and hard to fix (even for Cyborg) but this new one was a gem...

Tim pulled on his helmet and then tossed another slightly smaller matching one to Violet before he mounted up and pushed the gate open and wheeled out into the alley, ready to fire it up and go...