Chapter Six: Start to Something Beautiful
Due to the open grounds surrounding the former HIVE Five headquarters, the newly formed partners approached after the sun set. Blackfire scanned a pair of small buildings in the distance through a pair of binoculars while the pair kept hidden amongst some trees and shrubs. From what Blackfire could tell, the approach to the buildings looked clear but her instincts told her that some level of security system would alert the people inside before she was even within fifty meters of the buildings. The two buildings looked fairly inconspicuous…except for the chain-link fence around the perimeter and the 'no trespassing' sign. But hey, all sorts of buildings fit that description. For the casual passerby, it looked like just another pair of old warehouses like so many others in the area.
"You live here? So which is the building that we want?" Blackfire asked as looked over to Jinx.
"Both of them actually. The buildings go deep underground and connect together in a big…um, H-shape actually. Don't ask me why it built that way…it was Gizmo's idea," Jinx explained, which made Blackfire roll her eyes. What was with people and making buildings in the shape of letters? It sounded…awfully inefficient for a building layout. "I knew I should've learned how to work that stupid security system. Gizmo always took care of all the technical stuff…"
"Security systems? Bah. I've been dealing with the security systems of alien races thousands of years ahead of this little planet's. When you can navigate your way through a level-nine biorhythmic-sensing pulsar cannon field then we can talk about dealing with fancy security systems," Blackfire boasted confidently.
"What the heck is a pulsar cannon thingie?"
"Extremely nasty. In a nutshell it's a bunch of cannons with extremely sensitive scanning equipment and with weapons so accurate it can blast the wings of a xurtha beetle. Now imagine about twenty of them in a single hallway with overlapping line of sights and you'll get the general idea of what I had to go through when I broke into a Spican vault. Now enough about my glory days, what sort of security did this Gizmo guy put in?"
"Usual assortment – cameras, heat sensors, pressure sensors, laser grids, automated laser turrets, proximity mines, and high security doors. I can handle most of that stuff but they know I'm coming. I'm willing to bet they put See-More on patrol."
"Black guy with white suit, green helmet, and one eye?" Blackfire asked, mostly rhetorically, as she watched the patrolling HIVE member. Jinx simply nodded before taking a peek with her own set of binoculars. "He doesn't look too tough. I should be able to take him down before he can notify the others."
"I've got a better idea."
"Will it involve wanton destruction?"
"I'd like to get my home back in one piece if you don't mind."
"Don't like the plan already."
"Wanton destruction can come in later."
Out of the remaining members of the HIVE Five, now actually numbering five for once, See-More was the only one that was reluctant to oust Jinx so forcefully from the base. The others were intent on exacting revenge on their former teammate for her betrayal and would've locked Jinx away for a long time if it weren't for her fast thinking and a hasty retreat. See-More's reluctance stemmed from more than just his personal feelings for Jinx but the fact that he didn't enjoy how Gizmo bossed everyone around. Without Jinx, Gizmo appointed himself the new leader of the group simply because he was smarter than the others. Gizmo made it his business to push around everybody so much that even though See-More had been told to watch out for Jinx, See-More was spending more time staring up at the evening clouds than watching the horizon. He figured Jinx would have more sense than to try and take on all of them at once so there wasn't any major need to keep an eye out for her.
"Hello? See-More, can you hear me?" A faint voice crackled over his communicator. See-More immediately recognized it as Jinx; cautiously, he answered it after making sure none of his teammates were around.
"I hope this is important Jinx," See-More answered in a hushed voice.
"Very important. We need to talk…privately."
See-More mentally debated the proposal quickly. On the one hand, talking to Jinx could land him in a lot of trouble with the others but on the other hand, Jinx was still his friend and she had always treated him better than the others. Finally, he decided to give Jinx a chance. "Where?"
"Above you."
See-More, caught off-guard by the answer, looked up to see Jinx standing on the edge of the roof and motioning for him to come up. She was there only for a moment before tucking out of sight as to avoid being detected by the other HIVE Five members. See-More was surprised that Jinx managed to get onto the rooftop without him noticing, but then again he didn't know that Jinx had a flyer helping her out. Within a few moments, See-More was on the roof where Jinx was waiting patiently for him. "I didn't think you'd actually be coming back."
"You guys come back out of the blue after six months and kick me out of my home! Did you really think I was just going to lie back and take it?" Jinx snapped back.
"Well I was hoping you'd get the message. If the others find you, there's no telling what they're going to do to you. They are pissed as hell and they want to take it out on you."
"Go figure. I did leave, attack, and imprison you guys. Speaking of which, how did you get out? You were all taken to Adamantine Prison after we beat the Brotherhood of Evil."
"I'm…uh, not at liberty to discuss that," See-More dodged the issue. It struck Jinx as odd how See-More would suddenly get so…nervous on a subject that would normally be a boastful time for the HIVE Five. Jinx wasn't too concerned with how they escaped at the moment, only how to get them back from where they came. "Now you said you wanted to talk and I'm here to listen. You've got five minutes before I tell the others you're here."
"Boy…somebody sounds bitter."
"While the others had the benefit of being in ice for the past several months, I wasn't," See-More explained. He was defeated long before the final battle by The Herald and as such, he was locked away in the Adamantine prison like a common criminal rather than being stored in ice like his teammates. "I was alone for a very, very long time Jinx – a lot of time to think about things. Why do you leave Jinx?"
"Well…for starters I couldn't stand being around Billy Numerous or Gizmo for another second. Plus, I realized that this isn't what I want to spend the rest of my life doing. I knew if I wanted something bigger for myself, I was going to have to do things on my own. As I told the others, its nothing personal."
"They've made it personal Jinx and so have I. We only got caught up in that whole Brotherhood of Evil thing cause of you and then you go and leave us. There's really only one thing stopping me from getting the others out here…"
"I assume it's not because I'd pummel you before you could even turn on your communicator."
"No it's…cause you're my friend, or at least I consider you one. Please, just leave cause I don't want to have to hurt you," See-More confessed reluctantly.
Jinx sighed softly to herself as her eyes panned to the ground for a moment. "You are a friend See-More. I've always been able to count on you for anything and that's why I'm asking you to leave because I don't want to see you get seriously hurt. I'm taking back my home and nobody is going to stop me."
"You and what army?"
"Well she's helping," Jinx explained as she pointed to Blackfire, who was standing directly behind See-More. When he glanced over his shoulder and saw the battle-hungry Tamaranean, See-More almost jumped out of his boots in surprise. "This is Blackfire. Before you ask, yes she's the same species as Starfire. Basically imagine an older, stronger, and angrier Starfire and you get the gist of what this girl is going to help me do."
"She…looks tough."
"Trust me – you don't want to be standing in my way," Blackfire sneered maliciously as her eyes glowed a dark pink. See-More backed away slowly from the Tamaranean, clearly intimidated by her. "Do what the nice girl says and just walk away." See-More looked back and forth between Jinx and Blackfire before finally sighing softly.
"Listen, I know you don't want to fight me but…I can't leave these guys," See-More explained reluctantly. "They're my friends even if they can be a little dense at times. I'm not going to leave them, especially with you two."
"There's an easy way where you get to walk away and there's a hard way where you get to spend the next several hours unconscious before being picked up by the cops," Jinx warned one last time. Friend or not, she wasn't going to let See-More stand in her way. He was just another opponent now.
"I might not be able to stop you but I couldn't live with abandoning them."
"This is going nowhere…" Blackfire sighed lightly and just wrapped her arms around See-More's neck, putting him into a chokehold. Her arms carefully tightened around his neck, enough to block blood and airflow but not enough to leave any permanent injuries. See-More struggled in vain but eventually succumbed to the darkness and passed out. "Tie him up and I'll take care of the door."
"That could've gone better," Jinx muttered softly.
"How many do you see?" Blackfire whispered as Jinx peered around the corner. The pair had succeeded in infiltrating deep into the HIVE Five headquarters. Their opponents relied so heavily on See-More and the security systems, which Blackfire was able to bypass, that most of the team members were simply lounging in the den, watching television and reveling in their own victory.
"Mammoth, Wykkyd, and Numerous," Jinx replied before sinking back behind cover. "No sign of Gizmo but he's probably in his lab."
"You said Gizmo's running the shots now, right?" Blackfire asked to confirm, to which Jinx nodded in response. "If I handle these guys, you think you can find Gizmo and take him out?"
"No problem," Jinx said as she smirked slyly. "The big guy has super strength, the red one can multiply, and the last one can teleport. Nothing you can't handle." Blackfire chuckled quietly as she cracked her knuckles and moved over to the corner where Jinx was moments ago. She peered around the corner and watched the three members carefully. Silently, the two went their separates ways with Jinx headed for the stairwell while Blackfire crept into the den. A wrestling match was playing on the large screen TV, keeping the four couch occupants busy. Between the choice of Kid Wykkyd, Mammoth, or one of the two Billy Numerous, Blackfire decided to use her element of surprise to at least take out one of them without effort. Eventually, she chose the mute Kid Wykkyd and when she was close enough, Blackfire grabbed him by the shoulders and hurled him across the room. The others didn't even notice what was happening until the loud crash of their comrade smashing into the computer monitors rang throughout the room.
"What in tarnation is going on?" one of the Billy's shouted in surprise as he turned in time to meet one of Blackfire's starbolts.
"How the heck did you get in?" Mammoth growled angrily as he jumped off the couch to meet the challenge. Blackfire smirked confidently as she raised her hands and readied herself for a 'fun' martial arts match.
"Through the door. By the way, Jinx sends her regards," Blackfire taunted as she unleashed a strong straight into Mammoth's gut. She flew up to head level and let loose a flurry of quick kicks into his face in an effort to topple over the giant warrior. Mammoth's burly arms were able to absorb the brunt of Blackfire's force but her final kick was still strong enough to knock him off balance and to the ground. Behind her, Billy Numerous quickly multiplied and three jumped onto Blackfire's back in an attempt to ground the Tamaranean.
"Your hands…are on my grebnaks!" Blackfire shouted angrily, driving an elbow into one of the Billy's face. An open palm struck another Billy in the face, stunning him off of her like the previous one. She grabbed hold of the last one, who was holding tightly to her legs, and pried him off of her easily. Another group of the hillbilly multiplier tried to surprise Blackfire; however, Blackfire struck first with a major league swing using Billy as her bat. Once she had taken care of them, Blackfire chucked the last Billy into a recovering Kid Wykkyd, taking them both out.
Two beefy arms suddenly wrapped tightly around her body as Mammoth took Blackfire from behind in a powerful bear hug. Once again those past injuries of hers came back to remind her that she still wasn't in prime physical condition. Her still mending ribs became crackling uncomfortably as his forearms applied more and more pressure on her weaker, lower rib cage. "I'm going to make you regret coming here!" Mammoth boasted as he squeezed her harder, eliciting a number of pained groans from her.
"Nobody tells me what to do," Blackfire grunted as fired her eyebeams into Mammoth's forearms, forcing the behemoth to release her. She broke away from Mammoth and put some distance between her and the massive fighter. Her broken rib began bothering her again, causing each breath to be accompanied by a sharp, stabbing pain. "An impressive level of strength. I'm going to enjoy breaking you," Blackfire said with a grin. The two powerhouse warriors charged at each other, unleashing a multitude of punches and kicks at each other. While able to dodge or block most of the other's attacks, each time one of their strikes made contact, the whole room practically shook from the force as each warrior was knocked around the room. Jinx might have asked Blackfire to try and minimize structural damage as much as possible, but at the current rate the two brawlers were going there was going to be one hell of a mess left behind.
The fight broke out of the den and deeper into the building when Mammoth was knocked straight through the floor, moving the fight from the den into one of their training rooms. "Come on out big boy, I'm not done with you yet," Blackfire goaded, floating down into the training to try and find her opponent.
"Same here!" Mammoth shouted as he came out of hiding, wielding a loaded barbell and striking Blackfire with it. She was knocked to the other side of the room, crashing through several racks of dumbbells and weights along the way.
"Okay enough with the fun, I'm ending this," Blackfire brushed herself off before flying towards Mammoth. Her fist made contact with Mammoth, blowing him clear through the nearest wall and crashing into a perimeter wall. Blackfire followed through with another monstrous punch but since the very weight of the earth was against the wall, all of Blackfire's force went into Mammoth rather than into the wall. Even still, her raw strength was enough to cause the wall to bow slightly, almost shaking the very foundation of the building. All the fight was knocked out of Mammoth as he slumped to the ground unconscious.
"You put up a good fight but you are just too slow for me," Blackfire gloated to the unconscious fighter. For once she was victorious and she didn't have to worry about being electrocuted from behind. Remembering that she still had a partner and one last opponent to worry about, Blackfire figured the proper thing to do was find Jinx once she tied up her defeated enemies.
At least, she thought they were defeated. As Blackfire turned to find Jinx, she was staring eye-to-eye with the stone-faced Kid Wykkyd. "Where did…oh right, the teleportation." Blackfire took a swift punch right to the jaw, sending the Tamaranean skidding across the floor. When she came to a halt, she discovered herself staring up at a small army of Billy Numerous. "Well look who's back for round two," she grinned excitedly at the prospect of another fight. Rolling away from Billy, Blackfire sprang back to her feet and took her usual fighting stance. "Come on you side-show rejects…let's dance."
If Jinx had to make any guess as to where her 'friend' Gizmo would be hanging out at this hour of the day, it'd be in his workshop working on some other fancy little project. It was like clockwork for him really – if he wasn't out robbing an ATM machine it was the workshop. Judging by the lack of alarms going off that Blackfire was doing a good job at taking care of her former teammates. As Jinx neared the workshop on the lower floors, she could hear various power tools and electrical equipment running at full speed, which was a dead giveaway that Gizmo was working in the lab.
At first, Jinx pondered the challenge of getting the door open without alerting Gizmo to her presence. It was times like these that she wished they had opted for the less noisy, traditional swinging doors instead of those new-fangled metal sliding doors that made that annoying 'whoosh' noise like in those science-fiction shows. Finally, Jinx just decided to make her entrance nice and flashy with very, very loud bang.
Actually, it was more of a moderately loud boom followed by a louder crash and the only flash was a result of the flying door hitting pieces of electrical equipment, sending a shower of sparks everywhere.
"Knock, knock," Jinx mused as she strolled inside. "Anybody home?"
"What the? Where the heck did you come from?" Gizmo shouted in surprise at the sight of his vengeful former comrade, scattering his tools across his workbench from the shock. Jinx's eyes began to glow as a wicked grin stretched across her face, sending a surge of fear through the tiny genius.
"It's just you and me little man," Jinx growled as she loomed closer. "Your friends can't help you and while I don't know how you managed to get out of your icy prison, I'm going to make sure you wished you have stayed in its cold embrace." With a snap of her fingers, her magic got to work, causing several light fixtures above Gizmo to fall to the ground.
"Ah crud!" Gizmo cried out as he scrambled to avoid the cascade of broken metal and glass. With his teammates they were able to oust Jinx from the house but in a one-on-one fight, he wasn't so certain how he'd fair against one of the top grads of the HIVE academy. Gizmo had no choice but to try because he knew there was going to be no mercy from the scorned woman. Activating his gear, the four robotic legs extended down and lifted him off the ground while a rocket pod fired a volley of explosives at Jinx. With a wave of her hand, another hex of hers caused a premature detonation in all the rockets along with several pieces of equipment near Gizmo to detonate. The shower of smoldering metal disorientated the miniature criminal as he tried to pull away from the advancing Jinx.
"What's the matter Gizmo? You knew I was going to be coming back or did you expect the four meat sacks above would be enough to stop me? Well actually I didn't even touch any of them – I brought a friend along who was all too eager to find somebody to pummel," Jinx explained, targeting her magic at one of the mechanical knee joints of Gizmo's rear leg, resulting in the joint shattering to pieces. As Gizmo staggered to maintain his balance on three legs, Jinx sent a wave of her magic towards him, plowing him down in an instant. As he smashed through more equipment and shelving units, the remaining mechanical legs were shorn off.
"Blasted…bucket of crud security system…"
"Oh yeah, the security system would probably be more useful if you have deleted my user account instead of just remove my privileges. That was just sloppy, even for you," Jinx continued to taunt the young genius. As she drew closer, Gizmo panic worsened that resulted in him scrambling to get his damaged backpack operating again.
"Come on…work dang you!" he cursed as he continued tinkering with his controls. "Aha!" The tech whiz managed to get one of his energy cannons operating. The weapon folded out and took aim at Jinx, though a strange rumbling from above took both of their attention away from the fight at hand. "What the-" Gizmo's words quickly changed from confusion to a panicked scream when the ceiling above him caved in an a couple hundred pounds of steel and concrete collapsed to the ground atop and around him, half-burying the child. Jinx simply stared at the rubble dumbly, her focus primarily on the unconscious bodies of Kid Wykkyd and Billy Numerous, who were both amongst the rubble.
"Heads up!" Blackfire's voice called out from the hole in the ceiling while she peered down it. "Oh hey Jinx, found that Gizmo guy yet?"
"I told you to try and minimize structural damage."
"It's just a hole…actually it's several holes but who's counting? I tried my best - honest."
"You are...words escape me."
"How about fantastic…or maybe stupendous? Personally, I like astonishing. It rolls off the tongue so nicely plus it sounds like x'hatunisha – a Tamaranean word for 'god-like'."
"When you're done sweeping up the glass Blackfire, you can clean up the rubble from the holes you put in my walls," Jinx reminded her 'friend' while she watched a news program on the television. It was going over a breaking story of the apprehension of the supposed-to-be-incarcerated HIVE Five members after an anonymous tip. Behind Jinx, Blackfire was grumbling various profanities while she swept up the broken glass from the smashed computer monitors.
"This would go a lot faster if you would give me a hand," Blackfire complained as she swept the glass into a pan and threw it out.
"Your mess, you clean up," Jinx answered with a matter-of-factly tone in her voice. "Now I haven't forgotten our agreement – you've helped me get my home back, so you can crash for a bit. If you don't mind me asking, what's so important that you need to hide elsewhere?"
"I um…left a mess in the Titan Tower. I'm going to, you know…hide here for a little while until things calm down."
"So you've gone from one mess in a tower that you could've cleaned up and instead wasted a whole day getting into another home, which you still have to clean up. Brilliant plan if I do say so myself."
"It…sounded like a good plan in my head and at the time. Plus, I really needed to find another place to stay as a whole," Blackfire explained as she finished sweeping up the last of the broken glass. "I'm sick and tired of mooching off my sister and her friends, raking in sympathy points because I'm the poor, wounded, nomad sister. My sister's never-ending optimism and unbridled compassion was going to make me sick to my stomachs and I'd never find my own place with her always 'doing the right thing'. I…was hoping that I could eventually change my temporary residence into a more permanent position."
"I've known you for a day and you're already asking to move in?"
"I know it's quick but…I like you Jinx and for once I wasn't having to fake it. I don't get that very often and I can tell by the lack of a flat-out rejection that you're actually not turned off by the idea."
Jinx smiled before getting off the couch and joining Blackfire in cleaning up the rubble. "I like you too Blackfire…you're pretty cool and it's neat to have a Tamaranean on my side. Maybe it is a little quick but why not? It gets a little quiet here without the old gang making a ruckus." The good news brought a pleased smile to Blackfire's lips and the two new housemates carried on with cleaning up their home.
"I get the feeling this is going to be a lot of fun."
"Is that all you think about?"
"Everything I do is either fun or necessary…and when it's necessary I try to make it as fun as possible."
"You're incorrigible…"