Chapter 11:

Fix or Hex

As Jinx came closer and closer to the room her worst enemy was in, memories of the worst day of her life came creeping back into her mind. Memories that she thought had finally be replaced by real friends, accomplishments she could be proud of, and happiness. She thought she had finally gotten past what had happened to her, but that old grudge wasn't about to just stay buried.

Confusion, anger, broken trust, heartache. The emotions of that day felt worse than ever.

She remembered trusting her friends, and that witch, that they were helping her. When really they were trying to ruin her. And she fell for their trick. She hated to remember how easily trusting she was.

She remembered that on that day in the midst of it all she had wondered what she would do with her life, and then right in that moment someone came along and took advantage of her confusion and awful situation, and turned it into something worse. She knew he had probably just seen her power and thought she would be able to help him, along with the rest of his school, to hurt others. She hated to think of how easily tricked she had been again so soon after being tricked twice before.

But she knew she was very different now, and wasn't going to be tricked again. She was certain that this time she would be in control.

Jinx finally arrived at the door and gave it an intense glare. It wasn't locked, but if it had been she was all for hexing it down and scaring the life out of the hag in the room in front of her.

She twisted the doorknob slowly, opened the door, and poked her head inside. It was a dimly lit room, and vaguely resembled the room Jinx had walked into years ago. The wall always had at least one shelf standing in front of it, and each one was filled with books and strange looking items.

Then her attention was drawn to the old woman in the center of the room. She was brewing up something in her rather large pot. It felt like deja vu, but Jinx knew that this visit would be different than the first.

'I'm not that weakling I was then, so I have nothing to worry about.' she assured herself mentally. She stepped in, and shut the door behind her. The sound of the door caught the witch's attention, but she didn't turn around.

"Yes? What do you want?" asked the woman as she mixed the pot, thinking it was just a member of the academy.

"I want you to undo what you did to me." Jinx said clearly and firmly.

The witch stopped stirring, and slowly turned around to meet Jinx's glare. Her face showed a look of shock, then returned the angered look.

"You! You're that brat that destroyed my house!" she accused, pointing a thin and wrinkled finger at the pinkette in front of her.

"And you're the hag that cursed me." Jinx said angrily while crossing her arms.

"Hey, you had it coming." she said, crossing her arms as well.

"What did I ever do to deserve this? I never did anything wrong to you until after you put a curse on me! I bet you just like to curse nice people and make their lives miserable." Jinx argued, trying not to raise her voice too much in case a H.I.V.E. member heard her.

"Tsk tsk, even after all this time you don't understand..." she said, drifting off as she shook her head in pity.

"Understand what? Tell me why you did this to me!" Jinx demanded furiously.

She sighed, then began to walk towards one of the far corners of her room that had a tall mirror sitting there. As she walked she spoke as if she was bored of the story she was telling.

"Well, before your friends brought you to my house, they had come and told me their plan of bringing you to me so that I could ruin your life somehow. I'm just as devious as they were, so I said that I would love to wreck your life for them." she began, then grabbed the mirror and began walking towards Jinx as she continued.

"When you came I was determined to twist whatever you asked of me into something that was the complete opposite. But much to my surprise you asked me to make you look pretty." she said as she placed the mirror in front of Jinx.

Then she threw some strangely colored liquid at the front of the mirror. It began to look like water itself, until finally it showed a different image. Jinx's eyes went wide as she starred into her once hazel colored eyes in the mirror. Her skin was fair and healthy, and she didn't look all bone anymore. Her hair was strawberry blond and not styled, just the way she always kept it back then.

"If it wasn't obvious yet I'll just tell you." the witch said as she stood next to her, but Jinx remained silent and continued to stare into the innocent, hazel eyes that were starring back at her.

"You asked for something you already had, dear. You let others make you feel not good enough, unworthy to be called beautiful, and not worth the time or attention of the person who held your heart." she explained, and Jinx knew she was right. She was shy, insecure, and weak back then. Something she hated to remember.

Then she added, "When I curse people it's usually because they already possess what they want, but they do not know it. I curse them to teach them a lesson."

Jinx glared at the witch when she heard that, then said with bitterness, "Because cursing people will teach them to be grateful for what they had, but will now never get back?"

"Yes, that's exactly it." she confirmed, and that was it for Jinx. The pinkette hexed the mirror into the wall, and then turned her glowing eyes back to the now terrified witch.

"So you're just going to leave me like this forever?" she asked, biting back the tears that wanted to fall. She felt so close to being normal again just a moment ago, and now it was far away again.

"Well to be honest I don't know how I'd cure that power of yours." she explained, backing up to the wall behind her as Jinx came closer, "I don't know how my curse was able to give you those powers, but I'm sure I could do something about your appearance since you seem so... insistent on it."

"No tricks?" Jinx asked skeptically.

"As long as it's just to turn you back to normal, and you don't hurt me, then yeah no tricks." she answered, and actually looked to be telling the truth. But of course she was being threatened so she didn't have many options right now.

After shaking on it she got right to work on the potion. At an impressive pace she put items in, and every move she made was observed closely by Jinx with a skeptic glare.

The brew was the pink color it had ended up as before, then it turned bright red. After that it was that ugly grey color that Jinx had ended up getting as a new skin color, and finally it became pure white. The witch scooped up some of it and poured it into a small vial, and then handed it to Jinx.

"If you think I'm going to drink that without a second thought you are terribly wrong." Jinx said harshly as she rested her hands on her hips.

"I'm sorry, I thought you wanted it." she said sarcastically, sounding exasperated.

"I do, but I want you to drink some first this time. Just to make sure." Jinx said firmly, but was suddenly getting distracted by some noise coming from outside the room and far down the halls of the building. It sounded like lots of yelling to her, but she decided that it was probably just Mammoth and Billy arguing again. That always got really ugly and loud.

"Fine. But it won't last long on me since I'm eternally cured." the witch explained before taking a spoonful from the pot. Before Jinx could ask what she meant, she was shocked to see the witch turning young and beautiful.

"I too asked the help of a witch to make me beautiful. She was a lot less merciful and a lot more powerful than I so she was able to eternally cure me with the appearance of an old hag." she explained bitterly before slowly aging back to her previous look.

"Luckily for you I didn't curse you the same way, so this potion will give you back your original appearance, and keep you looking that way." she said before handing the vial once again to the pinkette.

"And my powers?" Jinx asked, raising her eyebrows.

"Not fixable I'm afraid." the witch sighed, "I really can't figure out how my potion gave you those strange powers... None of my potions have ever done something like that before, or ever since."

'I guess it's just my bad luck then...' Jinx thought with disappointment.

"Alright, and in return I won't hex you to death for what you did to me." Jinx said as she took the vial from the bony and wrinkled hand of the witch.

"Thank you." the witch said with slight sarcasm, but Jinx was sure that she was rather grateful for being spared.

Just then the noise outside got louder, until finally the door suddenly opened and a familiar voice called her name.

"Jinx!" he said, scaring her half to death before she turned around to see Kid Flash. And, of course, the first words out of her mouth were simple and blunt as usual.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, honestly surprised to see him. He looked a little tired, as well as equally surprised that he actually found her. His eyes had scanned the room in a flash, so when he saw the witch behind Jinx he immediately ran to the pinkette, picked her up, and bolted just beyond the door so that she was out of harm's reach. All in about two seconds.

"Are you okay?" Wally asked, and she could tell he had been worried sick.

"Oh good grief I'm fine. I know how to sneak around a base, unlike you." Jinx replied, giving him a smile. She could immediately tell he was relieved to hear that.

"Aww, this is really sweet to watch and all, but it's time for me to split. This academy stinks anyway." the witch said and cackled like witches usually do before they make their escape.

"Tata, Lucy dear!" she said with a toothy grin, which showed that her teeth were either yellow, black, or gone. It was a rather disgusting sight and Jinx wondered how she hadn't really noticed until now.

After that she threw down a potion that exploded into spoke, and when it was cleared she was gone, as well as the rest of her things.

"Good riddance." Jinx muttered after she was gone, then looked down at the vial she held tightly in her hands.

"Lucy?"

"Yeah?" she responded without thinking as she turned her attention back to her "rescuer". She mentally slapped herself for her carelessness.

There was a moment of silence between the two as they starred at each other, Jinx looked as if she had just got caught robbing a bank, and Wally looked like he was piecing it all together. Unfortunately, or rather fortunately for Jinx, they were interrupted by the sounds of H.I.V.E. members coming to their position.

"Hold on tight, we're getting out of here." he said, and Jinx nodded, taking his advise and quickly wrapped her arms around his neck.

The rest was literally a blur as he zoomed miles away at an amazing speed. Jinx was gripping the vial harder than before, and as she did she wondered how she was going to explain it all to him. Not to mention Robin, who was probably going to yell at her for going against the plan.

Before she could think up a plan they suddenly stopped. Jinx looked around and noticed they were at the door of her apartment. Wally put her back on her feet, and she began to get her keys out.

"Jinx, if it's alright with you, I'd like you to explain of few things to me..." he began as she started to unlock her door. She had a feeling he was going to say that.

"I know you don't like to talk about your past and all, but I just feel really confused and in the dark about so much right now and I'd really like to understand." he continued, trying not to sound upset, but she could tell he was.

She had really wanted to tell him sooner, but she just wasn't ready to talk about it, and he understood and accepted that. So she knew this was hard for him to ask as much as it was hard for her to hear.

"I know," she gave him a small smile after opening the door, "Don't worry, I'm okay to talk about it now." she explained calmly, but inwardly she was worrying about how he would react.

'Not like there'll be much to react to anyway. That witch basically spilled the whole thing...' she thought angrily, but decided she shouldn't dwell on that right now. It was time to think fast before everything went down the drain.

Looks like it's finally time... Or is it? You'll have to wait and see!

I'm really glad that I finally got to write out their bitter little reunion. I've been waiting for this since I first started the story! Not sure why...

I really hope this showed how far Jinx has come from the Spellbound chapter, or (in other words) Day 1 of being cursed, because that's what I tried to show. I really believe that if she wasn't so changed now she would not have shown any mercy to the witch in the end... but of course she's still going to threaten because why waste such good threatening talents?

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I also hope you're excited to read what happens next. Thanks as always for reading!

Hugs and cake,

~Panda-chiiii