Chapter Fourteen: Prison of the Mind.
Beast Boy had rarely felt quite as helpless as he did in that moment, waiting for Jinx to wake up, his enhanced hearing trained on her heartbeat. Not that he'd know what to do if it faltered, anyway.
Sure, he could look after himself easily, but that hardly took effort at all. Shifting could take care of the most serious of injuries, and his internal organs could adapt to neutralise any poisons, as well as throwing off practically any disease.
But his survival skills were all completely selfish. He didn't carry any medical supplies at all, along with the barest of survival tools. He'd never thought he'd need them. After all, he didn't. He'd just never counted on anyone else relying on him. He'd never been in that situation, and never thought he would be.
But as he waited, eyes locked on Jinx's chest (y'know, to make sure she was still breathing properly, and that's where the lungs are located, in the chest, so he was simply looking from the point of view of first aid, and he was doing an admirable job of keeping that in mind, really) he wished he had some idea of what to do.
Finally, after what seemed like hours, his vigilance was rewarded by the sght of two slitted eyes flickering open.
"Jinx!" he cried, genuinely pleased to see her. "You're awake!" Suddenly, things seemed a little more on track, and he managed a grin.
"Guuh..." she replied coherently, as her vision swam. Her eyes focused, taking in the scene. "Are we home? ...We're not home, are we?"
Beast Boy shook his head, still smiling, but his eyes softened.
"Great." Jinx flopped back over his knee, the back of her head brushing the water. "So. What's the plan this time? Any more freaky things to expect?"
Beast Boy sighed. "I guess so. It looks like we're in a prison or something this time, but from the looks of things no one's been locked up here for a long time. Well, 'cept us, of course."
Jinx lay back, Beast Boy's prattling a background noise. Her head still hurt from whatever it was that had just happened, and the experience had given her a lot to think about, and even more that she didn't want to consider.
Head in the game, Jinx. You can evaluate your life once you're sure your life is going to be substantially longer than the next five minutes.
"So, I was kinda hoping you'd have a plan or something."
Jinx blinked. "Have you tried the door?"
"No. You think I should?"
Jinx stared at him.
"Okay okay, sheesh. You're worse than Raven." Beast Boy, however didn't move. In response to her quizzical look, he coughed meaningfully.
"Err, you'll kinda have to get off me first."
Jinx cocked her head. "What?" She noticed what exactly she was lying on for the first time. "Oh. Right." She stood, examining her outfit, which was soaked, torn and dirty. It was enough to make one weep.
Beast Boy made his way over to the cell door and gave it an experimental push. To his surprise, instead of opening (which would have been ideal) or remaining stubbornly closed (which he expected) the barred door simply collapsed outwards, smashing into the floor with a cacophany that made Jinx jump.
"O...kay. Which way you wanna go?" Beast Boy asked as he peered down the corridor. Jinx shrugged at his back.
"Each way seems as good as the other, but what do I know?" she said. "One might lead to a five star hotel while the other leads to a pit of deadly snakes. Or maybe they're both snakes. Actually, given my luck and experience of this sitution so far, odds are both lead to deadly snakes, and the only difference is how quickly the snakes kill you," she groused to herself, and would have continued, but Beast Boy stuck up a hand to silence her.
"Someone's coming," he hissed.
"Where from?" she whipered back.
"The stairs."
"Then let's go the other way."
"No time. They're almost here," he said, but frowned as he said it. The footsteps hadn't appeared gradually from far away, as one might expect. They had just... started at the top of the stairs. Which was odd.
Jinx, while Beast Boy was puzzling over this development, was facing herself towards the stairway, mentally tallying up her condition. It didn't bode well.
"Here they come," Beast Boy murmured. "Be ready." Jinx nodded.
Unfortunately, neither of them were ready for the figure that descended the stairs. When Beast Boy recognised them, his jaw started impotently waggling as he tried to make some coherent sense of the situation.
"Holy fuck" Jinx swore. "It's...me."
And it was. The figure was Jinx's double in every way but one: her eyes were pulsing with red light.
"Huh? But...how...bwah?" Beast boy finished incoherently.
Jinx wasted no time asking questions, and swung her arm in a sweeping arc, loosing a hex. Her doppleganger performed a lazy cartwheel backwards, ducking below the blast, and launched a riposte as soon as she was on her feet. Jinx met this with a hex of her own, and the two exploded in midair.
In theory, the fight should have been perfectly even. However, the "real" Jinx was tired, hungry, and distracted, and it didn't take long for her mimic to get the upper hand.
As Jinx stumbled backwards, gracelessly avoiding an attack by falling on her rear, Beast Boy made his move.
Hefting the fallen barred cell door up from the floor, he hurled it bodily towards the ersatz Jinx. As the fake fell to the ground, pinned beneath the weight of corroded metal, he grabbed the real Jinx by the wrist and ran down the corridor, deeper into the prison.