Chase
Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based.
Jinx tears down the roads in the old car, her heart slowly returning to its normal rhythm with every moment that Raven remains in her healing trance.
When she's sure her lover isn't going to suddenly wake up and use even more magic, she releases a large sigh and her entire body relaxes.
With a sigh, she sends a call out from the small phone on her belt.
When she slips a small earbud into her ear, she winces at the harsh ringing sound.
Luckily, it lasts only three repetitions before the line clicks over.
"Whaddya' want, Lucky? I'm busy," Gizmo's voice growls in greeting.
"You don't know what busy is, Mike," she responds with a frown. "Listen, I need you to do me a solid. Birdbrain is probably giving a book to the JL right about now. I want you to copy the info they'll be sending out and forward it to Steel for me."
"The hell? What're you doing in stinkin' Cornwall?" he asks, seeming to only then pay any attention to his partner.
"Is that where we are?" she asks, once again amazed at her lover's ability to teleport.
"We as in the royal we, or we as in you're currently talking to me naked? 'Cause I'm hangin' up right now if this is another one of those Rae thought it'd be funny-"
"Shut up, Giz," Jinx growls with a blush. "Listen, just patch that book's info through to Steel."
"What the hell's goin' on?"
"Hell if I know," Jinx grumbles. "Right now, I'm chasin' after a hag of a witch alive way past her damn expiration date, Raven's unconscious, and I have no idea where the hell I'm heading or what I'll find when I get there."
"You two have the kinkiest dates," Gizmo responds before bursting into laughter.
"I swear I'm going to break a mirror over your damn head if we get back," Jinx growls.
The laughter stops then, and Jinx can feel the change through the phone.
"If?"
"Yeah, if. Rae's out of commission and I'm driving after Morgaine Le goddamn Fey. Who has the Excalibur, might I add. Who the hell knows how this is gonna' end?" Jinx grumbles.
"Wait. Wanna' run that by me again? Slowly, and with some details missing, like how the hell that hag got the drop on Raven and how she has somethin' like that to begin with? Oh, and while you're at it, why'd I just get a damn alert that your house resembles an overcooked steak right now," he adds with worry creeping into his voice.
Jinx snorts at that, casting an irritated glare at her slumbering lover.
"Long story short, Raven's brother came knocking, and to beat his ass Raven had to use Excalibur, which I ain't even goin' to begin guessing on how Deathstroke got his hands on. She sent her brother packin' and dropped the sword back to its home so it didn't fry her ass. Wilson gave us that book I mentioned, Rae figured out that Le Fey was going to be going after it, and now here we are. Even better, the witch didn't do a thing to her, Rae burnt herself out after I tried to get her to stop using her magic like it was going out of style. So she's in her trance right now, and I'm driving in whatever direction I feel that damn sword's traces, hoping it doesn't suddenly drop from what I can pick up vaguely already, apparently across England. Keepin' up?"
"If this is what happens when you two take a day off, I might have to tell Steel to keep a backlog of busy work just in case. Holy shit, Jinx!"
"Yeah, I know."
"And you said that Raven used Excalibur? To beat her brother? Well, that'd explain the charbroiled apartment."
Raven makes a low murmuring noise and shifts, her arm slithering around Jinx's waist as if even in her unconsciousness she attempts to apologize to the hex-caster.
Warmth spreads through Jinx at the contact, an effect that even a full year after their dating has not diminished in the slightest.
The meta fights to hold on to her indignation despite the pleasure rolling through her.
"Y-Yeah, she did. It was a pretty tough one, but she managed to make him run in the end. The dude stood up to Excalibur, though. I've gotta' say, I'm really not lookin' forward to meeting any more of her family."
Gizmo whistles in response, the sounds of typing coming to life in the background.
"Yeah, that ain't good. You're going to have all sorts of stories from any family reunions. Well, you would if there was a sane one outta' the rest of them. Still, holy shit. Raven used the Excalibur? Does she ever stop impressing?"
Jinx's irritation returns then.
"No, she doesn't. She followed that little impossible feat by teleporting us here. From New York. Oh, and then she broke a spell that I'm guessin' Le Fey cast to cover an entire lake in an illusion. I swear if I didn't love her, I'd kill her when she keeps pullin' shit like this."
"Ain't like she had a choice," he replies in a way that Jinx can almost see him shrugging through the phone. "Don't get me wrong, she's hella' powerful, but you haven't exactly been good for her self-restraint since she ditched Grayson. I don't get how she lives through a tenth of the shit she pulls, same as you."
"Hey! I'm not that wild," the meta protests.
As it leaves her mouth, though, Jinx considers it.
She had always been pretty free with her power, and that hadn't ever changed even as she got older.
Even when she was working for Waller's project, she had never exactly reined her power in when she was blasting people full of concentrated bad luck.
"Okay, ya' might be onta' somethin'," she sighs.
"No kiddin'. So, uh, how long does she usually take with that trance?"
"No idea. Much as she goes full-bore, I've only seen the shit twice. One time it took her almost half a day, the other it took her four hours."
"Well, that blows. Which was the faster one?"
"When we ended up dealing with Circe," Jinx says with a strange tone creeping into her voice as memories surface.
"Well, that should mean that she'll take less time. No way in hell that she ended up worse than when she was dealin' with a stinkin' goddess."
"She is less bloody," Jinx responds with a nod to herself.
"Great. Then maybe she'll be able to watch the tail-end of you kicking Le Fey's ass back to whatever realm she comes from," he quips enthusiastically.
"Yeah, I'd love to impress her for a cha- holy shit!" she suddenly screeches.
Gizmo's shouting response goes ignored as Jinx stares at the fire suddenly lit in the back of her temporary car.
Incredible heat rushes through the interior, and the crackling of the flames becomes more grating with Gizmo's screeching.
"I gotta' take care of somethin'. Call you back later, Giz. Get that book thing taken care of for me."
Without giving him any opportunities to disagree, she ends the call and turns her attention to the fire, pulling the car to a screeching halt on the shoulder of the road.
"Exstinguo!" she shouts, pointing a hand at the fire.
The fire gives no reaction, and with a start, Jinx realizes that a distinctive darkness is filling the inside of the flames.
"It'll take a lot more 'n that to put out Hellfire, chaus," a gruff voice rumbles from within the darkness.
Glaring at the growing shadow inside the pyre, Jinx releases a sigh.
"Then stop burning the car," she growls back.
A throaty chuckle sounds, and the Hellfire vanishes the next second.
Not so much as a trace of the fire remains, even the heat vanishing.
In its place, Etrigan sits in the back seat of the car, more than matching the meta's glare.
"Cheeky, chaus. Why the hell've you distracted my hunt for the harpy this foul morn'?" the demon hisses.
With a start, Jinx realizes what her lover's last trick had been for.
Giving a derisive snort, she pulls back onto the road and begins speeding once again.
"I'm driving after the harpy right now," she responds with a mockery of his growly dialect. "Raven crashed, but she sent out a call. Apparently, it was for you. So now, you're going to help me track Le Fey, and when we find her, I'll personally hold her down while you kill 'er, for all I give a damn."
"Why're you chasing the harpy?" he asks with a chuckle. "She's a bit out of your league, with Raven taken out of commission."
"Yeah, go fu- never mind," she interrupts herself, reining her temper in. "Le Fey's got Excalibur. I don't know what she's going to do with Excalibur, but I know it isn't good. So I'm going to stop whatever it is. I might not be on Raven's level, but I'm damn sure close enough to count."
Etrigan's eyes widen in surprise at that, before a smirk curves his lips.
"Now that I know she's near, there's no reason for me to help you."
"My girlfriend used the last bit of energy keeping her ass conscious to call you up here to help us, and you're going to respect that, Blood, or I'll use what Raven's been teaching me to give you one of the worst headaches you've ever experienced in your entire damn life," she snarls at him.
The demon simply laughs at that, his smirk turning into a full grin.
"My kin's rubbin' off on you, chaus. I like that you think it wise to command me to your petty whims in such a small space, too. You don't seem very smart, though," he laughs.
The meta glares into the mirror to meet his eyes, her own turning into pink lenses, her usual humor gone by this point.
"I sleep with a Demon Lord's daughter, who has some serious possessive tendencies and a lot of female coworkers. Frankly, you don't scare me, Etrigan," she retorts flippantly. "I can only vaguely tell where Excalibur is. So you can fry me, or you can track Le Fey. One will bag you the harpy and the other will get you a vengeful and royally pissed Demon Lord."
For a brief moment, Jinx's heart seems to stop working, the demon's expression conveying that he's actually weighing the options.
Finally, he grins and points ahead.
"She's in a straight line from ya', chaus. How'd the harpy get 'er talons on Arthur's sword, anyway?"
Jinx winces at that, putting more focus on not crashing into other cars as she speeds through busier parts of England.
"Bad timing on our parts. She tortured it from the Lady of the Lake, and we didn't get here fast enough to stop her."
"I see why. Driving is an abysmally slow way of gettin' 'round. You won't catch up with her easily, at this rate."
"Hey, we got here fast. Raven got us here from New York. We'd be on Le Fey's ass if she didn't have to deal with something before we got here," Jinx growls.
"But you're drivin' now. You might've caught her if ya' just went after her faster already."
"Rae's the one that can fly. And the last time I tried teleporting, I ended up ten whole miles off of target and ending up between a big-ass sea monster and an Atlantean army. I sure as hell ain't trying again with her in tow right now. Any time that I can get her to recharge, the better."
"You two are amusin'," Etrigan laughs. "Fine, I'll help ya'. If she's already done what she's doin' by the the time we get there, that'll be on your head, though, chaus."
"Fair enough. And I might've thought of somethin' to make it a little less slow."
Her eyes' glow fills the entire car, and she again puts one of her hands against the dashboard.
"Hōnā tivra aura achūta nīcē mērē cāha!"
The entire car briefly ignites in pink light, small sparks leaving the vehicle's exterior.
The change seems to go entirely unnoticed by the other motorists around them, and when the light dissipates, the vehicle seems to move much faster.
"Interestin' spell, chaus."
"Making it up as I go," Jinx sighs. "I'm just glad it worked."
Before the demon can ask what it is, Jinx presses the car to the limits of its speed, and like mist they pass harmlessly through the traffic before them.
"This can't last very long," he quips with a grin.
"Long enough. Just keep pointing where I need to go, and I'll be going in a straight line there."
She refuses to let show the amount of energy the spell takes from her, nor does she admit her surprise that the spell had worked at all.
Instead, she focuses on following the temperamental demon's directions and maintaining the spell to follow after Morgaine Le Fey.
Even with the vast difference in speed under her magic's influence, the drive feels like it takes considerably longer than the meta's comfortable with.
With every moment that passes after the agreement, Jinx feels the time running out.
When they finally pull to a stop, the spell dissipates in a cloud of smoke.
With a curse, Jinx's hand turns pink and Raven's seatbelt frays until snapping under her touch.
A loud hissing sound fills the car's interior, and at the same time that Etrigan kicks one of the back doors free from its hinges and leaps out, Jinx wraps her arms around Raven's waist and dives after him.
The jingling of the metal within her bag, still clutched in Raven's hands, clashes harshly with the sound of the car exploding from the strain put on it.
As soon as she has her lover's unconscious form away from the flaming pile of metal, she turns her attention to the world around them.
With a start, she realizes their journey has ended in Stonehenge.
And standing in the center of the large stone structure, she finds Morgaine Le Fey staring at them from behind her golden mask…
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Author's Notes:
A quick note here; I'm starting my next semester this coming week, including classes for my second degree on top of the final classes for my first, so I'm going to be really busy. I'm trying to build a backlog up as much as I can, and I'll probably need to write to decompress from the amount of work I'm going to have, but I will say that the schedule may not be as regular as it has been since I started writing this story if I can't get a dozen or so chapters written out before next Monday. If that doesn't happen, apologies in advance.
Also, I have plans to write about that story with Circe. Maybe the story of Jinx's misadventure in teleporting, too, along with the missing sex scenes, and quite a few other stories. But first, I'll be finishing the main story, so as not to distract myself with those before I'm done.
For the record, I had to rely on a map application for a reference for the time it would take to get from Cornwall, where The Loe Pool (the location I used for Nimue's Lake) to Wiltshire, where Stonehenge is. From what I found, it'd take about 3 hours of a drive, magic taken out of the equation, but I decided to keep things simple because I didn't want this to be too much of a filler chapter. Just thought I'd give Jinx's personality some time to shine since recently I've been focusing a lot on Raven.
Exstinguo- Latin: "extinguish, put out, kill, etc."
Chaus- Latin: "chaos"; basically, Etrigan's using it as a derogative term for Jinx
When she calls Etrigan "Blood" she's referring to Jason Blood, the human that Etrigan's soul resides in.
Hōnā- Hindi: "Be"
Tivra- Hindi: "swift"
aura- Hindi: "and"
achūta- Hindi: "untouchable"
nīcē- Hindi: "under"
mērē- Hindi: "my"
cāha- Hindi: "will"
I was also recently wondering how to get this story into communities so that more people would potentially enjoy it that aren't currently aware of its existence. If anyone knows how I do that, as I haven't quite figured a way out yet, kindly let me know, either in your review or via PM. Thanks in advance for any help, ladies and/or gents!
I hope you're all enjoying yourselves as much as I am! Positive or negative, I look forward to your thoughts. See you next time!