Book I: Chapter VI

Jinx clung to the wall like a spider, feeling the breeze spill out over her fingertips. The ache in her shoulders kept her from moving too fast, yet her fingers itched with anticipation. She made certain not to slip her eyes downward, knowing that her precarious position required utmost concentration. Had the slightest mistake occurred in her grip, she risked falling backward, sliding away from the wall; plummeting downward. The crudely crafted handgrips would be too hard to grasp during a freefall. It would be all too unfortunate, considering she was so close to freedom.

The girl's curled fingers gripped the unfamiliar ledge tighter, slowly helping her head ascend beyond the rocky lip. She hoped her eyes might aid her direction, but they could determine no distinctions. The light was too far down the depths of the shaft to illuminate her path. Every movement required a blind reach of faith to establish her bearings. In as much grace as her tired arms could muster, she rose her elbows onto the inlet's ledge and slid her forearms against the stone. She accented her body weight with her right shoulder, lifted her right foot off its foothold, then promptly raised her foot to a temporary hold where her right hand had once been. She similarly rose her left foot to the respective hold, slid her feet into place, and leaned forward.

The enclosure was small, less than half her height. She should not sufficiently crawl into the darkness. She had to instead lean forward, tuck her head under the sharp rock above, and twist her body into the gap. Her feet remained on the holds, but she leaned on her hands to support her bodyweight.

It was pitch black. She leaned farther to completely crawl into the opening and bring her back relief, but her head slammed against something hard. Something that gave off a slight thud; something that was not rock. It was metal. Her left hand fingered the material. It was an air vent. She guessed it was made out of a material like steel. The metal lay in a slotted groove, like a window without enough room to slide open. From the side that she faced, she couldn't pop it out. However, she guessed that someone standing from the other side of the gate might be able to roughly push forward and cause the vent to pop out of its grooves. Jinx tried to grab the vented gaps with her fingernails, but the gaps were too small. She tried to claw at the edges, attempting to peel back an edge to hook it out of the slotted grooves that held the vent firm, but there was no leverage. She tried pounding on it, but only managed to cause muffled noise.

For an ordinary man, it might be impossible to open the gate from the current position. It was hard enough to raise an arm and inspect the surrounding area without falling backward and to her death. However, she found it peculiar that the vent had no lock. There was a hole for where a padlock might be able to slip in, but it was empty. She knew nobody was this shortsighted. Valuables were never kept in an unlocked safe. There's always a lock, somewhere. If the only way out doesn't have a lock, it meant there was an alternative safety precaution. Perhaps the alternative safety mechanism was so significant—possibly even deadly enough—that the makers overlooked the padlock, thinking it was an unnecessary measure.

They knew the prisoner. They knew a padlock wouldn't hold a girl who had the power to break pistons and shatter metal bars. So, maybe it was rational to keep the vent unlocked. However, that begged the question of why there was a vent in the first place. Why not an empty hole? If there was no attempt to lock the vent, it was as good as nonexistent. It provided relatively no additional security. It was useless. All it did was slow her down, and make her damned back ache slightly more. Why would they leave her in an unlocked room? Hard to escape or not, someone so methodical and sadistic would never design Fort Knox without an additional failsafe. An air vent was not the pinnacle of 'maximum security'. In fact, it was at a lower tier than iron bars…hell, it was worse than a glass window.

It's like they built a giant killer robot with a fuckin' 'off switch' on the back. The idea kinda pissed her off. I can totally take advantage of this. But, do they want me to?

The padlock hole taunted her. The vent bellow 'I'm unlocked!' It screamed 'bust out: escape through me, freedom is oh so close!'

No. It was wrong. There was something else. Jinx frowned. There had to be something more to the vent. It was the only thing that separated her from prison and freedom. Her frown deepened as she tried to glance through the vent to the other side. It was a lot of dark. Dark and cold. The drip of water could be heard, echoing through the tunnel. Her fingers begged to unleash a wave of bad luck that would shatter the metal hinges and reveal her glorious freedom, yet the girl couldn't help but pause in fear. What stops her from blasting through the vent with her powers? If they designed the actual holding cell to combat her bad luck—which she knew for a fact they had thus far done an excellent job doing—it wasn't likely they got lazy toward the end. They followed through. This cell: it was complete.

Her mind was already considering the most likely alternative. They booby trapped the vent.

A trap.

Her back was aching worse. She couldn't stay like this for too much longer. She would have to throw caution to the wind and shatter the gate.

She hesitated.

Jinx began to think through her 'knowns', trying to pinpoint the obvious that she had overlooked. There was at least one critical element of unknown. She had no idea what was on the other side of this vent. Was it a long cavern? A narrow archway? A false lead? A metal, narrow shaft? A stick of dynamite rigged on a pressure system? There was no telling.

It's possible that if she exploded the vent open, it would carry a loud noise through a metal shaft to a possible guard on the other side. Right now, her stealth functioned as her only advantage. If she was found to be missing, or rattling around in vents, the people who kept her locked up would obviously know how she got out. They would know where this vent led: they would be waiting. In other words, if she tipped them off by being loud, she was fucked. Likewise, perhaps they had planned this escape all along. It was a bit of a sadistic idea, but anyone intimate enough to know the way that Jinx's power sprawled from one inch to the next—like a spider's web, covering everything but never focusing on any particular part of the wall—one might know that there would be considerable runoff if she blasted the vent open. All it would take is a little bit of gunpowder or some kind of explosive on the other side of the vent, exposed yet hidden in dark. If she wasn't careful, it would explode, rupture her escape, and destroy her possibly only source of air.

Sadistic. Nobody was that cruel. And yet…there was a sinking suspicion that the scrupulous fiend who set up this cage would never make a glaring oversight. They knew this vent existed. They had to expect Jinx to eventually find it. Jinx would have to be uncharacteristic, else she would play directly into their plan. A trap or not, she had no way of knowing. However, she did know her powers were probably not a good idea. Everyone would expect it. Instead, she reached for her right sock and pulled out the metal spoon. She grabbed the utensil by the head and slipped the long section of metal through the narrow gap. Using what little leverage she could muster, she began to lift the vent out of its slot and then ease it toward her chest until it popped out of place. She carefully gripped the gating, then leaned it flat against the rocky wall.

She tucked the spoon back into her padded sock with a smile. Jinx carefully climbed over the vented gate—being sure not to knock it down and cause a shitload of noise—and slipped through the narrow gap.

Nobody could have predicted that one. Nobody.

She continued onward.

The dark sprawled with limitless restrain, crawling and crawling against her flesh. The winds seemed to twirl the darkness and scatter the smell of rotting birds. The sounds of crowing could be heard in the indefinite distance. Her hands pushed harder, clung tighter and grew number. Her back screamed as her shoulders heaved her body higher up the shaft. The spiraling slope seemed to slither like a python with no end in sight. Not that it was a good unit of measure in the first place, she had been without sight since she had first left her cozy little prison cell. Part of her yearned for those stressful moments of comfort. The physical aches that filled her blistering body had reached a point of nearly exasperated agony.

Jinx had been crawling for hours now. The tunnel had stopped being horizontal perhaps a thousand yards earlier. It now sloped upward and the walls grew narrower as she scaled the escape route. Her forearms, fingers and knees felt raw as they raked against the unpolished stone. The darkness that clung to her clothes stunk with sweat. She began to feel claustrophobic, wishing she could teleport to safety. There came a point where going through the motions of escaping had become ridiculous. This was no longer a point of reasonable difficulty. This was ridiculous in every sense of the word. Her own thoughts haunted her. Would she make it out anytime soon? Would the gap get so narrow she'd become stuck? Her upward trend seemed to produce a narrower shaft. After an hour further, the tunnel was soon about three feet wide in all directions. It was a tight fit. Her knees slammed against rough stone as she crawled upward, knocking her elbows hard into the rock to propel herself further. It hurt, but she progressed. It felt like a vertical climb, yet the wall was narrow enough that she could plant her pillowed feet against one wall, her back against the other, and use her arms to scale the wall slowly. It was slow, but safe.

Before long, she feared looking down. There was hardly ground to stand on. One wrong slip would be like jumping off a tall bridge, or perhaps falling down a thousand flights of stairs. She would likely die.

It was a while longer before her fingers gripped around the edges of the top and she lifted herself out. The thought of being free hardly registered in her mind. But a smile grew upon her face the very second it came to mind. Jinx took a few steps back and admired the hole in the ground that she had fled. It resembled a manhole without a lid. It was a bit dangerous, wasn't it? A giant hole with no warning signs. If someone accidentally stepped in, they would probably die. She wondered how the Titans could be so stupid as to have such a safety hazard lying around.

The girl surveyed the room and realized she was still in a cave, except this cave was a bit different. It was brighter, but not because it was lit up by electric lights. Part of the cave opened up into broad daylight. She stifled a quiet shriek of joy. It was the end of her struggles. The girl was free. Jinx casually walked out of the cave and into the sunshine. It hurt her eyes to take in the bright sun, but she forced her lavender orbs to take in the relentless light. She began to squint and the beginnings of tears leaked from her eyes. She raised her right arm as a shield to withstand the bright light.

Her feet came to a halt at the edge of the large cliff as she looked down at the valley of rocks below. Rocks and mountains were a common occurrence in California, but Jump City was far away from most of that. Their city was on the coast, miles from such a rocky location. She was baffled. "How did I even get here? Where the hell is Jump City? Is this some kind of joke?" Her voice cracked. She was high off the ground, far too high to jump. There were only the slight speckles of trees in the distance, making her stomach feel a bit uneasy. Even if she found a way down, she wouldn't know which direction to walk.

From the edge of the cliff, she could see a few other caves much like her own scattered below. Jinx frowned. "How many of these fucking tombs are they making?" She wondered. "This is ridiculous! Jump city comes later...how do I get down from here? I'm free…But…how do I...get away?" She whined and stomped her padded feet in frustration. Time was running out. If Raven returned, the escape would fail. Jinx had to hurry. The girl had to get out, get away, and succumb to hiding.

Jinx could see no reason to scale the mountain higher. Down was her destination, but short of blasting away at the rock and tearing her own way out, there weren't a lot of options. Her eyes lingered at one of the cave entrances toward her left. Was there someone else housed in them? Was she the only one locked away? It wasn't unreasonable to believe that maybe Gizmo and Mammoth had been with her when she was arrested. Her memories were still fuzzy, and she couldn't quite make out what had actually happened. If she left and returned home, what if they weren't there? It would mean they were somewhere in that maze of tunnels. But I can't possibly search for them now. There's no telling where they could be. Which cave? There's tons of them. I gotta bank on them being okay. Go home first. If they aren't there, I'll get the tools necessary to free them. She nodded. It was better to trust her friends now, than to assume they failed and risk herself being caught. They were more than capable. She didn't need to babysit them. After all, she kept them trained and well-managed. She might go as far as to suggest they were infallible, but she supposed even the best had their faults.

She looked for a ledge down below she could reach. It was a bit risky, but she saw that one of the cave entrances toward her right looked within jumping distance. However, she couldn't quite make out how far she would fall before hitting the ground. If it was too far, it could prove to be a painful—or lethal—drop. Unfortunately, she didn't have much of a choice. She had to do it. The acrobat took a running jump and pushed off the side of the mountain to give herself just enough horizontal movement. As she neared the ground, she tucked her head near her chest and rolled to lessen the impact. It was actually a relatively short jump by her standards. She trained daily to withstand vertical drops twice as severe.

The girl surveyed her new location. Although she was closer to the ground, she was still exceptionally high up. It took several calculated jumps and a few blasts of her power to create footholds to scale the mountain fully.

When she made it to the floor, Jinx was out of breath, not only because of her mountain scaling, but because of the whole event. The whole day seemed to escape the girl like a troubled dream escapes a started child. "That was…brutal…this whole thing…brutal…" she choked out, before tilting her head back and stretching her arms. "But I'm alive and free. Now, where do I go?"

It wasn't long before she was out of the forest and into the city.

It was nighttime and far past closing hours when she had made it back to the city. She casually surveyed the abandoned street and made sure she wasn't being watched when she went around to the back, popped out a window and entered the shop from behind. She was without her uniform and wearing exceptionally uncomfortable prison clothes, which meant she unfortunately didn't have a key to open the shop's front door. She would replace the window when she was in a better mood. It had been a little less than two months since the three of them—Gizmo, Mammoth and Jinx—broke away from the HIVE FIVE and reestablished their original trio. The process itself was messy. The six members did not part on good terms. Jinx had thrown a fit, screaming at the total lack of responsibility and reliability of her teammates. See-More, Billy Numerous and Kid Wykkyd seemed more interested in gaming than establishing a valuable criminal reputation. When she tried to get them to quit the bullshit and start helping the team, Billy Numerous had expressed his deepest disagreement perhaps twenty times too many. He multiplied himself to repeat the phrase: "Light'n up girl, we're only here 'ta have a little fun" enough times to push Jinx past the boiling point.

She stormed out screaming: "Fine! I'm out of here. I'm done playing babysitter." She didn't expect Gizmo and Mammoth to follow her out. But when they did, she cherished the moment. Together, the original team reunited, effectively splitting the old HIVE FIVE into two teams of three operatives. The development was new enough that Robin probably didn't know such an important piece of information. At least, Jinx wasn't bragging about it. She wanted to keep the split as secret as possible, especially in a world where information was everything. This was just one of their current advantages over the Titans: access to valuable information.

They temporarily relabeled themselves the "New HIVE FIVE"—partially because they were too lazy to come up with a new team, but mainly because it would act as a good cover should Robin or anyone overhear the three casually discussing team plans. It would be all-too-perfect if Robin found out about the new "HIVE Trio"; it would blow up their advantageous position.

The new hideout was unlike anything they had used before. It was partly above ground, but mostly underground. Whereas the Titan facilities could be seen from miles in any direction, the HIVE Trio hideout was even bigger, but below sea level. From the untrained eye, the place looked like a little second-hand electronics store. Selling and fixing electronics was something of a part-time hobby for Gizmo, but more importantly, it helped them get rid of otherwise stolen goods. With an established shop in the middle of the city, they didn't have to worry about black markets to deal business. Of course, they weren't stupid. The three of them never dealt in commerce, they instead hired idiot teenagers to man the stores and sell everything. Nobody would suspect such an innocent little shop to harbor three elite HIVE Academy members. After all, according to HIVE Academy's rule #203: It is always better to blend in than to hide away. All in all, it was a rather fun little situation and Jinx wouldn't have it any other way.

She stumbled through the dark, walked past the counter and went to the elevator. She went to the lower level, then walked across the hall to the locked door. She typed in the security code, allowing entrance into the actual HIVE hideout. These precautions were in place so that other people—employee lackeys or nosey customers—couldn't accidentally stumble into such a top secret area.

"Gizmo? Mammoth? You two idiots still alive?" She yelled out as she walked from the entryway to the lounge. When she heard no response, her voice became more panicked. "You two weren't seriously got caught…right?" She asked as she stared up at the unused big-screen TV. It was a bit strange to see that useless thing unoccupied. They weren't in the lounge and that was definitely uncharacteristic. It was so uncharacteristic of her henchmen, she felt her mouth go dry as she tightened her fists. What would she have to do to get them back? What would she have to relive? What could she possibly bring to defeat her enemies, rescue her henchmen and return things to normal? What would she have to give to lie down in her bed and sleep? Sleep would be so nice. Too nice. She chewed on the inside of her cheek as her mind envisioned her cell. She would rather be Slade's bald, one-armed braindead puppet slavechild, than crawl back into that deadman's labyrinth; she meant every word of it, too. "I better not have to go back to that stupid prison to rescue you guys..." She muttered under her breath as she sighed. "Anyone okay? Anyone at all?"

"Hey, look who's back," Gizmo casually came from the kitchen. "Where were you? It isn't normal for you to leave for a few days like that."

Jinx's eyes fell onto the boy. A sense of relief filled her stomach. "That's one. Where's the other? Where the hell is Mammoth?"

She heard Mammoth grunt from the kitchen in the other room. "Ah, we were finishing up dinner. Guy's night out—figured you wouldn't be back, so we ordered crab."

"Gross…thankgod I wasn't invited. Crab is so disg... Wait a second! Fuck, you two didn't even look for me? God, you two are so useless! I could have been killed!"

"Look for you? Crud, you just stormed off and left. I thought you might want some girly alone-time or whatever it is you do. We trust you, Jinx. We know can handle yourself," replied Gizmo with a boyish grin. "It's not like you need saving."

"Yeah…I guess…" stammered Jinx, a bit embarrassed. "But shit went down. Like seriously, it..." She looked across the lounge, trying to peer into the kitchen. "Dammit Mammoth, get in here!" She yelled.

Mammoth poked his head through the kitchen doorway. "Okay, okay, I'm here," He grunted through a mouthful of crab.

"Like, really guys. This is serious! Listen to me, we need to figure some of this out."

"Woah, Jinx, you look totally freaked. You're pale...er, paler than usual. What happened?" asked Gizmo.

"I'm…not sure. I woke up in jail. No idea how or why. Not even a little bit."

"Yeah, it's a bitch when that happens," laughed Mammoth. "So how'dya break out this time?"

"No, not like that! Not jail, jail. This was way different. Like, here, I know I didn't go out drinking. I just…can't remember why I was there in the first place. I think they might have drugged me so I wouldn't be able to think up an escape plan. But still, we have more important shit to worry about. The cell I was in.."

"Woah, wait a minute Jinx. They drugged you? How do you know you even did anything wrong? You could have been set up," gasped Gizmo. "Who did this to you? There's no tellin' what crazies could have done..." His voice came to a stop.

Jinx clenched her fists. "God! Just listen to me for a second! It doesn't matter how I got there, or why I was there, or what happened that night, or anything. All that matters is WHERE THEY PUT ME! This concerns you guys!"

"Whad'ya mean where? Jail is jail. We've seen 'em all," Grunted Mammoth. "Get in, bust out."

"No Mammoth, this wasn't the normal kind of jail. This place was nuts."

Gizmo sighed, "Crud, you sound like you're losing your touch. You've said it before, there's no way those snotmutchers could design a prison we can't break out of. We're too smart for that. Take a deep breath, then tell us what happened."

"Shut up! You two are impossible! Stop talking and listen to me. This was no ordinary prison. They got that bitch Raven to create a hole in the middle of a fucking mountain. You wake up in there. There are no walls. No doors. No windows. No light. No food. It's so small you can barely move. It smells like a rotting dead cow. The air is so thin you feel like you'll choke. You try to get out, but the rock is too thick to smash. You can't even climb out! The room's shaped like a triangle. Good fucking luck climbing up those walls. The only way in and out is using that emo-wannabe's power to teleport."

Gizmo's eyes grew wide. "What? That...doesn't even make sense..."

"No, it doesn't, but it happened. This is serious. Apparently, the Titans are designing shit to keep us permanently locked up."

"Then how did you get out?" the boy asked.

"I had to climb out through a small vent near the very top. It took hours; it was hard work. I think I ripped off all my skin in the process," she muttered.

"Christ, no wonder you look terrible."

"Gee, thanks. What kind of shit greeting is that?"

"N-no, I...I just mean…Your hair...it's a mess. I've never seen you in clothes like that, and especially not ripped clothes…and…you're...you're wearing pillow cases for shoes?" stammered Gizmo, "It's not that you look bad—I'm just not used to seeing you like this, is all. You look different."

"Just leave me alone. I did what I had to do to get out of there. Fuck me for trying to be considerate. I know you two wouldn't be able to escape if you got caught. You're lucky I was the one to find out about this new shit because now we can combat this. You'd be damned out of luck if you were there without your jetpack or your precious technology. Remember that. You need me." She looked down at her clothes and blushed. Her belly button was poking out beneath her clothing and she could see a long scrape below it. Her hair wasn't up. She wasn't wearing makeup. Her nails were broken. Her padded feet...her blush reddened. " Whatever…I'm done here. We'll go over the specifics later."

She turned her back on the boys and stormed off to her room.

"Jinx! Wait, Jinx! You know I didn't mean it, right? You look fine! Really! Just, you're a little beat up. That's all...you always look fine, seriously..."

"Yeah…whatever."

A/N: Thank you for the reviews! They mean a lot.