Jinx took stock of Raven's room. If she would have hazarded a guess of what Raven's room would be like and compared it to what she now saw, the difference was probably the placement of a particular book.
"Now what did you have to say to me?", Raven asked.
Jinx slapped her. Raven didn't flinch. The two girls raised a questioning eyebrow.
Jinx shrugged. "I guessed it wouldn't be that easy. I s'pose you won't go apoctalyptic if I just ask nice either."
Raven's apathetic expression and tone reasserted itself. "I think you should explain yourself. Now."
"Alright.", Jinx replied. "You may have blocked out what happenned that day. And onna count of all you being 'good guys', I bet your friends tell you they don't remember either. But I remember. You were gonna damn us all, personally. I don't know exactly how much of their blood you got. But I know how much you got of mine."
"None. You weren't able to scratch me. Not one of your little shadow pets, none of the creepy crawlies, not even...that thing you became. But I will admit, it was the closest I've ever come to biting the big one."
"And in that moment, I did what I had never done before.", Jinx said. Then the girl burst into a pink glow. Raven receeded into self projecting shadows. The two girls reappeared a few feet away from where they once stood.
"You know what it feels to be pressed so very hard you snap. Or at least that monster knew. And she's still in there. She's gotta be. Nothing that horrific could just dissappear."
"Make your point, Jinx.", Raven said testily.
"I know that feeling too.", Jinx told her. "Sure, it was followed by a couple days of seeing if soup would kill me and turning blisters into every callus I ever had, but I know. It was..."
"Terrifying.", Raven suggested.
"Sublime.", Jinx finished. "That I was even capable of that, it was exhilerating. I then saw. Before, I was another crook with an edge. Brother Blood had simply taken an unsused pawn and placed it on the board. Every game I got taken. The Red-X...he placed me on the board and pointed me at the eighth row. Where you were."
"I wanna be a queen, Raven. And I know I have to truly defeat you to do it. Not survive like I did. Face and defeat. And not this 'I'll pretend I'm super' girl you want everyone to see. The evil thing."
"I can do it too. After my...enlightenment, I could see. I saw what the Red X had done to me. And I saw why. Everything has a chance. And I knew what I had been keeping myself from."
"And if, and I stress if, I were to become what you accuse me of being capable of...", Raven started. "What would I get?"
"The oppurtunity to kill me.", Jinx replied. "Don't you hate me?"
"Murder doesn't motivate superheroines, Jinx.", Raven cautioned. "And you had to have seen this coming if you can 'see chances'. Let me guess-what probably happens next is I refuse to do what you want. You leverage your amnesty deal and the Titan's sense of fairness into my letting you walk out of here. You then continue to commit evil acts and elude capture just long enough to provoke me into returning to that state. Just so you can play the high stakes gamble of either you become more powerful or I destroy you and the universe shortly thereafter."
Jinx smiled. "I think I would look good in insanely powerful."
"No dice.", Raven told her. "I'm not going to allow you to just harm people to get your way. But simply murdering you wouldn't be something I should want either. So I'll offer you this deal."
"You ressurected Terra and walked into the headquarters of your most successful enemy in order to get me to help you become more. I'll will give you the oppurtunity to be exposed to me (and not the inside of a jail cell), if you agree to obey me as an apprentice."
"Fat chance.", Jinx scoffed. "What makes you think I'll stay around here washing your leotards instead of just causing enough chaos to provoke you?"
"Because if you don't, I'll kill myself.", Raven replied. "And you'll never find what you're searching for."
"Yeah, right.", Jinx smirked.
Raven glared at her, eyes turning white. "Do I look like a girl that jokes, Jinx?"
Jinx glared back, eyes glowing pink. "Yeah, you do."
A black tentacle that was quite obviously potent, mobile and not alive snaked out of Raven's cloak. It wrapped itself around Raven's neck and began to squeeze. Jinx folded her arms, disbelieving. Then a minute passed. Raven's grey lips began to turn white. Her arms came out of the cloak and tried to pull on the tentacle. Jinx shook her head. Then Raven's head slumped with her eyes still blazing white.
That's when Jinx snapped. "Okay, I get it."
Raven didn't seem to be responding. Or supporting her weight with her legs.
Jinx jumped on her and pulled the tentacle. It didn't let go. It seemed to grow stronger. Jinx blasted it with a hex. It seemed to skitter, like it was a program on TV in the middle of static. She blasted it more. Finally, the thing dissappeared back within Raven's cloak. Raven hit the floor like a sack of potatoes.
"Oh hell no.", Jinx muttered. She rolled Raven to a prone position. Listening to Raven's chest, she heard a rumbling noise but no breathing. Jinx started blowing into Raven's lungs. "You aren't getting out of this that easy, bitch."
Raven started to cough. "You, uh, took long, uh, enough.", the girl told her rescuer in a scratchy voice. "I mean it, Jinx. You do what I say, when I say. Maybe, maybe, you get your shot. Maybe I just screw with you. Maybe I win. That's the deal."
"You're serious.", Jinx replied. "That means you know what I can be. And that's good. Because you haven't even killed yourself to stop you from being what you can be. If you're willing to do it to keep me down...I'm on the right track. It's just a matter of playing the odds."
Raven snickered. Then she appeared thoughtful. "Another thing, Jinx. Lean down here for a moment."
Jinx leaned over the still prone Raven. "What?"
Slap.
