Only about half an hour later, Jinx snorted in distaste at the incompetence of the entire prison staff. "Really?" She muttered, stepping over a snoring guard on the way to the door. "Cause one little distraction and no one notices you sneaking into the staff room. And honestly, how did these people get this job without training on the taste of different sleeping powders?" She kicked aside an unconscious secretary, who had no reaction except to grunt and roll over. A quick search of the office revealed the door code. "Come on. You have it written down. This is a maximum security prison and you write down the door code on a sticky note?! And there are some serious scheduling problems if every single employee drinks out of the staff coffee pot within an hour. In the afternoon!" Jinx continued her tirade as she punched the exit code into the door. It swung open, and she gestured down the hallway to her teammates. EX-teammates, she corrected herself. Jinx walked out the door, the Hive following. After puzzling over it, Jinx had decided that there wasn't a non-suspicious way to keep them out of her escape attempt, so she was forced to break them out with her. Although, when Jinx had planned this, she had only hoped the drug she had snuck in after her first escape would cause enough confusion for her to slip away, but no, the entire guard staff were big enough caffeine addicts that they were all out like a light. The Hive trailed after Jinx, not bothering to close the door after them.
"Where should we hit first?" Gizmo spoke up. Jinx looked confused.
"What?" She asked.
"You know, the Hive Five, together again, and out of prison? This requires a reunion celebration! We should hit the mall," he clarified. Jinx raised an eyebrow.
"What about Red X?" She said dryly.
Gizmo rolled his eyes. "He was terrible. Thought he was better than everyone, never cleaned up after himself, and then he had the nerve to just leave us on the ground and let us get caught by the Titans. I mean, we're evil, but at least we don't just abandon one of our own!" Jinx's lip curled. Honestly, that description sounded a lot like four hypocritical boys that she could think of.
"Oh, is that all?" She asked lightly, not letting her thoughts show on her face. None of them noticed.
"Well, come on then! We've got things to do, places to rob! ONWARDS!" Gizmo shouted, from his newfound post on Mammoth's shoulders. At the boy's command, the group started towards the mall, assuming that Jinx would follow. And normally, Jinx would follow. She would blindly steal, cheat, and lie along with the rest of them. She'd be leading the charge, probably following Gizmo's lead and forcing See-More to carry her on his shoulders, initiating a race, ready to blow up the next store.
At least, the old Jinx would. It hit her all at once how different everything was now, the realization stopping her in her tracks. She yelled to the people in front of her that she would catch up, and ducked into an alleyway. Pulling out her communicator, she called the Titans. Her warning in place, she sat still for a moment, contemplating the 'new' Jinx. She knew she could never go back to the life she held before. Jinx pushed herself off the wall suddenly, walking quickly to catch up with the people she used to regard as her only friends. It wasn't friendship, though, that had always held their little group together. It was mutual convenience, a group only shoved together because they were the best at being the worst. Everyone in their little 'team' had understood that any member would dump them for bigger and better things at a moment's notice. Well, Jinx had found her bigger and better thing, and she was going to take it. Grinning like a moron, she pretended to join her old team in battle. To someone who didn't know her, the look on her face could be mistaken for her old, malicious expression. When Cyborg caught her eyes and threw a watered-down blast that was just for show, he simply smiled back.
Back in her cell that night, after all the prisoners who noticed the open door and ran for it were gathered up and shoved back into the prison, Jinx wrote a long letter to the head of the prison systems outlining the necessity for extensive training programs for all employees. She fell asleep halfway through a sentence, and jolted awake the next morning to the prison-wide wake-up call. She sneered. That was something she was looking forward to living without. Jinx rolled over and continued to sleep, waiting for the ten minutes she knew she had before the guards started checking cells. She jolted awake once more at a loud banging on her cell door, and slowly moved her head to glare at the guard outside it. A boy who couldn't be much older than she was, and about the same size, sneered back at her through the glass. Jinx slowly sat up and stretched, taking her time, and padded to the door, head held high and with her pride intact. "Hurry up, sunshine, I don't have all day. There are plenty more attractive females I could be spending my time with," the guard shouted at her. Jinx didn't react, simply walking calmly out of the cell. She turned to face the guard and smiled, the expression not reaching her eyes.
"Has anyone ever told you that it's a bad idea to antagonize the prisoners?" She asked. Then she punched him in the face. The guard went down in an instant, and Jinx examined her knuckles, noting with satisfaction that there wasn't even a drop of blood soiling them. And I thought I was out of practice, she thought, shaking her head fondly and dragging the guard into the vacated cell.