"HAAAA!" FL-FLASH! A wave of hex flies across the museum.

I roll out of the pink light and stand up, summoning a black shield around my figure: "Azarath Metrion ZINTHOS!"

FWOOSH!

Jinx grits her teeth with angry cat eyes. She charges more and more pink energy streams and flings them at me.

FL-FL-FLASH!

FLASH!

I grit my teeth and reinforce my shield with two iron-strong wrists. The museum around me shakes and echoes with the blasts of the hex beams.

Jinx pants. Her eyes glow a dimmer pink as she attempts to recharge her powers.

I flick a wrist. I telekinetically charge a piece of knights' armor between two priceless paintings and send them flying, hurtling towards the pink-haired sorceress.

She cartwheels and slices through it with a hex blade. CHIIING! She squats on the ground and winks at me…a pale Cheshire.

I seethe and glare at her. "You will return those diamonds AT ONCE!"

"Sheesh! Listen to you! You sound like a police officer…," she sticks a pink tongue out at me.

"You don't seem to be taking me seriously…"

"Nuts to you, girl! H.I.V.E. needs this for….uhm….something important!"

"You're just doing regular gruntwork," I frown. "Do you even have a single idea what you're stealing that for?"

"I….uhm….er….w-well….."

"Hmmm?"

"Shut up! Stop flustering me, you bourgeoisie pig!"

I raise an eyebrow. "What did you just call me?"

"You heard me! You're an oppressor of the proletariat!" Jinx meows.

"Just because you're a criminal doesn't make you proletariat…"

"So what? I'm downtrodden!"

"Only cuz you ask for it. The proletariat never ask to be oppressed. They're born into a social class that is deemed to be the working order by the structure of the means of production…"

"Yeah! And the means of production is manhandled by the bourgeoisie oppressionists!"

"Only in this part of the world, perhaps, but oligarchy still reigns supreme in many puppet government and in parts of the Arab world you still have theocratic and absolute monarchal regimes fighting for political supremacy!"

"That's an overgeneralization!" Jinx frowns. "It's more than obvious that Lockean liberalism has dominated the majority of the globe and has converted the world into a resource-sucking supporter of self-consuming capitalism! The 'proletariat' can now be defined as a subconscious worldwide collective of third world countries biting the bullet for the sake of the United States, Western Europe, and maybe Japan for a dash of incentive!"

"Japan hardly counts. If you want to look for bourgeoisie and aristocratic domination, look towards the oil barons of Saudi Arabia. How could the world function—middle class or sans-cullotes—without their private control over fossil fuel distribution?"

"That's just the point! The dependency on fossil fuels is an illusion dictated by the ruling class! As Marx pointed out, history repeats itself in favor of an educated minority imposing propaganda and resource seizures in an effort to forcefully persuade the helpless, laboring majorities into supporting the sniveling affluent population between now and the future, totally hampering the possibility of a communal, classless society built upon mutualism and unanimous prosperity!"

"What do you know about Marx? He was merely a self-contradicting, lifelong critic of capitalist, not so much an avid supporter of socialist ideology! The only reason Marx's name has been blackened today is that people fall short of reading Capital and instead connect the Communist Manifesto with the bastardization movement of Leninism and Stalinism!"

"He wrote a book called Capital?"

"Yes. It was his life's ultimate work. But he never finished because he died early of illnesses after aging research in Great Britain."

"He lived in Great Britain?"

"Yeah, didn't you know that? He was German born, but was forced to dwell outside of the very society he criticized."

"Ah….like so many others. I feel educated, thank you."

"I can discuss Locke and Rousseau with you over tea sometime if you like."

"Yeah, I'll consider that…."

"………"

"………!" Jinx snaps out of it.

"………!" I snap out of it.

"HAAAAA!" she flings a burning stream of hex at me.

I snarl and toss black talons of energy at her. FLASH!

The two streams meet in the middle of the museum and explode.

POW!

We're both knocked back against opposite walls.

"Ouchies!"

"Mmmf!"

"Capitalist czarina!"

"Pink-haired ignoramus!"

"HAAA!"

"ZINTHOS!

FL-FLASH!