146. Double Jinx part 3
He marched alone through the metal-laced catacombs of the underground facility. Yellow hexagons formed the structure of the walls on either side of him. Guards decked in yellow and black and carrying laser rifles patrolled the distant corridors. A random student or two walked between training areas. They seemed suspiciously nervous...as if some unknown adversary had been unleashed upon the world above.
The young man was calm and collected, though. He marched straight up to a huge, golden door shaped as a hexagon. He waved his arm in front of a sensor. The device read the chip under his skin, beeped successfully, and opened the huge door for him.
Whurrrrrrrrrrr-Chtung!!
He stepped through, entering a huge office. The walls were composed of crags of rock and stone...and the metal structure of the underground facility seemed built into the jagged earth. The man approached a lone desk inside the unnecessarily huge chamber. There a gray woman sat in a tight business suit. She was typing away at a document on her computer.
"Headmistress....," the young man stood at attention before the desk. His body was straight and perfect. "Reports confirm. She is alive. She is alive and heading this way."
The Headmistress kept typing, unphased.
The man stood there, still. He didn't move a muscle. He waited.....
She typed.
She typed....
She typed........
She paused.
A beat.
Sighing, she leaned back and uttered: "Lemme guess.....Pulsade bailed the Jinx out again...."
"Our people in the field report a 79% likelihood of sighting Pulsade. Supposedly there was a young girl with Jinx....but it's hard to say whether it was her or not."
"Who else would it be??" the Headmistress rubbed the bridge of her nose in exasperation. "I swear....that assassin is going to be the end of us."
"You trained her well, Headmistress...," the young man had the audacity to smile.
".....," the Headmistress frowned at him. "You are almost always out of line, Damien. Do you know that?"
"I intend to live forever, Headmistress...," Damien smiled. "There is no line....but a repeating curve."
She stood up and paced around the desk. "Jinx has escaped...," she thought aloud. "Pulsade is assisting her. Now with her alive, the public will think she was the one who set off the explosion."
"That was our backup plan, wasn't it?" Damien remarked. He leaned his head to the side. "If the girl would live....she would have to live on the run?"
"She wasn't supposed to live at all," the Headmistress wrung her wrinkled hands together and frowned. "How in God's name did she walk away from that holocaust?"
"She is Jinx, after all," the man said. "We tapped into her powers so much when she was with us. Since then, the girl has learned to evolve her powers on her own. Who knows what she is capable of at this point?"
"Why is it that I feel our children are all going astray.....," the Headmaster murmured. A beat. She looked over at Damien. "Mammoth and Gizmo. What has become of them?"
He folded his arms and said: "A fancy situation, that. It's been nearly twelve hours since they escaped prison and already they've nearly wrecked a train and fought head-to-head with Robin."
"Robin??" the Headmaster's gray eyes narrowed. "The Teen Titans?"
The boy nodded.
"Ah....this is their territory we're dealing with isn't it?" she paced back over to her desk and leaned against it. "Did they survive the confrontation?"
"That they did," Damien said. "It's quite possible that an outside source caused the train wreck."
"A murder attempt?"
"A 'something' attempt, for sure," Damien exhaled. "It might not be that someone wants Mammoth and Gizmo dead. But rather, someone wants them distracted. As it is at the moment....H.I.V.E. should want Gizmo and Mammoth dead."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because they're no longer headed back to our home."
"Oh?"
"Shimmer found them."
".............," the Headmistress blinked.
Damien reiterated: "Shimmer found them...and now she's leading them somewhere to reunite with Psimon. I think they're trying to rebuild the Fearsome Five."
"Impossible....," the Headmistress murmured. "Dr. Light is dead! He perished in the dark-city incident a week ago...."
"Which is probably while Psimon is making his move now," Damien gestured. "And leave it to the explosion at the prison to free up desired recruits of his."
The Headmistress took a deep breath. "You don't think he's wanting to....recruit Jinx again, do you?"
"Hardly," Damien smiled. "In the Fearsome Five's eyes....Jinx is twice as detestable to them now. First for her replacement of Shimmer. Second for her treachery at Westhaven. Jinx is a rogue from us and them and everyone else as well. With the exception of a few, she's truly.....truly alone."
"A few??" the Headmistress leaned her head to the side. "I thought only Pulsade was—"
Damien shook his head. "There're two others. One whose identity we can't find for the life of us. She or he is providing assistance to Jinx and Pulsade through hacking and digital manipulation. We're thinking such an operative played a crucial role in Jinx's escape."
"And who's the last?"
"A boy named Noir," Damien said. "A Teen Titan."
"A Titan??? Why is he helping Jinx of all people??"
"Well...here's the interesting part," Damien grinned. "They're handcuffed together."
"Handcuffed??"
"I've seen the technique before," Damien said. "Jinx has a Model-5 Biological Responsive Detonator attached to the handcuffs. If the two were to separate....an explosive somewhere would go off. In this case—as we judge by the signal—carbonite explosives."
"Hmmm.....Slade's handiwork," the Headmistress rubbed her temple in thought. "So....Jinx is most likely hiring this Titan to assist her with his powers."
"Yes. Against his will, most likely."
"Well....all the more proper! We trained Jinx well.............unfortunately."
A beat.
"Damien."
"Yes, Headmistress?"
"I want you to do as much research as you can on this 'Noir' individual. Maybe his back history will explain what Jinx desires to use him for. In the meantime, exert all available energy on trailing Jinx and the boy. I want to observe them for a little longer. Try and see if they truly are heading this way or not...and if so....what their intention is...."
"And what of the Fearsome Five?"
The Headmistress frowned. "After Psimon deceived us last time.......a man of that intelligence and power should know that our organization will not tolerate his presence among us ever again. If he gets too close to Jinx—for whatever reason—we must go at war with him. Jinx is our matter, not his."
"Then Mammoth and Gizmo are expendable?"
"Where Jinx is concerned, always," the Headmistress smiled. "Besides...we have two new students at the top of their class who would be wonderful replacements."
Damien smiled and nodded his head. "Indeed."
"You have your orders. Any questions."
"But of course, Headmistress."
She sighed and waved her hand. "Go on, Damien. Ask away."
"Do you ever want us to actually research and find out who it was who set up the bomb in the prison?"
Silence.
The old woman's eyes narrowed. "That is information not privy to any of us."
"........," Damien nodded. With an added bow, he turned around and headed for the office door.
"Besides....," the woman said to his back with smug eeriness. "I think I already know who it is...."
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
"Robin?? in. Robin, can you read me?"
"How many times is it now, Cyborg?" Raven's voice filtered through the T-Car's speakers.
"I've stopped counting," Cyborg muttered as he drove north out of Town. The buildings on either side of the road gave way to trees and hilltops as the land got increasingly elevated. "It's absolutely dead on his end of the communicator. It happened right after he last signed off. He was going to pounce that train, remember?"
"Did you contact the rail authorities?"
"Yeah....," Cyborg drove onto a country road and sped north. "And they said that the train hadn't come in at the next scheduled depot. There's no word from the conductors or engine pilots either."
"Something has happened....," Raven voiced suspiciously. "...perhaps Mammoth and Gizmo were too powerful for him to handle??"
"Rrrrghh....," Cyborg gritted his teeth. "Why'd we let him go solo?? Hell...why do we always let the little guy take on such crazy obstacles! He'll get himself killed someday!"
"He's the Titan leader for a reason, Cyborg. He's more competent than the rest of us combined."
"I know....I know....," Cyborg sighed. A beat. "At least Starfire's taking this calmly."
"Why? Because she's been absolutely silent for the last thirty minutes?"
"......uhm...."
"She's flying to the site of Beast Boy's last coordinates. He hasn't responded to any of our communications either."
"Man....what's going on here??" Cyborg gritted his teeth. "We're losing people left and right! First Noir. Then Robin. Beast Boy." A beat. "Hold on, Rae."
"What is it?"
"Just gonna check on Tempest."
"Good idea."
Cyborg switched frequencies on his communicator while driving with one hand. He uttered: "Hey! Tempest!"
"........"
"Yo! Flipper! You there??"
"Yeah, I'm here."
"Scared me for a second there."
"Why?"
"............"
"Er...n-never mind. Any luck on contacting Robin or Beast Boy?"
"None yet. I just wanted to touch base with you."
"Awww....how sweet. Can I get out of these damn sewers now?"
"Uh....sure. Go find a.....fire hydrant or something."
"What's a fire hydrant?"
"Aww nuts to that--," Cyborg switched frequencies again. "Rae...Tempest is fine."
"Cyborg!! Urgent! Urgent!!"
Cyborg blinked. "Star?? Oops...my bad. Wrong frequency...," he blushed. "Heheh....c-can't believe I did that—"
"I have found Beast Boy! I have found Beast Boy and Beast Boy is injured!!!"
Cyborg's human eye widened. "Say what??"
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
Starfire sat on her knees besides the unconscious green elf in the middle of the woods. She checked his pulse with one Tamaranian hand and held the communicator up in another. "He seems terribly bruised and out of breath! I do believe his situation is nominal....but alas, something has happened to have caused him such trauma! The Fang, perhaps?"
"Star. Sit tight. I'm on my way!"
"Please....do go on the way quickly!" Starfire's green eyes were round and earnest. "Today has not been a good day for my friends!"
"We're on the way, Star. Rae...Flipper....rendezvous at Starfire's signal! As soon as you can!"
"I copy, Cyborg."
"Yeah, sure thing."
Starfire put her communicator down. She looked sympathetically down at Beast Boy. "Ohhhhhhhh....," she cradled him gently and exhaled. "....the world is a cruel place to elves."
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
VRMMMMMMMMM!!!
The police squad car burned rubber up hill. There were still trees on either side of us, but the distant roar of motorized ambiance in the distance announced a nearby highway. Most likely the road leading towards Metropolis or New York.
Was that where we were headed??
I sat helplessly in the passenger seat. My left arm stretched out from my side, connected to Jinx's driving hand. I sweatdropped as she steered us up the crest of the country road with inexperienced, petite hands.
"I usually drive with platform shoes....it makes up for my height," she said. "So if you're wondering why I'm a little rusty today...."
I simpered nervously.
JERK!!!
Somehow, Jinx's grip of the wheel slipped.
"Whoops!!"
We skirted left.
I bounced in my seat.
We came over the hill in the road....and rushed head-on towards a throttling RV.
BEEEP!! BEEEP!!!!
"Alice Almighty!!" Jinx gritted her teeth and swung us back to the right.
SCREEECH!!!
I flew against her. WHUMP!!
The RV steered suicidally off the road as we regained our grip on the asphalt and zoomed off towards the northern horizon.
"........"
"........"
"........th-they really should put some sort of rubber grips on their steering wheels."
I ran my flesh hand over my face.
"Especially when they're cops, ya know?? Can never guess when a high speed chase is about to happen or—"
I pointed at the stick.
"Huh?? Oh right...time to shift gears again. Thank you."
She did so.
The engine sputtered as if to mock us and we zoomed a little faster down the road.
Jinx gripped the wheel tightly, stared out the dashboard with her pink cat eyes, and sighed.
A beat.
I stared out the window on my right. I watched the trees blurring by. I thought of the soft soil of the earth. The layers of pine needles. Beast Boy's unconscious body.
I winced.
I.....I-I had to do it, right? I mean.....I had no choice. Jinx....the handcuffs....the explosion......she......
I ran a hand through my thick black hair. I sighed.
The Titans.....they'll understand. But what is there to understand? I'm in this spot again. But this time...I'm not the mastermind. It's Jinx. It's all back to Jinx.
"Kinda anticlimactic, isn't it?"
I turned and glanced at her with a raised eyebrow.
She drove us down the road, speeding. "It's like you and I are taking a Sunday drive, Ghost Boy. If any random passer-by was to look in the window....they'd think we were on a date. Heh."
My black eyes thinned under my shades.
I hate you so much.......
"So....Jordan, huh?"
I did a double-take.
"That's what the little elf twerp said before you finished the job," she uttered. "I guess the Titans have real names just like us of the 'dark ilk'. Guess you know my name already."
Jean.....
"Jean and Jordan. J.J. Double jinx....sounds like a cute tabloid couple."
I groaned inwardly.
Shut up. I thought you were bi.............................oh wait.
"J.J.....," Jinx inhaled. "That's what they would call me..........."
"???" I looked at her sideways.
"At least...," she frowned. "....that's what they made me 'remember'. It was all fictitious. Fake. And yet....when I think about it....'J.J.'.....m-my heart feels stabbed."
"........"
Her shoulders sagged as she gripped the wheel. "Listen to me. I'm so pathetic. I know they never existed. I know it. And yet......yet....."
".......," I glanced at her blouse. I saw a tiny lump underneath that announced the location of the locket.
Why hadn't she gotten rid of that??
"No matter," she grumbled. "We're going to set everything right. You and me." She glanced at me once with a darting cat-eye. "In the end....you'll be glad that you helped me. You will be."
I gritted my teeth. My right fist clenched. And---
"Red Aviary."
"........."
"What do those words mean to you, Ghost Boy?"
I blinked. My black eyes trailed the edges of shades.
I.....I-I've heard those words somewhere....
My lips pursed.
My brow furrowed.
The shivers in my arm...the dream....Robin.....
I took a shuddering breath as—ironically enough—a cold sensation swam through me.
Terra's failed revival......the experiment gone awry........Red Aviary......
"Fate is a funny thing....," Jinx said as she drove us quickly around slowly chugging trucks and minivans on the country road. Some of them honked at us. We were speeding too quickly for the sound to hang around for long. "....Fate will actually bow down to a greater force."
"???" I looked at her sideways.
"Red. Red is the essence of Destruction. Of Death." She smirked slyly. "You get what I mean?"
I stared at her blankly.
"Red is Destruction. Black is Balance. White is Construction."
My jaw dropped.
"Ring a bell, huh?"
The Spectrum......
She smirked and kept steering us around traffic.
The fundamentals of what the Master taught us all.
My black eyes narrowed.
But.....H-How would Jinx know that? How would anyone BUT the Master's school know that??
Autumn wind whistled through the cracks in our windows as we zoomed down the road.
Maybe....maybe Jinx doesn't know the Spectrum. Only.....because of her penchant for 'fate', she can see the Spectrum from an entirely different light.
"There is a lot of Red brewing in this land....and in this land alone," she said. "Your precious City....it's becoming a powder keg of evil. And where too much evil collects in one place....well....it upsets the order of things. It creates weight. Imagine bad things happening all at once because they have nowhere else to run to? They just sink and sink and sink and sink into some invisible, eternal abyss."
I took a firm breath.
The Balance of Morals.
Slade tried to upset that 'order of things' a long time ago.
But....
He failed.
And I.....
I killed
him.
"It's this pit of spiritual evil that—I'm pretty sure—nearly killed me, Ghost Boy," she took a deep breath. "It nearly killed me and a bunch of other prisoners. Luck wouldn't have been enough to save me. But fate did give me the ability to foresee the inevitable. And—as if by magic—I was contacted by "J". "J" hooked me back up with Pulsade. And the two of them bailed me out this morning....but not without a plan."
"???" I looked at her curiously.
"I......We....W-We're going to go to the one place I don't want to go to. We're going to the very locus of H.I.V.E.'s stronghold. We're going to do whatever it takes—legal or not, violent or not—to pierce into their defenses and infiltrate their databases. Because H.I.V.E. is the closest "J", Pulsade, or I can get to truly tracing the secrets of Red Aviary. H.I.V.E. holds many secrets. Some....s-some that I've been dying to know after all these months in prison...," her fingers clutched tightly around the steering wheel for a moment...then relaxed some. "But most importantly.......they go deep. Deeper than Luthor. Deeper than Dagger. Their database is the epithet of the criminal organism worldwide. Whoever controls their information controls half of the entire machine of evil. You and I are going to sabotage that machine, Ghost Boy. And we're going to find out exactly what's been trying to blow me up, what's been killing and murdering people left and right across random places in the East, and what's presently drawing darkly and threateningly around your precious City. Because that is where the red is the strongest."
I nodded with a nervous smile.
Yeah.....okay....
I glanced out the window.
Titans. Get your butts here....now....
The peripheral of my shaded eyes caught a flash of squad car lights in the side mirror.
"???"
I squinted my eyes. I gasped lightly.
Two state trooper cars were pursuing us at high speed. They were rising over the hill behind us...gaining distance.
And Jinx saw it. "Ah....it's about time something combustible came into play," she smirked in the rear mirror.
I looked at her horrifically.
She glanced at me back. "Hope you're insured."
I shook my head.
SCREEECH!!!
"!!!" I jerked to the left as she swerved her driving arms.
We rounded a brown van and throttled......backwards.
"Ack!!!" Jinx shook as the swirling lights intensified behind us. "Wh-Which one makes us go faster?!?!"
I swiftly jerked our arms down, grabbed the stick in my metal palm, and pushed it up and right into fifth gear.
VRRMMMMMM!!!!
We zoomed up quickly and Jinx had to compensate by swerving screechily around a Volkswagen on the country road.
"Whoah!! Okay!! The wheels go round and round! The wheels go round and round!!!"
I sweat-dropped and glanced behind us.
Innocent drivers moved to the left and right side of the road, giving the two pursuing squad cars easy access to pursue us.
I bit my lip.
"I wonder if they heard about us....ya know....kinda sorta beating up their partners?"
I stared at her.
You think??
SCREEECH!!
I jerked into her, my face planting painfully in her shoulder.
She was swerving us right and around a truck hauling a camping trailer. The truck honked at us annoyingly as we skirted around it.
But the swirling lights behind became brighter and the sirens became louder.
Jinx suddenly bore a Cheshire cat grin.
I stared at her nervously.
"I think it's about time we re-wrote the rules of the road," she slurred.
I vehemently shook my head 'no'.
She ignored me. We pulled up so that we were in a lane in front of and to the right of the truck behind us. Jinx raised her left hand free, charged it pink, and aimed at the driver's side window next to her.
FLASH!!!
SHATTER!!!
The glass fell away.
I winced.
"Mind the bumps!!!" Jinx exclaimed and shot a pink hex out alongside us.
FLASH!!!
The pink energy streamed over the blurring asphalt, swam between the four wheels of the truck, and exploded beneath the trailer hitch.
SNAP!!!!
Screeeeeech!!!
The truck swerved as it lost control of the camping trailer.
CRAA-AACK!!!
The trailer broke loose from the back of the truck, skidded, rolled over, and scraped its way backwards towards the two squad cars.
The police swung hard to avoid the vehicle. One had to stop completely, barely bumping into the trailer. The other swerved safely around it and pursued us with added ferocity. The siren wailing. The state troopers inside cocking weapons.
I watched from the rear view mirror. I shivered.
"Hmmm....I don't like stalkers....," Jinx said. She decelerated some, reached her left arm outside the driver's side window again, and fired hex after hex beam at the road blurring beneath us.
FL-FLASH!! FLASH!!!
The asphalt glowed with a hot fuchsia and exploded with flaming potholes scattered abroad. The pursuing police car found itself navigating a sudden mine field of combustible energy. One pothole exploded underneath a front side tire. POP!!! The squad car screeched, decelerated, swerved to the side, and came to a light crashing stop against a guardrail as we passed over a bridge. CRUNCH!!!
"HA!!" Jinx cackled into the rear view mirror. She looked at me, grinning wide. "They certainly didn't have their Earnhardts at the wheel today, huh??"
As we zoomed down the other end of the hill, two police motorcyclists in waiting throttled their engines and cruised alongside us at high speed.
VRMMMM!!!
The motorcycle on our left drifted over and the cop kicked the side door of our squad car with his boot. WHAM!! "Pull over!! Now!!!"
Jinx growled like a vicious cat snarl and—"HAAA!!" Her outstretched hand flew a pink hex straight at his face.
FLASH!!!
TH-THWAP!!
His helmet tore off. He shook his wind-blown face—disoriented. Soon his motorcycle skidded through two lanes of incoming traffic, causing two cars to screech to a stop and grind against each other. CRUUUU-UUUNCH!!! The trooper fell off his bike and rolled to an unconscious stop on a grassy gnoll.
The motorcyclist to our right reached desperately for his mic and shouted: "Requesting backup immediat—"
Jinx growled, aimed her wrist....
"!!!!" I ducked my head.
"HAAAAA!!!" the witch flung a hex straight over my cranium.
SMASH!!!!
The pink energy sailed through the passenger side window and slammed into the front of the motorcycle. The handle snapped free.
"WHOAH!!!" the trooper struggled to grab onto something as the rest of his bike teetered, unbalanced.
"Nnnngh!!" Jinx swerved our car right.
THWUMP!!!!
I jolted as my passenger door slammed into the side of the trooper's bike. The man and his cycle were sent sliding into a lake just besides the country road then and there. SPLOOOSH!!!
Dah!! Jeez!!
I panted, slumped down in my seat.
JERK!!!
I was yanked to my left as Jinx swerved hard to the side.
We burned rubber around a school bus and zoomed down the country road. Traffic appeared to be increasing. I saw a sign for the Metropolitan Highway coming up.
"Ah...well.......w-we can't make them any angrier than that, now can we?" she chuckled nervously.
Ear-splitting sirens swam in through the shattered windows of our car. We looked forward and to the left to spot three trooper vehicles drive over the grassy median from the opposite, incoming lane and over to cruise alongside us threateningly.
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.
Jinx took a deep breath. "Allright....plenty more hex where that came from." A beat. "And petroleum," she smiled and tried to shift gears—
CRNNNNGGG!!!
The gears grinded.
"Ackies!! What the?!?!"
I panted.
"Wh-Where's the clutch again??"
I dove into her seat area and forcibly shoved her foot over to it.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
"..........."
Robin's eyemask twitched.
His head pivoted a bit.
A slit of sunlight crossed the gray area of his mask.
"Nnnngh....," he groaned and stirred.
His lips pursed.
His teeth clenched.
He sat up--
CONK!!
He bumped his head on a bent scrap of metal that was once the frame of the train engine's interior.
"Owwwwwww....," the Boy Wonder rubbed his forehead. He moved his limbs to check if anything was broken.
He was in one piece.
"Ugh....," he snaked and squirmed his way down the tiny corridor of bent and collapsed metal that he was in. He crawled up, sideways, and up again towards blinding daylight. Soon the Boy Wonder stood atop an overturned metal holocaust of a crashed train engine, haloed by collapsed and crunched passenger cars. Metal wheels and framework were still steaming around him. Every now and then, a groaning or creaking sound announced the collapse of some bulkhead inside the monstrous crash.
He jumped down onto the upturned grass, walked a few paces uphill, and turned to get a good look of the wreckaged besides the scuffed tracks.
"..........."
He adjusted his tangled hair back to its spiked look and sighed.
"Guess I take the bus from now on...."
A shuffling sound.
Robin jerked. He whipped out three throwing discs and a birdarang in a blink of an eye.
His vision swirled, scanned the nearby landscape, and found the source of the shuffling.
Two forest rangers emerging from the tree line.
"Hello there!"
"My god....are you all right??"
"Yes.....I'm fine....," Robin exhaled, pocketing the projectiles away. "What time do you have?"
One ranger seemed confused. He blinked....looked at his watch, and then uttered: "Wh-Why....uhm....three twenty two."
Robin took a deep breath. "So I've been out for nearly an hour." He rubbed his head again. "Nnngh........how'd it happen? Mammoth was out cold....literally. I had Gizmo in my grip. Did th-they have an accomplice??"
"Help me look for survivors!" the one ranger said to the other.
Robin groaned. "There aren't any passengers on board. They were scared away before it was hijacked."
"H-Hijacked??"
Robin's eyemask narrowed. He turned to look at the two steadily. "Did you two....s-see any strange people leave this area?"
"Sir???"
"Mammoth and Gizmo. Supervillains. A large, muscular Caucasian with red hair and a short, bald-headed youth with a jetpack and goggles?"
"N-No, sir. We just got to this crash now. We were investigating the disappearance of this train in between stations."
"Yeah, well....you can have it," Robin growled and faced the line of forest. "I've got two fugitives to track down now...."
A beat.
"But first thing's first....," Robin whipped out his communicator. A light on it was blinking....indicating an attempt by his colleagues to contact him while he was under. He sighed and flipped the communicator open with a Star Trek sound, speaking on all frequencies: "Titans. Titans, this is Robin. Report!"
"Snnkkkt---Robin??"
Robin exhaled. "Starfire. It's me."
"Robin! I am filled with jubilation at again hearing your voice! I was afraid another one of us had fallen!!"
Robin rubbed his brow—wincing—as he replied: "Well, I'm A-Okay. The train Mammoth and Gizmo were on derailed while I was interrogating them. I don't know how—"
"Robin, Beast Boy has been attacked!"
A blink. "When??"
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
Starfire stood in the woods. Beside her was Raven, who was tending to a dizzy-but-waking Beast Boy propped up against a tree. Cyborg stood off a few feet away, performing sensor scans on a wireless frequency connected to the computer of the T-Car, parked a few paces away beyond the forest line. Tempest wasn't there yet.
"It transpired approximately the same time we lost contact with you," Starfire voiced into her communicator. "Beast Boy believed he had spotted Jinx and was attempting to intercept. He seems to have suffered blows to his poor elfin body."
"Is he okay??"
"He is stable," Starfire said. She bit her lip. "But there is one distressing note..."
"What's that?"
SWIIISH—A green tentacle momentarily reached up and—GRIP!!—took the communicator out of Starfire's hand.
Beast Boy leaned achingly against the tree with one hand holding an icepack to his forehead. "Noir pummeled me good, dude!"
"Excuse me??"
"You heard me!!" Beast Boy winced. "He smacked me in the nose then played soccer with my tummy! I ain't doing curl-ups for a week now! Nnnghh..." he winced as he overexerted his lungs.
Raven—applying hands of a healing glow—forced him to sit still and droned: "Oh you poor thing......"
Beast Boy stuck his tongue at her.
"Let me get this straight, Beast Boy....you're saying that Noir attacked you?"
"Er....well....," Beast Boy sweatdropped.
"Well what?"
"He didn't do it right away."
"What do you mean?"
"Jinx was with him," Raven leaned over and spoke into the communicator. "Beast Boy was in a scuffle with her before Noir stepped in and finished the battle in Jinx's favor."
"But it was not entirely in Jinx's favor....," Starfire interjected. She gestured: "For if it truly was....then Beast Boy would not be alive, no?"
"There's something else, dude...," Beast Boy yanked the communicator from Raven's mouth and spoke: "Jinx and Noir.....th-they were handcuffed."
"Handcuffed?"
"Uh....yeah," Beast Boy sweatdropped. "Didn't know Noir was into that sort of thing."
"........be serious."
"I am!! It was a thick, black, metal handcuff with—like—a blinking light in the center of the chain link and stuff."
Cyborg stepped forward. "Ya know...that doohickey sounds familiar."
"Care to help us out here?" Raven asked.
Cyborg smirked momentarily, then said: "Sounds like there's some sort of sensor on the handcuffs."
"Like to trigger something if there's separation of the link?"
"Not so much the link, Robin," Cyborg shook his head. "But there are handcuffs made to register biological signatures in proximity to each other. Lexcorp was notorious for using a bunch of them. H.I.V.E. too. 'Model Fives' they were called. Basically, two people would be forced together in handcuffs and if one were to detach from the other the sensor would trigger something as simple as a security failsafe or as chaotic as a nuclear bomb. No matter what...the result is a chilling effect. A chilling effect most impactful on the recipient of the handcuffs."
"A chilling effect....," Raven's eyes narrowed. "So you're saying that....Jinx may be coercing Noir into something?"
"Phweeee...," Beast Boy sighed. His eyes were thin. "A lot of people seem to be in the habit of doing that to him."
Starfire bit her lip.
"But coercing him into what exactly?" Cyborg shrugged. "Kicking the crap out of Beast Boy? Raven and I do that enough as it is in the Tower!"
The changeling fumed.
"Jinx is taking Noir somewhere...," Robin's voice said. "And wherever she's taking him....she doesn't want the Titans getting in the way. But it's not the Titans she's trying to control...or else she would have made some demands of us already. This is all about Noir for some reason."
"And Noir was attending to her commands by defending against Beast Boy....," Starfire murmured with her hands clasped together.
Beast Boy grumbled: "He could have simply asked me to back off."
Raven blinked at him. "He was mute....and you were wrestling with Jinx. What was he to do?"
"Run away!" Beast Boy grinned.
"......................from you?"
Beast Boy frowned.
Cyborg cleared his throat. "Uhm....Robin?"
"I'm here."
"I've run a scan of the surrounding forest. When I combined thermal traces with Beast Boy's sense of smell and Raven's empathy, we all agree that—wherever Jinx and Noir went—they took a northerly direction. If we all fan out in that general area....we may be able yet to trace them."
"Not a bad idea. Expediency would be best here."
"You allright, man? You need a lift?"
"I have the R-Cycle.....s-somewhere."
"Are you damaged??" Starfire asked.
"No, I'm fine. The train wreck didn't hurt me any—"
She gasped. "T-Train wreck?!?!"
"Uh...yeah. Didn't I tell you that the train Mammoth and Gizmo and I were on derailed?"
"You poor, traumatized leader!! I shall make haste to see to your safety—" She prepared to take flight.
"No, Starfire. Stay there. If I'll need you for anything, it'll be to track down Mammoth and Gizmo with me. Just like Jinx and Noir...they can't be too far. In fact, they may be closer."
"I....I-I understand...," she murmured.
"Well.....," Raven folded her arms and droned, "...who are we going for?"
"All I can say at this point—with all the obstacles in our way—it's up to fate itself to point us in the right direction."
As if on cue, there was a beeping signal on Cyborg's arm-sensor. He flipped the compartment open and squinted his eyes at the readout. He smirked. "Looks like we got just the pointer we needed, dawg."
"What's that exactly?"
Starfire and Raven leaned over the android Titan's shoulder as he said: "Reports are in that there's a dangerous, high stakes police pursuit taking place north of here and involving a stolen squad car."
"Since when?"
"The car was stolen an hour ago. And get this. One of the two cops knocked unconscious reported two strange-looking teenagers of pink and black......with handcuffs."
"Man....," Beast Boy teetered. "Noir's on a roll!"
"This looks to be it, Titans. Cyborg....Raven. Take the T-Car and catch up to the pursuit! I'll join you with the R-Cycle!"
"Allright, man," Cyborg nodded. "I'll relay the coordinates to you by the time you get situated."
"10-4. Starfire."
"Yes, Robin?"
"Take Beast Boy back to the Tower. He's relieved of duty for the day."
"Woo-hoo!!"
"Once he's taken care of...perform an aerial search of the area surrounding the train wreck. Just in case. I don't want to leave Mammoth and Gizmo unattended completely."
"Understood."
"You have your orders."
"Well alright," Cyborg nodded. He motioned with a strong arm. "Let's move out!"
He ran to the T-Car beyond the trees. Raven drifted after him.
Starfire gently lifted Beast Boy by the shoulders.
He simpered: "A-Anyone tell you that you're amazingly well-fit?"
She giggled. "Yes, Beast Boy. The costume I wear envelopes my bodily shape with great comfort."
".....no, Star. I meant—"
SWOOOOSH!!
"YEEEP!!!" he clung to her as she flew the two of them southward.
VRMMMMM!!!! The T-Car throttled off down the country road beyond.
The forest clearing was empty.
A beat.
An even longer beat. Then.....
Sploosh!!!
Out from a babbling brook two rows of trees down, an Atlantean form leapt. Shaking the drops off him, Tempest ran over and stood still in the center of the forest clearing.
"........."
He looked around.
".........."
Nothing.
"Okay...what the Hell??"
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
Robin ran through the forest from the train-wreck, panting.
In mid sprint, he whipped out a trigger from his utility belt and fingered a switch on it.
"Hope nobody's carjacked you yet...," he uttered.
His finger pressed the switch.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
Outside the nearest railroad station south of that spot.
Behind a bush.
Parked and hidden.
The lights of the R-Cycle activated on their own.
The engine switched on.
The throttles revved 'magically'.
VRRRRM!!!
The R-Cycle burst through the bush, scared a few pedestrians, then sped down—tires squealing—towards the main road that led north.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
In a small, alpine town....a lonely bus stop resided alongside a two-lane road.
Two old ladies stood by the bus stop sign with purses hanging over their shoulders and red hats on their heads.
"And it was the size of an aerosol can!"
"You don't say???"
"Mmmhmmm....."
RUSTLE!!
Robin burst out of the nearby line of trees and brush.
"Good heavens!!"
"Mercy me!"
Robin stood by the two ladies, panting, brushing twigs and branches off of him. He stood up straight and waited at the bus stop.
Silence.
".........," he glanced over.
The two ladies stared at him.
"......"
He blinked. He cleared his throat. "Ahem.....beautiful weather."
"Oh....v-very."
"Yessir."
"Fall."
"Yeah....fall."
A beat.
Robin shifted where he stood.
The women stared at their feet.
Silence.
A rumbling sound.
A throttling sound.
A roaring sound.
VRMMMMM—SCREEECH!!
The R-Cycle came to a stop.
Robin leapt on and grabbed the handles. "Good day!!"
"S-So long....," they waved.
VRMMMMMMMMMMM!!!
He coasted down the road.
The two ladies were alone.
A beat.
One looked at the other. "So....um....the potpourri kind or the body deodorant kind?"
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
Robin masterfully slipped his helmet on with one hand while steering speedily with the other.
He activated the communicator in his helmet and uttered: "Where're those coordinates, Cyborg?"
"We're getting them now, man."
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
Cyborg glanced over at Raven as he drove.
The dark girl typed away at the dashboard computer. Her violet eyes swam across the tiny monitor.
"Heading North-Northwest on the State Road Ten-Twenty. Approaching Hashburn County."
Cyborg's human eye narrowed. "That's leading towards the Metropolitan Highway!"
Raven looked at the android. "Maybe they're heading for Metropolis?"
"Kind of a bad idea now with all the heat they have on them," Robin's voice said.
"Come on, man!" Cyborg smirked. "How much attention could the two of them gather together?"
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
VROOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!
Jinx and I flew over a rise in the asphalt at eighty miles per hour and landed with a brief shower of sparks before burning down the state road.
Wriii! Wriii! Wriii! Wriii!
Twenty-Five state trooper squad cars were hot on our heels with sirens blaring and lights flashing. More and more were joining the gargantuan pursuit.
Wriii! Wriii! Wriii! Wriii!
Jinx stared in the rear-view mirror at the solid line of law enforcement.
She bit her lips.
"Well....hope you're doing okay too, Leslie." A beat. She glanced right at me. "Any ideas?"
I was desperately rummaging my right hand through the glove compartment for something to perform Hiri Kiri with.
"I agree," Jinx nodded. "The highway it is."
"?!?!?!?!" My black eyes practically exploded.
"Howbeit....my hex is a little dried up," she pouted. "I'll need more concentration. Hmmmm...I know! You drive!"
My jaw fell between my legs....er....'to the seat'....er.....
"You heard me!!" she cutely uttered and was already halfway through the process of repositioning her petite body around as we rocketed blindly forward at ninety miles an hour. "You....DRIVE!!"
I couldn't dispute her. Besides...the way she was twisting herself around--
"!!!" I was yanked left. In the middle of the 'yanking', I converted it into a dive as I plunged myself into the driver's seat. SWOOOOSH!!! My right foot went to the gas pedal. SWOOOOSH!! My left foot to the clutch. I panted and jerked my right hand between Jinx's body and mine and found the clutch. My left arm—still bound by her wrist—gripped tightly to the wheel.
I didn't even consider figuring out how this coordination was to work......until I felt Jinx saddling my waist.
"Get onto the nearest onramp...," she growled as she leaned forcibly over me. Her knee pressed into my upper thigh and her other foot balanced on my knee as her upper body leaned closely over my face and shoulder. "And don't get any ideas, Shades!!"
I gritted my teeth and craned my neck to the left, literally staring at the burning road underneath her left armpit.
God I hate you so much....
"Steady....steady....," Jinx leaned over me and faced the rear of the vehicle. The lights from the squad cars flashed through the rear window of the vehicle. She raised a pink left hand, barred her Cheshire teeth, and flung a streaming beam of hex. "HAAAAA!!!"
SHATTER!!!!
I winced.
The rear window was gone. The pink streamed out and struck the front tire of one squad car. POP!!! HISSSSSssssss. The squad car in question swerved left and right before decelerating and dropping back. Speeding pursuers behind it swerved out of the way and throttled after us with extra gusto.
"HAAAA!!" Jinx flung a hex beam. FLASH!!! Another. FL-FLASH!! "Have some sprinkles for your donuts, pigs!!!"
I gripped the steering wheel until my metal knuckles were white....if that was even possible. I found a break in the civilian vehicles ahead of us. I went for it.
I shifted gears forward.
I slammed the gas.
VRRMMMMM!!
"ACKIES!!" Jinx fell....into me.
"!!!!" I shook my head free of her chest, regained my focus of the road, and spit once or twice.
Bleack!!
I spit again.
Cat hair?!?!?!
My black eyes caught more patterns emerging in the traffic before us. Spaces between a truck and two vans. An 'alleyway' formed between two commercial buses. I swiftly swerved us in and around the vehicles without so much as touching them—while at the same time maintaining a suicidal speed worthy of Hollywood.
"O-Okay...," Jinx shivered against me and re-propped herself on my shoulders. "YOU are the better driver."
I shuddered as I found two semi-trucks slowly coasting along the state road. They stood in the way between the right lane we were suddenly in and the exit leading towards the highway onramps.
Wriii-Wriii-Wriii-Wriii!
Two squad cars caught up behind us in between traffic.
"Keep her steady!!" Jinx hissed.
I glanced up at the rear-view mirror.
Beyond her butchered head of pink hair, I caught the reflection of the troopers in question.
I sweatdropped.
She prepared a hex bolt....aiming at their fuel tanks.
SCREEECH!!! I swerved hard to the left.
"Nnngh!!" she let loose a hex beam awkwardly.
FLASH!!!
It struck asphalt a few blazing feet in front of the first squad car, barely missing it.
"Grrrrr....," she growled down at me. "Keep it STEADY!!!" She gestured at the blinking light on our handcuffs. "Understand?!?!?!"
"........"
She focused again on the two squad cars, sweating.
They came closer to our rear.
Sirens blaring.
We were nearly at the exit.
I bit my lip.
The semi-trucks were still coasting in the way.
I was decelerating.
The squad cars were gaining.
Jinx's pink hand was glowing.
My black eyes narrowed.
One of the semi trucks changed lanes.
An opening....
"!!!!"
I throttled towards it.
SCREEEECH!!!
"AUGH!!" Jinx tottered over me again.
I shoved her away some with an elbow and struggled to swerve the car two lanes left, almost clipping the front of one semi truck, and skirting off towards the onramp to the Metropolitan Highway.
"I thought I told you to---" Jinx glanced forward. She blinked. "—oh. You're getting us there."
I exhaled with a frown.
"Well...," Jinx sighed....panted. "Guess that makes my job easier." She relaxed some, facing the back as the huge array of squad cars grew more and more distant behind us. "Though I would have been content to see some aluminum fly."
I shrugged.
I swerved us onto the onramp, curved around, and onto the highway—
WRIII!! WRIII!!! WRIIII!!
There was a screeching formation of four squad cars waiting for us just as we entered the highway.
"Cleopatra almighty!!!"
CRUD!!!
I gritted my teeth, shifted gears, and swerved with one hand to avoid the collision of two squad cars to the left of me.
In so doing, I decelerated us some. We were now cruising at about sixty-five miles per hour between four expertly driven squad cars. We were being boxed in.
"Nice job, Ghost Boy!" Jinx panted, looking all around...literally. "Think you can drive us onto a city tow truck while you're at it??"
Shut up!!
I held my breath, shifted gears, and tried throttling forward.
VRMMMMM!!!
The two police cars ahead of me closed in together, blocking me.
I pulled back, gripping hard to the wheel.
Panting, I glanced over my shoulders.
The two squad cars to our rear closed in.
"Get us out of this, Ghost Boy...."
The police cars in front of me were gradually decelerating.
We were forced down to sixty.....fifty five.....
"Ghost Boyyyyyy....," Jinx sweatdropped.
I panted. I looked out the windows. The windshield. The rear.
Fifty.....forty five.....
A pink light.
I looked straight up.
Jinx glanced down at me from where she was saddled. Her hand was glowing a threatening pink. "Get us out of here....unless you want me to force an exit."
"......," I blinked at her.
She.......She's giving me a choice?
There was something strangely...betrayingly soft in the villain's pink cat eyes then and there.
A.....p-peaceful solution?
My black eyes caught something.
I glanced under her right armpit.
I saw a break in the guardrail separating the North Highway from the South....
A break!
I couldn't go forward. I couldn't go back.
So I swerved left.
SCREEEEECH!!!
Jinx held onto me and the seat for dear life as I swerved us through the tiny gap in guardrail, over the grassy median, and into the opposite highway.
I held my breath.
Well....semi-peaceful.
HONK!!! HONK!!!
HONNNNNK!!!
SCREEE-EEEEECH!!!
I gritted my teeth, concentrated, and jerked left and right as I made minute adjustments so as to cruise us safely forward........through layer after layer of incoming traffic.
SCREEE-EEE-EEECH!!! HONK!!! HONK!!
Sports cars. Buses. Trucks. Vans. They all swerved desperately to avoid even the slightest contact with this homicidal squad car rocketing straight towards them at combined speeds of well over one hundred and twenty miles per hour.
But I'm not homicidal!!
I sweatdropped and looked for an opportune way to get back to the frickin' North-Lanes.
All the while, Jinx clung to me with her cat-eyes shut. "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!!"
I bit my lip.
I saw a construction mess of sorts blurring up towards us. The guardrail of the median ahead was being reformed. There were piles of metal bracing equipment scattered here and there along the edge of the innermost lane. One pile looked suspiciously like a ramp.
I exhaled.
Oh well...you only live never....
SCREEEECH!!!
I swerved the two of us right, nearly clipped the front of a pickup, jerked closely around the rear of a Ferrari (!!!!!) and rocketed straight towards the 'ramp'.
TH-THWUMP!!!!
THWOOOOSH!!!
We soared—airborne—across two lanes of north-bound traffic, lowered dangerously close over the top of a semi-truck trailer, and landed just beyond the grill of its front engine before zooming off with a tiny flurry of sparks.
VRRRRMMM!!
I found it a Hell of a lot easier to speed illegally around traffic going in the same direction than twice as illegally against incoming traffic. But still...we lost those two squad cars.
I exhaled.
A beat.
I looked at Jinx still clutching me. I nudged her.
"......," she sat up straight over me. "Ya know....I just realized something. Remembering the last time you and I were both on a highway....m-maybe this wasn't such a safe idea."
I would have headbutted her if only her knee wasn't so close to my groin.
Siren sounds.
"?????" I glanced in one of the rear mirrors.
Two motorcycles were coasting up the onramp and joining the highway lanes. They were quick to our tails.
No holiday on the road.
I refocused on the road ahead as I sped around vehicle after vehicle.
Just where did she expect this to end??
The motorcycles were gaining on us.
"Okay...go time....," she muttered.
I flinched as Jinx suddenly flipped herself over the back of the seat.
"!!!" My left hand jerked back with her. I hurriedly took my right hand off the stick and ripped the right side of the wheel. My left hand hung backwards at an awkward angle as Jinx turned herself around, positioned herself in the back of the squad car, and sat with her back to my back with a seat cushion in between. She had her right hand free to aim out the rear window and—"HAAA!!!"
She flung two pink beams at the cyclists.
They expertly swerved around it, saluted to each other, and split up to position themselves on either side of us.
Jinx glanced left. She glanced right. She flung her arm through the shattered window on the right. "HAAA!!!"
My body jerked awkwardly to the right to compensate. I struggled to keep my right hand grip of the wheel.
FLASH!!!!
The bolt exploded in front of the right cyclist. He decelerated some.
Jinx went to the left. "HAA!!!"
I jerked with her, cussing inwardly.
FLASH!!!
The cyclist ducked the flashing beam. He gunned it and cruised ahead of us.
"Keep it steady, Ghost Boy!!!"
I glanced at the stick shift. No hand on it. Naked.
Guess we're fine going a constant ninety miles an hour for a while......
I sweatdropped nervously.
VRMMMMM!!!
One cyclist cruised and positioned himself right in front of us.
The other to our rear.
I raised an eyebrow.
Are they trying to box us in?? Motorcycles??
I saw the cop in front of me unholster a pistol and take aim at---
I gasped.
The tires!!!
SCREEEECH!!!
I swerved us left and out of range.
Jinx toppled over in the back, jerking at my arm.
VRMMMMM!!!
I winced. I couldn't shift down without taking my hand off the wheel. And at this speed, no-hands-at-the-wheel wasn't a good idea.
And neither was trying to drive between two semi-truck trailers side by side.
But that was exactly what I was doing.
HONNK!!! HONNKKK!!
The truckers must have seen us in their rear view mirror. But they were up against the guardrail of the far left lane and traffic on the right. They couldn't move.
Only we could.
"........," I took a deep breath.
I slammed my lead-foot.
VRRRRRRM!!!
We accelerated to one hundred and twenty.
Straight towards the thin gap in between the semi-trucks.
The motorcycles squealed after us.
The semi trucks loomed.
We throttled towards them.
Jinx sat up—trembling—in the backseat.
"Um.....wh-what are you doing—"
I gritted my teeth. I concentrated. Murk coursed down my arms and danced out from my shaded eyes.
The gap between the trucks came closer and closer. Too thin. Too dangerous. We couldn't possibly fit through it unless--
"!!!!!!" I swerved hard to the right. As I did so, I simultaneously let loose a huge purse of warbling smoke and murk energy through the steering wheel, into the mechanisms of the car, into the axel of the vehicle itself, and then the left tires--
FLASH!!!!
Smoke exploded.
The car tipped right.
The left wheels lifted off the ground and--
VRRRRRM!!!-SCRAAAAAAAPE!!!
We squeezed through the two trailers at an off-horizontal angle. The left hubcaps sparked against the left trailer while the right edge of the squad car's ceilings dragged against the right trailer.
After three or four endless seconds....we popped through and past the truck engines on the other side.
WHOMP!!!!
The left side of the car lurched down.
I couldn't calculate for the centripetal force of the weighted impact.
SCREEEEEECH!!!
I lost control of the steering momentarily.
We literally spun around twice.
"WAAAAH!!" Jinx went flying into the front seat.
THWUMP!!
Cr-Crrk!
It took me half a second of spinning seven-hundred-and-twenty degrees across two lanes of highway traffic at excess of seventy miles an hour to realize that—in toppling into the front seat—Jinx's body had struck the stickshift.
And we were in 'reverse'.
Great Hera!!
I jerked at the steering wheel.
I let go of the gas.
SCREEEECH!!!
I stopped the spinning.
I angled us against the grills of the two semi trucks.
A blink.
THWAP!! My foot slammed over the gas again.
VRRRRM!!!
We drove backwards at sixty miles per hour down the highway.
The grills of the two semi-trucks bore down on us. We were nearly a foot apart.
HONNNK!! HONNNK!!!
I panted...panted....panted...
Have you ever heard of 'braking for cataclysmic highway chase sequence?!?!'
VRRRRM!!
The two motorcycle cops bravely—or stupidly—drove between the two truck trailers towards us.....head-on.
At around that time, Jinx sat up. She blinked. "You REALLY don't want your squad cars coming back in one piece...DO YOU!!!" And she aimed a glowing hand forward.
If I had an arm free to shield my face, I would have--
"HAAAAA!!!"
FL-FLASH!!!
SHATTER!!!
The pink glow smashed through the windshield and struck the two motorcycles.
POW!!!
P-POW!!!
The cops were thrown from their bikes. They ricocheted off the trailers on either side of them and tumbled together across the asphalt....growing distant on the highway road.
I winced.
"Get us moving forward again!!" Jinx growled and aimed her foot at the stick shift.
I gasped.
Wait!!!
She kicked it.
CRRRK!!
Fifth gear.
ARRRRGH!!!
I spun at the steering wheel with one hand.
SCREEEEEEECH!!!
The world spun.
My hair windsocked around us.
"Mmmf!!" Jinx toppled over me...again her torso provocatively over my face.
Go to Hell!!
I snarled and fought to peer at the spinning world under her armpit.
Go to Hell and....d-die!!
SCREEECH!!
I angled us with the road ahead, slammed my foot down on the gas, and rocketed us forward.
"AAACK!!"
Jinx fell over me and plopped hard into the rear of the vehicle.
"Owie...."
I exhaled.........and smirked.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
VRRRRRRRMMMMM!!!
Robin burned down the road. His gloved hands gripped tightly to the handles of his bike as he gradually came alongside the Metropolitan Highway. He looked for a perfect onramp to advance onto the northbound lanes.
He spoke into his helmet:
"Robin here!! I'm approaching the Highway! How about you guys??"
"We're already there, man. And it ain't a pretty sight."
Robin's eyemask narrowed under his helmet's visor. "Define 'unpretty'."
"Cars offroad. Scraped and scuffed up trucks. A few bruised up state troopers. Nothing super serious...but he's been doing some mighty ass daredevilling."
"I hear ya. I'll be joining you and Raven in the pursuit soon."
"You think Noir has any idea what he's doing???"
"Not any less than us," Robin said. A beat. "And I think he's just about as happy about it as we are."
"Couldn't agree more, dawg. Let's end this."
"Yes....," Robin slurred. "Let's...."
And he swerved up onto the first onramp he could find.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
The highway was starting to clear up some.
The late afternoon sun was burning with an autumn orange.
I took a shuddering breath and glanced back at Jinx.
She glanced at me from the backseat. With all the windows shattered, air was whipping through mightily and blowing at our hair.....well....my hair. There was hardly anything left for the butchered Jinx.
"What???" she cackled.
I motioned towards the road ahead with my head.
"Keep going," she smiled. "We look to be in the clear now, Ghost Boy."
FLASH!!!!
The car lurched.
The two of us jerked.
"Nnngh!!" Jinx shook her pink head. "What in Hecate's name??" She glanced back.
I looked in the rear view mirror.
The trunk of the squad car was being engulfed in black tendrils of energy. We saw the shimmering hood of the T-Car behind us. Menacing. Inside the passenger's seat, a blue-robed sorceress had her hands outstretched and her eyes glowing a bright gray.
FLAAA-AAASH!!!
Our car was slowly dragged backwards. The tires burned as what was supposed to be ninety-miles-per-hour became gradually seventy.
Jinx growled. "Your witch friend......sometimes I envy her."
I wanted to whimper.
She raised her left hand—glowing pink. "This will take care of the job."
I furiously shook my head 'no'.
"Would you rather somebody....somewhere...BLOW UP?!?!" Jinx remarked.
"......."
"Now......BACK OFF!!" Jinx flung her hand back. "HAAA!!!'
FLASH!!!!
The hex struck the asphalt and split forth a huge, gaping ravine.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
Cyborg gritted his teeth. "Hold on!!!"
SCREEEEECH!!!
He swerved left with both hands to the wheel, barely avoiding the cut in the asphalt earth.
Raven bumped up and down in her seat. "Nnngh!!" Her eyes immediately stopped glowing and she lowered her wrists. "I told you I couldn't concentrate at this speed....."
"Understood, Rae....," Cyborg nodded. He flipped a switch on the dashboard. "About time I put things into focus for the four of us."
WHURRRRRR-CHTUNG!!
The photon cannon stuck up and out of the top of the T-Car.
".......," Raven glared at Cyborg.
He simpered. "EMP Shockwave. It'll only shut down the vehicle....forcing it to stop. They won't get hurt."
She nodded.
The two looked straight ahead.
A beat.
"Though.....dropping Jinx on her head would be nice," Cyborg said.
"Here here."
"Ahem....FIRING!!"
-click-
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
ZAAAAAAAAAAAP!!!!
A blue stream of electrical energy soared at us.
I took one look at the shimmering aura in the rear view mirror, gasped, and spun to the left.
SCREEEECH!!
FLASH!!!
The blue stream struck the asphalt beside us, scorching the ground.
Dammit, Cyborg!!!
I panted and swerved left as---sure enough....
ZAAAAAAAAP!!!!
FLASH!!!!
The bolt struck to our left.
I sweated, gripping the wheel.
Jinx took a deep breath and fired swift volleys of pink hex. "HAA! HAA-AA!!"
FL-FL-FL-FLASH!!!
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
"Look out!" Raven gritted her teeth and extended a black shield in front of the T-Car.
FLASH!!!
Three of the hexes were deflected. The next three streaked towards the vehicle.
"Nnnngh!!" Cyborg swerved hard to the left and avoided the asphalt-exploding shot. "I am NOT in the mood for Blitzkrieg Pong on the Highway today!!!!"
-click-
-click-
Z-Z-ZAAAAA-AAAAP!!!
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
Blue beams landed and exploded around us.
I swerved madly, throttled forward, and brought us up and around trucks and vans...knowing Cyborg wouldn't fire if it risked striking a civilian vehicle.
Jinx on the other hand....
"HAAA!!!"
FL-FLASH!!!
Pink hexes streaked over the tops of sports cars and underneath buses to strike the madly pursuing T-Car.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
"Nnnnghh....," Cyborg sweated as he steered hard left and right. "Wh-Why'd Noir have to be so damn good a driver???"
"I'd be more worried about Jinx if I were you...," Raven droned.
"That girl can't hit the broad side of a—"
FLASH!!!
CLUNK!!!! POW!!!
The photo cannon above exploded from a blast of pink hex.
Cyborg gasped. "YO!!! That's coming out of YOUR allowance, Noir!!!"
"......but you don't pay him—"
"Shhh!! Sorry Rae, but I'm gonna have to ask you to be silent as I unleash a can of vehicular whoopass...." He frowned as he popped open the safety lid of the nitro switch and fingered it....
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
Why do I get the sneaking suspicion that now's the time Cyborg would use his nitro?
"Ghost Boy....."
I stared at the rear view mirror.
"Ghost Boy......" Jinx tapped on my shoulder with her finger.
"????"
I looked at her.
"......," She pointed forward.
I looked through the windshield.
My black eyes glossed over.
There was a terrible accident ahead of us. A semi-truck had swerved sideways and come to a stop stretching across three lanes of traffic where the highway lifted up as a bridge over a state road. Two emergency vehicles were there, their lights flashing. Eight layers of stopped traffic piled up bumper-to-bumper as work crews utilized a huge crane along the state road below to lift the trailer over to a point where it could actually be pulled down the highway to clear the lanes. This was something that had to have been in effect for two hours at least. And now it was four hundred feet away and closing in faster by the second.
I blinked.
No way around the engine on the left.
My eyes darted under my shades.
No way around the rear of the trailer on the right.
A twitch towards the rear view mirror.
Cyborg and Raven dead behind us.
Falling eyesight.
Seventy miles per hour.....
Jinx was also staring at something. But she was staring at something with a purpose. Focused and collected....she uttered: "Keep on driving."
"????" I glanced at her. I glanced at the solid wall of semi-truck-trailer stretching ahead of us.
FLASH!!!
Jinx flung a burning bolt of hex at the front right frame of the car.
FLASH!!!
She flung a bolt at the top right frame.
"........" I watched her with my peripheral vision.
FLASH!!! FLASH!!!
She fired at the rear left and right frames with her free hand's hex bolts.
And that's when I realized....
She's severing the top half of the squad car.
I looked ahead.
I saw the semi-truck trailer.
I saw the tiny gap between the highway asphalt and the bottom of the trailer.
Oh no....
FLASH!!!
She struck the left frame.
Oh Hell no....
FLASH!!!
She struck the right frame.
No no no no no no no no.........NO!!!!
FLASH!!! FLASH!!! FLASH!!! FLASH!!
After a circle of pink fire was launched, Jinx flattened herself in the backseat of the squad car.
"Speed it up!! And duck!!!'
I shook my head.
"Duck, Ghost Boy!!! Duck!!!"
I squinted my black eyes.
I slunk down in the seat.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
Cyborg's hand trailed off the switch.
He leaned forward, his human eye squinting.
"What.......a-are they doing....."
"........," Raven blinked. Her eyes widened ever so slightly. "Slow down."
"Huh?? Why??"
"..........in case their body parts go flying."
"Say what?!?!?! Awww shit!! No way!! They're crazy!!!"
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
I love life! I love life! I love life! I love life!!!!
I scrunched down the lowest I could in the seat while at the same time retaining at least the most peripheral vision for seeing the dead-stopped cars on either side of us as we rocketed like an aluminum kamikaze towards the trailer and--
Contact.
CRAAAA-AAAACK!!!!
SWOOOOOSH!!!!
Half of the squad car shattered and crunched back like the unfolding top of a sardine can.
The other half of the squad car showered sparks and squeezed on underneath the trailer.
The entirety of Jinx and I emerged safely on the other side.
We sat up—panting—and faced the naked wind of the rocketing highway around us. Now that our squad car was a 'convertible'.
I panted. My black eyes blinked a few times.
..............I love life.
VRMMMMMM!!!!!
With the highway completely barren on that side of the trailer, we zoomed on at an uninhibited one hundred and twenty-plus miles per hour.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
SCREEEEEEECH!!!
The T-Car spun to a dead stop just inches in front of the trailer.
Cyborg and Raven stepped out of the T-Car and looked helplessly at the blocked path in front of them. Cyborg walked over and kicked at the severed top-half of the squad car....still smoking.
"Damn.....are they completely nuts?!?!" He panted. He looked at Raven. "Rae....you sensed they made it through okay?"
Her lips were ever so slightly curved. "And how....."
He blinked. "You mean to say you're rootin' for them to get away???"
She blinked back at him. "And you would want any less for Noir's sake?"
A beat.
Cyborg grinned wide. "You know....that was pretty frickin' cool. Hahaha!"
Raven sighed. "'Cool' indeed...."
Then....
VRRRRRM!!!
CL-CLANK!!!
Robin's R-Cycle zoomed in and literally ramped up and off the back of the T-Car, showering sparks.
Raven's hair blew.
Cyborg shook his fist. "Hey!! Nuh-Uh! No, dawg!!!"
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
SWOOOOSH-CLAMP!!!
Robin's cycle's wheels struck the asphalt.
He gritted his teeth, maintained balance, and zoomed forward at well over one hundred and thirty five.
VRRRRRRRRRRR-RRRRRRRM!!!!!
He rocketed after the murderously speeding clunker in the distance.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
"I wonder how tall our traffic tickets would stack by now?" Jinx simpered. "I'm thinking Sears Tower. What about you?"
I frowned dirtily at her.
"Aww....get some estrogen, dammit."
POW!!!
SWOOOSH-CLANK!!!!"
"?!?!?!?!?" Jinx glanced back. "Aww phooie."
Robin was tailing us on his R-Cycle. With one hand he gripped tightly to a grappling hook that was fired and embedded in the back of our vehicle. He retracted the cord, pulling his already-throttling R-Cycle closer and closer towards us.
"Have him pull over!!!" Robin shouted. "NOW!!"
"Why....whoever are you talking about, Robin???" Jinx demurely gestured with overt feminity. "I see no friend of yours here!! Just a badass chauffer who happens to be doing anything and everything that I say!!"
"If you think you have any control over Noir....," Robin's eyemask narrowed as he shouted above the speed and noise of the highway debacle. "If you actually THINK he'd ever want to help you with whatever you intend on—"
SCREEEECH!!!!
I pulled hard to the left on the steering wheel.
The grappling cord pulled taut and twisted.
Robin's R-Cycle was swung left through two lanes till it grind with the guardrail of the median on the left.
SCRAAAA-AAAAAA-AAAAAAPE!!!!
The Boy Wonder gritted his teeth and tried to maintain balance and control--
SCREEEEEEECH!!!
I pulled hard to the right.
"Nnngh!!" He kicked his leg out, pushed against the blurring right guardrail with his metal-laced boot, and aligned his bike more safely behind us.
Or so he thought.
"HAAA!!" Jinx fired a hex bolt.
SNAP!!!
The cord broke apart.
Robin steered his R-Cycle into a stable path. He took a breath and accelerated towards my left side.
VRRRRRRM!!!
Jinx glowed her one free hand from the backseat. She launched hex after hex. "HAA!!! HA!!! HAAA-AAA!!!"
FL-FL-FLASH!!!
Robin steered madly left and right to avoid the hot streaks of pink. Asphalt exploded around his two wheels. Just as he accelerated past Jinx's limited line of sight--
SCREEEECH!!
I swerved towards him.
"!!!!!"
He compensated at the last second.
SCRAAA-AAAPE!!!!
My car and his cycle contacted briefly.
We pushed away.
Robin found himself teetering dangerously toward the guardrail again....but he still had room to recover.
I had given it to him.
He panted.
He looked at me.
He mouthed: 'Noir??'
Jinx was charging another hex blast. A huge one.
I looked back at him from where I drove.
I mouthed something back.
Robin's eyemask narrowed.
I mouthed it again....again.
A pause.
I lifted my left arm—bound to Jinx—and showed off the blinking sensor. When I mouthed the word one last time, everything clicked together in Robin's head. The training with Batman. The detective skills. The quick-thinking that allowed him to understand the lip-sync of one of the simplest of words.
'Bomb!'
"!!!!!!"
SCREEEEEEEEEEE-EEEEEEEEEE-EEEEEEEECH!!!!!
Robin slammed onto the brakes of his motorcycle.
VRRRRRRM!!!!
Our squad car throttled forward and well out of range of any murderous hex bolt from Jinx's petite hands.
Robin panted from where he sat....propped up on the bike. Sweat ran down his brow. His eyemask was round.
A beat.
A chime.
Robin activated his helmet's communicator.
"Yeah, what??"
"You going after him, man??"
"Uhm....."
"Cuz Raven thinks she can lift the T-Car up and around the crashed semi-truck and then we can rejoin you! Don't chase down that kidnapping witch alone, man!!"
"........."
"Just hang tight, Robin. We'll continue our pursuit soon enough—"
"Negative, Cyborg."
"........Say What?!?!"
"Hold back. That's an order."
"But.....But....she's taking him away!! Are you crazy?!?! We're so close, man! We can do this!! The police have fallen back, but not us, man!! We can chase them down, dawg!!"
"I said NO, Cyborg!! And I mean it!! Cut off all pursuit of Jinx and Noir!!"
"Dammit, Robin! What for?!?!"
"Those handcuffs....," Robin swallowed. ".....I think there's a remote explosive tied to them."
".............................wh-what kind of explosive?"
"That's just it, Cyborg. I don't' know," Robin exhaled. A beat. "Contact Starfire and the others. Tell them to rendezvous at the Tower."
"Man....we're going all the way back there?!?!"
"Something tells me that the issue at hand never left the City to begin with...............you have your orders. Robin out."
That said, the Boy Wonder slowly....gloomfully....turned his motorbike around.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
"Cram it....frickin', cruddy, gunkin' stupid, toe-munchin'...."
"Something wrong, Gizmo??" Shimmer smirked. She kicked him in the rear along the forested path. THWAP!! "You're not moving FAST enough!!"
"Owch!!" the stubby humanoid spun around in the later afternoon light and growled. "Don't touch me in my special area!!"
"Gizmo....if you had a 'special area', then it's official.....God invented Braille on drive-thru teller machines," Shimmer smirked.
"Braille on drive-thru teller machines!!!" Mammoth laughed as he brought up the rear of the group. "Ha ha ha ha ha!!! That's funny!!! Ha ha ha!!"
WHUMP!! She elbowed him in the gut.
"Ooof!!"
"Quiet....the two of you....," Shimmer frowned. "This is it."
"..........," Mammoth glanced around. "This is what??"
"Psimon's camp," the redheaded girl folded her arms.
Mammoth frowned. "Sis....this is just a mound of leaves in the middle of the Blair Witch set!! Was this all another one of your practical jokes??"
'It is not her sense of humour that you should revere, my good oaf. But my sense of power....'
Mammoth blinked.
As if by magic, the leaves around the three of them pulled up, faded into the night, and revealed a metal block between their feet. A circular panel opened up, revealing a spiraling walkway of cold hard steps. A hooded figured marched up, his hands held together under dumbbell sleeves like that of a monk's.
Mammoth rubbed his eyes.
Gizmo folded arms.
Shimmer smiled.
The tall figure stood before them. His hands slid out from his sleeves and rose up to grab his hood. When he lowered it, the first thing the three youngsters saw was brains. Brains under a transparent sheet of a glass skull. A weathered face with aged, bulbous eyes stretched tautly beneath the transparent rim. The man smiled jaggedly.
"Don't mind the leaf-blowing job. It only took a slight prodding of your frontal lobes to distort the information your eyes were transmuting."
"Psimon.....," Gizmo flippantly grunted, looking the other way. "....been a long time."
"Gizmo, my boy....," the freakishly frail man gestured. "How's it like feeling as though you're the 'genius' of the group? Did you miss me?"
"Pfft....don't patronize yourself."
'And just who should YOU patronize?'
Gizmo glared at the man.
Psimon silently grinned.
Shimmer stepped forward. "I did it. I got them. Now what?"
"My dear students.....," Psimon stretched his arms wide and grinned even more. "We rebuild the Fearsome Five."
Mammoth scratched his dense head.
Psimon held his hands together. "There is a witch on the run. And many people will be hunting for her. Why?? Quite simply....because she was nearly put to death by impossible means. And by even more impossible means, she escaped that impossible death to be impossibly-impossibly alive right now. By the stroke of fate alone....she has been allowed to live. ....Jinx has become a rift in the natural order of things. She is....a wildcard. And if we can move her—by prodding or so—in the direction that we so please....we can get back at those whom we've been desiring to empower for a long time."
Gizmo blinked. His arms fell to his side. "H.I.V.E........y-you want to strike at H.I.V.E.......don't you?"
"Heh heh heh heh....," Psimon tilted his head back somewhat. "The amusing thing is....Jinx wants the same thing to.....m-more or less."
"So....what....we clobber her or something?"
"Oh....someone will get to take on Jinx. Though that is not the real goal here."
"Though it's the only reason I'm tagging along," Shimmer smirked.
Gizmo glared at her. He looked up at Psimon. "Um.....sorry for being 'genius' enough to count, Psimon sir. But there're only four of us here. The Fearsom Five is crud!!"
"Yeah!!" Mammoth shrugged. "Dr. Light bought it!! Who's gonna lead us!!"
"I am.....," Psimon said.
"Heh....didn't see that one coming," Gizmo rolled his pixel eyes.
Shimmer conked him on the head.
"OW!! Barf-barker!!!"
Psimon cleared his throat. "And already.....I-I've taken the first step of picking a replacement for our dear Dr. Light...."
"Oh yeah??" Gizmo's eyes narrowed. "Who?"
Psimon smirked. He shuffled over to the side and gestured towards the metal entranceway in the forest forth.....'
There was a red glow about the place. Steam frothed upwards....followed by a heaving stomping noise as a red helmet lifted into view...followed by a red and orange metal body. A body that glowed with a pulsing menace.
Mammoth and Gizmo shaded their eyes.
Shimmer grinned wide....almost like a Cheshire....
The suited man stood before them....his limbs flexing....his body glowing awkwardly....frighteningly.
"Colleagues...." Psimon gestured. "Meet Nat Tryon.....but he prefers to be called 'Neutron'."
A lonely voice hissed through the mask of the glowing figure.
"Hey there....," Neutron nodded. "So....did someone order a second cold war?"