Let me start off by saying, it's been far too long. How have you guys been? I myself have been busy doing little things like planning the destruction of free enterprise and robbing national banks using a ball-point pen I've come to refer as Pointie. In all seriousness, I'm back, and I'm eager to see what has gone on since I've been gone. Accomplish something? Have anything worth reading? Let me know in a PM.
Disclaimer: I don't own the Teen Titans. I'm far too busy trying to cripple television. :P
A Haunting Memory Returns
Chapter 19: Rats
Ince managed to stay 10 yards ahead of them, whether from his shy nature or hyper-boy attitude, Jinx didn't know. Izaak stayed slightly ahead of them, in a truly witty fashion. They just walked along the forest, until they reached an area of debris, and they continued to walk. Izaak would ask them questions in order to break the ice, or maybe he was genuinely interested. Jinx didn't know that either. He was hard to read, not even Wally could understand who he really was, and Wally could read practically anyone. Izaak is amongst one of the few he can't.
"What powers do you guys have?" Izaak asked.
Jinx considered how much she should let him know. He seemed trustworthy enough, but she didn't want to play the ex-villain card and receive all the unnecessary and awkward question chains afterward. Unfortunately, Wally still had that insensitive personality.
"I'm the fastest boy alive. And she's a bad luck witch."
Izaak glanced at her.
"No shit?"
"No shit." Wally confirmed.
Izaak looked back forward.
"Goddamn, how does that work?"
Before Wally could respond Jinx stomped on his foot. Only Ince caught it.
"So, lemme guess. Kid Flash, and... I have no clue." Izaak said.
Jinx was for once grateful for not being the famous—or rather infamous—criminal she originally wanted to be. God knows how they'd react if they knew. Then a terrible thought occurred to her. If they knew they were coming, did Murphy also tell them of her previous title?
"She's Jinx." Wally clarified.
"Jinx?" Izaak asked, "You don't look like a 'jinx'. A 'jinx' is inanimate."
"I thought Jinx was a bald Indian lady." Ince pitched in.
"That's a comic book character, Ince."
"Being compared to a bald lady makes me feel just dandy guys." Jinx grumbled.
"Doesn't it?"
…
The city was total and utter shit. In detail, light poles and shards of glass littering the already unappealing ground, no one in sight, torn up buildings and the new banners displaying Dracul's presence. The background was black, with a white plague doctor's mask in the center. The eyes of the mask were black. The things were creepy to look at, and gave off an eerie vibe. Jinx wondered how many people went into shock when wandering around in the night to come face-to-face with one of these banners.
Izaak led them straight to some sort of bunker. You'd have thought the sky was falling if you had seen the thing. After speaking with someone through a slit in the door in true movie fashion, they were allowed inside where a curmudgeonly-looking man was waiting.
"What took you so long Izaak?"
"I went to Hell and back."
The man, who must have been in his late fifties, scowled.
"Enough with your jokes. Are these two the ones Murphy was talking about?"
"No... they're Beelzebub and Lucifer himself." Izaak answered in his witty way.
"Yes, and I suppose you met old Trigon too."
"What trip to Hell would be complete without it?"
"Get out of my face, and take Ince with you." the old man growled.
He turned to face them as Izaak left. He inspected each of them with those glowering eyes. He had grayish hair, hanging down his head and face as if he hadn't had a haircut in a long time.
"So, the shallow speedster and the witch. How pleasant."
Jinx immediately knew she would not like this man. Whoever he was, she wouldn't let him have any authority over her.
"Murphy says that you've had experience with the Conspirator. Let's see if he bullshitted me again."
"And how do you intend to test us?" Jinx asked.
"You're going to kick him and his buddy Levi out of my town."
"And who exactly are you and how exactly are we supposed to do that?"
"I'm Garrick B. Huxley. And you need to figure the rest out. Izaak and Ince can help you."
Huxley stormed away as if they had owed him something. Perhaps a backhand to the face?
…
"What the Hell is that guy's problem?" Jinx asked Izaak the next day at breakfast.
They were rushed into their living quarters and were given a brief tour. Right now, the couple and the two brothers were now in a makeshift café sitting down with a piece of paper and a pencil
trying to detail out a plan on how to get rid of Dracul.
"Huxley? He's a good guy, just really stressed over the war that's been started in his home. He was raised to defend to community. He promised his parents he would keep the city safe."
"The city being?"
"Compromise City."
"What a shitty name."
Izaak shrugged.
"They named it that in honor of the Missouri Compromise."
"Makes sense."
"I'll admit, it doesn't roll too well on the tongue, but people love their history."
Jinx nodded as she took a sip of her bottled water. She looked over Izaak and his brother.
"So what's your story?
"The usual. Orphaned at a young age." Izaak responded.
"I'm so sorry."
"Don't feel sorry for me. Poor Ince was too young to even know his parents."
Izaak sighed as he looked at his little brother. Jinx wondered which was worse, loving someone and then losing them, or to have never have loved at all. She decided she wouldn't ask how their parents died. Wally himself directed all of his attention to the blank sheet of paper.
"But hey, that's the usual story, right? And then you wake up one day being able to do stupid shit that you'd never use in a cubicle."
"You guys have powers too?" Wally asked.
"Oh yeah. Big time. I myself have the power of invisibility." Izaak answered, waving a now-fingerless arm.
"Cool."
"You have no idea how many pranks I've gotten away with it."
Jinx directed her attention to little Ince, who has been turning his head back and forth as one person stopped speaking and another started.
"What about you?" she asked.
She smiled. And she never smiled. There was something cute about little kids—everyone shared that opinion. It might have been the innocence, or something along those lines. Some of the more sadistic people would say it was the helplessness. She didn't like people who acted that way. Regarding a child as something defenselessness was horrible; exposing that helplessness was taboo.
"I don't know... how exactly..."
Izaak swooped in to save his little brothers faltering sentence.
"He has control over the states of matter."
"Matter? What do you mean?" Jinx asked.
"He can change a solid into a liquid or gas or a liquid into a solid or gas or a gas into a solid or liquid."
"I see. That's different."
"It's cool, makes science class bearable." Izaak said.
"You have school?"
"No."
"I see."
"I can't control it." Ince stated out of the blue.
"Control what? You mean your powers?"
"Yes."
"He can't." Izaak chimed in, "So many times he's turned my chair into water. Your tailbone isn't made to suffer that shit!"
Jinx giggled. Wally, who was in the middle of a gulp of water, spat it all out and began laughing. Ince gave a shy shrug. Izaak became defensive.
"It's not funny dammit! The floors here are goddamn filthy! Ten to one the people who walk in here have stepped in a wide assortment of shit!"
"Calm the Hell down man!" Wally yelled.
Izaak rose from his chair, which he gave a scowl to.
"Ah forget you guys! I'm going to pull a prank. See you later."
He left, in which Ince responded with, "Did I do something wrong?"
"Nah, your brother is just being an ass." Wally replied.
"Wally!" Jinx scolded.
"What?!" he asked defensively.
"Don't curse in front of him."
"Izaak does it."
"Izaak shouldn't."
"He's not your goddamn child. We barely know the kid and you're mothering him."
"Mothering him?!" Jinx demanded.
Ince shrunk down in his chair as she and Wally began arguing. That made him seem all the more too innocent to listen to profanity. Izaak walked back in to the arguing with a bag in his hand.
"You see this? This is five dollar's worth in change—pennies to be exact."
"Your point?" Jinx asked giving Wally a this-isn't-over face.
Both he and Izaak scowled, albeit for different reasons.
"My point? My point?! You'll see my goddamn point when I want you to see my goddamn point!" Izaak growled.
"Which is now?"
"Now is a perfect time actually."
Izaak strolled to the counter with a wide grin on his face as if he'd never been angry in his life. It made all of them eager to see what he was planning. Even Ince straightened up to see what would happen. As soon as he stepped up the lady at the counter's nose wrinkled.
"Hello Ver—"
"What do you want Izaak?! I don't have time for any of your bullshit. Huxley is going to get on my back soon enough. I don't need your help!"
"Why how you talk, Veronica. I was only trying to invest some money into this fine establishment in exchange for a beverage. There's nothing bullshit-like about that."
She moved some of her strawberry-blonde hair out of her face as she examined him. Finally she asked him what he wanted.
"Hmm... I think... well... no. Um... You know, I think I'll take a prune juice; super size!"
"A prune juice...?"
She sighed as she went under the counter to grab something. Izaak snuck a quick wink towards Jinx, Wally, and Ince. The lady stood up with a bottle of purple-colored liquid. A large one. Izaak immediately began looking over the bottle.
"Well then, are you going to take it? Or are you going to graze the bottle with those bug eyes of yours?" the lady asked.
Izaak frowned and looked back to the lady.
"This isn't prune juice. This is obviously cranberry."
"We don't serve cranberry."
"Obviously you're selling something red. Look at it."
"It's purple, stupid."
"Purple? Why, purple?! What are you stupid?!"
The lady's nostrils began to flare, so Izaak gave an awkward smile and took the juice.
"It's okay! It's okay! I love cranberry!"
"That would be five dollars."
"Five dollars?!"
"Pay up!"
"Okay, okay!"
Izaak forked over the bag of change, much to the lady's discontent. She began counting through the pennies, with Izaak interrupting every once in a while to make her lose count. Jinx began to giggle a little; it was quite a sight to see: her seething in exasperated rage and Izaak playing the innocent card. Everyone at the table was laughing when Izaak gave the punchline of his prank as the lady had made it to three hundred seventy four cents.
"By the way," Izaak said as he pulled out a five dollar bill, "May I get this in pennies? Running low on change—paying for the cranberry juice and all."
It was something that would have come straight from a cartoon; it was that funny. The three of them at the table were crying from laughter.
"I'm sorry, Veronica. You are looking lovely this evening. Did you do something new with your hair?"
She didn't answer. Jinx knew what was about to happen; it was something she often did whenever one of her underlings of the Hive Five pissed her off. Then Izaak did something you never did to a woman. Mistake their gender.
"No answer? Veronica, I know that you're a better gentleman than this."
Izaak returned to the table with a glowing hand mark on his face.
"Why, I'd never." he said with a scoff in the lady's, Veronica's, direction.
Seeing as he'd gone through all that trouble to piss the lady off, Jinx wondered if it was even worth it.
"Feeling better?" she asked.
Izaak shrugged.
"Comme ci comme ҫa."
…
Seeing as they had accomplished nothing, Jinx took it upon herself to begin reading one of the books Dracul had given to her. Rats in the Shadows looked shorter, and since she was in no mood for a chapter book she determined that this one would be a better choice for the night. The beginning started off with several pages of mad ramblings about how the author had infiltrated some sort of cult. How this related to Dracul, she didn't know. Did he own a cult? It didn't seem likely. Why would he abandon it for so long while at the H.I.V.E. Academy? He couldn't have. It would have disbanded if he left it alone for that long. Then again, Jinx did leave the Hive Five, and they seemed to have gotten along just fine.
An excerpt from the book read,"They call themselves the Nuovo Mondo, translating into the New World. Every single one of them speak of seeking to raise anew from the ash of the old. It doesn't make any sense to me, just more superstitious bullshit. But these people, these people have kept an organized group for years. They don't act as mad men, but a society. They have managed to evade attention for so long. Many do not know of their existence. They boast of having accomplished many feats, from the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, which they supposedly pinned on Gavrilo Princip, to toppling the Inca Empire, which was originally thought to be the work of Francisco Pizarro. If such is true, than what else has this sinister cult done?"
Jinx frowned at the text. 'New World'. This seemed far-fetched for the Illuminati. Was there more than one "New World Order"? This seemed far larger than even the Brotherhood of Evil. If there was more than one New World Order than what else was out there? It seemed hard to chew. The whole idea of a syndicate out there trying to create a different dimension by changing the minds of those within the first sounded like something out of that assassin video game Gizmo always went on about.
"Their original leader is unknown, simply addressed as Corvopadre (Crowfather). It is said that each time the leader of that generation stepped down, a new one would step up taking the title Corvopadre. This cycle has continued on with many different men, each of different race. From Xīn Jìngjiè to Atilio Garcia. These men seem to have been erased from history just as their first leader. The first Corvopadre was said to have just shown up one day with bitter resent of the world he lived in. He organized a group of people to help him change it. He was a charismatic lunatic who was said to wear the garments of Foriera di Veleno (Harbinger of Poison), also known as Portatore di Veleno (Bearer of Poison). This diety is supposedly the demonic varient of the angel Peslitore. It is no wonder then, that people were so easily swayed by the first Corvopadre. The relation with crows? I am unsure. These same garments are now worn by the current Corvopadre, Dracul."
Peslitore? Who is Peslitore? For that matter, who is this Harbinger of Poison? How was Jinx supposed to find any of this credible when religion was being tied in? She glanced back at the front to find the name Victor Oswald. She needed to get to him one day and learn more. Some would argue to just use the internet, but she wasn't about to make a search engine her best friend. No, she had to find this man.
"Dracul himself is shrouded in mystery. Unlike most of his predecessors—with the exception of the first one—Dracul doesn't show his face. Most say that he cannot be older than fifty. His voice sounds too young. It's a common theory that he is in his early forties and has much in mind to please his ancestors. Never having an actual conversation with the man, I cannot get much of his personality. He's strange, never staying at the Cattedrale Nascosta (Hidden Cathedral), where the New World resided, for too long. On the other hand, he spends long periods of time away. He leaves for five to ten years then returns. However it is a forty-year-old man could do that when he was young, I am not sure. The Suoli (Soils), which are the soldiers in training, respect him for whatever reason. Though I have met a few who disliked the man."
Jinx's nose wrinkled. Forty years old? Impossible! According to other teachers at the H.I.V.E., Dracul has been there for almost thirty years. And he never left. Hell, he even managed to have time to join up with the Brotherhood of Evil before that. Someone was lying, or misimformed. She bookmarked her page and began looking for a date of publishment. Was this book just old? Was it possible? It looked new. At least compared to the other one. She couldn't find anything relating to the date. She tossed "Rats in the Shadows" away and sighed. It was probably for the best if Jinx just turned in for the night. Too much headache trying to continue. She wondered if she should keep the information to herself. She'd love to tell Wally, but he was still unstable. Izaak and Ince on the other hand were only met yesterday. Hopefully she'd get a chance to see who they really were and what they were fighting for. At a later time of course. Right now she was just happy for the sleep.
…
Allegria shook her hand as Marzio cradled his elbow away from her. Dracul had broken his elbow. He probably deserved it; you can't cross the Corvopadre like that. If anything, Marzio was lucky just to be alive.
"Don't touch it!" he whimpered.
"Stop being such a bambino (baby), Marzio. Let me see it."
She was the best medic the Cattedrale Nascosta had to offer. She learned the art from the Corvopadre himself, and she'd always treasure it.
"Why did I provoke him. I should have listened to you. Now my arm feels as if it's been appiattito (flattened)."
"Appiattito? Far from it Marzio." Allegria replied as she gingerly wrapped gauze around Marzio's shoulder.
"It doesn't matter, I should have listened. Why didn't I listen?"
"Because you don't listen to anyone."
Marzio only smiled, and said, "I listen if there's something worth hearing."
Allegria felt her face redden. Marzio laughed. And then he grimaced as she 'accidentally' pressured his elbow.
End of Chapter...
So what did you think? Was it good? Did Rats in the Shadows interest you at all? Do the new characters Izaak and Ince appeal to you? Let me know. And remember, no one's a perfect writer, so if there's anything I could do to make the story more appealing, let me know. As of now, I do bid you a good day.