Jinxed Archer chapter 8
I had some spare motivation, so I took some time yesterday to work on Jinxed Archer. This is mainly a conversation between Jinx and Raven where we go into how the amulet works, how Jinx’s powers work, and how she got the powers. Enjoy (here’s the AO3 link if you’d prefer that.)
Jinx approached Raven, asking if she’s ready to continue their “discussion” now. Raven agreed, only for Starfire, who had finished feeding Silkie, to interrupt “What discussion? Oooh, are you having the Girls’ talk? May I please join in?”
Jinx blanched, and Raven said, “Uh no Starfire, we’re not having girl talk. Earlier on the way to Vegas, Jinx and I were discussing magic, her magic specifically. It’s kinda personal, so this should probably be a private conversation, and besides, I know you get bored when I talk about magic.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me there, friend Jinx?”
“Sorry Starfire, no offense, it’s just that it’s hard for me to open up about this stuff and I really don’t want more people than necessary to know some of the stuff I’ve been through. I haven’t even talked to Kid about this stuff yet.”
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Soon the two magic users were alone in Raven’s room, and Jinx was fiddling with the bag in her hands while sitting beside Raven on the edge of Raven’s bed.
Eventually, she broke the silence “Here it is, the amulet I told you about.” She opened the bag and reached for the bottom, pulling out the amulet and handing it over to Raven. Raven studied the amulet, a pendant consisting of an ovular cabochon in a pinkish hue surrounded by gray metal, subtle glyphs carved into the iron.
“Who gave this to you again?”
“Someone I used to look up to. She was there when I got my powers and reached out now that I’m one of the good guys. I guess she figured I’d want the ability to choose for myself if I want this life, to give me an out if I ever wanted to be normal.”
“Jinx, not being ‘normal’, isn’t a bad thing. Or at least it doesn’t have to be. We both have magic intended to do harm, and yet it’s what we do with it that counts. My demonic magic, your, well, Jinx magic. Our power was meant to do harm, but we choose to help instead, to be heroes.”
“I know Raven, that’s not what I meant… It’s just that I’ve been stuck this way for years, and sometimes I miss the way I used to look, sometimes I miss my old name. I haven’t been home in years. My parents basically sold me to HIVE after I got my powers. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if that never happened. Sure, they weren’t great, sure, they were already raising me for a life of crime, but at least I would have had the option when I grew up, whether I followed in their footsteps or not.”
“Your parents sold you to HIVE? I guess we all thought you joined willingly.”
“Yeah, my, uh, my dad, he…”
“Your dad?”
“I think he wanted me to be his mole in HIVE, but then my mom died, or at least I thought she did. One day the headmistress called me into her office, told me that my mom was dead, and that my father was responsible. She told me that my parents were on a job, and she got captured, that she took the fall for him, literally. And died in police custody. After that I stopped taking his calls, and when I graduated, I stuck with HIVE, and never looked back. Until now.”
“You said you thought she died, so what happened to change that?”
“The person who gave me this amulet… She made an offhand remark about my father, and when I said that I didn’t want anything to do with him after what he did to my mother, that he killed her… She told me my mother is alive, in prison.”
“And is she?”
“I don’t know, I’m not even sure how to go about verifying that. I’m not sure I want to use Titans resources to look into it. I don’t want to give my father the satisfaction of knowing that I’m finally looking back.”
“He sounds terrible.”
“He was, is. Terrible, a terrible father, a terrible person. The best thing he ever did for me was leave. And he only did that because he wanted to turn me into a weapon. He tried himself, but I couldn’t control my powers, and I guess he figured if he sent me to a school for villains, they’d do all the hard work for him. It worked, I guess, I did become a villain just like he wanted me to, it just wasn’t for him. And now I’m out.”
“I know a little something about terrible fathers that wanted to use you as a weapon. Trigon… I was supposed to be his tool, his key to taking over the world.”
“Ouch, my dad just wanted me to be his evil apprentice or whatever, a tool he could use to get what he wanted. At least he didn’t want to use my magic for anything in particular like that, at least, I don’t think he did.”
“And you think he’d know if you looked into your mother?”
“I know he would, He’s connected to some of the worst and biggest crime groups. He’s a mercenary of sorts, it was actually on one of his jobs that I got my powers.”
“I had wondered where your magic came from.”
“Yeah, there was a vessel, a little like, ceramic jar. It broke, and something pink slithered out and into me. I still don’t know if he intended for that to happen or not.”
“So, your magic originally came from something locked away. That makes sense, since it feels older than you.”
“Does that mean it’s not a part of me?”
“No, it's been there for so long that it’s interconnected. It’s a part of your soul now, whatever it was before, it’s yours now.”
“How, how is the amulet supposed to work, if the magic is part of me?”
“This amulet… It looks vampiric.” She went on to explain that it would drain Jinx of all magic, use the excess to make her appearance look like it once did, the rest would drain away as ambient magic. Raven warned Jinx to be careful, that so much bad luck being released at once could be dangerous.
“…and that’s not even considering what would happen if it got overcharged.”
“Overcharged?”
“Yes, if you were under enough stress, or mad enough, the amulet won’t be able to regulate all that magic, it could give off sparks, like your magic does, only you wouldn't be able to control it. And that’s not all, once you put it on, that’s it.”
“What do you mean that’s it? What’s it?”
“Jinx, this amulet, it's meant to be permanent. Once you put this on, it will bond to you and be almost impossible to remove. It’s your choice, but to bind your magic away like that, your magic may be bad luck, but it is still a part of you. It’s part of your very soul, and to repress that… And that’s not even taking into consideration that just putting it on could kill you, same with trying to remove it.”
“I don’t… I’m not sold on the idea of using it just yet don’t worry Raven. Everything’s great now, I’m starting fresh, I’m good, I have Kid Flash. I’m truly not alone for the first time in years, or ever. I don’t need the out. I just. I just miss it sometimes. Normalcy. My mom brushing my hair, the city where I grew up.” Her and Jade’s old room in Gotham, the ever-present sirens of Gotham in the background. That damned Alice in Wonderland poster.
“I miss not having to worry that anything I touch will shatter to pieces. Not having violent pink sparks come off my fingers when I’m mad. The strain of my muscles after a good workout. The feeling of…” Of the string of her bow on her fingers, the feel of her muscles as she pulled the arrow back, the feeling of victory when she hit dead center where she was aiming, that feeling turning to horror the first time that dead center meant dead.
“My childhood wasn’t good, not by any means. I- I killed for the first time when I was 7. Less than a year later I got my powers. It was a test, my dad was contracted to kill someone, he gave me a choice, either I killed her myself or he did. There were kids there, I don’t know if they were hers or not, but they were with her, in a car, in traffic. It was a Convertible, in a city I had never been to before, in a foreign country. We were up on a roof, in a sniper nest. He told me that if I pulled the trigger, only her would get hurt, the kids would be safe. He lied. There was a bomb, in the car. It went off only moments after the a- the, the bullet, hit her. It went right through, right through her head, she was dead immediately. And then the explosion… No Witnesses, he said. No witnesses. There was barely enough left to identify her, never mind cause of death. He made it look like it was a freak accident.”
“After that I was in shock for a while, depressed. I didn’t want that life. My parents stopped taking me on jobs for a little while, let me slack on my training, then the day came that they decided it had been long enough. It was supposed to be a treat, I just needed to watch from the shadows and observe, knock out any guards that came by, while they threatened someone. I think the target was some kind of dignitary, involved with shady shit, something about smuggling. He- my dad, said something about guns, and artifacts, and that he- the target, had pissed off the wrong person, that he had something they wanted… I was hiding, guarding the door, when it happened. There was this shelf, with all these little creepy trinkets from all over the world. A skull, some freaky statues, old leather tombs… And this little vessel. It was so old and worn and covered in weird writing in a language I didn't recognize. It was some kind of script writing, maybe Hindi or Arabic, or something similar. I was drawn to it, I kept looking at it even when I was supposed to be watching the door… I stopped listening to my dad threaten the target, stopped listening for footsteps… All I could hear was this… Whispering. It was almost like a snake, but not. I couldn’t understand it, but it was drawing me in… Then it happened. Some guards came by, noticed something was up. I was shocked out of my stupor by yelling. Then gunshots. In the chaos the vessel came crashing down onto the floor, it broke into a million pieces, and something came out, a shadow, but glowing somehow. It came right to me, and I felt something sting, like something bit me, then nothing. I passed out.”
“When I came to, my dad was mad at me. He said I was slacking on the job, that he should have left me there after I got hit. I had a concussion. I told him about the vessel, about what came out of it. He told me I must have dreamt it. He changed his mind pretty quick when I started changing…”
“When I woke up after that my eyes were all weird, I guess my parents thought it was just a concussion. The pupils were dilated funny, and the coloring was off. After a few days my skin started getting paler, until eventually it was gray like it is now. My eyes kept getting worse, all the color fading as they eventually got so pale, I looked blind. They took me to a doctor, he thought I was dying, thought my body was trying to decompose itself. By then my brown eyes were almost white, with just slits where my pupils used to be. My hair lost its color, too. Everything was turning gray and then the color returned. Except the only color that returned was pink. The same color as the shadow that came out of the jar. My hair became pink and started standing up funny, the only thing I could do to keep it under control was put it up, like it is now. My eyes turned pink too, and the pupils came back a little, but stayed more cat, or snake, like. My skin stayed gray, like stone, like the clouds before it rains, like smog, like ashes, like a corpse.” Like Gotham, she doesn’t say. Like the feathers she used for her arrows, like the silver of a gun. “Whereas my hair, eyes, and even part of my cheeks turned the color of pepto bismol.” Of the bows in that little girl’s hair, right before the bomb went off and she disappeared into a fireball.
“You have a lot of comparisons for gray, and yet almost none for pink.” Raven noted
“Growing up I was surrounded by gray. The city I lived in, the shadows of my room, the smog. When I first left Gotham for a mission, I was convinced my dad drugged me, I didn’t know the sky could be so blue, or the trees so green, at least not without Poison Ivy there.”
“You’re from Gotham?” asked Raven, looking surprised
“Yeah, I uh, didn’t mean to say that…”
“Is your father part of Batman’s rogue's gallery?”
“No, he- uh, he tried to stay in the shadows, he didn't like all the attention being a rogue would get him. He preferred to work for the highest bidder and act in secret. He still does, probably. I heard his name a few times while I was with Hive Five, but I always stayed away. I wanted to prove myself as a villain without his influence.”
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No beta, we die like the nameless extra Artemis killed at age 7. I think I'm going to start posting one offs within this universe, going into different parts of the story I want to work on, like specific scenarios or YJ episodes. I really wanna write my version of displaced and failsafe. For all that I like fluff and Flinxy goodness, I really want to skip ahead to the drama and angst.
