15243/Mystical Greek Mystery

Mystical Greek Mystery
Date of Scene:	27 June 2023
Location:	Donna's Office - Themysciran Embassy
Synopsis:	Jinx confides in Donna that she's lost her magic but also asks for help. Big steps for a messed up Jinx.
Cast of Characters:	Jinx, Donna Troy

---

Jinx has posed:
Having a T-com does not get you special privileges in the Themysciran Embassy. Hand stuffed in hoodie pockets as she's lead by Amazon Escort to Donna's office. Her eyes glancing at the art and the gardens outside. It's a beautiful building and represents the Amazons well. She wonders what Themyscira must be like just seeing this. Perhaps that's the idea.

The impressive martial arts demonstration in the lobby between two of the Amazons was almost enough to make her stay and enjoy that rather than pushing on with the hard stuff. The emotionally raw stuff. Her knuckles wrap on the door. "Donna it's me. Jinx." She expects reception warned her anyway.

Donna Troy has posed:
    There is an impression of grandeur about the embassy. Though the building itself isn't newly-built and is American rather than Themysciran architecture, it's got something of a neo-classical style to it which fits in well with the decorations the Amazons have brought it. Yet there's a contradiction to the grandeur. While other people might want a building such as this to project power, to tell people 'we are richer, smarter and better than you, here it all comes across as being natural. There isn't the understated trappings of power you'd expect at another country's embassy. There are no figures in black suits hovering around mysteriously giving the impression they could be dangerous, instead there are tall women with spears being friendly to visitors and giving the impression they feel no need to make boasts. Visitors are not subject to a faceless bureaucracy that exists mostly to impress upon them the great majesty of the vaster national bureaucracy that this outpost represents just the merest tip of; instead everyone's friendly and accommodating, nobody is asked to fill in forms, and they bring you drinks and chat to you if you have to wait for something.

    All of which may also be part of the idea that maybe Themysicra is like this too, because Amazons seem eager to tell people that their society is as much about compassion as it is about power, and that they are not victims of the games of government that other nations play.

    Perhaps without that T-Com there might have been some kind of waiting room involved, but Jinx had been shown straight to the door of Donna's office. Something about "Troia has standing instructions to let Titans straight through" had been mentioned, and apparently here as in increasingly many places Jinx seems to find herself being treated as if she really was a Titan.

    It's probably no surprise then when the door is thrown open not by some aide or flunky, but by Donna herself, who greets Jinx with a smile, and ushers her in. "Hey Jinx! Come on in and make yourself comfortable. Want something to drink? I can fix you beer, coke, Themysciran wine or coffee. Or anything else really, but I'll have to ask someone to bring it. What can I do for you?"

Jinx has posed:
With all that is impressive about Themyscira Jinx is slightly surprised she isn't offered tea. Coffee.. figures. But she nods her head, "Yeah a coffee would be good." Shoulders hunched up a little she walks in to the spacious room. Gazing at the map of Themyscira for a bit she then looks back over to her strange bedfellow. Strange in that she has been so considerate and always coming to bad for her, even though she ruined that photo gallery and attacked the tower with her idiot ex-team mates.

She flops down non-chalante on to a chair and melts in to it a bit awkwardly. Bisexuals. They never know how to sit on chairs properly. "Yeah. So. I did want to talk.." Obviously. This is the first time she's ventured to the embassy after all. Perhaps she just didn't want any of the other Titan's around to potentially hear what she has to say.

"I bollocked some shit up and I need help figuring it all out.. that's the short of it. The long of it is an ear full so, you know, just warning you and seeking consent to dump a whole bunch of crazy on you that you shouldn't rightly say no to."

This is an absolute first for Jinx. Confiding in someone. Perhaps the strongest person she knows both physically and mentally. Of course she's seen Donna crack - she made it happen. Oh that poor photo gallery. Twice. If it happens a third time there won't be any excuses. "Y'see I went to England with Harley - oh man. This.. this is a hard one to explain."

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna raises an eyebrow at Jinx, then nods her head and steps over to set the coffee machine going. "Jinx, if you want to talk then talk," she says. "If something is bothering you then you're helping nobody by keeping it bottled up. " A very nice-smelling blend of coffee goes in the machine, the button is pressed and things start to boil. Donna reaches into the mini-fridge below the table the coffee machine is set up on and fetches herself a bottle of coke, before dropping down into the chair next to table.

    Donna seems to know how to sit. All information available suggests she's bisexual too. Must be an Amazon thing.

    "I know this is all unfamiliar to you. I mean I'm assuming you're using a Britishism that indicates you feel like you've made some kind of mistake. What you're used to -- you're probably used to the idea that admitting making mistakes is a bad idea. You're revealing a weakness. Giving people a reason to punish you. Making yourself vulnerable. But you're also getting the idea now that things just don't work like that with us. We have each other's backs, and it's harder to have someone's back if you don't know their vulnerabilities. If you turn your back to me, there is zero chance I'll stab you. But I /will/ stop other people from stabbing you. Forget where you were before, where you are /now/ admitting to any mistakes you've made is a good thing."

    She grins a little. "But I think you're getting that. I mean you just came out and said you need help figuring it all out. Well, I'll do my best. And if I don't have any answers for you, I can probably at least suggest where to look for them."

Jinx has posed:
Ancient Themysciran knowledge and martial arts techniques must be the key to knowing how to sit on a chair as a bisexual. Jinx squirms herself up and tucks one leg under her other thigh and semi-leans in an awkward way. "Yeah yeah I get it I get it. No need to lecture me on the power of friendship again. I'm here ain't I."

A pained expression crosses her features. "I put people in danger. The team. When we went to the fairy ball shit. Three of 'em broke the rules I told 'em not to break - but I ain't blaming myself for their dumb moves."

She presses her fingers to her forehead, "Okay. Shit. Let me just start from the top 'cause this is going all over the place." She furrows her brow and looks firmly at Donna. "Right. So. Harley told me I have to face my demons and the big elephant in that room is my parents. My birth. Double homicide and suicide by cop. That's pretty fucked up. Happened in Surrey, in this little shit hole called Pathstow."

So we're driving there yeah and all of a sudden it starts snowing. In Surrey. Do you have any idea how rare that is outside of a few days over Christmas? Full on snow storm, couldn't see anything. We end up at this pub in Pathstow. There's a dead person and the fuzz is investigating. But weird stuff is going on. They're talking about a polar bear attack - everyone is arming themselves with shot guns and going on a hunt. There was this weird card with .. okay look I'm just gunna short cut some of this. It was super weird crazy there. Supernaturally so..."

Donna Troy has posed:
    "What happened with the fairy ball..." Donna gives Jinx a shrug. "Everyone was warned that dealing with the Fae is dangerous and difficult, and that we wouldn't know all the rules. You did your best to share what you knew with people. You didn't put people in danger, you just didn't manage to them from danger. Nor did the rest of us, so that's not on you."

    The coffee machine bubbles away and Donna pops the bottle cap of her coke with a thumb, before flicking the cap into the trash. "Jinx, every time anyone gets hurt on a mission I have to fight back my own feelings of guilt. Second guessing myself... if only I'd said this, if only I'd done that, maybe it wouldn't have happened. Hindsight is 20/20, all that's expected of you or anyone else is that you try. It was something we had to do because we owe someone a favor, even if from the sounds of it resolving this issue wasn't the right thing to do anyway. That favor was before your time with us so it doesn't apply to you. In my book the only reason you were there was to help, and because it's the right thing to do. I assure you nobody blames you for any of what happened, and you only come out of it with credit."

    Donna takes a swig of her coke and settles back further into her chair, resting a leg comfortably over the arm of it. This may be an ambassadorial office, but Donna is clearly very relaxed by such standards. "I spent a few months in London over winter a few months back. I was expecting fog and saw none at all. It didn't even rain much. Seemed to satisfy itself with being damp rather than went, and cold rather than freezing. Snow in Surrey in June sounds... unlikely. And polar bears are definitely not native. So yeah I think your conclusion of the supernatural being involved is pretty safe." She breaks into a grin. "Go on."

Jinx has posed:
Jinx scrunches up her face as Donna jumps the gun on saying she did nothing wrong. But she bites her tongue and waits it out before she continues on. "Right ... well some idiot shot another idiot. I healed him because the idiot that got shot was their only doctor. No one had seen any magic in that place. They hadn't even heard of the Titans, or aliens, or ... any of it."

"..that's when Harley saved our lives. Duck, she said, when we could hear this weird music on the wind. Oh man.. so many people died. Bodies cut in half. It was fucked up. We ran and found this underground submarine. The guy there tells us there's no way out and it's all been growing from this one spot in the forest. So yeah, you can guess, that's where I was born. How messed up..."

"So we go out there and there's this glowing white deer with wires hanging from its head. Like some sort of mythical dream. Every time it moved the wires would whip around. I realised it was guarding something and Harley fed it and then it disappeared."

"And yeah, then we found the cabin in the woods. The snow was keeping back from it. It was weird. You see I'd acquired this gift from a nymph that lets you look through time. So my plan was to see my parents. See what the hell happened in that cabin."

"... it was so weird. There was this woman there tied up and my mum was really pregnant with me, ready to give birth - and there was my dad with these two weird daggers and a book and bloody symbols on the floor around everyone."

She shuts her eyes. The sight was not great and Harley's supposed therapy might have made things a lot worse. "Yeah so my dad was going to murder that woman and may be mum I guess or.. well there was this book. Anyway, I couldn't bare it and I pushed him back with my magic. I wasn't meant to do that - interfere. Just look."

"I was just going to look and.. and then all the weird collapsed away. No more winter, no more vision in to the past. I got this splitting migraine and this weird double memories of the past. Of a different life. A different me. Me without magical powers."

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna's gesturing with a 'bring it down' gesture well before Jinx finishes speaking. "This is... underground submarine... deer with wires... two weird daggers... Jinx... slow down."

    She takes a deep breath and lets it out as a soft sigh. "Okay. Back up a bit. What you're describing, very confusingly, seems to be based on a forest, and strange things in that forest that may seem to be separated from the reality of that forest. Like... cabin in the woods. That's a classic. The woods being the natural world, the cabin being the unnatural world. The imposition of mortal concerns in the greater reality of nature. The deer... did it have antlers? A stag? This kind of thing makes a difference."

    She straightens up. "Okay, my turn to back it up a bit here. From what you're saying, you're under the impression that you did something that affected your past and changed who you are in some way, right? Like you tapped into an alternative version of you who didn't have magical powers? Because right now I'm going to say two things. One, never mess around with timelines. It's a headache and it's not worth it. Two, I recently managed to mess up reality and get myself confused with another version of myself for a while, so I sympathize. It's confusing as hell. You're doing better than me though, because when I did it I managed to screw up the Tower and have part of it simultaneously existing in Metropolis and hundreds of lightyears away. It was pretty embarrassing to be honest."

    "Anyway, all that leads on to two questions. First, the obvious one. Have you actually lost your magical powers? I mean... is that the mistake you think you've made, like you might have forced the timeline to resolve a paradox by synchronizing you with this other version of you without magical powers? Because I assure you that I remember you with magical powers, so you're not actually in the wrong timestream. Nobody really knows how this crap works yet, unfortunately."

    "Second thing, you're spot on with the mythic dream thing. Forests are limnal places, places where the real and mystical just kind of naturally meet. Any Amazon knows this well. We have a forest on Themyscira which... well. Short version, we theorize that all forests in the world are linked through an inherent natural magic, and when you enter any forest there's a chance you will stray into a magical zone of kind of... the /idea/ of a forest. The wild place, the place beyond human power. Our forest is kind of... an exemplar of that. Not just a route through to that greater magic forest, but a part of it. A long time ago there was a forest in Northern Europe that was the same, Broceliande. A forest in Surrey... there's a chance that was part of that same forest, before Britain was cut off from the continent. And the stag? Well, that's a symbol of a spiritual quest, and you know enough about magic to know that you can pretty much describe magic as the place where the symbol becomes reality."

    The noises of the coffee maker subside, and Donna stands to pour a cup. "All of which says to me that there's probably a bigger story here than you know, and it would be useful to try to figure it out. How do you take your coffee?"

Jinx has posed:
Jinx slows down as she almost loses Donna. But she seems to be getting it. Her hands twitch a little as she wants to jump back in and keep explaining. "Exactly. Yes. Right! The deer. Glowing white deer. Some god like beings were described as being like that. With antlers. That's how I guessed it was there for a reason, protecting the cabin. It wasn't going in to town it was just hunting in that place around the snow."

She sits up slightly more excited and nods as Donna suggests it's a bigger thing. "Yes. You get it. Great! And ... and yes. I can't do magic. I'm not even unlucky right now. I checked the newspapers after wards. Nothing changed. But my actions - I think they split off another timeline, another version of me. A reflection of what could have been that's interfering with me now. A paradox - the whole town of Pathstow was trapped in a paradox that was moving backwards through time to my birth because of my actions that I hadn't yet taken. And now that i've taken them the paradox is on me."

Jinx might seem like she barely knows her craft but from time to time she proves that she was paying attention all those years. "So yeah, I did put peoples lives in danger. We went out on a mission and I couldn't do magic and I didn't tell anyone. Then when we got back? i couldn't help get them out of their fae induced dreams because again no magic."

She shakes her head, "And that's not even why I came here to talk to you..." She slows herself down by taking a long breath. She digs in to her pocket and takes out what looks like a lunch menu written in German. On the back though she's drawn daggers with flame like blades.

"It was the book my mother and father were using. They were doing a ritual designed to transfer power. Using the sacrifice of a life force you can move power from one being to another. I think they were trying to use these daggers to steal the power of their captive and put it in my mother, which would have ended my life. But in my timeline, something messed it up and my mum died instead. Then in this other variant I interfered. But Donna.."

She looks dead on at her, "The book was written in Ancient Greek. Klemenos Doron. Stolen Gift. It's Ancient Greek magic Donna. I've never even heard of this stuff before. Themyscira must have libraries about this, right???"

Donna Troy has posed:
    Jinx's understandably excitable state doesn't seem easy to bring down to Earth enough to get her to focus on questions of coffee, so Donna contents herself with putting the coffee cup, a jug of cream and a bowl of sugar on the table next to Jinx before glancing at the back-of-a-menu drawings and returning to her own seat. She picks up her coke, takes a long swig, and regards Jinx thoughtfully.

    "Okay. Yes. You should have told us before you went into a dangerous situation that you didn't have access to your magic. People might have made a judgement call based on an assumption you still had your magic and run into problems, so that was a mistake. However as I said before everyone makes mistakes. You're aware you made a mistake, you're not trying to make excuses. On the contrary you're feeling guilty because of that. So you're forgiven. "

    "And don't beat yourself up about not being able to wake them with a wave of the wand. Fae magic is really weird stuff. They don't use spells in the way you'd think of them, so you can't methodically undo the effect the way you could counter a spell. Even if you still had your powers you wouldn't be able to just fix it. Rae can't just fix it either. It needs to be fixed in the right way. Honestly the fact that you care about this is a pretty good sign in my eyes, Jinx. If you thought you would come out of this with me thinking less of you, you're doing a poor job."

    Donna gives Jinx a grin and salutes with her coke bottle before taking a swig.

    "It's not Ancient Greek though. At least not by my terms." Donna smirks a little. "Koine. Classical Greek. That means a lot of influence from Mesopotamian and Egyptian systems to muddy the waters. Themyscira however has exceptional libraries about such things. Exceptional librarians who'll probably recognize it and know where to look, too. Do the best drawing you can, write down any other details you remember, and I'll see what I can discover. "

Jinx has posed:
"... I could have sworn I said two milk." Jinx looks confused for a moment and then looks down at her hands. "May be I just thought about saying it and then thought I'd said it and didn't actually say it." Either way, she adds some cream to the coffee and mixes it in.

Cup to lips, she blows over it and says, "Yeah. German. From the U-boat. The submarine? full on Nazi flag and everything. Met this Irish guy in there who got lost in to Pathstow four years ago. Nice enough guy. He's dead now though. The deer got him."

She raises an eyebrow slowly. "Look I don't really know how to fix what I broke. Paradox is a weird thing and not much is written about it. But I do know my parents were doing magic, weird stuff, and trying to steal something from that woman."

A soft sigh, "I am caring a little. It's a weird thing - like, until I met Harley I've never really cared for anyone at all. And you know Kian is actually a really nice alien bird man. I know -how- to wake people up from fae sleeps but without my magic I couldn't."

She looks back over to Donna and sips at the coffee. "You have to get in their mind and show them the way out. Some times people can find their own way out but you never know what kind of whammy is going to get someone in their own dreams."

"Point is - I couldn't even try. So I need to get my magic back. For a blessed two weeks I got to live care free, no dramas, no bad luck, just.. living. It was nice. And then suddenly people who matter in my life needed my help and I couldn't help them. So yeah - I need to crack this mystery. I'll write down everything I remember from that book."

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Right," Donna agrees with a nod. "Fae eternal sleep is essentially a trick. To the victim, their existence in the dream world becomes reality. It can be reversed by the Fae responsible very easily. It can be broken by disrupting the dream itself. That can be done magically by brute force, but that carries a whole lot of dangers. You can make enemies you don't want to make that way, or send the victims mad if you do it slightly wrong. So what we're going to do is visit them in their dreams and help them to understand that they are in a dream. Undermine the reality they believe themselves to be in until their subconscious minds reject it, and they will wake naturally."

    "There's not a lot written about temporal paradoxes because people don't like to admit when they don't know," Donna says. "We have a philosopher on Themyscira who's written an interesting book about the nature of time which covers it, but it's all guesswork. A few theoretical physicists and philosopher's in Man's... elsewhere, have covered the topic. Our friendly future speedsters have their own ideas. The reality is that nobody really knows. We know some things that experience has taught us are wrong, but we haven't really got any certainty what's right yet."

    "One thing that I can't help wondering from what you're describing, though. The town being trapped in a paradox which wasn't actually a paradox until you went there and interfered with something that had already happened. There's a kind of inevitable symmetry in paradoxes which means it's hard to separate cause and effect. It's easy to look at this and think... well, if the paradox didn't already exist, you couldn't have done what you did to cause the paradox, and that makes no sense but that's fine because hey, paradox. On the other hand, maybe you're misinterpreting things. Maybe the paradox was created and the town got trapped inside it because of what your parents did, and you're in a position to undo the paradox -- but simply stopping the ritual the way you did wasn't enough to resolve the paradox into a single stable timeline. Maybe neither the magic-free version of Jinx /or/ the bad luck version of Jinx are the Jinx that was supposed to be."

Jinx has posed:
Jinx sips the coffee some more and nods to Donna's plan. "That's how it's done. I can have started it the night we got back. But you'll have to find some other way in to their dreams. May be Raven can do it. Or, Terry mentioned some dream guy who helped you once before."

She sinks down in to the chair a little more and groans with despair. "I always thought of my bad luck and my magic as this curse, you know. Now I know it was literally created through some fucked up ritual by my fucked up parents."

"I mean, yeah, may be I've got it all wrong. Perspective and all that. May be it's got nothing to do with me. May be it's that person my parents kidnapped. Or may be it's my parents. Or some familial curse that gets passed down from mother to daughter. I don't know. Harley really sucks at therapy..."

"...alls I know is want some answers and neither of my parents are alive to give them to me. So it's that book, whatever that book was. That's gotta hold some answers. Why it didn't work the first time, why that woman, why those daggers. Why paradox. And holy shit HIVE is still after me and I'm basically defenseless now."

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Phantasm. The guy wearing the bird mask at the ball. He has the ability to enter dreams, and you'd be surprised how often that has been something we've needed his help with. Our Raven can do it too, though that's not the ideal path... for reasons. If she acts as the bridge there's an added risk, because her subconscious is a complicated and dangerous thing. She could also send us directly into their dreams, but that's more of a risk for the people going, so if we can get Phantasm to help, that's the best option."

    Donna downs the rest of her coke and throws the bottle across the room into the trash. Well, the recycling. She's good like that. "I've heard pretty good things about Harley's abilities as a therapist, but you have to kind of balance that out with the fact that she's got a major impulse control problem and is completely crazy. To be fair to her though, when you throw magic into the mix you're asking too much of a therapist. Unless they're a magical therapist, which she isn't."

    "If the ritual your parents did was to steal power from the woman they kidnapped, then it's a fair bet that's the source of your magic," Donna reasons. "And very likely the source of your bad luck too, because stealing someone else's magic is pretty much a terrible idea that has a very high chance of backfiring on the person trying to do it. At least that means you can probably count out it being a familial curse. It's probably a good idea to try to find out about the woman your parents kidnapped as well as finding out about the ritual."

    "As for being helpless," Donna shakes her head. "You're not. You've got us looking out for you. I know you think we're underestimating HIVE, and you may be right. But I /know/ you're underestimating the Titans still. You're safer from HIVE without your powers but with our help and protection than you'd be on your own but with your powers. And look... if you need a little extra security while we work to get your powers back, and there's a shortage of Titans at the time, call the Embassy. I'll let the embassy guards know that you may need a couple of bodyguards from time to time, okay?"

Jinx has posed:
"Phantasm.." Jinx repeats. "Right. Well at least you're not doubling down on Fairy favours to fix a fae curse." She sets the coffee down on the table and lulls her head back to stare at the ceiling. Her fingers interlace and rest upon her tummy.

"Yeah, so, I know I'm a genuinely fucked up individual. May be I need a real therapist instead of a crazy therapist. Shit.. that ain't fair. She's been nothing but good to me. I don't know. This isn't my bag you know. I'm used to being the throw down Queen and any time shit got real I'd just push it aside. Now it seems alls I ever do is think about my bad life choices."

"You are underestimating HIVE. The only reason I know how to get inside peoples dreams is because of HIVE. Oh yeah, they were totally in to inceptioning people using my magic because of that movie. Just nuts about it. Get in there Jinx, give him the idea of buying these stocks Jinx. Make this person hate the smell of the rain Jinx. Give them some fucked up nightmares about their partner Jinx." She wrinkles her nose.

"Felt like a right geezer doing that crap. May be one of the only times I saw them look scared of me is when I told 'em I wasn't going to do it anymore." A little twitch of a smile on her lips. Taking back control is what she needed and they twisted that in to a path toward supervillainy.

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Harley's fine," Donna says. "Just..." she waves vaguely with an arm. "She's trying, you know? To be the better person. Despite everything. It's not easy for her, but somewhere in that confused head of hers enough has clicked to know she'd been doing badly before and that if she wanted her life to get better she needed to find a better way to live that life. She hasn't entirely figured out what that is yet, but she's trying. I wouldn't recommend her as a role model to anyone, but you could do a whole lot worse than Harley for a friend. Maybe you could do better than Harley for a therapist, but that doesn't mean you won't both get something out of trying."

    It really doesn't need pointing out how much of that applies to Jinx as well as to Harley. It's not even intended to be subtle -- Donna's pretty sure Jinx has figured all that out for herself anyway. "The thing about thinking about your bad life choices is that it's the only way you'll start making good life choices. It's hard to deal with Jinx, but you're doing the right thing. The thing that will lead to you living a happier, more satisfying, and I've got to add... /longer/ life."

    "As for HIVE, I get it Jinx," Donna says with a smile. "I've accepted that we've probably been underestimating HIVE. I'm just telling you that you're underestimating us too. We once Inceptioned an entire dimension because it would have ceased to exist if we didn't trick it into dreaming that it was still existing, and then persuaded some of the Great Powers of the universe to step in to stabilize it. We chased an army of zombie centaurs across Hell, patted Cerberus on the heads and called him a good boy on the way out. We once turned a host of avenging angels into powerless teddy bears. You might have read in the news about us sending a space ship the size of a moon -- basically the Death Star -- running home crying for it's mom, but half the stuff we do never reaches the newspapers."

    "It might be hard to believe this seeing how often we do end up in the newspapers, and I mean where you're coming from -- super villains don't get the whole marketing craziness with the posters and figurines and stuff. I really wouldn't blame you for assuming we're ninety percent P.R. The Titans foundation plays that whole game because it helps. Running a super-team costs money, and maybe crime doesn't always pay, but fighting crime never pays. So they sign some license and make some money and we've got fuel for the T-Jet and the lights in the tower stay on. "

    "We got a lot of attention in the early days, because we were a bunch of kids doing superhero things, and the media loved us. A nation full of disaffected teens saw some of their own flipping off the adults and making a difference to the world, and they wanted to be us. Now, some of them are. Terry grew up in a room with posters of the Titans on every wall, and now he's part of the team. So it was all worth it, but it wasn't what any of us wanted. We never sought publicity, it just found us."

    "And if you think I'm just boasting?" Donna gives a wry smile and a half shrug. "Consider that I'm not shouting this from the rooftops. We don't tell people half of what we do. I'm telling you this because you're here, and it impacts you. You need to know. I get your point. HIVE is a genuine threat. We're taking them seriously now, on the basis of /your/ word. You need to know that you've made the right choice. I'm not saying it's going to be easy, but I am saying that in the end, we're going to win. Because that's what we do."

Jinx has posed:
Jinx picks up the coffee and takes a longer drink from it. "I know we're going to win," she states emphatically. An eyebrow raises as she lets her mind drift off imagining the day HIVE comes tumbling down. "Because they don't believe anyone can stop them."

"..and heck half the villains you fight wouldn't know what hit 'em if I were there with my magic. It's not like you whip out Raven every time you face off against a villain." A roll of her eyes, "If I ever figure out how to get me powers back that is."

"But anyway. Write down what I remember and try and track down this person my parents murdered. Well - in our timeline. In that paradoxical timeline I made she lived. Still no parents in either timeline. Yippee me - at least in that other one I didn't get adopted by bloody HIVE."

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Raven is a special case," Donna says. "In a way... part of the reason she's a Titan is not about dealing with supervillains, it's about dealing with Raven. Maybe one day she'll trust you enough to explain that to you, but it was a few years before she trusted any of us enough to explain that. She does her share, and she's there when she's needed. It's just... if there's a pub brawl you don't pull out a missile launcher if you're hoping to de-escalate."

    "For that matter, half the villains we fight wouldn't know what hit 'em if some of the rest of us weren't pulling our punches. You have no idea how much training Caitlin has had to do to learn how not to punch people too hard, for example." Donna grins wide.

    Donna nods her head. "Don't forget, the timeline she lived might be the timeline that isn't the paradox. I think that's kind of the thing about paradoxes they're like..." Donna frowns a moment in thought "Klien bottles. It's not entirely clear what's inside and what's outside. Not getting adopted by HIVE definitely sounds like the lucky timeline to me." Or is that the 'Lucky timeline'? Bart's got a lot to answer for.

    " Everything you can remember about the daggers, the book, the ritual," Donna agrees. "For the kidnapped woman -- detective work. Date, time, place. We can search for missing persons reports. Police records. Get a physical description together, ask around. If your parents were trying to steal her powers she might be known about in magical circles. This all happened in Britain so we're not going to have the best records, but we can put in requests. There are a couple of other British mages living here in New York who might be able to help out there, Constantine with the Justice League Dark and Willoughby with the Doom Patrol. I can put out feelers if you don't know either."

    Donna tilts her head to the side. "You hungry, Jinx? We've got a really good chef here at the embassy, I think you'd enjoy meeting him. Just don't call him a Minotaur, okay?"

Jinx has posed:
Jinx screws up her face a little at the idea of a 'lucky timeline'. Thanks Bart. But that Jinx would never become a Titan. She had no power, no magic, no skin in the game. "I know a mystic who from Britain who can help. I don't know what kind of price she'll ask for..." Good ol' Nettie Crowe. "But she owes me two."

"Besides. Everyone knows Constantine is a cunt." She raises an eyebrow, "Never heard of this Willoughby before but aren't the Doom Patrol a bunch of worthless jackoffs anyway?"

"And hey if I need to talk to the woman my parents murdered, may be I can just jump over to the alt reality I made and talk to her there." She laughs, clearly joking about something so ridiculously dangerous. She finishes off the coffee and rises up off the chair. "Dinner sounds good. Got it. No Minotaur jokes. No grabbing the bull by horn jokes." She grins and joins Donna for dinner.