15347/Fractured Fortunes

Fractured Fortunes
Date of Scene:	09 July 2023
Location:	Labs - Titan's Tower
Synopsis:	Jinx reaches out for help from Nadia to do something extremely inadvisable. And likely illegal.
Cast of Characters:	Jinx, Nadia Pym-van Dyne

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Jinx has posed:
Why is it labs always have cool shnappy doors. Shnap, they open, and Jinx peers in. "Oh, you're here. I thought you might be." She steps in. Hands stuffed in to the pockets of her hoodie, the hood itself down and jeans comprise of the majority of her outfit. Barefoot as usual though.

"Hey so.. I know we don't really know each other that well and all." A should shrug, "But I was wondering if you could help me with something. Uh." She wrinkles her nose a touch, especially after the last conversation they had.

"Scientifically magical. I'm in a bit of a bind and I need to do something impossible. But I don't understand it well enough to make heads or tails about how I'd do it and. Well. Everybody speaks very highly of you."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
    With Nadia it's like a shell game of laboratories. While she is almost always in /a/ lab there are three different labs that she often frequents, but when attempting to track her down the Titans Tower labs are a pretty good bet. Even if she weren't there, GIRL HQ is only a Zeta Beam away, which covers two out of the three. The third is far trickier to access, being in the Microverse, but thankfully that is not necessary today as here she is in the Titans' lab running some tests on whatever the latest super science threat to cross the team's radar is.

    Nadia spins around at the schapping sound of the doors and offers a cheerful wave, the lab coat draped across her shoulders like a cape flourishing behind her. "Oh hello again! Well the only way to get to know each other better is to see each other more." She smiles brightly with no signs of any lingering bad feelings from their last encounter.

    "Scientifically magical?!" Nadia's eyes get big, there are few words paired together that can pique her interest faster than those two. In my experience nothing is truly impossible, there's some pretty crazy stuff out there, usually we just can't do it /yet/. What do you need to do?" The young scientist seemingly undaunted in the face of impossible scientifically magical problems.

Jinx has posed:
Jinx looks at Nadia's lab coat. It's great. She glances around the room and then at a coat stand with another lab coat hanging on it. It looks big - probably Caitlin's. She grabs it and puts it on so she fits the decor better. Helping herself to a super science stool across from Nadia, she sits. Awkwardly. One elbow propped to the table next to her.

"I'm going to try and condense the story but there's a lot of crazy wrapped up in it so.. you know.. just don't pull weird faces at me and we'll be fine." She smirks, her rough England accent lacking the usual swear words right now. She seems like she's at ease which is rare for her.

"I went on a field trip for therapy with Harls to this shitty little town called Pathstow where I was supposedly born. One snow storm later we're lost in this little hell hole with a monster in the snow killing people and a Nazi submarine from world war 2 under ground and all kinds of crazy. But, eh, that's neither here nor there."

She wiggles her fingers and then taps one to her lips, "Yeah. This is going to jump around a bit. Let me get to the point. So - the whole point of the therapy trip was to go to the cottage in the woods where I was born. Where my dad killed my mother and some other rando before getting himself killed by the cops. Figured it was going to be shit and confusing but I acquired a token from a time nymph a few weeks before."

"You know, so I could peer back in time through the veil and see what really went down. Harls figured confronting my issues head on would help me get over them. She's weird like that- yuh, so, found the cottage past the mystical deer protecting it and did the time ritual."

She raises her eyebrows, "Are you with me so far or was there too much crazy already?"

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
    There are no doubt science types who would scoff at Jinx's story, bound up as they are in the 'Laws' of Physics as hard and fast rules, others might be surprised or confused by the weirdness. Nadia, however, has neither of these reactions. The girl, who has dealt with creatures of Greek Mythology in Tartarus beyond Themyscira's Gates of Doom and somehow wound up as the Messianic Savior figure of a cult in Wonderland, well she's seen some shit and has a broader more accepting perspective than most. Instead she listens carefully nodding along as Jinx recounts her story. After a few moments she begins to absently take notes on a tablet with one hand as she listens, simultaneously scribbling some time travel calculations in separate window on the screen.

    "I've heard her advice is really good, but yeah some things kind of like that helped me in the past. Visiting my mother's unmarked grave in Russia and climbing this staircase in Tartarus..." Whatever stairs have to do with anything. She stops herself though, not wanting to sidetrack things. "I'm totally with you so far. So what did you see when you did the time ritual?"

Jinx has posed:
Jinx leans forward a bit and smiles regarding Nadia in a new light. "Yeah.. that kinda shit. So. There was me dad and ma, and some other woman bound up in ropes. My dad had these fancy flame daggers and there was a magic book he was using. Mum, full on pregnant with me, was yelling at him to get on with it."

"I'm still hunting down the magic book - well some scholars on Themyscira are anyway. The daggers, not sure, they might be in Scotland yard evidence storage. I'm still looking in to that. Point is what they were trying to do was sacrifice me as an energy source for a magical ritual to steal the powers of the other woman and put them in me mum."

She winces a little. "Shit went different though 'cause right before my dad was to stab the stranger I... I kinda interceded and knocked him back with a gust of wind. I was hit with all these memories of another life; my life, played out totally differently. Still an orphan, no magical powers, no H.I.V.E., a decent adopting family. Yeah. Wild. Hurt like a hell of a migraine though."

She shrugs her arms, "And now - now I've got no magic. No bad luck. Nothing. I can feel a weight in me so I did some digging. I've got what's called a paradox. I disrupted my own timeline and made another one. There's two of them and the second one is tethered to me."

She frowns a moment and then looks in to Nadia's eyes. "And I need answers from that woman that dad killed in this timeline - she's alive in that other timeline. I need you to somehow," She wiggles her hands, "Sciency me to make a portal or something to this other timeline so I can go there and talk to her. Get me some answers, then - I dunno - delete that other timeline from reality or something?"

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
    Nadia is doing her level best to maintain a relaxed sympathetic and supportive demeanor, but the more Jinx talks the more she is clearly fascinated by what the other young woman is describing, the Temporal Paradox anyway, not so much the grisly murder for magical power. For a moment there is also a distant look when Jinx talks about a life without H.I.V.E., perhaps contemplating what her life might have been like had her mother never been captured by the Department X. But she blinks it away just as quick as it came, intent on listening and helping and not giving in to her stray thoughts.

    "So you were able to affect the past through your ritual?" She makes some more notes. "Under what's known about General Relativity," Nadia really doesn't like calling them 'Laws' since they seem so mutable much of the time, "The creation of a parallel timeline would be the logical result. It sounds like you're somehow caught between these timelines though, like somehow still in this one but manifesting characteristics of the other." She makes some more notes. She's dealt with parallel timelines before, but someone seemingly stuck in between like this is a new phenomenon.

    Finally, when Jinx finishes outlining her problem, Nadia pauses to think for a few moments before giving her a thumbs up. "I think we can do this! Parallel Earths, which is to say Parallel Timelines where events went slightly or sometimes radically differently is something I've dealt with before. My Dad actually made a portal device and got himself captured by his homicidal cyborg fused otherworld self. I had to get the Avengers to help rescue him, it was a mess. Definitely do /NOT/ recommend that particular Parallel Earth. BUT! I'm pretty sure I could reconstruct the device and given you have an active link to this other Timeline, it shouldn't be to difficult to isolate it and open a portal there. In Theory at least." Reality subject to vary, see fine print for details. "I'm not sure it can be deleted once brought into existence, or well it probably could but that might be orders of magnitude more difficult than just separating you from it." She smiles reassuringly, like she's certain they can do this, somehow.

Jinx has posed:
"Yeah. I mean. I was only going to look - not touch. But I just couldn't let him do it when I saw it with my own eyes. She knows shit. I need to know what she knows. She's probably some old woman by now in that new timeline. And yeah, me, I think I'm caught between the two. Linked with this other version of myself. May be she has magic now - who knows. I don't."

She smiles a little more and nods her head, her eyes wild and wide at the prospect. "Super science. Awesome. So... what will that take. A couple of hours or.. years? I got shit I need to do and I can't wait years." She had no idea Nadia's father had made a portal to alternate Earth's device. So fortuitous.

"May be separated is good enough. I don't know. This isn't, like, a normal thing. Paradox is something magic users are meant to avoid like the plague. And here I am doin' the thing everyone in scifi says not to do - disrupt your own timeline. Typical bad luck me I guess."

She huffs, "Either way. Fixed Pathstow. Shit hole it is is free of the paradox now. It's all on me. And yeah, I'm pretty fuckin' useless right now. Apart from some karate chops or shooting a gun anyway."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
    Nadia nods her head in agreement, there is empathy there. "Yeah, seeing something like that and not acting would be really hard. I think I probably would have done the same thing unless someone restrained me." There may be several examples of such behavior within the public record. "If you don't have magic now, given the nature of the linked timelines, I think there is a very high probability that the other you does. I wonder how she is coping with that sudden development. We should probably hurry."

    When Jinx asks how long it will take, Nadia breaks into a grin. "Years? I think the others you talked to have been selling me short. Hours maybe, if I need to rebuild the device from scratch, though I think some of the components are still around. Isolating your connection to the other timeline may be trickier, but I have some Tachyon sensors SHIELD developed and I'm pretty confident I can modify something to isolate the Chronons bridging the timelines. Granted I've never done this before with a Paradox so let's say maybe a day to be generous, minus any interfering world ending calamities that need to be dealt with. I'll get started! I just need some things from my other labs!"

Jinx has posed:
Jinx sits back as Nadia declares her timeline. She slips off the chair and dances for a bit before pointing at Nadia. "YES! You! If you were running for President and I were a legal citizen of the USA I'd vote for you." She slaps the table top, "That's what I'm talking about."

"Super science. Doing the things that magic can do less efficiently but with more equations and diagrams. I love it. Especially when I am lacking in the magic department. Honestly couldn't care less about other me. I just want to fix what I broke. I can't live with paradox. It's feels... super weird."

She tugs the lapels of the lab coat she's wearing and looks down over herself. "I'm keeping this." Not that it's hard to find her - she lives here now. The lab coat will be in her room after all. Who-ever's it is.

"Just buzz me on the t-coms when you're ready and we'll do something highly inadvisable for utterly selfish reasons." She snaps her fingers, "Ya know. You and I, we're not so different." A small wink because that classic supervillain line is always a fun one.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
    Nadia just grins at the vote of confidence, enjoying the energy and enthusiasm. "SCIENCE! Is pretty great, magic is fascinating, too! One day I'm going to find the point where they meet and complete a Grand Theory of Everything!" She seems both quite excited about and certain of this fact.

    Her expression falters a bit at the declaration of not caring about Jinx's other self, but that is pushed aside. "Helping her might be important to getting your magic back and fixing what you broke." Nadia notes but doesn't push further.

    She laughs, her brighter expression returning when Jinx declares she's keeping the coat. "That's probably fine, Cait has more, like so many more. Lab coats for all!" The number that she has herself is not disclosed.

    "People always say my ideas are highly inadvisable, but you don't make new discoveries by playing it safe, that's just part of SCIENCE! Okay! I will let you know when the portal is set up! It shouldn't take long! Talk to you in a bit! Bye!" And with that the enthusiastic young woman is already dashing out of the Titans labs towards the elevator and Zeta Beam chamber beyond, lab coat trailing behind her.