16148/Pathstow, End of the Worlds

Pathstow, End of the Worlds
Date of Scene:	22 October 2023
Location:	Pathstow, Surrey, the end of the World
Synopsis:	Donna, Nadia, and Jinx try their best to save the worlds. Two of them at least. May be more. They cut it close and if Donna had had her way she'd have sacrificed herself in the amber to do it. But the gods took pity on Jinx and Donna, intervened, and gave them a way out.... straight in to Themyscira.
Cast of Characters:	Jinx, Nadia Pym-van Dyne, Donna Troy

---

Jinx has posed:
The military have set up a perimeter around Pathstow, Surrey, England. Not just because the town had been missing for 27 years and had suddenly returned unexpectedly. Mostly because reality was fracturing here. The air was broken, like cracks in a wind screen shield. Navigating these ever increasingly long and sharp fractures was fraught with danger.

When an Amazon, a Most Wanted, and an ex-Red Roomer... three Titans, turn up, the military is somewhat unsure what to do about it.

The General in charge, Artifax, looks at the device on the table. The one the three Titans brought back from an alternate reality. He then looks over to the three Titans and has resumed pacing. "And you say you need to take this device in to the heart of the anomaly, or this world and countless other versions of Earth will be destroyed?"

Jinx is being unexpectedly involved in all this. After all, she is very personally connected to what's happened and what might come next. "That's right," she taps her watchless wrist, "And time is of the essence."

The General looks at the second device, "And this compressed liquid will stabilised the anomaly and stop is spreading further. This 'Amber', but once you detonate it everything inside will be frozen in time forever."

Jinx once again nods to the man and then glances at Nadia and Donna, "We really don't have much time left. A lot of people will die if we don't get right on this mate."

His eyes look sharply back at Jinx. Then he looks at Nadia, but then settles on Donna and says, "You I trust. You have my permission to proceed."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
    Nadia is nodding emphatically in support of Jinx's statements as she talks to the general. "I mean," she gestures at the general fracturing of the dimensional fabric in their vicinity. "Think of it like cracking ice, once it starts it doesn't usually stop until everything on the surface plunges into the waters beneath, in this case the multiversal ether that exists between dimensions, which is not exactly hospitable to carbon based organic life. That's us. The amber is like glue, it stops the cracking. Forever is also a really strong word. It's almost definitely not forever, just until our understanding advances far enough to actually repair the fractures properly and return them to the way they were before the fracturing."

    Her expression falls slightly at the implication that the general doesn't trust her, but at least he trusts Donna. "Just trust the SCIENCE! Science won't let you down."

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna nods her head at the General. 'Artifax'? That's a very odd name. Sounds more like a supervillain than some general in the British Army. Donna has her eye on him, though she's not at the moment expressing anything other than friendly cooperation and superheroic duty.

    "Things are pretty bad," she confirms. "Basically this anomaly is in danger of spreading. It's already effecting other worlds, and we've recovered this liquid from one of the other worlds it has already started to impact, where they have developed a way to counteract it. For them it's just a short-term localized solution, but if we can use it within the original anomaly itself, we can stop this whole thing spreading not just through their world but ours as well. And yes, time is of the essence. We're only a few dozen miles from London, and that's ten million people in immediate danger."

    "Please ask your men to stand back a little while we go in. And if anyone or anything comes out of the anomaly zone before us, do your best to detain them until we're back. However don't hurt them if you can possibly avoid it. We're not entirely sure what we're going to come across in there but..." she gives a shrug of her shoulders and then beams a smile at the strangely named General. "We'll sort it out. Thank you for your cooperation."

    Donna turns her smile to Jinx and Nadia. "Okay guys, you both ready? Let's get this done. Jinx, you lead on."

Jinx has posed:
The best bit about leading is she doesn't have to carry anything. The machine to push the world she made away from their world is heavy - luckily they have an Amazon and what's heavy to a regular person is nothing to them. The canister to seal Pathstow away isn't anywhere near as heavy.

Jinx still feels strange. She nods to Donna and heads outside to look at the ghastly distortions in the air. Last time she was here the town was trapped in a paradox and it was snowing. Heavily. Now they're staring at the imminent end of the world. Even as a Supervillain she'd never want that to happen.

"This is some serious bollocks," she states. Her hand goes back to her heart where Kel Fountaine stabbed her. Where all that fated power flowed back in to her. At least her eyes have stopped glowing. She kicks off her shows and curls her toes in the dewey grass.

"Right then.." Pink energy flows over her arms drawing in surprised looks from the military personal currently being ordered to draw back. Her hands raise up and she pushes them forward. The magical pulses toward the anomalies and the sharp edges reveal narrow pathways which are unharrowed by the apocalyse.

And with that, Jinx strides forward picking the most logical path through - it's a maze and awkward crouching and stepping over sharp edges becomes the norm very quickly. One little touch means instant destruction of the touched surface. The perfect impossible blade - not even an Amazon, or a Superman, would survive it. This isn't magic, nor is it lasers or atoms. This is the fabric of the multiverse itself.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
    The Waspette falls into step behind Jinx, trusting her to guide them through the death maze of impossible reality rending (rended?) shards. In her hands she carries the Amber, treating the vial with the respect it deserves, lest they all wind up frozen, and then who is going to fix this mess? Even as they walk through her eyes continually dart this way and that as she takes in every possible detail of their surroundings, and her suit gathers data through its sensors as well. She wasn't kidding when she said she didn't believe the amber was forever and she intends to make good on that.

    "You know, I wasn't sure what would top intervening in a civil war on another planet, extradimensional cyborg fusion dad, or those Stairs. But this might be it. The literal fragmented shards of the fabric of the multiverse all around us." She glances back at Donna, but her eyes quickly return to Jinx's back. To say getting lost in this place would be bad would be a huge understatement.

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna's no fool and has no intention of getting into a fight with shards of broken reality. As she's on heavy equipment carrying duty, she makes things a little easier for herself by hefting the machine up and taking off a little way above the ground to fly carefully through the tangled pathways through the maze of fractured reality that Jinx's spell reveals.

    "Stay close to Jinx," she urges Nadia -- while she has a lot of trust in the young Titan's skill, she'll never not be looking out for the team-mates she cares so much about, and the younger ones in particular.

    "I really don't like the whole concept of this sharing powers by stabbing thing," Donna comments. "I mean I understand why she did it. But that's what caused this whole problem in the first place, and I can't help feeling that when something has catastrophic results the first time, perhaps it's better to find a different way to do it."

    "Also, what was up with that general? Artifax?" They're out of earshot now, it's safe to give voice to her thoughts. "Sounds so supervillain-like. British generals don't do code-names, right? Or it could be the name of a company that sends pictures by fax machines. Maybe his parents ran such a business, and changed their names to match their business. Like people with names such as 'Smith' or 'Carter'. Or do people just not do that any more? Because I have never met someone who's second name is 'Programmer'."

Jinx has posed:
Jinx pauses a moment as she hears Donna suggestion Nadia stick close. She's being trusted. Trusted in the field in a way her previous team, the Fearsome Five, would never do. They would never listen to her. Her voice was just another arguing for a different approach and yet - she was always right when things went wrong. She never bothered saying I Told You So. That way leads to more fights.

She clears her vision and realises the question of getting lost in here is really pertinent. They have one link to their destination - Jinx. She focuses again on that cabin and pushes her hands out. The fading shards real alight guiding the way once more.

"This is probably a bad time to tell you that I hired a thief to get the daggers back. But the thief came back empty handed. Scotland yard used to have them in evidence but the box was empty..."

The tone suggests Jinx wasn't too thrilled with being stabbed by a magical dagger either. Things feel weird now. It's like the ground is pulsing through her body like a heart beat. It feels alive. She can't explain it and doesn't even try. For now, it helps that it's boosted her magic significantly.

"General Artifax? sounds like an Astrix character to me. He seemed kinda stuffy but you expect that from his lot." By which she means people who speak wiht a refined accent."

The banter in the Titans is truly top notch. She always used to think of heroes as such squeaky clean do gooders with flaws you could dig your claws in and twist. But now she has this whole new perspective on the Titans and it makes her former colleagues look like children throwing tantrums. Then again, some of the Titans do that too.

As they make a turn past a tree that has been cut in to a million pieces, dangling in space refusing to fall, a clearing is revealed and in its centre is a wood cabin. There are no distortions here - this is the eye of the storm. "We're here."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
    "Artifax? Sounds like something my Dad might name one of his creations, like another sibling after Ultron." Nadia does indeed stick close to Jinx, and there is trust there. For all that the Red Room tried to destroy any vestige of the ability to trust in her, Nadia still prefers to have faith in others to the alternative, a world of hostile strangers. "Donna, while there's still some gaps in my cultural knowledge, I'm pretty sure that practice stopped a few hundred years ago."

    She pauses at Jinx's revelation about the daggers, "So wait, the magic stabby power transfer daggers are still floating around unaccounted for?" She asks before her attention is briefly stolen by the sight of the shattered tree floating in space, and then they've arrived.

Donna Troy has posed:
    "If it was /Artifex/ I wouldn't be so bothered," Donna says. "That's an actual word. An artifex is someone who creates things requiring skill. A craftsperson if you like. But yeah, /Artifax/ just has that trouble vibe to it. Maybe Nadia's right and when we get back out of here the General will peel away his skin to reveal he's a deranged robot underneath.

    Donna flashes Nadia a wink, and nods her head. "I thought so too, but remember there are gaps in my cultural knowledge as well. We don't have second names on Themyscira. My actual name is just Troia after all. First time I left Themyscira I was told I couldn't get by with just one name unless I was a famous musician or a Brazilian soccer player. So this second name thing I never entirely got."

    "Magic stabby power transfer daggers floating around unaccounted for makes me feel uneasy too," Donna agrees. "When we've sorted this problem out, we'll see if we can find them and dispose of them."

    Then they're there, and Donna looks curiously at the tree. Her mind goes back to a discussion she'd had with Jinx when this whole business had first been related to her about a glowing white deer. There's a whole lot of interesting mythic meaning behind singular trees, too. Donna has a sense for the mythic, and something is ringing alarm bells here, though she tries not to show it. She carefully places the machine down on the ground. "So, do we freeze first and then push the timelines apart, or the other way around? Nadia, you're the expert of realities, and Jinx, you're the expert on magic. How we do this is really up to you two."

Jinx has posed:
"You don't have to be an expert on technology to know how to set a timer. I saw how that thing worked - you just put in the time and run for it..." Jinx gestures to the extremely dangerous device that Nadia's been carrying around. But she has a nervousness to her too. Being back here where she was born. Where she saw herself being born. A shudder runs down her spine.

"Let's not go in the cabin. It's really bloody in there. I think we've all seen enough blood on this adventure yeah," she states mostly for herself. Who knows may be Donna and Nadia are always up for seeing dried blood in magical circles and patterns.

She then turns her attention to the big heavy device. "The way that Selvig guy explained it I need to use my magic so that the sympathetic whatever have yous align the device from our world to theirs. Then it charges up and pushes their world away. Donesies. Set off the timer and we run the fuck out.. couldn't be easier really."

One of those thinner than thin cracks bursts past Jinx and cuts her across the cheer. The thin line turns red and then begins to bleed. So much for the eye of the storm. "FucK!" she squeaks and jumps back. Her eyes refocus on the distortion in front of her. "That was way too close...."

The implication is all too clear. They don't have time to wait for the device to push the other world away - someone is going to have to stay. Jinx presses her lips together. She draws a finger along the blood and then drips it in to the machine. It powers on and starts a count down until it's ready to activate. The readout says 'Aligning' with a percentage slowly counting up.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
    "Yeah, we probably don't need to go in there." Nadia agrees, not the biggest fan of the gory remains of a blood sacrifice, even if magic is generally fascinating. She nods slowly in concurrence with Jinx, "The devices push the worlds apart once they are synchronized and then the amber seals the breach."

    The sudden cut to Jinx's face causes her to take a step back though, the sheer amount of danger they are all in is not for the faint of heart. "Well let's get to it." She says running a few final checks on the large device, before finding a place to station the Amber bomb to get the most effective coverage of the core of the anomaly.

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna nods her head as the explanations fly, but her attention seems divided. She studies the path they have just come through the anomaly with an unusual intensity as Jinx and Nadia discuss the specifics. Only when they've come to their conclusions does she seem to snap out of it and start paying attention to what they're discussing.

    "No," she says calmly. "Nadia, give me the amber. " She glances down at the display on the machine, the alignment percentage still too low, and holds her hand out to Nadia. "Okay, I need you to both listen to me. We're going to need to trigger the amber at the last possible moment, to give time for the machine to push these realities as far apart as possible. But there's a good chance we're going to have to trigger it early, because... this isn't moving fast enough."

    She fixes her eyes on Nadia a moment, her face still. "Listen. I'm the fastest one here. Short of getting Wally or Irie to turn up, and we're way too late for that, I can move a lot faster than anyone else. That means I can leave this a lot longer and increase our chances a lot more if I don't have to worry about you two keeping up."

    Is that it? Is Donna seriously talking about abandoning them, about not waiting for them to keep up? The thought might well enter Jinx's mind because that's what she's used to, but Nadia will instantly know what Donna's saying.

    "You two go /now/. No arguments. Get out of here as quickly as you can. I'll stay here until the last minute. I've memorized the route back. It'll be fine."

Jinx has posed:
Jinx's face betrays the assortment of emotions running through her mind when Donna tells her to go. Settling somewhere close to dejected she looks to Nadia and starts to move back out through the twisted dangerous daggers of fractured reality.

Another shard of broken reality pierces through in to the eye of the storm. It slices just behind Donna and all the way in to the cabin. So finely does it cut that nothing immediately breaks - pressure in the glass mounts until it suddenly shatters.

Jinx starts to note how the way back has become a great deal harder than the way in. Time really is running out. She emerges with Nadia from the brambles of broken multiversal structure. Soldiers approach quickly with ushering arms. Jinx takes half a step forward and stuffs a hand in to her pocket. She feels a letter in there and pulls it out.

~~ "Jinx, you can only find your true self on the faces of your friends" ~~

She stops the step as Nadia moves forward. Moments flash before her eyes since she got caught by the Titans. Every time a hand was offered and she slapped it back. Every time a kind word was given her way. Every time trust was placed in her lap without hesitation. Donna's face keeps coming up again and again and again and Jinx feels her throat choke up.

It's stupid, it's idiotic, it's fool hardy... but she twirls her fingers and projects an illusion of herself progressing forward with Nadia as she instead turns back in to the smashed up distorted point of her origin and moves with haste.

Donna Troy has posed:
    Returning to the heart of the fracture is a bit like climbing a hill. The pathway starts off relatively easily, gets worse about the middle, and starts getting better again as the dimensional separator peels apart the boundaries between worlds closer to the fracture. Better is however relative.

    The first time Jinx had arrived by the tree it had been, at least to some degree, an eye of the storm. With the collapse imminent, that's no longer true. Reality is tearing, and worlds are colliding. The path would probably already have been impassible if the machine supplied by the League D'Heroisme hadn't been doing its thing.

    It hasn't been doing its thing fast enough though. The collapse is moving faster, and the path back to safety will be far harder this second time. Perhaps it's already too late to negotiate it.

    The machine is still well off 100% though. If only they had arrived sooner.

    Donna is still waiting at the machine when Jinx returns to the tree. Her eyes remain fixed on the countdown, the flask of amber poised in her hand, a look of intense concentration on her face. The only thing that's changed since Jinx left a short time ago is that Donna is bleeding from several nasty-looking wounds. Bits of reality are splintering, and the from time to time the splinters fly.

    It is a testament to just how powerful the shard of Aegis in an Amazon's bracers are that it can stand up to the smaller shards of broken reality, but there are larger and larger shards forming. Branes of spacetime itself shattering like panes of glass.

    

    Donna does not look up from the machine when Jinx arrives, so Jinx can't entirely make out the expression on Donna's face, though she can see there's something there. "Jinx. I told you to go," Donna says urgently. "Look after Nadia. Don't leave her on her own. I'll be fine."

Jinx has posed:
Jinx, too, is now shredded from her journey back in to the eye of the storm. Her clothes are stained with blood and she is breathing harder. She trained in HIVE to run, to be fast, to dodge and weave and climb over things. All of that was necessary to breach the gauntlet back here.

"Yeah... you did." Jinx says as she catches her breath, "But then I got this stupid whim in my head that may be I could be more use in here." There's an almost cheeky look on her face as she looks back down at the letter.

~~ "You are a Champion of Gaia. The power of the whole planet may flow through your will if that will is just. The moment I saw you I could tell you had the potential to make things right. That's not just saving your world and ours - but you've got to want it and you've got to prove it to Gaia that you mean it. And hardest of all, you have to prove it to yourself - Kel" ~~

She scrunches it up and puts it in to her pocket. Her bare feet covered in small cuts dig in to the soil and she lifts up her hands. "Funny thing happened to me a month back," Her fingers starts to shiver in the air as she exerts herself, pushing outwards with her whole body, "saved some half dead people, brought them back to life. Wasn't my magic doing it though."

Pink energy begins to swirl around her and it lances out to the shards lighting them up. The situation once illuminated around Troia and Jinx is far far worse than was visible with the naked eye.

"It felt like I was some kind of conduit. The magic was so powerful I had no control over it at all. But honestly, it was the first time I was doing a magic thing for someone other than myself." She shuts her eyes tightly and murmurs under her breath, ~~ please Gaia ... please let this be real, grant me your might to save Troia of Themyscira ~~

The tendrils of pink magic flicker and fade. It seems Jinx has reached the limit of her ability as the magic falters. And for just a moment she feels her heart breaking. A tear falls down her cheek and falls to the soil. She can feel every muscle in her body straining, her stomach turning itself inside and out but will alone is not enough if no one is listening.

... until Jinx feels that bolt of energy shoot through her once more. Her eyes turn white as she feels blessed with that impossible power once more. A jagged shard of broken reality is tumbling toward Donna until it deflects off to the side and cuts through the shack. A bright burning light surrounds them both channeled through Jinx's body. There is simply no way Troia cannot recognise the presence, the power, the majesty, of Gaia.

"I've got your back Troia. That's what we do right - Titans yeah." Yeah. Jinx knew her real name this whole time and just never bothered to use it. She's a bit of a jerk like that sometimes.

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Jinx..." the words catch in Donna's throat. She can't bring herself to say 'it's going to be okay' to Jinx again. It wasn't ever really meant to be believed. It was only meant to be a lie Jinx and Nadia could tell themselves for long enough to get out safely.

    The display on the machine ticks slowly upwards towards full alignment. As obvious as it is that it's not going to reach there before everything collapses, and the amber's going to have to be deployed when the timelines are still imperfectly aligned, it's also obvious that the only right choice is to let the machine go as long as is possible to hope the timelines are separated sufficiently to become stable.

    No, Donna was never planning on coming out. She was going to stay as long as possible and activate the amber at the very last moment she was still able.

    Donna ducks a pink-traced shard. It's unlikely she'd have been able to if Jinx wasn't there, and that would have been a bad one. The power flows through Jinx, and she understands the source. Kel had told her that it was all about Gaia. Jinx knows that for Donna -- for Troia of Themyscira -- it must be more familiar that it is to her, yet. Amazons are all about Gaia, right? Donna calls on the Great Goddess the way other people call on God, after all. She /must/ be able to sense it.

    "Jinx... yes. It's what we do." There's a faint smile on Donna's blood-streaked face. "But I want you to live. If anyone can survive the amber, it's me..." -- yes, that must have been her intention all along. "I'm immortal. And Raven's got more chance of getting me out of it than everyone. You've already shown me that my faith in you was justified, Jinx. Go and show everyone else what I've already seen. Please."

Jinx has posed:
Jinx scoffs as she feels light as a feather with this immense power channeling through her. "Since when have you known me to be suicidal- ya think I'd still be fighting HIVE if I could just pop one in the ol' brain chamber and call it quits."

The sound of reality shattering around them, tinktinktink, against the shield, is ominous. The two worlds must be very close to crashing in to each other. The only thing stopping them is the force from an impossible science machine.

"Toss the bloody amber outside the shield already. I can hold it off - we will be safe here in the eye. Then your broody mega mage can teleport us both outta this mess. Roight?" She smirks at the Amazon. There must be some notion of momentum in the multiverse when two realities are colliding because the percentage on the alignment starts to tick up faster as if they'd just passed some kind of threshold.

"So stop bein' a plonker and let's do this thing already. I got this holiday in to the desert idea I wanna run by Harley and I ain't gunna be doin' that if i'm stuck in amber or the world ends."

The tougher she talks the more afraid she is and really this is about the best time to be at maximum fear. This really is the end of the world and for once she's realised it wasn't her fault. Not entirely. No, this one was a life time coming caused by her terrible parents. She understands that now.

But she can also feel the taxing of this divine magic. The longer this goes on the more she will strain whatever it is in Homo Magi that lets them do magic at all. She can't hold back a small grunt of pain as she shuts her glowing eyes tightly. That's not a noise many have heard from Jinx - she learnt never to show weakness through her life lessons after all.

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Raven doesn't /know/ Jinx," Donna says, and edge of desperation in her voice. She finally looks up from the display to look Jinx in the eyes, and her expression is pleading. "Even if she did... inside this? Even she'll take a while to figure out how to get us out of here. The only way to survive this is to be in the zone of frozen time. I can almost certainly survive that. "

    It makes sense as far as it goes. Donna had a plan. She always has a plan, even if it's a desperate one.

    And it sure was a desperate one. It makes sense as far as it goes. But Donna's planning to hold on as long as possible, and it's obvious that means she's planning to hold on until her injuries overcome her. What happens if she's frozen in amber like that?

    The shield is failing. Jinx cannot hold on much longer. Through her closed eyelids, she can sense the light flickering strangely. There is silence, and then there is a sound as if the cosmos had exhaled a soft sigh. Then a muffled report, the same sound they'd heard when Selvig had released two cannisters of the Amber gas in the office building in that Other London.

    And then Donna's voice, now much calmer. "Jinx? Open your eyes. Take this. Hold onto it." She's offering one end of her lasso, but the lasso is not shining with the now-familiar golden glow, but instead a warm silver, flickering like moonlight shining through a canopy of trees. Themyisciran magic, reacting to the presence of its ultimate source, Gaia's own, perhaps? "Let me share your burden, just as you chose to share mine. I've got your back too, Jinx. Titans Together. Lead us out of here."

Jinx has posed:
Jinx opens her eyes and sees the offer lasso. She grips it tightly in her hands as the shield collapses. A bubble surrounds them of amber tracing lines through broken reality, patched up, stuck together. The damage here on this part of their reality is done and.. may be one day Nadia will be able to undo it.

She takes a moment to look at the device. It is blinking the message 'Done'. The world didn't end then? The lasso helps her and she can feel that burning inside of her easing. Her eyes are still glowing as she looks around and smiles.

"Out.. so I didn't exactly think that far ahead now did I.." Plans. Jinx doesn't often have them. When she does it's usually a one step plan. One step is often more than enough for her way of life. She can see the ruined cabin partially in their protected bubble where the shielding stopped the amber from entering. Wait, does this lasso also make you tell the truth?

She looks around as if trying to find an obvious exit but they're lost in the brambles of amber. She's about to admit defeat when she spies some foot falls in the dirt. Those of a deer. The memory of the protector that remained here to keep strangers away from the source of the paradox comes to mind.

"... this way," she says with a bit more conviction in her voice. She follows the gentle foot falls the mystical creature left behind. It takes a lot of ducking and squeezing; but the amber doesn't cut like the reality shards did. Soon the amber gives way to actual trees. They don't look like the kinds of trees found in England though.

Pushing the branches and leaves apart she steps out in to a clearing and bright blue skies fall upon them both. "Oi wasn't it almost night when we started this shindig." This place is a stranger to Jinx, but not to Donna. The pair are cut all over and their clothing cut too; and where the clothing isn't cut it's soaked in their own blood. They make quite the sight for the trio of Amazons doing their morning jog.

Donna Troy has posed:
    The moment Jinx take a hold of the lasso, she can sense magical potency passing through it, a conduit for the potent forces Gaia has channeled through her. Donna's lasso seems to work like some cosmic grounding cable, sparing Jinx the feeling of overwhelming power that is too much for anyone, sparing her the pain, but leaving just enough that her eyes can make a greater sense of the skein of reality than they should be able to, can show ways through the frozen thorns of shattered apeiron.

    Donna does not see the deer; that's for Jinx's eyes only.

    The two stumble together through the forest of trees and amber, of broken reality and nature reasserting. At first Donna follows Jinx's more confident lead, but after a while she draws level, and then slightly ahead, and gently takes the lasso back from Jinx's hand. It's no longer glowing. It has done its work. As the journey gives way to trees, and those trees seem unfamiliar to Jinx, so they seem more familiar to Donna and her own confidence grows.

    They should have arrived back where Nadia and the soldiers are long ago, but the trees seem to stretch on. Though the pair walk on in near silence, Jinx can sense in Donna an odd familiarity with the unfamiliar.

    At the heart of every forest is myth, and where myth defines that forest it becomes its own Broceliande, and the paths of myth connect. Those are paths Donna has walked before, many times.

    When they break out into the clearing, the surprise on the face of the three Amazon rangers of the Enchanted Forest that sits at the heart of the isle but spreads far beyond the islands shores finds no echo on Donna's. She seems to have expected to end up here, though she could not for her life put into words /why/. She raises her hand in greetings, and the three rangers look on for a few moments in utter surprise.

    Finally the silence is broken by a flood of speech from the three as they gather around Donna and Jinx. Donna raises a hand to stop them, smiling tiredly. "Captain Calaeno, in English please. For the sake of my friend."

    Calaeno blinks at Jinx, then tilts her head back at Donna. "Princess Troia... you brought a friend?"

    Donna smiles back at Jinx for a moment before turning back to the captain and shaking her head slightly. "I think she brought me," Donna replies.

Jinx has posed:
The white glow in Jinx's eyes fades away as they finally come clear out in to Themyscira. The strange language and clothing and weapons and familiarity with Donna make it very clear to her very quickly that they must be in that fabled land. Of course, the way forests connect mystically like that is not something that Jinx has ever been privy to before.

So she is about to open her mouth and say 'How the fuck...' when suddenly Donna makes a very clever play on words. Her mouth shuts closed. Instead, she just smiles. This is the most mysterious she's ever looked in her life and she's eating it up.

To be concluded...

[ Crystals - Of Monsters and Men - https://youtu.be/_-PgPZ3F9P4 ]