Vanishing Act
Who: Jinx, Malchior
Where: His apartment
When: Late in the evening
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Jinx's face reflected the blue light of the television as she idly flipped through the channels, passing re-run after re-run and one obnoxious commercial after another. It was like any other night when she managed to shut everyone out, locked herself in her room, and just take time for herself.
Only, it wasn't her television.
It wasn't her room.
And it wasn't her tower.
The sorceress could not help but revel mildly in the fact that she had managed to pull it off. The plan had been in her mind for weeks, maybe even longer, but now that she was actually here it almost didn't seem real. So many years of feeling stagnant, held in one place, never permitted to move forward and upward.. were a past chapter now. She was free.
How had she done it?
The most crucial part had also been the most difficult: tampering with the security footage so that Jinx's trips to and from the various seldom-visited places in the tower would not be shown on the recordings. Instead, all anyone would see would be her occasional trip to the main room, kitchen, and training rooms. Or, even simpler: images of an empty hallway.
Although she had expected it to also be a challenge, her things had been perhaps the easiest to move. Taped in cardboard boxes with false labels written in Sharpie, they had been disguised as things going into storage in the tower's garage. Since he was always the one asked to move the heavier things, as well as not one of the sharper crayons in the box, Mammoth sensed nothing out of the ordinary when Jinx asked him to transport the selected boxes. All she had to do was load them into one of the team's cars. Although, to cover her tracks, she had to leave her beloved Viper behind.
It was a sacrifice worth making.
She had left without anyone knowing, with hardly a sound and just shy of the twilight hour of morning. Once she had made up her mind, Jinx was very hard to convince otherwise, and she was sure of what she had chosen to do. Things had fallen into place: there was a capable leader for the Swarm, now stronger with the addition of new members. And who better to lead than her own double? And if he was going to be dragged down by it like she was, well, it was no skin off her nose. Hex would have to deal with that possibility himself.
Jinx had simply grown too tired of being the driving force behind her team. She wanted a change of pace, something new and exciting without the responsibility of other peoples' lives and success pressing down on her shoulders. It was time to live for herself, for the first time since she could remember.
Even so, it was not easy to say goodbye to her team and her surrogate brothers she had grown with since their childhood at the HIVE Academy. Gizmo in particular, despite his obnoxious nature, was one she was not eager to leave. She had tried to find some way to explain to them, to tell them why she was basically abandoning them after so many years. But she couldn't.
So she left, without saying goodbye.
It would be easier on everyone that way. With Jinx appearing to vanish off the face of the earth, there would be no hurt feelings, no sense of abandonment, and better still, no idea of where she was going or why. They would all just move on as they saw fit, and not be left to wonder why she had chosen a life for herself instead of a life with them.
Jinx dipped her spoon back into the carton of ice cream sitting on her crossed legs. After the anticipatory stress, it was a much-needed comfort now that she was safely away from everything. Jinx would never admit that she was insecure or anxious, but all the same she found herself with a pint of frozen goodness and the company of a small, overly-fluffy kitten in the small living room of the place that, for now, she would call home.
Where: His apartment
When: Late in the evening
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Jinx's face reflected the blue light of the television as she idly flipped through the channels, passing re-run after re-run and one obnoxious commercial after another. It was like any other night when she managed to shut everyone out, locked herself in her room, and just take time for herself.
Only, it wasn't her television.
It wasn't her room.
And it wasn't her tower.
The sorceress could not help but revel mildly in the fact that she had managed to pull it off. The plan had been in her mind for weeks, maybe even longer, but now that she was actually here it almost didn't seem real. So many years of feeling stagnant, held in one place, never permitted to move forward and upward.. were a past chapter now. She was free.
How had she done it?
The most crucial part had also been the most difficult: tampering with the security footage so that Jinx's trips to and from the various seldom-visited places in the tower would not be shown on the recordings. Instead, all anyone would see would be her occasional trip to the main room, kitchen, and training rooms. Or, even simpler: images of an empty hallway.
Although she had expected it to also be a challenge, her things had been perhaps the easiest to move. Taped in cardboard boxes with false labels written in Sharpie, they had been disguised as things going into storage in the tower's garage. Since he was always the one asked to move the heavier things, as well as not one of the sharper crayons in the box, Mammoth sensed nothing out of the ordinary when Jinx asked him to transport the selected boxes. All she had to do was load them into one of the team's cars. Although, to cover her tracks, she had to leave her beloved Viper behind.
It was a sacrifice worth making.
She had left without anyone knowing, with hardly a sound and just shy of the twilight hour of morning. Once she had made up her mind, Jinx was very hard to convince otherwise, and she was sure of what she had chosen to do. Things had fallen into place: there was a capable leader for the Swarm, now stronger with the addition of new members. And who better to lead than her own double? And if he was going to be dragged down by it like she was, well, it was no skin off her nose. Hex would have to deal with that possibility himself.
Jinx had simply grown too tired of being the driving force behind her team. She wanted a change of pace, something new and exciting without the responsibility of other peoples' lives and success pressing down on her shoulders. It was time to live for herself, for the first time since she could remember.
Even so, it was not easy to say goodbye to her team and her surrogate brothers she had grown with since their childhood at the HIVE Academy. Gizmo in particular, despite his obnoxious nature, was one she was not eager to leave. She had tried to find some way to explain to them, to tell them why she was basically abandoning them after so many years. But she couldn't.
So she left, without saying goodbye.
It would be easier on everyone that way. With Jinx appearing to vanish off the face of the earth, there would be no hurt feelings, no sense of abandonment, and better still, no idea of where she was going or why. They would all just move on as they saw fit, and not be left to wonder why she had chosen a life for herself instead of a life with them.
Jinx dipped her spoon back into the carton of ice cream sitting on her crossed legs. After the anticipatory stress, it was a much-needed comfort now that she was safely away from everything. Jinx would never admit that she was insecure or anxious, but all the same she found herself with a pint of frozen goodness and the company of a small, overly-fluffy kitten in the small living room of the place that, for now, she would call home.