Timelines

A Teen Titans Fan Fiction by Jake McDonald

Opening Notes: This is a follow up to Re-Educating Miss Roth. While its not a sequel, it will fill in a few holes in the plot, and advance the story a little more. The TRUE sequel will be coming afterwards, but for now, while I work on everything else I'm working on, this will have to sate your lust for more REMR. So here it is. Read, review.

Standard disclaimers apply. I don't own Teen Titans.

The Past – Part One: Jinx

Jinx grunted and heaved with all her might as she planted her feet firmly. Her fourteen year old frame strained against the weight of her hulking opponent as he was lifted from his feet, flipped over her shoulder, and slammed into the non-matted floor of the sparring ring. The large young man groaned, and Jinx stepped back with a grin, brushing some sweat from her brow and running a hand through her pixie short blonde hair.

"Gotcha, Mammoth." She clicked her tongue and pointed at him.

"You're a real bitch, you know that?" he blinked up at her through pain-blurred eyes.

"Yeah? Well you're a big dumb fucking loser, so naa!" She stuck out her tongue and skipped away, over to an older woman with gray hair pulled up into a sever bun. She bowed respectfully, the top of her gi falling open a little to reveal developing cleavage. The old woman sniffed in an irritated manner, then motioned for Jinx to straighten.

"You've done very well in the past three weeks, Jinx. Your request for personal time is granted. Do what you have to do, but be back to the HIVE in two days. No more, no less."

"Yes, Headmistress. I'll come back on schedule."

"Good. Remember, you've graduated now, so you're fully qualified to take on any mission you deem worthy of your time. Just remember that I have work for you when you return."

Jinx stood up straighter with a sparkle in her eyes, "Really? You have a mission for us?"

"Yes, you silly girl. Now go." The Headmistress swatted her across the side of the head in a manner that was anything but loving and paternal, and Jinx scampered off to her room to change.

Leaning over her vanity, Jinx finished applying the last bit of makeup to her pale face. Sitting back, she inspected the natural colored lip-gloss and black eyeliner and eye shadow. Nodding, she turned to the only other person in the room, "What do you think?"

"Not bad. You should really dye your hair though." The speaker was a teenage girl dressed in a leather halter top and tight leather pants. She too was pale, but her fire engine red hair burst around her ears in a punk rock kind of style.

"Yeah? What color?" Jinx turned back to her vanity and pulled a contact case towards her self. Carefully, she started to put in her blue tinted contacts.

"I dunno…" the girl grinned, "Maybe… pink?"
"Gag." Jinx rolled her now blue eyes, "I hate pink, Shimmer."

"Oh come on… you can call me Selinda in here, Jenny."

"We shouldn't get used to it though." Jinx blinked at her and smiled, "I kicked your brother's ass today."

"I heard." Shimmer grinned, "His ego is bruised."

"Let it be. He'll get over it."

"Yeah. Hey, you look cute!"

Jinx stood up and spun about in place. She was wearing light colored blue jeans, and a black t-shirt. Her boots were black as well, and she had a denim jacket tossed over the back of her chair.

"Think I can pass as a civilian?"

"Definitely. Why are you going out anyway?" Shimmer stood up as Jinx pulled on her jacket, "You have some hot boy you're meeting?"

"Nope." Jinx smiled in a grim way, "I'm going home to see my mom."

Jinx stepped silently up to a room in the restricted area of the HIVE HQ and pulled a security pass out of her pocket. Gizmo had made it for her a while ago, but she'd only now found a use for it. Swiping it through the card reader next to the door, she paused and waited while the lock disengaged. The door hissed open and the lights came on inside.

Stepping into the room, Jinx grinned. This was the armory, and it was full of all kinds of weapons and armors that could make her into one of the meanest bitches on the West Coast in a matter of minutes. It was tempting to grab a few laser cannons and just go to town on LA or something, but she was here for a particular reason.

Walking over to the standard firearms, Jinx opened a box and pulled out a snub nosed .38, and four sets of speed loaders to go with it. Checking the chamber, she found it to be loaded and ready to go. She made sure the safety was on before she tucked it into a holster that she then clipped to the back of her belt underneath her jacket.

After closing the case she'd gotten the gun from, Jinx made sure everything was in order, then silently slipped back out of the room and out of the restricted area.

The blonde haired girl squinted into the sunlight as she stepped out the front doors of the massive office building that served as the front for HIVE HQ. Most of the training facilities she had been living in for the past eight years were sublevels, and even though she'd been outside the building regularly for training and exercise, this would be the first time she'd spent more than twelve hours at a time topside since she'd started.

Her first stop would be the train station, where she would grab a ride to San Francisco. She'd managed to track down an address for her mother, and the two of them were going to have a little chat when she got there.

Patting her gun, Jinx smiled grimly.

An hour later, Jinx was staring out the window of an Amtrak train as it was leaving the outskirts of L.A. and moving into the Californian countryside. She blinked at the reflection of her blue eyes and blonde hair, wondering if her mother would even recognize her. The last time she'd seen her mother, the woman had tried to stab her to death with a double-edged switchblade. If her powers hadn't flared out of control and blasted them away from each other, Jinx was sure she'd have died that night.

Now, with eight years of HIVE training and a better grip on her powers, Jinx was ready to confront her once again. She wasn't sure if the reunion would be bittersweet or violent, but she did know one thing; it would be the last time she ever saw her mother.

As she pondered the impending meeting, the man sitting in the seat across from her cleared his throat. She glanced over at him and he smiled at her.

He was an older gentleman, wearing a gray tweed suit and a red tie, with polished black shoes. He held a small suitcase in his lap, and his expression was kind and grandfatherly. When he spoke it was with a kind tone, rich and deep, "You look like you're lost somewhere there dear."

"Just thinking about my trip." She replied in a clipped tone.

"I see." He nodded, never loosing his smile, "Forgive me for interrupting. I've never been able to let a young person look so sad and serious without trying to cheer them up."

Jinx arched an eyebrow, "That so?"

"It is." He nodded and turned his blue-eyed gaze out the window, still smiling, "You're far too young and full of life to look so worried. I don't know what's bothering you, but it can't be so bad as all that. You have a full life ahead of you, and it will be full of more joy and laughter than you can think of now… the bad times never last, dear."

Jinx frowned at him. She shook her head and looked back out the window as well, "If you knew the things I know… the things I've chosen to do with my life… you'd realize that I don't have the luxury of acting like a kid… I'm all grown up now, Pops." She closed her eyes and sat back, a sad look coming over her face, "All grown up and ready to face my demons."

The old man closed his eyes as well and settled back without another word.

Jinx noticed that he didn't smile again the whole trip.

The address for her mother was a house in a suburban neighborhood two miles outside of downtown proper. The houses seemed older, and slightly run down, but at least they sat far enough apart that the residents couldn't look in each other's windows. Jinx thought the whole thing looked like a boring and insipid existence.

Then again, she was a super-villain, so not many things compared to the excitement of her life.

Walking down the cracked and weed-ridden path that lead to the door, Jinx inspected the printout in her hand. On it, her mother's name was listed as the primary mortgage holder, but another name was listed as well.

"Rebecca Wrangler and Thomas Creed." She muttered, "Looks like Mom found herself a man…" stopping at the door and tucking the printout away, she rang the bell.

After waiting for several minutes, she looked around, then rang the bell again. Leaning back, she looked and saw that there were two cars parked in the open garage. She only waited another thirty seconds before she started punching the bell repeatedly.

A shout from inside yelled at her to cut it out, so she did as the door was flung open. Standing there was a man she could only assume was Thomas Creed.

He was tall, a little over six foot, and had stringy brown hair. It was greasy, and hung limply over his eyes. Stubble covered his face, and his beady dark green eyes stared at her in an angry manner.

The man was wearing stained blue jeans, and ragged looking white socks, as well as a white shirt that looked more yellow than it really should have. His whole posture and attitude seemed furious.

"Who the fuck are you?" he demanded.

Jinx blinked up at him, then smiled in a cute manner, "No one special. Is Rebecca home?"

"No." he went to slam the door in her face, but Jinx reached out and stopped it with one hand. He blinked down at the display of strength from such a young girl, and arched an eyebrow at her.

"Look." Jinx took a step forward, into the doorway. Thomas took a step back and crossed his arms over his chest, glaring at her. Jinx plunged on with a deep breath, "Rebecca and I… we go way back. I know she'll be happy to see me… do you know when she'll be back? I'll wait for her."

Tom growled out, "How the hell should I know when she'll be back? Fuckin' bitch comes and goes as she pleases."

"Uh… are you her husband or-"

"Boyfriend."

"You don't sound like a boyfriend."

"If my girl was faithful at all, I wouldn't be so mad at her."

"You been drinking?" Jinx sniffed at him, and sure enough, he smelled like liquor.

"Yeah, so? I'm an adult, kid. Now how do you know Rebecca?"

Jinx glared at him, then stepped up and shoved him back into the house, "I'm her daughter."

Tom blinked down at her for a minute, then breathed out, "So… that sob story she had about a kid that tried to kill her was true?"

"Well, it was kind of the other way around, but yeah." Jinx scowled at him, "Now tell me where my mother is you lying sack of shit, or I'm going to get angry."

"She said you have powers."

"She wasn't lying." Jinx growled, and a crack formed along the wall behind her.

Tom paused for a moment, then turned and walked back towards the living room, where Jinx could hear the TV blaring, "She's around here somewhere. Look for her yourself."

Jinx was immediately suspicious, but decided that if he was leaving her alone to do whatever she wanted he had to be telling the truth about her mother. She'd just have to start looking, room by room.

So she started searching. The master bedroom was dark, with pulled shades and forest green painted walls. The bed was a mess of crumpled sheets, and used condoms littered the floor, along with a small mirror on one of the bedside tables covered with a white powder. Moving on to the bathroom, Jinx covered her nose and stepped back out, not wanting to go anywhere near something that smelled so bad.

Wandering around the rest of the house turned up nothing. The kitchen was full of dirty dishes and flies buzzing around a half eaten pot of something on the stove, and the dining room held nothing except a table full of unpaid bills and porn mags.

Jinx was about to head to the living room and attempt to get more info out of Tom when she noticed a door in the family room. Walking to it, she pushed it open and found a staircase leading down.

Carefully, Jinx walked down the steps. She was acutely aware of each creek and groan the wooden planks made, but was sure she was going slow enough for anyone down there to not notice it too much. As she moved, she pulled her gun from its holster behind back.

As soon as she made it to the cement floor of the basement, Jinx had to cover her mouth. There was a smell that seemed to linger there, and it was sickening. A washer and dryer sat off to one side, and heaps of dirty laundry were piled about.

"Dirty laundry doesn't smell like this…" Jinx muttered, and yanked a handkerchief from her pocket. She quickly folded it and pressed it to her mouth and nose, blocking out the smell.

Putting her gun away, Jinx moved forward and started to move the moldy clothes aside. After several seconds of digging, she uncovered a hand.

Her heart stopped.

Things seemed to move in slow motion as Jinx ripped through the clothes, tossing them all aside until she uncovered the still form of her mother. Rebecca Wrangler was lying in a dried puddle of her own blood that had seeped from a large cut on her head.

Jinx fell to her knees next to her mother and reached out to her, dropping her nose guard. "No… Mom… you're not… you can't be…" checking for a pulse, then for breath, Jinx sat back and looked up at the ceiling, tears forming in her eyes, "You're dead, Mom." She said.

A skittering caught her attention and Jinx looked back down to see a rat gnawing on her mothers arm. Rage filled her eyes and Jinx lashed out and grabbed the vermin up. She hurled it into a wall, where it's tiny neck broke, and it fell lifeless to the ground.

Moving around to one side, Jinx pulled her mother's head up into her lap and brushed the blood matted blonde hair from her face. As her tears fell and mingled with that blood, she noticed a box clutched in the dead woman's hands. Reaching out, she pulled it out of the cold grasp it was in and opened it. Inside were several photographs and letters. Pulling them out, Jinx started to sift through them, even the tears slid down her face.

The first letter was written to her mother from her grandmother. It proclaimed support and offered monetary aid for the unexpected pregnancy that had resulted in Jinx herself. No name was mentioned for her grandmother, so Jinx set the letter aside. If she ever wanted to track the woman down, she was more than capable. Next was a family picture of what Jinx assumed was her mother as a child, her grandparents, and a boy who could only be her mother's brother.

"An uncle…" Jinx muttered through her tears and sniffed. She flipped through a few more pictures of the two children at play, and then came to her own birth certificate and a picture of herself as an infant. She pocketed those, then looked at the next picture. It was of herself as a young girl, smiling up at the camera with blonde hair done up in pigtails and pink eyes sparkling.

Flipping the picture over, Jinx read the handwritten note on the back.

Jenny, age 4. Pretty pink eyes!

A tear splattered down on the picture, and Jinx rubbed at her eyes. With a cry of anguish, she quickly lifted her free hand and pulled the contacts from her eyes. Blinking naked pink eyes down at her dead mother, Jinx put everything back in the box, and set it aside. Her training was kicking in now, and she was pushing everything down. Tears were for the weak… even though she knew she'd cry again later.

A quick inspection of her body confirmed what Jinx had suspected from the beginning. Bruises and swelling in the shape of a hand here, a fist imprint there. Tom had beaten her so badly she'd come down here, probably passed out and slammed her head into the ground, then bled to death.

Standing and taking the box of mementos with her, Jinx walked to the stairs. Once there, she paused and looked back, "Sorry I didn't get here sooner, mom… I'll set things right for you." She turned back to the stairs, "Bye… Mom."

Tom looked up as Jinx stepped into the living room. He smiled at her in a grim manner, "You find her?"

"Yeah. You did a lousy job hiding the body."

"Fuck it." Tom laughed, "I'm getting out of this town soon anyway."

"Right…" Jinx put the box down on the ground carefully, "What the fuck is wrong with you, Thomas?"

"Call me Tom. And hey… you never even liked your mom anyway, did you? I mean, she tried to kill you, didn't she?"

"Yes… but she was still my mother, asshole." Jinx glared at him, and he saw for the first time she had slightly glowing pink eyes.

"Shit…" he grinned, "You really do have powers. With you and me together kid… we could tear shit up and make a ton of cash!"

Jinx's eyes pulsed with pink light for a moment, "Tom… I've been training with a criminal organization for the past eight years that specializes in mercenary work and large-scale robberies. One of my final exams this year was to steal something worth at least a million dollars."

"Shit, girl! You can make that kind of cash?"

"Tom, I'm not going to work with you."

"Oh yeah? You not good enough for me? Just like your mom wasn't good enough for me?" he stood up and took a threatening step forward.

Jinx grinned and strode up to him. She leaned up into his face and whispered in a husky voice, "You want me to replace her, Tom? You want to have me make money for you? You want to fuck me like you fucked her?"

Tom grinned down at her and opened his mouth to respond, but all that came out was a choked wail. Jinx had reached out and grabbed his balls, squeezing them as hard as she could. Tom slapped at her hands and she let go of him as she stepped back, her eyes blazing with pink light. Tom gasped and threw a punch at her head, which Jinx caught easily.

"Are we moving on to that stage in our relationship already, Tom? You gonna hit me like you hit her too?" Jinx hauled back and slammed her fist into his nose, blasting him off his feet and to his back. As he shook his head and tried to regain his bearings, he became aware of Jinx walking across the room to the fireplace, then back to him.

"You little bitch… I'm gonna-"

Jinx stomped a foot into his mouth, then stabbed down at him with the fireplace poker, pinning his hand to the floor. Tom screamed and jerked about, but Jinx held him fast, grinning as his blood seeped around her boot.

"Why'd you do it, Tom?" Jinx let go of the poker, satisfied that it would hold him down, "Why'd you have to hit her like that?" She reached down and rammed her hands under his ribs, pulling up. He continued to scream as there was a loud crack and his bottom two ribs broke on either side.

"You're going to die, Thomas." Jinx glared down at him with the pink light fading from her eyes, "But I want you to suffer first. I want you to know how she felt."

With that, she proceeded to work him over with all the knowledge of anatomy she had in her head. When she was finished, all he could do was moan and twitch. He looked up at her through the blood splattered around him, and muttered out through the gore, "Who… the fuck… are you?"

"My name," she replied as she stood up and pulled the .38 from behind herself, "is Jinx."

She fired all six rounds directly into his face.

Jinx stepped out the front door of the house and looked back in. From her vantage she could see the blood splattered all over the living room, as well as the gas can she'd found in the garage. Most of the entry way was covered in gas, and she sighed as she pulled out a book of matches she'd found in the kitchen.

"I know this is your house, Mom," she said, "but I don't think I can leave it… it's time I buried my past."

It only took her a moment to light the match and drop it in the gas. As the entry way lit up, she sniffed, making sure the burners from the gas stove in the kitchen, and the gas fireplace were still pumping out.

As Jinx stepped down the street, the keepsake box under her arm, her mother's house exploded. The fireball erupted into the sky behind her, and framed her figure as she marched straight ahead.

Never looking back.

Two days later, Gizmo and Mammoth stood in the hall outside Jinx's room at HIVE headquarters with frowns on their faces. Gizmo fumed.

"What the heck is taking that snot burglar so long?" he demanded.

"I dunno." Mammoth shrugged.

Behind them, Shimmer walked down the hall, "Hey guys." She had a bag slung over her shoulder, "I'm off to Rome on a mission. You seen Jinx?"

"She's in her freakin' room." Gizmo waved at the door, "We've been knocking, but she wont come out. We've got a meeting with the Headmistress in like, fifteen minutes!"

Shimmer frowned, "Baran, move." She shoved her brother aside and knocked on the door, "Jinx? Baby, its Selinda. Open up."

"Yeah!" Gizmo shouted, "Come out ya blonde haired scrum buffer!"

The door opened suddenly and Jinx stepped out, wearing a black blouse and skirt. Her stockings were stripped pink and black, and her clunky black boots clumped as she walked. Most shocking of all was her hair, which she'd styled up into two small points that looked like devil horns, no more than an inch long with her hair so short.

And it was pink. Bright, bubble gum, pink.

"Uh…" Shimmer grinned, "You took my advice!"

"But…" Gizmo pointed, "You hate pink!"

"Yeah!" Mammoth put in stupidly.

"What are you guys talking about?" Jinx grinned at them, blinking smiling pink eyes, "Pink is my favorite color!"

As she skipped off down the hall, the two boys stared after her in shock. Shimmer just smiled and turned away, walking the opposit direction so she could be off to Rome.

Next: The Present – Part One: Hanna