Jinx wasn’t alone…

It took almost two hours for anyone to show up, but when they did, they burst from the ground like Mole Man from the cartoons I watched as I kid. There were two of them, which was my first indication something was wrong. A blast of freezing energy emerging from the gun wielded by the giant armored form of Mr. Freeze was my second indication.

I managed to dodge the first one, but only because I was on high alert and they were still orienting themselves after bursting from the ground. As I rolled away, he was already drawing another bead on me. If I’d had my goddamn gun, I might at least have been able to throw off his aim, even if his bodysuit was bulletproof. Instead, I just kept rolling and tried to yell out the word “Parley,” but all I managed was a grunt as I rolled right into a suddenly appearing hole in the ground. Above my head batarangs, blasts of freezing energy and various streams of magical power flared back and forth.

I was feeling pretty good about being in a fucking pit, even if it was disturbingly grave-like. I had Drop Dead opened up, but wasn’t using it yet. Which was probably why, along with the noise and my attention being firmly fixed on the battle overhead, I didn’t notice that I was sinking into the ground. And not in a ‘disturbed earth under my feet way’ more in a ‘movie quicksand’ way. I did notice, eventually, of course, about the time it got to my knees.

I scrabbled at the dirt beside me, trying to find something to grab, or hold myself up only to feel the dirt sucking my arm in too. I screamed for help, for negotiations, for anything, then I just screamed as I slid into the dirt. I couldn’t see anything, could only feel dirt pressing in all around me. I held my breath desperately, and wished I had not screamed quite so much. My attempts to hold my breath failed and I tried to breathe dirt. And could. That was…disturbing. Then I stopped moving, which was…even worse than being pulled along as a passenger through the dirt, as I suddenly also stopped being able to breathe dirt.

I screamed silently, drowning in dirt, panicking and tried to use Drop Dead on someone, anyone, to get myself out of it, but there was no one in range. Suddenly I lurched backwards, then forward again, able to breath, then backwards and unable to breathe. In retrospect, it was obvious that Jinx and Zatanna were fighting over me (and not in a fun way) with Zatanna unable to make me breathe underground. At the time however, it was merely a horrible nightmare which seemed to go on endlessly, in darkness until I suddenly popped out into a sewer. I couldn’t see a damn thing, but the smell made it obvious where I was. At first only my head, slid through the concrete channel, then the rest of me.

At that point, I decided that I had had quite enough of all of this, picked myself up, looked around, realized that a sewer without any open sewer grates is so dark that I might as well still be buried alive, felt around for a wall and followed it in a totally random direction, as I was entirely turned around. I got a good five steps before I saw lights behind me. I tried to speed up, but there was light in front of me as Zatanna stepped out of the open air. I was moving fast enough that there was no slowing down, I crashed into her, carrying her to the ground and landing on top of her, which in other circumstances would have been extremely pleasant, but at the moment was just infuriating. I scrambled over her to clear the line of fire and hopefully get away, but a burst of light from behind me sealed off the tunnel in ice.

I turned back, hoping Zatanna would get up and save me, but apparently I’d either knocked the wind out of her, or knocked her out, I couldn’t exactly tell. That only left me one path forward. I smiled, spread my hands and stepped forward again. “Hello folks, shall we negotiate?” After all, Parley said that I would be able to get to ‘no **** or ****’ so surely I could…

Helpful Hint: If murdering you is the actual prime goal they have, you will not inherently be immune to such and will still need to come up with an alternative.

Fuck. Off. Fucking app. There were two of them, and I only had one charge for Drop Dead. Maybe if I killed Jinx, Freeze would back off?

Jinx’s accent was almost as thick as Freeze’s, if Indian, rather than German. “Come along quietly and there’s no need for you to suffer unnecessarily, or for anyone else to be hurt.”

My eyes flicked back and forth. “Mr. Freeze, whatever she’s paying you, I’m sure I can beat--”

“She will use her magic to cure my wife, there is nothing you can offer to match that. Comply,” he ordered, stepping forward and reaching out a massive hand towards me.

Triple fuck.

“Well…you’ll get paid before I get sacrificed, right? Afterwards she’ll be more powerful and have no need to pay you anything,” I pointed out. Maybe this was still salvageable. After Jinx cured his wife, surely he’d leave and then I could have Jinx Drop Dead and escape. I retreated as I spoke to him

“Shut up, sacrifice!” Jinx snapped, hand rising as Mr. Freeze considered. I heard blurred words from behind me and tried to dodge out of the way, but couldn’t move fast enough and as a dark figure dropped behind Jinx, energy slammed into us from both sides and the world went dark. Well, actually, it went white. But the effect was the same.

AN: Sorry folks, we're going to once a week for the foreseeable future as work has gone crazy on me.