One Does Not Simply Metalbend Into a Bank (Open)

Mae walked onto the sidewalk and stared into the street, a backpack over her shoulder, completely empty. Waving a hand she caught sight of a cab driver and climbed inside, directing him to drive her to Jump City's bank.

After a 10 minute drive she got out, ignoring his yelling and flipping him the bird before walking toward the back, letting him drive off in rage. Now in an alleyway, Mae kicked her shoes off and stomped on the ground, analyzing the bank itself. "So this is all you got for me?" She laughed, raising her hands to the wall.

The cameras inside began to shake, shuddering under the influence of metalbending before exploding into different parts and bolts silently. She then turned her attention to the vault. She couldn't deactivate the alarm, or the door opening mechanism. However, she did have one thing she could do. Forming a fist with her hand, a lone gear in the system crumbled and turned into little more than a ball of metal. The door could no longer open. It was go time.

With another stomp, she moved her arms apart to move the stone and brick of the wall before thrusting two fingers of each hand through the metal vault, and ripping a hole in it, walking through and piling money into the bag.

It took the guards a few moments to realize what was going on, and another to realize the vault door was destroyed, and they hit the alarm. Mae left the way she came at the sound of the alarm, earthbending a staircase to the roof of the building next to it and sprinting across it, Earthbending new platforms between them as she went.

"Stop in the name of the law!" Shivering Jemmy teleported in front of Mae. The little girl appeared to be only 10 years old. Her yellow hair was, for once, neatly brushed and out of her face. Her eyes were a bright orange. Despite her best efforts, Jemmy couldn't change the color back to blue. It frustrated her at first, but she wasn't one to stay angry for long. She wore simple blue dress and held a red balloon by the string.

Jemmy's face was serious for a moment, but then she started to giggle. "I've always wanted to say that. But seriously, what are you doing? You can't actually steal all the money in the bank. If you do that, then what will all the other villains do?" Jemmy shook her head and started to pace. "It's not about the money. It's about having fun. And if you just get away with it, then what's the fun in that?"

Jemmy looked Mae up and down, trying to figure out how tough the girl was. "So, you have two choices. You can stick around and cause some destruction until a hero shows up, or..." Jemmy narrowed her eyes. "I can pretend to be a hero and fight you. That would be fun, right?"

Mae jumped at the voice and skidded to a halt, looking around and preparing for combat. Had to be some goody goody hero who paid no attention to what people had to go through. Someone who didn't rightly care who they threw in prison, and that worked go her advantage, even if she was caught it didn't mean anything.

Mae turned and instead found a little girl. And she was shivering. Cuz that isn't just a little bit absolutely creepy. Mae stared at her silently for a moment and listened to get proposal. The other villains? So she obviously wasn't a hero, and Mae didn't have time to fight really anyone. She just wanted cash. She didn't want to hurt anyone she didn't need to.

Staring down at the little girl, she finally opened her mouth to speak in her tomboyish voice. "Ummm...I'm good. I don't need to hurt little kids." Looking her over, Mae finally started to question how the girl had teleported like that. "Speaking of little kids...who exactly are you?"

Mae said that she didn't feel a need to hurt little kids. Jemmy nodded her head. She didn't like hurting little kids, either. Adults were much more fun to torment. It took Jemmy a moment to realize that Mae had actually been referring to hurting her. She laughed, a bit embarrassed. Mae asked who she was.

Jemmy didn't have a reason to tell Mae everything about who she was. It was fun sometimes to pretend to be a human. "I'm Shivering Jemmy. I have some magic powers, and a balloon. Normally, I wouldn't be bothering you, but I promised someone that I'd try to be nicer to people. That's hard, so I'm being nice to the city to practice. I'm sure the bank doesn't want you taking their money." Jemmy tilted her head, looking curiously at Mae. Humans were hard to understand sometimes. "Why are you stealing that money, anyways?"

Jemmy still felt like fighting. She was still angry at Rhett and his mean friends. Jemmy had gotten so angry at them that her eyes had become permanently orange in anger. Maybe fighting this thief would help deal with some of that built up rage. But, as long as Mae returned the money, or waited for a real hero, Jemmy didn't have an excuse to start a fight.

Mae looked at the supposedly magic little girl. "Nicer, huh?" Mae looked over the edge of the building and saw that the police were all still rushing toward the bank. They were completely oblivious to where she was. Excellent, that meant she had plenty of time.

Mae turned her attention back to the little girl. "Easy question. I need food, no one will hire me because I'm a metahuman, and I'm too young to get unemployment checks." Looking off into the distance, she saw a familiar sign in the distance. "I have an idea kiddo." She said, pointing at it. "We'll get out of here and you don't tell anyone about this and I'll buy you a happy meal and some an ice cream cone, K kiddo?"

"You need the money to survive?" Jemmy sometimes forgot that humans needed to eat in order to keep on living. It seemed a bit unfair to them, since they already had such short lives. Stealing money in order to eat didn't sound like much fun. Jemmy decided that she was going to get her amusement by fighting Mae.

But then Mae offered to buy her ice cream, along with a happy meal. Jemmy had actually never had a happy meal before. She wondered if it lived up to its name. If it did, then this would be a great opportunity. Everyone wanted to be happy, and Jemmy loved ice cream. She would kill for it.

"That sounds like a good plan. Okay, you can live. Let's go get some yummy food!" Jemmy smiled and started chanting 'ice cream,' excited for the sweet treat to come. She would follow Mae as they made their sneaky escape. "You should get some food, too. It's always better to eat with a friend." Jemmy remembered eating some candy with a friend once, long in the past. When all the candy was gone, she had eaten the friend. She decided not to tell Mae that story. It might make the human uncomfortable.

Mae sighed in relief as she'd managed the situation quite well in hr opinion at least. Digging her bare feet into the rooftop, she thrust out her open palms to create a makeshift staircase out of the side of the building and walked down them. This wasn't her intended direction, but it would work for now.

Once they reached the building, Mae would open the door and lean against the railing of the line for the fast food restaurant. "Alright, tell the lady what you want." She told Jemmy, ordering 3 bacon burgers for herself. Truth was it had been almost a week since she'd eaten. She had to recharge.

Jemmy stood on her toes to get a look at the menu, pretending she knew how to read. Of course, she had known how to read in the past (and could learn again), but that would take effort. Besides, she already knew what she wanted.

"A happy meal, please. And some vanilla ice cream." The woman at the counter smiled, and a few short moments later their food was ready.

Jemmy was delighted that her happy meal had come with a toy. She played with it in one hand while holding her mini cheeseburger in the other. She let go of her balloon, which floated up to the ceiling and stayed above its owner.

"You were right," Jemmy said to Mae. "This meal is making me happy." She took a lick of her ice cream cone and smiled. She was certainly glad that she had met Mae. Maybe they could become friends, so that Mae would keep buying her food.

Orange eyes made one quite noticeable. It wasn't long before a passerby asked Jemmy a question. "Is it your birthday?"

Jemmy looked at the young man, confused. "No..."

The man smiled. "Then what's the balloon for?"

It was an inter-dimensional demonic familiar that anchored Jemmy to the mortal plane, but Jemmy couldn't just say that. She was trying to blend in, after all. Normally, lying came easily to her, but today her mind was coming up blank. "Um..." She gave Mae a panicked look, hoping for a helpful answer.

Sitting down with the little girl, Mae watched her play with her toy. She was certainly an interesting child. First she threatened to fight Mae and the second she heard anything about food she acted like a little girl. The mood swings were strange enough, but teleportation and floating? That confirmed she wasn't human. It was possible she was a metahuman, just like Mae.

By the end of these thoughts, Mae had already devoured 2 of her burgers, munching down on her third when a man came by and questioned Jemmy. Mae stopped eating to listen to the explanation as well. She was interested. Ever since shed met the little girl shed had no idea what exactly was going on with that balloon of hers.

When the girl seemed flustered, Mae turned her chair and stood up and glared at the man. "She likes balloons so I got her one." She growled, shoving him away. "Now quit crowding my little sister, it scares her." She said, sitting down as the man left, glaring over his shoulder at Mae and leaving the girls alone. "Can you tell me about the balloon though?" She asked gently.

Mae said that she had bought the balloon for Jemmy. She also claimed to be Jemmy's big sister. Jemmy grinned, mischievously. It was a clever deception.

After the man walked away, Mae asked Jemmy what the deal with the balloon was. Jemmy relaxed. She felt more comfortable telling Mae her secrets than some random man. After all, Mae had been kind enough to buy her this great food.

Jemmy leaned in close to Mae. "The balloon? It's alive." To all eyes, the balloon looked exactly like a normal red balloon. "It's my only friend. I love it. If I wanted, I could command it to eat everyone in this building...except for you, of course."

Maybe that was a bit too much information. Even with Mae, Jemmy still wanted to pretend to be human. "So, what are you going to do with all that money now? You can probably buy enough food to last the rest of your life." Jemmy's eyes glazed over and she stared up at her balloon. "Or would the food go bad first?" She looked back at Mae. "Then you'll need to steal more money later. Anyways, I'm interested in you. What do you want? What would make you happy?" Maybe if Jemmy tried whatever made Mae happy, it would make her happy, too.

Mae was slightly put off by what Jemmy said. So her balloon was alive? And apparently it was a predator? That was strange enough, but if the balloon was her only friend, it would make sense for her to think that. Humans are social creatures. With no one to interact with, humans tend to befriend inanimate object and truly believe it had emotions and intentions.

Mae was honestly starting to pity poor little Jemmy. She seemed so very alone. "Well...I guess it won't all go to food instantly, and I doubt I can just get a place of my own." She said, finishing her last burger. "I guess if anything, I'd want to find my mother." She said, feeling as if she may as well explain herself. "The authorities cracked down on meta humans where I come from. My mother and I have the same powers, so when I was 8 they came after us and my mother gave herself up to save me." She sighed, using her bending abilities to levitate a few very small stones in her pocket, turning them in a circle above her hand. "I have no clue if she's still alive or if she has her powers but...I want to know."

Jemmy chewed on the last bit of her mini burger as she listened to Mae. It sounded like a lot of people in this age didn't like meta humans. Jemmy thought it was strange, but she had seen it before. Then again, she had seen times where meta humans had been paraded around as gods, and that just made her jealous.

Mae wanted to find her mother. Love, at least how humans thought of love, was a foreign concept to Jemmy. She was a Shallow, and celebrated the wonderful fleeting emotions in the universe. To her, love had no purpose by itself. But Mae said that she wanted to know if her mother was still alive and had her powers. Perhaps in seeking that, Mae wanted a look at her own future, to see if she would lose her powers and die because of the authorities.

As far from the truth as it was, it made sense to Jemmy. She had the power to make Mae's hopes and dreams come true, but it would cost the metal bender a lot more than a lunch.

Jemmy looked at the small stones floating in a circle above Mae's hand. The little Lord of Chaos was easily entertained. "Why didn't they take you both?" She asked. "You said your mother gave herself up, but they were already after both of you. Why didn't they just take you, too? Were they stupid? And why would your mom give herself up, anyways? Didn't she want to survive like all...people do?"

Mae sighed, crushing the stones into sand with her abilities and moving the sand itself. It was a much different feeling than stone. It was insecure, loose and in a way wasn't very confident as an element. Similar to how Mae felt about just about everything now.

Who was the little girl in front of her? Where was her mother? Did the authorities really steal her bending abilities away? What was she going to do with the money in her lap now that she had it? It was all starting to give Mae a headache.

"Well they had both of us. My Mom could get away easily if she were alone but her daughter had to come first." She sighed, fiddling with the grains of sand she had created, causing it to float absently in the air. "So she broke me out and...that got enough attention that she couldn't fight them off anymore and...I just ran because I was scared..."

Jemmy took a lick of her ice cream. "Oh," she said casually. She kicked her toes and thought for a bit. "I can get your mom back." She licked her ice cream again.

The 'authorities' didn't mean much to Jemmy. She didn't know who the king of this 'America' country was, or even if they had a king. The last few hundred years had gone by so quickly that she didn't have time to pay attention. But some things never changed. Jemmy had eaten kings before, and she wasn't scared of any mortal. She imagined it would be a simple thing to teleport Mae's mom out of whatever prison she was in.

As long as the price was right.

"But I'm going to need something in return. I'm in need of some good entertainment, so..." What would be fun? For Mae to appreciate having her mother back, neither of them could be killed. "You'll have to be my toy. If you do what I tell you too forever, then I'll rescue your mom. It would be a magical contract. Of course, you would be able to leave this contract at any time, but your mom would instantly die."

Jemmy smiled, innocently. "But why would you do that? Just imagine all the fun we could have together. And you would have your mom back." Jemmy gave a Mae a coy look. "I could even give her back her powers if they've been taken away."

Mae thought long and hard about Jemmy's offer. She still wasn't entirely sure what this little girl truly was. All this talk of magic contracts though was...tempting to say the least. It was almost like this little girl was trying to play god...unless she truly was this confident in her abilities. Regardless, certain words stuck out to Mae. Entertainment was one of them. This wasn't some kind of game, especially not to her.

Another one that stuck out majorly was the word toy. Her mother had made it quite clear to Mae that the two of them would never belong to anyone. No one could control them, and she intended to keep that philosophy about her everyday life. And that meant there was no way she was going to be the plaything of some little demon girl.

Finally, Mae shook her head, giving Jemmy a lighthearted smile. "No, but thanks kid." She said standing up. She doubted Jemmy would be overjoyed about what she was saying, but she hoped she'd understand. "I'm not a fan of magic or contracts. Putting them both together is just a huge red flag to me and...this is something I have to do on my own, it's how my Mom would want me to do this." She then slung her backpack of unmarked bills onto her shoulder and started to walk away. "Just make sure to fill in your part of the deal for the Happy Meal, alright?"

She stopped for a second and looked over her shoulder, giving another small smile to the little girl. "Goodbye, Shivering Jemmy." She then made her way toward the exit.

((I'm not entirely sure how well Jemmy would take that, but Mae isn't one to be controlled. So if Jemmy would become THAT angry and attack her, you can. If not we'll end it here))