Once Rivals (Pika)

Location Unknown
The room is totally dark. A single beam of light shines down on a man in heavy black armor, leaning on a great sword. He is out of breath.

From the darkness, a deep voice beckons. "Blackguard, report."

"My Lord," the knight says. "I attacked Shivering Jemmy of the Shallow Brigade, as you commanded. The Realm of Chaos was destroyed in our battle, but in the end, I was unable to return with her. A meta-human in Jump City came to her aid, and together they bested me."

"Shivering Jemmy would be a valuable asset to our cause. We must have her join us. You have done your part, Blackguard, in destroying the Realm of Chaos. I shall send another to finish the job. Spook?" There came no answer, for Spook rarely spoke. "Go to Jump City, kill Shivering Jemmy. Doing this will erase her memory. When you have done that, bring her here, so that she may educate her."

Again, there came no answer. It would only be natural to wonder if Spook had heard the orders, if he was even in the room at all. The only answer came in the form of a door that opened for a second, but no more, as Spook departed for his mission.

Jump City
After seeing an animated film about talking birds and stuffing her face with popcorn, Jemmy was in a pretty good mood. She was also a little restless, and decided that she needed to burn off some energy. Coming out to the parking log of the Cineplex, Jemmy started running back and forth on the side of the road as fast as she could. It wasn't very fast, but it felt really good to get your body moving.

The little Lord of Chaos was wearing a pair of white running shoes (without socks), a short red skirt, and a blue tank-top. She had no balloon with her. The sweat was starting to build up on her forehead, but she kept running anyways.

Finally, with all of her energy spent, Jemmy fell backwards onto the grass and stretched out, breathing in the spring air.

Well, this had hoped to be an uneventful patrol, there was nothing bad going on, the crime rate wasn't particularly high at the moment, surely nothing of note would happen, right? Well apparently not, since while he was walking around the cinema area he saw a blast from the past, the last time they met was literally in the past, but it certainly wasn't a blast. If you didn't know better, you'd think she was just an adorable little girl, but the cuteness was just a visage, this was actually an evil little girl. Metamorphi squinted in suspicion, what could she possibly be doing here? He decided to take a closer look and walked over, remaining at enough of a distance to observe her, but far away enough that unless someone was actively looking for him, he wouldn't attract attention from anyone.

Jemmy sat up. She found it difficult to stay in the same place for too long, even if she was tired. Getting up, she decided her legs were still too shaky from running to carry her. She started to hover instead, sitting cross-legged on an imaginary chair three feet off the ground. Like this, she started wandering, with no particular destination in mind. In a city this large, there had to be something interesting happening. Nobody seemed to pay her much mind. They had all seen too much in the last few years to be shocked by a flying child. She hummed as she went along.

Behind her, unseen feet were depressing the grass, following the Lord of Chaos as she wandered. Such a strange event would escape anyone's notice, unless they were staring intently at Jemmy from a distance.

Jemmy suddenly straightened up, crying out in pain. Blood could be seen spraying out from her shoulder. The Lord of Chaos spun around, raising an arm in anger. Above her, a giant rock formed out of thin air, about half the size of a car. It hovered there, awaiting her command. To her surprise, she saw nobody immediately behind her.

This part of town wasn't too busy, but there were still plenty of people around. They shrank away as the flying girl conjured the massive stone. Time and experience had taught them to seek cover at the first sign of meta-human violence. A few people shouted warnings to those less aware. "Look out! Meta-Human going crazy! Run! She's trying to kill us! Is that Shivering Jemmy? She's a monster!"

Jemmy's enraged face started to soften. Her wound had healed itself, and she was no longer in pain. Besides, she hadn't wanted to frighten all these people. She wanted to show that she wasn't a monster, like they were saying, but she didn't know what to do. She felt like her body was just frozen with indecision and confusion.

Metamorphi started to slowly walk in pursuit as she started floating up and moving along, keeping his distance as he had been doing before. While he was doing so, he noticed something odd, the grass was being depressed behind her, but no one was there. At least, it appeared no one was there, Meta was just about to investigate further, but suddenly the depressurization seemed to deepen, as if pressure was being applied to the feet as if the person was crouching for an attack.

Then, a blood wound appeared on Jemmy's shoulder, Meta frowned and was about to move in, when the depression on the grass vanished, he had obviously moved onto concrete and couldn't be seen now. Jemmy whirled around, wielding a rock, but she couldn't detect the person who attacked him. Meta was concerned, but it didn't look like she was going to attack any innocent people, so he ignored her for now. Instead his eyes scanned around for signs of the invisible man.

Jemmy's giant boulder disappeared into thin air. She felt embarrassed. Had she imagined it? No, that pain had definitely been real. Besides, why would she imagine getting cut for no reason? Maybe it had been some sort of bug bite? No, that didn't make sense either.

All these people were looking at her, worried and afraid of what she was going to do next. She wanted to just teleport, to leave this place behind, but she couldn't think of a destination she wanted to go to. So she just flew away from this crowd. She wasn't in a terrible hurry, so someone would be able to follow her on foot if they really tried. She wanted to get away from the crowd as quick as possible, but didn't want to gather more attention by flying too fast.

Finding herself on a more deserted street, Jemmy sat down on the sidewalk, thinking about what had just happened.

She didn't have much time to think, however. Her throat was cut.

There was a quick, violent gusher of blood before her wound healed itself. Jemmy jumped to her feet. The situation was clear to her now. She hadn't seen anybody, but twice now she had been cut. The only explanation: there was some invisible person or thing trying to hurt her.

"Leave me alone!" Jemmy yelled. She looked around in vain, trying to catch a glimpse of her attacker. How were you supposed to fight someone like this? She could shoot lava at random in hopes of hitting the target, but that would cause a lot of damage to the city.

Jemmy conjured a heavy suit of medieval armor around herself. It was a temporary solution. Life wouldn't be much fun if she had to wear this armor all the time.

Jemmy got rid of the boulder she had summoned, it seemed that for some reason, she didn't want to hurt anyone. Quite a strange thing to see from someone who had been attacking a city filled with innocent people, Meta had done some research into what happened at the battle of Amberglass after what had happened with him. But either way, whether she had changed for the better in the past couple centuries didn't matter, what did matter was that Jemmy was flying away.

Luckily, she wasn't going very fast, so Meta could keep after her without breaking cover, unfortunately that meant the same for the assassin. He kept far away enough from her to still be able to see her but not be seen too easily. When Jemmy stopped in a more deserted street, Meta stopped pursuing her and instead his around a corner, peaking around the corner to keep an eye on her.

Just when he was wondering if the assassin was not going to strike again, if he had maybe given up, Jemmy's throat was cut. Blood sprayed everywhere but Meta knew better, Jemmy wasn't dead, not even slightly. Instead, Meta focused on trying to track down the assassin, trying to spot his footsteps or see if anything seemed disturbed like something was touching it. While he did this, he followed Jemmy's example and transformed into steel, making his own body an armor, even the organs and vulnerable spots that he was protecting with this form could withstand a bullet so he could be safe while he searched.

Jemmy's eyes scanned the area. As soon as her would-be assassin struck again, she would bury him in lava. As the seconds grew longer, however, it became clear that the invisible man was no idiot. He wouldn't attack Jemmy unless he knew it would hurt her. As long as Jemmy waited behind her heavy suit of armor, they were at a stand-still.

Maybe she should just teleport. Traveling by any other way would only invite the invisible man to follow her. On the other hand, as a Lord of Chaos, she wasn't one to retreat without a very good reason.

From his perspective peeking behind the building, Meta would see a heavy metal bar suddenly disappear from the sidewalk behind Jemmy. The invisible man was going to hit her from behind, in an attempt to knock her out.

Although it seemed that Meta didn't need his protection anyway, the assassin was not at all interested in Meta. That was, of course, assuming he wasn't too focused on Jemmy to even notice Meta. Meta kept his eyes out for any sign of the assassin, his eyes fell upon a metal bar that disappeared, that could only mean one thing, the assassin was going to knock her out with it.

Meta had to act, he turned to paper and waited a few Mississippi's before turned the corner and ran. If the invisible man wasn't focused on Jemmy, he might notice Meta coming and be able to avoid him, but if he was focused on Jemmy then he may not notice Meta rush in, turning to steel as he did so. If Meta collided with the invisible man, he'd try and pin him down and press his arm to the man's throat Who are you!?!

Jemmy saw someone run out from behind a corner, moving right towards her. She instinctively formed an orb of lava out of thin air, preparing to hurl it at whoever this speedster was. In a split second, she had assumed that her attacker must simply be super fast, not invisible. As it was, she had barely seen him before he was right next to her. She turned to defend herself.

Fortunately, she noticed in time that Meta seemed to have tackled some invisible person, and was now demanding to know who that person was. Oh, so the assailant was invisible, and this speedster was just some random do-good guy. She held the lava in midair for a second before dismissing it.

Spook had been quite taken by surprise. After getting clobbered by a fast moving man of steel, he was in no mood to talk. Then again, he wouldn't have wanted to talk anyway. Steel claws lashed out against Meta's face before the unseen man was fully subdued. Unable to move, Spook would continue to remain silent, waiting a chance to escape.

Jemmy spoke up. "Whoever he is, he isn't very nice. He hurt me, and I really want to hurt him back. What do you think I should do with him? I don't mean how should I torture him. I just mean, you know, should I put him in a cage? I could leave him in Antarctica." With the HIVE's enforcers running the town, any violent criminals were likely to be executed without trial. Even Jemmy had heard the rumors. Besides, she was a Lord of Chaos. She didn't have to follow anyone's rules.

Meta was on the mark, taking the guy down to the ground before he could take down Jemmy. Meta felt steel claws strike his face, but his own body itself was steel, so it was nothing more than an irritant. After all, it was impossible to cut steel with a steel blade, you'd have to be some kind of uber-badass to do that. Meta pinned the invisible man down despite the slight irritation.

Unless Spook was some kind of master escape artist, there was no way he was escaping, Meta was no amateur who just decided to be a hero just because he gained powers. Jemmy then spoke up, inquiring as to how they should deal with the assassin, Meta thought about it We can't leave him anywhere as barren as Antarctica, he could die if he's just left in the frozen tundra. You should leave him in a prison, but not a Jump city prison, a meta-human prison somewhere else, like Belle Reve.

He then swung at roughly where his head should be, based on the position of his neck, he struck with enough force to knock the assassin out, but he was holding back so that despite his steel form there would be no serious damage dealt. He was about to let her take him, before he quickly added But you need to take me too, I don't trust you, not after everything you've done he reached out with his free hand so she could take it and teleport them both, but Meta would not let go until they had deposited the criminal at the prison and jemmy teleported Meta back if she did take it.

Belle Reve? There was an actual meta-human prison? Jemmy felt a weight lifted from her shoulders. That would make everything so much easier. She would take this invisible guy there right away.

Meta said that she needed to take him with. He said that he didn't trust her because of everything she had done. Jemmy's eyes showed some understanding. Meta then reached a hand out towards her.

Jemmy shook his hand, quite formally. "A pleasure to meet you, sir. It sounds like you've met me before in the past. I can't seem to place you, though. Would you mind filling me in? When did we meet, and what did I do to that you didn't like? Oh, and who are you?"

She didn't teleport them anywhere. She had no idea where Belle Reve was. She did, however, dispel her armor, revealing the body of a good natured, innocent child once again.

Metamorphi took the hand, he was expecting to be teleported away, but instead she... shook it? What? W-what is she doing!?! Meta listened carefully to her words, either she was a brilliant actor or she didn't know who Meta was. Was he that insignificant to her that she FORGOT who he was, even though she swore to kill him?

Meta thought about it for a second, then he responded We met a few hundred years ago, I was brought back in time using magic. We met at the citadel of Amberglass, when it was under siege, the ones who sent me back in time where the ones defending it and you were on the side of the attackers. You'd slaughtered several soldiers by the time I arrived. When I managed to make you vulnerable, you were shot with an arrow. Before you "died" you swore to kill me He genuinely wondered if this would even ring a bell.

A few hundred years ago? Wow, this guy was older than he looked. Oh, time travel, that made more sense. Apparently, they had been enemies in a war a long time ago. This stranger even claimed that he had killed her, much to Jemmy's disliking.

Jemmy stared at him with a blank face until he finished. It was clear that no bells were ringing in her head.

"Yeah, that sounds about right. Sorry, I used to be kind of a mean person. I don't remember that fight we had. I...hit my head really hard, and now I can't seem to remember anything. So you don't have to worry, I don't want to kill you anymore. You're safe. I'm Shivering Jemmy, by the way. You already know that, but I still want to introduce myself. What's your name?"

So apparently... she hit her head and lost all her memories? The girl who could only die when a special item is destroyed and even then doesn't really die? Somehow Meta doubted that, but either way, she doesn't want to kill him anymore; this was fairly obvious though, since she hadn't already just dumped lava on them and killed two birds with one stone.

She then introduced herself, asking him to introduce himself back, Meta frowned I'm Metamorphi. Why haven't you taken us to Belle Reve yet? Can you only teleport to places you've been before? he got this hunch based on the fact that she seemed to be stalling for time, trying to distract him from what she had been tasked with.

Metamorphi. It was a strange name. Jemmy assumed it was some sort of super hero secret identity. Oh man, she should have introduced herself as the Samurai! Well, she would have to remember that for next time.

Jemmy tilted her head. It seemed like an obvious answer, at least to her. "Well yeah. I have no idea where this Belle Reve place is. But I'll tell you what I can do." She held her arms out wide and began to conjure a very large object out of thin air. A few seconds later, an armored truck stood before them. Or, at least, something that looked like an armored truck. It had no engine, no electronics, and no working parts. It was pretty much a giant metal box with a cab attached, with a steering wheel for aesthetic effect.

"Go ahead and throw Mr. Invisible in the back. I'll drive. You can show me where Belle Reve is." If Meta did as he was told, Jemmy would use her powers to lift the car into the air and fly it around, following his directions on where to go.