Forgotten (2018 Open Novella Contest/LoT Fanfic)

Chapter 11: Secrets Unveiled

It had been a couple days since Jasmine's encounter with her doppelgänger, and to say that she was a bit antsy was an understatement. Jasmine was in the training room viciously beating up a punching bag when Ray walked in.

"Geez, what'd the bag ever do to you?" he teased, noticing that the bag was about to split. Jasmine threw a few more punches until she was out of breath, and turned to face Ray.

"What's up Ray?" she asked politely, but she was exhausted. Rip had told just her that she had 48 hours to kill her doppelgänger, and she was freaking out. How the hell was she going to find her doppelgänger, create a plan, and execute it in 48 hours?

"I have good news," he said, watching her carefully. "Felicity was able to find some more information about your doppelgänger. Hold on." He went over to one of the touch screens and had Gideon pull up the info that Felicity had sent.

"According to the SCPD police files, she's been accused of several felonies throughout the past year alone, but hasn't been charged for any of them."

"Why?" Jasmine asked, an eyebrow raised. "Isn't she a well known assassin?"

"Exactly," Ray said, scanning the file. "But Felicity also sent me this picture." Her doppelgänger appeared to be alone in some sacred place, like an ancient temple or mosque, and was holding an odd shaped marble-like rock that seemed to be glowing.

"So you think she's using magic," she stated, catching on quickly. Ray nodded.

"That appears to be the only logical explanation. Apparently she's very persuasive and manipulative, and has made numerous people forget certain events or details. She also has strength that no other normal 17 year old girl has, and she's not a meta."

"What about hypnosis?" she asked.

"Already looked into that," he said with a sigh. "Hypnosis has led to people temporarily forgetting events, but it's never worked long term."

"So this would make the most sense," she said, tapping her fingers on her knee. "Thanks Ray. I'll talk to Nate, Amaya, and Rip and see what they know about it, and then we'll see about stealing it." Jasmine hadn't even walked all the way down the hall when someone appeared behind her.

"Someone say stealing something?" She turned around and realized that it was Alex.

"You're just as bad as Mick and Leonard," Jasmine replied, rolling her eyes.

"You have no idea," Alex responded with a smirk. "So..." Jasmine shook her head.

"There might possibly be something that you guys need to steal, but not yet. You three will be the first to know if I need something stolen, alright?" Alex nodded and started walking away again when Leonard walked out.

"I am not explaining this again," she said exasperated, walking right past him. "Alex, you can deal with him."
***
Jasmine realized that Rip probably wasn't going to tell her anything, so she had gone to the library hoping to find Nate, and found both Amaya and Nate in an intimate position. Jasmine's face turned bright red and she let out an awkward cough as she turned away from them. Equally embarrassed, Nate and Amaya unlocked lips, untangled their limbs, and looked towards her.

"Let's just forget about whatever... that... was," Jasmine said, gesturing towards them. She was still extremely embarrassed and was tempted to get as far away from them as possible, but she had to find out if her doppelgänger was in possession of a magical item. The flustered adults both nodded and sat as far away from each other as possible without it being too awkward. Jasmine shook her head and exhaled, regaining her composure.

Before she said anything else, she had Gideon pull up the image that Ray had just shown her. "So I wanted to see if either of you know about this," she stated, pointing at the mysterious rock. "Ray and I think that there's a possibility that she—my doppelgänger—might be in possession of a magical object." Nate's brows furrowed in concentration but Amaya's eyes immediately widened.

"What? You recognize it?" Jasmine replied hopefully, but was worried by the expression on Amaya's face. Without looking away from the picture, Amaya nodded.

"This is bad news, Jasmine," she said solemnly, finally turning around to face her.

"How bad?" she asked, her face emotionless and her body still. Amaya looked down at the ground for a moment.

"This stone comes from the same time period as your totem," she explained, her eyes darting back and forth and her hands fidgeting. Just looking at Amaya was making Jasmine nervous. "The story of how it came into existence is a mystery that still haunts millions of magic users today, but that's not the point. It's one of the oldest and most powerful magical objects known to mankind."

"Well that's great," Jasmine said sarcastically. "What does it do?"

"It gives the user superhuman strength, endurance, and speed, as well as telekinetic abilities including a less powerful form of mind control." Jasmine threw her hands in the air in frustration while Nate remained silent and paged his way through some history book.

"Great, so basically what I'm hearing is I'm screwed," she exclaimed. "What's the point of even trying?"

"Because the world is going to get taken over by an evil psychopath—no offense—if you give up," Nate pointed out, finally speaking up. "I looked into that prophecy and did some digging into the file that Felicity sent to Ray, and it seems like your doppelgänger is trying to be the next Hitler." Jasmine's eyes widened in fear and Amaya's expression became even more anxious.

"What exactly do you mean by that?" the girl asked quietly, desperately hoping that Nate wouldn't say what she thought he would.

"She wants to kill anyone who she thinks will pose a threat to her," he said hesitantly, not wanting to upset the girls even more than he already had, but he knew that they had the right to know. "That includes anyone else with powers—whether they're born with them like you are, whether they acquired them like me, or whether they receive them from a magical object like Amaya's," he said. "But the list is limitless. World leaders, soldiers, national security—" Jasmine held up a hand to stop Nate from continuing.

"Okay, okay, we get it!" she exclaimed, the uneasy feeling in her stomach growing by the minute. "If we were able to steal it, would that take away her abilities?" Amaya nodded, her head tilted to the side in thought.

"Theoretically, yes."

"Theoretically?" Nate asked.

"You didn't let me finish," she said, giving him a pointed look.  "Your doppelgänger probably went through a hell of a lot of trouble to find that and isn't going to give it up easily. A magical object doesn't have to be on the magic user itself in order to activate its power, but it has to be nearby. Since evil you seems to have her own gang, I'm sure they help secure it and make sure that nobody even gets close to it. And even if we were able to track her down and retrieve the stone, it's nearly impossible to resist its call. Something that I doubt our resident criminals will be able to do," she stated bluntly. "No offense to them."

"What about Alex?" Jasmine blurted out, unsure of why she did. After all, she hardly knew Alex, but if any of the criminals were able to do it she felt like it would be her.

"I think Ms. Andersen would be able to handle it," Gideon agreed, surprising all three of them. "And I have good news—there is a 97 percent possibility that the base of Ms. Robinson's doppelgänger is located underneath what is currently known as Central City in the year 2200. The likelihood that the object you are looking for is there is 99.97, but security measures are state of the art and the likelihood that it will be stolen before she attempts to assassinate you is 1 in—" They all yelled at Gideon to shut up before she could finish the stat. "Well I guess we've got our work cut out for us."
***
Several hours later, the entire team was in the Bridge. Jasmine, Nate, Amaya, Rip, and Gideon told the team everything they knew about Jasmine's doppelgänger, her base of operations, and the magical stone. The criminals formulated a plan to retrieve the stone while the rest created a plan to distract Jazzy long enough for Jasmine to kill her. The knot in Jasmine's stomach continued to grow even larger with every word spoken, and she was terrified of what was going to happen with every fiber of her being. But she knew what had to be done. She would either do it, or die trying. But she sure as hell wasn't going to let the world and her team down without giving Jazzy and her gang the best damn fight of her life.