Bullying a... you know. (Double XP)

He wouldn't let Clover finish, doing that obnoxious american thing where he'd argue at the same time as Clover spoke.

"Now hold it right there! I've protected this city for a good five years now, and I'm not taking no sass from a would be tyrant. Rule the world? Who sent you? Was it the Chinese? Or was it the arabs?" He continued pressing, prompting June to exit her vehicle. "Maybe you're a North Korean-"

"I AM NOT NORTH KOREAN!" June growled more than shouted, something about coming from wacko-land rubbing her the wrong way. Of course, as a matter of fact, she was born there, but she never took pride in being one of Dear Leader's designed super soldiers. Her very growl shook the ground and rattled windows, like a dangerous beast. It was the kind of growl you could feel in your heart.

Salvo crossed a line, and June quickly relieves the do-gooder of his arm, wanting to have a chat with the fellow eye-to-eye. Only then was it revealed that the mecha was not piloted- it was fully robotic. Servos and wires were all there was beneath the armor, rather than flesh.

"Oh no you didn't, missy. You have any idea how much I spent on this-"

Granted, Captain Salvo used his missiles on the Jellyfish, leaving him vulnerable especially in close combat. Before he could defend himself, June took Salvo apart as easily as a barbie doll. The machine shut down once its central CPU was torn out.

June took a few rapid, deep breathes, calming herself down. "Some hero." June tossed the broken mecha apart, and got back in.

June started her car again and drove out into the street, before coming to a halt again. "So uh... where do you live, Clover?"

Well she sure wasn’t wrong about never seen this Captain Salvo figure in the future. “I guess that’s why I never saw him in any of my visions. Huh, go figure.” She wasn’t entirely sure what else to say, at this point she was becoming more and more numb to the surprises her new acquaintance had. Clover stared at the torn up mech for several seconds, it wasn’t that much of an oddity to think a machine could be fully automated, but to think it had a personality. She shook the notion from her mind and climbed back into the cab of the truck before the two set off down the road.

After driving down the surprisingly busy Seattle streets, the truck came to a stop, with June asking where Clover lived. Clover stared blankly at the woman for several seconds wondering if she had forgotten all about the giant monster they had just battled with several minutes ago. Clover gave some thought for how to proceed. June had proven multiple times that she could probably dispatch the giant sea creature, but then what if she couldn’t?

Clover finally looked forward out of the trucks windshield and cleared her throat. “We should uh…..maybe chase the giant fish monster first.” She looked out of the corner of her eyes to make sure she wasn’t getting on the woman’s nerves lest she wind up like one recently departed sentient machine.

Another reason Clover chose not to tell the woman where she lived was just sheer embarrassment. Every piece of property she owned, was inherited by her parents, and they were not known for subtlety. In fact where Clover was currently staying wasn’t exactly a home as it was an entire building. Besides, she couldn’t go home now, she had to fight this giant creature, if only to gain some comfort in knowing she was capable of dealing with something as unexpected as that.

At first, the prospect of fighting a Jellyfish monster seemed to dissuade June. "You know... I know you're right... but sometimes these things tend to sort themselves out..."

June turned on the radio to a local station to break the awkward silence. "... Hospitals are packed with people suffering from a strange mutation seemingly caused by exposure to sea water. The CDC strongly advises avoiding the beach. An investigation is underway at the city's docks area and-"

Click. She turned it off. "...Right. Fish monster it is then."

June looks up the local news with 'Jellyfish' as the keyword, trying to pinpoint the earliest incident of its occurence. One area of note came up as the first sighting of the attack.

June turns the car around and drives to the coast, wipers still wiping at full speed in the rain. They arrive at the docks, particularly a quarantined area where the Jellyfish's acid had done quite a job of turning the warehouses and vehicles into piles of melted slag. June drives pass the warning signs; this had been the first area the Jellyfish emerged and attacked. The place smelled of rotten eggs and dead fish, and puddles of organic goo still bubbled with acidity.

June gets out of the car and puts her things in the back seat. She retrieves a special body hugging bag, and takes her phone and keys, leaving all other non-essentials. She even refrigerates the meat groceries, putting them on ice with a quick breath.

June heads to the edge of the melted concrete docks, losing the day clothes and changing into her gray nano-mesh one piece. A stylized dragon emblem was on her chest, as she does some basic stretches and limbers up for the task ahead. "Well, here we are. You sure you wanna do this? Hope you can swim."

Clover let out a sigh of relief as the woman semi agreed with her, though the woman seemed more inclined to just let things ride themselves out. A brief report on the radio was more than enough to change June’s mind and she ended up fully agreeing with Clover in the end. The truck made its way down to the docks where the giant monster had made its debut. The area in question had been completely quarantined, and very few people remained on the site to research the strange anomaly. This made it relatively easy for the two girls to snake by unnoticed before reaching the end of the dock.

The entire dock had suffered the giant gelatinous sea creature’s wrath. Warehouses, docks, and just about everything else in the immediate vicinity had been eroded away by the beast’s corrosive slime. Clover was careful to watch her step as they made their way closer and closer to the sea, as pools of acidic sludge still dotted the landscape, their sporadic bubbling signaling their lethality.  

Clover stared at the sea, listening to the sound of the crashing waves and raindrops pelting her makeshift energy umbrella. She turned, looking somewhat wide eyed at June as she simply stripped down right there on the dock. To Clover’s amazement the woman had come prepared and revealed a slick one-piece suit that she slipped into. Clover took a moment to process the oddity that was the woman before her. “Either its sheer coincidence or you totally knew you were going to be doing battle with a twenty story, acid flinging Jellyfish today.” she said with a slight chuckle.

When June made the comment about Clover being able to swim, it dawned on her that she didn’t have a suit. If she was going to do this, she would have to dive into the bay, expensive clothes and all. She shook the notion from her mind, there was no way she was about to ruin a thousand-dollar dress. Following in June’s footsteps, Clover stripped down to her underwear and placed her clothes and jewelry in the cab of the truck, only keeping her jacket. The situation was less than ideal, but it was better than ruining one of her favorite dresses, plus this allowed for much better movement while underwater.

Clover zipped up her jacket and puffed out her chest as she looked at the sea, blushing from the sheer embarrassment of being out in public in her underwear. At least she wouldn’t be out in plain view for much longer. She turned to June with a big grin on her face, mostly to conceal her embarrassment and gave a thumbs up. “Ready when you are!”

"I... like to go swimming." She offered a flimsy explanation for the one piece, though the obvious reason was left unstated: She was a hero. An Aquatic hero.

June nods, and puts her phone in a special underwater case on her shoulder strap. She goes into the water like less like a skilled diver, and more like a true sea creature. The water was warm despite the weather, which made it a small wonder why jellyfish thrived in it.

Things were quick to become cold and dark though, and June pressed a button on that phone to give Clover a guide light as they went under. She periodically checked if Clover was following with magic.

June had all the senses of sea predators, making the light more for her companion than herself. June makes her way to the sea floor, the better to study damage to corals and sealife to find traces of the Jellyfish's passing. unable to speak, she makes gestures at Clover to take a look around. There was a definite lack of normal sea life, but an unusual density of normal jellyfish floating about. One drifted a bit too close to June, and she swatted it away, the normal stingers having little effect on her.

Clover dove into the sea just behind the woman, half expecting the water to be frigid, it was surprisingly warm. That fact would become less and less true as the duo delved ever deeper into the watery abyss. With their excursion likely taking them down to the sea floor, Clover had to be creative in how she maintained her air. If she had to surface for air every time her lungs gave out she’d most likely make zero progress in finding their rogue monster. In order to maintain her progress as she got deeper and deeper, Clover would periodically expand a barrier of mystical energy around her, forcing all the water away from her and creating a small pocket of air for her to breath in before dispelling the field and continuing with her dive.

Visibility beneath the waves was poor especially with the rain clouds concealing the sun, but it was nothing in comparison to the ever growing darkness of the ocean’s depths. Luckily for Clover, June was using her phone as a flashlight, and it served as a beacon and guide for Clover as he decent was much slower than her companions.

Finally after what seemed like an eternity, Clover joined her friend on the sea for. The girl took this time to form a much larger barrier around her. With solid ground beneath her feet she was able to finally take a true breather. She looked just beyond her barriers walls to see June signaling something to her. Judging by the motions, she was being instructed to look around. She flashed the woman and thumbs up and when she felt she had finally caught her breath she dispelled the barrier and began to swim around, taking note of the unusually high density of the jellyfish population in the area. She did her best to stay mindful of her surroundings as to not lose sight or wander too far away from June.

A more careful look on the sea floor would reveal the Jellyfish King's attacks, patches of sea floor and coral reduced to sludge. The line between healthy and dead was visibly clear, and so was the direction of its approach. It moved in a deliberate straight line, its path several meters wide, and a sharp mind could deduce the direction it came from.

June swam to and fro the patches of sludge, moving with the ease of a barracuda. She kept an eye- in a manner of speaking- out for trouble. She was more interested in the dead sea life, finding a few partially eaten bodies, very recent. June also found one of the mutants, dead for certain reasons, but having crawled farther out to sea rather than towards land. Very interesting clues, no doubt.

Clover swam around a bit conducting her own investigation, using her spell from earlier to form seven orbs of mystical energy around her head to act as a flashlight. Much like June, Clover was discovering that the sea creatures potent slime worked just as well under water. A trail of acidic pools dotted the muddy sea bed leading to the shore. Along with a swath of dead sea life and shredded corpses, Clover was beginning to think there was something far more sinister out to sea than just the giant sea monster.

Clover took a moment to catch her breath once more as she realized he had drifted quite a distance away from June. Once she had taken her breather she followed in the woman’s wake, taking note of the deceased sea life and the visible sign of more mutants like before. Apparently they couldn’t breathe underwater because this one showed no signs of life, but it also showed no signs of being picked a part by the surrounding sea life if there was any. Clover hovered over the corpse, inspecting it further to realize that unlike the jellyfish’s trail, this drone was trying to claw its way out to sea rather than back to shore.

Clover gave up on the corpse after deducing that she couldn’t learn anything else from it and chased after June, reaching her several minutes later and giving her a slight tap on the shoulder. She then flexed her power once more and generated a big enough dome for the two to converse in. “Did you see that mutated corpse back there? Any ideas why it was headed in the opposite direction of the Jellyfish? She stopped and pondered for a moment before continuing. “You don’t think that thing is harvesting them do you?”

June had a different take. After all, the Jellyfish had fled the city from fighting Clover, June and Salvo. She landed awkwardly on the ocean floor once the energy barrier created a bubble for them to speak in.

She peered at the mostly intact mutant, a horrific amalgam of lobster arms and body, and bikini clad white girl. There was no sign of external trauma. The poor mutant's heart had simply given out from the drastic mutation as well as shock.

"No, I think this one got left behind... and the Jellyfish attacks are deliberate. Salvo did say he fought the thing before. The thing must have retreated to somewhere safe."

The dark ocean floor did not help their situation much, as dark figures were drawn to Clover's energy dome. More of the mutants had come in complete silence, shark and lobster and crab things, seaweed clinging to them while still somewhat recognizable as folk from the beach. June, being inside the dome, was cut off from her water senses until it was too late.

June’s deduction made more sense, the hoard of mutants were somehow linked and controlled by the sea creature. This corpse at their feet was merely trying to follow its gelatinous overlord back the briny deep. The light from Clover’s barrier shined like a beacon in the dark abyss and it ended up drawing out the unsavory phantoms that clung to life deep below the waves. As Clover and June spoke with one another, one of the mutated creatures shambled into the confines of the sphere.

The grotesque creature possessed the body of a man, an octopus for a head, a lobster claw in place of his right arm and several crab legs protruding from his back. He was quickly followed by three more mutants each as equally disfigured and horrifying than the first. Though Clover hadn’t been expecting such an altercation to take place she was still subconsciously prepared. A single orb left its place from around Clover’s head and tagged the first mutant in the face knocking him out of the barrier. The orbs she had been using to light her path had proved their usefulness once more and bought the two girls a few moments to collect themselves.

Clover knew that June was far more equipped to handle the mutants than she was and with her having the barrier up there was little to nothing she could do to combat the remaining three beasts. “I can’t fight and keep the barrier up at the same time. Think you could take them if I gave you more room to fight?” She asked the woman. Rather than wait for an answer, Clover began to push the boundaries of the barrier further and further out, to give June more than enough space to combat the advancing mutants. If June turned around and told Clover the barrier wasn’t necessary then she would lower it and do her best to battle the sea monsters in the open ocean.

June watched as Clover launched the orb, connecting with the mutant's carapace. It produced a sickening crunch, and worse, a shrill cry of pain from the man made monster as it was launched back into the water, becoming like a lifeless shadow carried by the current.

"Looks like they're not so good out of the water. Keep the barrier up, I'll handle the rest." June commented, seeing the difference the environment made. While the creatures struggled in the foamy ocean floor, June pounced with force and tackled the mutants one by one. Her punches split thick shells, caved in heads, and snapped mutated necks- a brutal but swift mercy. The mutants seemed to have little chance, more to occupy their time than actually stopping them.

Once June finished off the third mutant, a underwater explosion rumbled in the distance. It seemed they had their direction for certain now.

Clover wasn’t wrong to trust that June would completely decimate the mutants but what she wasn’t expecting the low rumbling of the sea floor and a deep boom. She turned to look around for what might have caused such a noise. Squinting her eyes Clover looked past the walls of her barrier to see sediment raising further off in the distance. Despite the overall ominous nature of the underwater explosion, it certainly gave the duo a clear heading.

Clover turned to June and gave a shrug. “I guess that’s where our oversized friend must be.” The raven haired girl wasn’t exactly looking forward to another bout of swimming, let alone having an all-out battle undersea but it had to be done if they were going to see things through to the end. “We should probably get going. Sooner we put this thing down the sooner I can get dressed again.” She said alluding to how uncomfortable she felt to still be roaming around in her underwear.

With the Girls drawing nearer to the point of the underwater explosion, Clover couldn’t help but feel like they were getting themselves into something a lot worse than just duking it out with a twenty story jellyfish. The thought had crossed her mind several times during the dive, but now the feeling was much stronger. The young girl prepared for the worst.

Over the next ridge and descending into a deep chasm, the Jellyfish was visible given it was now luminescent with strange rainbow pattern colors inside its body. The chasm descended into a deep, impenetrable void, permeated only by strange points of purple light, the Jellyfish, and a glowing rift.

The Jellyfish lingered in the chasm, as it traded acid *clouds* against mini torpedoes from a group of robotic figures. It was Captain Salvo, albeit this time with a nautical theme, and there around four of them.

"Looks like Salvo has more robots. Should we help him or go after the Jellyfish directly?" June said, speaking with Clover in the dome, eyeing the battle. More mutants rose up from the deep, but the Salvo's were prepared with semi-automatic harpoon guns. Still, the mutants pressed on, eager to get into gripes with the firepower themed superhero.

The girls came to a large ridge that overlooked the gloomy looking rift that stretched across the ocean floor like a freshly inflicted wound. The large rift gave off an eerie purple hue, most certainly hinting at it’s true nature. The duo took this opportunity to take a small break as they were still quite some distance from reaching the rift. June and Clover surveyed the area surrounding the large fissure and immediately spotted their overgrown target in all his vibrant and rainbowy glory. It was apparent that the Jellyfish monster was trying to escape through the rift but something was preventing him from completing his journey.

That something became a someone as June’s sharp eyes identified the monster’s opposition. Four more mech identical to Captain Salvo were engaged in an explosive battle with the sea creature. The woman posed an interesting question to Clover, one that she should have already known the answer to, but just in case she didn’t, Clover answered anyway. “Taking on a giant killer Jellyfish sounds far more appealing than dealing with a self-righteous intolerant piece of scrap metal. I vote team jellyfish on this one.” If Clover had her way she’d let the monster and its minions tear the forgettable robot apart, but June and her had agreed to kill the giant monster already, so there was no going back.

Watching the battle from afar made it clear that the Salvos were ready for this fight. This became especially prevalent when a mass of the jellyfish’s mutants crawled out from the rift and advanced on the mechs. Clover saw this as the perfect opportunity to strike. If both girls combined their strength right here and now they very well could defeat the massive abomination. Clover gave a slight tap on June’s arm and nodded her head in the direction of the jellyfish. “Come on, now’s our chance!”

Clover took a deep breath in dispersed the protective dome. Brining her arms to her side, palms facing each other, Clover prepared at attack. A bright light erupted in the space between her palms and a ball of energy began to form. With a few seconds of charging Clover thrusted both her arms forward, in the direction of the monster, releasing all the stored energy she had just built up in one brilliant stream of blueish-green energy.

"Okay. good luck!" June shot off to the side before going after the Jelly, attacking from another direction. Clover's own attack connects with the fairly large target that was the Jellyfish, blowing a chunk of its soft tissue away and shuddered in pain.

But rather than using an acid attack, the Jelly King revealed it had more under its sleeve. It gathered the strange purplish suffusing the rift, and gathered it into its own energy ball. The blast radius was wide, but it caused no force in the water. It did only moderate psionic damage to living things, and June herself was only caught in its periphery... but its effects were far more sinister. A miniature rift like the portal lingered in the middle of the battle, streaks of energy lashing out at living things.

Just as Captain Salvo made progress mowing down the mutants, the energy rift it tore in the water infused the dead with unholy energy. Mutants perforated by harpoons and blown apart by torpedoes began to move once more. Even dead sealife began to revive. That meant zombie sharks joined the fray. That's right. Zombie sharks hungrily going for Clover now.

Left without aid, Salvo soon found his doctrine of firepower fared poorly against a large swarm of melee oriented monsters. His robotic soldiers were soon drowned by mutant and undead mutant alike. It would not be long before Clover and June would be cut off.

The dimly shimmering rift began to energize and glow brighter, and the wounded Jellyfish drifted closer and closer to its escape. June gestured feebly to Clover to keep up, trying to give her a clear shot as undead zombie sharks were trying to stop them.

Clover did a little fist pump as her stream of energy cleaved a chuck of the creature’s gelatinous dome clean off. Her feeling of triumph was short lived as the jellyfish seemed unfazed with losing a portion of its head. Clover’s joy turned to shock as the giant monster retaliated back. She was half assuming to beat the monster right off the bat, but the damage her initial blast had given her some hope. It was no surprise that as the monster began to draw forth a mass of energy of its own, that the young girl threw up yet another barrier around herself.

Clover flinched and braced for the blast to hit her barrier but the hit never game. Looking up to the space between the ridge she was perched upon, and the rift where the jellyfish was trying to flee through was a large deep purple rift that lashed out at anything without out a pulse and soon the ocean floor sprung to life. Like a scene out of a horror movie, corpses and severed limbs sprung to life all around them. For Clover the threat was a bit more immediate as the ridge seemed to serve as a shark grave yard.

The blood thirsty Shoal began circling the raven haired girl. The pack of sharks began to tighten around the girl, but could only get so far as the few orbs hovering around her head would see to it personally that the girl was covered. The remaining orbs shot off in different directions blasting a few of the sharks wide open. This did not deter them, and only played to their horrifying appearance. Clover wanted to throw up at the grotesque site but managed to abstain from doing so.

The two sharks that had been struck began writhing around and thrashing about as the pieces tried to gain some sort of coordination. Meanwhile the lucky shark that had managed to avoid being shred lashed out at Clover. Though she possessed no form of super speed or reflexes, Clover did have a fast mind and was able to devise a means of avoiding the advancing shark within the few precious seconds she had. Relinquishing her hold over her barrier, she let of a singular blast of energy from her palm aimed at the rift-like portal. The force of the blast leaving her hand was enough to propel the girl downward and out of the away just as the shark bit down on where she had been, only to get a mouthful of her ethereal clone instead. Once down and out of the way, Clover pointed her body in the direction of June and let off two strong blasts from her hands. Just like she had done to dodge the shark attack, Clover used the force of her blasts to position herself next to June.