Therapy for Dragons (Halloween thread)

AT THE HOSPITAL

After spending a couple of months confined to the hospital for recovery and therapy, Dragon Girl Xiaolongnu had become well enough to be discharged with a clean bill of health, though she'd have to follow up on sessions from that day forth. Friends and family came and went to wish her well and spend time with her, including Korean-American Kpop Star and best friend Kim Ji-Jiyun, Employer and mentor Ellie, Physician Shauna Masters, workmates and schoolmates. But on the day of discharge Xiao had only her mother Li Suyin, Bernadette. They were leaving the hospital, passing by the pediatric ward, seeing it was decorated for Halloween, all the kid patients already in costume and running around. They waved at Xiao who had helped them with decorations, bidding her farewell.

Xiao was doing her Clark Kenting and wearing baggy clothes, tying up her hair and wearing nerdy glasses. She was at the outpatient department, filling up paperwork for her discharge. She thought about joining the kids' Halloween party, or maybe just staying at home. Yes. Stay at home, lock the door, not care for whatever happens tonight on Halloween.

"You want to go grab something Dragon bear?" Li Suyin was a typical Korean mother, who doted on her child, no matter her superhero nature.

"I think I'll just go for soup... then we can buy candies for Trick or Treat, and stay at home." Xiao told her mother in Korean. Because she's from Korea. She then hands her papers to Bernadette "Miss Bernadette can you handle the rest? I just want to go home and sleep."

"Sure thing luv, would be happy to oblige. You take care now you hear?" The cockney old lady said, receiving Xiao's release papers, handing it to a resident to handle it. Xiao bowed to her and bid her farewell.

It was cold outside of course. Xiao checked her phone for the first time that day, checking her inbox, but first she Uber'd for a car to take them home.

Danny hoped she did not miss Xiao. She heard her sometimes partner, and always friend, made the best of her recovery. It even seemed odd just to think about something hurting Xiao enough to the point she would need to recover in a hospital.  What started as a bad night of superhero work from Danny turned into those two journeying through all sorts of misadventures in size change, poor stealth, a lengthy captivity, and finally a showdown with pop stars strong enough to put Xiao in the hospital. Danny felt guilty enough to pick up a peace lily on her way over.

The night started to wind down, giving Danny a fairly wide open street to move down in her cheerleading outfit. It was a lazy choice for a costume, but after spending the past few weeks dealing with jerks and baddies, Danny missed picking up her costume from the store on time. The black skirt and vest fit just fine over the long sleeved white shirt, but it could still barely be noted if Danny dressed up for Halloween or just got back from a high school football game. In actuality, Danny skipped all responsibility she had for the evening to pay a visit to her friend.

After all, it was Halloween and things would definitely get weird, and when it did, she needed to be ready. Dragon girl. Whats up? Where are you? Even limited in her space, Danny still refused to use any form of text speak in her messaging and often criticized others who misspelled words in their texts to her. Are you going home or staying at the hospital. After the message left her phone, Danny called for an Uber driver to come pick her up, never expecting to see a giant girl in the back of the vehicle.

Xiao scanned for nearby vehicles on her App when a text from Danny came in. The streets were fairly quiet, and in the last ten minutes only a schoolbus passed by the Hospital street. Danny probably wasn't that far off.

Xiao didn't really wonder why Danny didn't call much until now. She was happy that she didn't forget. Tik tak tik tak tik tak. Young people rapid texting. "Hi Danny. I haven't contacted a car over Uber yet. Wanna come with me and mom? we're gonna cook Samgyeopsal and some Miyeok Guk."

Message Sent. Xiao took a deep breath and looked around. Her mother was chatting away in Korean about the thing they'd have to pick up at the grocery. Some homemade food and lots of vegetables sounded really good right about now.  

SKREEEEEEEEEEEE *CRASH!* *FWOOM!*  

The school bus that passed by earlier crashed into a utility pole down the street, on the next Block. Alot of people were racing to the scene, and screams for help began to ring out. The bus had caught fire, strangely enough.

"Oh my, that bus!" Missus Li looked on in concern, then her daughter. Xiao was already taking off her hair clip and glasses, as well as her jacket. She hands her things to her mother, and was rushing to the scene of the accident. The second she stepped out of the hospital, something like this had to happen.

Trying her luck with an Uber driver did not work quite as well as she hoped last time, but the possibility of this turning out any better went down the drains when the same yellow hummer as before pulled up. A moment of peace passed before Danny until the door opened.

"What ya waiting- oh..."

"Yeah." No emotion. No eye movement. And, no way was Danny getting back in that car. Not even a loud ringing crash a block away would make Danny get into the hummer and ride along with Letti. "I guess I'll just-"

Her resolve came to the test. Just a few blocks down the street rang out a massive crash. Nothing about the sound gave any indication that the incident would merely resolve itself, or anyone walked away from the crash once the collision took place. Danny bit back the words she wanted to sat, while Letti grabbed Danny by the collar and pulled her into the passenger seat. "Let's go! I know how to deal with crashes!"

"I bet you do-" The car shot out of its parking spot and sent Danny deep into the fibers of the seat. "Slow down! We aren't having a crash competition!"

"Okay, hold on." Letti put her hands on the wheel in a way that made Danny nervous. "I'm going to serve really fast and pop your door open. Just duck and roll!"

"Um, no." Danny felt her seat belt unlatch and the door swing open. Before Danny could say anything about anything, she flew out of the car, making sure to duck and roll and finally come out in front of the flaming bus. "Wow. Not good."

The children in the bus instinctively crowd to the rear exit. The elementary kids weren't exactly the smartest lot and couldn't open the door.

"Kids stand back, I'm tearing the door open." Xiao said and the kids, gesturing them to stand clear. Xiao digs through the metal with her bare hands and tears the door off entirely. She gets on and carries the kids to a safe distance away.

"Yay we're saved! A superhero came to save us!" A little boy said with excitement, oblivious to the danger they were- and still are- in.

"Thanks Dragon Girl!" A girl piped up to Xiao.

"Dragon Girl! Mister Otto is still in the bus!" A third child reminded her.

"Okay, you guys all wait here while I get the driver..." Xiao entered the bus a second time, and didn't catch Danny's very timely arrival.

Meanwhile, Danny would have the fortune of being the first to see some grungy pale teenager smoking and levitating in the air, flying by means of a rotating ring of fire. He wore a head bandana, some lennon round glasses, a black tank top over his lanky frame, and loose baggy khaki cargo pants. and was smoking a cheap cigarette.

"Hey, who let those kids out? Let the bus burn! let em BURN!" He said with a Joisey accent, looking around for the person who was helping the kids off the bus. The firefighters who arrive on the scene meanwhile, were a bit too frightened to approach or use their hose.

Xiao took care of the heavy lifting, leaving Danny to play clean up for the ensuing chaos. Or at least she assumed her job would entail the easier elements of dealing with an inferno. Nothing ever came easy to Danny, but she assumed it only happened because she could handle the harder parts of life, although the opposite could be true that she simply made things more difficult than they needed to be. A smell came to Danny she had not smelled since she had to walkthrough slacker alley at her high school. "Who smokes at a fire scene?" The smell drew up her eyes to the source of her problems. "Hey jerk!" The cheerleader took the situation the only way she knew how. "Don't got a date? What a surprise!"

A turquoise chain would shoot out of Danny's hand to try and wrap around the slacker's ankle. Danny wanted to pull him out of the sky and to a much less abrasive part of the scene. How she would deal with a fire starter still remained to be seen, but for now, she just wanted to put a little pain in the guy to soften him up for some talking. "What are you supposed to be for Halloween anyways? The culmination of why John Lennon wasn't as great a person as people like to think?"

Hustle hustle hustle. Xiao looked at the driver and saw he was out cold, despite the creeping flames. "Ooof... this guy needs to lay off the donuts." Xiao shoulders the large, rather overweight driver and hustles out the bus.

She carries the overweight driver to where the kids were, some emergency services waiting for her. Xiao looked around and saw the Fire user in the air, facing off against Danny. She takes the long way around, hiding in the crowd and heading for the fire engine.

"Wha- Hey I got a girlfriend! she's Asian! we're married me in World of Warcraft!" It seemed the first thing The flying firepower defended was his ability tor form relationships. Online. He then resisted the tug of the light construct with a rolling blast of flame directed at Danny, increasing his thrust to keep aloft.

Another fireball formed in his hand, ready to be improbably tossed. "I'm Kaine Ashbringer, and you'll be my first kill. Tell me your name so I'll know who to look for in the news tomorrow."

"You know she's a guy right?" Danny pulled at the chain to try and dislevel the terrible, terrible, person currently attached to it. "Or about as real as the little dog Elaine talks to right? You probably have Elaine as the background of your weird, sticky computer." String bean flailed around with some nervous intensity as Danny held onto her chain. "Yeah, yeah, Kaine, and my name is actually Danny." The pyromancer held onto pure flame while Danny could only summon up a flame within her soul. They would soon see which burned brighter.

Several balls of fire shot down towards Danny. Each one hit a large turquoise shield attached to Danny's arm. Before the smoke could clear, two large stilts shot out of Danny's shoes. She catapulted herself next to Kaine and brought her shield down on his head, delivering a massive shield slam to rock his bearings. "How's the view Ashbringer?"

Kaine Fireblade the Darklord of Ash or whatever his WoW name was, was fairly quick to get away, when ironically a girl was chasing him. Doing a barrel did him well, avoiding the dilemma of drawing the aggro of a melee attacker, trying to singe Danny as she leaps through the air.

"How'd you like my moves?! I've dealt with raid bosses solo, your tactics aren't worth glub glub-"

Thanks to Danny keeping the foe distracted, Xiao was able to deal with the flying Pyromancer with her newfound power: passive aggressiveness. Rather than opting to use her fists first and potentially giving this punk a concussion, Xiao had simply taken hold of the hose held by the reluctant firemen nearby and blasted him with high pressure water. Xiao probably got some on Danny too, Which Danny could feel was pretty cold given the time of year.

Steam rose off the Pyromancer, but it was clear his powers were sputtering. he turned around to face the tall lady with the high pressure hose.

"I'll BURN YOU BI-" Before he could finish, a fire extinguisher was being hurled his way. He uses a fire blade to cut it- only to have it explode and get the chemical foam onto himself, putting out his fire. He lands on the ground butt first, sending intense pain up his spine. He rolls on the ground, unable to get up.

"AAAAhHhh owwww! oh god it hurts! IT HURTS! aaaaahhh! I'm gonna sue you for this!" He said, pointing at Danny. A simple 12 foot fall was enough to put him out of comission.

An applause went up in the surrounding spectators. Xiao discarded the hose and rushed to help Danny. "Danny! Thank you for the distraction. Are you alright?"

When the first few attacks from Danny shot out towards the maniac, she found them dodged by the man's uncanny ability to get out of her range. He threw taunts instead of attacks. Bad move. "I have no idea what you just said, but it can't be any harder than a back hand spring." Before the fight the could escalate to the oven based resolution it tried striving to become, a gush of water broke out against the mouth of the hot head, knocking him to the ground. Water splashed against Danny's shield, trickling down away from her outfit, but swelling up around her stilts. "Not good."

Instead of riding the ship down, Danny merely collapsed the stilts, landing her in a freefall. Living up to her previous boasts about her athleticism, Danny rolled as the ground came closer to her, flipping her feet over head and landing a crushing blow from her foot against the evil doers kidney. "Stay down!" Constructs would form around his body, wrapping him in place with hard restraints.

"Yeah, yeah." Danny rubbed her hands together to knock off the dirt. "It's all in a days work. Maybe if we get out quick we can get back to your place before anyone wants us to give statements."

"YAAAOOO! OOOWWWW! AAAAAHHH!" At this point Kaine was probably channeling European soccer players, from the looks and sound of his rolling around, screaming and crying in pain. Xiao looked at the pyromancer on the ground. He didn't seem that injured. Perhaps he was unused to having targets who fought back.

"You're lucky the hospital's just down the street." She said rather passive aggressively.

The police arrived and the duo was already gone, with the coincidental help of Letti the Uber driver. Xiao wanted to say a few things, butXiao's mother taken over the dialogue when Xiao introduced her to Danny.

She asked a million questions that mothers would ask their daughter's friends, like Danny's family, Danny's day job, Danny's love life, Danny's education, Danny's plans, when she'd quit superheroing to work full time, what she wanted to eat, if she wanted to join them for Halloween, talking about Xiao's embarrassing eating habits, and so forth.

Letti's driving would quickly bring them to a Korean grocery and butchershop. It was a bit late but still open. "So, do you want anything?" Xiao asked Danny, seeing that they were now at a place where one could reasonably get 'anything' they were looking for.

The inside of the grocery was a bit quiet now as people were doing their last minute shopping, the Li family included. Everything Korean and American was conceivably found within the grocery's modest four walls, including candy in bulk, TV dinner packages, and a Halloween special of Asian Horror Flicks for sale. Xiao would take a moment to rejoin Danny, shedding her fierce Dragon Girl look for the geeky, meek, mild mannered Xiao.

"That light is yellow! That light is yellow! That light is red!" Danny gripped the headstock of the seat in front of her, hiding behind Xiao as Letti darted through traffic, narrowly avoiding a massive accident. "Can you just, not, do- that is a yield sign!"

"Calm down Driver's Ed. I've never crashed in my life." Letti and her yellow bandanna tore through traffic with little regard for legality and avoided crashes with no respect for physics.

All color from Danny's fingers turned to bleach from the grip she kept. The woman next to her continued to pry more information from her while the car jumped on and off its axle. "My parents are archaeologists. I'm a student. No. Still in High school. Take over the cheerleadering squad. Probably when I'm 40. Sushi. Yes." And the conversation continued with Danny constantly keeping her eyes affixed to the road ahead of her until Letti finally spun the car twice to fit into a parking spot in front of the grocery store. "I can guarantee you your driving will not kill you."

"That's what I've been-"

"Because I am going to kill you first." Danny felt her legs shake as she stepped out of the hummer, the shadow of Xiao cast down over her. "I'll just come in to make sure my legs still function."

A blast of air conditioning shot into Danny's face as she stepped through the sliding doors. The weather seemed remarkably cool for this time of year, but Danny still had beads of sweat finally making their final dissipation within the entrance only explainable by the wild ride she just ensued. While the rest of the Li clan fanned out for food and other necessities, Danny made her way to a rack of movies. The girl on one of the covers looked exactly like Xiao while another bore an uncanny resemblance to Danny. Nothing about the identity could be forged. Korean BBQ The image of Xiao on the cover looked terrifying with the girl covered in blood. Can this girl escape a maze of fire by escaping a series of rooms flavored with seasonings. "That just sounds too weird to-" The drive to discover her own cover took Danny away from her thought. Cheerleader Hack & Slash. The cover showed Danny wielding two chainsaws in the cheerleading outfit from a cross town rival. One girl. Two chainsaws. Zero mercy. "Um? Can I speak to someone about this?"

Xiao seemed a bit more relaxed getting some shut eye on the drive, while her mother seemed exhilarated at the driving. Maybe they were used to this kind of speed back home. Dragon Girl stretched when she got out of the car, seeing that no one was around and did a stretch kick, since she was now from Korea and, like everyone from China knew Kung Fu, everyone from Korea  knew Tae Kwon Do.

Once inside Xiao's mother was buying the meat and vegetables, really the only thing they needed. Xiao was in charge of grabbing some ice cream on sticks and ice cream sandwiches. They moved fairly quickly, the store being small but completely stuffed, and Xiao having long strides.  

Unfortunately, the attendant didn't seem to understand Danny "You want buy. Great movie. great action. Best fo Halloween. 2 dollah. you pay me now."

"Oh Danny. you want to watch a horror movie fo halloween? okay! We'll take it please." Upon seeing Danny's interest in what was probably a cheap bootleg movie, Su quickly pays for it in cash.

"Go download app. Win prizes from movie. Go to Korea free." The attendant explained to Su, tapping a special hologram code on the front.

"That's quite nice! Xiao, please do the app thing later. Maybe we can win." Her mother said, and Xiao simply nodded, holding all the grocery bags in one hand. There was alot of food, intended for at least 2-3 days for Xiao's intake.

Once they hopped onto the car home, strange, subtle things began to happen. No one else probably noticed, but in the rearview mirror, just for a brief instant, a little girl in white with stringy hair sat between Xiao and Danny in the back of the car, looking through the goods.

A double take would make the sight disappear of course, as Xiao dips into the grocery bag to help herself to a cookies and cream chocolate wafer sandwich. "Xiao don't eat ice cream before dinner, you'll ruin your appetite."

Xiao whined, and decided to help herself to a small rice biscuit instead, sharing some with Danny.

APARTMENT

The Apartment where Xiao and her mum stayed was a step up from the usual overcrowded immigrant tenements in the poorer parts of town. The property was reasonably populated, with multiple demographics sharing the place. There was a party on the ground floor, but Xiao was reasonably tired and just wanted to dip into the food they had bought.  

"Make yourself at home." Xiao said as they entered the apartment, lights coming on and shoes left at the entrance. It was a modest, middle-income place good for small families. Dragon Girl offered Danny a seat on the couch and the controls for the TV, DVD player and Room Temperature, as well as a pair of Hello Kitty slippers.

Dragon Girl changed into some home clothes and helping her mother in the kitchen. A little chubby cat was napping on the couch near Danny, doing that thing with its little paws tucked under its body.

Xiao called out to Danny from the kitchen. "What movies did you get for us, Danny?" Xiao said, slicing some cabbages.

The only thing odder than the images within the films came from the lack of interest from someone who should have some interest in such perceptions of themselves. Maybe she just did not focus enough. "It's more of a-" Before Danny could bring Xiao's interest to the cover of the movies she picked up, the constant conversation about savings and apps overcame Danny's attempts of warning people of the creepiness. "This is why you and me get captured on our assignments."

A short Uber ride that felt longer than the day came to an end. Danny skittered out of the vehicle and rushed to the door, leaving someone else to pay Letti for her expertise. The doors to the complex felt fairly flimsy, but the duration of their stay meant the surrounding area was probably safe enough where no one tried forcing the door. Trying to force the lock to get to the bottom of these movies would probably come off as presumptuous of a guest, so she waiting for Xiao's mother push the door open. As the door opened to the noise of a lack of oiling, Danny spotted something white and small out of the corner of her eyes. Two pigtails drew Danny's eye to center, but only the lumbering seven foot frame of Xaio stood before her.

Danny made herself comfortable on the couch, or at least as comfortable as the cat next to her would allow. "Yeah, I found some movies that show people who look just like us in terrible situations." The image of Danny on the film cover showed the girl with her abdomen showing a very well composed body. Danny lifted her shirt to compare her stomach to the cover. "I do look pretty good."

The film started easy enough. And then the girl who looked exactly like Danny's hands fell off. Two chainsaws grew in their place much to the dopplegangers chagrin. "Well, that isn't very subtle." Danny kept her attention to the film, trying to jot how someone could place her in a move she never did. "Oh shit. It isn't us. It's those stupid mirror people."

Home dressed Xiao came to sit with Cheerleader Danny, the cat climbing onto Danny's lap, claws digging in as he made the sits. "Snowball" was written on the little cat's tag. Xiao brought a platter of raw fish and picked cucumber Gimbap, the Korean version of sushi roll. Snowball also wanted some of Danny's sushi, if she was getting some.

When Danny provided the narrative and Xiao saw it herself, she was completely astonished. The protagonist was an uncanny doppelganger of her friend. "They're still alive? And got to star in movies in a month?" Xiao asked as she was watched the movie intently, the story devolving into some inane zombie outbreak/ alien conspiracy.

The doorbell made Xiao nearly jump. She walked over and answered, seeing some neighbors she befriended dressed up as- one Sexy Sith lord, one dressed as Hellsing's Alucard, and a third fellow dressed as a Wolfman.

"Hey Xiao! We're having so much fun down at the party! You wanna come down?" The Sith Lord asked, holding her plastic lightsaber in one hand and a beer cup in the other.

Xiao looked at Danny, and the movie. This was more important. "Uh... maybe not Rita, I just came from the hospital. Have fun though." She said, rather apologetically.

"Awww. okay Xiao... take care. Hey missus Li." Rita said understandingly, greeting Su. Once again the little ghost girl showed up, appearing to Danny in the moment just before the door closed, following behind the teenagers.

As the movie progressed to the Cheerleader discovering a subplot concerning a ghost girl wrongfully slain and transforming chosen agents into magical chainsaw girls to avenge wrongdoings, the smell of marinated pork grilling in the middle of the dinner table got Dragon Girl to stand up and take her seat.

"Okay girls time for dinner. My is this another one of those action movies?" Su said, watching the movie with unabashed enthusiasm. She offers Danny her bowl of rice and some chopsticks, and a variety plate of vegetable side dishes and kimchi.