The Dragon and The Clover

APPLE ORCHARD ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

The quiet manicured garden landscape of the Apple Orchard private Elementary School was turned upside down when a massive, raging fire broke out on the campus. A call for help quickly went to the local fire department and a truck was on scene in minutes. Onlookers gazed on with cameras in hand, though the driver on the bullhorn called for everyone to disperse.

Unfortunately, the gated compound remained closed to the outside world. No one seemed to be manning the gate. The Firetruck hesitated to crash the gates, given how sturdy they seemed. "What the hell? Why's the gate still closed? There could be kids in there!" The station chief, O'Hara, cussed out, stopping short of just outright ramming them.

"Don't worry chief I got this." The fire department's newest member, a tall girl in a tall, saggy uniform, leaps off the truck and moves to open the massive gate. Much to her dismay though, the fence was highly electrified and shocked June on touch. The power surge sent her sprawling on the ground, slightly smoking.

"Ohmygod! June! You okay?" O'Hara's daughter, also a firefighter, rushed to help their teammate.

"Tickled, but really annoying." June shook it off like a mild annoyance, slowly getting to her feet.

"Somebody find the power feed into the place and get it cut!" The girl's wishes were met by two other firefighters who were rushing towards the power box of the school.

"I'll go ahead inside then, and start finding people who need help." June told her mates, grabbing some extinguishers and an axe to help her.

"You do that. Good luck, Dragon Girl." The chief fire fighter said, grabbing bolt cutters from the truck to access the securely locked power box.

Leaping over just the wall, June rushed toward the main academic building, styled after posh English country manors. The abundance of wood for the strcture only made it a fire hazard, as the whole thing was ablaze. Unfazed, June rushes in to search for survivors and extinguish the fire.

Birds chirped and people conversed as they passed by a young fragile looking girl as she made her way down the sidewalk of this quiet suburban neighborhood on what was a fairly nice day. As clover moved down the sidewalk, she kept her head tilted down ever so slightly, just high enough to still be able to see where she was going, but also just low enough to avoid having to look people in the eyes. Clover continued to walk like this for several minutes till a commotion up ahead caught her attention.

A large group of people stood in shock and awe as a raging fire tore through the local school. Clover noticed just off to the side that a fire truck had arrived on the scene, how she didn’t hear it, was a mystery to her.
“Maybe we should take a closer look?” a deep voice echoed in Clovers mind.
“I don’t know, there’s quite a lot of people over there. Besides you know how I am with big crowds. Can’t we just keep going?” Clover said, in response to the voice. Clover continued to walk down the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street, but at a much slower pace.

“That may be true, but people could be in danger. And you know I can help.”
The voices words put a pause in Clovers movements, as her eyes remained on the burning elementary school. “Think of all those little kids, you wouldn’t want their deaths on your hands would you? You can do something about it. Just say the word.”

The voices guilt trip started to get to the young girl, and she found herself instinctively, and nervously knowing on her finger nails. Clover couldn’t in good conscious know that she could help out, but not take action, especially after see how valiantly the firefighters were trying to do their job. The young girl stood there in silence for a moment and watch as one of them jumped over the wall and headed towards the dangerous fire.

After several more seconds passed, a reluctant sigh escaped clovers mouth. “Fine you can go. Just promise me you won’t make a scene.”
“I solemnly swear not to make a scene…..at least not a big one.” Before Clover could respond, there was a large burst of air, and a surge of power, and the young girl now stood just slightly taller, a little more muscular, and a whole lot of monster. Some of the spectators turned when they felt the rush of air, but by the time they had turned around to see where it came from, Clover was already mid leap and already well clear of the fence.

The beastlike girl landed with a considerably loud thud as the impact from her landing caused a small crater in the ground. She slowly approached the one fire fighter that had been brave enough to jump the fence ahead of the others.

With the school's very high walls, June was satisfied no one was going to see her power. She scanned the windows first to see if anyone was calling for help, but it seemed no one made it to the windows. She worried for the people who might be trapped in there but the school had proven oddly sparse.

Before Clover could catch up to June, the firefighter girl headed for the manor that served as the main academic wing, running as fast as her feet could carry her, outpacing a performance vehicle in a few strides- and for good reason. This campus had quite a large amount of real estate for this neighborhood, and every second counted. She stopped at the manor doors and though a simple front kick would knock the doors off their hinges- but June found that behind the wood were very thick blast doors. Wood fragments flew everywhere but the steel blast doors were dented only slightly.

PUNCH. PUNCH. PUNCH. The door dented, but wouldn't give. June realized she'd have to pry them open.

It was only by this point June turned to see a girl had caught up to her. Wise enough to know that only special kind of person would be in this situation, she skips questioning Clover and hands her one of her extinguishers. "Hey you. Grab an extinguisher and help me pry these doors open." June took one of the doors and started peeling it out of its place.

The transformed Clover didn’t seem all to shocked that the firefighter she had followed over the wall, wasn’t fazed by her monstrous appearance. After all, the firefighter herself was rather unique as well. Clover approached the door and examined it for a second, while the firefighter tried to pry it open. Clover stood dead center of the door and placed the fire extinguisher she was handed, on the ground. Clover then proceeded to place both her hands together, palms facing outward. Using her unique physiology and handy dandy body manipulation, Clover’s hands squeezed through the small gap in the door, allowing her to grip both sides firmly.

“Jeez, what the hell is this thing made of?” Clover said between a few grunts as she tried to pry the door apart. Eventually the doors began to budge from the combined efforts of the two girls. The screeching metal of the doors dragging across the ground seemed to upstage the roaring inferno consuming the nearby buildings.

As the doors pulled apart, Clover noticed how eerily quiet it was despite the large crowd waiting beyond the perimeter fence. “Isn’t this some sort of fire hazard?” she said, knocking her hand against the now open blast door. It seemed practical for a scenario where a shooter was trying to enter the school, but entirely counterproductive for it to be shut in situations where a fire broke out. Regardless, Clover had no experience with actually dealing with a burning building, and instead picked up her fire extinguisher, cradling it like a teddy bear, and shot a glace back to the firefighter, awaiting further instruction.

"Yeah, but I don't think normal elementary schools have nuclear blast doors!" June said in a hurry, as time was running out- or so she thought. June roared in triumph as she finally ripped the door free, lifting it overhead with ease and tossing the heavy steel slab out into the yard, kicking up a large amount of dirt and grass as it landed with a mighty thud.

Next she shows Clover the simple operation of the extinguisher. She refrained from simply blasting the school with frost breath for fear of freezing someone. "Just pull the pin, squeeze the handle, sweep and spray. We should check the classrooms and faculty rooms." June combined her super strength with mundane firefighting equipment, not wishing to dole out unnecessary collateral damage. The door would cost a pretty penny, but it was in the way.

June kicks down the first classroom and blasts the flames with the extinguisher, to find an empty room. She moves on, and finds another, and another. The faculty room too, no teachers or students at all. June was relieved that no lives were in danger, but having a burning empty school was raising far too many questions...

The young girl let out a gasp of awe and surprise at the firefighter’s strength. Such a display made her a bit sad she hadn’t put more humpf in tearing down the door herself but, she shook the thoughts away and listened attentively to what the firefighter had to say. Clover nodded along in understanding of the simple operation of the extinguisher, granted she could have walked into each room, and not felt a thing, but the point was to put out the fire, not bask in it. After seeing the other girl sweep through one room with the extinguisher, Clover was fairly certain she understood what to door, and moved from classroom to classroom, mirroring the firefighter’s actions, just on the opposite side of the hall.

With each clean sweep of the rooms, it became increasingly more apparent that the building was empty. She met up with the female firefighter at the end of the hallway, both seemed to share the same expression of suspicion. Where was everyone? Why set fire to an empty school? So many questions had been raised, but who would answer them?

The monstrous clover rubbed her tendril like hair in confusion, this was the first time she had done anything remotely heroic, but what was the point if there was no one to save. “School didn’t let out early did it? What’s going on here?” nothing was making any sense.

The Firetruck manages to overcome the heavy gates finally, parking up beside and water began spraying into the upper floors. Chief O'Hara visibly holds the hose that dumps the first volley to douse the flame.

"Maybe if we looked around we'll find some answers. Thanks for the help by the way. I'm Dragon Girl. You?" June said, introducing herself by her hero name, though she was in uniform and wearing a fire fighting mask. For normal appearances. "Chief? Yeah I'm inside, didn't find anyone. Just put out the fires on the second floor and I'll take a look around." June was busy taking the radio call from the fire fighters, and so her search was limited to the faculty office.

A hallway Clover would prowl would turn up better results. A section of wall in the hallway had been opened and carelessly left so, otherwise very well hidden into the wall. It opened up into an elevator shaft that went straight down, deep underground. How deep? only one way to find out...

Clover gave a slight nod at the firefighter’s gratitude. Upon hearing the name dragon girl, Clover seemed kind of at a loss for words, she assumed that based on what she had seen thus far, that the person before her was a meta, but now she was faced with the task of introducing herself, which to this point had never actually crossed her mind on what to call herself in a situation like this. Clover began to look around for anything she could reference to as a nickname for the moment, which is when she spotted a badly burnt poster on a nearby wall. It was hard to make out what was on it entirely, but Clover could make out the slight silhouette of a shark, and finally introduced herself to Dragon Girl.

“The names Jaws.” She said, partially grinning and showing off a mouth of razor sharp teeth, as if proud of her cleverness of the situation. Upon seeing the firefighter turn to talk into her radio, Clover decided to wander off in search of clues.

The young girl decided to start with the hallway first, usually with fires, there was some sort of starter right? She scanned the walls from top to bottom until she stopped dead in her tracks as she came to a large opening in the wall. It looked as though it wasn’t supposed to be found, but perhaps whoever went through it, was in too much of a hurry to escape the fire that they didn’t bother to conceal this hidden elevator shaft.
“HEY COME OVER HERE! I THINK I FOUND SOMETHING!” she shouted to Dragon Girl. As she waited, Clover poked her head into the hole, as she tried to gage just how far of a drop it was from where she was standing, to the bottom of the shaft.

"Jaws... Well, glad for your help." June looked at Clover with a doubtful expression, before they moved out to check .

June heard ... 'Jaws' called her minutes later, and she caught up to see the secret elevator. June gives her a 'good job' pat on the back, before taking a peek herself. It was dark and deep, and June knew simply looking wouldn't work.

Sniff sniff. "I can smell kids down there. And other things." Firefighter Dragon Girl does not hesitate to leap into danger, grabbing the lift cable and using it to rappel down. For Clover's benefit she switched on her firefighter suit's lamp, so she could see the shaft easily went down ten floors.

If Clover followed, she would find herself with Dragon Girl in... what else, a secret underground facility. The place was all cold steel walls, floors and ceilings, with a guard post full of equipment smashed to pieces. There was something else, as June sniffed something in the air, and coughed. She removes her mask and hands it to Clover. "Put this on if you can't breathe poison gas."

Clover shot Dragon Girl a confused glance *She can smell kids down there?* she thought. Guess it really didn’t matter, both had come to the conclusion that the other was a meta, so anything they said or did, could just be chalked up under the ‘They have that power’ list. There was no hesitation in the firefighter’s actions as she quickly leapt into the abyss, using the elevator cable to repel down. Clover followed suit, but instead of repelling down, she extended her arm and used it to lower herself to the underground bunker.

Clover semi flinched when Dragon Girl offered up her mask. The young girl grabbed it cautiously, she wasn’t entirely sure if she was poison proof or not, but that was beside the point.   “What about you? Wont you need it?” she said.

Clover looked about the cold metal room, it was definitely one of the stranger things she had seen in her lifetime, especially so, since it was located under an elementary school. Clover’s real personality seeped in for just a moment, this place seemed creepy and she’d rather be outside, but ‘Jaws’ knew something evil was afoot, and it had to be taken care of, before anyone could get hurt, especially if what Dragon Girl was saying was true, and there were children down her.

June coughed a bit from the invisible gas, but assured Clover not to worry. "I can manage. Be careful, I'm guessing the one who started the fire might also be down here."

The underground facility mirrored the school above once they got past the initial area. Brightly lit, colorful classrooms contrasted the dreary grey hallways, while further investigation in the rooms showed there were observation rooms behind the blackboard complete with recording equipment. If one were to be curious enough, one of the camcorders on its stand had very interesting footage to be seen.

June, ever curious as to what was going on, entered one the classrooms. That was when the ambush was sprung.

"BAD GUUUYS!" A little boy emerged from his hiding place inside a locker. The boy was covered in frost, and blasted The Dragon Girl with ice.

"What no I'm not a-" June is quickly encased in ice; he then called out to someone when he saw Clover.

"Get 'er Doreen!"

Clover meanwhile would come face to face with Doreen the Dino Girl, who was currently taking the form of a large velociraptor, ambushing her from the dark, trying to take a bite out of Clover. "You're ain't taking us!" Said the frost wielding super kid.

Clover gave Dragon Girl a slight glance of concern, when she coughed ever so slightly. The feeling eventually went away as the two girls found themselves in what looked like a scene from a science fiction movie, or some dystopian film. The hallway was lined with classrooms in a similar fashion to the schoolhouse above, only creepier.

Curiosity had gotten the better of both Clover and it seems her new acquaintance, as they both seemed to have the same idea. That was until the firefighter walked right into an ambush, from one of the students. The instant blast of ice, made Clover immediately jump, as she knew exactly what it could do to her current form. Before she could even muster up her courage to try and break Dragon Girl free of her ice prison, the child called out to someone.

Clover turned just in time to see a large raptor leap at her. Clover crouched to the ground and held her arm up, as it then took the shape of a giant dome-like shield to protect herself from harm (Like This), as she tried to reason with the riled up kids. “Whoa there! Take it easy, were here to help you!” Given that these kinds might have been ushered into this underground facility during the fire, it made sense that they were on edge.

"You're lying! Your friends came in here earlier and took most of our friends!" The boy said, clearly more afraid of the big metas. Springing that ambush must've taken him real guts.

Electrocuted, poisoned, and now frozen. Dragon Girl's day was going really great. Great enough she was starting to feel stressed out. She shook off the ice like nothing; it was her element, though the temporary immobilization was pretty annoying.

"WE ARE NOT HERE TO TAKE YOU AWAY!" June lashed out, her temper getting to her a moment. Her dragon fear showed itself a moment, scaring Ice boy. June realized her mistake and quickly apologized.

"Haaaah... sorry. I'm really sorry... Look. I'm wearing a fire fighter uniform, see? I'm Dragon Girl. I'm a superhero. Who took your friends away?"

Ice boy recoiled from the much bigger Dragon Girl. Compared to her, the children were utterly tiny. It took a moment before he could talk again. "Some military guy... and an asian lady. She was pretty, but she was mean, strong, and real tough. A lot like you."

June's face slightly paled when the children described the attackers. "It... can't be..." she muttered to herself.

"Bobby please, that's enough. Miss Keene always tell us to trust police an firemen and and... other government authority. I'm soooo sorry I tried to bite you, miss." Dorreen changed back into her green skinned girl form, putting on a gas mask.

It was hard to hear anything over the thrashing about that the little dino girl was doing, but for some reason or another, the firefighter seemed to have calmed the two children down. Upon the girl reverting to her normal form, Clover gave her a reassuring pat on the head. “No worries little one. I know you only did it cause your scared.” It was probably a good thing she was wearing the firefighters mask, since her face in her transformed state wasn’t exactly something people would find comfort in.

She then rose from her crouched possession and walked into the classroom to check on the status of her companion, only to find that she had been defrosted rather quickly and didn’t seem all to phased by it.  Despite what she saw and what she knew, Clover couldn’t help but mutter “You ok?” to Dragn Girl, who or the moment seemed lost in thought. The issue now stood, what to do about the other missing children and what to do with the two they had found. “Any idea where they might have taken the other kids?” Clover said, looking to both the small green skinned girl and the boy.

Clover/Jaws were both totally new to this sort of thing, usually they were off beating on random thugs and defending the innocent, but rescuing a bunch of children from a shady organization was something she wasn't entirely prepared for, and for that she would have to rely on her own strength, and the expertise of the firefighter in moving forward with the information they currently had. Despite what the untransformed version of Clover would do in this situation, Jaws was pumped and brimming with confidence.

"They're bringing everyone into the gym... I saw 'em." Ice Boy explained, condensation emerging from his mouth with every word he said.

Dino Girl back up the sentiment, her speech interspersed with breathing in the gas mask. "Please don't let them take our friends away."

"That's what we're here for, Dino Girl. Stay here... and we'll handle the bad guys." June snorted strongly in the gas, causing a bit of frost to form on her mouth. She looked at Clover, patting her on the shoulder. Hopefully the cold sneeze would show her that Ice Boy's element didn't bother her at all.

"Let's go then." June led the way to the gym.

GYM...

About a dozen children were laying on the small gym floor, unconscious in the gas. Two figures, one officer in a coat and peak cap, and one soldier in fatigues were looking over their prizes like livestock. The soldier carried two more children on her shoulders, lining them up and tying them with the ropes used for climbing. This was quite the well stocked gymnasium for a school for children.

"algo iss-eoss-eo! geugeos-eun dangsin ibnida! (I knew it! it's you!)" Dragon Girl reverted to Korean upon seeing the two figures. Her temper flared at the thought of what they would do to the children.

"JA - EUN . dangsin-eul dasi bol su issdolog joh-eun geos-ibnida! geuligo dangsin-eun chingu leul gajyeowassda. (Ja-eun. It is so nice to see you again! And you brought a friend." the officer said through his gas mask, calmly turning around when he heard the heroes come into the gym. He spared Dragon Girl only a fleeting glance, but his gaze fell longer on Clover. There were few ways to describe the darkness in his eyes; this man thoroughly reeked of evil.

The second figure, the soldier, was a young Korean woman with particularly well made up hair and a face that had likely seen the knife. She seemed particularly well built, standing at a height nearly matching Dragon Girl.

"Clover... you need to leave back through the shaft. These two are extremely dangerous." June was being her usual self, always taking all the risks and protecting people around her.

"Naneun i him , deulaegon sonyeo dangsin-eul gamsa hal su-issneun gihoeleul gyeolko eodji anh-assda . geuleona tong-il hangug eun hanaui yong eul-wihan gong-gan iissda!(I never got the chance to thank you for this power, Dragon Girl. But a unified Korea has room for only one dragon!)" The female soldier expressed herself briefly, and began approaching the duo. She discarded her rifle