Clover [1/2]
Title: Clover
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: KangMin,Yekyu
Warnings: Alternative Universe.
Word count:
Summary: A war was about to start and Kim Youngwoon became the the crucial chess piece to determine who would be the winner.
A.n/This story was inspired by the manga Clover by Clamp, I took from it the overall background, but I made some drastic adaptations and completely created a plot of my own, for those that read the story that's the feeling I got, Suu should had just rebelled and created a wrold for the clovers, A would have agreed with me hahahaha. But this is my try into a Dystopian future story <3 More KangMin coming your way haha
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By the year of 3.000 Technology became the greatest power, the world was ruled by five humans called the Wizards, these humans controlled the world’s technology and thus controlled each citizen life. Nature was overpowered by the the technology and became an exotic item, to counter attack nature absorbed the technology. Children were born with special magical powers that could threaten the Wizards’ reign, and thus a throughout search for those kids started and they had been imprisoned, forbidden to have any human contact. The Wizards told humanity they had done that so those kids wouldn’t be used as weapons, but they had been forbidden to be humans all the same.
One by one, the Wizards studied the kids and evaluated their powers. Most of the kids ended up not being too much a threat for them and were sent back into society, but three selected children were kept imprisoned, one of them had so much power she was kept imprisoned in an isolated area, forced into an eternal slumber.
As the years passed, the other two kids didn’t seem to age, their powers had grown, but not in a threatening rate, other kids were born with as much power, but never a being as powerful as she had been born. Those kids were then called clovers and their powers were ranked by leafs. One-Leaf and Two-Leaf clovers were the ones allowed back into human society, they all were kept under surveillance and some were even taken into the military forces to directly serve the Wizards. The Three-leaf Clovers were kept imprisoned, unable to communicate with each other, unable to live, despite the fact that they were alive. The only Four-leaf Clover was denied her very own existence, as she became a legend, a child many wanted to see born and to be found before the Wizards would get her, because she would be indeed a powerful weapon against them. She had been already born, and nobody but the Wizards knew.
That was until she woke up.
Still physically imprisoned, she still had control over her powers, the knowledge was hers and she knew everything that happened around her. She hated the world, she hated the Wizards, she hated the way the other Clovers were treated and one day she could take it no longer. She reached her mind to the Three-Leaf Clovers, she connected them through a web the Wizards had no means of noticing and together they rebelled. One Four-Leaf Clover and four Three-Leaf Clovers together were too powerful for the Wizards to win against.
They took control over each building, each item that possessed any bit of technology was taken over by them and the humans were forced out, They created a bubble in the world, a place only clovers were allowed to stand. The Three-leaf Clovers rescued her from her confinement and together they called over to the Two and One-Leaf Clovers, using the technology through their magical power, one by one they rescued the Clovers from humanity and locked themselves in, but they only took in the ones that want to come, that wanted to find a place they truly belonged.
The Wizards feared them, but a very special two-leaf clover was found by them, one the other clovers didn’t know existed. The Wizards had taken him as a baby and had brought him up to believe the Rebel Clovers were a threat against humanity, and he was the only hope to save the world from them. The Wizards used him to find and imprison newborn Clovers, they found a way to drain their magical power and use it against the Rebel Clovers. A war was about to start and Kim Youngwoon became the the crucial chess piece to determine who would be the winner.
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Water splashed loudly as Youngwoon stepped on a small puddle on ground. It irked him the feeling of being watched, whenever he was out on raids he had that feeling that each piece of technology was being used to spy on him. It had been years since the Wizards had put on his shoulders the duty of finding newborn, or very young Clovers, and since then the eerie feeling was there.
Movement ahead called for his attention and he ordered the soldiers with him to stop, not a second later tentacles made of optic fibers and old retorted pieces of metal appeared from the building and the ground aiming at them, but as usual the moment the tentacles entered his powers range they became useless pieces of junk. Youngwoon was a Two-Leaf Clover working directly under the Wizards commands, the only Clover that could freely walk around because of the exquisite of his powers.
Clovers were usually able to give life to inanimate things, were able to fuse themselves with pieces of technology or even teleport and use telekinesis, but not Youngwoon, his power was exactly the opposite, his magic only worked to nullify other clover’s magic.
More tentacles were brought into life, but this time instead of directly trying to attack him they actually started to break the buildings and throw pieces of concrete and metal on him, from those his magic couldn’t protect him and thus came in handy, the soldiers. They had high-tech weapons that dealt with the danger quite well, pulverizing them with one blast.
Despite the chaos of exploding junk and small starts of fire here and there, Youngwoon tried to sense the location of the Clover they were fighting against, it had taken a little bit more effort as that stupid sensation of being watched always made him look into wrong directions at first. But then he spotted it, the familiar surge of magical power only Clovers possessed. Swiftly Youngwoon ran to a door to the left of them, the soldiers ran after him on impulse as they knew they were safer close to him.
He broke through the door and almost immediately he had to duck from laser shots, and use his own guns to fight back the gang that had managed to put their hands on the Clover before Youngwoon could find him. His shots were always precise, he had to rely much more on his human power, than on his Clover power most of the time and that was what actually made him think of himself more as some sort of Wizard than actually a Clover, he hated being called as such.
“Get him!” a man shouted to a young boy that was being held hostage. He was crying, he had been beaten up and held above the ground by a brute of a big man. Despite hating Clovers himself, Youngwoon hated the treatment they received from punks like those. “I can’t!” the kid cried helplessly.
“Useless piece of shit!” the man shouted. “Kill him!” he told the man holding the boy and Youngwoon felt his blood boil. His bracelet shone and changed into a more sophisticated weapon, a cannon of plasma. “Protect yourself!” He shouted to the kid as he shot the ceiling, getting the roof to fall upon those men. The boy didn’t listen to him, he just kept crying, yet through the window a flock of bright orange mechanical birds entered the warehouse and protected the boy by forming a shield.
Youngwoon frowned as out of nowhere a young man with short black hair appeared beside a woman. At seeing them the boy shouted in a mix of terror and joy. “Mommy!” the birds had attacked the guy holding the boy hostage and thus he had quickly ran to the arms of the woman. The soldiers with Youngwoon and the gangster shot against the new arrived male, but a shield of pure static energy and the mechanical birds made their attack fruitless.
“I want happiness, I seek happiness, to cause your happiness, to be your happiness, so take me someplace far away, to a true Elsewhere, please, take me there” The guy sang with a soft tinkling voice and Youngwoon felt his hairs standing up. Quickly he tried to expand his nullifying shield. “Useless,” The Clover said and then he, the woman and the little boy disappeared.
“Shit!” Youngwoon cursed under his breath. It had been the first time he had seen one of them, one of the rebel Clovers. He was taken by surprise.
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“A Clover stood in your way?” The oldest of the wizards questioned with an impatient tone. “How does he looked like?”
Youngwoon lowered his gaze. “He was slightly shorter than me, had black short hair covering his forehead in a fringe, he was dressed in a shorts-jumpsuit and had a collar completely covering his neck, he was wearing fingerless gloves that reached his elbows and boots that reached his knees. I couldn’t really see his face, but he could control mechanical birds, create static shields and teleport. He actually teleported three people.”
“Three-leaf-Clover.” Another Wizard mumbled. “That was probably B.”
“Whoever it was is not important! What is important is that they are venturing out of the Bubble! When they first rebelled they took into the bubble all of the one and Two-Leaf-Clovers we had sent back into society! Who knows what they are doing with them!” Another Wizard thundered. “Now they are probably aware of Youngwoon’s existence. We have to find a way to get rid of them!”
“We do not have the power. As long as the Four-Leaf-Clover is alive, we won’t be able to enter their shield. Youngwoon had already tried to nullify a small part of their shield to get in and failed.” The only female Wizard spoke softly.
“We had no Clovers on our side back then, now it’s different. As they had united against us, we can use our Clovers against them.” The previous Wizard contradicted her and Youngwoon felt a little nauseous.
“We rescued them so they wouldn’t be used as weapons. What you’re proposing goes against what we had vowed to do.” Youngwoon dared speak, still not daring look at them. The Wizards silenced at his voice.
“You are right, Youngwoon, do not worry. We will keep them safe from the rebels and from evil hearted humans. You can go now, next time we sense a new Clover make sure to save him.” The female Wizard spoke still softly. Youngwoon bowed to her before he left the room. Once the door was closed behind him she spoke again. “Measure your words next time. If we lose Youngwoon to the rebels we lose any change to get them back. If he finds out what is the purpose behind him gathering the newborn Clovers we lose him.” She said sternly and the room went silent.
“We need more Clovers before trying to burst the Bubble. Only one and two leaf closers are being born, we need more Three-leaves.”
_____[♣]_____
Youngwoon sighed as he entered the bar. A bad day always ended with him at a bar. Not because he would drown himself into alcohol but because at that particular bar there were caged blue birds. Wherever you went inside the city you would only see buildings and metal structures mixed with concrete. Once the world had almost entered in collapse because natural resources were being depleted and natural areas were being polluted and lost. But then the wizards ascended with a technology that successfully replaced the nature and from then on the ‘green’ became extremely rare. Youngwoon felt himself in agony at the city, but at that bar, listening to the chirps of those birds he could feel himself calm down.
People said that the Clovers were a response from nature for being ‘replaced’. Some people dared say that the Clovers would bring nature back. But Youngwoon believed that to be a big bullshit, nature had long been lost despite the fact that dreaming with that was very common for him. Probably because he was a Clover too.
Clovers didn’t have a place in the world. When the first Clovers had been born they had been used by gangsters and other powerful men that were greedy for power, they had tried to bring the Wizards down with them, but they were frustrated because the Wizards had been much more powerful. The Clovers had been taken under their wings and given a place to stay away from harm and away from danger. For a while there had been peace because the Wizards had since been looking out for other Clovers, they had been tested and the most inoffensive of them had been allowed back into society, they didn’t have enough power to be of any use for evil hearted humans.
There was peace until a rebellion occurred.
Youngwoon didn’t know much about that, only that the Wizards had found a really powerful being, the only Clover that had been given the highest of ranks, there was a Four-Leaf-Clover they had been taking care of, but she rebelled against them, she poisoned the other Three-leaf-Clovers with lies and together they took over the facility they were living at, they created a shield the Wizards could not break through and slowly they started to expand, after a few years they ventured outside and one by one they took into the shield the other Clovers peacefully living among normal humans until none was left outside.
Years had passed and other Clovers were born, some had been taken by the Wizards, some by the rebel Clovers. Youngwoon had been one of the lucky Clovers rescued by the Wizards, after learning what his power could do, he became the only hope to stop the rebel Clovers from destroying humanity, what the wizards had proclaimed was their goal as slowly the bubble they had created just kept on growing.
The birds chirped at his presence in a lively sound and he was filled with insecurity, he always felt like that when he would first hear them, but then the feeling would slimmer and vanish, being replaced by calmness. He remembered the Three-leaf-Clover he had met that day. He had lied about not remembering the other’s face. He remembered everything clearly. The woman and the kid had been beaten up, but they were smiling brightly as they could once again hold each other, before they disappeared the two of them had looked at the Three-Leaf-Clover and smiled, they were happy and had thankful expression on their faces. He smiled back at them as if offering reassurance that they were safe, he had wiped the boy’s tears before looking at Youngwoon straight. His face was young, but his stance was that of someone much older than Youngwoon, his features were soft, were kind, his eyes were beautiful and seemed sincere as they looked at Youngwoon with something akin to longing, it was like the Clover didn’t want to be his opponent.
Youngwoon shook his head. The rebel Clovers were enemies.
_____[♣]_____
Youngwoon couldn’t feel luckier for stumbling into twin Clovers while jogging in the morning on his free day. He had no weapons with him and despite being able to run faster than those kids he was still having a hard time to get them because rather than use their powers to attack Youngwoon they were using it to run away.
The feeling of exhaustion was getting to him and in a last attempt to get them Youngwoon forced his nullifying shield further away, but at the same time he did so a staircase made of orange birds was suddenly formed to the left and a voice filled the air singing softly. “Take me… Some place far away… Take me... To a true elsewhere….” At hearing him, the two kids sprinted in the direction of the stairs.
Youngwoon didn’t know why all Clovers seemed to respond to that song, after that first day, that Clover, B, had appeared in all his mission picking up the Clovers he was supposed to rescue and taking them into the bubble, Youngwoon was slightly really starting to hate that guy. Because of his frustration he ended up stretching his powers more than what his body could actually take.
The power of a Three-Leaf Clover was no joke, he felt a pressure in his head once his barrier entered in contact with the birds, the stair didn’t collapse completely, but the steps one of the kids was standing on did, and Youngwoon had managed to take him.
“Brother!” the kid that was with B shouted in panic. Youngwoon looked up. “He is lying to you! He and the other Clovers just want to use you!” Youngwoon shouted as he held the kid protectively in his arms. “But I will truly protect you!”
And then something Youngwoon couldn’t really understand happened, the kid with B looked at him with scared eyes and asked, “You won’t take mommy and daddy with us? You promised to protect them too!” B kneeled in front of the kid. “I didn’t lie to you, and neither he is not lying to you, but there are evil people lying to him, he just doesn’t know.”
Youngwoon felt like cursing the daylight out of the Clover for saying such things, but before he could say anything the young male looked at him and spoke with a firm tone. “If you allow me to send these two kids into the bubble, I’ll go with you to the Wizards. I promised them they would find a safe place to live, I don’t want to break my promise.”
“As if the bubble would be a safe place for them.” Youngwoon scoffed with an angry tone, he expected the Clover to retort something mean, but the guy just smiled and walked down his bird staircase. The kid in his arms became terrified and the kid with Youngwoon started to shout for them to get away and leave him behind. “You don’t know because we can’t reach you, Si is afraid that if she tried to contact you, her power would be too much for you to withstand, since you naturally try to nullify whatever magic that comes in close contact to you,” B retorted.
Youngwoon looked him in the eyes and he saw sincerity, specially because he stopped an inch before entering in contact with Youngwoon’s natural barrier. He knew how close he could get. At that moment Youngwoon was sure that the feeling he had of being watched really had a reason, B was watching him, the Rebel Clovers were watching his every move. “Why would I believe you? You hate humanity, you want them gone,” Youngwoon accused, the kids were completely uncomfortable in their grasp, unable to get away.
“That’s not entirely true. We hate the humans that hates us. We hate the humans that only sees us as weapon or as a source of easy money. But these kids’ parents love them, they had tried to protect them, had tried to hide them and keep them safe, for these humans we have a place because we believe no child should be away from their parents.” The Three-Leaf Clover spoke with some sort of sadness to his voice, Youngwoon didn’t know if that guy’s parents had sold him or had died trying to protect him, but he knew for himself, his parents didn’t want him, they had sold him to the Wizards and the Wizards became his family.
Youngwoon looked at the scared kids and made up his mind, if he was to bring a Three-Leaf Clover the Wizards would be much more satisfied than with two lower ranked clovers that didn’t really know how to use their powers. And truth be told, Youngwoon didn’t have the heart to break a family, if that guy was lying to the kids it was their problem for believing in him. “Call. But I will hold to this one until we find their parents,” he therefore said.
The clover smiled and nodded. Youngwoon was sure that if the guy would try to teleport along he would be able to interfere even if it would cost him some days in coma. Yet true to his words B stayed behind and only teleported the family into the bubble. “Back to my confinement.” The clover smiled resigned as he looked at Youngwoon, raising his hand in a sign that he expected Youngwoon to cuff him or something.
The Two-Leaf Clover looked intently at the Three-Leaf Clover for a while before he took a step in his direction. B shivered as he was forced into Youngwoon nullifying area, Youngwoon didn’t feel the same pressure he had felt before, but he took it that he had been exhausted. There was no hesitation in B’s eyes as Youngwoon held his face in his hands and looked down at the shorter male. “I will bring down the bubble, I am the only one that has the power to do so.”
The Three-Leaf Clover closed his eyes and rubbed his left cheek on Youngwoon’s right hand. “One day we will be able to reach you. Si’s song will be able to reach you, because despite this power you have, you are a Clover. One day you will see the truth, Youngwoon.” he spoke softly, Youngwoon couldn’t understand why that guy was doing that, he couldn’t understand why he seemed to be overjoyed at the fact that Youngwoon was actually touching him. They looked each other in the eyes again but then Youngwoon projected a wave of nullifying power directly into B’s head. The Three-leaf Clover fell limp in his arms a second later, unconscious.
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His vision was blurred when he woke up, it had been a really long time since he last had a terrible headache like that. He felt a tug of panic at seeing himself immersed into the sensory deprivation tank the Wizards used to imprison the Clovers specially because his usual clothes were gone replaced by a white one piece gown and baggy pants. His neck cover was also gone and his Three-Leaf Clover tattoo was in the open for anyone to see, but he also had another piece of jewelry, there was a bracelet on his right arm with a vivid blood red stone shining. The Wizards had never given him accessories before.
After taking in his surrounding he tried to reach his mind outside, tried to feel other Clovers consciousness but failed. He really panicked then because he was really disconnected from Si and the other Clovers, their plan had failed. His sacrifice was wasted and he would never see his friends again, would never see Youngwoon again. The thought made his heart ache, he had tasted freedom once, he had been able to escape his prison once, he could do it again, sure that time he had Si’s help, and she could no longer reach him, but that didn’t discourage him. He closed his eyes and emptied his mind, he tried to feel all the technology around him, pulsating as if alive around him, he tried to blend and felt a restriction coming from his wrist.
The bracelet was something different. He concentrated on it then, trying to discover its secrets, understand its reason to be and when he found out he frowned angrily. It was his blood, that bracelet had been codified with Youngwoon’s blood, his DNA was part of its structure and therefore it had its own nullifying shield. The Wizards were such sick bastards, how much of Youngwoon’s blood they had been draining? How many more weapons they had which were using it? No Wonder Youngwoon was so sure he would be the end of the Clovers.
He was allowed just a moment to be angry because a few minutes later he heard a voice singing in his head and he smiled, it was a combination of two voices he loved dearly. Kyuhyun, Yesung he called softly to them.
“Sungmin hyung!” Kyuhyun called happily. Sungmin smiled at the feelings coursing through him at the two new consciences inside his head. He would never be alone again, The wizards would never be able to win against them. “For a moment I feared we had failed.” Sungmin replied feeling Si far away, touching him through the other two Clovers and not directly as he had first expected.
“We actually failed to a degree, Sungmin. We lost contact with you for three hours.” Yesung said with a worried tone. Sungmin frowned hearing that already preparing himself for the bad news. “The Wizards put a bomb inside of you, they tried to erase and recreate your memories as they plan to use you to help Youngwoon into destroying us, they tried to make you believe Si had left you behind only saving Kyuhyun, Heechul and Leeteuk. They think they succeeded into making you think you also hate us, and that for a while you had been helping Youngwoon ‘rescue’ Clovers.”
Sungmin listened with a heavy heart, a bomb was not supposed to be a problem but from Yesung’s tone it was. The thing about the memories was something they all had expected would happen. He looked at the bracelet then and concluded with a heavy heart. “They put bombs inside all the Clovers they had ‘rescued’ and these bombs are like the bracelet.” Sungmin stated.
“It’s worse than the bracelet, hyung,” Kyuhyun replied with a worried tone. “It took us four hours to be able to understand how the bracelet works, the bombs have much more layers of his DNA in them. We don’t know how long it will take for us to be able to disarm it. We were concentrated into it and missed when you woke up, sorry, you must have felt horrible.”
Sungmin smiled despite the situation. “I believe in you. The bracelets are no big deal now, right?” he tried to point the bright side of things and he actually grinned as he heard Kyuhyun’s reply. “We are now using them to reach the other imprisoned Clovers, Si is singing to them and trying to fortify their minds before we can finally rescue them. The bombs are the biggest worry. We thought about disarming yours first, but since you’ll have to be too close to Youngwoon from now on we can’t risk him sensing you are not alone, so we’ll work in the imprisoned Clovers.”
“Hangeng and Heechul are working with us to disarm the bombs so we might succeed into doing it faster than we actually are expecting. Donghae and Eunhyuk will be in charge of looking after you, though they are only Two-Leaf Clovers and won’t be able to effectively help you, they can still safely connect you to Si, so she can also protect you.” Yesung encouraged as he knew he didn’t have to tell Sungmin what he would have to do.
“I’ll try my best to fool them. I’ll try my best to buy us time. I won’t feel as bad for bringing innocent Clovers here since I know I’ll be bringing them indirectly to the bubble. I’ll bring Youngwoon to our side too, I swear.” Sungmin retorted with determination.
“Good luck into having him fall in love with you.” Kyuhyun teased, Sungmin blushed at the younger’s words specially because Yesung scolded the younger with ‘Who wouldn’t fall in love with Min, Kyuhyun? Don’t be ridiculous.’
“We have your back, Min,” Yesung told him before the two presences went away, taking Si’s comforting voice from his head as well.
Sungmin closed his eyes. Inside the bubble the Clovers had met those special people in their hearts and many couples had formed. Sungmin had been the second Three-leaf Clover to be born, but among them he was one of the very few that had not formed a bond with a special mate. He never felt the need to, believing his only duty was to protect Si. But then they felt clovers being born and felt some of them being taken away by the Wizards. It was strange how suddenly their consciences would simply vanish. Heechul had been the one first spotting Youngwoon and learning about his powers but it was Sungmin who volunteered to study him as they had first thought he was actually an apprentice to the Wizards, but then Sungmin noticed his kind heart, how he seemed conflicted whenever he would take hold of a Clover. He noticed how the soldiers with him would isolate him, Sungmin had fallen in love with someone they all considered an enemy and he had felt quite depressed with the prospect of never knowing what it felt to be loved, for the first time he had felt jealous of Kyuhyun and Yesung, or of Heechul and Hangeng he felt jealous of all those couples.
That was until Sungmin saw Youngwoon having a heated discussion with a human commander. It was not new how he once again proclaimed to hate Clovers, what was new was the man calling him a Clover and a betrayer of his own kind. Sungmin only believed his chance at love was not completely lost when he saw Youngwoon taking off his glove and staring angrily at his palm. A Two-Leaf Clover was tattooed there on his right hand. There was a chance one day Youngwoon would come to love Sungmin if only his eyes would be open to see the truth.
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: KangMin,Yekyu
Warnings: Alternative Universe.
Word count:
Summary: A war was about to start and Kim Youngwoon became the the crucial chess piece to determine who would be the winner.
A.n/This story was inspired by the manga Clover by Clamp, I took from it the overall background, but I made some drastic adaptations and completely created a plot of my own, for those that read the story that's the feeling I got, Suu should had just rebelled and created a wrold for the clovers, A would have agreed with me hahahaha. But this is my try into a Dystopian future story <3 More KangMin coming your way haha
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By the year of 3.000 Technology became the greatest power, the world was ruled by five humans called the Wizards, these humans controlled the world’s technology and thus controlled each citizen life. Nature was overpowered by the the technology and became an exotic item, to counter attack nature absorbed the technology. Children were born with special magical powers that could threaten the Wizards’ reign, and thus a throughout search for those kids started and they had been imprisoned, forbidden to have any human contact. The Wizards told humanity they had done that so those kids wouldn’t be used as weapons, but they had been forbidden to be humans all the same.
One by one, the Wizards studied the kids and evaluated their powers. Most of the kids ended up not being too much a threat for them and were sent back into society, but three selected children were kept imprisoned, one of them had so much power she was kept imprisoned in an isolated area, forced into an eternal slumber.
As the years passed, the other two kids didn’t seem to age, their powers had grown, but not in a threatening rate, other kids were born with as much power, but never a being as powerful as she had been born. Those kids were then called clovers and their powers were ranked by leafs. One-Leaf and Two-Leaf clovers were the ones allowed back into human society, they all were kept under surveillance and some were even taken into the military forces to directly serve the Wizards. The Three-leaf Clovers were kept imprisoned, unable to communicate with each other, unable to live, despite the fact that they were alive. The only Four-leaf Clover was denied her very own existence, as she became a legend, a child many wanted to see born and to be found before the Wizards would get her, because she would be indeed a powerful weapon against them. She had been already born, and nobody but the Wizards knew.
That was until she woke up.
Still physically imprisoned, she still had control over her powers, the knowledge was hers and she knew everything that happened around her. She hated the world, she hated the Wizards, she hated the way the other Clovers were treated and one day she could take it no longer. She reached her mind to the Three-Leaf Clovers, she connected them through a web the Wizards had no means of noticing and together they rebelled. One Four-Leaf Clover and four Three-Leaf Clovers together were too powerful for the Wizards to win against.
They took control over each building, each item that possessed any bit of technology was taken over by them and the humans were forced out, They created a bubble in the world, a place only clovers were allowed to stand. The Three-leaf Clovers rescued her from her confinement and together they called over to the Two and One-Leaf Clovers, using the technology through their magical power, one by one they rescued the Clovers from humanity and locked themselves in, but they only took in the ones that want to come, that wanted to find a place they truly belonged.
The Wizards feared them, but a very special two-leaf clover was found by them, one the other clovers didn’t know existed. The Wizards had taken him as a baby and had brought him up to believe the Rebel Clovers were a threat against humanity, and he was the only hope to save the world from them. The Wizards used him to find and imprison newborn Clovers, they found a way to drain their magical power and use it against the Rebel Clovers. A war was about to start and Kim Youngwoon became the the crucial chess piece to determine who would be the winner.
_____[♣]_____
Water splashed loudly as Youngwoon stepped on a small puddle on ground. It irked him the feeling of being watched, whenever he was out on raids he had that feeling that each piece of technology was being used to spy on him. It had been years since the Wizards had put on his shoulders the duty of finding newborn, or very young Clovers, and since then the eerie feeling was there.
Movement ahead called for his attention and he ordered the soldiers with him to stop, not a second later tentacles made of optic fibers and old retorted pieces of metal appeared from the building and the ground aiming at them, but as usual the moment the tentacles entered his powers range they became useless pieces of junk. Youngwoon was a Two-Leaf Clover working directly under the Wizards commands, the only Clover that could freely walk around because of the exquisite of his powers.
Clovers were usually able to give life to inanimate things, were able to fuse themselves with pieces of technology or even teleport and use telekinesis, but not Youngwoon, his power was exactly the opposite, his magic only worked to nullify other clover’s magic.
More tentacles were brought into life, but this time instead of directly trying to attack him they actually started to break the buildings and throw pieces of concrete and metal on him, from those his magic couldn’t protect him and thus came in handy, the soldiers. They had high-tech weapons that dealt with the danger quite well, pulverizing them with one blast.
Despite the chaos of exploding junk and small starts of fire here and there, Youngwoon tried to sense the location of the Clover they were fighting against, it had taken a little bit more effort as that stupid sensation of being watched always made him look into wrong directions at first. But then he spotted it, the familiar surge of magical power only Clovers possessed. Swiftly Youngwoon ran to a door to the left of them, the soldiers ran after him on impulse as they knew they were safer close to him.
He broke through the door and almost immediately he had to duck from laser shots, and use his own guns to fight back the gang that had managed to put their hands on the Clover before Youngwoon could find him. His shots were always precise, he had to rely much more on his human power, than on his Clover power most of the time and that was what actually made him think of himself more as some sort of Wizard than actually a Clover, he hated being called as such.
“Get him!” a man shouted to a young boy that was being held hostage. He was crying, he had been beaten up and held above the ground by a brute of a big man. Despite hating Clovers himself, Youngwoon hated the treatment they received from punks like those. “I can’t!” the kid cried helplessly.
“Useless piece of shit!” the man shouted. “Kill him!” he told the man holding the boy and Youngwoon felt his blood boil. His bracelet shone and changed into a more sophisticated weapon, a cannon of plasma. “Protect yourself!” He shouted to the kid as he shot the ceiling, getting the roof to fall upon those men. The boy didn’t listen to him, he just kept crying, yet through the window a flock of bright orange mechanical birds entered the warehouse and protected the boy by forming a shield.
Youngwoon frowned as out of nowhere a young man with short black hair appeared beside a woman. At seeing them the boy shouted in a mix of terror and joy. “Mommy!” the birds had attacked the guy holding the boy hostage and thus he had quickly ran to the arms of the woman. The soldiers with Youngwoon and the gangster shot against the new arrived male, but a shield of pure static energy and the mechanical birds made their attack fruitless.
“I want happiness, I seek happiness, to cause your happiness, to be your happiness, so take me someplace far away, to a true Elsewhere, please, take me there” The guy sang with a soft tinkling voice and Youngwoon felt his hairs standing up. Quickly he tried to expand his nullifying shield. “Useless,” The Clover said and then he, the woman and the little boy disappeared.
“Shit!” Youngwoon cursed under his breath. It had been the first time he had seen one of them, one of the rebel Clovers. He was taken by surprise.
_____[♣]_____
“A Clover stood in your way?” The oldest of the wizards questioned with an impatient tone. “How does he looked like?”
Youngwoon lowered his gaze. “He was slightly shorter than me, had black short hair covering his forehead in a fringe, he was dressed in a shorts-jumpsuit and had a collar completely covering his neck, he was wearing fingerless gloves that reached his elbows and boots that reached his knees. I couldn’t really see his face, but he could control mechanical birds, create static shields and teleport. He actually teleported three people.”
“Three-leaf-Clover.” Another Wizard mumbled. “That was probably B.”
“Whoever it was is not important! What is important is that they are venturing out of the Bubble! When they first rebelled they took into the bubble all of the one and Two-Leaf-Clovers we had sent back into society! Who knows what they are doing with them!” Another Wizard thundered. “Now they are probably aware of Youngwoon’s existence. We have to find a way to get rid of them!”
“We do not have the power. As long as the Four-Leaf-Clover is alive, we won’t be able to enter their shield. Youngwoon had already tried to nullify a small part of their shield to get in and failed.” The only female Wizard spoke softly.
“We had no Clovers on our side back then, now it’s different. As they had united against us, we can use our Clovers against them.” The previous Wizard contradicted her and Youngwoon felt a little nauseous.
“We rescued them so they wouldn’t be used as weapons. What you’re proposing goes against what we had vowed to do.” Youngwoon dared speak, still not daring look at them. The Wizards silenced at his voice.
“You are right, Youngwoon, do not worry. We will keep them safe from the rebels and from evil hearted humans. You can go now, next time we sense a new Clover make sure to save him.” The female Wizard spoke still softly. Youngwoon bowed to her before he left the room. Once the door was closed behind him she spoke again. “Measure your words next time. If we lose Youngwoon to the rebels we lose any change to get them back. If he finds out what is the purpose behind him gathering the newborn Clovers we lose him.” She said sternly and the room went silent.
“We need more Clovers before trying to burst the Bubble. Only one and two leaf closers are being born, we need more Three-leaves.”
_____[♣]_____
Youngwoon sighed as he entered the bar. A bad day always ended with him at a bar. Not because he would drown himself into alcohol but because at that particular bar there were caged blue birds. Wherever you went inside the city you would only see buildings and metal structures mixed with concrete. Once the world had almost entered in collapse because natural resources were being depleted and natural areas were being polluted and lost. But then the wizards ascended with a technology that successfully replaced the nature and from then on the ‘green’ became extremely rare. Youngwoon felt himself in agony at the city, but at that bar, listening to the chirps of those birds he could feel himself calm down.
People said that the Clovers were a response from nature for being ‘replaced’. Some people dared say that the Clovers would bring nature back. But Youngwoon believed that to be a big bullshit, nature had long been lost despite the fact that dreaming with that was very common for him. Probably because he was a Clover too.
Clovers didn’t have a place in the world. When the first Clovers had been born they had been used by gangsters and other powerful men that were greedy for power, they had tried to bring the Wizards down with them, but they were frustrated because the Wizards had been much more powerful. The Clovers had been taken under their wings and given a place to stay away from harm and away from danger. For a while there had been peace because the Wizards had since been looking out for other Clovers, they had been tested and the most inoffensive of them had been allowed back into society, they didn’t have enough power to be of any use for evil hearted humans.
There was peace until a rebellion occurred.
Youngwoon didn’t know much about that, only that the Wizards had found a really powerful being, the only Clover that had been given the highest of ranks, there was a Four-Leaf-Clover they had been taking care of, but she rebelled against them, she poisoned the other Three-leaf-Clovers with lies and together they took over the facility they were living at, they created a shield the Wizards could not break through and slowly they started to expand, after a few years they ventured outside and one by one they took into the shield the other Clovers peacefully living among normal humans until none was left outside.
Years had passed and other Clovers were born, some had been taken by the Wizards, some by the rebel Clovers. Youngwoon had been one of the lucky Clovers rescued by the Wizards, after learning what his power could do, he became the only hope to stop the rebel Clovers from destroying humanity, what the wizards had proclaimed was their goal as slowly the bubble they had created just kept on growing.
The birds chirped at his presence in a lively sound and he was filled with insecurity, he always felt like that when he would first hear them, but then the feeling would slimmer and vanish, being replaced by calmness. He remembered the Three-leaf-Clover he had met that day. He had lied about not remembering the other’s face. He remembered everything clearly. The woman and the kid had been beaten up, but they were smiling brightly as they could once again hold each other, before they disappeared the two of them had looked at the Three-Leaf-Clover and smiled, they were happy and had thankful expression on their faces. He smiled back at them as if offering reassurance that they were safe, he had wiped the boy’s tears before looking at Youngwoon straight. His face was young, but his stance was that of someone much older than Youngwoon, his features were soft, were kind, his eyes were beautiful and seemed sincere as they looked at Youngwoon with something akin to longing, it was like the Clover didn’t want to be his opponent.
Youngwoon shook his head. The rebel Clovers were enemies.
_____[♣]_____
Youngwoon couldn’t feel luckier for stumbling into twin Clovers while jogging in the morning on his free day. He had no weapons with him and despite being able to run faster than those kids he was still having a hard time to get them because rather than use their powers to attack Youngwoon they were using it to run away.
The feeling of exhaustion was getting to him and in a last attempt to get them Youngwoon forced his nullifying shield further away, but at the same time he did so a staircase made of orange birds was suddenly formed to the left and a voice filled the air singing softly. “Take me… Some place far away… Take me... To a true elsewhere….” At hearing him, the two kids sprinted in the direction of the stairs.
Youngwoon didn’t know why all Clovers seemed to respond to that song, after that first day, that Clover, B, had appeared in all his mission picking up the Clovers he was supposed to rescue and taking them into the bubble, Youngwoon was slightly really starting to hate that guy. Because of his frustration he ended up stretching his powers more than what his body could actually take.
The power of a Three-Leaf Clover was no joke, he felt a pressure in his head once his barrier entered in contact with the birds, the stair didn’t collapse completely, but the steps one of the kids was standing on did, and Youngwoon had managed to take him.
“Brother!” the kid that was with B shouted in panic. Youngwoon looked up. “He is lying to you! He and the other Clovers just want to use you!” Youngwoon shouted as he held the kid protectively in his arms. “But I will truly protect you!”
And then something Youngwoon couldn’t really understand happened, the kid with B looked at him with scared eyes and asked, “You won’t take mommy and daddy with us? You promised to protect them too!” B kneeled in front of the kid. “I didn’t lie to you, and neither he is not lying to you, but there are evil people lying to him, he just doesn’t know.”
Youngwoon felt like cursing the daylight out of the Clover for saying such things, but before he could say anything the young male looked at him and spoke with a firm tone. “If you allow me to send these two kids into the bubble, I’ll go with you to the Wizards. I promised them they would find a safe place to live, I don’t want to break my promise.”
“As if the bubble would be a safe place for them.” Youngwoon scoffed with an angry tone, he expected the Clover to retort something mean, but the guy just smiled and walked down his bird staircase. The kid in his arms became terrified and the kid with Youngwoon started to shout for them to get away and leave him behind. “You don’t know because we can’t reach you, Si is afraid that if she tried to contact you, her power would be too much for you to withstand, since you naturally try to nullify whatever magic that comes in close contact to you,” B retorted.
Youngwoon looked him in the eyes and he saw sincerity, specially because he stopped an inch before entering in contact with Youngwoon’s natural barrier. He knew how close he could get. At that moment Youngwoon was sure that the feeling he had of being watched really had a reason, B was watching him, the Rebel Clovers were watching his every move. “Why would I believe you? You hate humanity, you want them gone,” Youngwoon accused, the kids were completely uncomfortable in their grasp, unable to get away.
“That’s not entirely true. We hate the humans that hates us. We hate the humans that only sees us as weapon or as a source of easy money. But these kids’ parents love them, they had tried to protect them, had tried to hide them and keep them safe, for these humans we have a place because we believe no child should be away from their parents.” The Three-Leaf Clover spoke with some sort of sadness to his voice, Youngwoon didn’t know if that guy’s parents had sold him or had died trying to protect him, but he knew for himself, his parents didn’t want him, they had sold him to the Wizards and the Wizards became his family.
Youngwoon looked at the scared kids and made up his mind, if he was to bring a Three-Leaf Clover the Wizards would be much more satisfied than with two lower ranked clovers that didn’t really know how to use their powers. And truth be told, Youngwoon didn’t have the heart to break a family, if that guy was lying to the kids it was their problem for believing in him. “Call. But I will hold to this one until we find their parents,” he therefore said.
The clover smiled and nodded. Youngwoon was sure that if the guy would try to teleport along he would be able to interfere even if it would cost him some days in coma. Yet true to his words B stayed behind and only teleported the family into the bubble. “Back to my confinement.” The clover smiled resigned as he looked at Youngwoon, raising his hand in a sign that he expected Youngwoon to cuff him or something.
The Two-Leaf Clover looked intently at the Three-Leaf Clover for a while before he took a step in his direction. B shivered as he was forced into Youngwoon nullifying area, Youngwoon didn’t feel the same pressure he had felt before, but he took it that he had been exhausted. There was no hesitation in B’s eyes as Youngwoon held his face in his hands and looked down at the shorter male. “I will bring down the bubble, I am the only one that has the power to do so.”
The Three-Leaf Clover closed his eyes and rubbed his left cheek on Youngwoon’s right hand. “One day we will be able to reach you. Si’s song will be able to reach you, because despite this power you have, you are a Clover. One day you will see the truth, Youngwoon.” he spoke softly, Youngwoon couldn’t understand why that guy was doing that, he couldn’t understand why he seemed to be overjoyed at the fact that Youngwoon was actually touching him. They looked each other in the eyes again but then Youngwoon projected a wave of nullifying power directly into B’s head. The Three-leaf Clover fell limp in his arms a second later, unconscious.
_____[♣]_____
His vision was blurred when he woke up, it had been a really long time since he last had a terrible headache like that. He felt a tug of panic at seeing himself immersed into the sensory deprivation tank the Wizards used to imprison the Clovers specially because his usual clothes were gone replaced by a white one piece gown and baggy pants. His neck cover was also gone and his Three-Leaf Clover tattoo was in the open for anyone to see, but he also had another piece of jewelry, there was a bracelet on his right arm with a vivid blood red stone shining. The Wizards had never given him accessories before.
After taking in his surrounding he tried to reach his mind outside, tried to feel other Clovers consciousness but failed. He really panicked then because he was really disconnected from Si and the other Clovers, their plan had failed. His sacrifice was wasted and he would never see his friends again, would never see Youngwoon again. The thought made his heart ache, he had tasted freedom once, he had been able to escape his prison once, he could do it again, sure that time he had Si’s help, and she could no longer reach him, but that didn’t discourage him. He closed his eyes and emptied his mind, he tried to feel all the technology around him, pulsating as if alive around him, he tried to blend and felt a restriction coming from his wrist.
The bracelet was something different. He concentrated on it then, trying to discover its secrets, understand its reason to be and when he found out he frowned angrily. It was his blood, that bracelet had been codified with Youngwoon’s blood, his DNA was part of its structure and therefore it had its own nullifying shield. The Wizards were such sick bastards, how much of Youngwoon’s blood they had been draining? How many more weapons they had which were using it? No Wonder Youngwoon was so sure he would be the end of the Clovers.
He was allowed just a moment to be angry because a few minutes later he heard a voice singing in his head and he smiled, it was a combination of two voices he loved dearly. Kyuhyun, Yesung he called softly to them.
“Sungmin hyung!” Kyuhyun called happily. Sungmin smiled at the feelings coursing through him at the two new consciences inside his head. He would never be alone again, The wizards would never be able to win against them. “For a moment I feared we had failed.” Sungmin replied feeling Si far away, touching him through the other two Clovers and not directly as he had first expected.
“We actually failed to a degree, Sungmin. We lost contact with you for three hours.” Yesung said with a worried tone. Sungmin frowned hearing that already preparing himself for the bad news. “The Wizards put a bomb inside of you, they tried to erase and recreate your memories as they plan to use you to help Youngwoon into destroying us, they tried to make you believe Si had left you behind only saving Kyuhyun, Heechul and Leeteuk. They think they succeeded into making you think you also hate us, and that for a while you had been helping Youngwoon ‘rescue’ Clovers.”
Sungmin listened with a heavy heart, a bomb was not supposed to be a problem but from Yesung’s tone it was. The thing about the memories was something they all had expected would happen. He looked at the bracelet then and concluded with a heavy heart. “They put bombs inside all the Clovers they had ‘rescued’ and these bombs are like the bracelet.” Sungmin stated.
“It’s worse than the bracelet, hyung,” Kyuhyun replied with a worried tone. “It took us four hours to be able to understand how the bracelet works, the bombs have much more layers of his DNA in them. We don’t know how long it will take for us to be able to disarm it. We were concentrated into it and missed when you woke up, sorry, you must have felt horrible.”
Sungmin smiled despite the situation. “I believe in you. The bracelets are no big deal now, right?” he tried to point the bright side of things and he actually grinned as he heard Kyuhyun’s reply. “We are now using them to reach the other imprisoned Clovers, Si is singing to them and trying to fortify their minds before we can finally rescue them. The bombs are the biggest worry. We thought about disarming yours first, but since you’ll have to be too close to Youngwoon from now on we can’t risk him sensing you are not alone, so we’ll work in the imprisoned Clovers.”
“Hangeng and Heechul are working with us to disarm the bombs so we might succeed into doing it faster than we actually are expecting. Donghae and Eunhyuk will be in charge of looking after you, though they are only Two-Leaf Clovers and won’t be able to effectively help you, they can still safely connect you to Si, so she can also protect you.” Yesung encouraged as he knew he didn’t have to tell Sungmin what he would have to do.
“I’ll try my best to fool them. I’ll try my best to buy us time. I won’t feel as bad for bringing innocent Clovers here since I know I’ll be bringing them indirectly to the bubble. I’ll bring Youngwoon to our side too, I swear.” Sungmin retorted with determination.
“Good luck into having him fall in love with you.” Kyuhyun teased, Sungmin blushed at the younger’s words specially because Yesung scolded the younger with ‘Who wouldn’t fall in love with Min, Kyuhyun? Don’t be ridiculous.’
“We have your back, Min,” Yesung told him before the two presences went away, taking Si’s comforting voice from his head as well.
Sungmin closed his eyes. Inside the bubble the Clovers had met those special people in their hearts and many couples had formed. Sungmin had been the second Three-leaf Clover to be born, but among them he was one of the very few that had not formed a bond with a special mate. He never felt the need to, believing his only duty was to protect Si. But then they felt clovers being born and felt some of them being taken away by the Wizards. It was strange how suddenly their consciences would simply vanish. Heechul had been the one first spotting Youngwoon and learning about his powers but it was Sungmin who volunteered to study him as they had first thought he was actually an apprentice to the Wizards, but then Sungmin noticed his kind heart, how he seemed conflicted whenever he would take hold of a Clover. He noticed how the soldiers with him would isolate him, Sungmin had fallen in love with someone they all considered an enemy and he had felt quite depressed with the prospect of never knowing what it felt to be loved, for the first time he had felt jealous of Kyuhyun and Yesung, or of Heechul and Hangeng he felt jealous of all those couples.
That was until Sungmin saw Youngwoon having a heated discussion with a human commander. It was not new how he once again proclaimed to hate Clovers, what was new was the man calling him a Clover and a betrayer of his own kind. Sungmin only believed his chance at love was not completely lost when he saw Youngwoon taking off his glove and staring angrily at his palm. A Two-Leaf Clover was tattooed there on his right hand. There was a chance one day Youngwoon would come to love Sungmin if only his eyes would be open to see the truth.