Maybe I should clear out my computer more often, I find all sorts of half-finished stories on it. I hope the writing style isn't too disjointed, I was trying something different.

Disclaimer: I don't own a thing. Except maybe...nothing comes to mind.

Momentary Storm

Lightning tore through the leaden sky, the relentless pursuit of thunder rupturing the eardrums of any unfortunate bystander as it bellowed in fury, once again denied its prey. The icy shards that plummeted to earth, endlessly, tirelessly, drenched and chilled to the bone. Ebony darkness cloaked the land, abruptly blown back by the returning spikes of neon white-blue, only to palpitate back as the split-second of light passed.

Flicking back locks of his soaked chestnut hair, Lloyd found he was in no mood to admire the magnificent storm raging high above him. He was occupied by his current predicament: he was lost outside, during a night-time storm, in the unfamiliarity of Meltokio.

The Professor had warned Lloyd not to go out, but had her student listened? No matter what Raine said, Lloyd either rebuked or ignored her; he wanted nothing more than to be away from everyone, and away from the chaos, the confusion, and the overwhelming sense of betrayal in his mind.

Kratos…

The twin-swordsman violently shook his head, as if he could shake away the thought of the elder—treacherous—swordsman. Kratos had deceived them, betrayed them, and tried to take Colette. Up to there, Lloyd agreed with his friends.

But when they insisted that he wanted them dead, Lloyd found himself thinking; why hadn't the mercenary-turned-Seraph finished them off at the Tower of Salvation? He'd had enough time.

Raine's current theory was that Yggdrasill had interrupted, but Lloyd knew that Yggdrasill person had admonished Kratos, saying something about the traitor not being able to finish them off. What had he said? It was something the teen had found strange…

Lloyd forced himself out of his thoughts long enough to glance around, and vaguely recognised a nearby building. That place Sheena had mentioned before she left. It was that…Research place.

Zelos had mentioned it too. Wasn't his house—where they were staying—around this area of the city, in the north of Meltokio?

In all honesty, Lloyd though that the so-called houses in the imperial city were more like palaces. Maybe that was a side-effect of living in the 'hick land' as Zelos called it.

Lloyd had to wonder why his thoughts continually wandered off-course as he dashed down a nearby alleyway.

Stumbling down the stairway—had the steps always been so uneven?—he toppled as his foot unexpectedly hit thin air. With a sticky squelch, the teen found himself half-submerged in some water-logged mud. Trying to curse though a mouthful of muddy water was near impossible, Lloyd found, so he spat out the offending contents of his mouth.

The perpetual rain and murky darkness unwillingly revealed several derelict blocks, for lack of a better description. Where in Meltokio was he?

"Lookie 'ere," hissed a voice. "Rich SOB aler'."

Even though he could barely understand the man's thick dialect, Lloyd knew when he was being insulted. The group barely had any money, not even enough to afford a night at the inn.

"Anythin' on 'im?"

Great; there were two of them. And to make matters worse, Lloyd could barely feel his left ankle. It was as if it was disconnected from the rest of him.

He needed to get up. Unfortunately, the sodden mud was like quicksand, and the brunet was still shaking from the shock of the fall. He managed to struggle onto his elbows, but that was his limit.

"Crap!"

"Lookit, 'e cannit get up, can 'e?"

The silence was a silence in which Lloyd cursed every raindrop that fell, and his own stupidity. He had wandered innocently into the Meltokian slums.

"'Is swords. Think they'd make a mint?"

"Make w' summat, aye."

Lloyd cursed again. He was helpless; he couldn't even reach for his swords because the hilts were buried in the mud.

"Afore 'e recovers, geddim." The man speaking sounded like a snake. Squelching and curses followed the order. They didn't need to be stealthy; it wasn't as if Lloyd was going anywhere in a hurry.

Raine wasn't going to be mightily impressed when she discovered her student had been robbed—an "I-hate-to-say-I-told-you-so-but-I'm-going-to-lecture-you-about-it-anyway" scolding was probably already lined up for Lloyd's no-doubt dismal return.

Somewhere behind him, there was a screech of steel, and a pale, eerie light spilled around the fallen seventeen-year-old. Footsteps squelched towards him from behind.

Lloyd's stomach seemed to decide it was a good time to develop an abyss in fear and panic.

"'Ey, go find ya own!"

"And if I refused? What would you do then?" replied a calm, low voice, with an unmistakeable trace of sadistic humour in it. Lloyd felt odd. He knew that voice; he'd heard it often. Whose was it?

A cool, gloved hand was offered to the teen a moment later, and Lloyd took it, no matter how grudgingly. What had become of his two would-be muggers, he had no idea, and Lloyd decided he preferred it that way. The teen wondered if he had temporarily blacked out.

Regardless, getting up was a challenge in itself: Lloyd's injured ankle almost seemed to have some phobia of weight, crumpling at the slightest pressure like thin paper under a brick. In the end, his mystery saviour pulled him up, looped Lloyd's left arm over his shoulder, and they began to make their unsteady way over to the stairwell.

While the man inspected Lloyd's ankle, the teen tried to get a closer look at him. The eerie light from before had vanished; it could have been anything, but the phrase will-o-the-wisp sprung to mind for some reason. Wincing, he thought that, either way, he was left in darkness; he could barely see himself, never mind someone else.

"Your ankle is either fractured…or simply badly sprained." Lloyd heard rather than saw the man straighten up with a resigned sigh. "Walking on it isn't advisable."

Lloyd looked irritated, although it was impossible to tell. "So how do you expect me to get back?" he demanded. "Do you think I'm gonna happily sit here and freeze to death in the rain?"

There was a pause, as if the man was considering something. He crouched down so he was on the same level as Lloyd. The teen at once squinted at his silhouette.

"I suppose I'll have to carry you."

A total stranger was offering to help him in the dead of a stormy night? Lloyd couldn't stop the snarky remark from slipping out: "Well, sorry if I don't jump for joy."

A chuckle met his ears. "If you were to try, that ankle of yours would never recover from such abuse."

"And I'd be more of a liability and all that. Already know that, Kratos—" The name stuck in his throat, and he had to try a few times to force it out. "Kratos used to tell me that all the time."

"Why were you outside?" The sudden question disrupted Lloyd's quickly darkening thoughts, and he blinked a few times before finally answering.

"I…wanted to get away from everything." That summed everything up well, without giving too much away to the man; even Lloyd wasn't that dumb.

"I see." The stranger's tone made it clear that he didn't see, but it didn't stop a pair of hands carefully maneuvered Lloyd into a piggy-back position.

The teen couldn't remember the last time he'd had a piggy-back; he had always been the tallest one back in Iselia, so it hadn't been fair to ask for one from his smaller friends. The Professor was a different matter entirely.

The man's voice was unexpected; Lloyd twitching in his half-awake state. "Family troubles?"

"Traitor." He felt the man falter as he walked. The teen was in a strange mood, more trusting than he had been minutes ago, so he ignored it.

"That bastard used us, lied; even tried to kill us! He wanted to use Colette for whatever twisted reason, and we just merrily gave her to him! I…I trusted him!"

That was the crux of the matter, the young swordsman realized. It took him too long to trust, naïve nature aside; he was too scared of being left alone.

Raine had put it down as an irrational fear due to a childhood trauma: infants were more sensitive to people than adults gave them credit for. A younger Lloyd had slowly become convinced that he had been a bad child, his parents leaving him alone because of his naughtiness.

Kratos, damn him, let Lloyd trust him, even though he clearly knew all along what he would do to them in the end. It had brought out something of the frightened toddler in Lloyd; refusing to genuinely trust someone unless they somehow proved to him that they wouldn't vanish from his life without reason.

"He's a liar, he betrayed us; I even saw what he was going to do." The teen could feel himself beginning to drift to sleep, despite how worked up he felt. "But…why? Why did he… do that? He…let us…get…"

Kratos glanced at Lloyd as he dozed off mid-sentence, and kept walking. It would all be a dream in the morning.

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