Chapter Three

Disclaimer: See Chapter Two. (I'm so lazy XD…)

I decided to do the next chapter from Lloyd's POV, because I like to skip around and confuse you, and because, well…why not? Lloyd's cool! (If not a bit mentally challenged…) And don't worry; I haven't completely forgotten about Regal, however it may seem; I already have an idea for him in mind, hehehe…

&&Lloyd&&

"Lloyd Irving, wake up!"

Holy Martel! I did not just hear that! Major déjà vu! Wait a minute…had everything that had happened since that day in class just been a dream, and was I still in Iselia, standing at the back of the classroom holding buckets of water! NOOOO-

"Mr. Irving! Wake up this instant and tell the class how to solve this equation using the quadratic formula!"

Huh? What was the quadratic formula? And that didn't sound like Raine…I opened my eyes slowly. Well, I wasn't standing at the back of a room, or holding buckets of water. My head was on a desk. On the desk was an open book…like a textbook. So I wasn't in Iselia…but where was I?

"Where am I?" I asked blearily. Lots of kids were turned around in their seats, staring at me. Right in front of me was a girl with a pink shirt worse than Sheena's, long straight hair, and a ton of makeup on. A couple desks over, I spotted a familiar face…

"Colette!" I exclaimed, sitting up, "You're here!"

She giggled.

"Of course I'm here, Lloyd," she said, "We're at school, remember?"

"We are…?" Man, I was really confused now. Raine was our teacher, not this lady! And who were all these other people?

"Are you ready to answer the question yet, Mr. Irving?" the lady at the front of the room had really ugly glasses, wrinkled skin, and black hair. She looked nothing like anyone I had ever seen teaching a school in Sylvarant.

"Who are you and what have you done with Professor Raine!" I demanded, leaping up from my desk. The whole class started laughing their heads off.

"What's so funny?" I asked, a bit thrown off.

"Lloyd!" Colette called to me, "We're not in Iselia anymore, remember…?"

I stopped for a second, and then…I remembered! The mysterious figure in the black cloak, our weird new house, Raine's disgusting toast, some place called high school…yeah, that's right. I was in something called eighth period right now. I was kinda confused…I had slept through pretty much every class.

"Never mind," I said to the teacher, sitting down. Colette gave me a thumbs up and grinned. The teacher looked very ticked off, while the class was still tittering.

"Quiet," she ordered, and the students fell silent, "I'll just ask someone else who was actually paying attention…"

Colette waved her hand wildly in the air.

"Ooh! Ooh, Professor, pick me!" she cried, but the teacher ignored her and chose a kid in the front row. I tried to stay awake as he talked, but man it was hard…I rested my head on my book again, feeling sleepy.

"Omigod, are you going to sleep again?" the pink-shirted girl in front of me whispered. I lifted my head up, stifling a yawn.

"Yeah," I answered, putting my head back down. She giggled and started whispering with the other kids. I tried to block out the sound with my sleeve, but then…

"What's that on your hand?" the girl behind me asked.

"What, you mean my Exsphere?" I held it up for her see. She nodded, but still looked confused.

"You guys don't have Exspheres?" I asked in disbelief. Wow, these guys were really lucky! No Exspheres to screw up their lives…

"No…" she was eyeing it suspiciously, like it would eat her or something.

"It's not dangerous, see?" I pulled it off its Key Crest and held it up for her to see. She reached out to take it, but I jerked it back.

"You can't have it," I snapped, "Um…I mean…it's my mom's…never mind." She just wouldn't get it.

"Can't I just hold it?" she pleaded.

"Nope," I turned around and went back to sleep.

&&

"Lloyd! Lloyd, wake up!"

"Huh?"

"Class is over! Come on, we can go home now!" This time, Colette was shaking my shoulder. I looked around the classroom; it was empty for once. Colette heaved me out of my seat and dragged me towards the door.

"Come on, Lloyd!" she insisted, "We don't want to miss our bus! Um …What number was it again?"

"Uh…345 or something like that…" I was tired, man. I was in no mood to remember our stupid bus number.

"345…yeah, that sounds about right," she answered, "And what were our locker numbers? And our combinations?"

"…No clue," I figured hey, it wasn't that important.

"Lloyd! That's important!"

"Then why didn't you remember it?"

"I told you to!" Colette looked really upset now, "I told you to write it on your hand!"

"Colette…I'm wearing gloves." I love my gloves. They're so awesome. Why would I deface them with some dumb numbers?

"Oh no! Now we can't bring home our books!"

"No homework, then."

"LLOYD!"

"Is there a problem, children?" we both looked up to see a big guy in a suit-looking thing standing next to us in the hallway.

"Yes, we—" Colette began.

"—Are going home right now," I finished, leading Colette in the opposite direction down the hallway. I didn't want any homework! Not being able to open my locker was the perfect excuse!

"…Huh?" Colette caught up to me in confusion, "Why did you say that?"

"We're going to miss our bus," The one thing Colette and I didn't agree on was whether or not we should do our homework.

"…Oh. Well, we wouldn't want that!"

All the kids in the hallway were giving us strange looks. They kept laughing at us. They looked pretty weird, too. I don't know what was so funny. But whatever…we followed the crowd out the doors and saw…a lot of big yellow buses.

"Um…"

"Maybe our number doesn't matter," Colette suggested, "Maybe we just get on whatever bus we want to and it takes us where we ask the driver to go."

Hmm. That sounded okay to me.

"Sure," I agreed as she grinned happily, "Let's get on…"

"That one!" Colette pointed at some beat-up looking thing. She raced towards it, and I followed at her heels.

When we climbed on, the driver demanded to know who we were.

"I'm Colette and this is Lloyd," Colette introduced us with a cheery smile.

"Where do you kids live?" the lady demanded grouchily.

"Um…" Colette looked at me as if to say Where DO we live? I shrugged.

"We know our stop," I suggested.

"Whatever, just hurry up and sit down."

"Let's sit in the back!" Colette whispered to me. I followed her lead and we took the two back seats. They were shorter than all the other ones, which was pretty cool. We bounced up and down, enjoying the softness of the seats.

"Um…what are you doing?" I heard a voice say. Looking forward, I saw a girl who looked maybe a little older than Genis with wavy brown hair giving us a raised eyebrow look.

"These seats!" I explained, "We like them!"

"I'm not even gonna ask," she sighed, turning around, but a split second later her big brown eyes were peering over the seat again.

"Wait…are you those new kids everyone's talking about?"

"Um…I guess so," I answered slowly.

"Are you some kind of…crazy cosplayer or something?" she asked me, narrowing her eyes.

"What's a cosplayer?" I questioned in confusion.

"Y'know…someone who dresses up like people from anime or video games or whatever," she said in an annoyed tone, "Because you look exactly like Lloyd from Tales of Symphonia."

"Hey! How did you know my name?" I demanded. I hate giving people my name; especially people I don't like.

"…You really are crazy," she sighed, facing forwards again.

Was that creepy or what? How did that girl know my name? I looked at Colette, but she was too busy sticking her head out the window.

"Hey Lloyd!" she called, "This is fun! You should try it!"

"Keep your heads inside!" the driver bellowed from the front as we started moving. Colette reluctantly pulled her head back in.

The rest of the way, the girl in front of me kept talking to me.

"My friend's not here, so I'm bored," she explained. She kept asking me how I made such a good costume, and how I got my hair like that. I told her it was natural, but she kept pestering me. Finally, she got off.

"Lloyd…" Colette said, "We're the only ones left on the bus."

I looked around, and saw that she was right! All the seats were empty!

"Let's hide," Colette giggled, ducking down behind the seat and pulling her feet up, "So we can surprise the bus driver when we get to our stop."

I ducked down behind my seat, too.

"…Where's our stop?" I wondered out loud.

A few minutes later, the bus slowed to a stop again. All I could see from my hiding place was a bunch of gray and brown buildings. This didn't look like our stop…

I peeked over the edge of the seat. The bus driver was gone!

"Colette!" I said urgently, "The driver left!" We jumped up and raced off the empty bus. The driver was nowhere in sight. Instead, there was a bunch of dirty-looking streets, more car-things like the bus, and, directly in front of us, a large brown building with a rusty sign reading, "Wanda's Bar."

"Where are we?" Colette's voice said beside me.

"…I don't know," I answered, pointing to the bar, "Let's go in there and ask for help."

&&

Oh dear…this is not looking good. Next chapter, we'll find out what happened to Genis and Presea, as well as catch up on stuff back at the house! I'd love to hear from you. Until next time!