Aeria's POV

Right before we got through the gates, I put an arm out to stop Lloyd in his tracks before directing him,

"If anyone asks who you are, don't say anything. Here, knowledge is power and not in a good way. Got it?"

"Ok." Lloyd nodded once and I put my arm down before we walked into town and made our way to the auto body shop.

Once we entered the shop and made our way to my workshop, we were greeted by Jeff scowling at Lloyd and yelling at me,

"Where you been Vi? You got three appointments waitin' for ya!" He gestured to the buggy I was fixing before I was caught, an old jalopy with a smoking carburetor, and an electric scooter with a blown-out tire.

"I'm on it." I told him, but just before he walked out I stopped him and added, "Hey, I... I might not be coming back after this, it's a Blow Over."

We each tried to stay straight faced, but he gave a smile before clapping a hand to my shoulder and telling me,

"Then, it's been a pleasure, kid. You take care of yourself, ya hear?" Before leaving my workshop as I started gathering tools from around my workshop, causing Lloyd to ask,

"What's the deal with that Jeff guy?"

"When I ran away from the Lynn's and Ronin, I got lost in the woods, he found me, took me in, and let me stay here, taught me to box to defend myself and fix anything mechanical so I could work here."

"How is that any different from working for the Lynn's or Ronin?"

"He may not look like it, but Jeff's the closest thing I have to a guardian. We may not have been emotionally close, but he gave me a place to hide, and that's been good enough for me all these years."

"Oh..." I heard Lloyd whisper as I pulled on my safety gloves to get to work fixing the vehicles.

"Shouldn't we be getting your stuff and leaving?" Lloyd asked me as he handed me a wrench after I pointed to it.

"Relax, this'll take me half an hour at most." I assured him as I finished fixing the carburetor in the jalopy after rapidly fixing the tire I had left off on the buggy.

"What did you do for fun around here?" Lloyd asked me out of the blue as I got to work souping up the engine and fixing the blown out wheel on the electric scooter.

"A little bit of tinkering here and there, ride my motorcycle through the forest, boxing training, and that's about it." I responded as I popped off a wheel, grabbed a newer one, filled it with air, and screwed it into place on the axle.

"Done." I declared after starting the engine on the scooter and it rumbled powerfully before I turned it back off.

"Wow, that was fast." Lloyd remarked as I started heading to the back of the workshop where the door to my personal room was. I opened the door, turned on the light, and practically heard Lloyd silently grimace behind me when he saw my room.

I had a rickety bed where I slept, a closet with no door where I kept all my fading and worn thin darkly colored clothes, and a small chipped desk where I worked on small projects with spare parts.

"Home sweet home." I chant to try and lighten the mood as I grabbed my black backpack and started shoving different things I might need into it, including the black boxing gloves given to me by Jeff that were the only things in my room that weren't completely falling apart. I was about to tell Lloyd that we could leave when I remembered one last thing, the little wooden box that I've kept with me since I was a kid. I grabbed it from its hiding place in my desk drawer and shoved it into my jacket pocket when,

"How long have you been living here?" Lloyd asked with concern clear in his voice.

"About 5 or 6 years."

"What?!" He exclaimed when I answered.

"I was taken in by the Lynn's when I was 6, I went to work for Ronin when I was 8, and I came here when I was 9." I sadly explained as I shouldered my backpack and we left my room through the back door to avoid Jeff, not wanting to make it that much harder to leave and never come back.

"Guess I'm not the only one who had kind of a rough childhood, huh?" Lloyd asked me and I was about to ask what he meant by that when my thoughts were interrupted,

"Heya Vi..." A guy in a black beanie with his cropped black hair poking out from under it, wearing a red hoodie and black pants and shoes spoke as he and his two lackeys surrounded me and Lloyd.

"Not a good time, Vince." I growled and he just laughed and got a look at Lloyd before turning back to me.

"What? Too busy hanging out with your new boyfriend?" He sneered as the lackeys snuck around behind us and grabbed me and Lloyd's arms and prevented us from being able to fight back.

"Are you kidding me!?" I exclaimed in disbelief just before Vincent came over and punched me in the stomach making me double over in pain.

"You know what happens when you lie to me, Violet." He snarled angrily as I lifted my head to face him with a death glare of my own.

"Hey, stop it!" Lloyd yelled out.

"What are you gonna do about it?" Vincent taunted him before Lloyd judo-flipped the lackey holding him and wrenched me away from them, pushing me behind him as he held his arm out in front of me protectively.

"Look, I don't wanna hurt you, but you can't just go around beating people up cause you feel like it." Lloyd started to advise before Vincent and his lackeys burst out laughing as he directed to me,

"This is the kind of guy you're hanging out with nowadays," He laughed some more before continuing, "I hope you enjoy being a good girl now!"

I was seething with anger at that point, so, just as they tried to walk away, I stormed forward, brushing past Lloyd's, still, outstretched arm, and spun Vincent around to face me and grabbed, and lifted him by the front of his shirt as I pulled my arm back, ready to throw a hard punch at his face.

"Aeria no!" Lloyd yelled to me and I blew him, and the lackeys, back with a hard gust of wind as I prepared to strike Vincent, who looked at me with wide, terrified eyes at what I just did,

"P-please don't."

"Aeria, don't do this, you're better than this. He's not worth it." My fist started to shudder in midair as I processed what Lloyd said before growling and roughly throwing Vincent forward to the ground.

"Get outta here..." I sharply moved my bead go motion away from us with a deadly low voice and glare.

He scrambled to his feet and ran away with his lackeys following behind, I turned and walked past Lloyd to the entrance of Tozmachi and he followed behind me.

"Not retaliating was the right thing to do, people like that pick on other people cause they've got nothing better to do and think it makes them feel more powerful." Lloyd tried to assure me as he summoned his elemental dragon and I got on without his help, again, and we took off to return to the flying ship.

"Whatever..." I whispered under my breath and added, "Hey... thanks for having my back, even if I had that under control."

"'Under control'? You were getting beaten up." Lloyd faced me with a look of annoyance and concern merged together.

"Whatever you say..." I looked away from his gaze to look at the ground below us flying past and there was an awkward pause before,

"Who was that guy?"

"Vincent? He used to come around the shop a lot to see me, would try to get me to join his crew, seeing as how I was able to sneak around without being detected from most people, until I told him to stay away from me since he causes trouble for the heck of it and I just wanted to lay low." I explained to him.

"Wow..."

"You have no idea." I whispered as the flying ship came into view in the distance.

"We're back." Lloyd informed me as he landed his dragon on the deck of the flying ship and it dissipated from under us again.

"Let's hurry and get inside before-" Lloyd cut himself off as his friends were lined up, waiting for an explanation.

"Uh oh..." We echoed each other silently.

1442 Words