Chapter Text
Repetition is a large part of Lloyd’s life. Every weekend is the same. Every school day is the same.
Wake up, have breakfast, school: be bored out of his mind or be forced to socialise with his peers for eight hours, home: study until dinner, sleep, wake up and do it all again.
The weekends were similar, except there wasn’t any school, he had his work instead.
He doesn’t really care he does that he seems to be the only teenager in the city, if not the world, who doesn’t have a tight-knit group of friends. You did and still do, you just need to find them.
Lloyd does the same thing day after day after day. Week after week. Which is fine, he prefers it like this — without anything unexpected popping up. What are you talking about? You love unexpected things! It’s pretty much part of your job description…oh wait…never mind.
The only thing that really changes in his life, anymore, are the seasons. The blazing heat of the summer cools to welcome the vibrant colours of the autumn. The weather cools even further to bring snow and freeze exposed bodies of water. The ice and snow melts to welcome the infant sproutlings and the birdsong of the returning birds. And The cycle begins again, exactly like Lloyd’s life.
Again and again. He finishes ninth grade, then tenth grade, and starts eleventh grade.
Then, one day, while he was at work, a blond-haired person - who looks about his own age - walks in. As soon as they do, Lloyd is hit with the strongest feeling of deja vu he’s ever experienced thus far in his life.
As far as he’s aware, he’s never even seen them before in his life…so why does he feel like he’s known them for most of his life? Like they are friends? Like they are family? Because you are, idiot. If you'd just remember .
The person orders an iced coffee. Lloyd stops spacing out just long enough to ring through the order.
As soon as he has rung it up, the memories (or what he believes to be memories) start.
It’s hazy, like he’s watching footage from a camera that hasn't been properly focused.
There are two people, both teenagers: a guy with brown hair that’s so spikey that it makes him look like a hedgehog and a lady with black hair cut into a bob.
He can see the familial resemblance, they have to be siblings. Yes! You’re finally getting somewhere!
The siblings are standing in a kitchen, he can make out the shapes of a coffee maker and a fridge behind the hedgehog guy.
They are arguing about something, it’s not clear enough for Lloyd to hear what they’re saying. Until it is.
Coffee. They’re arguing about how much coffee that hedgehog guy drinks. Only, it doesn’t seem like it’s a heated argument. It feels familiar like this is something that the two argue about daily.
He doesn’t know these two so why does he feel like that? You know the answer, Lloyd.
This is the same situation that he was in when the blond guy walked into the store.
Suddenly, there’s a third voice calling into the room. The speaker, who is standing somewhere behind him, is asking about something…asking if some kind of clothing has been washed?
Lloyd knows this voice. He’s heard it recently, within the last day — no the last hour.
He doesn’t have the time to mull on it any longer as the scene that he’s forced to watch continues on.
“I hung them out to dry after training this morning, Zane,” the lady tell the voice.
Zane…that was the blond guy who came in to order something just now.
Something else clicks into place in Lloyd’s memories but he isn’t thrown into another scene that he knows now is a memory (but is it one of his? It can’t be, otherwise he would have known about it before now), he’s dumped back into the present — back to real life.
The blond guy has already left, there is no sign of them anywhere in the store. And the system says that their order has been completed. Which is strange because it has only been five minutes since Lloyd took his order.
Maybe he daydreamed the whole encounter. But the existence of their order in the past orders log proves otherwise. I can assure you, you did not dream that scene up. It definitely happened.
His boss calls him to the back of the store, to the storage space to shelve the shipment that has just come in. The train of thought and the absurd not-his-own (?) memories manage to slip into the back of his mind as he stacks the packages of coffee beans on the shelves.
Zane knew that they shouldn’t go into that cafe and speak to Lloyd but it was just too tempting. It had been
three whole years
of waiting. It shouldn’t have been. You know that as well as I do, perhaps better.
In that time, they has only managed to find the green ninja but the others have to be around here somewhere. It’s just a matter of waiting.
Waiting…there isn't the time for that. Zane needs to find the rest of them and they need to find a way to get out of here before the time runs out.
Because if they don’t make it in time, the other end of the bargain will be kept and the others will die. Zane will be forced to watch their family die, knowing that they had a part in it.
That won’t happen, they isn’t going to let it. First Master be damned if Zane just sat by and watched as their friends — their family — died.