Masked Mania

❥Chapter 4: That's what happens, when you fall in love

A/n
AYUP

This was an impromptu chapter I decided to add that I started from nothing, which is part of the reason why it took me so long to make *sniff*

Word count: 10,5K omfg I almost doubled the word count for the entire fic LMAOO

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Lloyd was always quite the fast runner. As a kid, he would sometimes run along with the ninja during their training, and he had oftentimes been able to keep up with most of them — except Jay, of course; that guy was lightning quick. Even though his legs were much shorter than Kai's, he'd always been faster than his older brother.

Yet, all that training and running practice had not prepared him to be able to outrun a freaking robot. It had been an impossible task from the beginning; he should've just given up as soon as he saw that the person following him was a robot, who would never get tired or slip up or get lost or need any break at all. But Lloyd had made it so far by now, that he figured he should give it all he had in a desperate attempt to get away. He figured that maybe, he could lose the robot in the busy streets of the city centre, or play an elevator game with it in Borg Tower to confuse it and slip out of its sight.

However, he never managed to make it to Borg Tower, nor the city centre. Instead, his legs suddenly weren't able to move forward anymore, causing him to fall face-first onto the ground — luckily having his arms free to prevent him from actually faceplanting onto the concrete. As soon as he'd recovered from the shock of his sudden fall, he tried to kick his captor away — an effort that proved to be futile, as the robot was holding his legs and there was no chance for him to kick anything. Soon enough, his legs weren't the only thing that was being held down anymore, as his arms were wrestled behind his back with extreme force, and he was left completely incapacitated.

Well, that was it, then.

Lloyd supposed that marked the end of his escape attempt, and potentially the end of his resolve — or even his life. If his captor decided to just get rid of him, there would realistically be no one there, who would be able to stop him. But alas, the robot seemed to have decided to just hold him there in complete silence. Not a single word was shared between them.

It didn't take quite as long as Lloyd would've expected it to take, for a black convertible to pull up right next to them. As soon as the car had come to a proper stop, the driver's seat swung open, and out stepped Harumi. Lloyd attempted to observe her facial expression, to get a read on just how angry she currently was, but she didn't even glance down at him as she approached. It was only when she was stood right next to him, that she ducked down to look him in the eyes.

"So." Harumi's voice was cold when she spoke, an unmasked anger causing his nerves to spike and his heart to start hammering in his chest. If Lloyd didn't already regret trying to run away, then he truly did now, as he remembered what Harumi had done the first time he'd tried. "Here we are again, huh."

"I was just trying to go to the store!" Lloyd exclaimed in response to Harumi's drawl, terrified and also very much desperate. Harumi only frowned in response to his painfully obvious lie — which it made Lloyd realize that only the robot knew that he'd been actively running away from it, and the thing never spoke, as far as he knew. The only one who could call him out on the lie was a being that couldn't even speak, so maybe, just maybe, he could get away with it.

"And you had to leave by the balcony for that? That seems more of a sneaky way to leave, instead of a simple trip to the store, to me." Lloyd startled when she knew how he'd left the building, but quickly figured that she would know if he'd hacked through the security system of her elevator; if that wasn't the case, the balconies and fire escapes were logically the only other way out of the penthouse.