•°<~~~•°~❇️~°•~~~>°•

Lloyd yelped as he rolled out of the way. The mangled, airborne bike missed him by a few inches and went crashing into the building behind him. Smoke erupted and debris littered the roads. Lloyd growled, eyes locked on the rocky giant. The creature roared and tore a nearby street lamp out of the cement, analyzing the ninja as its potential target.

Lloyd barrelled through the mass of screaming people who were running for safety. The giant reared its arm and got ready to hurl the pole. Lloyd barely had time to slide in front of a woman holding a wailing baby and form a pulsing energy shield that repelled the street lamp.

"Go, go, go!" he frantically yelled back at the mother while simultaneously bombarding the earthy monster with green spheres. They seemed to put the creature on edge. It charged at Lloyd, leaving craters in the ground below as it advanced.

Before it could crush the ninja, a solid wall of earth grew up between them. Lloyd shot a grateful glance at Cole. His stunt had provided enough time for the Green Ninja to move away from the line of attack. He snuck around the thundering beast and arrived at Cole's side.

"I think it's got rocks for brains too," the earth ninja commented. The giant was punching and beating the rock wall, trying to get through instead of moving around it.

"That's good enough for us," Lloyd replied, before activating his comlink. Static crackled and he voiced his strategy. "Zane, Nya, freeze up the legs and prevent it from moving. Me and Cole will attack and try to break it apart. Kai and Jay, you guys control the perimeter. Keep the crowds back."

Shouts of agreement sputtered back and Lloyd gave Cole a nod. Domes of ice had already started forming at the giant's feet. Cole growled and willed a relatively large piece of the broken pavement to fly at the creature. It was too busy raging at the ice and didn't see it coming. The projectile struck its arm and the stone appendage ripped off and crashed to the ground.

Lloyd tried his best to keep it distracted with his energy spheres while the others worked. He noticed a pit at the side of road with construction equipment lining it. He didn't think there was a better way to take out Rock Brains.

"Cole!" he yelled, dodging a swipe of the giant's unsevered arm. "Do an earth punch and send it into that pit over there!"

Lloyd could hear Zane shouting out to the Master of Earth to wait for the right moment when he froze the legs. Even though he had appointed Jay and Kai for the safety of the civilians, he still took part in evacuating the streets. In the heat of the situation, Lloyd heard a strained cry nearby.

"Help me, please!"

Twisting around, he saw a girl on the destroyed sidewalk. She was wearing all black. Her head was completely covered with a black beanie, not revealing a single wisp of her hair. Her face was concealed with a mask but Lloyd could still see the pain in her eyes. Her leg seemed to be caught under a block from the damaged building. She tried to pull but wailed in agony when it wouldn't come free.

"Stop!" Lloyd ordered, preventing the girl from hurting herself. "I'm coming, hold on!"

Either it was a coincidence or his lucky stars were out. Lloyd had barely taken a few strides forward when a cacophony of "Look out!" burst through his comlink. He didn't have time to comprehend anything. The world behind him shook, throwing him off balance. He fell face-first to the ground but scrambled around quickly.

The rocky creature lay there on its back, unmoving. Turned out, it had taken an aim for him instead of the pit when Cole had performed the punch. Lloyd hissed out a swear word, dazed by his sharp escape. He would've been crushed flat if it hadn't been for the . . .

The girl!

Lloyd shot to his feet and turned to search for her. Breathing heavy and forehead creased, he resisted the urge to rub his eyes. His team's shouts of thankfulness invaded his ears but they faded away to the depths of his mind. He could only regard the empty space he saw by the dislodged block.

The girl was no longer there. Like she had never been in the first place.

•°<~~~•°~❇️~°•~~~>°•

That wasn't the first encounter.

The second time it happened, Lloyd was conversing with a lost child in the middle of a busy foot traffic one afternoon. The kid was crying but still tried to describe his father whom he had lost hold of in the crowd. The blonde was so wrapped up with the details the boy spoke of that he didn't notice the surrounding congregation of passers-by disperse immediately as if in an emergency.

He felt a subtle tap on his shoulder. Soon after, a whisper followed.

"Look behind you."

Confused, Lloyd broke away from the child and looked to see who it was. To his surprise, he saw the same girl in the same dark overalls walking by. That's when he remembered what she had said and turned around. His eyes widened.

"What the heck?!" Lloyd shielded the boy and lunged to the side. Seconds after a car came skidding to the spot where he had been standing and ploughed through the store ahead. Glass and twisted metal fragments flew from the point of impact.

The child screamed but Lloyd had acted in time and both of them got up, unscathed. Miraculously, the driver and the store clerk had emerged unharmed from the accident as well. Apart from a few bruises and cuts, the two were alright.

Lloyd, thanking his luck again, felt the kid being pulled away from him. He moved and saw an older man hugging him. Lloyd could only assume this was the father. Words of gratitude were exchanged and the two hurried away from the crash site. People had started gathering around the totaled car, muttering and whispering.

Like before, Lloyd scanned everywhere but the girl was nowhere to be seen.

•°<~~~•°~❇️~°•~~~>°•

The third time, he had talked to her.

Lloyd was driving down a highway at night with a scarce number of other vehicles. The drive had been uneventful which was a common aspect when he would be patrolling the city on wheels. Now, he was making his way back home. His eyes were stinging from sleep and he yawned fairly big.

He approached an intersection. He sighed happily when he noticed the light turning green before he had to wait. He settled into his seat and drove on, wanting to get through before the light flashed red. But someone had other plans.

The girl he had been losing sleep over, trudged to the middle of the road and stared at his advancing car like a deer caught in headlights. Lloyd cried out, slamming the brakes. The tyres screeched and left dark marks on the road. The car jerked to a stop right in time. Lloyd had half a mind to honk the horn loudly at the girl for her foolishness.

At that moment, a trailer sped in front of him from the left, running the red light. If he hadn't stopped, he might've been the victim of a nasty collision. Letting out a whoosh of air, Lloyd rubbed his temples. He wondered if the entire world was out to slam into him and kill him on the spot. This was the third close call in a week.

Not waiting for his adrenaline rush to lessen, Lloyd jumped out of his car and jogged after the girl who was walking away in an ignorant manner as if nothing had happened. Lloyd didn't care if his behavior was unacceptable or not. He just wanted answers.

"Wait!" he called out, grabbing the girl's arm and twisting her around. Every inch of her face and head was hidden except for the area around the eyes. Bright blue irises came into view and Lloyd felt something jolt through him. Something he couldn't explain at the moment. Was it fear? Panic? Comfort? Excitement? He didn't know.

"Let me go," she said calmly.

"Not until you tell me who you are?" Lloyd growled. He felt irritated with the way she kept saving his life in ways that seemed coincidental and then disappearing without a trace.

"Unhand me before I make a scene," she murmured, looking him straight in the eye. Her voice was set and stable. It wasn't afraid or jittery.

"You and I both know you're not what you seem to be," Lloyd retorted before he could stop himself. "All these occurrences . . . they are enough proof."

The girl stayed silent and motionless for a moment but then spoke, "I am nobody special. I am only the silence after the storm."

"Look, I need to know for real, okay?" the blonde insisted. "I'm honestly starting to freak out at this point. I just-"

"Lloyd."

He stopped, his hold on her arm loosening. He wasn't expecting for her to know his name. Sure, everybody knew who he was (they probably taught the children about his life struggles in school), but people usually addressed him by his full name. She spoke in a way that suggested she had known him for a long time. The scary thing was that he didn't know her.

The girl was still studying his confounded gaze. Then in a voice softer than the patter of the springtime rain, she continued.

"Let there be something between us."

She did not sound desperate. Her voice was gentle yet commanding. Lloyd let her go. He wasn't feeling right. He felt like he had crossed a forbidden barrier or stepped through a veil he wasn't supposed to pull apart. It was a strange feeling but the closest thing he could relate to it was guilt. As if he knew what to do next, Lloyd sighed and looked away.

He felt better when he turned back and found the girl gone.

•°<~~~•°~❇️~°•~~~>°•

"I'm telling you, man," Kai said, putting down the glass of water he'd been drinking. "She's your guardian angel. Bet on it."

Cole snorted. "You still believe in fairy godmothers, Kai? Wow! And I thought Jay was a child."

"You don't believe in fairy godmothers?" Jay mumbled, directing a look of pure distaste at Cole.

Lloyd shook his head, mentally preparing for the fight that would erupt in a few more moments if not extinguished. He was about to turn down Kai's guardian angel supposition when Master Wu joined the conversation.

"I think Kai has a point," he said, stroking his beard, deep in thought. "While fairy godmothers have been confirmed to be a fairytale fiction, the concept of guardian angels is still controversial."

Jay let out an offended noise, ignoring Cole's smug glances. Kai, however, grinned like a kid who had been awarded a gold star for reciting the alphabet correctly.

"So, you think I'm being followed by a guardian angel and she's protecting me from fatal incidents?" Lloyd asked, improbability leaking into his tone.

Master Wu hummed. "Some people claim to have seen and even talked to their angels. Others see them in their dreams. Most think they're just coincidences and nothing more."

"What should I believe?"

The old man smile kindly. "In such cases, books are a good place to start."

. . .

Lloyd perched "Guardian Angels: Signs and Theories" on his desk. The orange glow from his lamp shone on the old, dusty pages, making faint, irregular shadows of the clumps of lint on the paper. The environment was perfect for a night time reading session.

Crickets buzzed outside and a soothing breeze blew in from the window, rippling the mint green curtains. Lloyd could feel it tickling the back of his neck. However, it made his skin tingle instead of relaxing. He shivered, unable to focus on the words printed before him.

The serenity of the evening clashed with the turmoil inside him. The more he read, the more he felt nauseous. All the past encounters with his "guardian angel" fled through his mind with each word he took in. He wanted to throw the book away and continue hoarding information at the same time.

The most common cause of a guardian angel sprouting up in your life is lost love. Spiritual experts believe that if an individual has inflicted pain upon your emotions, or in a general term, your heart, and demolishes the love (be it romantic or platonic) that person sets a debt upon their shoulder.

If they depart from the living world, they are bound to pay the debt before being allowed to find eternal peace of the afterlife. That is paid through protecting the mortal they had hurt. Since souls of the departed are able to see glimpses of the future, they are assigned to become the guardian angel of the concerned living being till they die. They have to remain hidden, or at least, ambiguous to the person they are guarding.

The task is only bestowed on the 'angel' if they are pure of heart, who are truly ashamed and want to redeem themselves of the burden and the bad deeds they had done while alive. Otherwise, they are doomed to roam the dangerous dimension that lies between the realms of the living and the dead.

Lloyd inhaled, the effort hard due to the lump in his throat. He suddenly felt feverish all over. He got up, having a sneaking suspicion that he was being watched. Head spinning, he staggered over to the window and shut the panels. He dragged his feet over to his bed and collapsed on the mattress. There was an annoying surge of restlessness as his mind raced.

"I am nobody special."

"I am only the silence after the storm."

"Let there be something between us."

Suddenly, the buzz he had experienced while talking to her made sense. It wasn't happiness or fear. It was a flutter of familiarity. He understood the casualty in her tone when she spoke and the bittersweet déjà vu that had flickered for a brief moment.

Lloyd closed his eyes, letting everything settle within. He was no longer sure if he wanted to step outside the monastery anymore. His guardian angel would be busy once again keeping an eye out for him. Even she deserved a few days off.

"So the story continues, huh, princess?"

•°<~~~•°~❇️~°•~~~>°•

You know what? I kinda like this theory. I'm gonna go with this from now on :)