A matter of trust [Private]

These days haven't been easy on Lloyd, that's for sure... Summer just started, it's mostly sunny all the time, you have a lot of free time, the beach isn't far... Swimming would be nice, but unfortunately, duty always called him up to help others. Well, not really duty, but he felt that he had to help with everything that was going on on the school ground.

With the recent bombing that did major damage to the lecture hall, there was no summer class, so a lot more free time for everyone, except those who would help in the reconstruction of the building. Although it was on their own free will, you can hardly call this really having a fun time. But still, people were helping and it was nice to see, even Lloyd helped from time to time by bringing water to those who were working. But it wasn't the thing he did most since the bombing, oh no...

Since the culprit was found to be a faunus, a lot of students -humans, you guessed it- had started some rumors about other faunus at school being double agents or something and that they wee waiting to strike again to finish the job. Of course everything was complete nonsense as both humans and faunus were killed in that attack. Some kept saying that it was a plan to cover them... Lloyd found himself punching the wall at those words when he first heard them. "Why are people still thinking like this? They say faunus aren't to be trusted, but can humans be trusted themselves? Sometimes I'm even disgusted to be a human with all those shameful way of thinking. What are we heading toward if the school ended up divided like the rest of the world? A war? Nothing will come up of it, just more useless and stupid bloodshed..."

Lloyd snapped out of his thinking to see once again some humans bullying a faunus girl with those rumors. Lloyd walked up toward them, three boys around the girl to "avoid her escape". Lloyd came from behind one of them and listened what they were saying. "Look at her, she's probably hiding a bomb somewhere, she'll blow up the rest of the school if we let her." "We should teach her a listen about what happen if you mess with the school." "Calm down boys, we wouldn't want her to blow up the school if she's afraid of us now, would we? Now come with us..." The guys grabbed the girl's arm and tried to pull her but Lloyd intervene by grabbing the guy's shoulder. "You better let her go, and fast. She has nothing to do with all this. " Lloyd had fire in his eyes. He was already furious, this guys was better not being stupid... "Oh, and how do you know? You love her or something? Having a blind faith in her?" Lloyd looked at the guy, not really bothered by his comment. "Just look at her, does she look like she could be part of all this?" The girl was indeed innocent. She remained silent though as she didn't know what to do or say. She had been affected by the attack, as much as everyone, but the bullying just made her feel miserable. "She looks as shocked as anyone else about that attack, and you want her to be part of it? Come on, I'm sure you don't have any proof against her anyway. Just a faunus girl that was passing by and you decided that she was guilty. Your kind disgust me." Lloyd was really pumped, so much that his coat, that has been tweaked a little for the hot season to look like a lighter jacket, was darkening a bit.

Unfortunately, the boys weren't impressed by Lloyd's attitude. And what are you gonna do about it, huh? You don't think about taking us three by yourself, right? Do you really think you can win?" Lloyd didn't move at all, he didn't even blink, he just answered: "I don't need to fight you to win, as long as you leave her and any other faunus, I'll be good with whatever you do." The guys then laughed at him. "Oh? What do you think of accomplishing by acting all noble toward her? A date maybe?" He kept laughing before Lloyd punched him. "My motives doesn't concern the likes of you, now be gone!" Lloyd just looked at the three guys, knowing they would probably retaliate, so he just picked Gae Bulg without unfolding it. He wasn't the kind to normally to try and intimidate people, but those guys wouldn't listen to him. Maybe to someone else...

With all of the confusion due to the bombing, some pretty bad habits had been coming out of it. The worst of which, or at least the most annoying of which, were the new rumors against the Faunus, that they realistically were all in cahoots with the guy that did it. For the most part, Liona paid no mind. So what if she was targeted for such nonsense? This whole thing was not even the least bit surprizing. Humans were always looking for a war to start, whether it was against faunus or amongst themselves, instead of focusing on their life long war against the Grimm.

For now, Liona was just living her life, Trying to help with the rebuilding of the school. Her semblance made her a faunus metal detector, so she was able to sort through the debris pretty easily. As she moved things around, she felt increasingly annoyed at a group nearby. They were talking so loudly considering the distance, and though Liona did not care enough to make out their words, anyone coukd tell that the tone was not pleasant. The longer it went on, the more annoying it got. From what she inevitably picked up, it had something to do with those insane rumors. Thus meant they were probably Human, though the feline faunus never cared to look. Still, her ears gradually flattened in a show of increasing anger, and then perked up at the sound of a new person, one with a different, yet still unpleasant tone of voice. That's it, she could not take much more. She took a rather large chunk of metal from the debris with her semblance, and chucked it at the group, now revealed to be a group of humans bothering a faunus girl, allowing the metal to just miss the tops of their heads. She moved in closer so they could all hear. "Would you all just shut up?? Some of us are trying to work here!" Now, Liona was rather infamous for being a pretty cold person, at least amongst the Humans. So she would dare argue that she usually got the worst of these stupid rumors, which did not really help her here. "Did'ya see that? She's attacking Syne! I knew Faunus like her were all terrorists!" Liona just laughed. It was amusing how desperate for proof these guys were. "That's right, I'm attacking you, and you've already gotten on my bad side." Why not be the villain for a while? She signaled for the Faunus to use the distraction to run off, and the girl did so immediately. "Hey! She's getting away!" He started to move, but Liona stopped him by shoving her unsheathed claws in his face, stopping with enough time for him to react before he ran himself into them like an idiot. "If you don't start moving in the oposite direction, you will get further into my bad side, Human." Her face was dead serious and her words nor posture never faultered. "C- come on guys, before she sets fire to the lawn." He couldn't even think of a good comeback even when retreating. Such lame people had no place spreading gossip. As the boys who had assaulted the faunus girl ran off, Liona turned to the last remaining human, visibly waiting for him to leave as well.

Lloyd was taken by surprised by the debris flying right above his head. He wouldn't have expected to see something like that being thrown in his general direction. As he looked to see who send the huge chunk of rock and metal, Lloyd saw that it came from a faunus girl, Liona. Lloyd sure knew who she was, he heard a lot about her and her hate toward humans. She is probably the most pro-faunus person around campus. The fact that she intervene meant that it was probably pretty serious and that it might end up badly. Fortunately enough, the three guys ran away like coward after Liona made quite clear about how she felt toward them.

Lloyd released a sigh of relief as it seemed to be over, for now. He took a deep breath to calm down and as he did so, his coat regained its brightness. He looked a bit  over the horizon, thinking aloud. "Why all this ever happened in the first place? All this nonsense of hate in between humans and faunus. I'm sure that human stated it, but why? Only out of blatant racism? That's, disgusting..." He then turned toward Liona. "Thank you by the way, I probably wasn't doing the best thing to help that girl. I guess I was just raging and that I should have kept my cool." He noticed the look that she gave him, very similar to the one she gave the other boys. He tried to smile but had a pained look on his face. "Wait, you don't actually think that I'm like those three? I really tried to help that girl I swear." Lloyd was quite sincere in his word, but he knew that it would take much more for Liona to believe him.