(You can't tell me this is not Lio's anthem)
Play with fire
You immediately dashed to reach Lio on the floor: his entire body was dark-purple - even his clothes! - and glowing madly.
If he was dark-purple, did that mean that had he lost control?
You shook his shoulders, trying to obtain the slightest reaction from him, but he was too still! What could you do?!
"Lio please, wake up, it's me, Y/N, stay with me...!"
You didn't want the boy you considered your only friend on Omega Centauri to lose control: what would have happened if he lost control definitely?!
You felt pained as you observed Lio, your Lio like that. It didn't look like it was a good thing to go through...
"Lio, please, I beg you, stay with me..." you said, and a tear from your eyes fell right on him. On his neck.
As the cold tear touched his burning skin, he immediately opened his eyes and grabbed your wrists, just like the day before. But would have he recognised you once he lost control?
And in the meantime, he was observing you as you were screaming in pain, due to all the strenght Lio was putting in holding your wrists.
"Lio, you're hurting me! Don't you recognise me, I'm Y/N!" you yelled as you started crying more.
Lio observed with a lost look the tears falling down on your cheeks: you prayed whoever was listening to you that he would have recognised you, it didn't matter how he looked, you just wanted him to return to normality.
You only noticed in that moment that where your tear touched the burning skin there was a small fair piece of skin.
Did your tears work as a medicine for him?
"Y/N...?" he called you, causing you to brighten up despite the pain you were still feeling as he held your wrists.
"Li-Lio...have you finally recognised me?" you asked between your cries.
He raised his other hand and...he caressed your cheek?
"He touched you, didn't he?" he asked out of nowhere.
"Eh...?"
"That minister. He dared laying something of his on you, didn't he?"
You remained quiet, still focused on the pain in your wrists: if he used a bit more of strenght in holding them they could as well have exploded.
"He...he kissed my neck, but I cut his cheek-"
Lio didn't need to hear the last part of your sentence: he only needed to hear the first four words.
He let go of your wrists, causing you to feel initially relief, but that relief immediately became pure fear when Lio started transforming into something definitely not human and the temperature raised: a pink dragon, pink like his flames.
Pink like his eyes.
It was if he was calling every flame in the universe: they were enveloping him from every direction as he transformed. You were lucky enough that the fire didn't hit you.
He broke the ceiling of the house as he started transforming, and you had to shield yourself with whatever you could find as a protection: you didn't want to get burnt after all.
It was too soon: Lio didn't need to transform into a dragon again! What if Kray saw him? What if Kray killed him?! You would have returned to your boring life where you would have done nothing but carry on, without any excitement. You would have lost the boy you cared for.
Lio brought light in your life, you didn't want to succumb to darkness again. But more than that, you didn't want him to succumb to darkness, for his well-being.
It was as if you could feel his own pain.
"Lio Fotia! Stop it! I know you're still there!"
But would have he heard you with the noise his transformation was making?
He growled with all of his voice, and it would have been quite weird if no one heard him.
That was it: every hope of overturning the government had vanished. But it didn't matter in that moment, you only wanted your Lio back.
Approaching him was useless, and especially dangerous, you would have immediately melted even if you stood two meters from him: you didn't have a suit for standing in places with high temperatures.
You kept calling for him, but he wouldn't manage to listen.
He immediately plunged down, causing you to actually feel surprised, and disappeared into the planet's depths: he wasn't going to attack Foresight Tower? Then what was he going to attack?
When you realised it you felt a totally bad feeling.
The ministers' house were on the other side of Foresight Tower.
He was going to attack the ministers' houses.
You immediately rushed to the living room where you had left the ice-gun, ran away from the now destroyed house and dashed towards the houses belonging to those drunk secretaries.
Lio, I beg you, don't do anything stupid...!
Well, he technically already did it when he transformed into a dragon and growled. But why did all of his body turn into dark-purple? He was far from becoming all dark-purple, more or less half of his body was still in normal conditions, so why did he suddenly lose all of his control?
Was it because the minister had kissed your neck...?
You didn't have the time to think about it, but the thought of Lio losing his control for you surely left an impression in your mind.
It was almost dawn by now, but Lio still didn't attack: was he fighting with himself in that moment? Was he trying to stop himself from doing anything stupid?
You kept begging for someone to save him when you reached the minister's neighbourhood. Everything seemed quiet, and there were no signs of destruction nor of alarmed people.
There was too much silence.
Everything was too calm.
Suddenly, you heard a few steps behind you.
The minister who kissed you the night before was calmly walking towards his home, even though he was swaying as he walked: he still had effects of the alcohol running in his body.
When you understood what was about to happen, you immediately dashed towards that guy: Lio wouldn't have attacked him if you were near him, would he?
The minister saw you running towards him, and even if you had a totally different look now he still recognised you.
"Waaait a second *hiccup* you're the one who caused me this!" he groggily stated as he pointed at a bandage on his cheek.
"RUN AWAY-!" you yelled, but just as you were near to him the ground started trembling and from the depths of the planet a familiar dragon emerged.
The minister looked up his nose as the dragon's shadow loomed over him: you betted that he never felt terrified like in that moment.
"Wa-wa-wait...wha-what does this mean?" the minister asked, suddenly sober.
Lio plunged down to attack him repetatedly as he also fired a few fire shots from his mouth, destroying the surroundings.
As for you, you were now hiding behind a wall, helplessly listening to the man crying for help.
"TELL ME" you then heard Lio screaming "HAVE YOU ENJOYED KISSING HER?"
He was angry over THAT? You had already taken care of it by cutting the minister's cheek, so that was enough, why was Lio attacking him?
Was he attacking him for you?
"PLEASE, STOP IT" the minister cried for help.
But Lio growled more as an answer: a feral noise that came from the depths of his soul.
He was growing unhinhed each moment.
"SHE DIDN'T GIVE YOU HER CONSENT, SO YOU HAD NO RIGHT TO KISS HER. YOU HAVE NO RIGHT EITHER TO ASK FOR HELP NOW" he said as he fired another fire shot.
It was enough.
One more noise and Lio would have been done for.
You got out of your hiding spot and now found yourself behind Lio.
"LIO! RIGHT HERE!"
For some reason, this time he heard you: he turned around and looked at you, as if it was the first time he saw you that day.
He looked astonished. For a moment you could have sworn that he felt guilt for what was happening.
It wasn't him. The one attacking the minister wasn't him.
It was the mad version of him.
He had totally lost control.
And as if the universe was confirming your thought, he looked again at the man under him, probably dying by now: there was a twisted look in his eyes.
He didn't have enough of it.
He opened again his mouth to fire, but he never shot.
Because you shot with your ice-gun at one of his pressure points before he could shoot.
If I remember correctly the commandant of Freeze Force tried to attack Lio by entering through his eyelid back then on Earth, but it never happened because Lio closed it...this means that his weak point is effectively his eyelid, you thought.
And you were right, the ice-gun hit Lio in one of his pressure points: you noticed that he had already lost stability.
You shot again at his pressure points under his shocked gaze, but he wasn't able to counterattack: or did he simply not want to?
After looking at each other for so long, he finally closed his eyes and fell down, with his eyelids closed.
Once his head was down, you shot his eyelid with ice until it could break, and after a few moments it broke, revealing a fainted Lio Fotia.
"Oh my god, Lio..." you mumbled as you extracted Lio from his dragon form and put his arm around your shoulders: luckily you had sleeves on so he didn't risk burning you.
You were ready to bring him away from that place when you heard the minister slightly make a single movement with his hand: he was pointing at you.
You approached him: he wasn't totally in the best conditions. You at least wanted to hear his last words.
"I had to understand...that he was your boyfriend" he stated, and his hand now fell in the ground.
He was dead.
The sight of a dead body gave you chills, but you were more afraid of how Lio would have felt after hearing about what he had done. And...
...did you and Lio really give the impression of a couple?
There was no time to think about those things now: you had to take him away from that place, and immediately. Who knew if Kray's men noticed what happened.
But even so, you felt like you were concealing something in your heart. Something about Lio and you.
But you couldn't understand what it was.
Whatever that was, it was making your ears burn.
....
"Thank god Y/N, you're finally home, I was worryi- OH MY GOD" your mom yelled when she saw you with Lio, carrying him with his arm around your shoulders.
"Mom, I'll explain to you later, now let us enter!" you pleaded with a higher tone of voice, and even without her answer you immediately dashed in your own bedroom, putting Lio on your bed to make him rest.
Your mom followed you behind and quietly peeked from the doorframe.
"Y/N...is that who I think he is?"
"Mom, as I already said I'll explain later, now please, give me some space" you said, now giving full attention to Lio: he needed it after all.
His expression was conflicted: it was as if he was fighting against a nightmare. Well, he was fighting against a nightmare every day of his life by now.
And that day was the worst of them all.
You grabbed his head with both of your hands and caressed it, trying to calm him down: you didn't know if that would have worked, but you still had to try.
"Hey, Lio...can you hear me?"
No answer, but it was expected.
You sniffed: you were on the verge of crying.
"Hey, L-Lio...please, you're going to wake up, aren't you?" you asked him as your voice started breaking.
Before you could start crying, you immediately blocked yourself though: Lio needed cures, not a girl that would have cried on him.
You encouraged yourself and cleaned your nose, as you then stood up to refresh your hands and prepare yourself to stand by his side.
When you got out of your bedroom your mom blocked you though.
"Y/N, explain immediately. Why is that terrorist here?" she asked with an angry tone.
"I would like you to refer to him as "my friend", mother. He is my friend" you replied with a firm tone. You wouldn't let anyone, not even your mother, address him that negatively.
"Is THAT the boy you were hanging out with?"
"What if he is?"
Your mother made the most astonished expression ever. She would have never expected that you, her only daughter, became friends with a boy like Lio Fotia.
"You've got to be kidding me. He is a terrorist! Why did you bring that guy here? Why are you helping him?!"
You turned to look at her, your face a few inches away from hers.
"Terrorist or not, we should help whoever needs it. And I've already told you before, he's my friend." you said, and this time you went to the bathroom, ignoring your mom as she scolded you.
You didn't have the time to listen to her.
You refreshed your hands and looked at your reflection on the mirror: you had some tiny bruises due to the fire, but your wrists were the ones that looked the most awful.
You were lucky that you had your gloves on, otherwise you would have had some serious wounds over there.
You sighed, and after bandaging yourself you returned in your bedroom, ready to assist Lio. Your mother was still probably cursing you as she waited outside of your bedroom.
You quickly glanced at her, and before she could start ranting again you locked your bedroom door behind yourself, sighing as you finally obtained some calm.
You looked at Lio as he slept, and took a firm decision: you needed to bring him back to his original state.
But how?
The only way to actually bring him back, to when he didn't hear voices, would have been to keep under control his Promare. He told you that it was the center of everything, and that it reacted depending on its owner's conditions, whether they were physical, mental or emotional.
So...Lio simply needed to calm down?
That wouldn't have been enough, he was sometimes calm with you but his skin was still dark purple in some places.
Well, calming him down would have been at least a beginning.
You sighed sleepishly, suddenly remembering that you actually didn't sleep that night, being outside the whole time.
You yawned, but tried to block yourself from doing so: you needed to stay awake for Lio.
Stay awake...in case Lio woke up.
That is what you thought when you fell asleep beside him, holding his hand with your gloved one.
It was a long night for both of you after all.