"It's raining outside."

"Mm."

"It's raining a lot."

"Matt, what do you want?" Mello barked. It had been two hours since classes had finished, and although they should have been socializing with the rest of the school at L's welcome-home gathering, they were holed up in Mello's room, doing what he usually did after school – studying. Normally, there would have been very little complaint from Matt over the choice of activity, since he did no studying himself and it did not matter much to him, but the day that L was home was a rarity, and he didn't fancy missing it.

"Can't we just go downstairs? For a little while, that's all!" Matt said.

"What, so you can see Near sucking up to the big man?" Mello snapped.

Matt snickered. "That just gave me such bad mental images."

"You are so immature."

"I'm allowed to be. I'm fifteen."

"Oh, for God's sake…" Mello got up and tucked a book under his arm. "If you're that set on going, I can't let you make an idiot of yourself, can I? Give it half an hour, and then if nothing interesting happens, we'll go somewhere else, all right?"

Matt beamed. "That sounds better to me. Can I make an idiot of myself anywhere else?"

"No."

"Please…?"

XXX

Elisabeth lifted her shoulder so she could hold her cell phone whilst fishing in her pockets for her car keys as she walked. A true multi-tasking genius, she narrowly dodged a car whilst crossing a road and talking on her phone to her younger brother, Ben. With the hand not jammed in her pocket, she flipped off the driver that cursed her for stepping out into the road.

"Yeah, run and tell your mom!" she yelled back. Her voice returned to its normal volume. "Ben, where are you?"

"I'm stuck outside my high school still waiting for you to pick me up," he complained in his very teenager-ish way. "It's pouring down with rain and I think my doctor's appointment ended about fifteen minutes ago."

"Ben, give me ten minutes. I'll be there. I don't think traffic will be that bad; the weather is crap," she said. She paused, glancing up at the sky. "Whoa. Is it hailing where you are?"

"Not yet," he grumbled. "It will be soon, so hurry up and get here!"

"Okay, okay! See you in ten minutes!" she finished hastily as a droplet of hail went down her back.

She couldn't believe how far away her car was, or that weather in Los Angeles could be this awful. Now she did not have her cell phone hindering her, she ran a bit faster in the general direction of her car. She looked around in her bag, still unable to find her car keys. She heard thunder rumble and found that her legs automatically moved quicker. There seemed to be nobody else out on the street, weird even in a storm.

"Shit, shit, shit!" she hissed. "Where are they?"

As soon as she'd found her keys, she spotted her blue Mini Cooper on the curb about two hundred yards away. She glanced back once, keys out and at the ready.

XXX

The sky seemed to be growling, just as upset as Rose. She and the vicar were the only ones present at her mother's funeral. The vicar honestly looked like he just wanted to go back into the church and not hang around outside in the horrible weather. Unfortunately for him, he couldn't go anywhere without annoying an already unhappy mourner. Rose made this perfectly clear in her facial expression too.

Her mother's body had been lowered into the hole in the ground, and apparently the guys who had said they would place all the dirt back into the hole weren't going to drive out until the storm that had hit the outskirts of London subsided. This annoyed Rose more than knowing how her mother had died, although she knew she should not dwell on that. There was a reason that she had been forced into an anger management course at school.

She wiped away a tear and sprinkled the handful of earth she'd been holding in her left hand onto the polished wooden coffin below. With her right hand, she been holding an umbrella, something the vicar was clearly dying for. He nodded to her and finished the service, standing at her side for a while.

Finally, he spoke again. "Would you like me to stay with you a little while longer, Rose?"

She shot him a death glare. "You can go home now, if that's what you're asking."

"I – didn't mean-"

"I know what you mean. No, I don't need you to stand with me. I'll be fine." She looked back down at her mother's coffin. "It's okay. Go."

"I don't want you to think that you're alone in this," the vicar sighed, touching her shoulder.

She glowered at him. Appropriately, thunder rolled in unison. Gingerly, he lifted his hand away. There was no denying that it would be best if he just left her on her own to deal with her grief. She was evidently one that was better to live with if she soldiered on friendless. Besides, the graveyard would be a floodplain by the time he left her if he stayed to make himself feel less guilty.

He headed towards the gates of the churchyard when the world exploded in front of him.

XXX

The alarms had been going off for a while now, and still nobody had thought to actually line up people outside when the crazy serial killer had just escaped his cell block. Although there were those who were indoors with weaponry that could be potentially useful when it came to preventing a murderer from escaping prison, most had quailed at the thought of running out in the storm.

"Stop him!" screamed the first officer.

"How the fuck did he get out?" shrieked another.

Beyond Birthday was now only approximately five meters away from freedom. There was a small problem – that being he needed to get away from the prison guard on his tail. He felt the guy grab hold of his orange jumpsuit by the collar and planted his feet so that the guard ran into him. At this, he snatched the guard up by the hair and ran with him to the gates, smashing his head against the electrified fence. Dropping him to avoid aftershock, he watched for only a few seconds as the guy's head fried.

Nobody was going to stop him now. They'd probably send a few military goons out once he'd already escaped, but they wouldn't be able to find him. He hadn't been second in line to be a genius detective for nothing. Besides, he knew how the justice system worked, and how all forms of law enforcement worked. They'd start with a search on a small scale, in the local area, believing he couldn't have gone far, then they'd start nationally, then onwards to global lookout.

To be fair, he could have chosen a nicer day to escape from prison. Hail and what looked like snow but surely couldn't be was falling down heavily from the sky, rain also falling torrentially. Thunder started and as he sprinted for the gate electricity shot through him.

XXX

Light hung up on Misa, not bothered about whether she put diesel or unleaded in her shiny new Mercedes. He wasn't going to be driving it, anyway. He needed to speak to his father about helping him find an apartment. Hopefully having an apartment still pretty close to his family's home would put Misa off him a little bit. He tucked the file he'd gathered full of suggestions of nearby apartments under his arm and hurried along the street. The police station wasn't far away.

Matsuda tapped him on the shoulder in greeting. Something was huddled in his arms, something small and fluffy. Light arched an eyebrow. "Matsuda, what is that?"

"It's my day off," Matsuda shrugged, "so I got myself a pet. It's a guinea pig."

"Why do you want a pet?" Light asked.

"They're good company," Matsuda pointed out. "Besides, isn't he just adorable?"

"He?"

"Yeah, his name's Chizuru," he grinned.

"That's a girl's name." He looked down at his watch. "Look, Matsu, I'd best be on my way. You've got to take… Chizuru… home, and I've got to go speak to my father."

"Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to get in your way or anything!"

As they headed in opposite directions, the storm reached its climax.

XXX

Kiyomi Takada leant back in the warm, bubbly water, preferring to remain in there whilst the rain pounded down. Occasionally, she would lift her head from the water to take a deep breath. The rest of the time, she stayed submerged in the warmth. When she next lifted her head, she saw one of the members of staff at the spa knocking against the window, gesturing for her to get out of the jacuzzi.

Sighing about the fact that her father's birthday present to her was going to waste, she clambered out of the jacuzzi and wrapped a towel around herself. Moodily, she began to make her way towards the spa resort building. The woman who'd been at the window looked relieved that Takada was finally going inside. The young woman stopped when she heard something rumble behind her.

Wide-eyed, she turned around, only to find that she was knocked backwards by something she wasn't quick enough to see.

XXX

Lara noticed something was slightly off. She'd only been walking up to her first class of the day when it hit her hard. There was nobody else out on the schoolyard at all. She was the only one out there, and that was definitely strange. She pondered the possibility of school being closed for the day, but if that were the case, why would the school have been closed? What reason was there for potential closure?

Maybe this was some sort of joke. Although there was a chance she just hadn't gotten the message, seeing as her dad had broken the house radio the day before, she just couldn't quite pinpoint how she couldn't have found out one way or another. It made no sense that she hadn't been told.

A cat mindlessly wrapped itself around her ankles, as if searching for comfort. Lara picked it up without thinking, the wind whipping back her hair sharply. Deciding that she didn't want to waste her time being somewhere she wasn't needed, she began her journey back to her own house. High school could deal without her being there for one day, at least.

Hoping there might be a bus that could take her back into the city centre, she looked around. She couldn't see anything, or anyone. It was almost like the aftermath of doomsday, except the sparse amount of vehicles weren't overturned and the only thing that looked close to being seriously damaged was the number of trees lining the streets of LA.

She placed the cat back on the ground after scratching its ears and began to power-walk. It was really strange seeing Los Angeles as a ghost town; it was usually so busy, so full of life.

Lara took out her cell phone, wondering if she'd get a signal when it was beginning to rain so incredibly hard. She heard a crash, dropped her phone in panic and was slammed into a tree, which snapped and crumpled.

XXX

Matt peered in through the window of the gym, to no avail. There was nobody in there; they had probably all gone down to the main hall in the building where most of their classes were held. He shook his head, showing Mello that there was no one else. Mello didn't look pleased anyway. His clothes were soaked through to the skin and his hair was going to be frizzy as hell when it dried off.

"Let's just head back."

"Agreed."

They were met halfway across the school sports field by Near and L, who had evidently been looking for them. Mello was struggling to gauge his own reaction; he was pissed that Near was there, but he was internally jumping for joy to see L. Matt could sense his friend's mental battle, so punched Near on the arm in a brotherly manner.

"Hey, dude. What's up?" he mumbled. He took a cigarette out of his pocket, then remembered it was raining and decided just to hold it in his mouth as an excuse for not saying anything.

"I think going inside would be a good idea," L said in a monotone.

"Yeah," Mello nodded.

"You have ruined that book, by the way," Near pointed out to the blonde. He looked up at Matt. "Smoking will kill you."

"I don't think it'll be smoking that kills me, personally," Matt said, taking the cigarette out of his mouth temporarily. "Shall we go in?"

A snowflake dropped onto one of Near's eyelashes. "What on earth-?"

"Let's get inside-"

There was a roar, a crash, and then everything went white.

This is my latest piece, the first in a bunch of stuff where I take fanfiction cliches and try to make them good. If I fail, well, that's that, then, but fingers crossed on this one!

Review letting me know what you think!

C.