Moonlight Fantasy/Sunlight Fantasy

I felt stuck in a sauna, the heat at the level where It would give me a heat stroke in little time.

The sounds of armor parts clinking together and little yelps gave me the final push to wake me up. "Oh, caught up to us. I thought it would take them half of today to do but well... they are higher level." I heard Briggs say as I got out of my sleeping bag. My clothes clung to my body as if I had just gotten out of a pool. The sun was halfway up over the horizon but the heat was already becoming unbearable.

Looking up from my sweat-drenched clothes I saw what he was referring to. in the distance I could see Cloud and his redhead companion jogging in our direction, either going around tall spikes or vaulting over them in parkour style. The mage was lagging behind but Cloud did stop to let him catch up when the distance between them got too big.

"Do you want some of Yumes water?"Yume asked me, I turned to look at her and was surprised to find her so close to me.

"Ahh..." Gotta hand it to Ranta, Yume is extremely cute. I froze for a second or two running every detail of her face, her lips, her cute nose, brown and reddish brown hairstrands that fell out of her braid which framed her face giving her the look of someone who just woke up. She leaned her head to the side, I could see a question mark floating over her head - probably just my mind playing tricks on me- which slowly shook me out of my momentary pause. "AH yeah, yeah I think I need to drink some water." From the corner of my eye I saw Ranta about to burst a blood vessel, "Thank you for the offer but you should save your water for yourself, you will need it for the way back." I smiled at her, then turned to grab my own from my bag where I would stuff my sleeping bag.

The water, even if it was freezing cold, was cooler than the temperature outside of the waterskin felt so nice when it ran down my throat to my stomach. My tongue and the inside of my mouth felt like a tsunami passed through a desert.

Feeling the base of the spike under me being hot after placing my hand on the ground to help me get up I rushed to get off and out of the heat. "How long have you guys been awake for?"

Briggs was the first one to answer, "A couple of minutes really. Most of us woke up when we started feeling the heat and our bodies couldn't handle it. You're the last one to wake up and..." He got close to the stone and touched it before quickly pulling his hand back like a snake bit it or touched a frying pan. "Well, you got some serious heat resistance."

"Might be because I mess around a lot with fire magic or because it's the element I'm most attuned to." I managed to stuff my stuff inside the pack I carried with me and give him my two cents on what I thought.

He started doing some stretches. "Better stretch a bit, get ready for some more fight on our way back."

I started following his lead and kept an ear to the 'air I guess. Listening to the chatter around us, Ranta surprised me when I found he wasn't bugging Yume, instead he was talking down to Haruhiro and doing AOE damage to Moguzo. Shihoru, Mary, and Yume were on one side talking about the places where they rented or planned to move to after being kicked out of the recruit dormitory. Tifa and Jessie were facing the direction from where Cloud and his partner were coming from. Jessie had her arms crossed and was giving Tifa an annoyed look while Tifa had an expective expression.

"So what? Are you going to just let her go to other guys' arms? I mean you two aren't together but still, I can see you like her." Briggs asked, I could hear the goading in his voice like he was challenging me to do something.

"It's up to her to choose really, you could say I gave up as soon as an obstacle showed up, but she knows how I feel about her, now it is up to her to take my hand or to choose not to. I won't force her. Besides these lots of big titty babes out there so why get so hung up on one." I tried to sound all grown up-n-stuff about it but we could both hear my voice coming out a bit wavy.

"She won't just be a big titty babe... but the one that got away." He started strong but in the latter half, he ended it in a low tone which told me he had already gone through it and the memory was still fresh in his mind.

I froze for a second, thinking of what I could do to steal her heart and monopolize her attention. Memories of the other life started playing in my mind. A manga called The Last Game where one guy tried to steal the heart of the girl the more he tried the stronger her love for the mc became, or something like that. Then the whole love triangle from Baki came up and I decided to stop. "She might be the first," I stopped stretching, moved back to just standing, and looking up I let out a breath. "But she won't be the last."

Briggs stood up and moved to stand on my left. "But it still hurts man."

We stood there looking up at the sky.

"Are they looking at something?" I heard Mary say, and no doubt they looked up looking for some flying monster. "Don't see anything."

"Cloud!!!" We turned to Tifa calling the guy's name to see them finally catch up to us, he looked fine, a bit sweaty probably by the heat but otherwise fine. On the other hand, his friend looked like he was about to drop dead like a shut-in gamer who was forced to run half a mile (800m) straight... that would probably be too much, though.

"Hey Tif," he noted at her then turned towards the rest of us. "We did not find any trace of the night creature only dead bodies near a cave which I'm guessing was his hideout. Did you... kill it?"

We all turned to look at each other, then at him. "Yeah duh, the red eyes there tried to tell you, but just because you think we are weaklings you formed ya own conclusions, Dumbass!!" Ranta bursts out berating the guy before anyone else could answer.

The next second Haruhito was there locking his limbs and cutting his air supply with a chokehold. "Talking like that to someone who can kill us in an instant isn't smart Idiot Ranta." I heard him whisper close to his ear. He choked him until I was sure he almost passed out from lack of oxygen and let go, we saw him fall to his hands and knees and start a scoffing fit from lack of oxygen or from greedily pulling new air into his lungs.

"It took us all night, but we did it." Briggs took over the next second with the fakest smile I had ever seen on him, "I swear, if it were for Entei here taking half of the burden of both parties combined we wouldn't have gotten through the ordeal." He emphasized my part in the fight, I didn't know if I truly did something huge or if he was just trying to make me look dependable and strong in front of the guy.

"Oh," Cloud turned to look at me. "What is your level?" that question made me think Briggs actually threw me under the bus.

"..." I took a second to look around, trying to find a way out, if he actually made some kinda hypothesis that I knew some buff that increases your level for a period of time I'd probably be forced to teach it to him and other slayer corps. I refused to teach it to people I didn't trust and also I don't think I know the original breathing techniques, I'm just using a knock-off based on what I think the original would be like. Seeing no way out of this I decided to bite the bullet, "I'm level 118."

For a moment he froze, I thought found out or came to a conclusion close to it. I closed my eyes waiting for him to tell me that I had to come with him and I could not refuse. "Pffffffffffttttttt Hahahahaha!!!!!" He suddenly burst out laughing with the anime tears bursting from his eyes and rolling on the ground. "You hear that Scor! He said he is level 118!"

"Yeah I heard, I told you we didn't need to rush, the beasts that followed us would put more of a fight than that thing would." His mage friend answered, he gained his breath back and opened a water skin in the shade of a spike with his back to it. 

"Grrr, what level are you losers on huh!?" And Ranta came back in that moment to start a dick-measuring contest.

"I didn't even need to worry about you weaklings if this one was so weak you managed to kill it." He fell back and let out a big sigh. "That was a good laugh, now let's go back. I hate this damn hot wasteland." Getting up he started commanding us like we had appointed him as the new leader.

I seriously did not want to follow this conceited bastard, but some powerful backup for the road trumped the annoying factor... by just a little.

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Word Count 1660

If there are any grammatical errors let me with a comment on the paragraph.

Thank you guys. I appreciate your reading so far. 

Recently I started reading Lord of Mysteries, really feel like WTF when he becomes a money pincher but the next chapter he want to splurge on stuff. Must be some Chinese joke but dam it annoys me.