Bragging(1)

Calvin reappeared in the yard near Alphonse who looked excited. Alphonse was waving a crystal that resembled andalusite towards Calvin's face and said :

-"Look what I found, isn't it great?"

Alphonse was proud of his findings and couldn't hold back the joy of flaunting it.

Calvin analyzed it and made a guess about it's utility.

-"It looks cool and I guess it's somewhat good."

Alphonse didn't really care about the verdict and really wanted to know where Calvin had been.

-"Where did you get teleported? Personally, I was transported to the bottom of a giant mountain, so I walked around it trying to find something in-between the stones and found this crystal. I tried to look around after, but found nothing else apart from normal rocks." He almost couldn't finish his sentence since he was out of breath. A bad habit of him was to forget to breathe in between his words.

-"Well, I don't know if what I found was as great as yours, but I think I found a pile of geodes. I was teleported on a mountain range and went in a cave. I followed the weird roots of a bright shroom and found those. So It's either good overall or bad, I guess I"ll find out when I open them."

-"When You open them?" Alphonse said, amplifying the you.

-"Hum?"

-"Me and you, we're friends right? You wouldn't let a friend of yours, who also happens to have an earth trait, not open a few geodes right?"

Alphonse looked at Calvin with begging eyes. It was a cheap way to get what he wanted but at the same time, he couldn't resist the feeling of gambling on lucky things, such as opening geodes.

Calvin knew that the earth trait part didn't change anything and was total bullshit but still caved in.

-"Alright, fine. I'll let you open one of your choice but don't ask for more if it's bad."

-"No problem!"

Alphonse looked even more happy than when he flexed his crystal.

-"Now that I think about it, Calvin, did you see Leo when you were in Gleichber? I swear we were next to each other when we teleported."

-"It's probably as the dean said. Time passes differently over there and Gleichber is probably enormous compared to earth so it teleported us accordingly."

-"Almost forgot about that part, but even then, shouldn't he be near us right now?"

-"Normally yes. Maybe he went out and came back or something, he's probably somewhere in the yard with the others."

-"Trying to get himself rejected again?"

-"Bet!"

The two laughed at the expanse of their friend for a bit, but their attention was soon hijacked by the relentless sound of the forming crowd next to them.

-"Wow, he found fire shards!"

-"How lucky!"

-"It's the same guy who already knew how to use his trait."

-"And he isn't even from an argonite background!"

The people in the crowd were all astonished by what this particular fellow found. What's more, it was the same man who had already visualized and knew how to use his trait.

Calvin looked at Alphonse with a face that said: It can't really be him right?

They both entered the crowd, swimming between the other first years, to try to have a better view of the man in question.

Their jaws dropped.

'No way!'

The silly boy they knew since childhood, who always got himself in trouble and could never hold in his urge to get his ass handed to him, the last person they thought would be revered by their fellow students, was standing in the middle of the crowd holding a red, trancelucid gem, bragging about how he found it and how much he had.

Alphonse pinched himself thinking he was dreaming it hallucinating but after he felt the pain he declared: We have to ask him how he did it.

Calvin, who was surprised, but more logical said:

-"Does it really surprises you that he managed to get fire shards or are you jealous."

Alphonse looked at Calvin and just pouted out a weak no before asking him to help him retrieve Leo, as to ask him questions.

*

-"How did you find the shards?" a girly voice asked.

-"Well you see, I was teleported near a volcano, right? And, I stumbled upon the shards by accident. But in my opinion, I was destined to get the shards. Why else would have I got them?"

Leo was proud and couldn't stop bragging about his findings. He was swarmed by questions and handpicked them to answer only the girl's.

Another asked if he would share the shards with someone else.

The one asking it was beautiful and totally Leo's type.

He took a shard out and showed it to the skies before letting his arm go down toward the girl, presenting a shard to her.

-"For someone as beautiful as you, there is no problem shar..."

Two silhouettes came running toward Leo, dashing through the students in front. The first one grabbed his wrist and locked it with his whole arm before taking the shard out of his hand and retrieved it safely by pocketing it, meanwhile, the other one went behind him and started to lock both of his arms, making it impossible to escape. In matter of seconds, Leo had been robbed off his shard and was being dragged out of the center of the crowd.

The event happened so fast that no one had the time to react before it ended.

The girl who was supposed to inherit the shard cried out a sad 'no', but apart from that, no one seemed to really care, thinking it was either a lost cause and the shards were stolen or a big scene pre-arranged to look charming while not giving anything.

Either way, people thought their time had. been wasted and started to go back to their friends, resuming their chat.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the court, the two silhouettes started to scream at the poor Leo.

-"Why would you ever give it liked that!" the first one screamed.

-"Are you really that desperate?" the other one insued.

Leo, who couldn't see much before, could now clearly see his kidnapper and went from fearful to hateful.

-"You guys! It was in the bag, I was about to do it. The way she looked at me. Did you see it? She was in love and so was I, you broke that!" he ranted for a good five minutes before calming down and listening to their reason.

-"I knew you weren't the brightest one, but damn, I never thought you'd go so low for someone you said two words to." Alphonse didn't hold in his disapproval and let it out.

On the other hand, Calvin was calmly studying something.

-"Did you really found those that easily around a volcano?"

-"Yes I did! And give it back!"

Leo took the shard out of Calvin's hands and started kissing it.

-"They may have broke my relationship with the girl of my dream but they're not taking you away from me" Leo had his eyes closed, repeating his kisses.

Alphonse took a deep breath and sighted out:

-"Forget it idiot! Want to go to the library?"