“Thank you for helping me with this,” Hyorin smiled, trying to take one of the grocery bags from Leo, “but I can carry one of the bags myself.”

“It’s fine,” Leo shrugged, moving his hands out of reach so that his master couldn’t steal any of the bags away.

“You paid for everything, too,” Hyorin muttered, looking away.

“You already do enough,” Leo told her, “this is the least I can do.”

“Not true,” Hyorin argued, “you protect me, keep my safe. I’m the one who isn’t doing enough to repay it.”

“That’s not true,” Leo argued, “and you don’t have to……to repay us for doing our best to keep you safe. We want to keep you safe.”

Because you love her, his beast teased, giggling when Leo’s face heated up a little.

“Um,” the pair looked ahead to find Jr and Mark standing before them, “are we interrupting?”

“What do you two want?” Leo hissed, pushing Hyorin behind him and dropping the grocery bags so that he could defend his master easier.

“We have another deal,” Mark explained, holding up a piece of paper.

“What’s so special about a piece of paper?” N questioned, appearing beside Leo.

“The paper isn’t special,” Jr explained, “it’s what’s written on the paper that’s important.”

“Let me guess,” N scowled, “it has the location of one of your contracts on it.”

“Yeah,” Mark nodded, “and you have to beat us in order to get it.”

“Fine by me,” Leo hissed, stepping closer.

Hyorin backed up slightly, already feeling the heat coming off of the heat demon.  N smirked slightly, proud of his brother’s upgraded powers. Leo could now heat up his body faster and hotter than before. Given, N had no worries about Leo’s ability to win against Jr and Mark before this upgrade, but it sure did help.

“Just stay back, alright?” N said, turning slightly to look at Hyorin, “do not get involved in this fight. This is our battle.”

“Fine,” Hyorin sighed. She didn’t want to go along with N’s plan, but he looked too determined to say no. he wanted to win this, probably because of the thrashing Jr had given him the last time they crossed paths.

“I’m going to burn the pair of you,” Leo growled, glaring darkly at the pair of demons before him, “and then I’m going to take that paper from you.”

“Leo!” Hyorin hissed, trying to ignore the urge to rush forewords and pull Leo back, “you can’t hurt them.”

And why not? Leo questioned, these two have hurt you. And Jr……you saw what he’d did to N and Hyuk. How can I not burn them?

You’ll kill them, his beast pointed out, and she doesn’t want them to die.

But they’ve hurt her, Leo growled.

But not because they wanted to, the beast reminded him, they’re being ordered to do what they’re doing. What they’ve already done. You remember how that feels, don’t you?

Yes, Leo sighed, cooling down a little bit, fine. I’ll go easy on them.

Win, the beast said, but don’t kill them.

Leo rushed forewords and Jr jumped into action. Leo found himself being surrounded with layers and layers of roots and leaves and dirt. Jr smirked to himself, knowing that the dirt he’d pulled up from the ground via his tree roots would be a bit of a challenge for Leo to burn. Leo cursed, realizing that the dirt was a great deal less flammable then the tree roots and leaves.

Mark took this chance to charge at N. however he went right through N who vanished from sight. N reappeared, smirking slightly as he enjoyed the benefits of his power upgrade. Not only could he vanish from sight, but he could also go incorporeal at the same time. Internally he thanked his beast for the upgrade before turning his attention back to Mark who was glaring at him.

“So I can’t hit you?” Mark said, “Fine. Then I’ll hit your master.”

N cursed, making a run for Hyorin. Mark smirked, realizing that he had N now. Rushing forewords, Mark smashed into N, sending the other demon to the ground. N rolled and slid across the ground, finally stopping when he smashed into a streetlight. N winced, feeling pain from where his skin had made contact with the ground. He felt a bit of blood running down his arm and face and winced at the idea that he’d already gotten hurt bad enough to bleed.

Inside Jr’s ball of roots and dirt, Leo growled to himself. Jr was adding roots faster than he could burn them, the dirt slowing him down a little bit. And then there was the branches that would swing out and cut Leo’s skin. Well, they would hit his arms and face, the sharp ends managing to draw at least a few drops of blood before they burnt away. And there was nothing Leo could do to stop it. Well, he could always up the heat, but he didn’t know how close Hyorin and N were. He couldn’t risk their safety.

Plus, there was a down side to his power upgrade. He wasn’t completely sure how hot he could go anymore without causing harm to those standing around him. Heating up a few more degrees normally wouldn’t do more than destroy the roots around him. With the upgrade, he could easily burn N and Hyorin even if they were standing a few feet away from him. It was too much of a risk.

Hyorin found herself watching the pair of demons lose. N was defiantly in no shape to fight back anymore. Mark moved to fast for him to defend against the blows coming at him and he refused to use his powers so that Mark wouldn’t go after Hyorin. She couldn’t see Leo through the thick walls of roots around him, but she assumed he wasn’t doing much better since he hadn’t burned it all down.

She had to fight as well.

A/N: poor N and Leo. This……did not work out for them at all. And poor Leo again ‘cuz his upgraded power has made his powers so hard to work with.