ROUGH DRAFT - Coye 6.11

The next day, it was right back to work for Coye. He was fired up to get back out there and challenge himself after his battle with Auguris, and he promised Shayla that they would go out just the two of them and discuss his changing body in further detail. Today's quest was for monster Coye considered above his level. Grassland toad. They were big enormous monsters that waited underground and camouflaged in by growing grasp on their backs only to hop up after sensing vibrations and eat whatever they see. Unfortunately, a little girl who ran away from home didn't come back and her shoe was found in an area containing a grassland toad. Her parents put in a quest for vengeance and Coye thought the monster would be a good test of his power.

Finding it was easy if you knew what to look for. They have to dig up the ground around them to make a hole large enough for them to wait within. Look for large piles of dirt and you're likely looking at a grassland toad's hiding spot. The instructions on where it was last sighted were outdated. There wasn't any toad in the aforementioned area, giant or otherwise. There was however enough tracks for Coye to go on the hunt. He chased it for another two hours outside of Cransmere before coming across another big pile of dirt. They knew what they were looking at and Coye started the battle by picking up a nearby rock and throwing it on its back.

The grassland toad hopped out of its hole and revealed itself- a green and brown speckled amphibian that stood ten feet tall and then some. It's big eyes looked around for the source of the disturbance and saw Coye before letting out a deafening croak and launching its tongue at him. These were a very strong monster famed for their speedy tongues and bulk. Coye didn't find the tongue very fast. His reflexes were improving. He sidestepped and offered a counter slash, managing to lob the tip of its tongue straight off.

He knew his sword had gotten sharper after whatever Marlie did to it, but he'd underestimated it. The entire thing felt much lighter in his hand and he struck so fast he had time enough to perform a second stroke and lop even more of the tongue off. Evidently, the toad wasn't very happy. It spat up multiple bubbles of venom which plodded through the air on their way to Coye. Coye advanced, trusting his partner to have his side.

Shayla summoned a gust strong enough to send all of the heavy fluids back at the monster. They splattered against it. While it's oily skin was resistance to its own poisons, it must not of been comfortable. It croaked in pain and some of the flesh started to sizzle off in a steaming fashion. The smell was horrible.

The grassland toad shows a violent response. It hopped up into the air, hoping to land on top of Coye. He was too fast for that and dodge out of the way, but the shockwave the monster created on its impact left him disoriented and he momentarily fell to his knees. The monster thought it had an opportunity to strike and it raised one of its big toad hands to slap him, but Shayla had him covered.

She was ready to show off something new she was working on with Byng the other day.

Shayla until now had been relying on the environment to do most of her damage, which never sit right with her. Sure, it suited her as a pixie to be tricky, but she needed more versatility. Shooting arrows back and forth with Byng gave her an idea that she polished and got to a usable degree of power. Rather than snapping her fingers, Shayla pointed at oncoming toad hand as it threatened to collapse on Coye. Sparkling fireworks centered on her fingertips and a thin, needle shaped burst of magic shot out. There were several shots in a row and they each hit the target on the mark.

On impact, the shots exploded into a cavalcade of fireworks. The damage it inflicted seemed minimal, but the tingling sensation of fairy magic wasn't pleasant in high doses. The toad reared back and shook his hand like it had been stung by a series of bees. Coye had more than enough time to pick himself up and make his next move. He repositioned himself closer to Shayla, not wanting to make the most of his opportunity to strike. This was a battle to test where they stood currently, not to finish the foe off as quickly as possible.

"That was cool. Where did that come from?" Coye asked, still battle ready even as he positioned himself next to Shayla.

"Something I thought up with Byng the other day while you were in your sex coma," she teased. "Just a basic shot of mana but with some tricky side effects. Won't do much damage, but it will give you a lot of chances to make the most of it."

"Nice," Coye smiled. "I'm proud of you."

"It's nothing," she brushed aside the praise , trying not to seem overly happy with how it made her feel. "More importantly, he's getting back up!"

The toad was indeed ready to strike. Not learning his lesson, the monster opened its mouth and tried firing its tongue at Coye's feet. Coye jumped to the side and Shayla wrapped the tongue in her telekinetic energy, giving him a chance to strike. He cut off even more and enraged the toad further. It stamped around the ground, causing earthshaking in the immediate area. Coye was about to rush in and make an attack, but Shayla wanted to try something else.

"Think you can try doing what you did against Auguris?" She asked.

"You mean at the end?"

"Yeah, when you force-fed me a bunch of your mana and supercharged me! That seems like something we should really be working on, you know."

Coye dashed away from the monster putting in some distance between them. Thankfully, the toad was slow and its range was decreased because of its tongue. He had a couple of seconds to act here in relative safety. The only problem was he didn't know the first thing about replicating whatever happened that day. He could feel more control over his mana circuits- much more than he never had before- but he couldn't repeat what had happened. He tried extending his hand and imagining his mana flowing into Shayla, but nothing came of it.

"I can't," he announced with displeasure. "I don't know how."

"Damn it, I was afraid of that..." Shayla sighed. "Whatever. We'll talk about it after we wrap this up. You gonna see if you can pull off Triple strike again?"

"Yeah. Let's finish this." Coye made the decision to throw his shield off to the side and adopted a two-handed stance with his opposite hand resting firmly on the pommel. "Give me an opening."

"You got it!" Coye dashed to the oncoming monsters left well Shayla flew to its right.

She pointed at it with both of her hands, this time building up even more mana before. She fired off a bigger needle from each hand, pelting the monster right in its broadside. This bigger projectile dealt a bit more damage, the hide around her shot now bubbling and stinging, but the staggered effect was more pronounced. While not comparable to Coye's nerverine oil, it gave him a few seconds of precious time to strike.

He poured his energy inside both of his arms, as equally as he could. Right now, he had a clear strike at the opposite flank and he took the chance. Coye let out Triple strike, slashing vertically down on his foe. The results were devastating, and the monster's thick hide was pierced and rended in an explosion of violence. Grassland toads were famous for their leathery hides, but this one pose no problem at all to the young adventurer and its nasty smelling gore and viscera burst out of it, only barely missing Coye thanks to a last second quickstep behind him.

The monster fell over, twitching for some time until death claimed it.

Another battle won, and against the foe Coye wouldn't have thought he was capable of only a month ago. Shayla flew to his side as he admired his work and pulled out a rag to clean his sword off and polish it nicely.

"That went even faster than I thought it would," he admitted.

Shayla casually perched on his shoulder. "It was no big deal. I knew we'd handle it."

"Are you hiding any other new moves from me?"

"Not yet, but give me some time. I'm more shocked about how much stronger my magic is getting in general. Maybe that big burst the other day is speeding things along?"

"Maybe, but I think it's more likely you've just been getting tons of practice ever since we met. You're getting stronger, Shayla." Coye gave her a smile as he finished polishing his sword. He wasn't ready to harvest his kill yet, so he went and found a comfortable spot to relax for a little while and discuss things with Shayla.

She was pleased with his praise, but there was much talk about regarding his own development. She had plenty of burning questions about the magic Coye tapped into, things had been so hectic the last couple of days that there was never any time to talk about it, but she started things off by asking about his sword. "Did it really never occur to you to try Triple strike with to hands before now, baby? You know I love you but I can't help feeling that's a pretty stupid move even for you."

"I was taught one-handed swordsmanship," he frowned. "And my dad taught me by example. He's a man of few words and didn't explain much for me."

"Fewer words than you?"

"Way fewer. I'm better at talking and he is."

"... Geez that sounds bad. How did you even learn how to speak at all?"

"Slowly."

Shayla tilted her head in understanding. Between that and the whole living for six years out in the wilderness without any contact to the rest of society, she kept feeling this kids dad did a number on him however unintentional.

"Well, whatever. It sucks that you weren't able to pump magic into me again."

"Yeah," Coye sighed as he looked at the fallen enemy. He wondered how easy things would've been if Shayla had another similar boost in power. "I have to be honest, though. I was barely conscious at that point."

"I mean, yeah. Auguris was going to town on you. Why don't you run through everything you do remember feeling and we'll see if we can work backwards a little bit?"

Coye closed his eyes and cupped his chin. "I remember it felt like all of my mana circuits burst one after another. You know, the nerves inside a person that mana flows through?"

"Yes, baby. I have them too. You don't gotta explain it like I'm a kid."

"Right, so... In that moment where they all popped, I felt like I could control it more than ever before."

"What about right now?" Shayla asked. "Do they still feel free and open? Can you move your man around easier?"

"I think so?" Coye raised a finger and tried channeling his mana into it. The mana went where it was guided like water being led through a river, facing no resistance. If it weren't for his mental ability making it difficult to draw out magic runes in his mind he might've been able to cast spells. "Yeah, I can. It's still moving very free, just nowhere near as much as it did during the battle."

"There had to be something else that you're missing. Think about it."

And Coye did. He remembered what it felt like. At the time, he was begging for Shayla to wake up. He couldn't defeat Auguris without her help- and then it hit him. "Wait a second, I think I remember something."

"Yeah? Well don't keep me in suspense, let me know!" Shayla was getting impatient.

"When I first contacted you mentally, I felt like there was more mana circuits in my body than there should've been. Specifically, I could feel all of the ones in your body like they were mine. At the moment it felt like there was just a bunch of extra nerves on my head. Since it was a part of me, moving mana to you was easy."

"So all the energy I felt is just because you shoved a bunch of your mana inside me?" Shayla wondered. It was a very big power up, so she doubted it was as simple as that.

"That's what it felt like, but I'm no expert."

"Well... I guess the big ask here is can you still feel my mana circuits right now?"

"Let me try..." Coye closed his eyes and focused on the flow of mana within his body. Could feel all of his own, but he searched for extra ones from the other day. He couldn't find any. "No. Maybe it would help if you were on my head like you were last time?"

"Let's find out!" Shayla snapped her fingers and blew Coye's hat off with some wind. It landed on the ground and Shayla soon took its place. She grabbed on his hair and pulled its stalks as if it were wiring which could transmit energy to her body. "How about now, you feeling anything?"

Sure enough, he did.

"Yeah, but it's nowhere near as pronounced as it was before..."

"Go ahead and shoot me some mana then, big guy! Fill me up!"

"Uh..."

"Oh, shut up! I didn't mean it like that and you know it, perv. You can fill me up that way some other time- if you're good."

"Right, right." Coye laughed and smiled before getting back to the task at hand. "I'll see what I can do."

Coye started redirecting his mana up through his body into the biggest mana circuit in his body, that of his brain. There wasn't a pathway between himself and Shayla like there was to his natural circuits, but he imagined one connecting the two of them and that seemed to do the trick. Shayla felt an influx of mana- but it was small. A few drops of it at most compared to the torrential flooding of mana she'd experienced at the climax of the battle with Auguris. Coye tried to brute force it, but the harder he concentrated the more strenuous the task became. He inevitably gave up, becoming short of breath as he leaned forward and caught himself on the ground.

Shayla flew off of his head and went to the ground below him to look up. "Whoa, easy there, big guy! Not going so good?"

"No..." He admitted. "I'm used to redirecting my energy- my life force- but mana is something completely different... Just because I have better control over it that I use to-"

"yeah, I get it baby. You're not used to working with mana. It's okay! Just chill out and relax for a sec." Shayla suggested, giving him a warm smile to let him know it was all right.

Coye sat himself back upright and had a long drink from his canteen. He caught his breath soon enough and Shayla was satisfied.

"Don't beat yourself up over this. The fact that you even can do it means a lot! We just have to practice it little by little." Shayla smiled.

"Your little pumped up over this, aren't you?" Coye noticed.

"Well, yeah! Did you see the shit I pulled off in that big battle? If you master that then I might get even stronger! Hard not to get excited when I think about that."

"That's fair," Coye nodded, but then the stray thought crossed his mind and took hold of him. "What do you think would happen if we did the opposite?"

Shayla blinked and tilted her head. "What, you mean if I transferred my mana into you?"

"Yeah, exactly."

"I don't see what all that would accomplish. You don't have spells to fuel with it or anything... It's not like your energy or life force or whatever you call it, it's not going to make you any stronger."

"Why don't we try it? Maybe if you send some your way it'll make the path wider or something?"

Shayla scratched her chin. "I'm not gonna pretend like I know what I'm talking about. Magic is bullshit and what you said just now might very well have some merit. Ready, baby?"

"Fill me up, Shayla," he teased.

"Oh shut up," she rolled her eyes and flew back on top of his head, taking the same stance as before. She closed her eyes and immediately realized what Coye was talking about. She could feel his mana circuits as if they been a part of her body her whole life. They were so noticeable now that she knew what to look for.

"Here it comes," Shayla warned, gripping his hair tight as could be. Her body started to glow brighter than it usually did and her wings fluttered fiercely as some of her mana started to leave her body and enter Coye's through his skull. Only a little bit got through before there were profound reactions.

Coye's eyes grew wider. The world slowed around him, and his breathing went wild. His head darted around taking in what felt like thousands and thousands of new sights. Did the world always looks so colorful? So exciting and visually interesting? His mind was racing, his body pulsing with hot blood. Coye felt Shayla's tingly magic only it was inside of him, spreading through every inch of his existence. His existence was was nothing but tingling. Tingling, and arousal. He was pulsatingly horny, and then it all stopped suddenly and Coye was on the ground yet again.

"For fuck's sake, what the hell was that?! Baby?! I didn't kill you, did I?!" Shayla flew around and went to his face, slapping him on the cheek several times. "Hey! Coye! Don't scare me like this, what you think you're-"

"holy shit..." He managed to answer, dragging himself to sit upright. "That was... um... Intense. Is that what it feels like to be a pixie?"

"Um, maybe you should run me through what just happened?"

Coye explained for her all of the insane things he just felt and it intrigued her to hear, but it worried her. The way Coye described things made it sound like he was into it. Very into it.

"So, that's about it. Can I have some more?"

Shayla sighed. Just as she expected. "Absolutely not. How the fuck you keep finding ways to make this slope even slipperier? First it was my dust, now you're addicted to my mana!"

"I'm not addicted!" Coye insisted. "I just want-"

"one more hit?"

"Yeah, that would be great. One more hit sounds nice!" He looked at her desperately, causing Shayla to rubbed her temples.

"Not today. We are obviously going to have to experiment with this more, but it's something we need to be careful about. I've got a bad feeling about what would happen if I just kept pumping more mana into you, baby. It sounds like it might be a bigger source of power for you than I thought it would, but for now, let's stick to you powering me up."

"Okay," Coye was dejected, and knew he wouldn't win this argument. "At least will be able to ask Dorothy soon. She's got a know something about all of this. You saw how much she knew about fairies the other day."

"Yeah, so don't fuck it up! A lot is riding on you hooking up with her. Even if she doesn't know the answers, she's probably the person who will know how to find them."

"Funny how the answer has been right there all along." Coye teased but Shayla ignored him and rolled her eyes.

"You know why I was against telling her, dummy,"

"I know, I know..." Coye smiled and extended his hand to the pixie for her to stand atop. Once she did he lifted her closer to his face. "Still, it looks like things are going to change real soon. I'm really looking forward to-" Coye paused. His intuition warned him of incoming danger much faster than Shayla could register it.

"Baby? Something up?" She jumped off of his hand and flew over to his shoulder.

In the nearby distance, there were three large bushes approaching by several feet at a time. These were no ordinary bushes, but were in fact the grassland toad's tadpoles- which were still smaller but relied on camouflage in order to catch their prey.

"Gotta put these ones out of their misery. If I don't, they'll grow up and pray on innocent people, too." Coye stood up and drew his sword out from over his shoulder. When he did, he noticed an immediate difference.

Gleamrender was shimmering with light, and he could sense that the power was active. It shouldn't have been, considering he'd already taken damage today, but Coye knew for sure. Even stranger was the fact that it wasn't just active, it was more potent. He'd been using the sword for two years and never before had a felt so alive with power.

As Coye continued sizing up his weapon, the monsters were getting closer.

"Hello? Everything okay down there?"

"The sword is acting strange. Let me try something." Coye attacked with the beam of light aimed at the nearest tadpole and the resulting attack was greater than he expected. What used to be a minor burst of light energy was now more significant and potent- the beam was even of slightly different color and seemed to crackle and swirl similarly to the way Shayla's magic always looked.

It hit the tadpole and rather than inflicting nondescript energy damage the force of the energy was much greater. It exploded the tadpole into a bunch of little chunks. Coye almost couldn't believe what he saw. He looked at the sword and then at Shayla, who was also in disbelief. The tadpoles were in a state of shock from there sibling's sudden death and in that brief opening, Coye struck two more times with the beam of light to see if he could replicate the results. Sure enough, each of them popped.

"What the fuck did Marlie do to your sword...?" Shayla asked in wonderment.

"I don't think Marlie had anything to do with it. Didn't you see what the magic looked like? It was all sparkly and blue and purple- like yours."

"Shit..." Shayla saw what he meant. His sword was reacting to her mana, but that didn't make sense to her. "My magic shouldn't be very effective on it, though. I told you how fairies are weak to metal."

"What about all of the times you turned my sword into a torch? Didn't you say it was weird how bright the light was?"

"Oh yeah..." Shayla rubbed her chin. "I chalked it up as me getting stronger, but... I'm starting to think the sword is... reactive to fairy magic if that's possible?"

"Have you ever heard of anything like that?"

"Sure, fairies make their own weapons to y'know. It's just out of metals found in the faerie realm."

"Is that what all of your jewelry is made out of?"

Shayla the silver necklace on her collar. "No, this is just rocks that look like metal and the jewels are dewdrops. Fairy metal is something different, and your sword doesn't really fit the description. It just looks like normal steel to me. Not that I've ever seen it, but... still."

"Sounds like I'm going to have to have another talk with Marlie soon,"

"yeah, I certainly think so. I think you should test it out a little bit more though, baby."

Coye agreed, and they set about doing just that. The first thing Coye wanted to test was whether or not taking damage would still result in the sword losing its power. He pricked his thumb with the blade, being careful due to its new level of sharpness, but even after he'd taken damage he was still able to shoot off beams of light. It seemed that his swords main weakness was now completely solved. They tested it for quite a while, shooting off beams for several minutes straight.

After a while, the beams started becoming weaker and weaker until Coye was no longer able to shoot them off. Their best guess was that Shayla's mana infusion had worn off and the sword was running on that. Coye saw a chance to exploit this.

"You could send me some more mana and will see if the sword lets me keep going?" He teased, knowing it wouldn't get him very far.

Shayla rolled her eyes at that as predicted and would hear nothing of it. "No way. It'll just make you even more perverted, and there's no one here but me to help drain you and I'm not risking putting you into a frenzied state! We both know what you're like, you ruffian."

"Can you blame me for trying?"

"Yes. I'm doing it right now." She smirked kindly. "Let's see if I can do it myself."

Shayla fluttered over to the hilt of his sword as he held it aloft. The thought of touching metal always made her uncomfortable, and it wasn't just because her species had a general anxiety toward it. She couldn't help but picture her mother being taken away in an iron cage, but Shayla shook it off and placed both of her hands on Coye's sword. Strangely, her anxieties felt totally washed away as soon as she made contact. It didn't feel like metal, she didn't know what it felt like, honestly. With no further hesitation, Shayla channeled mana inside of it just like she done with Coye earlier. It started glowing with power instantly.

"Bingo," she smiled and flew back to his shoulder. "Give it a go."

Coye inspected the sword, nodded with approval, and shot off another beam of light. Shayla was very disappointed to see that it looked much less strong than when Coye was the one powering the sword. The fairy accoutrements were still present, but they were less noticeable. He swung his sword from minutes straight until the mana was exhausted and it dried up sooner than it did with Coye.

"What the hell? I did the thing! Why isn't it as strong?"

"Maybe the sword draws on my strength? Or it could just be that I'm better at transmitting energy into my own sword, you know."

Shayla frowned. "Sure, that makes sense... Whatever. We made a lot of progress today, I think. We've both gotten stronger and between your sword and the whole transferring mana back-and-forth thing, we have a lot of room for growth. Not to mention, you've already started learning my telepathy ability. Who knows how many more of my abilities you'll end up with at this rate?"

"This is all pretty exciting. I almost don't know where we should focus from now on."

"We'll figure it out, baby. There's no rush on any of this. One day at a time, remember?"

"Right." Coye smiled. He felt optimistic. He really was getting stronger, and it was all because of Shayla. Their teamwork made them better than the sum of their parts, and the bond growing between them because of Shayla's dust was finally starting to blossom.

"Now why don't you go strip that toad for parts so you can sell them off and then drop me off at Suzette's?"

"Are you going to be working tonight?"

"Did you forget?" Shayla tilted her head. "I told you this like two days ago!"

"When I was napping on and off during my recovery?"

"Shit," Shayla felt embarrassed. "I guess I should've checked if you still remembered... Yeah. So, Suzette spread word and tomorrow she's going to try putting on some of my clothing on sale as a test for how well it goes. Don't worry- it'll wrap up before Dorothy comes over, I think!"

"Oh, cool. Yeah I don't remember any of this..." He scratched the back of his head and started walking toward the toad, drawing his ordoghite knife to get to work. He thought this was coming a little fast, but then again, Suzette is very efficient. She gets up to all sorts of stuff whenever he's not around, and it made him proud to know recent events haven't affected her too much.

Before Coye started harvesting the eyeball which would serve as his proof of kill, Shayla saw fit to tease him. "You know you need to be there tomorrow too, right?"

"I have to model clothes," he expressed haggardly. "Don't I?"

"No, of course not. You don't have to do anything. I would suggest showing up though if you wanted to prevent me and Suzette from being disappointed in you, however. Very big difference."

"Extremely," Coye agree, his hands ripping out the eyeball and his knife severing the optic nerve. "I'll help. But it better not be skimpy."

"Please, it'll be tasteful."

"Tasteful, huh?"

"Yes. Suzette proposed that customers will have to pay extra to see you in lingerie, and frankly I think that was a very smart idea."

"You better be joking!" Coye started blushing as he stuffed his newly received eyeball into his trophy bag.

"Maybe I am, maybe I'm not? You'll find out tomorrow, I guess!"