Elegant fingers latch around my ankle and pull, sliding me over the cool sheets and underneath her. I make a futile attempt to pull my leg free before reaching for her hand. She lets me grab her before wrapping her opposite arm around me, turning us around until I’m trapped on my stomach. I immediately brace myself on my palms and push up with all my strength, throwing her off, and scramble over our covers to put my back to the headboard. “This again?” I half-whine as she rolls back onto her knees. “I thought you had all of this out of your system by now.”

“I never tire of a good struggle snuggle.”

Memories of creaking bones and a pounding headache flash through my mind. I hate and love that phrase. Same with what it describes. “That’s not happening,” I say. What did I design this prime form for? Maybe if she asked nicely but she’s not wrestling me down like the Lou of the past.

“The struggle is half the fun,” she growls before launching herself at me. It’s rather impressive how she manages to properly brace herself on the dipping bed but I only have a second to admire her. The next moment, I’ve already reverted back to my origin form, a blob of star-studded ooze.

I’ve been exploring this body along with Geneva and while we haven’t been able to sus out all of its mysteries, we’ve reached a few conclusions. All organic matter I eat is transformed into the strange solid mana that composes my body, what I call ooze. The ooze has many strange properties but the strangest, and perhaps most useful, is its ability to compress itself. After eating a mountain of corpses, I can still compress myself into the dimensions of my prime form or I can expand to the full size of the mountain, according to my will.

With a thought, I inflate, the speed giving me enough force to shred my clothes and push her off the bed. I ooze off the bed before reverting to my prime form. Someone with lesser knowledge of her abilities might have thought her lying prone on the floor to be a vulnerable moment. I know it’s a trap. She could have caught herself easily. Her sprawled limbs are like a hunter’s trap, eager to clamp down on anything unlucky enough to move into her range. I have the advantage in strength. One of the easiest ways for her to negate that is to get me in a grapple.

“You comfortable?” I ask, rolling my neck.

In response, she spins, bracing herself with one hand before putting her feet under her. She chuckles and bounces on her toes. My eyes snap to a certain part of her. A distraction that costs me as in the next second, Kierra is on me, her fist snapping my head to the side.

She doesn’t hold back. At all.

“You—” I swear as she charges at me. Fully prepared, I deflect her following blows and grab her arm. I catch her fist in my other hand, putting us at a stalemate. A stalemate I’m slowly losing as her fingers glow with her green mana. Strong as I may be, she’s still a master caster of the physical affinity. Prolonged confrontations are not in my favor.

I let go of her, wrapping my arms around her waist. She pushes down my arms to break my hold. It feels like someone dropping boulders on me but it’s not enough to free her. Or break my concentration as I finish my spell.

Her eyes widen as a sphere of water springs up around us. I revert back to my origin form, creating a half dozen tentacles and wrapping them around her. This isn’t how I saw this night going but I guess we can get to that once she wakes up. Strong as she is, she needs to breathe and her strength is compromised underwater. This impromptu fight is as good as won…

Until I feel her shrink. It’s the only way I can describe it. She’s suddenly slim enough to slip right through my grip and kicks her legs twice to escape the bubble of water. Her hand reaches into the bubble, grabbing one of my tentacles and yanking me out. The world spins as she throws me into the wall.

My malleable body absorbs most of the force. It speaks to how monstrously strong this elf is that I still hear the wall crack as I slide down.

“You’re going to have to do better than that,” she says. Her slim muscles grow to their usual definition, her whole body glowing with a green sheen. “Did you forget that I am also a shapeshifter?”

…I had. She rarely uses her affinity to do anything other than buff herself and heal. Besides, shapeshifting isn’t exactly a well-known art.

“Then, let me remind you what I can do.”

Hmph. As if it’s going to be that easy.

I expand, inflating my rope-like tentacles to three times their width before throwing them at her. They aren’t much but eventually, I’ll wear her down.

To my surprise, she doesn’t try to dodge them. She grabs the closest one, ignoring the others that wrap around her, bringing it to her mouth. I’m beyond curious what she plans to do when she opens her mouth wide, far wider than her jaw should be able to. Her blunt smile has been replaced with a maw of dagger-like teeth reserved for nightmares. I instinctively try to pull away but she’s stronger than my oozey self. She raises the end of the tentacle higher and clamps down.

I flinch as a piece of me is torn off, feeling a rare moment of pain. I struggle with her to pull back the tentacle, wrapping another around her throat to keep her from tearing off another piece. It’s not enough to keep her from chewing. There is something deeply disturbing about watching another eat a piece of you.

And deeply offensive when she spits it out.

“I wondered what had the pets so fascinated but you aren’t so easily digested. Something to work on.”

Can you not try and devise ways to eat me?! I’m suddenly very nervous about being in this form.

It doesn’t help that my elementals’ heavy gazes have been watching me this whole time, though now their attention is directed to the discarded part. I extend another tentacle to absorb it. Then I pull on her.

It feels like trying to drag a dragon. Did she make herself heavier?

“Are you surprised?” her amused voice asks. She can’t shake off my tentacles but I sure as saints can’t do anything to stop her as she starts to walk forward. “Have you forgotten who I am?”

Seeing the futility of my ooze form, I retract my limbs and change to my prime form. “How could I forget anything about my lovely wife?”

“Then you know…” I tense, trying to think of a way to beat her. Or at the very least, slow her down. “I never stop pushing.”

I’m building a spell before she stops speaking. As her muscles tense, a bubble of water forms between us. The floor cracks as she braces herself, a light green sheen coating her from head to toe. I cross my arms and plant my feet. At least she’s predictable. She wants to overpower me so she’s going to come at me straight. I just need to—

There air whistles and water droplets hit my face a moment before she plows into me, throwing me off my feet. I fly through the wall, debris raining into our yard as I soar through the air. I curl into a ball before hitting the ground, rolling with the impact.

My roll lasts for nearly a minute, finally stopping when I slam into the trunk of a large tree. Groaning, I slowly get to my feet. I blink as blood almost drips into my eye, quickly wiping at the cut on my forehead. My ribs ache and my ankle feels like I might have twisted it. Saints damn it, I haven’t been injured since I designed this form.

There is a long trail of devastation through the garden. Poor Gajin is going to be devastated, but not as devastated as I am looking at the hole in our bedroom wall.

Standing at the edge is my wife. A quick change of ‘films’ allows me to see her smiling like a madman while staring at me. She chuckles before jumping down, the ground quaking as she lands. Slowly, she stalks toward me. A predator teasing its prey.

She wants to do this? Fine.

Let’s take this up a notch.

I conjure another sphere of water, this one larger than any other, and raise it over my head. Then I cast another, rapidly heating it. A thick cloud of steam rolls through the garden, held in place by wind spell that keeps it from dispersing.

The true terror of a multi-affinity caster. They don’t just create spells. They are walking natural disasters, able to bring the greatest forces of the world to bare. And there’s really no way to prepare for them, as their repertoire is too vast.

However, the heavy use of magic is taking its toll. I’m starting to feel a bit of strain, which means I have less than half my coefficient available. I won’t be able to keep up these tricks for long.

The heat of the steam means nothing to me with my new body but it has to be uncomfortable for her and it’ll make her waste some mana to keep from being cooked. My own body is able to resist the heat without a problem but the humidity is annoying. Not to mention the lack of visibility will slow her down. No more reckless charging.

“Good!” she shouts. “But you can’t stay on the defensive or your prey will find a way to turn the tables.”

Beneath my feet, grasses and flowers sway in a breeze that doesn’t exist. Swearing, I launch myself into the air. Just in time as a shadow bursts from the steam, skidding to a halt a scant distance from where I was standing. I use a burst of wind to accelerate my fall just as my wife looks up. She starts to raise her hands but doesn’t have enough time to stop me as I land on her, foot first, the two of us crashing to the ground.

I jump off her when I hear her grunt of pain, dashing away before she can get her hands on me. The plant life erupts, roots twining together and reaching out for me. I hastily construct a flame, setting them all alight. Magically enhanced plants or not, fire eats them all the same. I say a silent apology to Gajin as I watch them shrivel and burn, moving lightly through the steam.

I can hear Kierra running after me, not bothering to smother her footsteps. They sound lighter than before. Seems that titanic weight costs too much mana to maintain.

We’re both hampered visually but my ears are much better than even hers. I can pinpoint her exact location with my eyes closed, which I do, throwing a flame arrow towards her. I hear her change direction as she determines my location, appearing in front of me a moment later.

My eyes widen as I take her in. Specifically the forest green scales covering every inch of her. Her face is turned toward me, eyes closed, lips turned up in a smile.

“The hell?”

“Wyvern scales,” she answers. “Immune to all heat except dragonfire and most other forms of damage.”

That’s…so unfair. “Really?” I ask in an aggrieved tone.

“You are not the only one who learns from their prey.”

Leave it to her to have draconid scales up her sleeves. Why in the saints’ names don’t I have draconid scales? Keeping up the steam is pointless now. I cut the mana to the wind spell holding it in place and it slowly begins to thin.

Kierra’s nose twitches. It’s actually kind of cute. “Done with your tricks?”

“You just barrel through them, you brute.” Seriously. I was quite proud of the steam cloud idea. It’s the first way I thought to combine my many elements and against anyone, or anything else, it’d be highly effective. Monsters would have their faces melted off, knights would cook in their armor. Unfortunately, the first person I get to try it against is my wife.

Heat immune scales of all things. Can’t hide because she can search the whole garden through the plants. Don’t have enough experience with the other elements to pull a rabbit out of my ass. That only leaves one option.

I raise my hands with a sigh. “Come on, then.” I wonder if this is why my prime form is based around strength. It always comes down to a fistfight with her. At the end of the day, nothing is immune to being punched hard enough.

Her eyes open, visibly regenerating as the last of the steam dissipates. “I hope you’re ready.”

As I’ll ever be.

In a heartbeat, we’re exchanging blows. She gets in three hits for my every one but I make for a hell of a punching bag. Not even the devastating charge earlier did much damage and it’s already healed. She’s also not buffing herself. I can only guess her constant healing, the scales, and the plant play exhausted some of that huge coefficient. Enough that she’s not using it recklessly.

I cast a quick Telepathy spell. A completely harmless mental spell but it can be annoying. Especially when the caster transmits a scream directly into your mind. Kierra flinches and I use the drop in her guard to get in a solid blow, throwing everything I have behind it.

It snaps her head back and drops her. I’m on her in a second, my hands around her throat. “We could have just had a nice night in,” I growl while choking her. Her hands grab my wrist, glowing green, but I won’t be moved so easily, pressing down on her with my full weight. She gives up on trying to move my hands, her fingernails morphing into claws.

I wince as they dig into my hands, having no choice but to get off her. I take several steps back, watching her warily as she gets to her feet, coughing. She’s grinning but it fades as she stumbles.

Ha! She honestly thought I was going to slug it out with her? Even a dog can learn what to do and not to do if it’s beaten enough. Why would I bang my head against a stone wall when it’s futile?

Good thing she also forgot what I can do. Mainly that I have more tricks than magic. My body has the ability to secrete substances through my skin. A skill I mainly use in the bedroom but aphrodisiacs aren’t the only thing I’m carrying.

I can also release the paralytic toxin that has my wife swaying on her feet, devised by the wonderful Geneva, saints bless her. One strong enough to give even her powerful magic a challenge. And I’ve been secreting it from the start, every time our bodies have come into contact.

“Youuuu…” Kierra laughs as her speech slurs.

“Yes, yes, I know. Very devious.” I walk toward her leisurely. She tries to move but it’s a joke to catch her. I pin her arms to her side and push three fingers into her mouth. I prepared myself for that nightmarish maw but all I meet are her usual pearly whites and a soft tongue. Thank the saints she reversed that particular change. With a grin, I start to secrete more of the toxin. It should take effect much quicker now. “Poison is unfair but what do you want from me? You didn’t leave me many options.”

Her body sags in my arms. “Werk…twiiii…”

“I know it won’t work twice.” I bet by the end of the day, she’ll have changed her body to resist the toxin. A problem for tomorrow’s Lou. Today, I lift her onto my shoulder and carry her through our mangled garden back to the house.