Gardner Wanted: Must Look Good Bending Over

. . .

Jellal watched the scene before him: Lucy holding the tome over her head, chasing Cobra around the room with it as the man shot crude one-liners at her. For the first time in several years Jellal actually laughed before thinking to himself, "Oh, he's got it bad for this one. Which means I've finally got some much needed leverage."

. . .

Cobra watched Jellal from the corner of his eye and tuned into his soul noise. There was a definite hint of amusement but also something the slayer had never heard before coming from the man before him, satisfaction, almost to the point of smugness, and that scared him.

"Foreplay was fun, Starlight, but Denim Jeans is creeping me out by watching. We'll finish what we started later," Cobra remarked.

Lucy, somewhat out of breath from swinging the heavy book around, let the book drop and put her hands on her knees to catch her breath. She motioned for Cobra to come closer and even though the Slayer knew what she was going to do, he figured he deserved this one. Cobra leaned in and Lucy smacked him upside the head, not too hard, but with enough force to get her point across. "I'll give you that one," he laughed.

Turning back to Jellal he said, "If this is the type of stuff that gets you off, I'd suggest you clear your browser history."

Jellal gave him a confused look and Cobra rolled his eye. Being as smart as me can be really hard, because people just don't appreciate your wit.

"May I take a look at the book?" Jellal asked and Lucy nodded, handing the volume over to him.

Jellal turned it over in his hands. It definitely had the feel of leather to it but it was quite unlike any material he had seen on Earthland. When he opened it, true to what was said, the pages were all completely blank. "Do you mind?" he asked Lucy and she shook her head.

The pair sat down at the little kitchen table and Cobra plopped himself down on the couch again. Pulling out his LPhone, he started scrolling through BuzzRank while Lucy's soul went all butterflies.

"Grandpa wrote us a brief summary; here's what it says: from the years x755 to x790, the Kingdom of Caelum saw mass violence and fighting as a result of a civil war. The war started as a result of infighting amongst the Royal Family. Caelum was home to both mages and nonusers alike, however, the two groups generally did not comingle. The heir to the throne was born with magic abilities, a first in the Royal Family's history. The Queen died in childbirth. The King's brother protested that this child should inherit the throne, raising issues that the child would use his magic to the disadvantage of nonusers and proposed that his son should rule instead.

"The King's brother stirred up support amongst the population and fighting soon broke out between magic users and nonusers. The King encouraged mages not to use their powers and to remain peaceful. But this led to their downfall. Nonusers entered the villages of mages in the night and burned them to the ground. No known mages survived these attacks.

"The King was later murdered by his brother. However, the brother's family all died mysteriously the next day and the previous heir's body was never found. With the Royal Family dead and no remaining public magic users, the civil war ended. A man named Agosto formed a new government, an autocracy. There are elections, however, Agosto has never lost. The people refer to him as El Creador, or the Creator."

A silence fell over the room as Lucy finished reading, all three of them trying to take in the information.

"You know, I've always kind of wondered," Cobra said thoughtfully as Lucy and Jellal turned to face him. "The first guy to drink cow's milk, he was probably into a lot of other weird shit too, right?"

Lucy sighed. "That's right, Cobra, but not quite as weird as the shit you're into."

"Niiiice," Cobra laughed back.

"Don't encourage him," Jellal said softly to Lucy and the girl blushed.

"Don't listen to him, Lu-Bear. I love it when you encourage me. Come sit next to me and be my personal cheerleader; I promise I won't mind," Cobra drawled.

Lucy tried to tune him out, turning back to Jellal. "There are several other chapters of information here. Information about the Royal Family, the villages that were destroyed, and the current system of Government. I bet this could really help."

Lucy and Jellal began to leaf through the book, inching closer together and Cobra's eye began to twitch slightly. He didn't like it that Lucy was ignoring him and he didn't like it that her soul was all excited to be so close to Jellal.

"Which gets me thinking," he said loudly, trying to distract the pair, "about the first person who saw an egg come out of a chicken's butt and was like 'I'm going to eat that,'" but the pair was ignoring him, wrapped up in reading from the stupid book.

This is ridiculous! Bay Watch is all over this guy!

Cobra lobbed a spitwad perfectly so it would land right on the open book. Preparing for the yelling, he simply said "Oops, sorry," ahead of time but instead of the table with the book disintegrating, there was just a slight fizzing sound.

Jellal put his arm across Lucy's chest to stop her from leaning in to look at the substance as it dissipated on the book. "What was that?" she asked, blushing at their posture.

"Payback for being ignored. Really, Erik, that's so childish."

"Says the man previously giving me the silent treatment," Cobra responded, happy to have broken up the dynamic duo. "Sorry about your book, Princess."

Lucy furrowed her brows. "What do you mean?"

Cobra looked from side to side. "Sorry that your book disintegrated."

"My book didn't disintegrate," Lucy corrected.

Cobra stood up, wide eyed and hurried to the table, pushing Jellal accidentally, of course, in the process. He couldn't believe it, the book was still perfectly in one piece. He lobbed another wad of spit at it over Lucy's objection and the book just fizzled as it stayed completely unharmed. "What the fuck?" Cobra muttered, suddenly worrying that his powers were going awry. It had happened before—he and his internal soul, more on that prick later, had gotten in a pretty bad fight and the former dragon had managed to keep his poison abilities locked in the lacrima for some time. It wasn't a pretty week, for either of them.

He let some drool fall on the table and sure enough, the liquid started eating through the table. "Erik!" Jellal exclaimed. "Quickly, before it burns a hole through the floor."

Cobra sighed, happy to know that his poison was still top notch and caught the liquid as it made its way through the table with his hand before wiping it off on his coat. "Why the hell is it not burning through your book?"

"Why the hell is it not burning through your coat?" Lucy retorted.

"It's a magically enhanced coat, duh. I did the work on it myself. Showed you mine, now show me yours."

"It's a book from the Spirit Realm, dumb dumb. It's not physical the way things are down here on Earthland," Lucy said a little exasperated.

"Too bad, cause I specialize in getting down and physical," Cobra drawled. Don't judge me. I don't like the fact that my poison couldn't eat through her book and I'm trying to distract everyone from that fact.

Lucy narrowed her eyes. "No one wants to hear about you masturbating on the floor, Cobra."

"Oo," Cobra said with a coy smile. "Careful, Sugar, your sass is showing."

Lucy made a sad face. "Too bad you're not equipped to handle it."

"I'd be happy to give you a free trial to test out that theory." This is getting fun! And dirty! Both things I love!

"No thanks, I'm not in the market for such a tiny tool."

Cobra put his hand to his mouth as if in thought. "I see, is that because you prefer something battery powered to plow your field?"

Jellal sat back, completely stunned by the fact that Lucy was keeping up with the poison slayer. And more than keeping up, she was edging him out in some instances.

"If you two would excuse me," Jellal said, rising from the table. "I have some follow on research I'd like to do given what we've learned today. I trust that you can manage to get along until this evening when everyone returns?"

The pair didn't even hear him, both of them so lost in one-upping the other. Jellal shook his head, chuckled to himself and exited the apartment.

END CHAPTER 10

. . .

Excuse me, I'm kind of in the middle of showing Twinkle Toes here how to properly snark someone.

"Only because the 'by hand' version can't keep up."

"Interesting, so you prefer to do your gardening by hand?"

She's pretty good, but no one's as good as me. I can go all day, all night, twenty four seven, three sixty five.

You guys rock. Keep leaving reviews telling Mus how amazing I am. Maybe one day she'll give me a field in which to use my magnificent plow.

Later bitches!