Cynthia turned her head towards Astra, only to find herself staring at empty space, with nothing but a few waning sparks of electricity crackling in the air. The only proof of Astra's existence was the set of blackened footprints in the grass where she had once been standing, as well as the papers that were scattering in the sudden gust of wind.

The pencil that used these papers was moving rapidly in the air. It zipped towards the nearest piece of paper and started to rapidly scrawl out a message in frantic, bold lettering.

"STAY AWAY! STAY AWAY! STAY AWAY!"

It was the same message over and over again, written as fast as the pencil could move in the air as if nothing else mattered other than delivering this message. A message that the intended recipient never received.

Whipping her head around towards the shrinking silhouette in the sky, she called out helplessly.

"Astra! Wait!"

***

Twisting himself in the air, Seth yanked his flight upwards and pulled himself into a backwards loop, the Loch Ness Monsters teeth snapping behind him once again. He flipped backwards, looking above him - which also happened to be below him, relatively speaking - at the head of the legendary beast.

He pushed himself off of the flying spear, plunging downwards directly towards the beasts head. Flipping in the air again, he slammed both of his heels into its head, giving it a proper drop kick and forcing it to splash down on the water's surface once more.

Immediately crouching down, he dug the claws of his new replacement hand deep into the beasts flesh and held on for dear life as it began to buck and writhe. With his other hand, he summoned his curved, soul slashing dagger once more and started to carve into it, causing a torrent of crimson to pour from the garish wounds and mix with the tranquil blue beneath.

Although he had been running away, Seth had also been trying to figure out the details of this beast's abilities. Every ability, in some form of another, had rules they had to abide by. Even if they were ridiculous and somewhat illogical rules, such as his own interaction with bodies when they were living vs when they were dead, they were still bound by some form of rules.

It was a universal constant that was simply unavoidable.

Every moment of the combat he had been counting, he counted how long after the stomach churning it took to move, he counted how many seconds between each jump there was.

And in this effort, he found a pattern. He once had a friend who was deeply into MMO's, they weren't really Seth's thing but this friend loved them. This friend had once preached to him the importance of cooldown management, as well as educating Seth on his friend's uncanny ability to do so down to the second.

This friend had an impossibly accurate internal clock, down to the millisecond, and it made him hell in those spaces. Although Seth didn't have this amazing ability, he was smart enough to be able to count in his head while performing six different tasks. Multi-tasking was his new super power, along with you know, controlling the dead and inanimate objects.

But really, multi-tasking like this was just as impressive.

5 second cooldown before it could jump again, and a 3 second timer after the stomach churning before he teleported with it. That gave him 8 seconds, at best, to cause as much damage as possible.

Better yet, If he was holding on when it teleported, then he would appear still holding onto it. Meaning all he had to do was worry about drowning, which was less of a threat now that he knew when to start holding his breath.

8 seconds to do as much damage as possible, it wasn't much but it was better than nothing. Yet, he had barely made it past the count of 2 before something completely disrupted his plan.

As he was clinging on to the bucking bronco and carving it like a roast dinner, a roar of thunder crashed through the air before a streak of lightning blasted directly into the beasts head. The bolt struck it like a truck, whipping its head to the side and sending spasms through its body, as it fell to the side and splashed down again.

'What is she doing here? Doesn't she listen?!'

Tracing the lightning back through the air, Seth locked his eyes on the rapidly approaching figure of Astra. She was laying in the air, one hand extended outwards with her blackened fingers spread.

Small bolts of lightning crackled around her, especially around her armour, as she used her electro-kinesis to lift her armour, and thus herself, so that she could fly. Although she was missing a cape, with her hair whipping in the wind instead, she still held the appearance of some magnificent superhero arriving on the scene to save the day.

Seth ripped his knife from Nessie and shot himself into the air, catching his spear mid leap and soaring towards the approaching Storm Goddess. At the same time, he felt his stomach starting to churn from more than just anxiety.

"Get Away! Get Away!"

Pushing his spear to fly as fast as it could, he could see her expression twist into one of confusion as the wind ripped his words out of the air, their sound barely making it to her ears. His frantic waving and shouting caused her to slow her approach, but not stop.

The churning feeling grew worse, his stomach doing summersaults before its contents defied gravity entirely. Of all the things he had tested, he hadn't figured out its range on the teleportation snare. He had been far too focused on the cooldown, which was rapidly approaching the final tick of the clock until finally half way through his flight, the air turned itself into an endless expanse of water.

He was still moving, carving through the water instead of air, and still in front of him was Astra. Floating in the water, a panicked expression on her face as she suddenly clutched at her throat. Bubbles rose from her mouth as she reflexively gasped for a breath that would never come.

Seth could already see her body convulsing, not just as the water rushed into her lungs, but as sparks of electricity started to arc out into the water, striking at nothing but lightning up the deep blue with every crackling strike.

The water bubbled and boiled around her, heating up from the constant barrage of electricity, yet it still wasn't enough to completely separate her from the water. Just enough to make it sear against her armour, which started to glow brighter from the heat.

Yet despite the deadly display Infront of him, and the beast rapidly encroaching from behind him, Seth didn't divert his course. He stayed true, carving through the water towards Astra. As he flew through the waves, the legendary beast in rapid pursuit, black veins crept their way onto his face and a secondary skin of undulating black blood manifested itself between his armour and skin.

Lightning coursed through the water, wilder than ever before as Astra's eyes rolled into the back of her head, forming the dazzling sight of a tree of pure lightning. One of the deadly plasma branches struck out towards Seth, lashing out at him as he dared to approach the Goddess at the centre.

The bolt hit his chest, before passing right through him, the point of contact turning into wisps of white smoke as his armour used its last charge to disperse the attack. Which was a shame, because the monster of the deep was drawing ever closer.

As he approached the drowning girl, until her dazzling tree was all that he could see, Seth summoned the [Weaver's Curse] and wrapped the steel threads around the shaft of his spear.

Seth weaved his way through the deadly branches, finally reaching Astra and, without hesitation, wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her body against his. They spun in the water, the lightning eagerly using the contact to leap itself onto his body, burrowing under his armour and striking at the blackened shell that covered his skin.

The black blood writhed and jiggled even more, doing its best to resistant the endless onslaught of lightning and the scalding water around them that threatened to boil the pair like lobsters.

As they spun, Seth let go of his spear, letting the pair of them drift helplessly in the waves, as the spear launched itself towards the open mouth of the approaching monster. Just as the spear was about to pierce into the Loch Ness Monsters vurnerable, pink flesh, the black veins retreated from Seth's face as he pulled Astra closer against him.

'I'm sorry about this.'

The spear struck true, plunging into the soft, spongy pink flesh inside the beasts mouth. Lightning racing down the threads, through the steel spear and roaring through the legendary monsters body, cooking it from within.

As it's body twitched and writhed beneath this wonderful light show beneath the waves, Seth leaned close to Astra. Hesitating slightly, he planted his lips against hers and started to breath into her mouth, giving her a kiss of life as the legendary monster performed a dance of death.