Astra had been thoroughly confused watching this entire ordeal going down. She had never pried too much into Seth's private life. Beyond learning the secret of his identity, she truly didn't know all that much about him.

Although, that couldn't really be blamed entirely on her. After all, when you are locked in an extra-dimensional, eternal prison of tranquillity and have to fight horde after horde of monsters for months on end, all while you are worrying about starving or dehydration, the topics of discussion become fairly limited.

No one is going to discuss their favourite colour when they are ripping apart monsters, unless that colour happened to be red, or what their relationship status was when you were desperately scrounging for even a drop of water.

So, when she saw this strange girl pawing at Seth and calling him names like "My Love" it was natural of her to assume that they were in some relationship. It gave her a mixture of... odd feelings, watching this stranger paw at him so lovingly.

And yet, before she even had time to process that flood of emotions, an entire new set barged in and took their place when he started to choke her with an expression like she had killed his mother. Even when he was facing all sorts of creatures in their time locked in that meadow, she had never seen him as unhinged as that. Something definitely wasn't right with him.

Once again, new emotions tackled the old out of the way, as the strange girl was released and immediately lunged at Astra with an absolutely crazed look in her eyes, screeching like a harpy that was being skinned alive.

Astra was thoroughly exhausted, perhaps not on the same level as her prison companion Seth, but it was not as if she had been sitting at the side relaxing while he had done all the work. She had been there, getting her hands dirty - and apparently her hair too - and draining herself of mana and her internal stores of electricity.

Even still, she only had trickles of both left in her, just enough to keep her going but not nearly enough to combat something on the level of the Giant Dwarf again. But this crazed lady that had appeared out of nowhere? She was nothing like that Dwarf.

She was no Rat-King, she was no Heart-Eater. She was just a rabid mutt, lashing out in its insanity and which needed to be put down.

Astra might have been exhausted and drained of energy, but she had been like that for days now and she had fought far fiercer creatures than this feral bitch in her exhausted state.

With a stone cold expression on her face, without even bothering to lift herself from the ground, Astra lashed out with a straight kick as the rabid girl launched herself at her. Even from that lunge, it was clear she was completely untrained in any sort of combat, but why should that cause Astra to hold back, simply because this girl was stupid and refused to change with the times?

Astra's heel sunk into the girl's guts, that prim and flat belly she had no doubt prided herself on offered absolutely no resistance to Astra's boot. The girl folded around Astra's boot, her expression twisting in pain and shock, as the air was forced out of her lungs. Immediately after the air burst from her lips, a torrent of blood followed.

Coughing and spluttering, she spewed up blood and painted her once perfect, pink lips a startling scarlet.

The girl stumbled back, clutching her stomach in pain as she heaved in strained and raspy breaths. Yet even with that pain, she was still glaring at Astra with eyes full of nothing but feral blood lust.

Without a sense of urgency, Astra slowly rose to her feet and waited for the girl to get the breath back into her. Astra even took the time to brush her blood soaked, disgusting hair from her face and straighten out her filthy clothes, which little more than tatters, as if she still cared about her appearance despite everything.

The girl spat out another mouthful of blood before finally straightening up, staring Astra straight into her eyes as if to challenge her.

"I'll kill you for what you did to him you B-"

PAP!

A crisp, sharp echoed out, like the cracking of a leather belt, and interrupted the girls attempt at a threat. She stumbled back, an utterly baffled and shocked expression on her face, as she touched her cheek which stung with fresh pain, and was currently sporting a bright red hand print across it.

Astra still had her hand raised from the slap she had given this wretched girl, and simply raised her eyebrow as she waited for the girl to speak again.

"How dare you-"

PAP!

"Who do you thi-"

PAP!

"Stop! Slapping m-"

PAP! PAP!

"I SAID STOP!"

PAP! PAP! PAP!

A hint of a smile played on Astra's lips as she dealt out the latest slap, a back handed one that felt so good cracking against the face of this pretty, pristine princess who thought she could talk down to her.

Every time the girl spoke, Astra gave her a swift punishment. Eventually the girl learned the lesson, keeping her bloodstained lips pursed tight, but still rebelled uselessly. She lashed out with her hands, fingers curled so she could use her freshly manicured nails to claw at her opponents face.

But Astra had faced real claws, real talons. They had left their scars on her, quite literally. She still sported a wicked set of three scars that twisted her own cheek, crawled down her chin and along the length of her neck.

Compared to the claws that had given her those scars, These pitiful things were nothing.

With utter ease, she patted the girls hands away and gave her another crisp slap across her pretty face. Although with the blood dripping down her lips, her lips, cheeks and eyes already starting to swell and bruise from the abuse, she wasn't very pretty anymore. Good.

But with her 'tactics' this girl seemed to be treating this like some mundane cat fight, like they had in the before times. Not wanting to over extend herself, as well as the fact that this girl simply wasn't worth it, she had held herself back too. But perhaps it was worth teaching this girl that things had changed, and fights were mundane no longer.

As the girl recoiled from the latest slap, spitting out more blood, her expression turned to utter rage once more when she saw hints of white chunks mixed within the crimson liquid. Teeth. She had lost teeth from these slaps.

She immediately turned to Astra, ready to lunge again in hopes of getting on lucky strike and being able to claw her eyes out, but when Astra raised her hand again the girl flinched on instinct.

Yet this raise of her hand was not to slap her. In fact her hand was not flat and poised to strike at all. Instead, her fingers were lazily curled as she pointed a singular, blackened finger at the girl. A sight that imbued countless times more terror than a slap ever could.

Lightning leapt from Astra's outstretched finger, crackling through the air before striking the girl in the middle of her chest. By now, Astra's reserves had been completely run dry, the dregs she was left with was not enough to fry the girl, but that didn't mean it wouldn't hurt.

When the miniature bolt of lightning hit her chest, the once pretty princess immediately let out a shrill scream of pain. Her muscles spasming and body convulsing as the energy flowing into her caused havoc with her nervous system, sending all sorts of wrong signals.

Her legs quickly gave out, causing her to collapse to the ground in a crumpled heap. But even then she was not allowed respite. Another bolt struck her, then another and another. Her body danced an involuntary jig, writhing and spasming on the ground like a dying fish desperately trying to return to the water.

Astra only relented, giving her victims body a few seconds of rest, when a particularly strong stench wafted into their nostrils, and a pronounced damp patch grew in the girls pants.

Astra chuckled slightly at the sight. She crouched down beside the girl and hooked a single finger underneath her chin, forcing her to lift her head and look into her eyes. When she spoke, her voice was even and emotionless, yet held a not so subtle air of something truly chilling.

"What were you going to do to me again?"

She tilted her head slightly, a slight smirk playing on her lips as she looked down at the broken, bloodied and swollen face of the girl who had irritated her to no end. After everything she had gone through, the weeks of fighting, the months of torture and waiting. This... this was nice. It was cathartic.

The irritating girl opened her mouth, but Astra never gave her a chance to respond. Her finger crackled with the last remnants of electricity, jolting it straight into the girls chin and causing her jaw to clamp shut and her eyes to roll into the back of her head.

The electric jolt went straight into her brain, playing it like a crazed fiddle, before Astra cut it off a second later, allowing the girl to slump to the ground. Her body completely still this time.