Rather than repeatedly trying and failing to skewer the thing, Val and Arius went on the full defensive. Each time that the crustacean charged, they went for a shield only.

“Hey Arius,” she could not help but giggle, “our auras turn pink together.”

“Yeah, they do. Focus.”

Their combined pink aura held up against the rampaging crustacean better than Arius’s aura alone. After each attack, this left them both with a larger portion of energy leftover for the next shield.

When Val was so much weaker than Arius, she did not understand how a smaller amount of his aura in addition to hers could turn out tougher than his aura alone. “How come our auras are stronger together?”

“It’s because we’re soulmates,” he stated plainly. "Our life forces fall on the same wavelength, and that lets our auras harmonize and naturally reinforce each other."

"Really?" Val asked, her eyes lifting up to him with a little hope. "It's the power of love?"

"Ha, no," Arius laughed curtly.

A few stunned blinks held her frozen until Val ducked her head and started snickering. She could almost not believe herself for falling for that, but he was acting so serious before. “Focus,” she said right back to him.

“In all seriousness, it’s like the equivalent of metal alloys. We just made an aura alloy that’s stronger with the composition diversity.”

That actually made for an intelligent explanation as to why their combined Forcefield worked so well. Val smiled to Arius in appreciation, the two of them sitting in this bubble as they whiled away the time.

The sea monster did not let them relax and chat as they did before, kind of cramping their style as a third wheel. Nevertheless, they settled in for a long, tedious fight.

“Do you think Tavras would take our buddy here to see a dentist?” Val asked.

The crustacean latched onto the shield and started to gnaw at their aura. This problematic behavior resulted in a greater loss of aura, so it was a top priority to get it off at once. Even if the chewing did not destroy their shield, Arius would create a shockwave to send it spinning through the water anyway. They preferred not to have an up-close and personal view of its teeth like that.

“I just want Tavras to show up period,” Arius muttered.

Before their air ran out, Arius’s aura did. He sent the crustacean flying for the final time, giving himself time to prepare his next move.

The last of his aura solidified in his hand. The material lengthened into a glowing red sword.

With a slice through the air, he brandished the blade and stopped just at the tip of Val’s nose. “Make my sword pink for me, would you? I need to kill this fish in style.”

What he needed was a fortified sword if he had any hope of fighting that thing up close. Though Val feared for his well-being and both of their lives, she kept her concerns to herself. There was no time to argue.

Obliging him at once, she intermixed her aura with his until the blade gleamed in a prim, pink color.

“I just need you to stay out of the way,” Arius said.

Together, they took their last big breaths of air.

The crustacean surged back into sight out of the gloom.

A slash of his sword split the bubble so that Val and Arius were submerged in the water.

She used Mind Blast to shoot herself out of the path of the crustacean as quickly as possible. Off to the side, she watched and waited. Val finally understood what depleted aura reserves felt like. Around her core, she felt an emptiness. Just enough energy remained for the use of one last Forcefield, just in case she would need it.

Meanwhile, Arius treaded in the route of the crustacean, steadfast. Whatever last drops of aura were about his person, he energized those into his movement speed and attempted to dodge the crustacean as it passed.

Though the crustacean moved too rapidly to change direction, it still sought to reap damage onto Arius. Those stubby legs unfurled to rake at his side.

Val snorted some bubbles out of her nose, but she wanted to scream on his behalf.

A cloud of golden blood emptied from his side. Arm lifted up, his limb had been spared from the force that surely could have dismembered him. Arius had grabbed onto its antenna with the fist that had been saved.

The crustacean carried through the mist of Arius’s blood, which was in the process of dispersing throughout the water. Right behind it, Arius had hitched a ride on its antenna. The crustacean slowed down, and momentarily, he was naturally carried forward by the momentum.

Arius swung around on the crustacean’s antenna and landed on its back. With all the strength of the intact side of his body, he swung the sword round and plunged it into the crustacean’s eye.

Goop that could hardly be considered blood squirted out. Stilled, the carapace began to sink in the deep, watery void.

As swiftly as that, Arius had slain the sea monster that had plagued them in a single blow. The victory had come at the cost of a devasting blow done unto him in return.

No more blood came from his chest, yet two gashes tore through the space between his ribs. Where one leg of the crustacean had failed to slip between his ribcage, the bones had been busted and collapsed inward by the misshapen shape of his chest. Instead of an outflow of blood, his exposed flesh had been charred brownish gold, tinged red at the edges where the flesh of a wounded god met unbroken skin.

Already, Arius must have shifted around his heat resistance and heat production abilities to cauterize the wound. Regardless of the fact that he no longer bled, he had two physical slices taken out of his chest. Undoubtedly, the lung on that side of his body had been compromised—quite the devasting injury as they resided underwater.

“Mm,” she whined out to him, unable to speak.

Despite his broken body, Arius swam over to her with his stained aura sword still in hand. His free arm reached out to her and tried to guide her into swimming down.

“Mm!” The strangled sound in her throat went higher and louder. Vehemently, Val shook her head.

They could not go back down towards Leviathan to get another large bubble. Instead, she pointed upward to indicate to the pockets of air that had drifted high above their heads. They needed to suck the air out of those bubbles and stay away from the things that lived upon Leviathan’s flesh.

Ignorant to where the sea monster had come from, Arius ignored her accordingly. He grabbed her unceremoniously and dragged her in tow back towards Leviathan. Given the state of his body, Val doubted that they had time to flit back and forth between new bubbles and old bubbles. Since they already made progress in this direction, she let him continue swimming.

They traveled just over half the distance when Arius remarkably slowed. His movements became sluggish even despite some of his aura having regenerated enough to cast a reddish haste over them.

At the same time, the cold began to seep into Val’s very bones. Her warmth was fading.

As for Arius, his body convulsed while he had a desperate hand clutched to his face, contorted in a wince.

Indeed, the crustacean had robbed him of his oxygen supply by taking out one lung. Arius needed more air right this instant, yet not a bubble floated about them at arm’s length.

The only air nearby was that which Val had packed into her mouth, so she grabbed his face in both hands and shoved their lips together. Unlike the desperate yet gentle kiss that he had given her, Val was pure desperation. She puffed the air from her cheeks into Arius’s mouth, only hoping that this would work the way that it did in movies.

Heat began to flow through her veins once more, so Val let a few bubbles slip from her mouth in a huffing sigh.

Arius blinked at her and nodded in brief acknowledgement. Then, they were swimming again so that they could actually reach the upcoming bubbles to refill their lungs more thoroughly.

On her own, Val tried to swim up with the lovely spheres of life-giving oxygen. The air rose too rapidly for her to keep up. Besides, Arius only bothered to follow her insofar as to retrieve her and bring her back down to Leviathan.

There, she glared at the colony of crustaceans. Enough lay dormant on Leviathan’s lumpy body to make her shudder. If they stirred up so much as one more, Val did not feel so certain that they would survive.

The new bubble formed around them, and Arius doubled over in his coughs and wheezes.

“Oh, Arius,” she whimpered. Val hovered close to him, unsure how to help him. Not helpful at all, she tried to say, “Arius, you need to be quiet.”

“What?” he snapped through a cough. “I’m just… trying to breathe.” Odd pauses interrupted his speech whenever he took a moment to gasp.

“Over there,” she hissed. “That’s where the thing came from.”

Arius looked on at the cluster of rounded bodies and wriggling antenna. His face fell immediately. “Oh, fucking nether. There’s so… many of them.”

At the same time as she watched the colony, Val also paid Arius the attention that he deserved. Her voice scarcely rose above a whisper. “Are you okay? Is there anything that I can do to help?”

“I’m fine,” he said, voice starting to even out. “That just knocked the wind out of me.” Doubling over, Arius laughed and nearly suffocated himself as he struggled to gasp at the same time.

How could he laugh with half of his ribcage smashed and one of his lungs slashed? Though he had stopped the bleeding, the cauterized wound could not feel much better.

Val’s face twisted in pure horror at the injury that he had sustained. The agonizing pain must make him delirious. Worst of all, she was helpless to do anything about it.

Her lips started trembling, and tears beaded her vision when she saw two more of the crustaceans begin to stir. “This isn’t fair.”

Though the Weaver decided not to treat them fairly, this was the fate that they must face.

Two large, ugly crustaceans darted about them in the open ocean. It was only a matter of time before they would spot their prey.