Stinging pain throbbed in her side as she plunged the needle into her skin. Its tip emerged in the depths of her cut before digging into the flesh on the other side of the cut and exiting the other side. It was painful, yes but it was nothing she wasn't used to. She had been raised from a young age to be unyielding and a deadly warrior so this pain was nowhere near enough to stop let alone slow her down. Despite this there was a clear difference between being swiftly cut by a blade in combat and penetrating your own skin with a needle while keeping its trajectory skilled. No matter how fast he went she would have to endure the pain for the entire duration.
"You lucky mutt!"
She hissed through clenched teeth while thinking of her partner's unconscious state during her stitching. She knew that he was in fact the least lucky between them both but she didn't need to be right right now she just needed to vent. She only had one small cut on her side to stitch right now which meant she only had to do this once unlike her companion whose arms were mostly thread at this point. She would have to check his other stitches later as well as her own.
"Wake up soon so I can use your memory."
The process was incredibly painful and yet her constitution from her training carried her through. Sighing with relief she unclenched her jaw and spat the piece of splintered wood away while summoning her armor memory. There was nothing more she could do for her companion at the moment so she left him and exited the building through a gaping hole left in it by the panther. She had been able to hear it crash through the building from under the rubble but couldn't make sense of the fight going on after only being able to make out the sounds of stone being crushed and two distinct roars. Despite sounding warbly and shrill she recognized one of them as her partner's voice and the other as the panthers. She cast her analytical gaze onto the cracked street and what she saw shocked her.
In front of her was a scene of destruction that the likes of two battling nightmares creatures would make. There were jagged grooves in the ground made from huge and deadly sharp claws as well as small craters where something's strong limbs slammed into the ground breaking it. The buildings on either side of the street were crumbling with large sections of their walls having already caved in. There were also smaller grooves in the ground most would miss in the chaos but these all followed a similar pattern of cut ground. Elena's eyes had always been quite sharp and she rarely missed a detail; along with her tactical mind as a legacy she could piece together most of what happened here. An imaginary scene played in her head of the hulking black panther crashing and tearing through buildings while her comrade did his best to run and dodge.
The scene continued while she examined the divots in the ground determining what kind of movement made each of them. She guessed that the smaller ones were made from the chitinous and unsettling black legs her partner had formed the other day using his aspect. Her mind raced with different possibilities as to how he could have really defeated it since being able to copy any nightmare creature he killed was simply an outlandish power too crazy to exist. She was far too untrusting and critical to believe anything he told her blindly and he seemed like the type to lie about something like that to look better. She could tell he was hiding something from her and she wanted to find out what it was. After all, not knowing those close to her would be a surefire way to be betrayed and murdered.
She left the confines of the building after having thoroughly checked their surroundings for other nightmare creatures. It seemed however that the abomination overseeing this territory had done a good job of scaring away abominations from its territory for the most part as no other nightmare creatures had followed the sounds of battle. Speaking of the plant abomination it wouldn't be long until it arrives here after hearing the commotion. She had to hurry if she wanted to procure something for them to eat and live long enough to eat it. Swiftly and deftly she darted towards the hulking corpse of the panther that lay dead in the street. The sun reflected a viridian hue from its sleek fur as she approached. She used her aspect to reach it in no time at all before summoning the [Lacerating Thorn] and slicing into its muscular side to get several cuts of meat. Her dagger barely pierced the tip of its skin seemingly stopped by its fur and that's when she noticed that its fur was actually thousands and thousands of small razor sharp quills protruding from its skin.
She was even more baffled as to how he had managed to slay this thing after spotting several cuts of its stomach. She noted the pool of blood coming from the panthers face and checked it out. The sight of its mangled eye socket was gross but did not ruin her appetite as hunger and the pain of stitching herself up still weighed on her mind. Instead she mustered a begrudging and tired huff.
"So that's how you did it."
He had resorted to piercing its eye and avoiding its fur; it seemed however she need not do the same to cut it as now the panther was a still target. While moving it would be hard to go against its hard fur but while still she could simply cut along with the grain of its fur and slip right past its defense. Using this method she gathered several large cuts of meat and stuffed them into a small memory pouch. As she did she felt the ground rumble underneath as something large in the distance began closing in on her location. Looking back she spotted a thin green vine slowly snaking its way around the corner of a building.
She commanded her aspect to launch her towards the fallen building where she soared through the air before hurriedly grabbing her unconscious partner and hoisting him over her shoulder. She had absorbed enough soul shards for this to be relatively easy however she was still worried that his stitches would come undone. She had no time to waste however as a dozen more thick and rotting vines snaked around the building heading straight for them. She quickly darted through the insides of the fallen building before sliding down some rubble to enter the gaping hole that led to their shelter. As she did the ground began shaking all around her as dust fell from the ceiling and loose rubble fell from above.
She slipped into the dark hallway and hurriedly sprinted through it while the gurgling sounds of something moist and rotten reached her ears. Something behind her erupted in a cloud of dust as rotten tendrils began invading the confines of the ruined hallway spilling pale sunlight into their ancient halls and filling it with a putrid smell. Elena veered to the left to avoid a thick and thorny vine as it tore through the wall blindly. She slid against the wall while still moving and as three more smaller Vince's thrashed wildly around in front of her baring her path with deadly thorns that she addressed with chilling focus.