[quote=@Terminal]Ariett felt the kinetic force of the silvery spines that stabbed straight through the backpack's right strap and brushed up and over her shoulder as she fell. The pain was both immediate and exquisite, as though a branding iron had been pressed to her flesh. The back of her right shoulder was coated in a layer of shining metal that instantly hardened - but, thankfully, spread no more than an inch before stopping. The pain subsided to a smouldering, heavy anguish as to the surrounding and underlying dermal tissue died while muscle and nerves began crying out, trying to move skin affixed to unmoving metal. The backpack had likewise sustained similar damage, its severed right strap being fully coated in metal along both of its lengths, which had of also thankfully stopped spreading.[/quote]

The small woman did not scream, or cry, or even groan as the metal seared itself across her shoulder blade—instead, she lay on the cobblestone in choked silence as the formerly deadly material solidified.

Once the pain subsided to 'merely' a piercing ache, she tensed her muscles in order to push herself off the ground—and [i]then[/i] screamed as her skin tore at the edges of the metal. Still, she managed to unsling the backpack and roll over so as to face the sky. Her right arm was stiff, still able to move but weakened by the damaged nerves in her shoulder, so she raised her left hand instead to gingerly touch the metal plating on her back.

She felt very cold.

When her hand returned to her vision without metal spreading along her fingertips, she sighed and relaxed—only momentarily, as the pain quickly tensed up her muscles once more.

Finally, she pushed herself up with her good hand and rose unsteadily to her feet. Dragging her backpack along the ground with her right hand, she winced and clutched her shoulder with her left, slowly turning to face the wreckage of the car. There was nothing left to see of the driver—whether he had been sliced to pieces or consumed by the molten metal, she knew not. What she did do, however, was take a moment to acknowledge the dead, and to look over the status of the car.