Edited, rewrote phrases, changed names. Extended version:
Nerva... Nerva!.. That's her name... She calls herself out. Focus.
The daze wears off, her hind leg hurts. Tries and fails at standing up. She looks at the source of the pain and finds a paw missing.
Shit.
Well, could be worse.
She lifts himself to her paws and not quite so nimbly takes a few leaps to get to higher ground.
The wound is bleeding, she has lost some blood. She's dizzy, but she's not going to give up now. She can still concentrate, still fight.
Surveying the landscape from atop a moved boulder, she sees smoking craters and thrown trees. In the general vicinity it's quiet, but the thundering booms of combat can still be heard in the distance.
Requesting medic!
Silence.
Wind.
An explosion in the distance.
I'm wounded, movement limited, blood loss. Requesting medic!
Pause.
Another explosion, closer this time.
She picks up a thought in the distance.
Under attack, cannot provide assistance! Requesting backup!
Help is not coming.
She thinks over the situation.
Might as well.
Closing her eyes, she blocks off the pain from her leg.
She concentrates for a moment. Then smells burnt flesh.
She looks at her leg stump. The entire right hind paw is gone, but the wound is cauterized now.
She takes a moment to stabilize her mental condition, falling into the familiar trance, replenishing bodily reserves, regenerating internal organs a bit instead of trying to heal the missing paw. She stabilizes blood sugar, burns fat reserves and clumsily mends together fractures.
Now for the hard part.
Coming.
She takes a deep breath and leaps from the boulder. From the direction of the distress call.
The soar is below what she can usually do, but with an injured leg and mental fatigue like this, it's above average.
She lands on a tree trunk a few hundred steps away from the boulder, takes another leap.
Can you hold out?
She listens for an answer.
Landing on a hilltop she loses her balance and the stub touches the ground.
Stinging pain.
She curses under her breath and leaps.
Thank reason, hurry!
Explosion.
The sound is crisp with undertones of white noise. She's getting close.
She lands before a hill. Three small steps to the top.
A thousand steps away she sees the battlefield. Smells of scorched earth fill the air.
She senses two presences. One under obfuscation.
The other is a gray Venetian. Black markings on the fur, visibly enraged by her invisible opponent.
That's her you're looking at. She's poor at spotting.
Concealment isn't Nerva's strong side.
But still, an advantage is an advantage.
She goes into cover behind the hill and enters the meditation that is second nature to her.
Her mind is a wreck.
No time to minimize any signatures, just the defenses she can muster and then create a few independent mind threads.
The familiar smell of ozone from the barriers around her meets the nostrils.
What is the plan?
She clings to the feeling of the others thoughts to avoid being detected.
I'll try to get inside her head. On your cue.
Claws slide from their sheaths. She keeps the calm and focus as she exits the meditative state.
Her paws leave the ground of the hillside, this time in a graceful sprint.
She comes around the left side of the hill, weaving a deadly field around her.
The Venetian sits on a boulder, on alert in search of the other one. She immediately notices Nerva's approach, spawning two spheres of light.
One shoots at her with blinding speed.
Nerva sidesteps, dodging with a audible sonic boom, then continues unfazed.
The orb hits the hillside with a crisp crackle, tearing half of the hill away.
One hit and she's done for.
Now!
A golden brown figure emerges from the trees behind the Venetian.
Nerva feels the pressure, rising in intensity over the channel they have established.
The Venetian hisses at her, readying the second sphere.
The distance is half of before.
Nerva puts her mind into it and speeds up. The wind pressure makes her eyes watery.
The other light sphere gains speed, without accelerating.
It's a dangerous attack.
Nerva leaps with explosive pressure.
The orb strikes the ground below her and the shock wave causes her to lose balance in mid air for a split second.
She corrects herself and kicks off against a force barrier foothold, towards her enemy.
Her time perception slows to a crawl.
Close quarter combat is always dangerous.
Nerva strikes the boulder with her mind, splintering it explosively.
The Venetian loses foothold, but not aim. A beam of destruction graces Nerva. The pain is suppressed.
She sees her adversary slowly twisting, correcting herself. Then she vanishes.
Shit. A jumper.
Nerva creates a foothold and with aching slowness compared to her mind, her body turns around.
She reacts just in time with a barrier to counter another beam attack.
The Venetian is not nearly as tired as Nerva. This is bad.
The gray cat pounces at her, shattering the barrier as if it was nothing.
Nerva leaps backwards, using the resulting sonic boom to her advantage.
“Gotcha.”
She strikes the open flank of her enemy.
The Venetian visibly loses composure.
Another strike. This one penetrates the barriers.
Her opponent has a chunk of flesh the size of her fore paw ripped from between her ribs.
She stumbles and blinks, numbed by the pain.
Got it!
The gray hisses.
Then seizures. The foothold beneath her adversary dissolves and a limb corpse falls to the ground.
Took you some time.
Unconsciousness.
