"It's just cold, suck it up!" Karkat's arguing, but man it doesn't look like it's just cold. Even as he's focused on sawing away the strands with the sickle, he can see the way it's burning into her. "Wow, what the fuck?"

He punctuates the sentence with a big yank that starts to form a serious hole around Elle's right shoulder. (Or at least, for now. Depending on how much squirming she does.)

He's almost got it big enough to truly let her free, but hasn't noticed that they've got more trouble inbound: A low-slung smoke monster is oozing along the ground behind him.