Chapter 2: The Fire in Your Eyes
He's restless, moving the whip back and forth in the dust. At one point he even reaches for one of his horns, a very childish instinct even among the young of their kind. She scoffs and picks up another rock, something that makes him immediately put his guard up. No, she won't throw it. Instead, she decides to test him. Those horns are large enough that he should have more than sufficient potential ability. She scratches a rune into the stone's surface with a claw and rolls it towards him. He steps away from it, but it gets very close to him without him disarming it. The result is that it explodes close enough to his leg that a shard from the rock lodges into his leg. He's back on his knees but doesn't make a sound. His eyes are fixed on her, who can't help but smile from ear to ear. She holds her stomach to keep from laughing and covers her face with the other hand. This is too easy!
"Tell me who your father is," she demands, and his eyes narrow. His grip on the whip tightens, knuckles going white.
"He's dead," he grunts in return. The whip is still dangerous as long as he's capable of moving his arms. If she can't find out any more interesting about this guy, she's already bored. Playtime's over. She picks up another stone, bigger this time, nearly the size of her own head. To her, it weighs nearly nothing. She shifts her grip on the knife and he seems to think that she'll throw that. In the split second of confusion that creates, she's able to close the distance between them. He's about to raise his arms for protection when she brings down the rock on his skull.
Accidentally she graces one of his beautiful horns before the impact and while it cracks with a loud bang, it doesn't break. Even if it must hurt like she cannot imagine, it saves him from a direct hit. It also throws her off guard for long enough that he can grab her and wrestle her to the ground. His hand grasp for her neck and squeezes. She coughs, a small gasp for air
However, despite this brief advantage, he's still half human. She grabs his wrists and he grimaces as she crushes the tendons, making him release her. Her foot on his chest sends him flying into the side of one of the containers next to his mother. He must have hit his head, the way he's blinking and frowning, laying in a heap on his side. She approaches with slow, confident steps. It's over for him. He can't even run from her now. His eyes follow her, pupils dilated but there's still distinct seething anger in them. All that's left now is that fire in his eyes.
She lifts the rock again, and he uses his last energy to charge forward. He's weak now, weaker than when the battle began, but he manages to stab her in the stomach with the gorgeous growths on his head. She falls on her back with him over her, and he's heavy despite his lanky build. As the horns dig into her flesh, the one who cracked before breaks off with a clap of thunder. The scream that follows makes her ears hurt, a sound that's abruptly cut off when he loses consciousness. They end up looking rather curious, with him with his face planted on her stomach, the rest of his body limp.
With great effort and a lot of swearing, she manages to push him off herself. The horn that didn't break while it was still lodged under her rib only pierces the skin along her side. It's the one that's still inside that's the problem. She needs to hurry back to the headquarters and get it out. The thought of infections, internal bleeding and all other kinds of complications that follow having another demon's horn stuck in her urges her to act quickly. She moves awkwardly to avoid putting too much tension on the wound. Despite that, she manages to cuff him and tie up his mother. She decides to drag them both behind her on the ice and snow and begins the journey back to base. It will take nearly an hour to get there, she's wounded, and the sun has set. It's getting colder by the second.
Once when she peeks over her shoulder to see if he's waking up, she notices that he's bleeding too. From the broken horn and his nose and ears. She wonders briefly if that happens to everyone who loses a horn, before focusing on the last few hundreds of meters of the way back home. She can make it, she's stubborn enough, if anything, and she knows this. There's a reason she hunts alone, while most of the others hunt in squads or groups. No one wants to work with someone who's always right, but it doesn't bother her. She's been doing well on her own until now, and once the halfling's secured she'll go back out, alone. The barbed wire-wrapped top of a great wall is visible above the buildings ahead, indicating the nearing of the end of her journey. Her hands have gone white from the cold. Not to mention that her body must be panicking with a horn in it!
Finally, the heavy metal doors appear in front of her. Just the sight of those doors nearly brings her to her knees, in tears. She drops the two lifeless shapes and stumbles up to the doors holding her wound where blood has dripped all the way down her leg to her boot. While she hammers on the door, the halfling she brought wakes up and starts groaning. She looks back at him with an annoyed sigh but keeps hammering. The slot at head height slides open and her eyes meet a couple of eyes on the inside looking out. A young demon with barely any horns yet explains the slow response time. The youngling nods and opens the smaller door in the middle of the larger, lefthand one. All of this is not exactly standard procedure, but her prey's not exactly standard either. They must have seen her coming. She's ready to dish out a couple of orders on how to treat her prey, grant her credits, and treat her wound.
She wakes up in a bed, dressed in a patient's gown and ribs wrapped in bandages. There's a nurse there, and she steps up to her as soon as she opens her eyes. She has her eyes checked, a tap on the horns, reflexes, and is promptly disconnected from the machines when those are completed and passed. While sitting on the edge of the bed, with a hand on the spot where the horn went in, she notices another person in the room with her. Her mentor is resting her eyes on a chair next to the door. As soon as the nurse leaves, the woman, who's a generation older, jumps off her chair and stands in front of her student with legs wide and hands on her hips.
"You've done well, Kimle! Do you want to see him? He's in the holding cells, I can take you if you want!" her energy is almost suffocating, as usual. As to be expected of a retired succubus, she suspects. Her short, twisted horns is a surefire tell of what class she belongs to. They're sharper than they look. Kimle nods without hesitation and praises her mentor in her own, silent mind. She's been a good mentor all the way, she was an even greater hunter. Not many succubi choose that path, unfortunately. After getting back into her hunters' force uniform, they begin their journey. Outside her room, the hospital is busy; hunters get injured more often than they would like to admit, but most of them end up here once or twice a week.
"Can I keep the horn?" she asks, rubbing the bandage over her wound. It hurts, but seeing what caused it, holding it in her hand, would calm her nerves. Her teacher tilts her head, frowning.
"You mean the horn that the boy lost? They can't find it, it seems, and he's not telling us where it is, either. I think he doesn't know." Kimle grabs her mentor's sleeve and they stop in the middle of the busy hospital corridor.
"What did you say? They didn't find a horn?"
Weekly Power Status
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Ranking 
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