He just barely saw a glimpse of Lucy’s still materializing shohu-zhe basically flicking the demon away. He realized what had hit the demon as soon as he lifted his head. He saw Lucy holding in her hands a staff. And at the end of the staff was a blade. Lucy’s shohu-zhe was a scythe. He tried to catch a glimpse of what it looks like: a long handle covered in horizontal black and white stripes. At the end of the handle a massive blade, separated down the middle by a curved line. The blade was black on one side of it, and light gray on the other. Her hands were in large white gloves, and the scythe was flaming red where she held it. He saw the look on her face. She was dead serious. Not even a drop of sweat on her face, she was looking directly at where she swung the demon. She took her sweater off to show a ragged, old shirt. It was grey and pretty torn apart. She reached into her pocket and took out a pair of headphones. As she was putting them on she turned to Gabe and looked him dead in the eye.

-Listen, kid, take the old man and get to the shack. Just go a little more trough the forest that way and you’ll get there. I fainted the thing so you two should be able to get there. – She said calmly, as if there wasn’t a fainted demon so close to them.

-No, I’m staying to help. – Gabe insisted.

-Look at that demon, kid. You learned about ’em in school, didn’t you? That’s a goddamn Gumba. It’s a level four demon. You can’t help even if you want to.

* * *

„The Gumba, a pretty much standard 4th level demon, is a demon that possesses a corpse, thus feeding on its energy, until it can materialize. It practically isn’t any threat, nor is it detectable, before materializing. Its looks never vary: it has a hairless, wide head with big, pitch black eyes. Its jaws are double than what proportional ones would look like. It has giant teeth on his bottom jaw, causing him unable to close it. The teeth also go a little bit outward of the jaw, due to their size. Its body is slim-ish, pale, with arms much longer than legs. The hands on the arms are double the size of a normal human hand. The hands themselves are pitch black, but going further up the arm we can notice it’s only the veins that are black. The reason for this is a very high volume of a toxin in its arms’ bloodstream. The toxin is also found in Poison’s hands, but, unlike Poison, the Gumba cannot transfer it in any way. The reason of the toxin’s existence in its body is still unknown. As if its size and speed weren’t enough, the Gumba also has a trump card. It can merge with a material and travel wherever that material leads. Although it can not go from material to material without unmerging from the previous one first.“ Taken from „The fourth years DOD school book“ by Finston Krieg.

* * *

Gabe turned to look at the fainted demon in the woods. He remembered when he read about them, and that was truly a Gumba. They have large heads with giant teeth, that were so big that he couldn’t ever close his mouth and they were turned a little bit towards the outside of the mouth. He had an undeveloped head so the flesh on the down side of the jaws was still connected to the upper one. His body was pale and skinny, with long black arms and giant clawed hands. He was lying on the ground below a tree that was broken by his impact to it, fainted. Gabe turned back to Lucy, realizing she was right.

-But wait, what are the headphones for? – He asked.

Lucy looked at him and cracked a big smile.

-I’m hunting. – She took out her phone and started the music. Gabe heard a humm of something that sounded like metal to him. As the wind walled her hair, he saw the pentagram on the back of her neck shine, and her eyes glowing bright yellow. She was ready to hunt. Then he heard a scream coming from the forest. He turned to see the demon looks about ready to fight to him too. Lucy yelled at him to run, and in a split second, long before Gabe even realized what was going on, she had already attacked the demon. He wanted to see what was going on, but they were too fast for him to see clearly. He focused as much as he could so that he would catch a glimpse of the fight. One thing to keep in mind, this was Gabe’s first time seeing a level four battle. I mean, he heard they were fast but this was mind bending. Lucy looked as if she was flying from place to place, swinging everywhere with that scythe. The Gumba was merging with trees to get to their top, and then jumping from tree to tree. Enraged, Lucy started using spells, launching missiles of spirit energy at it, hoping to knock the Gumba on the ground. There was no point in trying to get him down with the scythe, so she had to resort to spells. It took Lucy a little while to knock the damned thing off of one of the trees. 

They stood face to face for a second, before they both backed out quickly. As they both stood there for a few seconds, trying to figure out the other attackers move, Gabe was able to catch a glimpse of the fighters. Lucy looked completely different then when she was about to launch the first attack. Right now she looked furious, madly frustrated. Her face was red, her look of complete hatred towards the demon was utterly horrifying. The Gumba, on the other hand, looked like a cornered animal. His eyes moved from time to time to observe where he could escape, but still keeping a close view on Lucy’s movements. As his hair fluttered on the wind, Lucy made her move. She moved so fast Gabe barely realized they moved. He was still thinking about what he had seen a second before. It was his first time seeing a demon in person. But suddenly, he realized - an innocent person was dying in front of him. He marched forward bravely.

-What are you doing, kiddo? I told you to take the old man and run! – Lucy yelled at him. He was still marching quietly towards them.

-Run away! Go! Other direction! – She yelled trying to keep one eye on her scythes movement, and the other on Gabe’s movement. She was quite annoyed to realize that Gabe had not turned back.

-Backward, not forward! – She yelled one last time.

21 12 6 9 15 22 7 7 22 9 8 25 26 24 16

Gabe still hadn’t turned around. Instead, he ran. He ran, not towards Lucy, but towards the Gumba. When he reached the creature, he turned towards Lucy and spread his hands.

-Do not come any closer. You will not hurt him.

-Him? Don’t you mean it?

-Oh come on, Lucy, don’t tell me you don’t see it? Look at his hair!

-Yea, it’s black and has more volume than mine. So what? – Lucy then stopped talking for a moment, before dropping on her knees. – No . . . No way . . . He has hair . . .

-See what i meant? He is a Kudaki!

Lucy was still on her knees, looking bluntly towards the ground.

-How? How was I so blinded by anger that I didn’t even notice that it has hair? That I didn’t notice it wasn’t attacking back. I was so angry that I had been mistaken about Mike that I didn’t notice something a rookie did! – Just a moment later she got up, laughing. - Well, shit happens. Good thing nobody got hurt, huh? – She said, laughing still – Also, seems I was right about Douglas here.

-Yeah, you weren’t wrong about that part. This thing wouldn’t hurt a fly. Mike did kill the dog and Matthew. And this thing behind me? This is Matthew.

Gabe told Lucy not to worry because he won’t file in her overseeing the Kudaki as a demon in the report. They got up, went to Mike, who was still staring in disbelief at the creature. When they finally got him to get up too, they turned to see if the Kudaki was still there. It was. It was staring, at least at first look, right at them, though it looked like it was staring right trough them. Then it hit them. It was staring right behind the three. And they would’ve turned around, but they were too shocked by what they were seeing to do it. The creature was bleeding from its eyes and mouth, its blood being drawn away from every opening in its body. They rushed towards it.

-Can’t anything go right today! God damn. . . Look out, kiddo, there is a mage around! – Lucy yelled.

Sounds of screams and gagging soon filled the air, tearing through their ears. Only one barely human sounding noise was heard - "IIIIIIIIIIIIII--T WSAAAAAAAAA RRRRRRR. . . . . . U R R R R R R R R R RRRRRRR!"

By the time they had ran up to it, the Kudaki was a mere shell of what it was, lying in a pool of blood. It had died just seconds before they got to it. To Gabe, whose first mission was this, it was crushing. Someone actually died in front of him. The thing was, at least psychologically, still Matthew.

The three of them decided it would be best to leave the body do descend, and head back to the shack where Gabe and Lucy were staying. When they got there, Lucy arranged a flight back in the morning. Gabe had a hard time getting some sleep that night. He overheard Mike getting up to light his pipe, guessed the old man had his own demons to deal with, better leave him be. In the morning, Gabe insisted for them to go visit Matthew’s grave. He saw the poor kid die for the second time, figured he should pay some respect. They weren’t shocked to find the scratches on his grave, the townspeople told them that. Although, what the townspeople didn’t notice is that the scratches were, in fact, carved letters.

-Looks like the poor kid tried to say something, but couldn’t write it. The letters are so random, it’s worse than a monkey with a typewriter. Maybe, if he had time, he would’ve written Shakespeares works there. – said Lucy, with a small smile.

The grave did have a sort of a text on it. Though the letters were distorted, and kind hard to read, it looked something like this:

„Mx'w rsx lmw jeypx. M lerkih qcwipj. Li ksx wgevih sj qi. Ws li wlsx giewev eggmhirxeppc. Li mw mrrsgirx.“

Gabe, Lucy and Mike left some flowers, and went back to get ready for the flight. After the next couple of hours or so, they were on the airport, getting ready to board the plane home. Lucy saw Gabe was unsettled, he was walking around in a small circle, cracking his fingers from time to time. She offered to buy him a drink from the bar.

-Oh, no, i couldn’t possibly have you buy. . . – Gabe stuttered, but he was quickly interrupted.

-Aw, come on, i still have some money from my last hunt, lemme at least buy you a soda.

They went to the bar, leaving Mike among the crowd of people that were also waiting to board their flight, due in 45 minutes or so. When they got to the bar, Lucy ordered Gabe a soda, and her a glass of whiskey.

-Hey! You shouldn’t be drinking! -Gabe was clearly surprised.

-Excuse you, i am an almost adult and not a minor so i can drink all i want. Plus, it’s been a rough night, so you can’t blame me.

Gabe nodded his head in approval, remaining silent for a moment there, while Lucy was debating in her mind whether she should ask him what’s wrong or not. After some sips of whiskey and some thinking, she decided to do it.

-So, um, why the long face, kid? What got you feeling blue?

-I’m not, I’m just . . . – Gabe paused for a few seconds – I just want to say thanks. For the with the hand and stuff. – He mumbled. He didn’t want Lucy to know Matthew’s death upset him. He didn’t want to seem weak. After all, he is officially a demon hunter, he should get used to stuff like this. But, even so, he felt a crippling sickness in his stomach.

-Come on, bring it here. – Lucy said spreading her arms to give him a hug. – Great vocabulary, by the way.

-Oh, ha ha. Very nice of you. Watcha gonna do next, push me off a cliff?

-Nah, i was thinking about throwing you off the plane. – Lucy said, laughing alongside Gabe. After some cheering up and drinking, they went to check on Mike and board the plane. He was outside the waiting room, smoking his pipe, looking at the planes taking off. He had to put it out when they were boarding, though. And so, they got inside the plane, heading for Tasmania, the home of the Demon Hunting Academy.