Ayl smiled as he watched the Hunters do battle. Despite the fact that they were all new, and these demons were relatively weak, they did a surprisingly good job. A few of them took hits here and there, and he could tell that some of them were having trouble putting their lessons to use in a real combat situation, but if all went well they would have enough time to fix that. They fought smart, too; Hunters worked together to take down the few mid-demons scattered amongst the rabble, while others took on the weaker ones individually. It took the rookies longer to take one demon down than it would have taken Ayl to kill every one of them, but that was to be expected. They were still learning.<br/><br/>As the bloodshed started to calm down, the demons soon realized the odds were not in their favor. One of them had the brilliant idea to try and escape, quickly turning around and fleeing in the confusion and chaos of battle. He did not, however, escape Ayl's eye. He quickly appeared in the monsters own shadow, and before it knew what was going on, it had already been run through by that familiar shadowy blade. "Can't have you leaving with our secrets, can we?" he asked the demon casually as it squirmed on the sword and tried to escape. A quick flick of his wrist and the blade exited the demon's side, splattering its innards across the street and ending its life immediately. After that distraction was done, he took the time to survey the area, making sure there were no other demons attempting an escape; it was then that Ayl realized that some of the rookies had taken more of a hit than he expected.<br/><br/>"Well, for your first real fight, you guys did an admirable job," he began, hooking his catalyst back onto his belt and walking over to the group. "I'm impressed, but you still have a long way to go," he added, gesturing towards those who had earned the most wounds. "I don't want to go easy on you, so don't expect this treatment often, but I know that must not have been easy; anybody who's gotten themselves beaten up a bit too much, take the rest of the day off in the hideout. The rest of you, take a breather, get your energy back, then spread apart with your groups again and resume normal training."<br/><br/>-----------------------------------------------<br/><br/>Merle's attention was drawn from the battle to her crow, who was currently squawking excitedly into her mind. She turned in the direction Coronis had flown off in and shut her eyes, peering through its vision. A moment passed before a wicked smile grew on her face as she watched the scene unfold. Coronis was perched high atop a building, overlooking a group of ~20 hunters battling an equally large crowd of demons. Most of them were corpses by now, but that mattered little to her, as the crows attention was currently focused on a purple haired man who had just finished murdering one who tried to escape.<br/><br/>She recognized him immediately. After all, how many people in this day and age would have purple hair? There was only one that she knew of, and based on the way he jumped through the shadows, it seemed to her to be the exact same one Gabriel had issued a report of; the one nobody had been able to kill yet. She watched in silence as he stepped over to the group of Hunters and presumably spoke to them, as they all soon broke apart, some entering a nearby building and others walking in various directions.<br/><span style="font-style: italic">Oh, this is too good to be true..</span><br/><br/>While Gabriel was distracted with his battle, Merle quietly slipped away, unseen, onto another street. After glancing around and making sure there was nobody in the immediate area, she pulled the transceiver out of her ear and tinkered with it for a moment. After replacing it in her ear, she held a finger to the object to activate it, and spoke.<br/>"Oh Vaan~," she started, in a melodic, quiet tone. "I think I've got some news you're going to enjoy.."