Gabriel leaps across rooftops and feels the wind flow through his hair. His trench coat billows behind him as he soars through the air. He had been doing this for about two hours, moving eastward and trying to find the battleground that Preston had been slain on. Landing atop yet another rooftop with a hard thump, he walks over to the rooftop's edge and looks down upon the city streets. Demon corpses littered the streets, cut to pieces. The cuts were very precise. Whoever did this was rather good with a blade. Gabriel stepped off of the building and landed among the bodies, his body hitting the pavement with a loud boom that caused the street around his feet to crack and break. He inspected the demonic bodies closer and tilted his head. No doubt that a blade did this, too clean to have been caused by forceful ripping or claws like his own.<br/><br/>Looking beyond this lot of corpses he could see more down the street and could see the arm of one hanging off of a building. No way one Hunter could do this...there was a group at work here. He could smell both demonic and human blood in the air here, there was a distinct difference to them that his demon, Nicodemus, had taught him to notice. There was a more sulfuric smell to demonic blood, as opposed to the irony smell of human blood. He punched his hand into the corpse of a dead demon and pulled some mass out of it, thinking it may come in handy later. He had exceeded his bodily limit on excess mass as it was, so this would burn away in time. He felt his body grow somewhat heavy, and his height increase somewhat to accomodate the new mass he absorbed. Demon mass lasted longer when he was above his limit, he didn't quite know why. Nicodemus said it had something to do with how resilient demonic bodies are to all forms of damage in comparison to human bodies. He felt the presence of his demon grow more prominent in his mind. Nicodemus had something to say.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Fodder...all of them.</span>his voice, sounding like a middle-aged man with a raspy hiss melded into the voice spoke not into his ears, but into his mind.<span style="font-style: italic">But even so, a lot of fodder should prove difficult for the average Hunters.</span><br/><br/>"My thoughts exactly," Gabriel affirmed, "the Hunters who were here were rather experienced...at least a few of them were."<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">You have access to many allies, yet you do this investigation of yours alone?</span>the voice inquired.<br/><br/>"You could find that out if you wanted to." Gabriel replied.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">I prefer not to waste my time picking your brain and searching your thoughts when it is much easier to simply ask you.</span><br/><br/>"A large group is more conspicuous than a smaller one...besides I prefer to be alone." Gabriel answered Nicodemus's question with little inflection in his voice, as though he was bored.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Yes...of course. Other things have been on my mind as of late, and I forget answers to rather obvious questions. In any case this is not the battleground you are searching for I take it? You seem disappointed.</span><br/><br/>"Preston's body isn't here..." Gabriel said.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">It can't be that far from here, Hunters usually do not travel far from their place of refuge, except for a few daring exceptions. </span>Nicodemus explained, putting emphasis on a few. Gabriel was about to affirm that he too knew this, but he felt the presence of his demon fade away suddenly, as if this conversation no longer interested him. Gabriel expected as much, Nicodemus got bored rather easily and tended to do all sorts of things. He had allowed him to tamper with his brain somewhat simply because he needed something to ease the boredom. He allowed his brain to attain the higher state of reflexes needed to properly act at the speeds he tended to travel at. Gabriel was rather wary of what Nicodemus asked to do with his mind, he knew the consequences of allowing a demon to tamper too much with one's mind. He had seen it happen to lesser Silencers. Insanity and hallucinations, followed by a sort of catatonic state. The body was mindless...but the demon used it as a suit of flesh. Not something he would allow to happen to him.<br/><br/>Gabriel decided that this place would yield no more information for him and as such he should leave. Focusing mass back into his legs he bent his knees to prepare for a jump, his weight causing the pavement to buckle and crack somewhat. With an intense amount of force he jumped into the air, landing on a rooftop and continuing his search for his comrade's body.