"Your inability to learn was not caused by the absence of a teacher - learning requires an active engagement," She replied, growing more venomous in her words.  She could agree, however, that fighting the targets and improving practiced motions would only improve their ability to fight non-mobile opponents.  On the other hand, Kael's belief that they deserved respect from a [i]Master Hunter[/i] was ludicrous.  Her gaze drifted to the alleys and corpses.  Yharnam had always been a macabre sight, especially growing up, but the streets seemed so much cleaner now.  There was no more crawling through the nooks and crannies find your way around - now you could just avoid the sounds of carnage.  The beasts were not nearly so plentiful [i]here,[/i] but she had no doubt they existed in droves outside of main city.

Still, the stench was rancid.  Josephine's nostrils burned with the smell of decomposing corpses, fires to burn the dead in the distance, and the beasts which still lived.  Speaking of which, her ears picked up on the sound just after Master Edmund's did; the savage mutilation of a corpse and feast of a group of Scourge Beasts could be heard a short distance off.  Immediately, they snapped into a real careful stance, dropping lower to the ground and sneaking through the streets.  Already, Josephine could feel the sweat forming on her brow, her heart racing...  A feeling which once froze her very mind and dried her throat was now exhilarating.  The terror she had once felt at the thought of a Scourge Beast ripping away her throat and tearing through her flesh like paper maché had been converted into power and into a desire to be the one who tears apart the beast's very own flesh.

As they came up on the small pack, Josephine immediately began looking around the courtyard for environmental awareness.  There was a fountain in the center, full of grimy water and leaves which floated along the top, but it wasn't running.  A carriage missing two wheels, with shattered windows and a door that hung halfway off of its hinges lopsidedly rested atop a small pile of rubble.  Buildings surrounded them, as the courtyard was not exactly massive, and Josephine wondered if there was anything on top of them - or any way to access the roofs.  She took a knee as Master Edmund spoke, her eyes now fixed on the feasting creatures.  When his question went unanswered, she replied in Kael's space.

"Yeah, when they rear back, you can either dip past their guard and decimate them from beneath.  Or you can knock them off balance with a well-placed bullet," Her voice was but a whisper, measuring out as many possibilities of an encounter as she could, "And behead it before it recovers."   It wasn't until she received her next order that Josephine realized that Kael was gone as well - how had he managed that?  He was quiet when he wanted to be, but for neither of them to notice? God, what a pain...  If he was out getting himself killed...

"Got it, I'll be back soon, Master Edmund," She replied briskly, pivoting on her foot and slinking away quickly.  Her eyes scanned every bit of the courtyard and side alleys, but she couldn't find him anywhere, not until she saw a shadow out of the corner of her eye, shimmying up a fire escape and onto a roof.  That absolute dunce! What the hell was he doing?  She began looking around for the way up until she saw him drawing his bow and taking aim.  Did he really want to try taking on all four of them..?  That idiot!  He'd get them killed by attacking and alerting the Scourge Beasts.  That would blow Edmund's cover - and hers.  Well, she couldn't do nothing, especially if he was nearly successful.  She caught his eye for only a brief moment out of pure luck and held up a finger to halt him until she found a position.  Flanking around Edmund so that he wouldn't see what she was doing, Josephine readied her pistol and Rakuyo, sneaking up to the carriage and pressing her back to the side, the sound of feeding Scourge Beasts filled the air only metres away.  They'd smell her in a matter of moments.  It was go time.

The woman leapt out from behind the carriage, triggering Kael's first arrow.  It sailed through the air and caught a Scourge Beast in the throat, as it had snapped to look at Josephine at the last moment.  The woman aimed at a second, the one nearest her, and fired her pistol, lodging a quicksilver bullet just to the right of its chest and then into the shoulder.  She rushed forward, using the short end of her blade to begin the slash along the creature and then the longer side in a follow-up swipe.  The Beast's leg fell away in a torrent of blood so dark it was nearly black.  By now, Kael fired a second arrow and lodged it in his first target's head, dropping it with sheer brute force.  The three that remained, including the mortally wounded cretin, let out a debilitating cry, then a blood-curdling snarl as they began to form up, attemtping to surround Josephine.  She tucked back over her shoulder and rolled to her feet, sure that Edmund's eyes were now on her back in utter fury.  Maybe he would be impressed...  Maybe he'd kill them.  But even Josephine had to admit - she needed to know what this would feel like, she needed to know if she was ready, and she needed to feel the power that came from taking the life of a beast.

As the three-legged Scourge Beast reared up, Lydia followed its momentum, firing her pistol again and lunging forward.  It staggered slightly as the bullets buried themselves into its chest and the apprentice burried the long end of her blade into its lower abdomen.  In one fluid motion, she twisted the blade, pivoted a full 180 degrees, and swung her weapon overhead, dividing it nearly in half all the way to its neck, causing it to topple over.  She sidestepped out from underneath as the beast fell forward onto a pile of its own innards.  She was always fast, sure, but if she had been given an Old Hunter's Bone, a tool she had grown quite accustomed to using, for their first trip, Josephine would be almost unstoppable against a couple of these.  Alas, there were still two Scourge Beasts, and the girl was really hoping to rely on Kael to take out another.  Her pulse thundered like a stampede of a hundred horses in her neck and chest; she could feel it with every contraction of her heart.  Unfortunately, the adrenaline and confidence she gained from the first few moments of combat disappeared as the two wolves reared back simultaneously to pounce on her.  Her vision blurred for just a moment, combing both of them in her mind's eye to one wolf, and many wolves all at the same time.  They were all ready to pounce their own Josephine, a girl who could barely be considered a teenager, for their dinner.

Meanwhile, in the "real world," she froze and couldn't move to attack for a long, long second.  She couldn't even hide it - for a moment, she was awestruck and her face reflected it clearly.  At the last second, she evaded, rolled forward under one of the charging beasts.  There was no doubt that both Edmund and Kael would have noticed her mental block - she almost fell limp, even if it was for only the briefest of moments.  Why?  They already killed two, why did these ones suddenly start debilitating her senses?  She holstered a pistol, hoping Edmund wasn't already charging in for the fight as she broke her weapon into two blades, the Scourge Beasts now circling her for a real fight.  Would she be able to fight two? Alone?  Surely Kael was waiting for a solid shot, as they were moving too quickly for a clear, safe hit from Kael's range.

One rushed in and swept a claw at the apprentice, who spun to the side while advancing and swung both blades with her momentum downward at the end of the twirl.  Blood sprayed her from the wounds she inflicted on the beast's thick shoulder.  Without missing a beat, she brought the weapons down again on the monster's side, carving an 'X' into its ribs.  "DIE!"  She shouted in fury, her blood boiling for vengeance.  In the heat of the moment, she'd forgotten about the second beast, which leapt at her from behind while she laid into the first. Her Rakuyo clattered to the ground a few feet ahead of her as a massive paw slammed aggressively against her back, pressing her into the cobblestone of the courtyard.

No, no, no...  It couldn't happen again.  Her armour had protected her from the scratch in her back, but not from the weight pressing her into the floor.  This time, she couldn't even see the monster that was about to kill her, but she could still feel it...  That fiery, rancid breath on the nape of her neck, the drool spilling down into her clothes and hair...  the imminent end of existence as she knew it...  And the worst part was that she hadn't even learned her lesson.  She still wanted to rise up and kill it, not run away.  How could she let it happen again?  Where was Kael?  Why hadn't he helped after his first shots?  Where was Edmund?  Was he punishing her for her insubordinate behaviour?  She deserved it...