Short Story; The Great Yaputcha, part two

Credits; Rea,
"Oh for the love of..." Yuri knew to tune out his cousin Masne whenever anything bad happened.  Not to say she was always the nicest thing to listen to the rest of the time, just that she swore with a complexity and fury that would confuse most sailors and make scholars cry and he had no intent to waste his time trying to figure out what she was actually saying. 
Setting that issue aside they had the more important issue of what to do now that Professor Zinksfeld had left them here, alone. 

"Whelp, I'm heading up to the caves.  No point letting a great big ol' beastie go to waste just sitting here in a gift shop, hold these two and I'll take a meat stick, a pop, and one of those amulets over their that keeps your legs from falling asleep when you cross them."  The new girl slid two magazines across the counter with a small pile of gold coins.  "Keep the change, I don't have pockets."
"Is this...Gold?"
"Yep, totally worthless to me.  Magically conductive and all, great for spell channeling, but no real use beyond that.  Looks pretty enough I suppose, but I prefer silver, much more potent and only marginally less conductive."
"This is worth," the man paused as he calculated, blinked twice as the math confused him, and then paused again as he decided on a sufficently realistic seeming number, "at least four hundred bucks a coin."
"Really?  Make it two meat sticks and a large pop then."
"Of course!  Whatever you want."
Her entire person seemed to darken as she leaned over the counter.  "Your firstborn son's afterbirth, in a stasis tube at the barren crossroad east of town.  On the 19th of Febuary, five years from now; the moon will be full and the street light over the crossroad will be out, have it there by midnight or pay the price."
It was an empty threat.  Yuri had recieved similar ones before, 'the price' was usually just an angry letter with a curse of hives on it.  She stuck the landing though, didn't forget her groceries as she exited, cakling madly.  He looked over at Vestine, who had been staying quiet the whole trip.  She shrugged and motioned for them to follow.

They left the town, walking up a side path on the mountain side towards the caves. There was an open field in front of the cliff face. 
"So, these are the caves of Argetiam, home of the rare Yaputcha, and of the Arget gemstones." 
"I hear it's beautiful.  Sparkling in every color and then reflected in the pools, stalagmites that hang from the ceiling deep into caverns within the heart of the mountain, and there are even said to be mysterious and magical beings that hide in its depths.  Shall we explore?"
"We should wait for Masne and the others."
The ground rumbled and they watched the new girl run out of the farthest mouth of the cave, diving aside as a Yaputcha charged into the field behind her.  They finally got their first glance at the creature.  It was dark blue, but vividly so.  Every scale was a spike, and even at distance he could make out the serrated edges.  It's teeth were massive and numerous, tipped in red and yellowed at the base.  It lumbered on legs thick as boulders and shorter than door frames. 
They watched her darting back and forth, the beast growing frustrated as she avoided it's reach.  She peppered it with blasts of energy and slashed futily at its armored hide.  He stepped towards it to offer help, forming a plan as he moved.  He stopped sharply as he heard Vestine trip behind him. 
"What happened?"
"My legs fell asleep."
"Why didn't it do anything to me?"
"You're undead, it may not even know you exist.  I could be wrong, but I think the Yaputcha are grade two psionics with a telepathic primary sense perception.  I think I can shut it down, but you'll still have to kill it."
"What if I shut it down and you kill it?"
"Poison wouldn't effect you, and you'll recover from any injuries a lot faster."
"Poison wouldn't effect you either."
Vestine grabbed her staff and transfigured it into a longsword.  "Sweetheart, just go kill it." 
"Yes ma'am."
The beast roared as Vestine crushed its limited, bestial mind.  He could only imagine what it must feel like, having every sense stripped from you by an adversary you were no longer able to find.  But he still had to kill it or risk its killing someone else. 
"I'd really prefer you stayed out of the way, this is going to get messy."
"Like I'm just going to let you try to kill it on your own."
"No seriously, stay where you are while I try this."
She clutched the ground and pulled a rifle from the rock.  She knelt and leaned back, taking aim at the beast.  She aimed for one knee, carefully lining up shots not simply to wound it but to loosen scales.  With each shot she left it more open to injury, and with the fifth she crippled it.  The beast roared and tripped as it charged, without its senses it hadn't even realized that it was wounded. 
"That worked nicely, but lets make sure." She spun the rifle in her hands, converting it into a war hammer as she did.  She charged it, ducking left as it bit wildly about.  Whe brought the hammer down on its other knee, shattering scale and bone alike.  Without missing a beat she turned the weapon into a hooked rope and threw it into the throat of the Yaputcha, catching it on the beast's teeth.  She walked up the rope, holding it taut and winding it as she went up.  How she was doing it he couldn't tell, but somehow she managed to climb a swaying vertical rope to a living creature's mouth.  She reached the top, unhooked the rope and backfliped off of it.  As she did, she transformed the rope into a bomb and tossed it down the Yaputcha's throat.  She rolled and shielded herself as she landed, preventing any of the beast's ostensibly poisoned scales or massive teeth from striking her. 
"Well, that wasn't so hard.  Way easier than killing a de..va, I hate those guys.  What with the spinning and the wind, impossible to get to."  She pulled the second meat stick out of her vest and took a bite. 
"I was just going to run up and stab it in the head.  You made that look hard kid."
"Why make it easy?  Going for an easy kill is a waste of an oppurtunity to practice."
"I suppose that's one way to think of it.  But why not just throw the bomb in to start with, its mouth was open half the time."
"Too easy, I like to put a little more work into a kill."
He shook his head.  And went to join Vestine in exploring the caves. 

"So then, what did you learn?"
"Never make light of the silliness of myths or simplicity of defensive techniques.  Even making your leg fall asleep can be effective at stalling an enemy."
"Good, good, but what did you particularly learn?"
"The new girl is really dangerous and slightly crazy."
"Good, most immortals never learn that until its too late.  The new girl, as you call her, calls herself 'Rea' or 'Reaper Girl'.  Even I don't know her real name, or how old she really is.  I know she lived on Anatolia for a while, and she's mentioned fighting there.  She was a witch, but her liscense is expired and the coven has no records older than four hundred years.  No mention is made of Rea, or any other girl fitting her description.  I know she's Nielda, and I know she's stronger than I am."
"Stronger than you?  But you've punched dragons!"
"She's a mage hunter.  Murderer, assassin, killer, she's probably the oldest immortal and the only way I know what I do about her is from accounts of the deaths she's inflicted.  She can even kill immortals, and seems to do so almost exclusively.  I punch dragons, but she knees demons in the crotch and plucks their eyes out with her thoughts."
"I saw her climb up a rope to the Yaputcha's mouth."
"I reccomend learning how to do that some day, reverse rapelling is actually quite useful.  It's not nearly as tough as it looks.  Seems to be kind of her MO actually, she makes her kills more complicated than they should be, just so she can practice the techniques needed to kill things that really are hard to kill."
"I'll keep my eyes out then."
"As will I., now run along Yuri.  And tell your Father I said hi."