The sun is rising; to many, the rising sun signifies the start of a brand new day, but the old routine they've been doing for who knows how long. For others, the rising sun signifies the start of a brand new way of living. Vera Illuso is one of those many people starting a brand new way of living. It was 0500 hours, Vera was sitting at the dining table, gazing out the window at the splendor that is the rising sun. She's seen this image almost everyday for many years, but there was something magical about it, continuing to draw her back in to witness the beauty of it each and every single day. There she sat at the dining table with a plate of eggs, potatoes and sausages and a mug of fruit juice, pondering about the many zany adventures that she'll have while travelling the Blues. What will she see? Who will she meet? Where will her journey end? Many questions she had, yet no answers for any of them. She missed the time when she could just ask Miles and immediately receive a satisfying answer. But after today, she won't ever see ol' Miles ever again.

She was departing from the island by the end of the day to pursue her dream of becoming a pirate. Not exactly a glamourous life, one filled with endless peril, but this is the path she wanted to take; nothing could sway her decision. Vera finished off the last of her breakfast and immediately washed them in the sink. Then, she went to take a bath before leaving to wrap things up on the island, say her final goodbyes to everyone. She sat quietly in the bath, relaxing as much as she could to prepare for the most important task on her list. She knew that she could never prepare enough for that task, but the farm girl couldn't just put it off til later, no. The time was 0615 hours on Dawn Island, the sun has finished peaking over the horizon and is now making its route over the sky. By that time, Vera was already out of the bathtub and fully dressed to leave. Miles still wasn't awake yet, and she still hasn't said goodbye to him yet, so she stayed for a little while longer, just so she could give a proper farewell to her adoptive father and mentor. She sat down on the love seat, and waited, and waited, and waited, until finally, after 45 minutes of sitting in patience and silence, Miles appeared from the top of the stairs and made his way down.

"Good morning, Vera..." Miles groggily yawned as he made his way towards a coffee machine.

"Good morning, uh, Miles." She replied as a twinge of apprehension suddenly overtook her. "Hey, Miles, I've got something to tell you."

"I know, I know, you're leaving today." The sleepy historian interrupted."You've told me this yesterday and the day before, and the day before that! Still, I wish you good luck on your journeys ahead, and safe trips throughout." Vera smiled at that final comment from him, a little touched, seeing as he's supporting her rather questionable path. "Anyways, you've got something to do today, right? Go on, you're not getting any younger!"

"Alright, alright, I'm goin'!" Vera chuckled as she picked herself up off the comfortable sofa and lead herself towards the door.

"Come back home if you're ever feeling homesick!"

"Don't worry, I will!"

She closed the door behind her in a rush and ran around to the back of the house to grab the scythe in the garden shed. This was her weapon of choice, her new partner in crime now and forever. Well, at least until it breaks. Now, with her weapon by her side, she started to set off around town to say her final farewells like she'd planned. Goodbye, people said; Stay safe, I can't believe you're actually doing this. Plenty of final words said to her around town, but those meant little to her. No, Vera only said goodbye to the townsfolk because it was a cordiality Miles taught her. Her true task sat outside the town, back to her home on the range. And that's where she's headed.

Home wasn't exactly a stone's throw away, but it wasn't up and down two mountains to get there either. She could make it to her farm, do what she needs to do and leave before sunset. It wasn't anything too big or too grand, either; her task was simply to say her farewells to her deceased parents. When she thought about it, it brought a few tears to her eyes. Gone before their time, leaving poor Vera without her biological parents. Miles made an exceptional replacement in her eyes, but still, it wouldn't be filial of her to not say at least something to her parents before she leaves; she might also never come back, as a matter of fact. Who knows what perilous dangers await her on her journey into the unknown?

Down that dusty trail she went, further, and further, and further until finally, she could see on the horizon a lonely little green farmhouse. It was still quite a walk to get there, but she could still see the faded, green paint that she remembered fondly. She envisioned the memory of sitting at the dining table at the crack of dawn with her father and mother, a plate of bacon, eggs and hash in front of each of them, the humourous quips from his father, and the constant tired look on her mother's face.

"Wow, I've never felt this nostalgic before..." Vera commented to herself as she pulled herself out of the daydream.

Right as she came out of her dreamscape, she found herself at the entrance to her family farm; something was off about it, though. Usually when she was at the farm, she couldn't hear anything but the sound of the wheat fields rustling in the wind. This time, however, she could hear voices. Many voices, and they were coming straight from her farmhouse!

"What on earth...?" The farm girl muttered out as she began to dash towards her house. As she approached the house, the voices grew louder and much more boisterous. This was not good! Her house has intruders in it, and now she needs to find out who they are and how to get them out! There was no way in hell she was letting people stay at her house without her permission!

She was just a stone's throw away from the porch now, and she could clearly see two clearly washed-up bums relaxing on the swinging bench. The front door was open, the window on the right was smashed, and there were several dozen cigarette butts strewn all over the area in front of the porch. The bums quickly noticed Vera's approaching presence, and one of them got off the bench, hopped over the railing and on his merry way to greet the landowner.

"Howd'ya do, babe?" The vagrant asked flirtatiously. Vera was in no mood for this kind of shit anymore. "What brings ya' over to The Cri-Locks clubhouse?"

Vera simply stared at him for a brief moment, taking in his ugly mug and possibly disease-ridden body. "This is my house and I want you all to leave, now." She uttered coldly to the hobo. He was a little taken aback by this unexpected question, but quickly recomposed himself to assert his position.

"Your house? Aw, c'mon, babe! Why don't'cha be a kind soul and let us down-on-our-luck people stay here for a while?" The vagrant begged as he put on his prettiest face and smoothest voice for her. Vera was not moved the slightest bit by his attempt at "charm"; if anything, she wanted to get rid of them even faster.

"No, all of you, out, before I-"

"Or you'll what, beat us all up? Lady, you have no idea who you're messing with. The Cri-Lock Gang, lady."

"Should I be afraid?"

"Yes, you should. And besides, I got an entire gang in there backin' me up; who do you got?"

Vera was silent; it's true, she didn't have any backup or any allies to aide her in this unexpected and unwelcome visit.

"And besides," The vagrant went on, "I ain't the one to decide if we stay or leave; Bossman scoped this place out for us personally, so who are we to refuse his gracious gift to us?"

Still, Vera was silent.

"Wha'ssa matter wi'chu, standing here silent like a doll? You scared now knowing that The Cri-Lock gang got this place on lock?" He taunted, as he stuck his face right into licking distance of Vera's face. She was not fazed at all, as if she was turned into a statue. "Mmm, that's a nice rack y'got there, doll. Maybe if you work yourself into our good graces, maybe we'll let you in. Just maybe."

As he was saying that he, started to reach for Vera's prodigious chest. Closer and closer his hands got, until her left hand shot out and grabbed his right and twisted it painfully! The vagrant reeled and cried out in pain, which got the attention of the hobo on the porch, who quickly moved back inside, most likely to grab his cohorts. Vera pushed the undesirable away from her with a pushy kick, which got in just in the right range. She quickly swung the scythe she had in her right hand and smacked the back of it in right in his face while he was recovering from his hurt wrist! Now, he had more than a sore wrist to worry about now.

"I'm done. All of you out, or I'm going to be laying down some frontier justice on all o' ya'." She declared plainly as she stood over the downed, vagrant. By now, all of the new residents were outside and ready for a fight. She scanned the group and identified nine other thugs she had to deal with before she could carry on.

This was going to be a fight and a half, for her.

The hobo she had smacked was on the ground, reeling, clutching his face in pain, and not completely out yet. Seeing this, Vera casually strolled towards him, scythe in hand, drawn up, and then swung it down at his skull, causing a painful CRACK to resonate throughout for a brief moment. Now, it was lights out for him. His head was bleeding from the wounds caused by the scythe, trickling out in a steady fashion, but he'll live. Now, it was time for Illuso to set her focus upon the biggest problem for her at the moment: Nine more vagrants who obviously were not going to take her act of smashing their comrade's face lightly.

"You better start praying, girl, cause we ain't gonna be lettin' you off easy once we're done with you!" One of the thugs screamed at her while angrily waving a slightly rusted pipe at her. "Yeah! Don't think you'll be seeing daylight for a hundred years, bitch!" Screamed another. The other vagrants joined in with a chorus of agreement. Their intention was clear, there was no doubt about what they were going to do.

"Alright then," Vera sighed as she brandished her scythe once more, locking eyes on the horde of angry vagrants.
         The vagrants let out a battle cry and began their charge on Vera, who was ready and waiting for something like this to happen. The vagrant at the very front was the very first to be on the receiving end of the farm girl's wrath; she swung her scythe once at him, hitting the beggar on the left side of his skull, causing him to fall over, causing quite the spillage along the way. The other vagrants tripped and bumped into each other, a direct result of Vera's preemptive strike that didn't really do much besides buy another second or two; the squatters were still 6 meters away from her, and she had to do something to quell them, and fast!

"Oh, shit, I didn't think this through." She uttered in a deadpan tone. They were in her sour spot now, and there's little she could do now to push them all back. Two vagrants rushed out of the mob and jumped at her! One had a crowbar, the other had four knives connected to a long pole. They raised their weapons high up into the air as they reached the apex of their jump, and then violently swung downwards at the farm girl! Luckily, it was heavily telegraphed, and Vera knew exactly what they were going to do a few moments after they jumped. She quickly jumped backwards in order to evade the incoming thugs! The other thugs, seeing that two of them were leading the assault, slowed down their advance to a casual walk forward, confident that one woman wouldn't be much of a challenge, but still cautious enough as to keep their weapons brandished in such a manner.
         The hobo with the makeshift spear was the first to rush headfirst at Vera, leaving his cohort behind to come in later. The spear hobo dashed towards Vera, spear sticking straight out; he drew the spear back as far as he could, and then thrust! With! Great! Force! The farm girl turned to her side and leaned to her right, dodging the spear by just a hair! However, one of the knives caught the string holding the coin attached to her waist and cut it.

"Ah! The coin!" Vera exclaimed as she momentarily took her focus off of the fight. In that brief moment, the spear man pulled his spear to his right, and then swung it at Vera. Because she was momentarily distracted, she just barely made it in time to block the hit with her scythe. She stumbled backwards and nearly fell over from the force generated by the strike. However, now the spear man needed to recover from that swing! She steeled her resolve, gripped the tool as hard as she could, and made a mad dash towards the spear man. He was only two meters away, but was still in his end lag state after his swing. She swung for the fence, right at the man's head. A terrified look on his face appeared for just a brief moment as the back of the scythe made contact with his face. He was blown back towards the advancing mob, knocked out, bleeding from the face, and pacified. The others, seeing another one of their mates taken down, got angrier at this display of violence. Not one, but two of them have been knocked out by a single woman! How could this happen to them?
The next one to make their move was the one with the crowbar. He ran furiously towards Vera, crowbar in both hands, and swung. He made an overhead swing, which was blocked effortlessly by her. He pulled his weapon back, and swung again from the right this time. Again, effortlessly blocked. He pulled the crowbar back up again, prompting Vera to anticipate another overhead swing. However, this time, the vagrant went in the opposite direction: he swung from down below, surprising her! She was just in time to block the brunt of the hit, however, she still received quite a nasty blow to her shin. Pain overwhelmed that particular area, and she struggled to keep her stance from that hit. The vagrant, seeing her in a state of weakness, made for yet another overhead swing. She could block it, but most of her strength was used in maintaining her stance, and having to clash with this vagrant wasn't going to help that pain go away. Naturally, she blocked it, but now she was locked in a fierce clash between the homeless man. Her strength faltered, and her bruised leg gave out and she had to drop down on one knee. This was not looking good for her, so she mustered up all the strength she could, as much strength as she could possibly imagine everyone giving her, and channeled it into her arms. She was slowly pushing back, slowly but surely. Now she was able to get back up onto both of her feet and quickly overpower the vagrant and give him a forceful push kick with her good leg! Not even a second after that push kick, a knife came flying at her and just grazed her shoulder! One of the vagrants had some throwing knives, and wasn't too bad with his aim, either.
This fight was not looking good for her.

"Ah, crikes, this kinda stings..." Vera remarked as she looked upon the gang advancing upon her. She was in deep trouble. Her leg stung like five bee stings all at once, and it sort of felt like it may be broken, which is not something that she wants at all at this very moment. Maybe once they were all gone she'd allow a broken leg, but right now was a crucial moment that she did not want to risk injuring herself severely. She took a deep breath. She stood up, transferring as much weight as possible onto her good leg while keeping just a tiny amount of weight on her injured leg.

She was still looking at eight vagrants ready to gut her and hang her from the apple tree with her intestines, and she was still unfaltering in her will to reclaim her house. Hopefully, they haven't damaged or pissed on all the furniture yet. She made no move, thinking that she should wait and let them make the first move, whatever it may be. There was a deathly silence that felt spine-chilling. Neither parties breathed. Neither parties said a word. The vagrant with the assortment of small knives for the purpose of throwing twiddled with the knives in his hand. He was growing anxious. He pushed his way to front and center and locked eyes with Vera. Still, neither parties said a word. The hot wind blew, gently rustling the unkempt fields of wild vegetation in the distance. The sound of rustling grasses and wheat resounded in the distance throughout. The knife man grew tired of this tension, and decided to act.

He tossed two knives, one in each hand, up and down, judging the feel and the weight of the small blade. He put in a bit of a flare with these tosses and flips, as if performing a bit of a show for everyone. Vera watched carefully these knives, following both of them twirl and flip through the air until suddenly, both of the knives landed with perfect form into the vagrants hands and almost instantly flew out of them towards the farm girl! The two knives flew through the air, spinning rapidly at her until she deflected them with her scythe, being careful enough to watch her fingers and where they were going.

*TING! TING!*

The knives bounced harmlessly off the blade of her scythe, landing not too far from Vera. The knife thrower was not done, however. He pulled out more and more knives and began to rapidly throw it at her without mercy! One knife, two knives, three knives! More knives being tossed straight at her, and Vera wasn't able to deflect all of them in time! She managed to deflect the next two knives thrown at her, but the third one hit her on her left shoulder! Of course, it wasn't lodged inside at all, but it still left a bit of a cut on her clothes and her. She looked at the cut with a twinge of fear in her eyes. She left it as it was for the time being and put her attention back on the attackers.

"1, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13..." Vera mumbled as she limped towards the group of chuckling vagrants. The knife thrower pulled out a few more knives at his disposal and threw them once again at Vera. This time, she was anticipating a few more knives coming her way, so she immediately hooked towards the right and immediately dipped down to one knee because of her aching shin. Regardless, she quickly limped on to the right, dodging the rest of the knives that the thrower had on him. Finally, he was out of knives to throw and immediately froze. Vera froze too, straightening herself and locked eyes with the knife thrower. She looked at him; and he looked at her. She looked at him; and she looked at her! The knife thrower looked at away for a second, glancing at all the fallen knives. He dashed towards the fallen knives at an attempt to retrieve them for usage again. Unfortunately for him, he got into Vera's effective range. That, and she was also expecting something like that the moment he looked away. The moment he dashed towards those knives, she swung her scythe at him in the opposite direction he was going. The blade of the scythe jammed right into his stomach, causing him to stop dead in his tracks and let out a pained cough-like noise. He looked down at the blade shoved into his chest. Vera wasted no time at all and began to pull as much strength as she could muster into pushing him. His feet moved a few steps back. Then, a few more. More, and more and at a much faster pace until he was lifted off his feet!

"Whoa, what the hell is with this chick!?" Cried out one of the spectating hobos.

"What the fuck, she's lifting him off the ground like nothing!" Shouted another.

"Don't just stand there and gawk, boys! We gotta do somethin'!" Commanded yet another.

At his command, the vagrants began to move. At his command, Vera let out a loud roar and swung the vagrant her blade was lodged into towards the group. The vagrant party had little time to react as their comrade's injured body flew towards them with a good amount of force behind it. The front two people at the very front of the party was the first to receive the crushing force of their comrade. They were hit, pushed backwards, pushed their friends back as well, and effectively dispersed the entire group. The few in the back who were knocked down by the front rank crawled out from underneath their now KO'd friends.

Five down, five to go.

The vagrants were rightfully stunned at Vera's sheer display of power. They've only seen two people who were capable of performing such a feat and although Vera may have had a bit of trouble doing it, it was still enough to drop their jaws. They recuperated, crawled out from under the wreckage and assessed the situation at hand: Half of their team was down for the count, this woman that they've never met before looks as if she's going to gut them and skin them alive, and they were having doubts about continuing to fight. This was a nice clubhouse that their boss personally recce'd out for them, which they were very grateful for, but they were getting their collective asses handed to them on a silver platter by the rightful owner. The vagrants looked at each other, and they looked at Vera, then back at each other.

"Alright, lady. Why the fuck are you doin' this, eh? What did we ever do to you, aside from what we were just doin'?" Questioned one vagrant.

"Well, for one, you're squatting on my property, my home. And I want you off right now." She replied flatly, clearly not enjoying the prospect of further violence and harm on her. Still, she steeled herself for any future attacks against her.

"What, so you just want this house?" Popped in another vagrant. "Whadda we say, boys? How 'bout we blow this joint?"

"You fuckin' crazy? You know how mad boss'll be once he finds out we lost the clubhouse he personally scouted out for us? He'll skin us alive more than this bitch over here!"

"What other choice do we have? You wanna continue fighting this bitch?!"

"Yes, yes I do! I like this clubhouse we got, and I ain't giving it up so easily!" One of the final vagrants shouted as he picked himself up off the floor and locked eyes with Vera. He readied his lead pipe and dashed towards the farm girl with the intention to kill. Vera sighed at the sight of this and simply stuck her scythe out in front of the vagrant. The angry homeless man ran straight into the scythe, pole stabbing him in the stomach, causing him to have the wind knocked out of him. He clutched his stomach in pain, giving Vera a window of opportunity to attack! She pulled the scythe back and brought it upwards! Then, she slammed it down as hard as she could on the vagrants head! There was a great CRACK! The vagrant fell down, clutching his head now! He was still conscious, but in great pain, moaning and groaning at the injury he had just received.

"Anyone else?" Vera sighed as she rested her scythe upon her right shoulder. The vagrants were silent.

"Alright, you've made your point." One of the squatters replied coldly. "Boys, let's move. Forget the stuff we brought, just take one of our men and move. Oh, and lady? You better be expecting some visitors later this week. We ain't going down again like we did today."

And with that, the vagrants picked up their injured and quickly dispersed. It was quiet now. The only sound able to be heard as the rustling of the unkempt fields. Vera took in a deep breath, and exhaled. What a day for her. What a huge bummer. Who knows what they've done to her house. But that was a worry for a little later down the road, first she had something of more importance to deal with. She went back around the house to find two crosses side-by-side still standing straight in the dirt. Vera sat down cross-legged and sighed once again.

"Mom, dad? I'm home."

TASK COMPLETE