The hot wind blew jagged lines across the grass. It blew a warm breeze across the countryside. Out in a somewhat remote location was a farm. That farm belonged to a former farm girl named Vera Illuso. She sat down in front of her parents' graves, talking to them as if they were still alive.

"And that's basically what happened up to now," Vera chuckled at the two graves side by side. "it's been quite a wild ride getting here..." She sighed and gazed upwards at the sky. There were a few clouds scattered about all across the sky. Good weather was still expected to come for the next day or so.

"Anyways, that's not what I'm here to tell you," Vera said as she looked back at the graves, "I'm going to be leaving the island. There was a pregnant pause. Vera took a deep breath. "I'm going to be a pirate."

There was another pause again, as if she was waiting, or perhaps listening, for or to an answer from her dead parents. Perhaps she was imagining what they would say in this situation.

"I know, I know, you both probably think I'm a l'il bit crazy, but this is my choice and I'm gonna follow through with it. Nothing either of you say'll make me think otherwise, okay?"

Another pause.

"Oh, don't be so sad. I'll be back before any of ya will know it. I'll be back better, faster and stronger. And I'll come home safe and sound, all limbs on my body."

...

"Well...Can't promise that, I guess. But I'll come home alive and kickin'!"

...

"Stay one last night? Well..." Vera pondered to herself as she sat on the dirt in front of her parents' graves. "I guess one more night wouldn't hurt. I'll be gone for a while, so might as well soak in as much of home as I can 'fore I leave."

Vera got up and said a small prayer before she left to go inside the house. She got to the front porch. The door was still on its hinges, at least. Some windows were shattered and there was still glass lying on the floor haphazardly. Most of the rooms have been trashed, and the toilet has been clogged and looks like it hasn't been flushed for a while, which extremely disgusted Vera to the point of vomiting. Still, this was her house and she needed to maintain it. Didn't matter how dirty it was, she still wants to live here. Twenty minutes later, the dirty deed was done. She stank badly, so she took long and hot bath to wash off the stench and the mental grime that's plagued her. Then she spent her time until the evening generally cleaning up the mess that the vagrants created, making sure that every nook and cranny was cleaned out of any dirt, grime, blood, sweat and piss. Dinner happened and was quickly cleaned up, and then she went to bed, sleeping soundly.

Somewhere else on the island, however, the vagrants were not sleeping. They couldn't sleep, for they had a bone to pick, and they weren't going to rest until they've gotten what they want.

It was morning once again. The sun rose like it always did, illuminating a brand new day on the same old world. Vera got out of her parents' bed, although reluctantly as she was still relishing in the nostalgic scent it gave off. She remembered fondly climbing up into the bed when she was just a little child, frightened by nightmares, sounds in the night, or thoughts of terrifying entities entering the house. She remembered being comforted by the warmth emanating from both her parents' bodies as she slid up between both of them, and remembered having their arms drape over her, solidifying her sense of security even more.

Those days are long gone now, and Vera needed to get on with her day. She needed to prepare for her journey over the heartless seas. The time was 0530, half an hour later than she usually woke up when she was still living on the farm. That was okay, though; she had a long day yesterday and deserved a little bit more rest. She dug around for a clean mug and the coffeepot, grabbed some wheat from the field and threw it in some boiling water. There was no coffee here now, but even then, she could remember all the mornings where she walked down the stairs and was greeted to the smell of breakfast and coffee. At the same time, she dug around for some food that the vagrants had hastily left behind and prepared them as best as she could for her breakfast. She enjoyed a nice can of beans with some boiled wheat in hot water, which her parents named, "Bennett Roast". She never knew why it was called that, or how her parents ever got that name, but it stuck on Vera. She didn't know what else to call it, anyways.

She finished up her breakfast and cleaned up the dishes. After that, she grabbed her scythe and prepared to head for the door. She stopped just as she grabbed the doorknob. She looked at the kitchen, then back at the door. Then she opened the door and headed out to her parents' grave. She stared down at the planks used to mark where they were buried.

"Mom, dad," Vera said with confidence, "I'm...I'm leaving now. I'll be back before you know it, safe and sound like how y'all want!" She felt the strongest urge to hug the grave markers, but decided against it. The feeling still lingered, however. She felt like hugging anything. Maybe she'll give Miles a hug before she departs. She went back around the front and towards the road. Something at the corner of her right eye caught her attention. There seemed to be a large group of people just a stone's throw away from her house.

"What the..." Vera mumbled as she turned to face the group. One second later, her confusion turned to that of surprise and fear as she stared upon a group of thugs and vagrants twice as large as the one she had fought off yesterday. "Oh, shit..."

One of the vagrants pushed through the group to the front, turned to the horde and addressed them. "This is the bitch that humiliated us yesterday! She ruined all the work boss did to get us this place!" He shouted as he gesticulated wildly. He then turned to Vera with a bone to pick in his eyes. "And don't think you'll be gettin' outta this one alive, bitch!"

"Yeah!" Chimed in another thug. "You mess with one of us, you mess with the entire gang!"

Vera sighed as she readied her scythe once again to face twenty thugs with the intention to kill.

Vera was in no mood to be fighting these shmucks again; She just wanted to get on with her adventure already! That is to say, she didn't deny that this wasn't interesting, just rather irritating. She still had no intention to kill these vagrants, but this time she wasn't feeling as generous about being non-lethal. She sauntered up closer to the one who was addressing the entire party, got up into her effective range of 9 feet. She extended her reach as far as she could and hooked the blade around his ankles. She quickly jerked the scythe back, causing him to fall down fast first with a nice cut embedded in both his ankles. She decided to follow up on it by swinging the weapon over her head and down upon his right thigh. The blade sunk in a few inches, as she took some last second restraints to not go overboard and cripple him for life. She quickly pulled the blade back and and took herself back to a neutral position, watching the now angered horde of thugs rush towards her, with two staying behind to help their fallen comrade back up.

There were about 17 of them all surrounding her in a big circle, all teeming with anger and hatred for her. She eyed them all carefully, slowly turning around to get a good look at all of them. They were in her effective range, although barely. It looked like if she were to perform Bamboo Harvester, it would get the first two or three people and then maybe just miss everyone else. Should she take that risk? Whatever, as long as it took out some people, that was progress enough.

Vera slowly edged herself closer to one edge of the circle, just enough that she'd be at around 8.5 feet away from the edge. The vagrants looked like they were going to jump on her now, so she acted at that very moment. She pulled her scythe over her left shoulder and twisted her body accordingly. The enemies surrounding her readied their weapons in response. She looked left and right, then cocked her eyebrows for a second. She released all the tension built up in those moments and swung as hard as she could to her right, letting the weight of the scythe help carry her into a spin.

The three thugs who were closest to her were affected. The scythe caught onto the first one's abdomen and it quickly created a deep gash as it exited on the other side. The second one also received a similar gash, although one that wasn't as deep but still quite painful. The third one received a smaller gash, as he moved back just as it entered the side of his stomach, and it was painfully pulled out somewhere near his center. Like the second one's wound, it wasn't as deep as the first one's.

She stopped spinning and, without stopping to recuperate and regain her sense of direction, she moved towards the first vagrant she saw as she stopped. By now, the armed hobos have scattered and formed a much more loose surrounding formation. Vera stumbled for a few steps but quickly regained her composure and saw fit to deliver her punishment on that specific vagrant by swinging to his right. The vagrant tried to block the attack, but Vera's superior strength powered through his block and dug the blade into his side. He screamed in pain and tried to move off, but Vera kept the pressure on his side, keeping the blade dug in as he tried to move away. She closed in on him and quickly pulled out the blade and gave him a strong and forceful push kick away from him.

What was that, five people down out of twenty? Already off to a good start for Vera.

She was still surrounded and outnumbered, but she wasn't outgunned just yet. Figuratively, of course. She looked at the vagrants scattered all around her: The three vagrants that went down for the count were being dragged to safety, and the one that she took down at the very beginning was also being dragged to the sidelines by another healthy vagrant. It was strange to see lawless men like this act with such camaraderie to each other. Usually, from what she heard, these are the type of people to backstab each other for their own personal gain. What was different about these guys? She didn't know, and she wasn't itching too bad for an answer.

Meanwhile, on the sidelines...

"Fuck, this cut hurts like hell!" Cried out the injured vagrant who was injured at the very start of the fight. "You see how many she of us she took down at once? We gotta get more backup here!"

"Well, as much as I'd like ta' teach this bitch a lesson, we can't." Replied the uninjured hobo calmly.

"Well, why the fuck not?!"

"Because she fuckin' destroyed and scared off the rest of 'em. Nobody from the original crew wants to see her face cause they're too damn scared to even look at her face anymore. All said somethin' 'bout her lifting Jakey off the ground like nothin'"

The injured thug thought for a few moments. "Point taken, we'll just have to call in the boss to take care of her then." He coldly declared.

"The boss? Are you crazy? He ain't gonna-"

"He is if you tell him that some slut's kickin' our collective asses and undoing all of his hard work!"

The healthy thug looked at his comrade with confusion, thought for a few moments, before deciding.

"Alright, I'll go get the boss. Hopefully, y'all can hold her here til we get back, a'ight?" He asked before he began to take off in the direction of their main hideout.

Meanwhile, back in the main fight, Vera was still kicking ass left, right and center. She was successfully holding all of them off, keeping them in her effective range, but outside her minimum range too. A thwack on the chest here, a shove there, a hearty push kick to him, and she was still surviving, albeit not exactly taking them down with maximum efficiency. Not long after, she managed to jam her scythe into another vagrant's chest. Knowing that she had another opportunity to show off her strength. Once again, she started to push the vagrant into the direction she wanted. She kept on pushing until the thug could no longer resist her strength and was carried off the ground, much like his comrade before him. She got him off the ground and kept spinning. There were two other angry hobos that didn't think too much of this, thinking that because she was spinning, she wouldn't be able to control herself or have much awareness. They were right, but approached her the wrong way. The minute they got into the range of the spinning man, they were almost immediately hit by his body spinning around and around. They were KO'd instantly on impact.

She couldn't take the spinning anymore, so she stopped spinning, letting the thug fly off of her scythe and roll over one of his uninjured friends. Her world was spinning, and she was nauseous. She wanted to vomit, badly. And she did. She keeled over and threw up her breakfast right in front of everyone. The vagrants took advantage of her situation and one of them trapped her in a full nelson hold. Another one got in front of her, looked at her dead in the eyes, and had his face covered in her projectile vomit. He said nothing, and punched her in the gut, causing her to vomit on him even more.

She felt a little embarrassed by this once she recovered her sanity, only just a little.

The vagrant wasn't very pleased about being covered in Vera's vomit. He stood in front of her, eyes closed, entire body shaking in pure rage. He opened his eyes to be greeted with the farm girl planting both of her feet violently into his chest, pushing the vomit-covered vagrant away from her. She then used the counter-momentum that she generated after jumping up to kick that man away to lift the man strangling her from behind off his feet and toss him over her shoulders! She brushed herself off, picked up her scythe and continued to fight the rest of the vagrants, but not before kicking the vagrant she just threw in the face to knock him out. She hurt her feet a little bit, since she wasn't wearing shoes and all that.

She made another tally of how many left, and if she was doing her math correctly, there were about ten left! That was fantastic! She was already almost done kicking their collective asses in! She dashed towards the vomit-covered vagrant and booted his face in too, knocking him out cold and hurting herself in the process! She shook her foot off and continued to look upon the rest of the vagrants, who now seemed a lot more reluctant to fight Vera now. They simply looked at her, and back at each other, contemplating with each other silently whether or not they should continue

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Elsewhere...

"Whadd'ya mean some bitch is tearing you all a new behind?! You know how much training I put you guys through to not lose to one person!?" Bellowed an angry voice from inside large, mansion-like shanty hut. In there was the thug that had retreated prior to the fight getting into its meatiest moments.

"I'm sorry, boss! But this woman with some huge knockers is slicing and dicing us up to pieces! She's killing us all as we speak!" Replied the thug hastily; He was extremely terrified of his boss right now, feeling as if he would go off and tear him to pieces right then and there.

"Then what they hell are we waitin' for? We gotta get out there and save our men! I ain't lettin' my brothers die without me puttin' up a fight with that sonnuvabitch!" Crilok Cid shouted as he slammed his fist on his chair and stood up. He let out a holler, and nine more vagrants came to the room he was in almost immediately "Alright, guys! We got us a bitch to gut! Freddy over here'll show us where she's at!"

Oh! Uh, she's at the clubhouse you scouted out for us, boss!"

"Then off we fuckin' go then! Get on the chariots and let's go! And bring some medkits for our boys out there!"

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Meanwhile, back at the Illuso Farmstead...

Vera was piling up the body count left and right! She was like a reaper, harvesting peoples' lives left and right, only that she wasn't actually taking their lives but just incapacitating them non-lethally. With a scythe. She was disarmed at the moment, just a few steps away from her scythe, but constantly being forced or held back by the goons, who've taken the initiative to rush her while she was disarmed. She was currently doing her best to fend them all off, but wasn't doing too hot since she didn't have her scythe. She took plenty of hits, fists, crowbars and pipes, and even a stab wound that wasn't actually too deep and on her cheek, but she was definitely starting to wear out from the fight.

Finally, she managed to power through all the hits and grapples and grabbed her scythe once again, turning around and delivering a wide slash to everyone that was behind her. Wasting to time at all, she pounced on every single one of them, slashing them, punching them, kicking them, doing whatever it took to win the fight.

Soon enough, they were all knocked out or too injured to fight. She looked at all of them lying on the ground, helpless and vulnerable. A twinge of anger started in her mind, and quickly spread over her body. She walked over to the nearest goon, who was out cold. She looked at him lying unconscious, neck completely exposed. She stared at it intensely, scythe in hand, raised. She raised it a bit more, anger soon clouding her mind. She hated these men, these men that ruined her childhood home, who (probably) defecated and urinated on her parents' graves, clogged the toilet and made this day so much harder. She wanted revenge. She lifted it up higher and aimed. She was ready to rip his man's Adam's apple out with her scythe.

...

But...

This wasn't right. She lowered her scythe once more and walked away, demoralized and beaten despite being victorious. She sat on the steps of her porch, pondering why such a thought came through her mind. She had taken an oath to never kill no matter what, and she was to stick to it. No matter what, no matter what her enemy had done to her. She slapped herself on the face and went back inside. She opened herself another can of beans and just poured the contents into her mouth. She was in no mood to prepare a meal right now either. Well, at least she had taken care of all nineteen of them.

Wait. Nineteen? She was sure there were twenty of them when they first got here. What happened to the final one then? As soon as she finished that thought, she heard the sound of a horn being sounded. She looked out the window, then rushed out to the porch. In the distance, she saw some things moving in the distance, getting closer and closer. It was too late to run, whomever was on those things that they were riding on would be able to see her run away from the farm. She stepped back onto the front yard, ready to face the music on what was to approach next.

A few minutes later, the man-pulled chariots came to a stop, the five drivers flopping down onto the ground the second they stopped. A large man stepped off of the center chariot.

"Tch. So this is the bitch?"

TO BE CONTINUED: TASK END