Vairon sat comfortably perched upon the overturned rowboat half buried in the loose with sand upon the isolated beach. Her feet were pulled close together, tucked up under her bum with her knees spread apart in a deep squat. Her elbows rested casually upon her knees as she pulled a large chunk of raw flesh of her fresh catch with her dagger-like nails and popped it into her mouth. She had procured a front row seat upon her own private sushi bar that provided a breath taking ambiance like no other. She did love the ocean.

Her simple midnight snack was serenaded by the peaceful rhythmic melody of the rolling waves as they repeated broke upon the soft sandy shores reaching towards her some fifty yards away. The fish-girl starred out optimistically across the moonlit ripples fixated upon a distant vessel bobbing up and down upon the undulating ocean. Salty tears began to stream down her face as she thought of them, her adopted family. Her mind traversing back to the unfortunate encounter with a government liaison that took away everything she held dear. She would gladly kill the untrustworthy interloper should they meet again. A burning hate she saw fit to extend to all mankind.

Her mental visit with the past was cut short with the snapping of a dried branch directly behind her from beyond the grassy dunes. Vairon’s head whirled sharply to right, twisting her torso and straightening her right arm behind, her palm placed upon the wooden dory for balance. Diligently her large fish-like eyes searched for the source of the disturbance scanning the sandy knolls for movement. It wasn’t long before the silhouette of a man began to appear over the next rise, close, almost 30 feet away. The magnificent fiery orange membrane raised like a warning flag up her back as the sharp dorsal spines stood alert at attention waving in the light breeze that blew off the ocean.

Had they found her already?

Gado sat in the forest, he had been walking for a few hours, and felt a small need to rest himself. It had been less than a day since he encountered the target called Az, a humanoid abomination that could wield the blasphemous power of fire! He had offcourse made sure that this "Az" would never harm mother nature ever again.. It was no easy job, but that should be expected when protecting mother nature with one's life.
He leaned backwards and closed his eyes for just a moment, but in that very short timelapse, a vision appeared before him.. his next target! The whole "target"-deal was quite weird, but he held absolute faith in mother nature's decisions and dared not question her infinite knowledge and wisdom. The way he received his targets was also a bit odd, for it was at times when he found himself in great need of rest, that a soothing voice would appear around him, telling him who then deserved the wrath of nature. This was clearly mother nature's work, and Gado would never question her tasks.

When his eyes opened, hours had passed. The sun had set in the distance, and it seemed close to midnight. The name of his target had now been revealed "Vairon", and he was sure she was nearby, for mother had told him so. Walking off in the direction he presumed his target was located, he quickly came to a clearing in the forest which lead to a small isolated beach of some sort. He could see a humanoid figure sitting on what appeared to be a rowboat in the distance, and calmly moved towards her. The carelessness of his movement was instantly punished, punishment in the form of a dry branch.

- CRCHH! -

He noticed all too late the branch that hindered his attempt at making the kill an easy task, and could now see the target turn around, staring right at him! Obviously, the moment of suprise was lost, "Are you Vairon? I've been looking for you.." he said loudly, concealing the fact that he pulled out two seeds behind his back from his bag.

"Are you Vairon? I've been looking for you." He said loudly.

It was one thing to interrupt her midnight dining ritual. When the emerging figure called her by name he brought the offense to a totally different level. She was going to have to teach these government types that some things were better left alone. It had come to pass Vairon now considered herself to be one of those things. An array of fin-like membrane upon her calves and forearms flared signalling her displeasure before uttering a single word.

Vairon squeezed her lungs with her nostrils and mouth shut forcing the air to flow over the vocal chords in her throat. A series high pitched tone rang out like a song over the sound of crashing waves upon the shore. Her throat blew up like a balloon as air from her lungs was channelled to the air sac below amplifying her warning voice as it resonated within. A frightening visage with Vairon’s dark eyes locked with the eyes of the intruder hoping to glean any bit of information that would tip her to his motives.

The deep blue surface of her skin glistened brilliantly catching the moonlight as she uncoiled her twisted body for better position. Pivoting on the toes of her right foot and using the hand she had planted upon the dory the flexible young amphibian swung her left leg in a graceful clockwise arc squaring her shoulders to face her opponent. Her toes pointed slightly outward, heels tucked neatly under her rear as she sat in a three-point stance ever so gently resting upon the clawed fingertips of her right hand. Much of the light-weight girl’s mass still rested over her powerful legs ready to spring a moment’s notice should an opening present itself. Contained in her left hand, the three foot mackerel that had been her meal now grasped like a fresh meat club hovered at her side.

This.. creature.. no, this blasphemy, as it was revealed to Gado the appearance of Vairon trough the cunning use of moonlight. Was almost too agonizingly ugly to be a creation of mother earth, or anyone else for that matter.. clearly she didn't belong in this world, and Gado would be the one to set things right.

"Don't worry, I will fix you.." he mumbled compasionatly, as if he deeply cared about her condition, and in a way he did! For she was not her own creation, she was not to blame for her ghastly appearance, and thus, Gado would deliver unto her the ultimate token of love.
A cold and ending death, a death that would remove her from this world, no longer would she be forced to endure the torment of being an outcast of nature. Yes, he was sure she would be thankfull for what he was about to do.

"Just stand still, this will all be over soon"

He made a forward motion with his right arm, pushing the seed towards her, while his left pressed itself into his right hand, releasing the second seed. As this occured, mother nature's gift would reveal itself to be planted in Gado, for the seeds started growing! The seed pushed into his right hand from his left, grew into a thick elastic vine that shot out and connected with the seed that had just been pushed forward. The seed that was hurling towards Vairon, now connected with the vine, started growing in size as it flew trough the air, it was growing into what seemed to be a wooden ball with spikes growing out all around. It would certainly reach the size of a softball by the time of impact with Vairon, should she not move.

Gado had a firm grip on the vine with both his arms, leaning backwards to prevent himself from being pulled away by his own device.

He looked upon her as if she was a freak. An appalled expression gradually softened to that of pity and compassion as he spoke. Vairon was unable to understand the initial mumblings amidst the roaring tides that raged behind her. She almost bought into the seductive illusion of caring as the man slowly offered an open hand toward her. Resting upon his palm what appeared to be a small seed. However, there was no mistaking the intentions of the nature loving hypocrite following his next set of instructions and the events that followed.

"Just stand still, this will all be over soon" came the unmistakable declaration.

The seed presented in the seemingly harmless gesture erupted into a life of its own as it was pushed toward her transforming the inconspicuous seed into a projectile of ill intent complete with a deadly array of thick thorns. With almost thirty feet between them and the lack of momentum behind the small wooden projectile Vairon would have plenty of time to react to the incoming attack.
“Just what was he up to?” pondered the fish-girl.
The question was answered with the appearance of a vine that extended from the druids right hand, connecting to his original creation hurling the seed ball forward. The added appendage created what appeared at first to be an organic mace as the wooden head continued to grow in size only to change into something far more familiar to the young fisherman. Her opponent had created his own version of a slungshot weapon she so frequently wielded.

As the moderately moving projectile neared, the blue skinned amphibian initiated her response to the incoming threat. Patiently she slipped to her left, rotating on the ball of her left foot and sliding the right foot behind the left lead. This action pulled Vairon out of the direct path of the spiked wooden ball pacing her perpendicular and slightly off centre of her opponent. Her eyes never left the incoming sphere as it travelled toward her former location. The girl’s left shoulder faced her opponent as she reared back the left hand holding the dead fish. Drawing the flesh club towards her right knee she pulled out of her crouch slightly remaining bent at the knees coiled and ready for the counter attack.

She had spent several memorable hours playing “stick ball” as they called it with her former ship mates. A “natural” they dubbed her, given her exceptional eye hand co-ordination and lightning fast reflexes. The time had come and she swiftly swung the improvised bat with the intent of driving the deadly little sphere back to sender. The defiant little girl had no intention to just “stand still” and accept the delivery of her fate. If she was successful the organic ball would be propelled at a significant increase in velocity, fifty miles an hour (30 feet in.5secs), in the opposite direction it currently travelled.

Well aware that the thorns were designed to penetrate into soft flesh Vairon was prepared to release the fish-club and launch it at the attacker during the follow through if contact was made. With the druid’s firm grip on the trailing vine and his deep backward lean any sudden change in resistance should be enough to send him sprawling to his backside. Regardless of his position when the object returned she will have given him even less time to react to the seed than she had been afforded in the first place. It was his turn to scramble.

Mother Nature would be pleased. Surely the creature would reckognize his purehearted intentions of good and not attempt to avoid his gift, and for this he would remove yet another unnatural abomination from this world, just as he had done before..

Gado had fought many different opponents trough the years, one of which this very attack had proved most effective. Many years ago, he had fought a man called.. uhm.. well his name isn't very important. Their battle had been long and cruel, and they had fought with every last breath of their body until there was only one left standing, Gado. How had he done this? Well, the initial attack had been the deciding factor in that battle, as he initiated the same attack he was using right now. His opponent had offcourse easily dodged this low-threat attack, only to be caught completely by suprise as he moved in on a seemingly open Gado. For the spiked wooden ball was not intended to hit it's target with it's forward launch, no, it was intended to slingshot itself into their backs as they charged forward to gain an easy kill.

Yes, this was a very brilliant tactic that had served him well many times, and it would never fail him.
Oh how wrong he was..

Vairon had obviously no intentions of DODGING the attack, but re-directing it towards it's source? That she did. Her actions came as a complete suprise to Gado, who never assumed such a unnatural creature to be capable of turning his own attack against him! But she did, and he would have to punish his own arrogance when the fight was over.

The spiked ball was smacked towards him with blinding speed. Luckily for him, the distance between him and her proved to be his salvation, just as much as the fact that he completely lost his balance and fell on his back flat-down caused him to avoid the returning wooden spiked ball of death without ever trying! The wooden ball went straight past him, passing about 1,5m above him with great speed, now the size of a truck wheel. Lady Fortuna was with him today, but he would not test her patience with him more than he had to, the time for a counter-counter-attack had come!

Still gripping tightly around the vine attached to the ball that just passed him, pushed himself up and rose to his feet as quickly as he could, running towards Vairon at full speed. His plan? Suicide-rush!
How so? The wooden ball that just passed him was still moving away from him, but it would soon come to a halt, and with every inch of strength in his body, Gado would force the ball to move yet again in the direction of his opponent. What part of that made it a suicide run? Gado was gonna make himself the target by directing the ball towards himself, hopefully passing Vairon on the way, crushing her as the ball returned.

But he would have to worry about that later, right now, he had some running to do. And he was quite a fast one, closing in the distance between them in 10-12 seconds should she not move away from him.

(Just improvising at this point, great counter attack! :D)

The event unfolded just as she had anticipated with the nature lover landing indignantly upon his backside when the tension was unexpectedly relieved upon the rope attached to the wooden sphere. Luckily for the helpless druid the spiked ball passed harmlessly over his prone position continuing on its allotted trajectory. With her opponent upon the ground and temporarily occupied by his own creation Vairon sprang into action effortlessly leaping fifteen feet forward from the dory towards her prone rival. The limber Gado had already begun to find his feet once again as she landed.

His hands were still gripped tightly around the vine attached to the ball that had just passed him. The original soft ball sized head had grown to the diameter of a semi-truck tire stretching the elastic –like vine one and a half times its original thirty foot length. The determined naturalist struggled for all he was worth, using both hands upon the vine and leaning forward to halt the progress of the growing sphere and reverse its course back towards the vivid blue fish-girl. A plan suicidal plan Vairon wasn’t about to complete.

With the forest dwellers initial stagger step forward she was aware that progress that had been made well aware that the weighty bludgeoning tool was heading back their way. Vairon had every intention to use the foolish land sloth as a human meat shield between her and those deadly pointed spikes. The amphibian whipped out with her elongated prehensile tongue, a weapon that had served her well in the past, in an attempt to lash Gado in place where he stood.

With his feet planted and his heart and soul intent on redirecting his failed attack there was little the druid could do against the well timed attack coming his way almost twice as fast(roughly ninety miles per hour) as the smaller sphere she had redirected his way moments earlier. Her opponent now would have fifteen less feet of distance between them in which to react and his feet bound to prevent escape. Successfully entangled her opponent could stand and take the full impact of the three foot diameter mace, unlikely to survive the collision, or chose a prone position one again and likely be strafed from head to toe by the thorn-like extensions as the growing organic mass sank as it passed over him. A positional tactic favoured by many ship’s captains choosing to launch their cannon balls ripping though the ribs of the enemy vessel sending it sinking to Davey Jones’s Locker.

In any event Vairon was already preparing her body for her own escape knowing full well the human would do little to slow the object’s return.

it was the pathetic attempt at correcting his own mistake that proved to be his own undoing, Gado quickly realized how powerless he was in the situation that was about to unfold. Even tough his mistakes was clear to him, he refused to let them effect only him and not include the blasphemous creature he had set out to destroy.

He watched with joy as the wooden ball of death came hurling back towards him! "Finaly, the time to make the filthy monster pay the price of bla-URK!-" His sentence was halted by the unexpected attack of a.. tongue?
Without his knowing, Vairon had closed in the distance between them, aswell as launched her own attack! The monstrous creature had caught him with it's elongated tongue from fifteen feet away!! On top of that, his own deadly device was now slung towards him with incredible speed!!
Surely there was no way out of this situation, resistance was futile! He realised that the easiest way out was to let the impending doom come upon him, but he refused to follow this train of thought! Why should he suffer when he had done nothing but serve Mother Nature? He had spent his entire life protecting her, cleansing the world of the unclean, punishing the destructive, helping the good! He had done NOTHING to deserve this fate! But it was inevitable, and thus, he would do the best of it.. He would not leave this world alone!

In a last ditch effort, as the tongue wrapped tightly around his neck and down to his torso, he gripped firmly around the vine, which was still attached to the oncoming wooden ball. His decision had been made, and he would continue to serve Mother Earth.. even in death!

Forcing every inch of mystical energy he had in his body into the vine, he converted the vine into solid wood, aswell as forcing it to grow in lenght! Now, the results of this was obvious. The oncoming wooden ball pushed the remaining 13 feet of vine now turned wood forward with imense force, impaling Gado in the process! This was offcourse Gado's intention, and was his last effort attack towards Vairon, for the 13 feet long wooden spike (former vine) was now pressed all the way trough Gado towards Vairon. Aswell as being pressed with great speed from the wooden ball coming from behind, it also grew an extra 0,7m in lenght, and continued all the way to Vairon's position as Gado's now mangled body did little to challenge the imense force and speed of the wooden ball, thus it continued further on, sucsessfully pressing the 13,7 feet long wooden spike trough and far past Vairon's position.

Gado was offcourse at that moment, Very very dead.

(Hope that made sense O.o felt a bit repetive when I wrote it..)

She could see uninspired glaze in her opponent’s eyes coming to grips with the realization of the impending doom that was about to befall him. Gado was defeated, trapped without refuge and about to become the victim of his own doing. He disguised his retaliatory attack well shielding the intended nature from his opponent with his own body. If Vairon had not been intuitive enough to mentally prepare for her own escape in advance she may well have fallen victim to the suicidal strategy the druid had initiated.

“What the....???”

The agile amphibian had already begun to loosen her restraining snare when the pointed lance from the stiffened length of vine pierced through Gado’s torso. The wooden pike ripped easily through the fragile flesh of the human meat shield and continued towards Vairon’s position. The unexpected addition of the thirteen foot seven inch impaling attack had essentially cut her escape window in half. She had to act and she had to act NOW! There was no time to finish coiling the muscles for a lengthy leap to safety choosing instead to make a controlled shoulder roll to her right.

The manoeuvre was successful enough to get her out of harm’s way narrowly avoiding the incoming blood covered lance point. Vairon managed to catch a blurred glimpse of Gado’s body and the spiked tire sized ball which followed immediately behind as she rolled to her feet. The tangled mass carrying the mangled form of the druid came to a crashing halt throwing a scattered array of wooden debris, sand and vegetation into the air as it impacted the sand filled dory buried upon the beach. There was little chance that anyone could survive the multiple blows that resulted with the pile-up.

No motion was evident as the blue-skinned fish-girl cautiously approached the perforated form of the forest dweller. Her opponent’s chest failed to heave but once in the moment she stood over the battered and broken body. Blood streamed from several gaping wounds, any of which could prove to be fatal on their own, saturating the fine white sands below. The two inch diameter shaft that appeared to piece him just below his heart was likely to have brought a swift death before the sphere even struck.

Vairon was saddened by the sight. He had died too suddenly and now she would never know the truth. The only object that could be found upon the warm corpse was a small bag of seeds attached to his belt.
Government agent or not he knew her name and just where to find her. She would have to be more careful when she when she decided tosurface.

“Who sent you?” The final thought crossed that her mind before turning away to return to the cold waters of the Atlantic Ocean. If only the dead could talk she would have her answers.