Sun sets over a heavily wooded swamp. Beating of wings and the sounds of all forms of flora and fauna can be heard, over the trees a dragon soars. Inside the swamp, deep inside the swamp sits a house dozens of feet off the surface of the water, so high up some would wonder what the sense of its inhabitants would be. Soon one would find out, stepping out from a large glass door onto the deck of the house is a man, a very large man. As he stands there, the water begins to rise dramatically. Over the course of 10 minutes the water rises some 30 feet to come up to just below the deck of the house. Moments later the waters start parting and the eyes of a little sea serpent pop out, slowly a few more eyes of baby sea serpents pop out followed by the eyes of large full grown sea serpents.

"Hey there guys, you hunting again?"

The male sea serpent rises out of the water a several feet and licks his lips looking eye to eye with the man. Walking over to the ledge he looks at the sea serpents chin noticing something on it. He reaches up noticing a bump, he touches it and the sea serpent shakes and growls and backs away.

"Oh no you don't!" He says to the serpent and motions him back over. The serpent gives up in defeat and slowly moves back over to the deck. The man rubs the serpents snout.

"Now you know this will hurt a bit but I am sure whatever caused this hurts a lot more."

The man walks inside and grabs a long sharpened piece of metal very much like a needle and a piece of cloth. He walks out with the needle in one hand and the cloth in the other. Taking the cloth he rubs the needle down and looks at the serpent who gives him a sad look.

"Don't give me that look, you know it will only hurt for a few minutes. Then you will feel like you did when that one fairy gave you that dragon berry."

When he mentions the dragon berry the sea serpent suddenly perks up and raises his head. The man takes the needle and jams it around the bump, the serpent wincing and shivering a bit. The other serpents gather around to look at what is going on, while the sea serpent gets numb around the infection the man walks back into the house. He comes back out and the serpent begins acting odd with a happy look on his face.

"I think we shall get started." he says with a smile and a laugh.

Taking out a blade and a large cloth he plunges the blade in and almost immediately covers it up with the cloth, the smell making the other serpents recoil. Taking both hands with the cloth still up the he squeezes, the serpent even under the affects of the potion that he is on grunts and flinches. He continues squeezing getting everything that has been built up out, occasionally dipping the cloth into the water to clean it off. After a while the bump goes down but it is left with something hard inside. The man spreads open the hole and looks and can see into the dragons mouth, upon closer inspection he realizes the nothing was stuck in the but a tooth had rotted straight through.

"Oh buddy, we are gonna have to take the rest of that tooth out."

Going back to work on the serpents tooth he manages to get the bits out fairly easily and then closes the hole up.

"That should do Buddy, but just remember, the salt water is going to hurt some but it will help heal it as well."

The sea serpents all spend the rest of their night playing around by the house, while the man watches well into the next morning. As the light from the moon shines into the swamp, the waters begin to recede and as with the rising tide bringing the serpents in it takes them back out. They call out both happily and mournfully having to leave the salt water haven but knowing they will be back. The man heads inside to go to sleep as the next day takes him back into the city, preparing for bed he closes his door and sets two crystals into 2 slots on a wheel and a block of wood. He spins the wheel with considerable force and the sound of air can be heard from outside his house but right by his bedroom. He opens up a section on the wall and cool air blows through the room. Sighing contently he lays down and falls deep into a sleep within minutes.

A shadowed figure ran across the dense forest ground, much faster than any human could ever be. Several other shadowed figures could be seen giving a furious pursuit, slowly but steadily gaining grounds to the front figure. The pursued one jumped from the ground high to the top of the trees, enabling the soft moonlight to illuminate the figure and revealed what look like to be a young woman with silver hair tied up in high ponytail. Her leather clothes had scratches nearly all over and at some places look like it barely hanging on and she's missing a shoulder pad armor, a pair of swords were strapped securely on each off her sides.

At a glance, she looked emotionless, as her electric blue eyes determinedly looked forward, but lines of exhaustion could be seen on her face. She had been running for several days without stop, and if she did stop it wasn't for resting but to fight her pursuers. She could hear something bursting through the leaves behind her. Without looking back, she knew that her pursuers had also taken the treetops to chase her. She could see them in her mind. Two demonic humanoid beetles that resembled atlas beetle, and a huge Praying Mantis demon. There were more, but she had managed to thin their numbers with some guerrilla tactics. Unfortunately, she knew that she's now at her limit. She couldn't keep this up for much longer. Her best option would be to stop and fought them all before taking a rest. Keep running, unfortunately, was no longer a choice for her at the moment.

Finally, the tree line stopped to reveal a wooded swamp area with a small clearing. Jumping down and spun around as she skidded to a stop, the young woman unsheathed her swords and immediately had to deflect one of the atlas beetle's horn as it tried to ram her. Spinning with the momentum, she jumped over the second atlas beetle demon and swung her swords towards the praying mantis demon, which clashed against its blades.
The fight that ensued was a deadly dance that tested the young woman's speed and agility as she moved between her foes attacks to make her own attacks. Somehow, she managed to kill one of the atlas beetle demon courtesy to a sword to one of its eyes, straight to its brain and killing it instantly. The other atlas beetle was killed when she managed to maneuver around it and caused the praying mantis' blades to pierce its own comrade. It's now one on one battle, and neither was giving ground.

Spying a chance when the young woman's focus wavered due to exhaustion, the praying mantis demon immediately struck and managed to slash the young woman's side, leaving a big gash. She let out a pained scream and fell on her back. Just as the praying mantis about to dealt the final blow, she managed to threw her sword and struck the demon on its head. The praying mantis demon stood still for a few moments before it slowly slumped to the side.

Knowing that she couldn't stay there, the young woman struggled to her feet, pressing her arm to the big gash, trying to slow the blood pouring out from her. After retrieving her sword and unsheathed them, she walked unsteadily away from the clearing and deeper into the wooded swamp. Usually, her enhanced regenerative ability should have made her wound to stop bleeding at the very least, but apparently the praying mantis' blades were covered with something that interfered with her healing ability.
After a while, she started to feel lightheaded. Left with not much of choice, she dragged her battle worn body up to one of the tangled big roots that were all over the swamp and hid herself behind the roots curtain. It wasn't much of a protection, heck it really was not even worth to be called a protection, a low leveled demon could very easily tear through the roots. Still, it was all she could have at the moment, and before she could second guess herself, her blood loss soon robbed her of her consciousness.

The man snaps awake. Sensing the presence of something or somebody in the swamp, his astounding nose and other senses guide him to his deck. Leaping off the deck he flies through the air scanning the area, the presence seeming to fade but stay in place, he picks up speed weaving in and out of the trees until he finally sees blood flowing through the water. Instantly knowing he is close, he follows the trail through the water to a tree. He lands and moves around to the other side of the tree finally seeing the girl curled up and unconscious. He moves into the root ball and grabs her. "Come on, we must take you to safety." He says knowing she can't hear him but saying it nonetheless. He takes off with her in his arms swiftly back to his home. He arrives at his home and tends to her wounds and as soon as he finishes takes her into his bedroom to rest. Not knowing what the morning will bring him he covers her up and moves to his spare bedroom. As he is reaching for the door he realizes the air flowing through his own bedroom may be a bit too much for the girl he heads back into the room to shut the opening in the wall, leaving the room cool but not as cool as it had been. He moves back over to the spare bedroom and opens the wall in there and the cool air floods the room again. He lays down and goes back to sleep, hoping when he wakes the girl is feeling better.

Her eyelids felt heavy when she started to regain consciousness. She felt warm, and comfortable, two things that she had never felt ever since she started to run for her life. After a few moments of struggle, the woman finally managed to crack her eyes open and blearily took in her surroundings as her eyes focused slowly. She was in a bedroom, on a warm big bed. Blinking, she finally remembered what happened the day before and moved to sit.
As she did so, she noticed that her wound from the fight had been tended to and bandaged, in fact she now barely felt the wound except for some discomfort when she jarred her side.

Looking around again, she saw that her bag and weapons were stashed beside the bed and took them quickly. She didn't know where she was, and while she doubt whoever saved her held any ill intent towards her, she couldn't help but gripped her swords sheaths tightly, warily wondering who had saved her and why.