““Lizardmen.” Vanaantien grumbled under her breath. “I wish we would just avoid them all together.”

Exactly thirteen games earlier, a skink had fouled Vanaantien and permanently hobbled her step. Now she began to sweat as she looked at the scaly creatures they would soon face on the field. It was the little ones that worried her. The tiny one called Hiyii Hinkii had the nastiest reputation. He had already been thrown out of twenty five matches for fouling and everyone knew that he researched his opponents’ weaknesses.

For Vanaantien, the worry was well founded. She simply never got into the game properly, and when you play with trepidation you are a flat footed target. She never took her eyes off Hiyii and when she winced at the boot planted on Nienna, the Sarus Bazzik Okzziin caught her from the blind side blasting her into the center of the Muddy Men end zone.

He too had done his research. Prior to the previous lizardman match, the Archers had been gifted a Venus Maneater which they planted in the middle of the end zone. It had flourished on a diet of arena rats and an occasional stray cat. While not full sized it was certainly able to live up to its name. Until this moment everyone had given it a wide berth so it had not been tested.

Unfortunately for Vanaantien, Bazzik knew very well what the plant was capable of and his perfectly placed block knocked her to the base of the plant below the gaping pod of alternating hooked and spiked teeth.

Upon hitting the ground Vanaantien looked up and smiled as she recognized that Hinkii had turned his back to her. She rose to one knee and prepared to exact revenge for all the pain a skink had once caused her. She let out a battle cry and made the first step towards a blitz when the pod engulfed her from neck to knees. Both extremes were unprotected and the razor sharp teeth cleanly sliced through flesh and bone. The closed pod then straightened and slightly bent to continue absorbing the summer rays of the sun.

Elsewhere the game raged on. At halftime no one could account for Vanaantien. They played the second half oblivious to the fate of their team mate.

The grounds crew reported for duty after the match and raked the occupied boots and helmet into the dust bin along with debris that had been tossed on the field during the match. The demise of Vanaantien Umadove would become an urban legend. Most eyes were on the ball during the fateful play but a few fans claimed to have seen Snappy (as the plant would come to be called) snatch up Vanaantien. However as no evidence was ever found, the claims were dismissed as the delusions caused by too much Bugman’s Brew. To this day a drunken fan or member of the Archer practice squad will claim to see her in the stadium. Sometimes she is spotted in the stands, and sometimes in the locker room, but most often she is see running drills on the Archer sideline as if she were spectating from the bench.
”