Once upon a night of darkness and storms, in eternal darkness lie, the clouds flooded over the land and took over the sky. In the dim moonlight over the grasses around the campus a storm rippled overhead, the thunder heard in the sdistance, a white erming girl walked through the campus, looking around carefully.

In the shadows three angry looking wolves leered at her, the first, one looking mischievious with a biker jacket, a pair of combat boots and a streak of blonde in her hair sneered. "Hey scrap metal loser! Think you're going anywhere tonight you twat?"

The erming girl winced back, looking horrified. "I'm just, going home for the night" she trailed off at the end, looking down, continuing to walk down the path. The thick fog in the air was clammy, and lent a deep chill in the air that sunk into your bones. 

The second laughed, wearing a big puffy coat,  "Yeah right ugly nerd, you know you'll never do well, nobody will ever want you, I bet you snort drugs off the toilets at night" 

The erming girl glanced up briefly, her eyes wide with terror and looked down quickly, her steps quickening. 

Home wasn't very far, she could totally make it to the dorms in time, it wasn't too late, Luna would be there wouldn't she?

Luna could protect her, she was always there for her, really. 

Shortly behind her, the third wolf, one with a vicious grin, her eyes sparkling with malice laughed "Hey, let's mess up this greasy weasel!", and started running after the ermine.

Cassandra turned around, hearing the three behind her suddenly pound into the ground, her eyes growing wide with terror as she saw the three booking it after her. The erming girl decided, that this was a good time to book it, she raced towards the dorms as fast as she could, looking out for any shadows ahead of her. As she closed ahead and approached a streetlight, casting a pool of light and safety on the sidewalk, one of her persuers lept up behind her, grabbing her by her pony tail from behind. Cassandra's head lurched back, and she continued running forward, feeling the pain as a small clump of hair got ripped off of her head. She stumbled forward as her attacker stumbled back into her two compatriots, briefly tripping the other two up in the process, as Cassandra had a moment to briefly regain her momentum.

Her attackers vanishing into the distance, Cassandra the erming finally slipped off into the darkness, heading back towards the dorms.



Tucked away in the corner in a small wooded area of campus, was an old campus dorm, it's brickwork old and worn, small stones covered in moss, with new electronic lanturns sitting atop them, floated at head height above the path. The dorm itself covered in leaves and moss, with small twinkling lights around it, with many lights lit up through the windows, showing figures studying within.

Tucked away, up on the ninth floor, in one of those dorm rooms, a tiny white mouse girl with fairy wings sat on a small palm sized pillow, staring up at a giant screen. Behind her was a normal sized bed, with another on the opposite side of the room. One side covered in electronic diagrams, and amusing computer lingo, the other covered in engineering diagrams, silly posters describing laws of electronics and manifestations of physical magic, and engineering schematics of famous robots. 

A tiny keyboard sitting on her lap, the little mouse clacked away, puzzling over a piece of code, a concerned look on face, she let out a groan of annoyance and raised one of her hands in the air, gesturing towards a small crystal sitting on a far shelf. The crystal floated up a cap of metal around its base glittering in the light, and zipped over to her, slipping into a port on the side of the monitor, and the little mouse girl started furiously typing, grabbing files from the optical storage drive on the crystal.

Behind her, a soft chime rings from the door, the little bell strung above it ringing. Startled away from her work, the small fairy mouse turns around, only to see a very bedraggled erming girl, her hair all messed up and tossed about.

"Lunati!" the erming girl eeks and rushes towards the little mouse. The little fairy mouse eeks, and with a poof, expands to full size, just short of the ermings height. Letting out a squeek as she's hugged tight, her arms straight down at her sides, unable to move.

With a muffled voice buried in Cassandra's arms "Welf hellof to youf toofs".

Cassandra squeezes her tight "You wont believe what happened to me mousie, there were three really mean girls after me, and I had the worst night".

Lunati glances back at her computer, the code half done and incomplete, the thoughts of the problem she's been working on half formed in her head. Those half formed ideas that she had vanish in a puff of stress, completely lost to the sands of time, never to be recovered. Her progress of hours and hours work, the small pieces put together, completely vanish.

Lunati sighed, and gave her roomie a tight hug, "It'll be alright, I know you had a totally awful night, it was stressful?"

Cassandra grumbles "Yeah it was awful, but like I'm just done now. It's scary out at night." the erming trails off, glancing over at the screen behind Lunati, her code half done. "What is this junk? That so doesn't look like a class assignment."

Lunati sighs, "It's something I was doing for work on the side, we're working on a project for a huge client right now, I'm working on the code for the exploit that we're using to get into this server, since we found a major vulnerability, I'm just trying to setup a good test environment for it, and figure out what to do to reproduce it dependably, then I have to write up the report later on."

Cassandra sneers "And you thought this was more important than walking me home at night? You know it's nasty out there."

"Cassie, you walk home every night, you didn't take the shortcut again did you? You know those wolf girls have been giving you crap for months."

Cassandra huffs, glancing off to the side briefly, and swallows. "You still should have been there," she sneers, her voice raising to a yell "AND YOU SHOULD HAVE WALKED ME BACK. This is all your fault."

Cassandra turns around with a huff, and walks towards the bathroom in the little dorm room, and slams the door. Sounds of pounding, and glass breaking can be heard in the other room.

Lunati sighs, glancing back over at her project, due in a few days for work, and sits back down, her focus totally ruined. She starts typing up a short summary of where she left off, trying to get back into a good headspace, trying to focus once more on the work that needs to get done.

Over the next few nights, Lunati walks Cassandra back home to their dorm, making sure she gets home safe at night for the rest of the week, the weekend looms, more free time arises, and the deadline on the following Monday draws near.

With growing dread, Lunati slowly realizes she has to finish the project quickly after nights of walking Cassandra home all week, her project is only partially done, she does eventually manage to get the exploit working partially, with a brief writeup, just before the weekend, she tells Cassandra that she has to attend to her project, although Cassandra waves her off, and she goes to work, her storage crystal in her pocket, with a working messy form of the exploit, and a half done report. 



As the weeks drove on, Lunati continued to work on her project, after many disrupted nights, and some despair, she got called into the offic by her boss, and had to head on over.

Weaving through the little college town that surrounded her university, and just a short jaunt away, paved tiled sidewalks for pedestrians, and passing by the various rail and sky lines that served the city, she finally got to her destination, a little tucked away shop, dust in the windows, and a dancing little robot with large round googly eyes, undulating like a giant tube, two arms waving in the air, with a small screen on its chest, flashing messages "Keep your data secure!", "Audit any time, any day!", "We Hax Your Box!" and many similar ones. It's servos putting out a dull whine as it wiggled back and fourth. 

Lunati opened the door, a small bell chiming above her, as she called out, "Hey, Acidcool, you there?".

From the depths of the store, behind floating boxes, wires, a mishmash of dusty monitors, in the far back, a striped head peeks out from behind a dusty door, that looks like it's been sitting open for years. On many of the monitors, information about the cities traffic routes blinked on and off, showing live data of which street were busy, what lights were on, or off. Some of them blinking a small option saying "Change?". Other assorted pieces of miscellanious data such as public records and other details flickered on other monitors, showing off the skill of what the little shop had done in the past.

"Hey Lunati, you better be bringing an update for me, I haven't heard from you all week!" a baratone voice echoes out, a bit of snark in it's voice, and obviously hiding a smile.

Lunati snorts, and smiles heading to the back, and passes over her data crystal wordlessly to the boorish looking skunk dressed in an old worn dusty flak jacket, the chair he's sitting in let's out a loud squeek as he shifts to grab it. 

He plugs it in, and starts to look over the data that Lunati has collected, humming to himself, "Your report is looking pretty good so far." 

Shortly after he taps his screen, "So I see you're running into a bit of a scope problem here, you're saying that we're going outside of the whitelist that the client gave us?"

Lunati nods, "Yeah, I figured out that when doing a network scan, one of the sites they host is a huge forum, and had a public and open directory, showing it's full user list, and the hash table for their entire userbase. It's not something that should be open to the public, so I wasn't sure what to do. I just stumbled across it a couple nights ago."

"Oh for goodness sakes," Acidcool grumbles, grabbing space between his eyes, as he shuts them tight, a look of pain passing over his face. "Alright," he mumbles through gritted teeth, "next time you stumble across this significant is a time you stop right away, call me, and I'll call it out to the client. Any time you stumble across a critical vulnerability like this, we stop everything and call it out to the client, you clear?"

Lunati blushes and squeeks, nodding quickly looking horribly ashamed. "But it's not the client though, it's just a site they host, wouldn't that be just a normal thing to report?"

Acidcool shakes his head "Nope, you stop everything, and call it out right away, any time you find something that exposes people who use a site, and that's open on public networks, you need to call it out right away so they can do triage and stop it. Bah, it's going to be hell to pay for this." He grumbles the last part out and continues, "So, to save my time digging through this, what took you so long getting back to me? You're usually a lot faster."

Lunati signs and replies sheepishly, "My roomie has been having a lot of trouble lately getting bullied, so I've been dealing with a lot of personal stuff, between that and other classes I got behind on what was needed for this, I'm really sorry."

With a chuckle, the skunk nods, "Alright, understandable, ah the college years...", he trails off reminiscing briefly, "Next time remember though, you have to call it out, I can't emphasize that enough, we'll likely be in hot water and the client is going to have to go into triage for this, so here's what we're going to do...."

The next several hours were spent going over next steps, and how to deal with this situation, and the fallout that would result. Going into intricate detail about how to deal with the client, so everything didn't fall apart.

Many calls to the client, days of additional testing, and another couple hundred pages being added to the report Lunati was working on, conflicting with nights of bullying from Cassandra with the wolf girls, Acidcool and her worked on making sure the client was well informed of the fallout of everything, until a few weeks down the line, and nights coming to the shop, they continued to hash out plans.



Back at her dorm, after several weeks had passed, Lunati was perched on her bed on a small shelf on the wall. Her bed a tiny one taken from a doll house, with tiny sequins on it. A little bedside table, with a small thimble of water sitting on it next to her. Lunati looked hurried, scribbling notes in a well worn and creased textbook, periodically peeking over the giant, compared to her, floating screen of her ongoing projects. On the opposite side of the room from her, behind her back, cassandra worked on her most recent project, a small clockwork automation, with a simple control unit, run by gears. Clunky and awkward, but operational, looking vaugely like a blocky weasel. 

Just at that moment, Luna noticed her wing felt a bit itchy. She gave it a shake, and a small bit of shimmery dust flew off behind her. Cassandra narrowed her eyes. "I wish you'd do that in the bathroom," she hissed. Cassandra didn't like having glitter all over her stuff.

Lunati squeeked, blushing "Sorry, I get all sparkly when I'm nervous..." she trailed off, gritting her teeth and squirming awkwardly. Lunati flittered her wings again, setting aside her notepad and brushing up the dust into a small pile, and scooping it into a thimble sitting at the foot of her bed. 

With a sigh, Lunati glanced back at her notes on the screen. During the last few weeks her and Acidcool had been going over information with the client. Apparently, the server they had run across was a huge online forum, it was all paid for and authorized by the client. 

Out of curiosity, Lunati went to pull up the site, flittering her wings. A huge puff of sparkling dust plumed behind her.

"Lunaaaa, you got glitter everywhere! I don't know how I stand you sometimes!" Cassandra fanned frantically in the air, keeping the dust away from her project, the ambient magic making some of her tools and some nuts and bolts start floating up. 

Cassandra deftly picked them up out of midair swiftly and with disinterested habit shoving them into a tumbler next to her desk. When she was done, with a sigh, she turned it on, the little machine spitting out dust into a vial by its side.

Lunati winced, glancing back at her screen, sitting a short distance away and several times her size. Feeling curious she pulled up the forum that her and acidcool were looking over, wondering what kind of place it was.

Much to her surprise it was mostly for vigilantees seeking justice. Many different sub forums dedicated to hunting down people who the forum goers saw as corrupt, who had been caught in scandal, had assaulted others, and those who stepped on others in society.

A betrayed and crossed lover, someone who had money stolen from them, lots of people with debts to settle who wanted their revenge. At the top of the list, was a totally crazy mutty labrador with magenta spots, who posted a long thread about hunting down anyone who threatened her virtual sanctuary. 

There was even a thread of her latest conquests, showing her with big heavy steel toed boots, and a bloody baseball bat. A large cape splattered in blood drifting behind her as she grinned into the camera.

Apparently that was Trixie, the one who owned the whole place. She organized the forum, organized the group, and made sure the work of setting revenants into the world had their justice carried out.

As Lunati was scrolling through all of the threads, and random topics, and horrifying pictures of bloody justice, one of them stood out, since the profile picture matched one of the wolf girls that Cassandra was always talking about, she paled, reading over what it said:

"Hey you motly scoundrels and badasses out there! So there's this twisted messed up bitch of a girl who causes trouble for me and my friends each and every night. She's a total cunt, and even ripped my coat earlier this week on campus. This scrap metal loser is always causing trouble digging up spare trash around campus and I hear she even steals batteries. She hangs out all the time with this little faerie mouse, who's a total computer nut. Either of them look familiar? Would love it if someone could take care of them for us."
Below was pictures of both Lunati herself, shrunk down, and sitting on Cassandra's shoulder. Cassandra was holding a robot head in her hands, with a vicious looking grin, looking quite malicious, her smock stained in red oil that looked an awful lot like blood. Lunati recognized it, it was an early proto type to the one Cassandra had on her desk right now.
Lunati blinked quickly and turned towards Cassandra, "Hey, are those wolf girls still causing trouble for you? I like, literally just stumbled across one of them, and she says you ripped her coat, does she look familiar to you?"

As Cassandra whipped her head back away from her project, Lunati was tapping  the screen with the profile picture of the wolf girl in question, an animated loop of her making a hand gesture of devil horns and sticking her tongue out, in an endless loop, wearing what, to Cassandra, was a very familiar big puffy coat.

Eyes turning wide, the white erming girl gritted her teeth. "Oh yes, yes yes she does" in her had the piece of scrap she was holding crinkled. Still holding it tight in her hand she got up and peeked over at Lunati's screen trying to calm herself with deep breaths. Reading through, she went past what was up, and continued reading down the page with her tiny mouse friend.

"So," she continued "that little wolfy bitch is going to be causing trouble this next week, and is going to see if she can team up and cause some trouble for me, and is getting help tomorrow night!?"

Lunati nodded grimly. "Yeah, this came up through work, apparently this place is part of what we were looking into, I just happened to bump into it as part of a recent thing, had to tell you since it looks risky."

Cassandra smacked a hand against her face, shutting her eyes tightly with stress. Mumbling under her breath "I really can't deal with this right now, not doing this, I don't want more, we're done, why did you have to dig this up? You know they've been nasty to me!"

"I thought you'd want to know? I can helllp..." Lunati trailed off awkwardly.

With a growl of rage Cassandra grabbed Lunati, and her small bed, opened their dorm room door, smacked both on the floor, and slammed the door. Shortly after its deadbolt going shut, and the sounds of smashing metal and turning gears could be heard from behind the door.

Cassandra was in a state of frustration and disbelief as Lunati left for the town to meet her mentor. She had been working diligently on her clockwork automation project, trying to distract herself from the recent stress and chaos that had engulfed her life. The thoughts of the looming threat from the wolf girls and the unsettling forum she had discovered weighed heavily on her mind.

Unable to concentrate any longer, Cassandra decided to take a break and stepped outside onto her small balcony. She hoped the fresh air and the view of the campus from her elevated position would help clear her mind. She leaned against the metal railing, her gaze distant and preoccupied.

As she stood there, a conversation on the floor below caught her attention. It was the familiar voices of the wolf girls, the same bullies who had been tormenting her for weeks. They were gathered in a small circle, huddled together in what appeared to be an animated discussion.

Cassandra strained to hear their words as they discussed their plans. It became evident that they had discovered Lunati's whereabouts and were planning a surprise for her. Cassandra's heart raced as she overheard snippets of their conversation.

The leader of the wolf girls, in her big poofy coat, spoke with a malicious glee in her voice, "We've got the little mousey cornered now. She won't see it coming. After the plan goes through tonight, Trixie wont have a problem anymore." She smirked, leaning back on the railing just below Cassandra.

Cassandra's anger and fear grew with each passing moment. She knew she had to warn Lunati about this impending threat. Leaning even further forward on the balcony to catch more of their conversation, she failed to notice that the railing was old and rusty.

With a sudden crack, the balcony railing gave way under Cassandra's weight. She gasped as she tumbled forward, desperately reaching out to grab hold of something, anything, to prevent her fall. But it was too late. The broken metal railing hit one of the wolf girl with the puffy coat on the head, sending her tumbling down to the ground below.

Cassandra's frantic scrambling was drowned out by the sound of the falling debris, and the wolf girl's voice was cut off mid-sentence. She landed with a sickening thud, and the shocked silence that followed was broken only by the other wolf girls sobs of shock and horror.

From below a pair of twin screams, along with a quick curse echoed out as the other two wolf girls ran off, the stomping of footsteps could be heard.

In shock, Cassandra slowly slumped against the door of her dorm gasping for air staring off at the night sky past the empty railing listening to frantic voices from further below. After a short while, she took a deep breath once more, stood up, and sat back down to work on her automation. Time was ticking, and she had work to do, and it had to be done, fast.



Lunati signed knowing that her roomie really responded to this sort of  thing badly. She was secretly hoping to herself this wasn't going to turn into one of those walking on eggshells moments. Given this response, she totally suspected it was going to be, she wasn't going to hear the end of this for awhile. 

Most pressing on her mind was that she was in the picture on the forum, and she was wondering what to do from there. With a sigh, since now was as good a time as any, Lunati once more had to head back to meet up with Acidcool to update him on her progress for this.

A total pain, but it was something that she had to do so she could get credit for this internship, and hopefully, get paid.

Heading back to the office, she was greeted to a slightly different site. She saw the front door kicked in, a massive bootprint on the sidemaking a massive dent, crowbar marks on its doorjam. The sock puppet robot in the window, no longer waving back and forth wildly, sparked and sputtered, smashed apart and dented it half made its motions. The tiny screen in the back broadcasting advertising sloganss dark and smashed in the middle. Glass cracked and splayed apart. Broken shards littered the storefront.

Walking inside, she saw that the floating electronics, already a maze of discarded parts, were now broken and shattered, many still floating in the air half together, shattered boards and cables dangling from above. In some spots floating platforms clumped together in midair, disrupted and smashed from the destruction. 

In the back of the shop, the usual clicking of a keyboard eerily silent. Stepping carefully towards the back and glancing all around, and listening intently for any sound Luna headed back with caution. With baited breath, she glanced into the back room where her mentor worked. 

Even greater destruction filled the room, notes strewn everywhere, drives stomped flat crystals shattered over the floor. The only thing left intact was the computer terminal in the back, showing an image from a familiar forum she had been to just a short week before. 

On the floor in front, much to her dismay she saw beaten to a bloody pulp her mentor, his limbs bent at unatural angles and all too much blood pooled on the floor. Lunati knelt down to check on him, and much to her horror he was ice cold. She stood up, staring down blankely for several minutes taking deep breaths not sure what to do. She glanced over at the monitor of her now former mentors computer, seeing a full summary of the report she had submitted weeks before, detailing her work on the security flaws with the forum, and the forums host, only submitted a short while before. Up above the computer, spraypainted in bright neon magenta were the words "Don't mess with Trixie!"

Cursing to herself She stepped outside shaking with adrenaline not wanting to be in there anymore. With a flick of her wrist a transparent screen appeared in front of her she quickly scrolled through the list trying to find the contact link for the local security firm that the shop had insurance with. A quick message later explaining the situation, frantically typed, she got a stock reply saying they were happy to be of service. 

Nervously waiting outside, she looked around the quiet side street of her now former job. Empty storefronts riddled the street, many windows boarded up, this part of the city not doing so well in recent years. Most of the doors  were darkened after years of neglect, looking up the windows of the apartments had their blinds drawn, in a concerted effort not to  see what was going on outside.

With no help in sight, it wasn't like she was able to get hired muscle any time soon, it looked like she would have to take matters into her own hands. Not wanting to step foot inside she brought up a small screen, connecting her portable computer to the local network. Smiling to herself, she was really glad to see that the local server and everything else was up and running just fine. It looked like all that had been smashed was the local machine, and she couldn't get anything from AcidCool's notes, but it looked like the main server was still up and running just fine, despite all the displays inside being smashed. By the look of it, just the floating work stations weren't working anymore.

This was totally Trixie's business, so it was time to do more exploring, now that she had a dead boss, and something to investigate.

From her previous incursions, per their Client's requests, the most important thing was making sure that the server, and the services hosted on them, were secure. Trixie's forum wasn't exactly totally secure given so much was public. But it probably wasn't exactly entirely authorized either, was it? Trixie had reacted fairly quickly to getting in, and apparently finding out what it looked like behind the scenes was very serious business. 

More caution was needed this time, so she routed her connection back through the campus network. The bitchy wolf girls were with Trixie, so a connection coming from campus wouldn't be that suspicious, connecting through some random server somewhere probably wouldn't bode as well, and might ring some alarms. 

Connecting back to Trixie's forum server, she once more saw the general files for the forum sitting out in the open, taking up space and open to anyone worldwide who knew where to peek. It was time to do a little more digging beyond just finding out it was there. It was just a little bit more, and she saw that she could prettty much pull up anything in the forums on the backend. Nothing much to see aside from getting access to user data and the files to run the forum. No write access sadly so the most she could do was download the information. 

She could see who was logged in, and see what they were doing, and there was a private chat going on between members, so with a quick peek, she decided to take a look and grabbed the video feed.

Trixie's face appeared on her screen, wearing a massive smile. About to switch on the audio, when suddenly Lunati noticed something sitting in the background of Trixie's shot, a very familiar street and herself sitting in the background, starting at her monitor right out side of the scene of the crime. With a gasp she looked up and over in the direction of the street where the video showed only to see Trixie's backside her arm in the air recording a video of herself. Much to her horror Trixie started to turn around wide eyed making eye contact with her up the street. 

Quickly stashing her computer, Lunati got up and started to make a dash for it. The shop wasn't too far from the local rail line if she hurried she could make the next train, get far away from here and get away from Trixie. But she had to make a good head start to get away. As she ran Lunati fixed her eyes on the traffic light two blocks up.

After a brief pause and fading into the distance behind her, Lunati heard an excited whoop, followed by a shout "Looks like we got a runner girls, let's finish the job!" fading quickly into the background. 

The fairy mouse still had a two block lead, and was using it to her advantage, after passing the traffic light she spared a quick glance behind her only to see much to her horror Trixie quickly closing the distance behind her only a bit short of a block and a half behind. Her lead wasn't going to last for much longer, and the rail station was still a good ten blocks away. 

Another two blocks up another light for the rail with large crowds funneling in and out of the busy downtown shopping district, she just had to make it past there , and try to get to the rail station, then she'd be home free. 

Glancing behind her Trixie was still in hot pursuit a determined look on her face running as fast as she could. Just up ahead as the fairy mouse ran into the crowd Trixie shouted out "You fucking thief! You better give my computer back you stupid rat!", her shout was full of rightious determined fury. Many eyes surrounding Lunati turned towards her, as what was going to be her refuge quickly turned into a parted way to let Trixie through behind her. Startled, Lunati's feet scrambled briefly on the pavement as she suddenly tripped. An angry looking wolf leered at her as she stood up, his foot extended forward angled up in the air. 

Losing a significant portion of her lead, a puff of glitter spattered all over as she stood up and rushed on, a trail glittering behind her from her wings.

Trixie's lead had shrunk dramatically and she was just a short ways behind Lunati, but not close enough to grab her just yet. Just up ahead, another set of traffic lights, with a moderate crowd waiting at the intersection, it would be just enough to give her a slight lead if she could break at the light. 

Pulling up her terminal, Lunati quickly pulled up the traffic site through the offices computer system, if she could change the light, she had a chance to get ahead for a brief moment. Weaving around a large group, Trixie was set back several hops away from Lunati, giving her just enough time to cross the street before Trixie could make it to the corner. Luna quickly flipped the switch, allowing the intersection to light up for traffic, and one of the many rail lines started to cut off her persuer, buying her a couple minutes with a sign of relief she spent a moment catching her breath before running on to the light rail station once more, a trail of glittering dust flowing behind her.

Just a bit further, thinking quickly, Lunati opted to take the underground path and quickly dashed down the stairs and rushed past the turn styles up ahead, dashing as quickly as she could to catch the next train. Which thankfully, wouldn't be departing for a few more minutes. She rushed along the platform, looking for a mostly empty train car, and hopped inside. Heading straight for an empty corner in the back she promptly shrunk down and curled up under one of the seats. She took a deep breath, it was finally quiet, and she had gotten away from Trixie. Just a few more minutes and this train would head off back to campus, and she'd be done for the night. She looked down at her hands, both of them shaking from running so much, and gripped them into two small fists and took a deep breath. Staring up at all the wads of chewing gum stuck under the seat, she sniffled, tears pouring down her face. 

There would be no more cozy nights solving puzzles with her mentor, no more swapping jokes late at night, no more solving silly coding puzzles. All of that was done. All she had to do was get away from the crazy chick who got him. And the worst part? This was just pure chance, they did what they were hired to do. And what did that amount for? All of this madness. Well, at least she had her friends... well friend Cassandra back at the dorm, that was something. 

Suddenly, much to Lunati's surprise, she heard a loud thud up by the door to the train. A studded combat boot smacked on the floor, along with the thud of a studded metal club landing tip down on the ground causing a giant puff of glitter that she had left behind to float up in the air. The tiny fairy mouse almost let out a little squeek, covering her mouth quickly.

"She can't have gone far, her trail led right to this train. Where in the world is she?", the terrifying and now familiar voice of Trixie muttered. Much to her horror she watched as the giant pair of boots thudded along the train floor. Soon after, she heard a loud thud, directly above her as Trixie sat down, right above her hiding spot. Trixie idily tapped her club on the ground, then leaned it up against the wall and let out a sigh. 

Staring up above Lunati tried to keep her composure tears still streaming down her face as terror once more gripped her heart hoping that the frantic beating of her heart, or shuttering breaths didn't reveal her location. 

Lunati slowly started creeping towards the edge of the seat, hoping she could get away from being under her persuer. Glancing across the aisle, she took a deep breath, glancing up, she would have to risk it and she quickly, but quietly as she could, dashed across. Glancing up she saw Trixie pull out her pocket pc, turn it on, and she heard the crackling of audio.

"Hey girls!", Trixie explained with a smile. "So done setting up preparations from your side?", Lunati heard the reply as a muffled voice coming from the other end, the volume not quite high enough to come over to her, even just a seat away. Trixie nodded at her screen, "Very glad to hear that, we're going to have to keep an eye out though, I lost the mouse, she's probably going to be heading back over to her dorms, so keep an eye out just in case she beats me there, the trail went cold on my side and she left me to an empty train car. Be prepared for her, I don't want any of those horrid hackers getting out of this. We hit the other two, and got the boss, she's the last one left. We get her, and there's nobody else who knows something they shouldn't, or who can interfere with us delivering our JUSTICE." The last word was delivered with a sharp snarl, accompanied by her smacking her studded bat on the ground. "Just make sure you tie up the rest of the loose ends on your side, and we can get back to kicking the snot out of our usual scumbags." Trixie glanced up at the roof of the train, and snickered, "With my luck she probably went on top of the train and is in another car, so I'm going to ambush her when we get off at the official stop, I should be able to get ahead without risking my head as this train goes through the tunnels over to the campus."

Trixie stood up, and walked over to the doors once more. "Alright, going quiet, I'm going to keep an eye out over here, watch on your side, I'll be there in a bit, there's only a few more spots to go until I'll be there to give you assistance, keep kicking ass in the meantime! You girls are awesome, I believe in all of you."

A few seconds later with a ding, the train arrived at its next stop, and the doors on Trixie's side opened to reveal the platform. Trixie stepped outside, and Luna heard a loud thud, followed by a yell. "Hey you nitwits! Nobody gets on this car but me! Take one of the other ones, if you see a fairy, or a mouse, let me know, and I wont kick the snot out of you, and I'll give you something nice! Or you wont end up like this poor sod!" A loud crack followed, sounding like crunching bones, she used the opportunity to move up another seat, slightly closer to the door, hoping she could escape at the next stop. Another couple of seconds, and Trixie walked back on to the train, the hiss of the doors closing behind her. The trail lurched on heading to its next stop. From here the fairy mouse could see how close they were to the next stop. Just three more stops, and she would be at the campus. She could reach out, get to the dorm, warn Cassandra, and get to safety. The train moved on, the lights from the station went away, and the train car went dark. Short flashes of light went through the window as the train passed the service lights. Two seconds between each one. Lunati took a deep breath, and started counting, sitting just a bit behind her, she heard the idle tapping of Trixies bat, keeping time with each thud of the train wheels. 

A brief flash of light and Lunati went for it, using that couple seconds of darkness to make it to the far sides of the doors. Putting a divider and a precious bit of distance between her and the crazy retriever mutt. Again she kept following the tapping, a few more sconds, and she managed to get away. Thankfully, totally unnoticed so far, she was now almost at the far doors from Trixie, and should hopefully be able to make a quick escape without being noticed in a few stops. There was still a good distance before the next stop so maybe one more jump would do it to make to a good spot next to the far door, she was almost there. Just as she was about to take advantage of the darkness once more, the entire cabin was filled with bright sunlight from outside. With a gasp she quickly crept back under the current seat she was hiding under, glad she hadn't yet revealed herself.

A couple of tense minutes passed, and the train once more came to a halt, this time, the doors opening up on the opposite side. Once more, Trixie stepped outside, briefly delivering her ultimatum to the few getting on at the current stop. Lunati hid securely in her hiding spot not wanting to risk being exposed if she headed out back into the open since she couldn't see the door Trixie exited from her vantage point right now. With a thud, she heard Trixie stomp back onto the train, and again the doors hissed behind her and the train went back into motion. This time, no darkness to conceal anything, Trixie started to walk up the train car, tapping her bat on the metal posts, a sharp clang as it smacked against each pole.

"I know you're nearby little mousie, I see more glitter this time, you aren't really stealthy are you?" Trixie laughed. "I'm pretty sure you're somewhere nearby and can probably hear me, and I am so going to get you. So how are you hiding? You faeries always have tricks up your sleeve, maybe you turned yourself I don't know, invisible?" Lunati heard a loud swish, followed by a deafening clang, as Trixie smashed one of the seats.

"You aren't going to last long, and I'm going to make sure you get what you deserve! The only good hacker is the hacker that stays out of my shit!" another smash, this time further away, Lunati used the opportunity to rush back to the far end of the car, where she originally started. Not as good, but better than being beat up. Another smash, taking care of another seat once more, from where she was, Lunati could see Trixie's bright pink hair float through the air, her cape spreading out behind her dramatically as she smashed two more seats as she laughed. Much to Lunati's horror, Trixie began slowly working along the car, systematically swinging her studded bat through the air, denting poles, and smashing seats, leaving no set of air untouched, carefully eliminating parts of the car. And focusing on areas where patches of glitter remained behind. With a quiet squeek she rushed back under her current chair just in time to see the chair right above her smash in. The dent going down so low that it almost hit her. 

The smashing continues, until she reaches the far end of the train car, where she hears Trixie jumping up and down and starting to kick in train seats. From her hiding spot, she glances back and the wrecked train car, seeing mostly everything smashed up. As the train gets to the next stop, the door stutters, unable to open, at the far end, she sees a wrinkled old badger glance inside, his eyes opening wide, as he quickly retreats. A short while later, the doors close once more. 

Trixie starts laughing, "Well I guess you aren't here after all, next up, we check upstairs!" Trixie hops up onto one of the dented railings, opens the roof hatch, and heads to the top of the train, the hatch closing behind her. With a sigh of relief, Lunati heads over to the far train door which was still working, holds on, and waits for it to get to the next stop. Up above, she can hear distant shouts from Trixie, followed by occasional clangs in the distance. The door finally opens, and Lunati steps off, resuming her normal size, and slips into the crowd around campus, heading back to the dorms.

The campus felt like a sanctuary as Lunati navigated the crowds, her heart still pounding from the encounter with Trixie. Every step reminded her of the peril she narrowly escaped, and the urgency to warn Cassandra loomed large in her mind.

Arriving at the familiar dorm building, Lunati swung open the door, finding Cassandra engrossed in her tinkering. In the midst of this impending doom, blissfully unaware of the impending catastrophe. She had been working on her clockwork automation project, unaware of the sinister events unfolding nearby. The tension and unease in the city seemed far away from her cozy corner, where gears, nuts, and bolts were her companions.

Pulling Cassandra away from her project the urgency spilled out as Lunati recounted the train chase and the ominous threat hanging over them.

Cassandra's eyes widened, a mix of shock and determination in her expression. "Trixie? Here? This is insane. We wouldn't have to deal with all of this stupidity if you hadn't gotten involved with all that dumb hacking stuff. You should have gone into robotics with me, there's no drama there you idiot."

"It's bad, Cassie. We can't take it lightly," Lunati urged, scanning the room for any signs of danger.

Cassandra sighed, turning her eyes back to her project, with her screwdriver she pushed a small metal piece off the head of her creation and it made a tinkling sound as it hit her desk.

Lunati swiftly packed essentials into a bag. Lunati gave an exasperated sigh, "We can't stay here. We need to get out."

Cassandra groaned with irritation, and carefully packed away her tools into her bag, and strapped her creation to the back as quickly as she could. 

As they left the dorm room in haste, a muffled explosion reverberated through the hallway, shaking the building. Panic surged, but Lunati grabbed Cassandra's arm, pulling her towards the stairwell.

"We have to go, now!" Lunati's voice cut through the chaos.

 Smoke and flames engulfed Cassandra and Lunati's room, through the smoking hole that remained in the side of the building twinking stars could be seen in the distance, the sky golden with sunset and flickering flames close by. The lower floor was a scene of terror as students scrambled for safety yelling and screaming trying to escape. Emergency alarms blared in discord, adding to the bedlam.

Lunati and Cassandra descended the stairs, narrowly avoiding the frightened stampede. The gravity of the situation hit them. Trixie's vendetta had escalated, putting not only their lives at risk but also those of everyone on the dorm floor.

The night air was cold against Lunati's face, but the fire within burned hotter. Trixie had crossed a line, and Lunati was determined to stop her before more lives were entangled in the web of chaos she had woven. She grit her teeth tightly, and pushed through the crowd to the bottom floors pulling Cassandra behind her. In the midst of the madness Cassandra suddenly pulled away right as they reached the bottom floor. 

Looking on in horror as most of everyone around her was running and screaming in terror from the scene two of the wolf girls had grabbed Cassandra and pulled her out of the crowd. The one wearing a biker jacket kept Cassandra restrained, while the other pulled Cassandra's bag away from her and laughed. She held up Cassandra's automation, the project Cassandra had been working on for months and grinned "Hey," she exclaimed with a vicious grin "I bet if we smash this, it will totally make today worse! Sucks to be you greasewad!"

Being pushed away by the giant mob, Lunati looked on in horror. She couldn't protect Cassandra, she couldn't get close, there wasn't any way to help this was going to be bad, Cassandra's final project was going to be ruined, she had to stop this! 

Lunati fumbled and pulled out her console, she knew Cassandra had been working on that thing for months, she knew the passwords, she knew how to get in, she had to fix this. She pulled up the remote login for Cassandra's automation, and with a few quick keystrokes set it to attack the girl holding it up. The wolf girl with the fuzzy boots got a surprise as the little robot suddenly whirred to life, it's eyes glowing a vicious red, it's razor sharp teeth turning into an evil grin matching the one the wolf girl had been sporting mere moments ago just before the little automation lept towards her and started viciously attacking. The other wolf girl yelped in surprise and let go of Cassandra, and started to move to protect her friend.

Suddenly as Lunati looked on her vision was filled with the sudden sight of a very familiar bat swinging towards her face. The world spun as she was knocked over and her view of the world went topsy turvey. Framed in the firelight of the ruin of the dorm,  "You think you can outsmart me, little hacker?" the now familiar voice of Trixie hissed, her neon hair casting eerie shadows in the smoky aftermath of the explosion. "You were always poking your nose where it didn't belong. And now, you've crossed the line."

Frantic and dizzy, Lunati looked at Trixie with terror. "What are you talking about?!?" she stammered. "I didn't do anything!"

Trixie's voice dripped with sarcasm. "Oh, don't play innocent with me. I know you were the one who hacked into my server. You tried to stop me from delivering justice."

Lunati's confused terror deepend. "Justice? What justice!? Your forum wasn't even supposed to be there!"

Trixie sneered, her eyes narrowing with determination. "It's a place for girls like my wolf girl friends, a sanctuary from creeps like your disgusting friend Cassandra. You and your kind have no business interfering. I was exposing the truth, revealing the monsters hiding among us. And you, you tried to protect her."

Trixie's word hung in the smokie error, the heat from the burning building making her cape flap in the breeze. Her hands tightened around her studded bat once more, getting ready to deliver another blow.

In desperation, Lunati yelled, "We weren't even looking for your stupid server! It was pure luck we found it! What's wrong with you you maniac!?"

Trixie blinked with confusion, very obviously not expecting what Lunati was saying. "What?"

Lunati, her voice trembling but determined, raised her hands slowly. "Listen to me! We were not hunting down your server, or attempting to hack into it. We were hired to perform a security audit on your server by the company that hosts it. I didn't know about your intentions or your forum's purpose. We were just doing our job. " Lunati choked, starting to tear up, tears streaming down her face, "Nobody needed to die." She sobbed.

Trixie's eyes narrowed. "A security audit?" she repeated, her voice laced with doubt.

Lunati nodded, the desperation in her voice evident. "Yes, a security audit. I didn't know the details of your forum or what you were doing. I was just trying to identify vulnerabilities and report them back to the server host. We were writing up a report for the hosting company, really."

Trixie huffed, and stared down at Lunati, pondering what to do next. She took a deep breath and smelled the smoking a burning air. "I still think justice needed to be served. Don't go near my forum, or my community ever again. I'll get it moved next time."

Lunati snickered, "Look, next time just password protect your stuff, I wouldn't have even made a note of it if your forum files were literally just sitting out in the open unencrypted, if it's not me, someone else would have, probably with worse intentions you know."

Trixie paled, still looking disgusted, her free hand massaging her temple. Face, meet palm. "Alright, I never want to see your face again". She turned away, heading over to where the wolf girls ran off. As she left, she spat over her shoulder "Go back to your auditing, little corporate rat."
 corporate rat."

Lunati breathed a sigh of relief, and shook herself her fear slowly wearing off. This wasn't how things were supposed to turn out, it wasn't fair. She caught her breath, and sat watched as her dorm burned. Staying put, and keeping an eye out for Cassandra. Her queries to the little automation coming back empty. 

As the crowd thinned as the day drifted towards night, and the moons shined in the skies, Lunati saw a much dishevled Cassandra coming her way. Her clockwork weasel strapped to her bag, looking completely torn up and beat up, its formerly red eyes dark. Cassandra on the other hand was covered in soot, dirt, and scrapes, and looked absolutely furious. She was battered but alive, and that was all that mattered.

Cassandra, still visibly shaken and bruised her eyes filled with anger. "You had no right to hijack my project like that Lunati. If it wasn't for your stupid side projects, this mess would have never happened in the first place. I'm done, I nearly got killed because of your problems, I want nothing to do with it! I'm out of here, and you and your sparkling glitter can get lost. Don't touch my stuff, ever. I'm out of here." Cassandra growled. Cassandra headed off, mixing into the remaining gawkers and crews that were working on putting out the fires.

Lunati stared off into the distance, her life in shambles sitting on the hill, nervous glitter trailing off behind her, wondering what came next.

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