The Loiness' Hunt

It was a perfect day? Well, it had been until that horrible thing had happened!

For once, Calamityville had been perfectly calm. No robberies, explosions or maniacal geniuses to stop. Lioness had actually been able to be her lovable alter ego, Pennilope "Penny" Patterson. The happy, unassuming Computer Forensics major, Penny loved to study and hang out with her friends. On that day, all she had to focus on was studying for her Criminology final. Then, her arch-nemesis, Hyena, had stalked back onto the scene.

Lioness absolutely hated Hyena. The woman was deceitful, crafty and a total egotistical villan. Plus she had the same annoying laugh as her name sake. The only difference between her and the animal was that the creature laughed out of fear, the woman laughed when one of her many plots had it's success.

Hyena had robbed a bank, stolen a T-rex fossil from the Calamityville Natural History Museum, and even tried to uleash an army of mutant zombies on the city. Every time, Lioness had been the only one strong, quick and clever enough to stop Hyena's schemes.

The Mayor had even given Lioness a special medal of honor the last time she had sent Hyena to Calamityville Super-Max Prison. Still it was exhausting being the town's hero, sometimes it was a luxury just being Penny.

Today, she had been trying to log into the University Library's WiFi. She didn't see the usual "CMU-student" network to join. Desprate, Penny scanned the screen of her phone. Finally she found "Library Internet" it wasn't the right one but maybe the IT department had set up a new router. Penny noticed it was password protected, that should mean it was secure. Assuming it was fine, Penny entered the usual "CMUwelcome1!" It connected right away, strange that they didn't set a new password or notify any of the students.

Penny gasped and quickly dropped her phone as shrill cackles played over its speakers at full volume. As if that wasn't bad enough, sparks and smoke started coming out of her phone. She quickly found a fire extinguisher and put out the resulting blaze. Not until after this did she realize that she could hear the same laughter echoing through the Library. "Oh no!" Penny exclaimed to herself. She quickly pulled the fire alarm and moved to the nearest exit.

It took the fire department five minutes to put the flames out. While Fire Cheif Dan was still on the scene, Penny went and talked to him. "You know it was me who pulled the alarm?" She asked. He gave her a curt nod. "It was a good thing you did;" Dan said. "That gave everyone a chance to get out...Do you know why the fire started?" Penny frowned, "Sort of;" she said. "I think someone set up a fake router after somehow disabling the original. This fake router then downloaded some malware that caused all internet enabled devices connected to it to malfunction and ignite." Dan scrunched his eyebrows in concern. "That's a weird thing to say;" he replied. "I think I understand where you're coming from. That makes this fire arson. I'll notify the commissioner that there needs to be a criminal investigation. He may send somone to talk with you; I'll get your information."

Once Penny had finished this task she went back to her dorm room in Fenway hall. She brooded for a bit, she was by no means a fool, she had just given in to stress. While it wasn't Hyena's usual modus operandi or signature, Penny's guts told her that her sworn enemy was behind this cyber-attack.

She quickly booted up her laptop and looked up the Calamityville Department of corrections website. She searched for the name "Sally 'Hyena' Henderson". This brought up all the information Penny needed. Apparently, Hyena had escaped custody the previous night while being transferred into a new cell block. Police had tracked her to an abandoned warehouse but she had somehow eluded capture.

Filled with a new sense of urgency Penny pulled her blinds closed. Thankfully, she had a private room, no questions about her costume from nosy roommates. She donned her golden-brown leotard, faux fur greaves, gauntlets and lion mask. Making sure there was no one arround, Lioness dashed out into the halway opened up a window and jumped to an adjacent rooftop.

Lioness found Hyena's last known location easily. Apparently, Hyena had broken a window in the warehouse's second story to get inside. Careful not to cut herself, Lioness climbed through the opening. She stealthily lowered herself onto the metal floor of the catwalk.

It was dark inside the large, empty space, luckily the Lioness could see just as well in darkness as noon day sun. Hyena had not been entirely successful in obscuring her trail. Some of the glass must have cut her. Gravitational drops had spattered on the metal grating at a regular interval, marking her quarry's path.

The blood drops led downstairs to a trap door in the cement base of the old building. Lioness tried to remember what she knew of the city's history. At one point in the 1920s, Calamityville had built a system of tunnels to facilitate public works and matenance. It looked like Hyena had found this door and assumed it lead there. Only one way to find out.

As she opened the door, Lioness recoiled from the scent of rotten flesh. She climbed the ladder down into the tunnel. Immediately she saw what could only be Hyena. There was a pool of clotted blood beneath the fallen villan. A huge deep gash had split open Hyena's arm. When the escaped convict had gone through the broken window, she must have lacerated the brachial artery. How Hyena had made it to this spot before bleeding out, Lioness wasn't sure.

The new facts made one thing clear, Hyena hadn't launched the Malware. So who was responsible for the attack on the Library? Being wrong was an awful feeling. She needed to contact the police but without her phone, how could she? Maybe there was a working payphone somewhere in this city.