Charlie paused. The shiver of the full moons above her causing a resonance that bathed the city in an almost luminous glow between the heavy clouds. ‘What was that?’ A deep silence followed the slight scratching that had arrested her careful skulking through the refuse that cluttered the alley.

One could never be too careful out at night. And tonight was shaded with more foreboding than most with the rare concomitance of the moons flooding the alleyway. The angles and recesses of the buildings stood in jagged and harsh shadows made all the deeper by the flares of layered moonlight between the rapidly changing clouds. A storm was imminent.

Her breath misted about her as she strove to isolate whatever it was that had disturbed her prowl. She knew these streets. And yet it was as if she was suddenly the interloper. Her heart hammered at her ribs. This was her patch. She knew it like the back of her hand. The clashing shadows didn’t change this.

But yet they had.

Her breath was catching now. Coming in shortening gasps. The familiar was washed away in a tide of danger. She was hunted. Perspiration beaded her brow as she carefully wiped her clammy hands on her roughspun pants palming her shivs even as her eyes tracked the unfamiliar shadows.

All was still.

Charlie started to relax. She was jumpy. Freaking herself out with an overactive imagination. There was nothing here except perhaps a few rats also hunting for something to consume. Her crew was depending on her. Well depending was perhaps too strong, she was but one of several scavengers. But she was the best.

She stood carefully from her crouch, ready to keep moving. Nerves be blowed. She was better than this. She needed to keep moving.

A sudden weight bore her to the ground. The shock was as total as the silence of the attack. A dense and wirery body muscled into hers, bowling her over in a flurry of limbs even as her satchel was torn from her back.

Charlie tucked her head as she fell, protecting her neck and angling one shoulder to take the fall. She turned the fall into a roll, heedless of the detritus that fouled her tunic, her shivs tucked securely up alongside her forearms where they wouldn’t impede her movements or impale herself. Regaining her feet she flexed her fingers, gripping the wrapped shards of painstakingly sharpened metal. Her assailant rose from where it had landed with a soundless snarl. Her bag had saved her life as the wild dog shook it fiercely. If it had latched on to her in that first attack as it had no doubt intended, she would be dead already. A warm trickle at her collar in time with the thunder of her pulse let her know her had not escaped entirely unscathed. There was no time to assess the extent of the damage as she fixed her eyes on her attacker.

It was dark and doglike and yet not. And it had attacked her from above. She had never heard of a dog climbing and yet there was no other alternative. Charlie gave herself a mental shake. Focus! It was not time for conjecture. The monster was already readying itself for another attack, lips pulled back in an obscenely gummy snarl with oversized teeth bristling from a mouth too small for them.

A panic threatened to overset her. Ruthlessly Charlie clamped down on her thoughts and emotions. This was do or die. A thick cloud was rolling in, obscuring both moons. If she lost the light she was doomed. Even as she registered this she was moving, throwing herself forward in another roll.

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This was not direction that her opponent had expected, causing it to overshoot in it’s own lunge on a fleeing prey and come crashing down on her rather than bowling her over and, while it’s claws were fearsome, she was away from the reach of its teeth snapping uselessly at her heels.

Conversely, its body was well within reach of her shivs. She hammered them in, punching as hard and as fast as she could and then, as she rolled away, dragging one through the hamstring of its left rear limb.

She was bruised, bleeding with a painful scratch where it had lashed out and connected with her left arm but it had come off worse. The notdog was wheezing with a bubbling gurgle and it was dragging a leg. Ha! She had got a lung as well as limiting its mobility and she still had both her weapons.

The snarl of the monster was more desperate. There was no backing down despite its wounds. Charlie gasped for air as her body rode an adrenaline rush. The clouds closed in and thunder echoed on the heels of a flash of lightning. Darkness enveloped the alley and sound ceased in the aftermath of the thunder. The storm was right overhead. Charlie jumped as high as she could. Not because she saw the attack coming. She couldn’t hear anything in the ringing of her ears. She couldn’t see anything with the moonlight obscured. But she knew an attack was coming and, if she were the attacker, she would definitely use the cover of darkness. She didn’t need to wait for confirmation before moving.

She came crashing down on it even as they tumbled out of the alley into the deserted square. She lost one of her shivs on its shoulder, jarring it out of her hand, but the other found the base of its neck and sunk into the hilt.

The monster whirled on her, ripping her shiv from her grasp as it went for her throat. In desperation and raw instinct she threw her left arm up and blocked those ravenous teeth from tearing out her life. Indescribable pain wracked her as her forearm cracked and her whole body was flung around. It shook her like a doll, refusing to let go.

Charlie was beyond pain. There was only the conflict. Nothing else existed and she refused to give up. She had lost her weapons so she jambed her stiffened fingers into its eye and then with a lunge bit down on its nose as hard as she could. This was evidently somewhat unexpected as the monster released her mauled arm as it flinched away tearing its muzzle from her gritted teeth with a spray of blood even as her questing hand found the shiv lodged in its neck and dragged it forth. A gush of blood from its neck rewarded her efforts. She had hit a major vein. The monster staggered, its rear leg giving way even as it sluggishly shook its head.

Agony like never before wracked her. She couldn’t bear to even look at her wrecked arm. But it was not finished yet and she would finish it. The monster had collapsed and was watching her with a half lidded eye full of baneful hate. With a grimace she staggered to her feet. She would finish this. She was delirious with pain and getting tunnel vision. She would finish this. She was repeating herself. A mantra. A focus. Then she would rest. Finish it. With a scream she threw herself at her nemesis, stabbing her shiv into its ruined eye and deep into its brain.

A cascade of dings surrounded her even as a blue box filled her vision. Pain forgotten, Charlie threw her good arm up in the air in triumph as she rose to her feet. She had unlocked the System interface early. Before she could even begin to scan the notification a fresh stab of lightning bracketed her with deafening thunder. Energy beyond comprehension flooded her. Freshly initiated System mechanics, still in the process of integrating its newest member, strove to compensate and dissipate and mitigate the overloading energy. With a concussive blast the System shunted the excessive energy into an uncontrolled emergency teleport to prevent blowback into System infrastructure.

In the ringing silence that followed the square was forlornly empty. Empty except for the emaciated corpse of a naked young man, mutilated with multiple stab wounds and a makeshift shiv still jutting out of his ruined eye.