Another Strange Morning

Earlier...

In a certain small forest near the tram station, all of the forest residents of bunnies, birds, and other cute Earthling animals were huddled up shivering in terror around a particular sleeping young woman. The animals refuses to leave the young woman's side in fear of the monsters lurking outside the forest and the loud destructive noises that's happening right now. Though for some reason the young lady was able to sleep through the noises while her AI companion was knocked out from pulling an all-nighter writing her novel...or fan-fic.

The young woman with white hair and violet ends was sleeping peacefully on the grass near the pond without a care in the world as if she let go of the things that were weighing her down. 

Then, a certain parrot walked over to Melanie, the young sleeping beauty, and nibbled on her nose a bit to try waking her up. Unlike the other animals, the parrot knew the two-legged animal could possibly get rid of the ugly terrifying monsters outside the forest. It has seen Melanie in action inside the forest and even outside since there was free delicious food where the strange looking blocky trees with no leaves were.

Anyway, waking up the sleeping beauty was a slow progress and the parrot in question didn't want to make any noises to try waking her up, in fear of alerting the monsters outside. So far, none of the monsters came to this forest during the night as if they instinctively fear whatever was sleeping here. But it was only a matter of time, so the parrot got its flock to help wake Melanie up.

They nibbled and poked Melanie in various places, and even some sat on her face but the only reaction that came from her was a grumble. 

Alas, the heavy sleeper was not a morning person and the flock of parrots' attempts seemed fruitless until...

(Ah ah go deeper~)

A certain parrot started mimicking the strange sounds that came out of humans whenever they visited this forest in pairs at night, the sound that kept this bird up at night whenever it happened. Slowly the temperature around Melanie was rising causing the animals to move away from her but close enough to feel safe in her presence.

Then...

"WHO'S FUCKING IN THIS FOREST AGAIN, ESPECIALLY WHEN I'M SLEEPING HERE!"

The sleeping beauty has woken up.

Melanie was riled up and had both hands each holding a blue fireball with hints of violet in the flame. She scanned her environment to see all of the cute animals shivering in fear and a certain parrot almost sweating from fear.

'Birds sweat?'

The passing thought came to mind but Melanie shook it away as she wanted to reassure the small helpless animals.

"It's okay I'm not mad anymore. See? No fire coming out of my hands."

Her gentle voice and reassuring smile was a contrast to her usual cold expression around other people...most people. But around animals that don't scheme or have ulterior motives, Melanie could freely express herself.

Their shivering stop as they started to huddle around Melanie again giving out cute noises but in a low tone which caught her attention along with several parrots screaming out 'Danger!'. Melanie, upon hearing this, paid more attention to her surroundings and suddenly heard distant fighting that was going on near where the tram station was.

She then check her smartwatch to see any alerts, but notice that the network was down. Upon seeing this, Melanie decided to check with her trusty IT support....paxian partner that her family spent a fortune to personally hire.

"Jen?"

[Mmmm....]

"Jen wake up!"

[Five more minutes...]

"Haa....wake up or I'll send a pic of your sleeping face to Kat"

Melanie's last line was like an adrenaline boost for Jen as she suddenly appeared in front of her in her full goth outfit and extremely alerted in under a second.

[I'm awake now Mel. What do you want if you're gonna use that threat?]

"Can you check the central network?"

[Really? Can't you just check-huh? Why's it down? And why do I hear fighting over there princess?]

"Haa....dammit."

Melanie muttered under her breath upon hearing the bad news then switched gears.

"To answer your question, well we're about to find out. My guess is that it could be aliens or another peasant insurrection that is somehow happening in the core systems."

Melanie's educated guesses was based on xenonoids being known to send a small force into the core systems in hopes of damaging the UHA's infrastructure such as Mars or Earth. The other guess was more far fetch as insurrections were extremely rare in the core systems especially when the government was playing an active role in people's welfare...at the cost of limiting free enterprises. Meaning at best, the insurrection could come from some shadow corporate group that somehow dodged the UHA's surveillances.

Regardless, Melanie decided to investigate the nearby noises with no weapons but purely her esper power. She petted some of animals and reassured them that everything was going to be okay then headed out.

"Jen can you reach Kat or any of the paxians?"

[That's what I'm trying to do, but something is interfering with our personal network. The only possible explanation is that someone in the Omega Academy group chat sabotage it which isn't possible. No paxian in history has ever done this kind of thing.]

The paxian's personal network was the exclusive network between all of the paxians in the academy letting them contact each other and even the outside world without alerting unauthorized humans. It operates on the backdoor of the central network, and can maintain connection if the central network was shutoff. 

Now that this network was cutoff, the situation turned even worse causing Melanie's face to slowly go grim as several thoughts started running through her head. All of them led to one particular person.

'Dean...no he's strong so I shouldn't be too worried plus Kat is with him. With this kind of situation, Kat is allowed to reveal herself to Dean'

Her heart raced for a moment, but her logical thinking quickly calmed it down. Though Melanie still felt slightly anxious to the only person she cares about in this accursed academy. 

Once out of the forest, the sight in front of the tram station was...a bloody mess.

Right out of the tram station was piles of corpses that were dismembered with no limbs attached. The amount of corpses caused the grassy area to be soaked in blood and various red puddles could be seen.

And in the middle of the corpses were two people whom seem to just finish killing off whatever was attacking them. One of two was bald and soaking red from the blood while the other miraculously had minimal blood on her.

"Haa...Veronica...haa...could you please stop charging straight in and leaving your backside open?"

"Oh come on love, if I do that then I wouldn't be able to efficiently cut through these idjits. Plus I trust ya to cover me bee-hind."

.

.

.

"Why did I have to meet Veronica Swordheart out of everyone in this academy."

[Well princess, at least it's not Mark.]