Chapter 1 Loading Railgun, Please Wait
In a certain city, a certain event was happening with certain certainty, that almost certainly would include the words certain being way overused. However in this case Chocobo's were also certainly involved, which at least meant other c words were getting a chance to be used, even if the rest of the alphabet was secretly plotting a revolution.
"We got it, we finally got it!" Screamed Saten, who had the misfortune to be a typo away from a major figure in Christian lore. Fortunately living in Japan had ensured she hadn't had to suffer being made fun of this fact repeatedly. She was also a level 0 Esper, which would likely be consider a major drawback in a rpg based around a City of Psychic powers. Fortunately she wasn't and instead it just meant she suffered social stigma and insecurity issues instead... which was probably worse, come to think of it.
Uiharu pulled out a little iPad. Unlike her friend, she was actually a full blown Esper with a power. Unfortunately her Level 1 power was 'Thermal Hand' and that didn't let her shoot fireballs, but instead let her keep things the same temperature as long as they weren't to hot or cold to hold instead (which did admittedly have a lot of scientific and commercial uses she was unlike to ever even comment on).
"So I'm going to major in hacking, science, acrobatics, slight of hand and stealth, while your covering detection, diplomacy, cookery, animal handling and first aid skill wise right?" Uihara asked as she took the game and its hardware out of the box.
Saten nodded.
"And your grabbing maces as your primary weaponry, so we can abuse that stun and shock being on different timers and keep our opponents nearly permanently out of action right?" Uihara inquired.
"Of course, and since everyone going to be chasing after swords and guns, it should be easy to get cheep ones on the player markets too!" Saten replied with a mischievous grin.
"And I still count as armed when my hands are busy because I took unarmed fighting." Uiahru explained with a evil giggle. "There are so many way to abuse that mechanic!"
They finished setting up the hardware and installing the software
"Now to put these builds into action and take over the server!" Uiharu shouted out loudly as months of beta testing in the name of 'Judgement safety checking' was about to pay of big time. She then broke into evil and over the top laughter (1). It's perhaps worth noting at this point that Uiharu was a seriously competitive online gamer.
Meanwhile a certain level 5 with a fondness for frog mascots was out alone on the streets, the surprisingly empty streets in fact.
"Where is everyone today?" Mikoto silently thought as she walked down the underground shopping district with about five people present as company as far as her eye could see.
The last time it had been this empty, it had been when that vampire book had come out, but thankfully she least had Kuroko's company, who found the whole idea of reading about 'some guy based romance' disgusting apparently. But this time it seemed even Kuroko had been caught in whatever had stolen away most of the cities attention.
Mikoto decided there was only one way she was going to get to the bottom of this.
"Hey you!" She shouted as a random blond haired male student who looked younger than her by a few years. "where is everyone today?"
The boy looked terrified.
"FFSACO is out!" He spurted out in a fearful tone.
"Er?" Was all Mikoto could reply with as the young boy shouted out a load of letters.
"Final Fantasy Special Academy City Online Edition." He explained. before throwing himself at her feet. "And please don't kill me, I'm to young to die!"
Mikoto blinked.
"I'm not going to kill you ok." She said softly as bent down and gently lifted the terrified boy to his feet. "I'm a good person."
"But your the Railgun!" He wailed. "Everyone know you hate guys, because you chase them around and try to kill them at night in the back alleys!"
"That complicated and only half the truth!" Mikoto replied nervously.
"They also say you have a really hot girlfriend who in Judgement and covers up your crimes too!" He added.
"Kuroko's not my girlfriend!" Mikoto shouted back rather loudly and defensively, managing to gain everyone attention on the street in the process. She was pretty sure she was as red as a beetroot.
"Oh... I get it..." The boy said with a gentle nod. "You're in the closet..."
"No no no!" Mikoto blurted out. "She my roommate and has some weird idea's in her head, that all!"
"You share a room with her?" He replied with a gasp. "How far does this legal corruption go!?"
"Please, it not how it looks ok!" Mikoto said defensively. "Just trust me when I say I'm a good person and don't hate men ok?"
He paused a moment and gave her a thoughtful look.
"I'm still not following you into any dark alleys, just so you know." He said while waving his finger at her with a suspicious look.
"I just want to know about this Finally Special Fantasy thing. "She explained before finally introducing herself "and erm.. I'm Misaka Mikoto by the way."
"It's Final Fantasy Special Academy City Online edition and I'm Chris by the way." He replied before further explaining "Its a cutting edge online game that literally puts the players inside a fully realised and computer generated world based on the highly popular Final Fantasy, with a spin that the flexible open class based system is split into magic and science branches that can't cross."
"Oh so that what Kuroko referencing when she kept saying she was going to be my final fantasy.." Mikoto said thoughtfully. "I get the context of her perverted jokes now."
"Also Academy City letting them use Gekota and Kill Bear!" Chris said in a excited tone. "Through I guess a midd..."
Mikoto sometimes suffered from a tendency to impulse buy, especially when frog mascots were involved.
It was about half a hour latter. Mikoto was effectively alone, even through Kuroko was in the room, since she had one of those VR helmet things on, and was already in Finally Fantasy Land. Mikoto took a good look at her own helmet.
"Guess it time to see what all the fuss is about." She spoke out loud as she put on the VR helmet.
It was weird how everything just changed so suddenly. One moment Mikoto laying on her bed, the next thing her whole vision went blue and her other senses just completely shut down.
"This is weird." She thought as she stared into the blue.
"Welcome to Final Fantasy Special Academy City Online edition Misaka." Spoke a soft feminine voice that entered the previous void of sound. " Unlike some games your basic appearance and gender are locked, however customisation such as race, hair colour, eye hue and purely visual items are open to you at Middleschool level Misaka."
"Bet the board of Directors set up a few rules on that." Mikoto silently thought. "They wouldn't want any parents complaining about their children getting access to impropriate content."
She checked through all the options and in the ended decided to go for Gekota green eyes (because why not!) and thick brown hair in a plait with segmented bangs above her face (her powers would never let her get away with that in real life, that's for sure). Cloths wise she grabbed a shin length green dress, a dark brown bolero jacket and finished it with some good solid boots and some metal braces on her wrist and the edge of her jacket.
Fundamentally she looked awesome, and very green.
"What alias would you like to use Misaka when interacting within FFACO?" The soft gentle voice asked, and at that point a virtual keyboard appeared with a pair of white gloved hands that felt like their were Mikoto's. It was a bit weird at first, but she got the hang of typing.
"gekotaprincess has been taken" The voice informed her. After a few more tries she managed to finally get 'gekotaflowerprincess2001' (Using her birth year seemed to have helped(3)).
"Now you have a avatar Misaka, why don't you try walking about the tutorial area?" The soft voice asked her as the white gloves hands grew into a whole body as the blue was replaced by a spring days sky and green grass below her feet. She then promptly trip over her own feet.
"Ow!" Mikoto shouted out as most people do when they fall on the ground.
"Ahh, seems your having trouble adjusting to your new body Kupo?" Asked what seemed to be a small white cat like creature floating above her head. It had little red devil like wings and for some a red pom-pom sticking out of it head.
"Erm, who are you?" Mikoto asked as she got up. "And where is that woman with soft voice gone?"
"Oh that was the voice of the Krystal Kupo. You'll only hear her at important times Kupo!" The Kupo (k)cat(?) explained. "And you can call me Mog!"
"So I'm guessing this isn't all there is to the game Mog?" Mikoto asked politely as looked around the rather basic landscape.
"Kourse not Kupo" Mog explained as he showed his adamant will against the tyranny of C. "Now you have to khose between Magik and Science!"
It went without saying there was some bias was in the descriptions of the two that followed...
Meanwhile on the other side of the city in certain Highschool boys dorm, a teenage boy with the seeming inability to realise when he was being hit on, was unaware that a bunch of Middleschool girls were stealing his limelight... again.
(1) Kawawawawaha to be precise.
(2) Yes we know its not a Japanese name or in fact his full name... but hey, there no point in explaining everything in chapter 1 right?
(3) There no prizes for guessing why by the way.
