Summary: A sequel to Railgun Season 2. STUDY may have been defeated, but there's a new evil lurking in the shadows. A Railgun fanfic.

Disclaimer: I don't own Index or Railgun.

Rating: T

Prologue – The final trial

Her back was turned, eyes closed as she silently waited. Electricity crackled through her, manifesting as little sparks as she sensed her surroundings.

There's one on the top left. She mentally counted. And three more under the floor.

She had done this so many times already that it almost felt like routine. There was just one slight difference: everything had to be performed in total darkness.

This, she had been told, would be the final phase of her training.

The scientists, or her 'teachers' as she liked to call them, were next door at the control panel and would be closely monitoring her progress. She wouldn't let them down.

'Are you ready?' The calm, authoritative tone of one of her teachers asked over the speaker that connected the two rooms.

'Yes.'

Her teachers nodded to each other in consent. 'Let's begin.'

The single click of a lever pulled and locked in place signaled the start of the trial. Almost at once, the experimental room shook and whirred to life.

Trap doors on the ceiling and on the floor slid open as automatic machine guns emerged through them. They appeared in positions exactly as she had predicted. She stood, unwavered, as she pointed her arm at the one on the ceiling with a calculated precision that rivaled a computer. A single jolt of electricity was enough to send the gun to scrap pieces that tumbled onto the floor; that was the easy part. Now all she had to deal with were the three that were already firing at her.

The machine guns used plastic bullets, which made them impossible to manipulate. Her only option was to destroy the machines themselves.

She sent the electricity in her back spiraling in a circle, creating a magnetic field behind her that absorbed her to the metal wall. She had learned that this was not only the most efficient way of defense and evasion, but the most effective offense as well. She channeled all the electricity in her hand and balled into a fist, punching the wall behind her. The sharp electricity cut through the wall with ease, and the iron within would provide a valuable form of resource.

Meanwhile, the machine guns, equipped with thermal sensors, had followed her thermal signal and pinpointed her new location, and started firing simultaneously.

With one hand still pressed to the wall, she waved her other hand around once, commanding her newly found resource to build an iron wall in front of her. Bullets hit and ricocheted off the defensive structure, while giving her enough time to build up another offensive strike.

35 degrees to the left. She sensed and recounted before pointing in the precise direction. A precisely timed bolt of electricity struck down the second gun, exploding it into scrap metal.

57 degrees and 86 degrees to the right. She sensed again. She shot out her iron shield in an arch, spinning and slicing the remaining guns into two halves, all while detaching herself from the wall and landing softly onto the smooth floor below without breaking a single drop of sweat. The last of her electricity crackled and vanished without a trace.

In the other room, the head teacher nodded slightly in approval. 'Phase one complete,' he announced, staring at the fully-filled progress bar on the central computer. 'Begin phase two.'

Almost as if she could sense what was happening next door, she nodded once in return. The guns, or what remained of them, retracted back under their trapdoors. Then the entire room followed suit.

Everything in the room was made to be retractable – that included the metal walls and the floor. Phase two began with an entire change of the arena; the walls were replaced by surfaces made of synthetic polymer, and the floor collapsed 100 feet down into the depths of the building below. All the electromagnetic tricks that had helped her before would prove no use in phase two.

'Teleport', she chanted silently. Her body disappeared in a flash of afterimage and reappeared in the same precise location repeatedly to keep herself afloat over a height of 100 feet.

Three on the ceiling. She counted, balancing her abilities of teleportation and magnetic sensing. And two more in the walls.

With another whir, the room came alive. New trapdoors gave way as laser guns emerged and locked into place. These lasers were designed to be lethally sharp, and could slice open a living body with ease.

Just as the machine guns shot plastic bullets that evaded detection, so did the laser guns shoot light that was undetectable. All she could do was to destroy the guns before they destroyed her.

Every millisecond counted. The buzz of the laser had barely sounded as it shot at her at the speed of light, then she teleported out of her location.

Everything was tricky. The light had sensors that followed her movement closely, and she had to take care not to teleport into any of the five lasers, or she would be shredded to bits. The strong laser light in total darkness also suggested that she not open her eyes at any time, or her eyes could easily be burned. Her memory and sensing skills were quite literally her survival skills.

She reached under her shirt and pulled out an assortment of carefully concealed metal pins. With a spin, she teleported onto the far end of the plastic wall and jabbed a pin into it, locking it in place.

But the lasers were faster than she expected. Just before she could teleport into safety, one of the lasers on the ceiling had traced its path and cut into her right shoulder. The pins she was holding dropped as the sharp pain tore through her shoulder.

She didn't wince or grunt; she was trained not to. But she couldn't possibly fight off the lasers without the pins. With the speed of her brain matching the speed of her body, she decided to dive.

She couldn't afford to break the fall with teleportation, so she used momentum to do the job. She kicked off the wall to bounce onto the adjacent wall, and continued spiraling downward. She held her right shoulder firmly to strain against the rushing wind, and held her right hand out in both the form and function of a magnet. Just before she touched the ground, she swooped up all the pins. In a single moment of intense concentration, she held five pins in between her fingers, charged them with electricity, and threw them upward, before teleporting herself safely onto the floor. As if waiting in turn, the lasers broke one by one as the scraps fell around her.

She held her injured shoulder and huffed.

Phase two was complete.

'Well done,' the authoritative tone came once again over the speaker without any hint of emotion. 'You are ready.'

R&R!