This will be my first submission for this particular fandom. I really should be finishing updates to stuff I've already put up here but this just would not leave my head, especially with all the recent announcements made for the To Aru series. Interesting stuff.

You'll notice that I refrain from using Japanese syntax and suffixes. No offense to the Japanese, but I think they're a mite silly and can make some conversations rather trying to read/listen to. Another thing you'll also probably notice is that I've taken a few creative liberties, and the chances are that similar liberties are going to crop up as the story moves on. If that isn't your kind of thing and you like your fan-fiction to be as close to the source material as possible, well I can promise you that I'll try my damndest, but not much more than that I'm afraid.

And another thing: in case the summary wasn't clear enough, this will be OC-centric. Some of the canon cast may appear now and then but I'm not making any promises because I just don't think I could pull them off as they're portrayed in the series proper. So if stories about OCs turn you off, then you might want to look elsewhere. Otherwise, read on and I do hope you enjoy it.

Terra Firma

Chapter One: A Certain Geo-kinetic ESPer

The teenager sat in the centre of a decrepit, empty room that had been gathering dust far too long. From a casual glance he would almost appear to be dead. His dark black school blazer was ruffled and caked in grime and specks of blood, his navy blue trousers were torn and similarly muddied. His shaggy raven hair was mussed up and tinted grey with dust. A large bruise was forming on his left cheek and a trickle of blood travelled down his forehead like a crimson line. He was unnaturally silent and unmoving, wrapped up in chains like a feudal prisoner.

The building that housed him was constructed originally to house prestigious families, but work was abandoned when the construction company declared bankruptcy as a result of a nationwide scandal. It was an ugly blemish on an otherwise picturesque vista; dull, jagged and unattractive compared to the magnificent, smooth and pristine skyscrapers that could be seen almost anywhere one cared to turn in the gargantuan city which was almost a nation unto itself.

Multiple footsteps reverberated through an outside corridor, closing in on the room where the beaten boy sat.

One, two, three…

The door to the room, as old as the foundations of the building and even more worse for wear was suddenly and viciously kicked open. Its rusting hinges screamed in protest before giving way to the force applied, snapping. The door fell to the floor, several voices made startled exclamations.

Eight, nine… ten?

A figure, tall and lean, strode over the fallen door. His hair was dyed blonde; his messy fringe covering his forehead which had also been dyed a shade of yellow when the thug had failed to apply it adequately. The taunts he had since received for it twisted his blocky features into an ugly scowl. He eyed the beaten teen sat at the centre of the room and his hooded eyes darkened and his frown deepened. He strode towards the figure confidently as his gang followed him cautiously.

No, twelve. Got to be twelve.

'This the punk Sousuke?' the blonde thug asked. His voice was like granite.

Or is it eleven?

'That's him Gou,' a nasally voice confirmed.

Idiot, it's twelve. That moron must have hit you harder than you thought.

Gou inclined his head as if considering something, before violently lashing out with a heel, catching the scraggy boy in the stomach. The boy made a noise halfway between a grunt and a cough as he was violently 'awakened'.

'Wake up you piece of shit,' Gou snarled, reaching a hand out and taking a firm clasp of the teen's raven hair before lowering himself into a squatting position, his flat, ugly face scant inches from the boy's own. The boy wrinkled his nose in disgust, which only served to enrage Gou further.

'Think my breath stinks huh?' he asked, almost calmly. He suddenly threw the boy's head towards the ground. A great, fleshy smack resounded through the empty, grey room.

'That better?' he cooed; his voice mocking and filled with the promise of great pain. 'That more to your liking? Better on your nostrils?'

He roughly hauled the boy up by his hair so that he was level with Gou's face again.

'Now…' he said, feigning calm, 'My boy Sousuke here…' he inclined his head towards a lanky, pale thug with a crooked nose that had clearly been broken too many times to ever sit naturally on his face again.

'My boy Sousuke here says that you've been messing with him and his friends. That you've been attacking them – quite unprovoked – in back alleys and even…' he held up a hand to his mouth and gave a mocking gasp, 'Even in the middle of the street in broad daylight.'

The boy didn't say anything in reply. Gou took that to mean he was too dazed to say anything, so he continued.

'Now my boys… well they're not in the best fiscal situation right? So then it's only natural that they need to find ways to make a few bucks on the side right? You know? To make ends meet and all?'

Still the boy didn't say anything.

'To be honest with you, the first time he came to me, telling me about you I just ignored him. I mean look at him: he's a pathetic little shit; thought some combat experience would put some steel in him, so to speak.' Sousuke bristled at the insult, but knew better than to run his mouth, especially when Gou was in the middle of an 'interrogation'.

'Now we get to the real issue: like all respectable businessmen, a small sum of whatever my boys make goes to me. In turn, this allows me to get hold of more of my product, which I give to the guys here so they can sell it. The customer gets what they want and my boys and I get a generous sum to help keep them afloat. The system works: everybody wins.'

Gou paused for a moment, he kept clenching and unclenching the fist entangled in his captive's hair, trying not to let his fury get the better of him.

'This system does not work; however, if some jumped up vigilante scumbag decides not only to fuck with my boys on a regular basis, but also to steal and hide my goddamn product!' He screamed in his face. Spittle flecked the captive's dirty, blooded face.

Gou took several deep breaths and shut his eyes, waiting until he calmed himself down, at which point he reopened his eyes and fixed the boy with the same look a man might give a cockroach.

'Now, I'm only going to ask you once, and if I don't get the answer I like then we've got a problem. And when we've got a problem; you've got a problem; and to work out that problem I do whatever I feel like doing to you until I get tired, and then my boys have a go. It's really in your best interests to 'fess up where you hid my stash. That is if you don't feel like dying today.'

He held the captive for a few moments longer but he didn't reply. Gou wondered if he'd perhaps been too rough with the little punk and given him a concussion, and he was going to look like an idiot interrogating someone who was physically incapable of speaking. He was considering what exactly he was to do when the boy suddenly gave a pained cough. His eyebrow quirked and the corner of his lips tugged into a marginally satisfied smile.

'So… fancy telling us where–' he stopped, narrowing his eyes suspiciously at the captive. 'What's so damned funny?'

The boy didn't reply; he just kept that shit eating grin plastered to his face. His eyes – emerald green, a rarity in Japan, one of his parents was probably a foreigner – were open and staring with a confident measure of certainty that made Gou wary. Unfortunately Gou had a simple mindset; if he found something he was unsure of, he didn't tend to think.

Instead he got angry.

He was about to form a snarling speech full of threats that would have made even trained soldiers used to the horrors of warfare pale in response.

He never got to start.

What happened instead was that Gou shrieked in pain as white hot agony exploded in his crotch. He dropped, clutching his battered genitals and rolled side to side, groaning in pain. As he rolled over, he saw that there was a small pillar of building material that had somehow formed in between his legs and risen with enough force to almost crush his dangly parts.

The captive looked at the downed thug, a satisfied smirk on his torn lip.

'What the hell…' one of the young thugs in Gou's gang wondered aloud as he took in the scene before him.

Another thug with dyed red hair and several nose piercings recovered the fastest and ran to the aid of his boss. He suddenly found himself flat on his back, dazed and a stinging pounding sensation in his head like someone was playing a game of pinball inside his skull.

The pillar that had dealt a vicious, underhanded blow had extended and inclined in scant moments, impacting against the thug's head like a hammer.

'Is he–?' one of the gangsters wondered aloud.

'Don't be stupid!' Sousuke screamed at him. 'He never used any kind of ability when he attacked us! Spread out and find the fucker who's screwing with us!' He wheeled on the captive, his teeth bared in an aggressive snarl.

'As for you, you little bastard. You're going to tell your friend to stop fucking with us or you're going to…' he trailed off.

The captive was standing in the centre of the room. Unchained.

'Wh–' was all Sousuke had time to say before the captive raised a leg and brought it sharply down on the ground. The building shook and the floor underneath them parted, forming a great fissure that split the room in half. One of the gangers almost fell through but a more quick-thinking friend managed to pull him back just in time.

'You think that was bad?' the captive said, the smirk never leaving his face. 'Wait 'til you see this little number!'

With that, he slammed his palms together before bringing them sharply down onto the floor. A forest of pillars erupted inside the room, jostling and scatter the gangsters. All found themselves pinned, unable to move, trapped in the cramped space. One thug began screaming that he was claustrophobic, drawing a sadistic cackle from the former prisoner.

'I'd have liked to tango with you guys in a more… direct manner,' the captive said, stretching his neck out and rotating his shoulders. 'But you really did a number on me. Still, thanks loads for bringing me back here. It would have been a royal pain trying to find this place and Mr Gou on my own.'

He turned sharply on his heel and took hold of the back of Gou's collar, who tried to claw at the captive weakly. The boy glanced disinterestedly at the still struggling gangster and gave a nod of approval before chopping him viciously in the side of the neck. Gou went slack and the boy resumed dragging him towards the open window.

The boy took in the vista that stretched out before him. Glorious, smooth, modern buildings greeted him. Some stretching dizzyingly tall and others sat more squat in nature. It was very much an urban jungle and it was his home. He smiled, ignoring the stabbing pain in his split lip and from the bruise on his face.

'God I love this place.'

The boy stared at the windowsill and, surely enough, it began to run like liquid and mould itself into a new form.

Whatever I desire…

'H-hey!' one of the thugs called out, breaking his concentration. Some of the moulding earth solidified, some of it disintegrated and fell to the ground two stories below. The boy sighed and craned his head back towards the trapped gangsters.

'What?' he asked, as if talking to a petulant child.

'You're not just going to leave us here are you?' the mousey thug sounded so panicked it was almost funny. The boy decided he wanted to have a little more fun.

'Well, why not?' he asked, as if it were the simplest thing in the world (and it really was). 'I mean, it's not like you guys would really change and I hear prison is an awfully bad place so, you know, I thought maybe it'd be a kindness if I–'

'What?! You can't be serious! We'll die–'

'And that's really not my problem.' He was tempted to leave it at that, but soon a very delicious idea crept into his head. 'Unless we can work something out…'

'Like…?' the thug asked in a strained voice, clearly eager to be out of his earthly cage, but also wary of what the devious ESPer might want.

'Surely you guys have gotten some sort of cash from the bad dudes you've been dealing with. I want it. All of it. Then I let you guys out.'

'What?!' the thug squeaked. 'But if they find out they'll–'

'Or, you know, I could just keep walking. As I said; no skin off my back if I just leave you there to rot.'

The mousey thug seemed to weigh the options in his head; finally he scrunched his face up before nodding stiffly and slightly as if he'd just agreed to make a deal with the devil himself.

'Okay… okay… there's two suitcases two floors up. I don't know where exactly for sure but I'm pretty certain it's up there.'

Ka-ching.

'Thanks a lot. Ta-ta!' The boy turned back and a pillar formed beneath his and Gou's feet that shot them both through the ceiling.

The thug stared blankly at the space the boy had occupied before screaming bloody murder.

The boy heard none of this. In moments he was up two floors, Gou's writhing form next to him.

'Stay there,' the boy said as he strode ahead through the unfinished corridors and rooms, searching for the two cases. Once he found them he'd hop off with Gou and give Judgement a buzz. Then he'd set off to finish his task.

All in all, a good day's work. His ribs throbbed in protest and the boy rubbed them with a grimace.

Wouldn't have minded if they'd gone a little easier on me though.

Sure enough, as the pitiful thug had said, he found two cases; both bog standard grey with black handles.

Entirely nondescript. Fantastic.

The boy set them both down and opened them up. He would later chastise himself for not checking for any security measures first, but as it was, neither exploded in his face or called in a strike team so he reasoned it was all good.

And the money.

The boy could quite easily say he had never seen so many bills in all his lifespan. A slow smile began to creep across his face as he shut the cases and picked them up in both hands before strolling back towards wherever he'd left Gou.

Admirably enough, Gou was on his feet by the time he returned. He was panting, pain had exhausted him but he fixed the boy with a glare that could pierce steel.

'Word of advice,' the boy said as he strode towards Gou, who staggered back from the approaching figure. When he was within striking distance Gou bellowed an inarticulate war cry and pounced. The boy swayed to the side, avoiding the clumsy strike, and hammered his fist three times into Gou's solar plexus in quick succession.

Gou crumpled.

'Just stay down.' The boy said, utterly void of any kind of pity. 'Make it a lot easier for the both of us,' he muttered to himself.

'Okay then…' he said, clutching both cases in one hand and taking hold of Gou with the other. The boy took a deep breath before steadying himself for what he was about to do. He was good, but not all-powerful. One slip would send both of them tumbling to the ground, and he really didn't want to have to explain what he was doing with two cases full of cash to Judgement while he was in hospital.

Oh, that reminds me.

The boy flipped out his phone and quickly punched in the number for Judgement. He was one digit away when he heard sirens.

Huh… well maybe they'll pass by. Someone had to have overheard the racket I made down below.

With that, he took hold of Gou once more and began to concentrate.

'Going down,' he murmured.

And then they were falling.

Kuroda Makoto grinned as he descended, clutching both his prizes tightly in his hands.

-X-

The two figures on the roof of the nearby building dressed in coats watched impassively as the Level 4 Geo-kinetic power user fell to the ground at an almost alarming rate, borne on a worryingly thin platform the Second Year student had fabricated with his gift. The younger of the two, a girl roughly the same age as the target in a midnight black winter coat with a furred hood, almost intervened, but the older one, dressed in a smart, double-breasted brown coat, held her back as he stowed away his phone. He had just made the call to Judgement that a gang of ESPers was causing a ruckus at an old, abandoned building site.

'He'll be fine.' The nineteen year old male murmured softly. Sure enough, Makoto slowed and hopped off the platform lightly, still dragging the gang boss by the back of his collar.

'You see?' the older teen, known only as Hayama, said with a soft smile that was clearly meant to be comforting.

The seventeen year old girl grunted in a manner very unbecoming of a creature such as herself. A Cryo-kinetic, the awakening of her considerable powers had drained her hair of all colour and – chillingly enough – seemed to have done the same to her eyes. Blank, white orbs stared back at Hayama, and it was only if one looked close enough that they could see the outline of her pupils. At any other distance, it almost seemed as if the young girl should be blind. Yet several months of working with her told Hayama that she could see just as well as any other girl her age. Her finely sculpted features had settled into a dissatisfied frown, and Hayama took a moment to marvel at how her powers and her personality were near polar opposites of the other.

'I only wanted to make sure he's alive for this little scheme Grey Hound has cooked up. Be a damn shame to tail him for more than a month just to have him crap out on us now.'

'Hm, yes, indeed,' Hayama murmured disinterestedly. Hayama was a bespectacled fellow with fair, wavy brown hair and was almost six and a half feet of wiry muscle. He had been one of the earliest candidates tested for AIM emission, and it turned out he did emit AIM particles as it happened, but he'd thought the process was too much of a hassle and had dropped out of the program.

Not that he needed any power, for his prowess at thievery and sneaking was near legendary, or as legendary as such attributes were ever likely to get. It had, however, put him firmly on the map of one Grey Hound, a member of Academy City's elusive Board of Directors. Hayama didn't know Grey Hound's name. As far as he knew, no one did. Regardless, Grey Hound owned both him and young Yukino to his left. Eventually he would own Kuroda Makoto as well.

Hayama didn't know what Grey Hound wanted with the Level 4; or any of them if he was being perfectly honest. Recently though his messages from the shady individual had become almost urgent in tone… as if he was afraid of or expecting something big. Whatever it was, he wanted a team put together to do something about it, and Kuroda Makoto was on the list.

As am I and our little Miss Snow White here. Hayama thought wryly.

'He's almost out of sight. We should move on and see where he goes next,' Hayama said, hands in his light brown coat pockets.

'I don't know about you but I'll be damn glad when all this sneaking around crap is done with,' Yukino mumbled. 'All right, stand back,' she said before reaching into her thick winter coat pocket and drawing out a bottle of water. Unscrewing the cap, she scattered the water into the air before freezing it, moulding it until it formed a perfect bridge to the building with the next best view of their target.

'Very nice,' Hayama said. Yukino shot him a dirty look. The big man had said that every time she'd performed her little magic trick and she wasn't sure if he was making fun of her or not.

'Yeah, yeah,' she said in reply. 'Hurry up; this thing won't be here all day.'

Hayama didn't reply, stepping onto the frosty bridge and making his way across as quickly as he could. As he travelled he wondered what someone down below might think if they looked up and saw the ice bridge. He decided that it didn't matter really, though the mental image he conceived of a small child pointing upwards as his mother dragged him along almost made him titter.

Several hundred feet below on the ground, a certain nun in a white habit, travelling next to a certain misfortunate high school boy, pointed up towards the bridge and made a considerable fuss over its existence, which the certain high school boy was not having.

'For the last time Index,' the boy said exasperatedly, 'it's probably just a trick of the light; it happens all the time here. Now do you want to go to this food court or not?'

And just like that, the bridge in the sky was forgotten.

-X-

And so we are introduced to our 'hero', his power, and two people stalking him. Fun.

Read and review is appreciated. Constructive criticism is also appreciated and encouraged. If you think I mucked up where sentence structure is concerned, don't be afraid to drop me a line – I don't bite. Not when I'm sober anyway… or even when I'm drunk for that matter.

Cheers,

zips