A/N: To get you guys into the spirit of the story, I've posted the first chapter on September 15th, the same day this story starts. No, I will not be able to post quickly enough to keep this story in real-time. Still, it's the thought that counts. Right?

I got a bunch of reviews on the A/N's I posted. That surprised the heck out of me to be honest. They're A/N's and I got reviews on them! Thanks so much to those of you who reviewed. I've read your comments and tried to answer any questions you had so take a look down there if you reviewed!

Quick Note: Misaka's Railgun now travels at a speed of at least 2800 m/s, or Mach 8. Read the replies to find out why! (You'll find I edited previous chapters to reflect this change. That's right, I'm pulling some real crazy 1984 stuff here.)


The room was dimly lit by the nebulous light emanating from row upon row of pods. A few men and women stopped at the pods seemingly at random to check numbers and symbols which had little meaning to anyone save the few directly involved in the project. Florescent lights which usually cast their cold rays upon the dark room were deactivated in order to lull its occupants to sleep. Indeed, a number of the specimens situated in the various pods were already breathing to the steady beat of unconsciousness.

One woman stood in the middle of it all, taking in the happenings as if she were at rest in a particularly luxurious hot-spring.

"Ma'am" someone approached. A middle-aged man with brown hair turned gray too quickly. "A number of the patients are exhibiting signs of incompatibility with the procedure. I recommend we pause all operations and re-"

"Unless the next words out of your mouth are 'and I'll fund this project entirely out of my own pocket,' then you would be wise to keep your mouth closed. Both I and the School want to see results. In the absence of results this project will be forcibly terminated." The woman said for what seemed like the hundredth time. She did not much like the little runt of a man standing before her. However, he was talented. For that reason she tolerated his occasional acts of near-insubordination.

"I really think we should stop, or at least slow down." The man recognized the futility of his words, but felt he must continue. Already he could feel her gaze changing from one of annoyance to one of malevolence.

"Stop? We can't stop. We've only just begun."


Sunlight filtered in from above through wind-blown leaves casting a perpetually changing pattern on the group of four young girls sitting at a round table by the roadside. A shiver went up the spine of one of the girls, followed closely behind by an almost imperceptible arc of electricity.

"It's getting cold." She chattered, wrapping her arms about herself to preserve what little heat she could. Another of the girls - adorned with two pigtails tied up in an effort to keep her hair from her eyes - grinned maliciously at the comment.

"If you insist Onee-sama, Kuroko would be more than happy to keep you warm." She said, ulterior motives dripping from her words like thick syrup. Her target glared daggers at her, electric arcs flying between her spaced fingers.

"I'm plenty warm by myself. Even if I weren't, I wouldn't want a pervert like you 'keeping me warm.'" The girl replied, letting her arms drop back to the table as if to convince her friend that yes, as a matter of fact, she was completely warm. It was at that moment that a second gust blew through the street, compelling the girl to visibly shudder against its icy touch.

"See!" The one named Kuroko took this as a sign that her invitation to warm her beloved Onee-sama had arrived and jumped out of her seat toward her target. It was a testament to her victim's growing reflexes that she managed to halt Kuroko in her tracks, one arm outstretched with a grip on Kuroko's face that both kept her at bay and provided the girl with an excellent hold to shock her with.

With the faint smell of ozone tinging the - now warmer - air, Misaka let Kuroko drop seizingly to the ground, where she proceeded to pick herself up and take her seat with a huff.

"You didn't need to be so quick to shock me when I was just trying to show you my love." Kuroko griped. With a bewilderingly quick change of mood, and as if suddenly remembering there was a cake in front of her, Kuroko zealously dived into the unsuspecting pastry.

The four were quiet for a time, not at all disturbed by the sudden display of electricity that would so shock any other group of friends. Surprisingly, even passersby didn't seem to mind the commotion. It was almost as if they recognized Misaka as the extremely dangerous and marginally unstable Level 5 she was sometimes made out to be.

"Hey, look at this." One of the other two said, breaking the silence. She held up her phone so the others could read it. "They're doing construction by the bridge next to that pastry shop with the chocolate soufflés. It looks like they're going to put in a draw bridge so barges can get through." Her comment was met with uncomprehending stares.

"That's not uncommon Saten-san. The city's been using the waterways for transportation since it was founded." The fourth girl, wearing a flowery headband whose existence she seemingly refused to acknowledge, pointed out informatively. Kuroko and Misaka nodded in agreement.

"Maybe, but they'll be closing all of the local businesses while construction is going on. Which means-" A sudden look of understanding spread between the four.

"We won't be able to eat chocolate soufflés." The flowery girl, Uiharu, almost whispered. Such a tone was usually reserved for speaking of tragic accidents and the results of exams but was entirely at home in the conversation at hand. A moment of silence followed her comment as the four silently commiserated with one another at the passing of one of their favorite pastry shops.

"Why would they close all the shops just to build a bridge?" Misaka asked, perplexed at the severity of the construction ordinances. Kuroko and Uiharu nodded in shared curiosity.

"It says here that they need to put in a whole bunch of infrastructure since it's pretty long for a drawbridge." Saten read from her phone. She looked up and flinched from the stares of her comrades. "Hey! It's not like I want the shop to shut down any more than you do!" She exclaimed, bringing her hands up to ward off the incoming glares.

Eventually the three attackers relented, Saten's logic being found valid enough and her innocence reinstated. However, with no further questions about the bridge and little in the way of solutions to the cake-shop problem the four were forced to move on to another topic.

"I guess we'll have to choose a different spot for our study-group tomorrow." Kuroko noted absently, still depressed with the temporary closure of the shop. She had formulated a masterful plan involving a pastry, her Onee-sama, and an indirect kiss. Her plan now ruined as if by fate, Kuroko turned her mind to finding new ways to get closer to Misaka.

"We could always have another hot pot in Uiharu's room." Saten suggested, referencing the particularly scrumptious dinner the four had eaten not so long ago.

"It was pretty good," Misaka agreed. "But..."

"We can't get the paperwork finished in time." Kuroko finished. Misaka nodded in agreement before taking a sip of her tea. The warmth it provided fortified her against the cold. The four were silent again for a while after that.

Misaka smiled to herself, glad that she could worry over something as inconsequential as where to meet up. She had spent so long worrying about problems that could mean life or death for her and her friends. Then there was the matter of her ten thousand sisters. Kuroko had probably noticed already that Misaka was tackling her studies with renewed vigor. She needed to be strong enough to keep her sisters safe.

Misaka's thoughts turned to Accelerator and to the defeat he handed her with all the seriousness of a comedian. Then there was Touma. He single-handedly defeated Accelerator, literally. She still couldn't wrap her head around it. Her mind was not allowed to wander for long before she was snapped out of it by a certain insistent teleporter.

"Onee-sama, I can only assume that by continuing to ignore me you secretly wish me to touch you and so break your rever-"

"Don't even try it." Misaka warned, coming back to the present. Saten and Uiharu grinned at each other in a way Misaka could only describe as 'conspiratorial.' Still, they wouldn't do anything drastic out in publi-

"Thinking about your boyfriend?" Saten asked jeeringly. Misaka almost choked on the tea she was drinking in her attempt to deny it.

"B-b-boyfriend? I don-"

"Onee-sama would n-never-" Misaka and Kuroko replied at once. Misaka's face was flushed, betraying the partial lie.

"Oh?" Saten teased, enjoying the flustered looks of her two friends.

"Saten-san!" Uiharu began to protest, thinking the joke had gone on long enough.

"Okay okay! It was a joke!" Saten insisted, her face a mixture of false-sympathy and amusement. Misaka merely crossed her arms and looked to the side, as if doing so would somehow restore what little dignity she had left. As she did, Misaka watched a pair of cleaning robots sweep down the opposite sidewalk, sucking up any debris in their path. Kuroko interrupted her examination of the dutiful robots.

"Uiharu, we should make our way over to Judgement." Kuroko said having recovered her rich-girl air of elegance. Uiharu nearly jumped in surprise, spilling her shake in the process.

"Ah, eh eeeh?" Uiharu clumsily tried to clean up the mess while simultaneously trying to keep her uniform clean. Misaka and the others had to force themselves not to laugh.

"Don't worry about it." Saten said, taking the napkins from Uiharu. "I'll handle this, so you should get going." Uiharu began to protest but a shove from Saten convinced her not to.

"T-Thanks Saten-san!" Uiharu called, following Kuroko down the street toward Judgement Office #177. Misaka watched as the two turned a corner before grabbing a few napkins to help clean up the mess.

"You two get along pretty well." Misaka noted, tossing the soiled napkins into a trash receptacle. Her hands were cold and the frosty remains of the shake made them even colder. Misaka attempted to warm them up with her breath, taking in the pleasant strawberry aroma they had acquired.

"We're friends after all." Saten replied, as if that was justification enough. Misaka sighed. She and Kuroko might get along that well if Kuroko didn't insist on being such a pervert all the time, or so Misaka convinced herself. Sensing her friend's frustration, Saten paused in her cleaning and looked up at Misaka. "Kuroko's a hand-full isn't she?"

"You don't know the half of it." Misaka replied. "If she weren't so... Kuroko-ish, then it'd be easier to deal with her."

"I don't think that'll change anytime soon." Saten half-chuckled, cleaning up the last smudges left. Misaka didn't have a reply to that. Between Kuroko and Touma she was surrounded by more than her fair share of insensitivity. Misaka paused, unsure of why she had included Touma in that list. Shrugging it off she nodded in reluctant agreement.

"She's kind of amazing though." Misaka whispered. Realizing what she had just said, the electromaster covered her mouth. Surprisingly, Saten didn't make fun of her for it.

"Yea, she really is." The two of them stood in shared silence for a moment. One a little frustrated that she had said something so embarrassing and the other confused as to what brought it on, but happy that her friend was beginning to realize how hard Kuroko worked for her sake.

"I should get going." Saten broke the silence. "I want to review some homework for an upcoming test."

"I should get back to the dorm too. If I miss curfew I might not survive." Misaka replied. She also wanted to get out of the cold, though there was no way she'd admit something as petty as the cold could affect her.

"Curfew's not for hours."

"I'm going to stop by the convenience store on my way back and check the new releases." Misaka explained, though she had no such intentions. Saten grinned anyway and hefted her bag.

"Later then"

"Later"

Misaka made her way towards the dorms, her pace quickened by the unseasonal chill. A small part of her wondered whether she could use electricity to warm herself up but that idea was quickly stamped out. More likely then not she'd end up with electricity burns and a heart-attack.

It wasn't until she had gone through the third alleyway-shortcut that a group of a half-dozen men approached her. Misaka groaned inwardly. The day wasn't complete without a bunch of losers trying to hit on her. One of them, the leader Misaka presumed, held up a hand. The group shuffled to a stop.

"Hello," he greeted. Misaka was put off-guard by his unusual formality. Not sure whether this group was actually a bunch of decent people or the ruffians they appeared to be, Misaka decided to return his formality.

"Hello," She pushed her senses outward, examining her surroundings through the mind's eye of a Level 5 electromaster. There was little in the way of cover in the small courtyard this particular alleyway had opened into. Not that she needed cover, but it would be annoying if her potential opponents had it.

Grey was the color of the day it seemed. With clouds overhead and nothing but concrete or unpainted steel metalwork to look at Misaka couldn't help but feel a little dreary as she waited for the gang to attack.

"You want to come with us? We're heading over to the arcade." The leader offered, his lie betrayed by the leering looks of his companions. Misaka had stopped listening after his first sentence, though the man didn't seem to notice. One of his associates, for lack of a better term, whispered something into his ear and he fell silent.

"I'm heading back to my dorm. I don't have time to go anywhere." Misaka replied reasonably. She knew Kuroko wouldn't take kindly to her frying another group of jerks. She could almost hear Kuroko reprimanding her, reminding her once again that it was Judgement's duty to take care of such cases. Misaka grimaced, deciding that maybe just once it would be okay to let these guys go.

"It's too early in the day for that. Come with us for a little bit." Their leader clearly wouldn't take 'no' for an answer.

Misaka had mapped the surrounding area within seconds of their encounter and so knew the metal reinforcement in the walls next to her didn't have any wiring, meaning she didn't have to concentrate on protecting them. Misaka propelled herself upwards using the rods buried beneath the walls for magnetic leverage.

A gout of fire leapt up toward her, nearly taking Misaka by surprise. She reversed her course just quickly enough to avoid the brunt of it, letting her static shield ward off the rest of the hot ions.

"You really don't want to pick a fight with me." Misaka warned, throwing off an intimidating amount of electricity in the hopes that her display of force would scare the group away. It seemed fate had different plans for her, as the gang stood their ground. Misaka frowned, the one time she decided to play things by Kuroko's book and she gets a group of guys that make it impossible for her to do so.

Misaka dropped to the ground as another burst of flame raced toward her. Once more a combination of her sudden movement and her static shield protected her from the flames. Wasting little time, Misaka launched a bolt of electricity toward the six thugs.

Her work done, Misaka let up on the electricity and began t-

All six of the thugs remained standing, unharmed. The leader had his arm outstretched and for a moment Misaka's heart dropped. If that man had the same power as a certain spiky haired idiot, Misaka could be in real trouble.

"Surprised?" The man asked. "We call it science." His friends laughed at that. Misaka was perplexed. How was a power that seemed to block everything from electricity to explosions scientific at all? "All I need to do is wear this and all the electricity you shoot my way will be harmlessly sent to the ground." He lifted his arm enough for Misaka to see an insulated wire strapped to his wrist. Misaka was both relieved that there wasn't another mystery-handed weirdo out there and frustrated that she hadn't thought to check the group for any tricks or weapons.

"Oh, you had me worried for a moment." Misaka commented, a smile returning to her face. "I thought you actually had power." She didn't let them about that for very long. Using the piping on either side of the gang like a pair of giant electrodes Misaka coerced a considerable amount electricity to assault her enemy from the sides, entirely mitigating the resistance their wrist-wires provided.

However as she watched the two men nearest the walls merely stood as arcs rippled from the tubing to their backs. In a normal person that amount of electricity was enough to cause massive seizures yet there they stood, stoic stone statues.

"You didn't think we only wore the wire on our arms did you?" The man asked incredulously, as if she were an idiot. "We're wearing a full suit beneath our jackets. Your electric attacks won't do any good against us!" Realization dawned on Misaka and she let out a laugh, visibly unnerving the leader.

"It's funny how the bad guy always tells me his tricks. I'll return the favor, electric attacks aren't the only thing up my sleeve." Misaka replied. With the snap of her fingers the six men were pressed against the alley walls. "Thanks for providing the perfect leverage for a magnetic attack." She said with a grin, pausing in front of the leader. Focused as they were on trying to breath under the constricting force Misaka was applying to their wire-suits, the thugs did nothing to prevent Misaka's inspection.

"Why are you wearing wire suits?" Misaka asked, examining the others. The pyrokinesist wasn't wearing a wire suit like his friends, instead opting for a different sort of undershirt replete with lighters and makeshift firebombs. He was lucky to have been protected from the electrodes by the guys who'd been nearest to the walls.

"To deal with girls like you." The leader replied haltingly, doing his best to spit on her. All he managed was to dribble all over his chin. Realizing she wouldn't get anything out of them and growing colder by the moment, Misaka continued on her way to the dorms.

After she had exited the alley and lost herself in the crowd of a main street, Misaka let up on the thugs. She could almost hear them drop to the ground heaving for breath.

With another bunch of losers dealt with (and without frying them, Misaka thought proudly to herself) the electromaster made her way back to the warmth of her dorm room.


Because what kind of intro would be complete without a fight scene? Anyway, I hope you guys give me some feedback right in the beginning so I know how to write the rest of this story. Think it has too much fighting? Too little? Was it too fast? Too slow? Don't like the alliteration? Let me know and I'll see what I can do! Anyway, Next Chapter will be up on the 22nd!

On to the replies!

chanaweil: While Kuroko's power of teleportation does seem instantaneous, it is slightly delayed. If you fix the spaces and click on the following link you'll get a still from the anime wherein Kuroko is in the middle of teleporting, which shows that her teleportation takes place in a finite time-span.

nopybot wp-content / uploads / 2010/02 / kurokotele . jpg

Given the inability for things such as bullets to pierce Accelerator's Reflector I'm under the impression that his Reflector works instantaneously (the wiki confirms that even objects he's unaware of are redirected, like UV rays). If that weren't so then a bullet would slide through in the millisecond delay. In canon Accelerator's immunity to teleportation is demonstrated in the World War III arc.

On 11D vectors. Vectors themselves are very simple. A vector describing the velocity of an object in our world is a group of 3 numbers describing its motion on the X-axis, the Y-axis, and the Z-axis. An 11D vector is the same thing only with 11 numbers describing its velocity in a world where you can go up and down, side-to-side, forward and back, and 8 other directions perpendicular to those 3. It hurts my head when I try to think of moving in 11 dimensions. I can kind-of/sort-of handle 4 on a really good day.

An example of a 3D vector: Imagine a ball flying through the air across a field. It's moving up at 1 m/s, to an observer's left at 2 m/s and away from the observer at .5 m/s. Assuming up is y, left is z, and away is x, a vector for that ball's velocity would be as follows: [x, y, z] or [0.5, 1, 2]

Drachnon: I'm really glad you said something about that because I totally missed it! I did a quick search and found Misaka's Railgun to have about twice the kinetic energy of a .308 bullet. That being said, I agree that there's an issue of scale here given how Misaka's Railgun could stop a car in its tracks. Furthermore, there's no way such a shot would melt the coin in fifty meters or throw an entire pool's worth of water a hundred meters into the air. Nice catch.

I'm doing a bit of retconning (I said I wouldn't, that was a lie) and changing the speed at which she fires the coin. From henceforth she fires the coin at 2800 m/s on low power. If you're curious, that's the same amount of kinetic energy as is in a 600kg car traveling at 50km/h :D

At this point in order to get any more energy out of her railgun she'd need to use a bigger projectile (the coin melts too quickly to get even 50m of range past Mach 8). Assuming she used a larger projectile, Misaka could definitely do the pool experiment depicted in the anime. As it stands the new recoil force is at 42Kg. Since it's an impulse, that's quite a lot. Therefore now that I've messed with the numbers Misaka really does need to brace herself* :D Thanks for pointing this out! I'm glad we got this out of the way before the story really picked up or I would have missed it entirely!

When it comes to the field, I think the anime shows that Misaka can't control its size. This is exemplified when she causes a blackout during one of her fights, essentially frying important electrical infrastructure as a result. She'll just have to be careful :D

*About whether the field is braced against Misaka or is stationary; given the scene in the OVA where she flies Matrix hovercraft style I think the fields are braced against herself (or else she wouldn't have been moved by the fields). It's very likely she could brace them against her surroundings instead of herself if she thought about it, which is what I mean when I say she uses her power to reduce the recoil.

Mastodonic: Thanks for the info! I had already found Kuroko's max weight and distance, but the cruise speed was new to me and it's handy to know something such as that. On the matter of inertia. The real power behind Kuroko's teleport is that she travels slowly by her own frame of reference, but very quickly by a passing observer's. She might move through 11D space at a couple kph and still arrive a dozen meters away in an instant. Therefore she wouldn't have significant inertia but would still teleport as quickly as is depicted in the series. This comes from the fact that a single point in 11D space is close to many points in 3D space.

As for chrome, I think it's an attempt by the people at Google to dissuade you from researching teleportation. They plan on reserving that piece of technology for themselves once they invent it!

chaosrin: I read the debate you posted and I really learned a lot! It seems like there are a lot of different opinions on how exactly teleportation works. Since none of them contradict the framework I provided in the A/N's I'll keep treating teleportation as is written in CH 0. Do you know of any other places where I might get more information on Kuroko's teleport ability? Some of the people on that thread thought AIM fields messed with teleporting something into another Esper while others thought only Level 5 AIM fields were strong enough. I'm not really convinced that either notion is true so I was wondering if you knew of any canon or Word From God that supported or refuted the idea.

anon: I'm glad you liked it. I'll try to explain things that aren't self-evident as they appear in the story. As it is I hope you enjoyed the first chapter!