Chapter 7
Well, time for my own enjoyment.
Lieutenant Anderson
I rubbed my eyes as the first sun rays peeked over the horizon. I had been sitting near the docks, right by the patrol boats we had. Neither of those had been damaged, thank God, but all the equipment the government teams had brought to monitor and analyze the situation had either been badly damaged or completely destroyed. The worst part is that I'm not sure if this was a coordinated attack on the basis of gaining a strategic advantage, or if it was just something he did on a whim. I was still clutching the barrel of the M4, now cold in the morning air. I could hear the teams salvaging what they could from the warehouse. The structure was still standing and didn't seem compromised, which was good, but the holes on the walls were jarring and drew unwanted attention, so they were covered up with a tarp.
The previous night's engagement was written off as some nighttime weapons testing. Whether the men around the rest of the base bought it or not didn't really matter, there was no way they could guess we'd just fought an engagement with fictional characters.
God, this is getting tiresome…
"Coffee, lieutenant?" Iowa asked as she offered me a foam cup. To the humanized battleship's credit, she'd been up all night as well, helping where she could.
"Thanks… Admiral here yet?" I asked.
She shook her head.
"Okay… what about our two new friends?"
"The doctors said the smaller girl is fine, that calmed the other one down. She's still shaken, though."
"They're still not telling us who they are?"
She shook her head.
"Well, we'll talk to them later then." I rubbed my eyes again, yawning.
A car drove up.
The Admiral, my CO.
"Well, he's here. Let's tell him what we know."
"Yes, lieutenant." she said, smiling confidently. I wasn't sure how she was still so energetic after the previous night.
"Huh… it doesn't look too bad." The admiral said a little after he got out of the car.
"The building isn't too badly damaged, actually, but the enemy destroyed a good part of our monitoring equipment and communications. It's all pretty much gone except for some computers we can still salvage."
"Damn…"
"We at least know that the enemy brought forth what Iowa described as a Wo Class Abyssal, kind of an aircraft carrier. The Marines and my men engaged with the M4 carbines we'd been supplied for security, as well as some small arms fire that came from the few central intelligence agents still here at the time. On the Wo class .40 S&W and 5.56 NATO rounds had little effect, but she did recoil from the impacts. Iowa engaged soon after with her main guns, knocking her across the floor, which resulted in slight damage to its armor, at least, that we could see. It tried to do… something, deploying small floating orbs… Well, these had what appeared to be mouths; we didn't see what those could do as Lelouch Vi Britannia used his ability there and then, pacifying her."
"She just, what… stopped attacking?"
"Yes, even drawing her attack planes back." The term didn't make sense to me. Why were these considered planes? They were floating orbs for crying out loud.
"They're abyssal fighters, Lieutenant; similar to our own attack planes. The Wo class can carry a bunch of those, including some bombers." Iowa added.
I saw the admiral shudder at the implication of a walking aircraft carrier.
"What about this dark knight, what's his deal?"
"We're uncertain of that right now. It could easily be that he's a disorganized clown with dangerous weapons, or it could be that he planned the attack to set us back about a week. Regardless, the result was the same, only that we suffered zero fatalities, which is odd for a surprise attack."
"Hmm… good thing most of the information is backed up then. What do you think we can do to prevent stuff like this from happening?"
"Unless we can monitor his position, all we can do is start preparing a better defense. I sent a request first thing this morning for some heavier weapons, if that's alright."
"Heavier weapons?" he asked me.
I nodded.
"Specifically, I'd like to get our carbines refitted to handle the .50 Beowulf rounds, plus a Browning .50 caliber to add to our patrol ships, and grenade launchers should help too, the single Marine that had a launcher caused plenty of trouble to the enemy, and I'm curious to see the effects of explosive ammunition on an abyssal."
"Explosive ammunition? Can I see that? Please?" Iowa said, losing her composure briefly before getting it back, her face turning crimson in front of the old admiral, who smiled politely at her before turning to me.
"Uh, sure, I think the Marines guarding the place would be more than happy to have the extra firepower, but I'm giving the task force a bit more than extra guns."
"Admiral?" Iowa asked, confused.
"I talked to the others and we've agreed to stay working here, but we're moving the main operations elsewhere. Central Intelligence, Federal Investigators, they're mostly going to evacuate to their own areas. Other than communications with them, this place is going to be ground zero for this offensive."
Offensive?!
"Admiral, with all due respect, we don't have the information to coordinate an attack on the enemy. We've no idea where he is, if he's even in the same reality right now, or what he has up his sleeve."
"Yeah, but we will eventually."
"But as it stands we don't have the equipment to…"
"Well tell that to the Marines. Remember those A10s they sent after the dragons? Same pilots landed them at the Air National Guard base in Peoria earlier this morning. They're being kept a close guarded secret by the airport's staff, but they'll be ready to fly CAS missions if needed 24/7, as well as four AH-64 Apaches that are already being shipped to another warehouse not too far from Chicago. That's not including the F-16s available already."
Jesus, the brass is really going all out.
"We're diverting plenty of resources here, lieutenant, and we're expecting the enemy to do the same. The second we get a whiff of this knight that area is to be glassed unless circumstances don't allow for it. In fact, I was meaning to ask you, how did he figure out where we were?"
"Actually, we were wondering the same thing. If he has an ability to detect anomalies via electric and radio waves, how come he hasn't attacked us the second we had Misaka in our care?"
"Actually, we may have an answer for that." Bogart approached us after a Humvee dropped him off at the warehouse. He was carrying a small binder.
"I don't know if you're aware, but security reported an instance of an unauthorized person wondering through the training area."
He showed us pictures from the security cameras. Some guy was walking around the base wearing a strange hat, almost like a fedora, with a strange sash around the top. Another picture showed better details, like a tied up trench coat and what appeared to be black boots. Again, the hat looked off. Now in greater detail, the sash around the hat looked more metallic… wait, no, not metallic, those were wires.
"No one saw him come in or out?" I asked.
"Yeah, a couple of MPs confronted him, asked for ID, he said he'd left it at the mess hall and was on his way to get it."
"And they just let him go?" Iowa asked.
"No, they asked him who he was and what he was doing here, whether he was with the Navy or not, and… that's when it gets weird. The guards said he answered all their questions but they can't remember any of them."
"Don't tell me we have another telepath on the loose." I groaned.
The admiral's eyes narrowed.
"Treat it like it is. This guy probably snuck into our base, looked around until he found the warehouse, fooled any of the men that went to question him, and retreated to inform his friend. I bet our Knight realized just how unprepared we were and decided to have his little chat with us because of the intel his little buddy here gave him." The admiral theorized.
I shuddered at the implications, and was suddenly glad that we were getting all that extra firepower.
Richard
Well what'd you know? I actually managed to get some sleep! Let me tell you how much of a mood changer that is, yes sir! I woke up not feeling the slightest bit miffed about being more useless than a police officer in a horror movie the previous night, and actually felt totally not guilty about not being able to do a damned thing when that prick dragged Misaki up in the air!
Sarcasm aside, mornings like this seriously suck.
I stared at myself in my phone's screen… I needed a haircut, but who cares? There was a frigging monster out there that nobody knew what it wanted except itself. Like a Charles Manson that can teleport anywhere… well, no… not Charles Manson… no one's died yet.
I took a deep breath, threw on the day's clothes, a pair of Levi's and a red T-shirt, and stepped out into the hallway to get ready for today's classes.
And promptly realized why my parents only had one child.
The line for the bathroom was two people too long for any home, and I gained a new respect for families with four or more kids.
"Morning…" I sighed.
The royal waved at me, and I noticed how exhausted he looked.
Misaka had her eyes closed, opened them, nodded, and closed them again.
"I'll take a wild guess that Misaki's in there." I sighed, hoping it wasn't true. Misaka opened her eyes.
"Actually, it's-" she was cut off as the door opened and a cloud of steam flowed out, obscuring our view of the inside and a good chunk of the hallway. Dad walked out in boxers and an undershirt, drying up his hair with a towel.
He smiled awkwardly, saying "Bathroom's free." before walking away.
Misaka rushed in and locked the door.
I remembered that the showers back at the situation warehouse didn't have very hot water; it wasn't cold, but it certainly wasn't as hot as most homes.
"You had quite a mouth on you last night." Lelouch said at random.
"Excuse me?" I asked, rubbing my eyes.
"I hadn't expected someone like you to suddenly start provoking someone who, by his own admission, could probably kill him with a thought."
"Not with a thought, but I don't see what's stopping him from dumping a dinosaur on my head…"
"But you see my point. I'm no mind reader, but you appeared rather… reckless. Perhaps out of frustration?" he mused, analytically.
"A winner is you… I was pretty frustrated. Something about the way he kept dodging basic questions, yet expecting us to know them… I don't know, pissed me off. Don't know how you kept your cool. Didn't he threaten your sister?" I asked, leaning against the wall.
"Yes, but losing my cool would only makes things worse for me. We don't want him getting any more advantages than he already has after all." he said, basically warning me to keep my mouth shut if edge lord reared his ugly head again, which is the smart decision. Don't give the enemy anything he can use against you.
I wondered if he was holding Lelouch's sister hostage, or if he was planning on doing something like that sooner or later.
"So, Royal, what's your plan here?" I asked, folding my arms.
"We need to find him, and to do that we need to know what he wants, which should be our main focus for the time being. A part of me says we should make this emergency publicly known since it takes away some of the limitations on what we can do, but that might push him to go even further. Whether he can or not isn't something we should gamble on. Regardless, it appears the odds aren't exactly in our favor." he sighed, then after a minute he turned to me. "You watch anime, any idea who that red haired woman was?"
I shrugged.
"She seems so familiar, but I can't remember her name. I think she's from… One Piece? I don't know- I have to look it up."
I grabbed my phone from my pocket and opened Chrome.
"Red haired anime swordswoman" I typed in. A second later several results popped up, some standing out more than others.
Some girl from High School DxD…
"Who's she?" Lelouch asked.
"Uh, I think she's a demon girl… I haven't seen this show yet." She kind of resembled the mysterious girl that appeared but…
"I see, but does she wear armor?"
I shrugged, glancing at the other result.
Shana from Shakugan no Shana in her fiery form, where she gets those angel wings, stared defiantly at an unseen enemy…
No, this swordswoman was an adult, no offense to the eternally young Flame Haze. Despite how cool it would've been to have her on our team, I should be glad it wasn't her. Depending on what version we got, she might opt to go on her own, adding a whole other set of problems.
The few others were fan art from various sites.
Figuring that just looking it up on the images section would work quicker, I tapped the phone's screen. Several pictures from various anime appeared.
"What about her?" Lelouch pointed to one of the first pictures to appear. The armor and hairstyle was exactly the same as the girl that had appeared the previous night.
"Erza Scarlet… Fairy Tail…" I read one of the results.
Oh, diet One Piece.
"Who is she?"
"Uh, I remember trying to watch a bit of the show back in high school… I think her gimmick is that she can not only spawn several swords, but materialize magical armors to boost her own strength. She's… very powerful…" I mumbled as I began to read her wiki.
"You're sure it's her?"
"Looks like her, but I could be wrong."
The bathroom door opened, Misaka walked out, drying her face with a small towel.
"Bathroom's… free? What are you two looking at?" she asked.
"Trying to ID the girls that appeared last night." I said, showing her the phone.
She looked at it.
"Erza Scarlett… why is she half naked in these?"
"Fan service." I replied, as Lelouch walked into the bathroom.
Misaka gave me a disapproving look.
"What? I don't watch that show."
"You watch mine, though." she replied, deadpanned. Well, she has a point; Index has plenty of fan service.
"Yeah, your show has an engaging story. Fairy Tail lost me after a few episodes."
"Oh, so you admit to watching it?" she asked, a smirk slowly appearing on her face.
"I used to watch it. Past tense." I said, wondering why I needed to justify what I watched in my free time.
"Yeah, okay… so how strong is she?" Misaka asked.
"Very." I answered.
"What about the little girl that came with her?"
Oh yeah, she'd been dragged along with an unconscious kid.
"She might've been from the anime, but I haven't seen far enough to know."
"I'll read into her then." She said, lying against the wall with my phone. I guess I was glad she didn't suddenly start asking me why I'd opened my big mouth the previous night, but she did seemed worried.
"I do hope she's friendly, though." she said quietly.
I nodded, and continued waiting for the Royal to get out of the shower.
Lieutenant Anderson
"… I don't know." I told Bogart as we looked through the slightly open door.
The red haired woman was sitting on the small chair, watching over the little girl with dark blue hair who was tucked into the bed as a nervous medical staff finished the checkup.
The large sword she held on to wasn't helping.
"Come on, Andy, you carry a berretta, bullets are faster than swords." He told me.
Yeah, sure, usually any bullet is faster than any swing of a sword.
But ignoring the fact that we'd be in an enclosed space, something about her made me way more nervous than I've ever been. Something in her eyes, I don't know, but she looks ready to cut down the entire staff if it means protecting the child. She would occasionally look at us, frown, and then turn to stare at the staff again. Thankfully, they had just taken some blood samples and performed a basic checkup.
So I called backup.
"I'm here lieutenant!" Iowa said happily, waving as she walked down the hallway.
Bogart looked at me with a raised eyebrow.
"Hey, she's stronger than most of the people here."
"What's got you so nervous?"
"I don't know, the fact that bullets have failed me, and the fact that it would take the A10s more than five seconds to get here if this goes south." I hissed.
"Fine, fine, I get that… well, we can wait for the staff to leave if-"
"We're already done." The doctor said as she approached us while the rest of her staff walked past us.
"Okay?" Bogart asked.
"She's perfectly fine other than the small concussion she received. I think she should wake up soon enough."
"Alright… you think we can…?"
"Sure, uh, one last thing, check their skin, you'll be amazed." He said cryptically as he left.
"Why?" Iowa asked me as if I knew.
I shrugged, took a breath and-
"I know you want to talk to me, so enough wasting time." Red head said impatiently.
"Aye, ma'm…" I said, motioning for Iowa and Bogart to follow me inside.
The three of us stood there for a few seconds, unsure how to do this, exactly. Red head didn't really help, simply staring at us, waiting for us to make the first move.
"Um… So, you know I'm Iowa, that's my lieutenant, and he's a police officer." Iowa stated in as friendly a manner as she could.
"Yes, I must thank you for helping me with Wendy. Your doctors were very kind and… patient."
"We aim to please, ma'm." Bogart said, probably plagiarizing the Army's slogan, but I stayed quiet.
"Well, let's not beat around the bush, where are we?" she asked.
"Illinois, United States of America." I said.
She blinked. Looked around for a few seconds, and nodded.
"I see, this is another world, isn't it?" she mused.
"That's… correct… does this happen to you often?" I asked.
"It isn't the first time we get taken out of our world. You seemed rather prepared for instances such as this, though. I take I'm not the only one."
"Yup! I was brought here by that weird knight guy we were fighting." Iowa said.
"That knight… he just appeared out of nowhere… who is he?"
"No clue, but he attacked our base… how long was he with you before you appeared in our world?"
"Only for a second, he just appeared in front of me as I helped Wendy move… I went to strike him, and next thing I knew I had kicked you over." she said, looking at me.
"Eh, yeah, that makes some sense." So, he somehow travelled into her story while being held down by our own men? Or is this something else?
"I, uh, didn't get your name." Bogart said.
"Erza Scarlett. My friend is Wendy Marvell."
Bogart turned around to look them up on his phone.
"So, why does this place not have any magic? I can't detect any, despite your strange devices."
"Because this is the real world." Iowa said simply.
"Uh, excuse me?" Erza asked, somewhat annoyed, as if she thought Iowa was messing with her.
"It makes more sense if we just show you." Bogart said, handing her his phone. On it was a picture for an anime with a pink haired young man with a flaming arm smiling. Standing next to him was a blonde, a dark haired young man, and a version of Erza and Wendy. Erza stared at it for five seconds before handing it back and smiling.
"I see… in this world you look into our own and draw stories based around It." she said, smiling.
The red haired girl sighed.
"Well, is there any way back?" she asked.
"We're trying to figure that-" I started, but was quickly cut off.
"Hey, what are you doing?" she asked Bogart, who was looking at the small girl called Wendy.
"Sorry, the doctor said to check your skin… I don't see anything wrong with hers, though." he said, suddenly noticing Erza's expression he took a step back.
"Hey, did the doctor mention something about your skin?"
"He examined it briefly. I don't know what surprised him." She said, showing me her exposed arm.
I raised an eyebrow. Yeah, there isn't anything… wait…
What the hell?
Richard
I grabbed a box of Cocoa Puffs and dumped some cereal into my plate before adding some milk. I don't know why, but one of the agents gave me a dirty look.
"What?" I asked as politely as I could.
"You kids should eat more for breakfast." He said before walking away.
Well, tell that to Lelouch, all he had for breakfast was a muffin the team had brought along with a bunch of other groceries.
Whatever…
I made my way to the living room, where everyone was gathered; the dent Iowa had made remained on the floor. Most of the scientists had some beach chairs they must've unpacked from the garage, while the small group of fictional characters sat down at the couch.
"Okay, so I think it's time for us to discuss what we have so far." One of dad's colleagues said.
"This knight is clearly capable of opening portals to somewhere else. Richard, you mentioned there was a physical change in the air?" one of them asked me.
"Yeah, like it was being pushed out of the way." I said before putting a spoonful of cereal in my mouth.
"Not to mention, the red haired woman seemed to jump seemingly out of nowhere while the little girl just materialized. It's possible he opened it at a certain point, having her be in the middle of performing an action." Dad added.
"The amount of energy needed to open something like that."
"Why is this knight so weak, then? It took two men to hold him in place, and he didn't throw them off, he seemed to burn their arms slightly in order to escape." Lelouch said.
"And why didn't he kill anyone? He had the chance to wipe us all out in one go." Dad asked.
"Because he probably wants us alive." Misaki mused.
Everyone looked at her before she spoke up again.
"When he grabbed me I was suddenly able to read his thoughts. It's like nothing I had ever seen. He was pure rage." She said softly.
I frowned. Something about that, a villain made out of pure rage, sounds familiar. I might've written a few villains that worked in a similar fashion… or was that Charlie? Well, if I did, they should've found something by now, which they haven't…
"So maybe for him, death is too good for us?" dad asked.
Misaki shrugged.
"But he didn't look like he was acting just out of anger; he seemed more disorganized if anything. When I fought him he was much sloppier than the last time." Misaka added.
"He did have multiple people shooting him this time, maybe he was distracted." Dad mused.
"Regardless, bullets did no visible damage."
"Maybe he's like the abyssal? We just need to hit him with something harder?" one of the agents asked.
"Ah, right, the abyssal. How the hell does that thing work?"
Ah ha! Researching Kancolle had paid off!
"I read that they're very much like revenant zombies. Probably sunken ship girls that are out for revenge, they're similar to Iowa, only probably undead. But that's the more popular theory, another one is that they're like aliens, but their objective stays the same." Misaki said before I could speak up.
Everyone looked at her, somewhat surprised.
"I had some time to read up on it, and Richard was researching the same thing when we talked to him… Also I can read minds." She said, smiling playfully while slowly combing her hair.
"Okay, so we have to destroy her brain or something?" dad asked.
"No, sinking them works, but it's worth mentioning that in the anime it's apparently possible to cure them, I don't know. But the game is incredibly unclear on the subject. There are a ton of theories on what the abyssals actually are, what the true nature of the fleet girls is, hell some people even think Kantai Collection takes place in either the afterlife or has a shared universe with another series." I said.
"And what do we know from Iowa?"
"About her world? That it's basically similar to ours, but she lacks knowledge on stuff that should be basic knowledge to her, like what party is in power and what policies they share. We do know that she is a human being, however, so it's not like they're machines or something… at least… she isn't." One of the scientists said.
We were quiet for a second before dad spoke up.
"Okay, so I have a theory. Maybe this edge lord needs a certain amount of information before being able to bring characters into our world?" dad said.
Huh?
"Like, take Iowa, her character's ability and what she can do is well known, and has a real world equivalent, the same goes for Misaka, Lelouch and Misaki."
"I have a real world equivalent?" Misaki asked.
"Human neuroimaging." dad replied. "In theory, we can monitor a brain's motor functions in order to figure out how a person is feeling, even what they may be thinking, but it's still a new discipline. Misaka's magnetism is nearly impossible for normal people, but with enough energy it is something we can do with machines. Lelouch's ability seems to be a capable of shutting down certain parts of the brain in order to make them more susceptible to commands, something some drugs can do, but that's still just a working theory. However, take a character like Superman; he can't bring him here because his powers are just insane. How does he propel himself through space without the need to breath? How can he not only survive on the surface of the sun, but not overload if it's supposed to charge him and he's near a blue one? I think he needs to have real world equivalents in order to have them exist." Dad mused, somewhat excitedly.
"But those dragons don't have real world equivalents." Misaka reminded us.
"Sort of. Blue whales grow to a hundred feet, and we've had large animals in our past, we do have things he can reference, but the problem is that animals that big, designed the way they are, can only support their own weight for so long, which is why they were incapable of surviving more than a few hours, maybe a day at most. If the tanks and planes hadn't killed them, they would've died by their own weight before long."
"So, maybe he can't bring a world destroyer, but this red haired girl he brought could be a magic user, how does that work?"
One of the MARSOC Marines entered the house.
"You're going to find out. Pack it up, the boss wants you all back at the warehouse."
"Huh? Everything okay?" dad asked.
"They want to introduce you kids to the new members. Also, they wouldn't mind having the extra backup while we wait to get the heavier stuff." He answered.
That included me. Thursday's classes for me started a little after one thirty in the afternoon, and I was very much considering skipping today.
…
He wasn't kidding about the heavier stuff.
Already the troops were unloading boxes of heavy ammunition from trucks and taking them to a separate room. I heard the modified M4s were on their way, too.
Once inside what was left of the situation warehouse, we noticed that the red head and the little girl I'd barely gotten a glimpse at were sitting down on a couple of chairs, looking around.
"I think I figured out his plan." dad muttered, the statement getting everybody within earshot to look at him.
"He wants to distract us with beautiful women that shouldn't exist so he can get away with his own plans. Sick, but effective." he concluded.
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Yeah, she's hot, she can also break you like a twig, something I initially feared would be the case with Iowa, but with her it was a near guarantee. Probably, like… a ninety percent chance… I don't know.
"Hi! Hi!" Iowa greeted as she ran up to us.
"Uh, hey…" dad said awkwardly.
"So, that's Erza Scarlet, and her friend over there is Wendy… something… anyway Erza is the coolest! She has hundreds of swords at her disposal and over a hundred different armors that-"
The red haired woman wailed at the mention of her armor. The smaller girl to her right rubbed her shoulder in an attempt at calming her down.
"Why is she…?"
"So, it turns out they can't really use magic here." Iowa said, disappointed.
Yeah, that makes sense. You can't just use an ability that defies reality the way her apparently does.
"Well of course they can't, but surely they still have some powers left, right?" Lelocuch asked.
"Hey! Erza! Show 'em what you can still do!" Iowa yelled excitedly.
The red haired woman frowned.
"Come on! It's still pretty incredible!" the blonde said with a smile.
With a sigh, the red haired girl extended her hand. I noticed the air change slightly as a sword dropped into her open hand. As if she had opened a portal that contained her weapon.
"Come on, show us some of the cool stuff you wear!"
With a suddenly bored expression she let out a sigh, and a bunch of iron armor fell to the floor in front of her, startling us.
"Yeah, check this stuff out! I can barely lift it!" she said, picking up the helmet, tossing it to me.
No way in hell I could catch that, so I stepped out of the way, allowing it to shatter an already broken table into a hundred pieces of broken wood and metal.
"I can't use my reequip magic… it all results in the armor just dropping onto the ground like that instead of trading with whatever I'm wearing." She muttered.
"It's alright, I'm sure it'll wear off when we get back home." Wendy said, smiling.
"Hi! I'm Mikoto Misaka, what's your name?" Misaka asked as cheerfully as she could.
"Wendy Marvell."
"You have amazing hair… You girls are magicians?"
"Were…" Erza said, irritated.
"Bah, you have some of the craziest powers we've seen this side of the Mississippi! Take a look!" Iowa said, suddenly grabbing the red head's and pulling her up to show us her skin.
"It looks perfectly normal." Dad said.
"Woah… look at that…" it was Misaka who noticed.
I looked intently at the skin and… what the hell?
"Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you a true to life force field!" Iowa declared as if this was somehow an achievement of hers.
"Could you let go of my arm?" the girl asked, somewhat embarrassed.
"Right, sorry, but you have no idea how amazing that is!"
She's not kidding. It's subtle, but about a millimeter or so above her skin is what appears to be an almost invisible layer of sorts, like a bubble, but the freaky thing is that Iowa's hand didn't seem to go through it when she grabbed it.
"Wait, it's an impenetrable shield?" dad asked, staring in awe. Yeah, it's not as crazy as an anti-gravity gun, but it's still a crazy development in what's technically possible for us.
"No, slow things like needles can pass through, but if you try to grab her all quick like I did or, say, shoot her, I'd bet it would bounce right off!"
"I didn't know we had something like that." the red head said.
"I read your wiki, and it doesn't say anything about a force field." Misaka said.
"Actually, Erza did tank plenty of deadly hits; I'd say this extra layer of protection is what often saves her and her friends." Lieutenant Anderson said, walking over. "I think that's literally plot armor." he added quietly, but we all heard it.
"That's stupid, it needs to have some kind of real world explanation if it exists in the real world." dad replied, deadpanned.
"Plot armor?" the little girl asked.
"Well, at one point Erza managed to slice a meteor in half…" the lieutenant began, checking his phone briefly and explaining "…by launching yourself into the air with your left arm… holding a sword with your right arm… and somehow despite literally every other bone in your body being pretty much destroyed… you hit the meteor with such force you pretty much pulverized it… and still had enough strength left over to tank not one, but two powerful hits from your out of control best friends… what do you call that?"
Jesus-Mary-and-Joseph, what the hell?!
Everybody turned to look at the red head, with unsure looks. Not unsure as distrust, more like unsure as how she would manage any of that in the real world.
Erza herself was also wide eyed and seemed unsure of what to answer.
The only one who seemed to speak then was Wendy.
"Yeah, that sounds like Erza alright." She said happily.
"I… don't think I've done that… under those conditions…" the red head added bashfully.
"Regardless, I don't want to find out if you can output more energy than a nuclear bomb on your left arm alone, so everyone play nice." The lieutenant said, smiling.
"…There is no way… I want to see you lift a tank like Superman!" she said excitedly.
"I…"
Before Iowa could continue to fan-girl over someone's extra strength, the telltale sound of a helicopter was heard outside, startling the two new comers.
"W-what is that?" the smaller one asked.
"Oh, that? Probably just a helicopter… you don't have those in your world?" Iowa asked.
"Heli…copter? Why is it so loud?" Erza asked.
I glanced at the lieutenant who was making his way outside with several men.
"Want to see it? I don't think the Lieutenant would mind." Iowa said, half leading half dragging the red haired woman outside.
"Is it okay?" Wendy asked, following Erza.
"We better make sure Pax Americana doesn't cause any trouble…" Lelouch said, motioning towards the other two girls.
Eh, I've seen plenty of helicopters, but I might as well follow them, maybe I can serve as a human shield or something if we got attacked by the edge lord again…
God, I am just a mess this morning…
Once again, I pushed those thoughts away, focusing on the pretty impressive sight of the twin bladed helicopter.
Lieutenant Anderson
The two newcomers gaped as the twin engine helicopter, a CH-47, twirled in the air and slowly landed outside the warehouse, right where a parking lot would be. The back door opened and a couple of men hopped out in order to start dropping the cargo. While simple stuff like bullets were easy to bring in through trucks, this chopper was bringing some of the heavier weapons I'd requested only a few hours earlier.
Imagine my surprise when my CO told me that they'd be here a little before midday.
The engines kept going as the troops unloaded several boxes, both the weapons and extra munitions.
"It's incredible, isn't it?" Iowa yelled over the sound of the spinning blades. She'd been way more excited once Scarlet showed up, though I don't know why. Maybe because this new visitor uses strength and speed more than anything, something Iowa could probably relate to.
Once the helicopter dropped off the weapons, it quickly took off and flew away.
"Alright… let's get these inside."
"That… was unlike anything I've seen before… is that thing safe to fly?" I heard the red head ask.
"Of course it is! It's American made and it's been in service for decades! Don't underestimate our engineers." Iowa replied proudly.
"What do you use to get around in the air?" Lelouch asked.
"Mostly air ships, but trains and cars are more efficient… that thing just looks like a death trap." the red head commented.
"Well, we're pretty advanced when it comes to flying; our jets are the best in the world!" Iowa said.
"Well, that's interesting, but… do you need help?" the red head asked my men as we began carrying the boxes of guns and ammo.
"It's fine… we can-"
I don't think she listened, because immediately she grabbed the boxes another soldier and I were carrying with one arm and grabbed a crate of ammo with the other, sling each over her shoulder and walking to the door. Here she realized that walking inside with them would be more difficult given the size of the door, so she put one down, angled the crate slightly, stepped inside and reached outside to grab the other box.
She did that in a span of a few seconds, like she was lifting pillows. Come to think of it, she looked rather satisfied when she picked up the crate with one hand, as if it proved that she was still technically the strongest one there.
I don't know why it surprised me, I knew she was insanely strong, but I guess actually seeing it was an experience on its own. I remembered how she launched that soldier across the room and into a table. The guy had lived, thank God, but he'd broken several ribs, limiting him to the base's medical ward until he got better.
"Show off…" Misaki murmured.
"Ah, that's just Erza trying to help in her own way. She always tries to do the right thing, even if no one asks for her help." Wendy added happily.
Misaki nodded politely and smiled back, but the second Wendy was out of reach she turned to the others and whispered "That's what worries me."
She had a point, but we couldn't worry about that right now.
…
"Alright, so… what's in these?" Erza asked, tapping one of the crates.
"That one? uh… Ammo." one of the troops answered, doing inventory of another crate.
She raised an eyebrow.
"You're expecting another attack?" she asked.
"Yup, but hopefully, we'll be better prepared this time." I answered.
"You think he can send us back?" the little girl asked then.
"Well, hopefully." I replied.
The pair was quiet for a bit, as if waiting for me to tell her to do something. I wasn't planning on doing that so I continued taking stock of the rounds of ammo we'd gotten.
"Is there anything I can do to help?" Erza asked after a second.
I looked at her.
"Go talk to the other, uh… visitors, get to know each other, we don't want you to force yourself too much in this fight." I said one second before my brain realized that I shouldn't say that we don't want her to fight.
"You don't want me to help you fight?" she asked, surprised and maybe a little irritated.
"Well, if we can avoid it… we have a saying that goes something like you win the fights you avoid or something like that." I said slowly.
She sighed, but didn't argue. Instead she turned around and looked at the rest of the displaced characters. With the exception of Misaki, they were all analyzing her.
"Well, come on, Wendy…"
The pair took a few steps forward and sat down.
Richard
I had been waiting for the red head girl to join our little group of displaced characters and occasional not displaced people, of which dad had joined this time. She took a seat next to Wendy, eyeing us.
"So… I have several questions." She said.
"Well, of course, feel free to ask anything."
"Before I do, the most important one right now…" she glared at each and every one of us before asking "Can any of you distract Wendy for a little while?"
"Erza!" the little girl exclaimed.
"Wendy, I think it would be better if you focused on something not so serious, and took a break, you were at the medical ward just a few hours ago. Why don't you go play with Misa…" she held the note as she looked in between the younger blonde and the chestnut haired girl, seemingly unsure which one ended in –ka or –ki.
Mikoto stood up.
"Come on, I'll show you some of this world's magic." She said in that big sister tone she would use when talking to younger kids.
"I'm not that little you… what's that?" she asked, staring at the tablet on Misaka's hands.
"The harvested fruits of science, come on!" she said, leading the little girl away, probably to show her that pony show she keeps watching.
"I apologize, but I'd rather not have her worry about how bad this situation might really be…"
"I understand completely. You probably saw the damage our mysterious knight caused last night." Lelouch said.
She nodded.
"Be honest with me, what are our chances of returning to our home?" she asked.
"We're not sure… my team and I are studying the circumstances under which the doors or portals between realities open, but we haven't found anything too definitive yet." Dad replied.
"I see… thank you… so! This world is already quite different from mine. Are yours any…?"
"Well, our worlds are very similar to this one actually. My world has an oppressive government that rules most of the planet, using gigantic mechanical suits to enforce its laws onto a suffering people. I was planning on fighting against that nation, but the mysterious knight that brought me here had other plans."
"I… see…"
"Oh, that's not to say that this world has that, it doesn't have a single global power forcing everyone to its bidding. While imperfect, this world is much freer than my own." Lelouch said, causing Iowa to relax. I think she was about to yell at the guy for giving Erza a bad impression.
"My world isn't all that different from this one, except that in my reality, esper powers and apparently magic exist together. However, my reality's magic and your magic are greatly different." Misaki stated simply.
"And my world has an ongoing war between reincarnated battleships and sea monsters."
"Come again?" Erza said, definitely lost.
"I'm a fleet girl, I fight the abyssals, these sea monsters that may or may not be alien- no one knows, but there are plenty of fleet girls like me. I'm just the incarnation of the USS Iowa, an American warship!" She said, smiling proudly.
"America… this is the country we're in?"
We all nodded.
"Is it… a good place?"
"Lady, it is the best place you could've wound up on! We have, freedom, liberty, the most powerful military in the world, the best people in the world, um…"
"The almost constant war…" Misaki added playfully.
"The almost constant- hey!" she exclaimed, looking less annoyed about the statement than about the fact that Misaki ruined her list of good things.
The other blonde laughed.
"You're easier to annoy than Misaka."
Iowa pouted, before muttering "We still made it to the moon."
"Wait, is it true? This world has been in almost constant war?" she seemed to be asking dad and me.
Dad nodded.
"Yeah, that's one thing you need to understand about our world, it isn't a place where good and evil are as clear cut as in your world. Maybe one group is fighting for something that is deep down bad, but that doesn't mean that everyone in that group is evil, just that it has bad people leading it."
"Like the Germans!" Iowa exclaimed.
"Or the French." Lelouch added quietly.
Erza stared in confusion.
Dad answered her question before she could ask.
"The Germans are a group of people that live in Europe, a continent across the sea from us. A hundred years ago they were one of the most powerful nations there, and when a war in that continent broke out they went to war with many of the other more powerful nations, eventually losing that war. They're more infamously known for the war they started after that one in which they went on a vengeful rampage across Europe, conquering most of the continent, and dragging the entire world into the war in order to stop them. They outright murdered millions of people because they blamed them for losing the previous war, which they had primarily fought against their neighbors, the French, who had done something kind of similar a little more than two hundred years ago." Dad greatly oversimplified.
"Wait! The whole world was pulled into a war with one nation?!" Erza asked loudly.
"Well, technically it was three nations, but the Italians didn't do much, and the Japanese were mostly a threat to Asia, a continent on the opposite end of world, but yeah, just about the entire planet went to war with these three countries in order to stop them from conquering the rest of the planet, but that is a huge oversimplification."
"Both sides had good and bad people working for them, and many of them thought they were doing the right thing. But it's worth mentioning that it was the Germans and the Japanese that brutally tortured millions simply because they weren't born a certain way, so yeah, one group was clearly evil." I said.
The red head shuddered.
"But thanks to that we are now living in the most peaceful era in human history!" Iowa attempted to conclude.
"I see, who's this country fighting now?" Erza asked.
"Oh, well, extremist in some parts of the world, but that's not really a war, it's more of a limited exchange of fire in order to stop certain people since none of them really have a country… exactly." Iowa answered.
"I would go out there and take them all out in one go, but I can't because the knight is a bigger problem." Iowa replied.
"I see… what do you know about him?"
6-18-1-14-11 3-1-19-20-12-5
I bet you're wondering what I know about this guy since I'm working with him. Unfortunately, I don't know too much about him. He was rather cryptic when he appeared before me.
I was originally walking around New York, not really doing anything, just thinking. Next thing I know I feel someone's looking at me and there he is, just looking me over. There was no one else out in the street at the moment, and I wondered if this weird guy in a knight's armor was someone I should worry about.
"Who are you?" I asked him.
"An admirer…"
Oh here we go, I remember thinking. Another kid that thinks killing criminals makes you a hero. People that usually admire me for that aren't exactly the kind anyone, myself included, needs to have following them around. Then the world around me vanished, and I wasn't in New York anymore.
I wasn't sure where I was, exactly, but the city looked eerily like Chicago.
But something was off. There were different buildings, stores I'd never seen on my other trips that I should've, but strangest of all, the stores I knew and the big brands that I knew weren't there in the slightest.
I didn't like the implication that I was in some alternate world, but I figured I might as well do what I can with what I knew.
First of all, I needed to know if my money worked here, so I tried to grab some from an ATM. It wouldn't accept my cards, which was a problem, but I had plenty of cash that did work.
So one train ticket and two hours later I was where I wanted to be.
"The bad side of town" if you will, wasn't as bad as I remembered, but it was clear that it still had problems, graffiti clearly showing gang symbols, broken windows that had been boarded up with weak and now rotted out pieces of wood, at least one burnt car remained in someone's front yard; terrible for the poor saps living here, but momentarily beneficial for me. I moved through the streets, with few people bothering to look at me twice, and then I saw them. A couple of… kids, really; so young, and obviously deep in bed with the worst of people. The way both of them talked and moved implied that they were the big boys on the street, the ones that no one crossed. Hanging head high, relaxed demeanors, plenty of piercings, probably made of real gold, but I couldn't tell you right there and then.
I crossed the street and stepped into their yard.
They instantly stopped talking and looked at me.
"Hey, white boy, you lost?" the one on the left asked, approaching me.
"A little bit, actually." I said, smiling politely.
"Well, I'll tell you right now; this ain't where you want to be. I think the place you're looking for is way back that way." He said in a tone that sounded polite but was really just dripping with threat.
"Actually, I'm a bit tired, do you know any good hotels?" I asked.
"The Marriot's pretty good, now get outta here before someone shoots you." he said, turning around, irritated.
"Ah, who's going to shoot me?"
"Lots of bad people in this part of town." he told me.
I chuckled.
"What's so funny?" the other one asked.
"You got drugs on you?" I asked then. These guys were trying to be patient, avoid trouble, which was admirable, but not what I needed.
Oh, but that got a reaction from the pair.
"You a cop?" they asked.
"In another life. What about-?"
"Well, we're both law abiding citizens. You got questions come back with a warrant."
I nodded, but stayed put.
"Will you get outta here old man?" the younger one said loudly.
"Man, I don't like this. This some Gran Torino level…"
"You're on private property, sir! Sir!" he yelled at me, getting up in my face.
I ignored the two of them. If they called the police then we'd see what happened, but I wanted to see if they'd work with me.
"Maybe you should use those illegal guns you two have there." I taunted.
They got a look and narrowed their eyes. The one closest to me removed a handgun from his trousers, keeping it pointed at the ground, but with his finger on the trigger.
"So… someone sent you?"
"Yeah, I guess."
He pointed it at my head.
"You are going to tell us who sent you and why and where he is."
"Sure, how about I come in and you two make me a nice cup of coffee?"
"You think you're funny?"
"No… not anymore. So, politely, put down the gun and I'll tell you all about it tomorrow. I'm pretty tired, you know?"
He blinked, and turned to his friend, who shook his head.
"Or…" I grabbed my own handgun, putting it right up to his face. It still had a silencer from the last guy I had to discretely take out of the picture. He backed up, startled I guess. I noticed his buddy was up and reaching for his own weapon.
Smart, and fast, but not fast enough.
He went down relatively quickly, one bullet to the chest; he looked surprised, dropped his gun and fell to the floor.
The other guy dropped his gun and raised his hands.
"Don't shoot! I'm just a delivery guy! Please!" he begged.
"What do you two do here, exactly?"
"I-I dunno! I just bring him packages… and… and…"
He could tell I wasn't buying it.
He didn't say anything, but it was like he knew I was about to pull the trigger, and couldn't keep the tears from coming.
"I can't stand people like you." I said, pulling the trigger, silencing the brief cry coming out of him.
I checked the house first, noting that there wasn't anyone in there… at least, that I could see.
Dragging the thin, almost skeletal bodies of the boys was easy enough, but as I moved them to the empty basement, I heard a gasp come from behind me.
A fat old lady looked at me, petrified. She was wearing pajamas, so she could've been asleep a minute ago, and now…
"What… did you do?!" she cried, dropping to her knees.
A part of me wanted to feel empathy, to at least explain the reason for the two dead kids, but as she shouted and cried for her "baby boy" I realized that she had been holding a wad of cash. The money dropped to the floor as I put her out of her well-deserved misery.
She was in on it.
There was no way she wouldn't know what this kid was doing; she was partly to blame for her son being where he was now.
I'd bet she'd lie to the police; tell them her kid was with her whenever he killed some poor sap.
As I dragged the three bodies down into the basement I saw the washing machine with a pile of clothes next to it.
Old bloodstains were visible on them…
No. I do not feel sorry for killing them, even if you could argue that maybe these weren't bad folks; that the stains could've easily been from some sauce or something else, that I just murdered a family that hadn't hurt anybody. Assuming you proved it, the following couple of days gave me all the information I needed about this world to decide that it was in desperate need of burning.
My wife and daughter were murdered in order to make me decide to do what I do.
All the big crazy things that had happened to me and hell, even the people around me, were "plot twists" so that whatever sicko was reading the story would feel shock and "admiration" for the sadist that wrote it.
I guess I can't blame it all on the writers for some of the bad stuff that happens in my world; this world's news doesn't seem all that different from my own, but the really bad stuff that happens to me, and technically everyone in my reality is all just a story written by some guys in a room.
I wanted to find whoever brought me here, figure out what he wanted, see if I had to kill him too, but he showed up on his own.
It was around day four, when six guys from the pair of idiots I had killed and buried showed up on the front porch. They knocked on the door and were shocked when I answered and told them the pair of residents that lived here had gone.
They didn't like that explanation.
Once those six were promptly dumped in the basement, I locked the door and I saw the guy in knight's armor appear.
"Oh, there you are… I thought I sensed you around here…"
I nodded and went to the kitchen.
"So… you must know by now." he said.
"Yeah, this world writes my stories, the people here enjoy watching guys like me suffer."
"What are you going to do about it?" he asked me.
"I don't know… what do you have in mind?"
"Well, I'm not so sure myself, but I do want this world and its people to hurt… is that alright with you?"
I was on board from that point on.
…
I kept my eyes trained on the tiny, tiny, unmanned drone flying high over the lake. I didn't recognize the model, and I sure as hell wasn't used to seeing unmanned planes this small, but it probably wasn't military. I was half certain that was CIA, but I couldn't be sure.
"…Should we shoot it down?" I asked the pale girl next to me. Her features are unnerving, and that gigantic thing over her head is outright disturbing, but she's on our side after the old man fixed her brain.
She shook her head, never speaking, but understanding what I was asking.
I sighed, glad that she at least understood the importance of strategy when facing a superior threat, but mildly irritated that I had to be teaching this to a kid that didn't even ask questions.
In my head, I heard the old man's voice in my head.
"Do you hear me?" he asked.
"Doctor, I hear you loud and clear." The man was an expert, he had researched the way Misaki's brain worked, created a helmet that allowed people like me to put our thoughts in other's heads, and with it he had broken the spell the exiled prince had on our mysterious girl.
"We're going to wait for them to get comfortable, make them feel safe. They won't lower their guard today, but sooner or later they'll have to take at least some of their friends out into the real world."
"I see."
"This should pay off, patience."
"Patience is something I value."
My friend here, on the other hand…
She had been quiet since she had gained her free will, but other than an occasional sigh or exclamation, she didn't speak.
"We're going to have to wait for them to make a move, think you can wait?"
She turned to me, and nodded, before sitting down under the trees near the water's edge.
Sooner or later, they'd all get what's coming to them.
Richard
"And how does he fly?" Erza asked.
"Uh… we don't know yet, but it could be something as simple as rocket boots." Dad had replied lamely.
We'd been talking for a bit, laying out what we knew about the edge lord, our suspicions about how I might've written him a long time ago, or maybe helped write him. We mentioned Charlie, who was already on his way to Chicago, but we were supposed to meet in a few days, what powers we expected her to still have, and the dragons and how they were killed by our tanks. We'd shown her camera footage both from the battle the previous night and the one some of my neighbors took when this all started two weeks ago.
Erza tapped the tablet and played the footage of the brief battle in the dessert.
"They're gigantic…" she mumbled as the Red Death came into view.
Her eyes widened as the tank's firepower was revealed.
"How powerful are your weapons?" she asked.
"Well, they can level cities with ease." Lelouch said.
I glared at the royal, unsure if sharing our capacities with a newcomer so soon was wise.
Regardless, Erza didn't react to the young man's words.
The brief frames of footage from the A10s' run on the dragons left her silent.
"Crazy, right?" Iowa asked the red head.
"I find it… disturbing that this world has forced you to develop such destructive weapons… but if you're using them to defend yourselves… I cannot fault you for that." she said in a serious tone. I wasn't sure, but something in her voice worried me. As if this was her agreeing to a non-agreement similar to what Lelouch had done when he'd met Bogart and Anderson.
I narrowed my eyes at the red head girl, but figured that it was better than nothing.
"Please don't inform Wendy of what you've told me. I don't like lying to her, but I'd rather she not find out about the darker parts of this world." she said.
I nodded, noticing the others agreeing to Erza's request, except Misaki.
"I won't say anything, but it's possible that she'll find out about it on her own."
"That's fine, but for now I'd rather not have to explain to her how many people have been killed in this world due to petty conflicts."
Iowa looked pensive.
I glanced at the corner of the warehouse, where Misaka and Wendy were happily humming together the theme song of a certain TV show.
The virus spreads… I thought to myself.
Lieutenant Anderson
"UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" I heard a bored esper groan in my head.
I looked in Misaki's direction. She was sitting on an office chair near some unmanned computers, occasionally swiveling the chair in a circle. She stopped when she saw me looking at her, and in my head I suddenly heard a very meek and embarrassed "sorry".
I shook my head, unable to blame her. Technically we'd been under lockdown procedures, rarely stepping out of the warehouse with the exception of Richard going to class on Friday and us taking the newcomers to a nearby gym to train, most of us had remained stuck here for a little more than 36 hours.
The Navy had turned the warehouse into a command center, drilling a large TV screen to the walls, on which we could monitor air traffic over Illinois and pinpoint radio anomalies. We'd gotten plenty of new computers, which were much more resistant to damages (though that wouldn't mean much if that abyssal arrived again), and we'd added an armory room in the form of an extra room outside. Ammo for those weapons was unfortunately being kept in Richard's room, cramping him up a fair bit, but he hadn't complained so far. Erza and Wendy had roomed up with Misaka given the small amount of room available, but neither had minded.
Erza had been a strange case so far.
Her powers were clearly limited here, but she was still overpowered. We'd had her have a hand to hand fight with some of the stronger Marines working with us. Individually they had lasted a grand total of five seconds before she pinned them to the floor, and when we had them all gang up on her… well… the footage spoke for itself.
They tried rushing her and she had let them get close, one of the bigger ones grabbed her back and tried lifting her off the ground only for her to jump backwards, crashing him into another Marine, pinning them to the floor, but the other three Marines rushed her then, piling on her.
I remember that she smiled, and admitted that she couldn't get them off of her before the five seconds ran out. She could definitely escape, just not before the three seconds were up.
The Marines had groaned at what they considered a pyrrhic victory.
"Chin up! You succeeded!" she had said, trying to cheer the men up.
"Yeah, because we kept you down for five seconds…"
"So? Feel pride in that fact. Few are able to say they beat the great Titannia." She said, smiling.
Yeah, technically, but this was without her using any magic, and possibly at a quarter of her actual strength, maybe not even that, since we'd yet to see her lift a tank or a car, but she had been able to bench press 300 pounds easily, again, without any magic buffs.
Those were a different story altogether.
Okay, so her dresses don't work like they did in her world. They don't just materialize on her body and give her a boost, so far they'll just materialize on the air or the floor, and even if she puts them on, aside from the heavy armor, there's no added strength or protection. That had been a blow to her, but her swords were a different story. She'd allowed the egg heads to look some of the blades over, and while they couldn't exactly shoot lasers, she did have a spear that could redirect any form of electricity in one of four directions, and this included Misaka's own generated electricity, something that almost blew our cover when a bolt hit one of the electrical grids by accident. Most of the other blades were forged in ways that benefited certain fighting styles she could use, as in some were clearly made for heavier hits while some were made for fast strikes, it was all well and good, but her scariest power was her limited telekinesis.
She could manipulate her blades to make them fly around, or just launch them like missiles with her mind. Oddly enough, that was it. She couldn't pick up a person with her mind, she couldn't pick up other objects with her mind, so the theory was that as long as it was something she kept in whatever pocket reality she kept her swords and armor, she could essentially control it, even though she could manipulate other things in her series.
So, we had a powerful asset here, a literal super powered woman that could probably do as much damage as an artillery strike all by herself; two if you count Wendy, but despite some enhanced strength, she hasn't shown the capabilities from her series, so if we hadn't seen what she could do yet or she no longer could use her abilities was yet to be confirmed.
Both had been very helpful so far, very cooperative, but even they seemed rather bored after a while of doing little around such a limited area. Although Wendy would usually wonder off with Mikoto to watch whatever those two watched on her tablet… at least that distracted her without distracting the rest of us.
Meanwhile, Erza would usually be doing… something around an open area near the entrance.
Like right now.
She was wearing some exercising gear we'd gotten her, and was in the middle of bench pressing one of our Marines, keeping him straight as she lifted him up like a dumbbell. The young man didn't seem to mind being used as exercising equipment though.
"...ninety-nine… one hundred…" thank you Alexander she said putting the young man down.
"No problem…" the twenty year old said happily, sounding like a teenager, slinging the new M4 model over his shoulder.
I rolled my eyes at that. These guys had been gentlemen in front of the girls, but I knew some of them had made it a personal goal to "finish the Erza route"…
Typical marines…
Iowa noticed my irritation as she passed me some papers.
"The drone footage of the lake hasn't revealed anything, Lieutenant, sorry." She said sadly.
We'd been monitoring Lake Michigan like our lives depended on it, and they kind of did.
But as the blonde has mentioned, we'd yet to find any sign of the abyssal.
Things had been quiet, and it was worrisome, but we all knew keeping these kids locked up forever wasn't an option.
"How about you train with meyoung prince?" Erza asked the young royal. Lelouch had been researching stuff online for the past few days, mostly historical information, specifically World War 2. Erza's interruption prompted him to smile as politely as he could.
"Thank you for the kind offer, but I-"
She didn't let him finish.
"Come, now. You have zero upper body strength. I'd bet if a gentle breeze blew on you you'd fall over. Excercise will be good for you." she said, grabbing his arm. He gave me a look that wasn't really fear, but clearly showed that he wasn't comfortable with the situation.
Richard approached me as Wendy tried to explain to Erza that not everybody could keep up with her.
"Err, Lieutenant… not to be a bother, but I got an email from Charlie, he'll be at a Starbucks in Chicago while his parents visit the cultural center around ten. Should I…?"
I looked at Misaki, who was now eyeing me, not saying anything, but knowing that I knew what she wanted. The usually calm and overall civilized girl wanted to go to the mall already. Well, really anywhere that wasn't a cramped Naval base.
She's still just a kid after all.
"Okay… I got an Idea. Let me just make a few calls first.
Elton
"No… no… no… no… damn it, man no!" I heard one of my colleagues half yell over the phone, before sighing.
We'd been sticking to our own safe house, keeping an eye out for a few disappeared individuals the state police had chalked up to "missing" but everyone suspected were actually dead. We figured that with all these fictional characters popping up sooner or later a vigilante would follow through, so if we keep up with the disappeared drug lords and gang leaders, maybe we'd find someone else that needs to be wrangled.
The FBI was keeping an eye out on this as well, but guys like us brought some extra surveillance to the situation in a more covert way.
"Yeah, but even if we've found nothing yet… no, there haven't been any more disappearances that… okay…" my colleague groaned, ending the call.
"It's our turn to play baby sitter, everyone! Grab whatever portable stuff you can, we're taking the girls shopping!" he groaned.
"Just the girls?" one of our female agents asked.
"Yup, Mental, Iowa, Titania, and Dragon are coming along while Royal is staying at the base and Zapper is going to give backup to Richard." He told her. It was kind of creepy that most of the characters that had come through were girls, as if our bizarre knight was just making a Harem for himself, but after Wednesday's incident, we at Central Intelligence had to ask ourselves if he was actually trying to get people he considered easier to manipulate.
"Why does Richard need backup?" she asked.
"He's meeting with his old high school friend, and if a certain knight shows up, Zapper should be more than enough."
Oh yeah, Richard's friend and potential creator of the knight was in Chicago.
Maybe Richard didn't know it, but we'd been through the poor kid's entire art gallery, and we hadn't found anything pertinent to the investigation. But, if he knew something it was worth at least checking it out. It was a slow Sunday morning, and i didn't mind the change of pace all that much.
"So, you ready to meet up with the girl you scared?" one of my colleagues asked as I loaded my Glock.
I shrugged.
Misaki seemed to understand what we were doing and why we did it, but I was a little worried that my presence might cause some problems. We'd just have to deal with it as it came however.
…
"Hello, isn't it nice to see you again?" Misaki said, grinning as I opened the car's door for her.
"You two know each other?" the red headed supermodel asked.
"He's an effective public servant, don't mind him." Misaki said, grinning.
"Don't cause any trouble!" Zapper called, looking kind of disappointed next to the Navy lieutenant and the tired college student.
Said lieutenant gave us a look, as if asking if we knew what to do in case something really bad happened.
We did, and he should know damn well we what we were capable of.
So… what exactly are you capable of? The playful voice of Misaki rang in my head. She smiled when I looked at her.
I ignored her and sat up in the front seat.
"Something wrong, Erza?" the blue haired dragon slayer asked the red head.
"Cars are… smaller here." she mumbled as she squeezed in next to Misaki, who suddenly looked slightly uncomfortable.
At least Iowa was going in the other car, along with most of the armed agents. Iowa and Misaka arguably were the pair that we could trust the most, although Erza seemed to be well meaning enough that we could probably trick into working with us if we played it well enough. Misaki was still a question mark in my mind, even if she didn't have access to her remotes.
Aw, don't trust me?
"Get out of my head…"
She stuck her tongue out at me before glancing out the car's window.
Well, that out of the way, we made our way to the mall.
"Miss Misaka says that there should be some really cute clothes, and they made a lot of cakes here you might like." The little girl told Erza. She seemed like a ball of positivity, and I worried about what would happen if someone tried to hurt her.
Why the hell did so many fiction writers have to write little kids as protagonists?
"Cakes?" I found it hard to believe that someone could get so excited over a cake once they were past fifteen, but Erza proved me wrong.
"Americans are very skilled when it comes to making sweets, Erza. I bet you won't be disappointed. I'd bet they make things better than anything in your world." Misaki said, still looking out the window.
"Hmm, I'll have to see it to believe it."
…
When we walked by a cake shop at the mall, a noise came out of the woman. The best way I could describe it is if you take a blue whale's call with a heightened pitch.
I don't know if it's good or bad that I wasn't surprised by the reaction.
"You're some kind of cake enthusiast, right Erza?" Iowa asked as the red head eyed a white chocolate lemon cake.
The red head nodded furiously.
I rolled my eyes, only to focus them immediately as I saw a couple of teen boys eyeing the two.
I tapped one of my colleagues, he saw what I saw and we got ready to intercept.
"There's hundreds of different cakes here in the good ole U-S-A, we make cakes people haven't even heard of before!" Iowa said as she led the red head into the shop, with Wendy trailing them.
One of the boys took a breath and began to approach the only remaining girl near us, Misaki. She was calmly reading something on her phone, although whether she was keeping an eye out or not was anyone's guess.
The boy began to approach her, trying to keep his cool, but doing a bad job at that to the point that I felt sorry for him.
But, orders are orders.
My colleague and I got in between him and Misaki, and without too much force, made it clear that he couldn't get closer to her.
The kid stammered, probably realized that this was someone important, and quickly turned and walked away.
Misaki hadn't noticed anything, or if she did she didn't bring it up by talking to us.
"Hey, maybe you should stick with the group?" Wendy told Misaki, popping out of the shop.
Misaki's attention switched to the blue haired girl, nodded and walked inside.
"Everything okay outside?" I called via earpiece. We had the main team parked outside, keeping an eye out over the situation.
"No anomalies detected yet." They replied.
Things were quiet.
Charlie
Things were annoyingly loud as I made my way to the Starbucks where I promised Richard I'd meet him. Some morons kept their windows down while the latest mix of an old 50 cent song blared on their car's radio. I shouldn't mind too much, I guess. Mom and dad were having fun over at the cultural center, and I got to see an old friend, plus once I finished here I could go around the city, maybe find some new drawing tools... I wondered if they had a comic book store nearby.
There weren't a whole lot of people in the Starbucks, and by that I mean in comparison to other places. Several tables had other college students arguing over stuff, and some other tables had tired guys and girls typing up on their computers.
I looked around and there he was, just sitting near a window next to this adorable brown haired girl.
He waved me over.
"Hey, man, long time no see!" I said, greeting my old classmate.
"Err, hey, Charlie… how've you been?" he asked me, and I noticed that despite smiling, he looked exhausted.
"Well, my classes have been pretty forgiving in comparison to yours I'd say. Everything okay?" I asked him.
"Ah, so far…" he said, glancing at the girl next to him. She smiled and waved her hand awkwardly.
I raised an eyebrow.
"Um… so… I got your email, but I don't know what you meant?" I had actually forgotten what his question even was…
I noticed Richard's eyebrow flinch.
"Uh… well, I, uh, saw this character recently and was wondering if you drew it or if you knew anything about him." He said, reaching into his pocket, grabbing his phone and showing me some pictures.
"Hmm… a cosplayer of Sauron?" I asked.
"That's what I thought… and I was wondering… didn't you at one point draw something like this, like a young Sauron?" he asked.
"I don't know. I remember the Dracula guy I came up with, but I turned him into a Pokemon OC. People really liked that version better. Did you know I have a hundred people that watch my art?" I said before realizing it sounded like I was bragging.
"Oh, really?" he said, probably trying to hide his disinterest.
"Yeah, I know it's not a lot, but I'm thinking I can get a job with an indie company, or hell, maybe even a big name one if I get good enough. You think Nintendo is hiring amateurs or something?" I asked stupidly.
The brown haired girl looked at Richard in confusion.
Richard only shook his head before saying "I don't know."
Was he talking to me or her?
"Okay, Rich, what have you been up to?"
He was about to answer when a voice cut in.
"Excuse me, but would you mind me cutting in?"
"Oh, hi!" I said, surprised to see the guy Richard had taken pictures of right here and now. Let me tell you, it really looked like a well done Sauron cosplay, but the armor felt off, and I don't really think a young Sauron looked like that, but what can you do? He sat down next to me, smiling politely.
"So who are you cosplaying as?" I asked, trying to get the new member of the table to talk, he'd been looking at Richard and his friend the entire time.
"Cos… play?" he asked, turning to look at me. Man, those contacts make his eyes look freaky.
"Hey, Rich you know him?"
What?
Richard's face has gone pale, and the brown haired girl looks shocked.
"Not expecting me, were you?" he asked.
Why is the air filled with tension?
"I don't know why I'm so surprised…" Richard groaned, rubbing his eyes, chuckling a little, but it wasn't a happy laugh.
He sounded terrified.
"Uh… everything okay?" I asked.
"Oh, Charlie, welcome to the ride." The weirdo told me.
"Um… okay, so what do you guys want to order? My treat?" I asked, trying to lighten up the oddly hostile atmosphere.
"Charlie, I'm sorry, but have you ever drawn or written a dark knight that could travel through dimensions?" Richard asked quietly.
"Go ahead, Charlie, answer him." The knight said, smiling at me.
"Uh… why?"
Richard stayed quiet, the brown haired girl looked at him before she sighed.
"Because fictional characters are appearing in the real world, and he's responsible for it!" she said in a voice that sounded oddly familiar while pointing at the guy next to me.
Also what?
"Oh, I see what's happening, ya'll are role playing, right?" I asked, since at the time that's exactly what it looked like.
It was cute, I guess. Assuming this was a group of friends that hung out together in their off time in order to role play some kind of game where some people cosplay fictional characters and the others pretended to be real people… yeah, you could have a ton of fun doing that.
"Role playing?" the knight asked dumbly.
Yeah, definitely role players.
"Charlie… I am not kidding… she's not joking… should we risk showing him?" Richard asked the girl.
She shook her head.
"Too many people here…" she whispered.
"Ah yes, so afraid of getting discovered. So, how about we have a truce and just talk?" the knight asked.
"Why should we trust you?"
"What choice do you have?" he asked.
"Look, Rich, I appreciate you inviting me to play this, but I don't think I have time to do this all day."
Richard rubbed his eyes.
"Okay… okay… sorry… I'll be busy here, so maybe you should leave." He said.
"Aw, why? Look, how about you pause the game and we can share ideas for future stories? Look, I have some new designs for this story I'm gonna write."
"Yes, Richard, share your story ideas." The knight said in an admittedly creepy voice.
"Uh, wait, does breaking character like, eliminates you from the game? Cause that's stupid."
"No, no, go ahead, don't mind me. I'll just watch you."
Okay?
"How about you tell us what you want the most?" Richard asked the knight.
"Oh, I know the answer to this one! It's figure it out." the knight answered like an angry teenager.
Guys, relax…
"Why did you want me to kill someone that first day?" the brown haired girl demanded, pretty angrily if I may add.
Also, I began to wonder just how much they were into this game, cause that girl sounded pissed.
"Oh, I don't know, why do we do anything, really?"
"So… you two gonna keep playing or…?"
"Charlie, we're not kidding. Her name is Mikoto Misaka."
I blinked and looked at her. Okay, she had the looks of the supposed "best girl" of the Index series, or at least she had the hair, but she was wearing regular clothes, unless she also wears regular clothes that don't show off her legs, but I haven't seen enough of the show to know.
"Okay, cool, and who's this guy?" I asked, pointing at the knight.
"A good question… what is your name?"
The knight smirked.
"You know, it's really fun watching you panic like this. You should be like Charlie here, more relaxed, trying to help people…"
"Dude, you don't know me, I don't know you, don't drag me into-"
"Unless they're not into his art." He concluded, smiling at me with a knowing stare.
Wait…
Wait a minute…
What the actual-?
"W-what do you mean by that?" I managed to stammer out.
"Oh? What do I mean by that? Maybe that people like you are just as evil as everyone else in the face of this planet and should be burned alive for a long as possible because you are all such disgusting creatures? The kind that force someone's little sisters to suffer throughout whatever short lifespan they have?"
The supposed "Misaka Mikoto" kept a calm look on her face as she slammed her fist on the table, getting the attention of the store employees.
"Look here, because no one has died yet, I'm still willing to work with you, so... You take all of us back to our worlds, and never bother anyone again, or else." She said darkly, opening her right eye, glaring at the knight.
"See, this is what bothers me about people like you, you're all so… ready to do what your parents taught you is right that when someone is opposed to it you go crazy trying to convince yourself that it is you who are correct. This world needs to pay for its sins, you fighting against it is part of the problem."
"Well, that's retarded." Richard added then.
I saw how the knight suddenly flinched, and began glaring at Richard, who had lowered his voice to a whisper.
"She doesn't have to convince herself that she's right, because she is. Either you help us get these people back home, or else we'll annihilate you." he said in a threatening tone that was somehow made worse by how low he was talking.
"Well… aren't you suddenly confident?" the knight said, grinding his teeth.
"Just tired of your edgy first year philosophy class idiocy." he answered angrily.
I was really worried now. I didn't believe it, but a part of me was wondering just how this knight sounded like he knew something I hadn't thought about since middle school. That statement was very worrisome, but it got worse.
"You're just feeling confident because Erza and Wendy are on your side right now. Trust me, they won't be… they… won't… be…" he whispered, so low I barely heard it.
"Guys..." I attempted to plead.
Behind us, the manager was approaching our table, a look of anger on his face.
I also noticed that the girl playing Misaka looked frustrated, and tiny blue sparks began emitting from her hair.
Wait, am I seeing things?
Before I could think about it, every light bulb in the café exploded into a thousand tiny pieces, startling the knight and the manager that was approaching. He quickly stopped walking toward us and ran to check on the other customers.
"Stay away from my friends." the girl said dangerously.
"Oh, I will, I will, sure, sure… but, I'll tell you one thing you're wrong about before I leave…" he said quietly.
"You're wrong about no one dying." he stated, walking out the door.
Now I was questioning if this was all an elaborate prank.
"Someone… died?" Richard choked out.
"T-that's… what he said… how? When? Is he…?" the brown haired girl got up, and stepped out of the restaurant.
But the knight was gone, leaving us with too many questions.
Elton
"Wow! A restaurant named after little old you? America really does have everythin!" Iowa declared happily as she escorted Wendy and the other girls into the mall's Wendy's because the second she saw it we all knew she'd try it. Hell, if we went public that would make for one hell of an advertisement.
"You're not very familiar with the concept of subtlety are you?" Misaki asked her lookalike.
We of the Central Intelligence Agency simply kept an eye out, moving around and making sure no one caused trouble, but I admit we were all dumbfounded when Erza gave her order.
"I would like to try one of everything!"
Iowa's amazement aside, I think I heard our budget handler scream.
"That's..." Misaki began trying to talk her out of it, but the red head was adamant on her choice.
"When you visit someplace new, it is vital to appreciate the culture."
"Hell yeah!" Iowa cheered. Well, it was good to see her excited over having a like-minded friend.
"Oh, are you from Europe or something?" the young man at the cashier asked.
"Something like that." Erza replied.
"Well, ma'm, as much as I would like to just sell you one of everything, may I at least recommend you start with something simple?" he asked.
"Erza, that would be more prudent." Wendy suggested politely.
"Alright, what do you recommend?" the red head asked.
And like that the magicians were introduced to American fast foods.
We were supposed to be keeping watch for suspicious individuals, and we were, but I think we were all fascinated by the sheer amount of food red head was stuffing into her mouth. And before you get these images of her messily wolfing the food down like an animal, no, she was eating it quickly, but decently, and kept herself clean.
It was the speed of which she ate.
"That must've been the twentieth order…" I mumbled as the red haired ordered another one from the nervous waiter.
Iowa had only been drinking a single coke in the time Erza had literally chewed her way through the restaurant's menu.
"I promise this is the last one!" she said happily.
"How do you not get fat?" Misaki asked before sipping a smoothie.
"Exercise, and besides, it's so rare to try all these foods! I've never seen anything like this back in Fiore… America really is an amazing place." She said dreamily.
I rolled my eyes before going for the five minute radio check. It's a Wendy's, not even one of the better ones, and certainly not the best we have to offer, but to each their own.
"Radio check, how copy?"
Nothing…
"Elton four, how copy?" one of the guys at the mall checked again for me.
"Wuzz- wha-?" a sickly, groggy voice came over the coms.
"Elton four, how copy?" I hissed, worried.
"Sorry- yeah, yeah… I copy… did I fall asleep?"
"You didn't answer for a second." One of the guys replied.
"I… huh… I don't remember falling asleep…"
I don't like this…
"Elton one, where is Dragon?!" one of the men called in suddenly.
"She's right-" I turned to look at her… empty chair?
What, no…
She was right there five seconds ago!
"Bathroom? You got our camera feed, right?"
"Yeah, let me check…"
As the support team rewound their recordings, I kept my eyes peeled, darting them left to right, a little blue haired girl wearing a hat shouldn't be too hard to spot…
Nothing.
"Guys, she just… up and left the restaurant with an old man. I have her exiting the mall five minutes ago!"
…
"Will you hold on?!" I called the red headed woman who was running faster than any human could around the parking, looking under cars and in bushes at random, getting the attention of plenty of bystanders.
"WENDY!" she called out, finally stopping in front of me, seemingly out of breath, whether it was because she was tired or because she'd realized how low the odds of her being within earshot were.
"We'll find her, Erza, I promise!" Iowa said.
I didn't like this one bit. She just up and left with some stranger, and none of us noticed?
I glanced at Misaki who looked deep in thought. She appeared relaxed, but upon further inspection anyone could tell she was worried.
"This was the work of a telepath like her, right?!" Erza demanded, terrified.
"It has to be… you would've noticed her leave, right? But none of us did…" Misaki asked.
"You don't have any defences against telepaths?" she asked the younger blonde.
She shook her head.
"Academy City developed some defenses, but I don't have any of them on hand."
"I see, but to have my mind manipulated like that, it's… we have to find her!"
"We gave her a cell phone, has she picked up?" I asked Erza, who simply looked at me like I had spoken to her in another language.
Then she crashed the palm of her right hand into her face.
She immediately dialed her friend's number and began waiting.
But... you tried that earlier…
Misaki's voice rang in my head. I shrugged, we had tried contacting her. She hadn't answered, but maybe we could get a lock on her position before Erza finished the call, or maybe she'd answer.
Erza sighed, desperate.
"No answer… does this thing work properly?" she asked.
"It should."
"Hey! I got her!"
"Where?!" several of us demanded.
To my surprise, not too far, she was at a cemetery south of us.
"How do you know she's there?"
"Your phones have a chip in them we can activate in case you get lost. Let's us track your movements."
The red head looked at me with suspicion, but didn't say anything.
"Erza, you okay?" Iowa asked.
"Yes, I'm glad… Alright, I'll see you there then!" she yelled suddenly, gunning it down the road.
I would've argued, but she was gone, she might not be all that faster than most cars, but she would definitely make it there before us. I worried that this was a trap, but there wasn't much more I could do, so I decided to focus on asking some serious questions to our resident telepath.
"You didn't sense anything back there, Misaki?"
She shook her head, deep in thought.
I wasn't going to push further, but she spoke up.
"She just up and left… none of us noticed… someone knocked out your surveillance team… a telepath from Academy City should be capable of things like that, keeping us from noticing things like a girl leaving the room..."
I nodded. This had to be a telepath (an enemy which we had no true defense against) and one that knew how we operated. I checked my Glock and closed my eyes, hoping nothing terrible happened, but I knew we were heading for a trap at this point.
What else could it be?
We made it to the cemetery, which thankfully had very few people in it.
Erza was visible from afar, talking to the little girl, clearly worried.
"What do we do?" one of the men asked our boss.
"The rest of the team knows we're here?"
"Yes sir."
"Alright, keep them on standby for backup, hopefully we won't need them. Let's go… not much more we can do now except hope for the best." He said, as our three cars began to approach. We could just leave them alone, just abandon them, but if there's a telepath out there, and he's not working with us… we can't afford to lose them.
"Iowa, Misaki, stay in the car, if you see anything, give us a heads up. Hopefully she's fine and it isn't something bad-"
"Oh, it's going to be bad, we'll have to see how bad it is." Misaki said, a crooked smile on her face.
"Don't be creepy, Mental Out… I've got a good feeling about this." Iowa said with a confident grin.
We stopped a few yards behind Erza, who was standing, looking at Wendy.
"Who's the old guy?" one of the men asked.
"I bet he's our telepath…" Iowa said, smiling.
"Misaki?"
She stared ahead, and shrugged.
"I can't read his mind. That alone is suspicious enough." She said.
"Alright, let's go." My boss said as we stepped out of the car.
"E-Elton! It-it's not what it looks like! He's just sad because of his wife, he wanted to pay her respects, and-" Wendy stammered out, worried about something.
I was about to ask when Erza spoke up in a dangerous tone.
"Elton… why did your country fund terrorists?" she asked, not looking at us.
I looked at my boss in confusion.
"Answer me, please. Why did you give weapons to the people you're fighting now? Please…" She requested calmly.
"We funded them to push the Soviets out of Afghanistan, back when we considered them freedom fighters." I replied honestly, getting a worried look from my boss.
"Oh? Is freedom why you assassinated elected leaders around the world?" she asked, sounding frustrated.
I looked at the old man, who kept his focus on the grave. Someone was feeding her information on the bad stuff we'd done, and assuming he was our telepath…
I seriously considered shooting him there and then, but what would that accomplish? This would either have us gain an ally or lose two.
But the truth wasn't pretty.
"Yeah, said leaders were out to impose policies that-"
"So you killed them. How kind of you!" she scoffed, suddenly turning to face us, her face twisted in anger.
I took a step back from that before glaring right back.
"Previous administrations have had different methods in dealing with foreign threats, Erza. You know this world is much more complicated than-" my boss began to say, but she cut him off.
"No! This isn't a complicated issue! Why do you call yourselves the good guys when you do things like this?! Someone's lying here! Have you committed such atrocities?!" she demanded, materializing a sword.
We were silent for a second.
Wendy hid behind the older woman, seemingly afraid of us.
Yeah… why the hell did I think this would turn out good in any way?
"Yes." My boss said, reluctantly.
The woman stammered before hissing "So it's true… you're no better than the enemies you exalt your soldiers for defeating! You're all snakes that only act in your own interests!"
"Erza…" the little girl whimpered, calming her down.
"We told you, we're not perfect." I added.
"But this is evil! Purely evil! It isn't fair! Why would you commit such evil? Why?" she yelled.
I was silent, unsure how to respond. On the one hand, I could be cold and factual but I doubted that's what she wanted to hear, but convincing her that we were the "good guys" when "lesser evil" is a more appropriate way to describe our agency seemed more unlikely, all I could do was try to salvage the situation.
"Because war here is ugly. No matter how hard we try odds are some kids are going to get stuck in the middle of a firefight or an airstrike, some leader is going to push his boundaries and get deposed either by us or by someone else. We're not heroes Erza, we're just doing what we can to keep our own people safe." I said, tired.
"Don't you dare try to pass this off as noble!" she hissed.
"I wasn't." I replied, stopping her in her tracks.
"Then why should I side with you? I understand wanting to protect your people, but this is just... your nation's past actions are horrifying." she said, relaxed, but still frustrated.
As I tried to think of a response I noticed the old guy was walking away.
"Hey, is he-?"
"He doesn't matter. My final question… if I chose to go on my own… with Wendy, try to make sense of all this..."
"Would you try to fight us?" my boss asked.
"Possibly." she added calmly. She'd been angered by my agency's... questionable actions in the past, and I doubted she hated us, but that possibility of her trying to fight us...
I blinked.
If she decided to attack a military installation or anything of the sort, she'd be on the most wanted list before the smoke cleared, and dead before the sun set considering we could detect her whenever she activated her powers. Before my boss or I could answer, she sighed.
"No, you already have a plan for killing Wendy and I should we go rogue, don't you?"
"Erza! That's not true... right?" the little girl looked at us with big worried eyes.
We didn't answer.
"And you call this the Land of the Brave? Such cowardice… I thought you were better than this, but you aren't." she said, disappointed.
"Erza…"
"You got that wrong!" Iowa yelled as she hopped out of the car.
We blinked as she appeared angrier than we'd ever seen the usually happy blonde. I glanced at Misaki, who looked worried.
The old man isn't our telepath! Someone else is out here and I can't find them! Her worried voice rang in my head.
I turned to look at my boss, he'd already gone pale.
"Iowa…" Erza warned.
"No, Erza, you're about to make a big mistake if you just leave! I can't let you or Wendy fall into that trap." She warned.
"You- You're just going to side with these child murderers?!" the red head yelled in surprise.
Iowa winced before flaring up.
"They're the ones helping us! You think they actively look to kill kids? Are you stupid?!" she yelled, walking ahead of us and opening her arms wide, as if to protect us from the possibility of an attack.
"I wanted to believe that… I really did… you were all so kind and helpful…" I saw her struggle.
"Erza?" the little girl asked.
"But I can't let these injustices go unanswered!" she declared, flaring up.
I looked at my boss, he nodded. We began to walk behind the cars, while the men still inside began to call for backup. Erza looked like she was ready to kill, Iowa seemed on edge herself, there was a telepath on the loose, and the closest backup was at least fifteen minutes away.
How could this get any worse? I thought to myself sarcastically, making sure a round was chambered into my Glock.
6-18-1-14-11 3-1-19-20-12-5
I made sure the sniper was set on Misaki's car, but I would glance at Iowa's staring contest with Erza on occasion. Both blondes were priority targets for me, but even I wasn't sure if I could make the shot despite circumstances appeared to be in my favor. They both made small targets from where I was and once I got one shot off, both had plenty of cover to hide behind. Well, it didn't matter. I had led Wendy to the cemetery, a place with plenty of cover for me to set up a sniper's nest. The CIA team had arrived faster than I had expected, but my work was done.
"Do you think you can leave no survivors?" the doctor asked using his device.
"Yes sir, think Misaki will notice my position?"
"No, that hat blocks out her ability to read your mind, even if she gets her hands on a remote. I can't say it's bullet proof, though."
"Good to know."
With that, I prepared to pull the trigger. Funny, here I was, doing exactly what my authors had intended, only here it would actually matter… I was about to fire the first lead shots that would signal the punishment of those that believed themselves to be gods, the ones that wrote suffering in order to enjoy themselves.
Well, time for my own enjoyment.
A/N: Very exposition heavy chapter this one... Sorry for the delay, classes have been hectic over here, but I'll try to keep updating once a week. What do you think of Erza? I was really split on including her, and I'm not kidding when I say that she just barely made it on here. It's just because I knew enough about her to figure that I could add her instead of another character that used swords, plus as complex as the Fairy Tail series tried to make her, she's a pretty simple character when it comes down to it, no offense to the author. What worries me is how strong I should make her, as some characters noted, she pulls some impossible stunts in her series, stuff she cannot do in real life, so I figured it'd be interesting to explore a character that's basically operating at like half of what they can do, but even that "half" is still crazy in comparison to normal people. Anyway, I wanted to reveal the identity of the "doctor" and the guy who uses numbers to identify himself, but I'm going to keep it under wraps for now, although Misaki should be able to deduce who this supposed "telepath" is soon enough. ANYWAY, thank you so much for reading this far, remember that Reviews are greatly appreciated, and I'll hopefully have the next chapter out by the time Index III airs. Hopefully…
