Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or Toaru Kagaku no Railgun/Toaru Majutsu no Index
The Trinity of Tokiwadai
Chapter Sixty: Arabian Nightmare - Possessive Tribulations
Beta:
With no news about how to proceed in regards to the Magicians, Mikoto was left wandering the City anxiously waiting for news. She was so tense that she'd ended up pacing aimlessly through a random park and was on the verge of pulling at her hair in sheer frustration.
Her hair was saved though when she was pulled out of her worrying when her phone suddenly rang and she hastily pulled it out, smiling at the Caller ID identifying it as a call from Ruiko.
"Ruiko!" Mikoto said as she answered the call. "Please tell me you have news on the Magicians."
"Hello to you too, Sempai." Ruiko said, sounded just a little peeved.
"Sorry. Hello." Mikoto said, sheepishly realizing she'd been so worked up that she had been rude. "I'm a little agitated right now."
"Fair," Ruiko allowed. "And yes, I do have news."
"Hit me," Mikoto said eagerly.
"The Black Knights have just posted a call for backup on the Dark Side boards. They are up against an Arabic summoner controlling a demonic humanoid made out of fire. He is attacking a nuclear research facility in District 10. How does Naru-chan deal with this repeated nuttiness? I'd go crazy if this was my job." Ruiko pointed out as she read Mikoto the intel.
"Since when is the Usagi normal?"
"Sempai, that's mean to say. Naru-chan is a perfectly high functional sociopath. Also, considering that the description is of a standard type of Jinn, along with our recent terrorists-"
"Means we have our guy." Mikoto replied, confidently. "I'm on my way."
"I've contacted Shirai-san." Ruiko informed her. "She should be there shortly to teleport you to the fight."
Ruiko had barely finished telling her that before Kuroko teleported right next to Mikoto with a loud cry of "Onee-sama~!"
"She's here." Mikoto told Ruiko. "We're on our way."
It was the weekend and Alice should have been enjoying it, maybe hanging out with Nunnally, but much to her chagrin here she was instead fighting alongside the Black Knights inside a nuclear research facility in District 10.
They had responded to an emergency call on the Dark Side boards - The facility was apparently engaged in plenty of shady research and thus was leery to call in Anti-Skill - to an attack on the facility only to find the culprit was some weirdo dressed like he'd just walked out of the Arabian Desert in a stereotypical white robe and a red and white headscarf.
He was a deadly weirdo though because when they'd caught up to him, he'd already made easy work of the facility's security - Expected since they had sent out an emergency call for reinforcements, but still a shocking sight. - but he'd summoned - There was no other word for it. - some kinda humanoid creature made of fire and smoke that proceeded to use telekinesis on par with a Level 4, at least, to make their day miserable whilst he sauntered further into the facility to carry out whatever crazy scheme he had cooked up.
"Why won't this thing stay dead!?" Alice griped as she burned a charge to get away from the large piece of lab equipment that the creature hurled her way after successfully putting a bullet into its head to little effect.
"Why the hell did you think a bullet would do the trick when me cutting him in half didn't?" Shirley asked over the radio as she used her Hydro Hand to direct the pressurized water jet she fired from her fancy new water cutter backpack to cut the barrage of heavy equipment the creature was tossing at them into smaller more manageable pieces.
"I thought blowing his brains out would work." Alice countered as she ducked under some cover.
"Your men are very well trained," the creature said in a disturbingly cultured voice coming from an otherworldly monster. "Faced with the supernatural for the first time and not even showing the slightest sign of surprise?"
"We do live in Academy City." Lelouch replied with a shrug, his voice carrying even from the rear of their lines thanks to the sound system built into the helmet of his ridiculously over the top Zero costume. "Plus we learned magic was real the other day."
"Oho? So you're new to the ways of magic?" The thing said as a smile spread across its uncannily human-like face. "Then why don't I show you a taste of its wonders."
Why do I have a bad idea about that? Alice thought with a frown as the creature snapped its fingers.
Immediately a dozen of their men suddenly stood up from cover and jerked like they were having seizures.
Don't tell me…
It was unfortunately just like she thought though and the men began to turn their weapons on the rest of them.
"Shi-" Alice began, already hesitantly raising her pistol at the closest of the unwilling turncoats when he and the other traitors collapsed.
"What just happened?" The inhuman creature asked, blinking in confusion and so stunned by the development that he'd actually stopped throwing random stuff at them with its telekinesis.
He wasn't the only one who was. Alice didn't know what the hell just happened either.
"Just activated the standard knockout protocols built into their combat uniforms." Lelouch informed him like it wasn't anything unusual at all. "It seems you can't animate living things in the same way as inanimate objects. Interesting."
"How paranoid are you?!" The thing screeched in fury.
"Foolish Jinn, it's only a sensible precaution." Zero declared with a flare of his cape. "We do live in the same City as [Mental Out]."
Alice tried not to roll her eyes, truly. Lelouch was just… too flamboyant. She didn't know what Shirley saw in him. Thank Science that Nunnally was far more sensible than her brother.
And so this thing was a Jinn? Weren't they like some kind of genie? Or was it the other way around?
Gotta check that once this is all over.
"This City is insane." The Jinn said with a shake of its head. "And truly deserves to be wiped off the face of Allah's Ear-"
The supernatural creature didn't get the chance to finish its sentence as a trio of rockets slammed into its position and exploded, releasing a cloud of what Alice recognised as coolant gas.
Well, I guess bringing along the special gear was useful after all. The Level 4 thought with a smirk as the gas had a very adverse effect on the Jinn's flaming body.
The intense cold of the gas had smothered parts of it out of existence and the rest was significantly dimmed. It was also coughing like it'd inhaled a lungful of poison gas.
"You dare poison me!" The Jinn somehow roared even as it continued to cough.
Guess magical creatures don't need to follow the rules of biology like us normal mortals. Alice thought as she popped outta cover and shot up its body alongside the rest of the Knights, blasting it to pieces.
"Fools! You think this is enough to beat me!" It shouted again and suddenly the whole building started to shake.
"Why do I have a very bad feeling about this?" Alice said as she glanced upwards only to see the entire roof suddenly start falling towards them.
"Blast the ceiling!" Lelouch ordered rather unnecessarily. It was the obvious thing to do and almost everyone was doing it already. Alice herself had almost joined in, but thankfully realised at the last second that her Esper ability's control of gravity would be a lot more useful than the paltry addition of her pistol's firepower to the firestorm the other Knights were unloading on the falling roof.
"I can't stop it! It's got too much mass and the Jinn's magic is too strong!" Alice shouted through gritted teeth as she struggled to make The Speed do something she'd never done before. "But I'm slowing it down!"
"You're doing great, Alice." Shirley told her whilst she tried to cut the roof into pieces with her water jets even as Lelouch began ordering a retreat.
"Teams T and V, get our casualties out of here. Heavy teams keep blasting away at the roof. Everyone else retreat!"
"You won't be getting out of here alive!" The Jinn said with a malicious laugh as it reconstituted its body right where they'd just finished destroying it.
"Team U and P, suppress the Jinn." Lelouch said with a calm that Alice felt was incredible.
"You should know by now that your petty weapons cannot ha-"
The Jinn's grandstanding was cut off a second time that day. This time thanks to a lightning bolt that completely blasted away its body courtesy of a newly arrived [Railgun] and her pet Teleporter.
Oh great, a Level 5. This day just got worse. Alice thought with grim resignation at the sight. Having a Level 5 involved either made or broke an Incident and since this one was part of the Trinity… Well, they were screwed!
"Did I just vaporise him?" Mikoto asked aghast as she saw her target vanish from the power of her lightning bolt.
Maybe I overdid it. She thought as she reran the calculations for her bolt. They were set to stun alright, but-
"Unfortunately not, the Jinn can just reform its body apparently." Zero said from the rear of the retreating formation of his Black Knights, gesturing to the spot where she'd thought she'd vaporised a man. A spot that much to her relief now had said man rebuilding his - Or was 'its' more appropriate? - body. "Oh, and if you would be so kind, could you do something about the roof? He's trying to drop it on us."
"It wha-" Kuroko began, but Mikoto just rolled with it and fishing out a roll of her Dark Matter bullets she let fly with her railgun and blasted apart the falling roof.
"You are surprisingly calm about having a roof dropped on you." Mikoto told Zero with a raised eyebrow even as she idly blasted a piece of lab equipment the Jinn tossed her way with a bolt of static, having sensed it through its ferrous content.
Well, there are the Black Knights. Ruiko is right as always. Mikoto thought as she surveyed the paramilitaries and winced. The Jinn did quite a number on them, huh? I count about a third of their number down for the count and everyone looks a little battered.
"This wouldn't be the first time," Zero said with a shrug and Mikoto couldn't help but look to the man's wife in disbelief only to be shocked when she nodded.
Damn! What kind of hijinks have they been through!?
"Onee-sama! Take the fight seriously!" Kuroko shouted suddenly as she teleported them out of the way of a chunk of rubble the Jinn had thrown at them.
"Sorry, Kuroko." Mikoto told her roommate apologetically as she disembodied the Jinn for a second time with a lightning bolt.
Like the first time this seemed to stop any new stuff being thrown at them by its telekinesis while it reformed its body though it did nothing for the stuff it already had lifted into the air or thrown at them.
"Kuroko, I need to make a call." Mikoto informed her friend. "Cover me."
"A call? Now!?" Kuroko asked incredulously.
"Unless you know how to unsummon this Jinn, then yeah." Mikoto shot back as she disembodied the Jinn again, this time with a crushing cocoon of iron sand, and pulled out her phone. "Do you?"
"No…"
Smirking at having won the argument, Mikoto dialed the recently added contact number for Tsuchimikado.
"Moshi Moshi, this is the great Tsuchimikado-sama speaking! Whatcha need Zap-Happy-chan!" The blonde asshole said in greeting.
"I'm fighting a Jinn with telekinesis-"
"It can possess people too," Zero added helpfully as some of his men with bazookas froze the Jinn with some coolant missiles. His helmet's sensors must've been superb to have heard her talking all the distance away and in the middle of a fight too.
Hmm… Might have to check it out. Uiharu might appreciate adding them to her combat robots.
"Though not often it seems since it only used it once in this fight and only on conscious targets."
"You heard that?" Mikoto asked, not wanting to have to repeat all that.
"Yeah," Tsuchimikado thankfully replied. "And it sounds like you're dealing with a Shayteen. By the way, it's not strictly using telekinesis. It's actually possessing those inanim-"
"And I don't care," Mikoto told him as she took her turn suppressing the Jinn by frying it for the third time. "Just tell me how to either kill or unsummon it."
"You're no fun." Tsuchimikado said with an audible pout. "Well Shayteens are pretty much bog standard Jinn, so use holy water."
"And where can I find that here!?"
Just finding something like that in the almost universally atheist Academy City was difficult. What more in the middle of a battlefield?
"Just shape water into some religious symbol or other. That's enough. Jinn are very weak to the combi of water and holy symbolism."
"Gotcha," Mikoto replied distractedly, her mind already trying to come up with how to use the information she'd been provided to win this, even as Kuroko teleported them out of the way of a rain of debris the Jinn hurled at them.
"Don't hang up yet!" The magic expert said urgently. "I've got something important to tell you!"
"Okay, fine. But be quick about it. I'm kinda busy at the moment." Mikoto shot back as she used her Electromastery to deflect some telekinetically hurled equipment away from a squad of Black Knights.
"Saten-chii just gave me a call. Apparently the third Magician just broke through the security cordon to that sealed Colony in District 23. I'm sure you know the one."
Mikoto felt her blood run cold at that. Aghast, she asked. "What would someone want there?!"
"Uh, hello? Ain't it obvious Zap-Happy?"
"No!" Mikoto shouted angrily, distractedly zapping the Shayteen's body into nonexistence once more.
"Well, Saten-chii told me, to tell you, that the spells the third Magician used to get through security were necromantic, so~"
"He's gonna desecrate the dead inside the Colony isn't he?" Mikoto growled.
"Bingo~!" Tsuchimikado replied, his tone deceptively cheery but hiding a tinge of frigid anger. "The authorities removed all the bodies from down there and had them cremated, to eliminate any potential leftover pathogens from back then, so he probably intends to flood the City with the ghosts of the Colony's dead."
"The bastard! I'll kill him for even thinking to do this!"
"Go for it!" Tsuchimikado tells her. "I'm rooting for ya. But maybe deal with the guy in front of ya first, huh? A nuclear disaster is just as able to kill us all as an undead apocalypse."
"Oh, I will." Mikoto said as she flipped her phone closed.
"Kuroko, teleport me over to Fennette-san." Mikoto told her faithful companion.
"Right away, Onee-sama!" The Teleporter replied with a smile as she did just that.
"Fennette-san," Mikoto greeted the older girl as they materialized next to her. "I need you to shape some water into the shape of a religious symbol and shoot it at the Jinn."
"It's weak against that?" The Hydro Hand user asked incredulously. "Seriously? Something that simple?"
"Magic is weird." Mikoto told her with a shrug.
Fenette-san nodded, looking unconvinced but nevertheless did as asked and using her ability gathered together some water into the shape of a Christian cross and sent it hurtling at the Jinn which had been just reconstituting its body after having been frozen and blown apart again.
The moment it caught sight of the approaching watery symbol of faith, the Jinn cried bloody murder and abandoned its attempt to rebuild its body. This was sadly, for it at least, not an instantaneous process and before it could completely do so, the liquid cross slammed into its half-formed body.
This caused the Jinn's screams to jump up an octave as it writhed in agony whilst its body collapsed into ash.
"That looked painful." Mikoto noted with a satisfied smirk.
"Onee-sama, since when were you so sadistic as to take pleasure in the pain of your enemies?"
"Have you met Naru and Ruiko?" Mikoto said, rolling her eyes at Kuroko's silly question. "Did you think I'd escape their influence forever?"
"No, but I'd hoped it would be milder than this." The tawny haired first year said with a pout.
Shaking her head at her friend's naivety, she turned to Fenette-san who had been joined by both her husband and cousin.
"So you guys see where the Magician went?"
"Deeper inside," Zero said, nodding down the long and broad hallway they'd been fighting in. "He's heading for the reactor."
"Not the control room?" Mikoto asked with a frown.
"I doubt a Magician can manage to work the controls," the leader of the Black Knights said with a shrug. "You're going after him?"
Mikoto nodded and caught Kuroko doing the same out of the corner of her eye.
Zero looked over his battered men for a moment before turning to Alice-san.
"Alice, I know you don't like the Trinity but-"
"Fine," the blonde said, cutting him off. "I know what's at stake. I can set aside my annoyance with them to get this job done."
Zero nodded in satisfaction and Fenette-san shot her younger cousin a proud smile.
"I'll go too." Fennette-san said, surprising Zero who turned to her questioningly. "They'll need as much firepower as they can get."
The masked men reluctantly nodded before turning to Mikoto.
"Then [Railgun], I suggest you and your team hurry." Zero said. "I wish you the best of luck."
"What's with all these gouges in the walls?" Alice asked, her eyes narrowed suspiciously as she, Shirley, Misaka-san and Shirai-san made their way deeper into the facility in search of the Magician. Something they had been doing in short teleporting leaps to make sure they didn't miss him. That and to compensate for Kuroko's mass limit making it impossible for her to teleport all four of them at a time, thus forcing her to make multiple trips each time they advanced
"He was collecting non-ferrous material." Misaka-san said, glancing at the deep trenches made into the masonry of the walls of the room they were in. Their last stop before the reactor itself. "He doesn't want me to be able to affect whatever he's possessed with that Jinn of his."
"So he's not an idiot." Shirai-san said with a frown. "So be on your toes everyone."
"Gotcha," Shirley agreed, everyone echoing her soon after.
"Alright, then I'm gonna teleport me and Onee-sama to the reactor room first." Shirai-san said before without warning she grabbed the [Railgun]'s wrist and teleported away.
"So hasty," Shirley couldn't help but say with a giggle.
Alice rolled her eyes before shooting her a serious look.
"How much water do you have left in your cutter?"
"I swapped out the cartridges before we split from the others," Shirley reassured her, patting the nondescript backpack that hid the advanced pressure jet cutter that was her new weapon. "I'm good."
"The nozzles are working right? You checked?"
Rolling her eyes at her sister's paranoia, Shirley raised her hands and presented the twin wrist mounted nozzles for her weapon for the other girl's inspection.
"Yes, I did. I also checked the pipes connecting them to the backpack." Shirley said with an exasperated smile as she nodded towards the armored piping connecting the gauntlets with the nozzles to the backpack. "They're all good."
Alice nodded satisfied.
She however looked ready to ask another worried question but thankfully before she could Shirai-san returned.
"Be prepared. We're going in hot!" She declared as she touched both their shoulders and teleported them to the reactor room.
Mikoto and Kuroko materialized in the reactor room to find the Magician waiting for them.
Dressed up in a giant set of armor made of masonry and whatever non-ferrous material he - or more accurately his Shayteen familiar - seemed to have been able to get its hands on, the moment he'd spotted them he abandoned the manual pulling out of the reactor's control rods that he'd been engaging in to charge them.
Thankfully, Kuroko was as fast on the draw as always and quickly teleported them out of his way. His armor must've weighed at least a ton. If it had hit them, they'd quite lightly been pancaked by the impact alone.
"Kuroko, go get the others." Mikoto ordered. "I'll hold this guy off in the meantime."
"But Onee-sama-"
"No 'but's." Mikoto said firmly as she gathered together a blade of iron sand.
She'd have preferred to use lightning but the reactor was right there. And it being possibly unstable due to whatever tempering - Did removing control rods destabilize reactors of this model? If so, how many could be removed till it became unsafe? - the Magician had done to it, she decided it was probably prudent to opt for something with less potential for collateral damage.
"Alright Onee-sama, but stay safe till I get back." Kuroko said, before finally obeying and teleporting away.
"You wish to battle me sword to sword?" The Magician asked when he spotted Mikoto's weapon.
Mikoto's answer was to brandish her sword at the armored man.
"How foolish." He said with a shake of his head, an earthen sword forming out of the mass of his armor. "I'll have you know that I am a master swordsma-"
He was cut off when Mikoto smirked and swung her blade down at empty air, transforming it in midswing into a whip that struck him in the chest and cut deeply into his earthen armor. A whip that proceeded to wrap itself around his body and saw its way through his armor.
"And that's why I'm not gonna to," Mikoto told him airily. "I know fighting you fair is gonna get me killed."
Especially since this is a clean room and there's precious little iron sand here for me to use.
"So you cheat?" The Magician asked, sounding disgusted as he tried and failed to rip the band of iron sand cutting into his armor from his person. Much to Mikoto's annoyance however, it seemed almost as soon as her attack removed material from the armor, it was pulled back and reincorporated into it by the Magician's magic.
"So I cheat." Mikoto agreed unashamedly. "Pretty simple, huh? And knock off that honorable stuff, you're nothing but a mad terrorist."
"Onee-sama, we're here." Kuroko said as she teleported in with Fenette-san and Alice-san in tow.
"And it looks like she had things under control." Alice-san said with a huff. "How is this coming in hot?"
"Save it Alice," Fennette-san said, nudging her cousin. "Isn't this better?"
The blonde frowned but didn't deny the statement.
"Master!" The Shayteen said, materializing next to the Magician. "Ignore that thing. I'll use my powers to ensure the armor is reinforced and keep it from cutting through to you. In the meantime, deal with the kafirs!"
"I don't have enough iron sand to make something with enough cutting power." Mikoto admitted with a shrug. "Fennette-san, mind doing the honors?"
"Aren't you polite, Misaka-san?" The orangette said with a chuckle as she raised her arms at the armored Magician, who finally heeding his familiar's advice was now charging towards them.
"Let me help," Alice-san said, putting her hands on her cousin's shoulders just as two streams of water shot out of the wrist mounted nozzles of Fennette-san's weapon.
The two water jets slammed into the Magician with enough force to stagger him but more importantly between the already impressive pressure created by the weapon and the gravity effect Alice-san's ability was enhancing it with, they cut through his armor like a hot knife through butter.
The Magician was thus left screaming in pain as using a combination of hand movements and her Hydro Hand ability, Fennette-san directed the cutting jets to sever the man's arms clean off.
"Master!" The Shayteen cried out in alarm.
Its distraction was the opening that Mikoto needed and she directed her still active iron sand saw to cut open a portion of the Magician's chest plate.
"Kuroko! Go kick him outta that suit!"
"Right away, Onee-sama!" The Teleporter shouted back enthusiastically as she teleported in and executed a drop kick right into the armless Magician's newly exposed chest.
The blow was probably extremely painful, though definitely less so than losing his arms, but it was the fact that Kuroko used the contact to teleport him out of the armor that sealed his defeat.
Kuroko moved to pull out one of her tranquiliser nails, courtesy of Naru, but she'd barely drawn the device when a gunshot rang out. Killing the magician with a headshot.
"Was that necessary?" Kuroko hissed, spinning towards an unrepentant Alice-san who was still holding her pistol in a firing position.
"Do you want to fight his Jinn again?" Fennette-san said, gesturing meaningfully at said Shayteen who was even now fading away from view, and probably from their plane of existence, while visibly but inaudibly howling angrily at them.
Mikoto hated to admit it but the two Black Knights had a point.
They didn't need to know that though, so she ignored them and instead decided to address Kuroko instead.
"As much as I hate how this ended, you did good Kuroko. Don't forget that."
"Now's not the time Onee-sama! We have an Incident to resolve." The Judgement agent growled before turning a dark look at Alice-san. "But know this, Alice-san, when this is over, I will be bringing you in for this murder."
"We'll see how that goes after this attack." Alice-san said with a dismissive shrug.
Kuroko's hackles rose like a cat and she let out a soft hiss.
Okay, time to defuse this situation.
"Save it for later." Mikoto said with a stern look for everyone. "'Cos we still have to save the City from an undead apocalypse."
"Yes, Onee-sama." Kuroko replied stiffly.
"A what!?" Both Fennettes said in perfect, shocked unison.
Sighing, the leader of the Black Knights looked at his remaining men. After knocking out nearly half of his men after they were possessed, it wasn't the strongest front to present to one of the Trinity. While Misaka Mikoto might be the most normal of them, she was still a Level 5. Irrationality was their bread and butter.
As Misaka-san turned to him, she said. "I'm going to need some backup for the last one. You mind if I draft your minions?"
"Knights." Lelouch corrected firmly. He had an image to build and maintain after all, he would not have his people regarded like some thugs. "And most are out of commission, not to mention the remainder may not be able to handle the final Magician. Alice on the other hand…"
He turned to his sister-in-law, who stiffened at being brought to attention. While his strongest knight was a deadly piece that he would have preferred to keep close, for more reasons than just that, her skills were needed elsewhere.
"Assist the [Railgun]. The rest of us will regroup and catch up when we can."
He doubted he'd have a dozen men after everything had been settled, but he'd worked with less before.
"Should I join them?" Shirley asked and Lelouch shook his head.
"With Alice going and our forces this depleted, we need at least one heavy hitter on hand just in case."
Shirley shot Alice a worried look but reluctantly nodded. "Alright, but stay safe Alice."
Alice just nodded, presenting the mask of stone cold professionalism that she always wore when she was on the job.
In contrast, Shirai-san was shooting his sister-in-law a dark look. He really hoped that this didn't lead to lasting bad blood between them. The last thing he needed was more animosity between Alice and the Trinity.
Misaka-san looked aggrieved by the situation. He pitied her, dealing with people who had trouble getting along whilst on a mission was beyond difficult.
I hope she manages to pull it off. Lelouch thought even as he offered those heading off to face the last Magician a salute, those of his men who were able following his example and doing the same.
The [Railgun] saluted back before Shirai-san teleported the three girls away.
"I hope they don't come back too hurt." Shirley said with a sigh.
"They'll be fine." Lelouch reassured her. "They have a Level 5 with them."
Done and done! Thanks to Nameless as always!
And here we go, part 2 of princesses' gone wild! With more nuclear blasts than Disney can contain. Of course, religious symbols would be the thing to beat back the Jinn, due to their creation and such. With water it gets even better. Though it seems Alice and Kuroko are going to be at odds, for who knows how long.
Nameless: Seriously, in that situation, Alice probably made the right call but Kuroko is too lawful good to accept it. And now they might become long running enemies because of their conflicting worldviews. To be honest, Kuroko is being a bit of a hypocrite since she'd not be as pissed if Naru or Ruiko did the deed, and they would, just because they're her close friends but everyone is when dealing with their friends.
You know what to do! Smash that review button and tell us what you love! No flames and peace off my peeps!