Chapter 5: Railgun
The light returned to Mikoto's vision.
"So Uiharu and Saten are already on route to Joesphs Oneesama." Kuroko calmly explained in her normal tone while looking at her phone. "I think it time we got moving too?"
Mikoto first reaction was not based in logic or planning.
"Oneesama!" Kuroko yelled as Mikoto hugged her tightly. "Are you finally being honest with yourself and taking the next step to adulthood, hehehe!"
Mikoto broke the hug with the idiot.. and the flicked said idiot in the forehead.
"Ow!"
"Sometimes I forget your a perverted fool despite your good points" Mikoto replied playful.
"Also what is today's date?"
Kuroko explained... it was the day of the shooting as Mikoto had suspected.
"Right I know it's a little last minute, but there some things I need to look into today without you."
Kuroko sighed.
"What shall I tell the others?"
"Don't wait up for me, I'm likely going to be busy all day with a private matter."
"Is it to do with that ape?" She asked in that slightly condescending tone she used she used sometimes. Mikoto smirked at the clear jealousy.
"Slightly, but not really." She explained while patting Kuroko's head softly and making the teleporter blush somewhat. "But nothing like what your worrying about. Anyway keep your phone on, because I'm going to need your help latter in the day."
She nodded.
"I suppose I can wait for latter then."
"Thanks... anyway... latter! Mikoto said as she swiftly left the building.
Mikoto was running. One thing she knew from Last Orders investigations was that Ichika had been the sort to quietly watch and wait, learn patterns and only attack when she was utterly confident she had the upper hand... which meant Mikoto was on a clock to act before Ichika realised something was off and went into hiding.
"Time to stop moving like a normal student." She thought as she climbed up a nearby building with magnetism. Ichika would mostly be looking down from her vantage point and likely hacking cameras with a focus on the ground level... and with that rifle of hers Mikoto needed to maintain control of the situation at all costs.
"And.. jump!" She silently said to herself as she jumped from one building to another before continuing her unconventional route. Truth be told, if Mikoto had a choice she be spending some time with Kuroko and trying to figure out how to turn her idiotic perverted best friend into that rather reliable and reassuring young woman she had met in that club... but she had more pressing priorities.
"Here we are..."
She had located Ichika's sniper nest.
"Remember she's sharper that Worst with her powers." Mikoto reminded herself. "And even if she is eight, she can totally go toe to toe with you in a fight."
Mikoto however had a plan. The first and hardest step was to mostly pull in her powers. Tempting as it was to try to use them to find the other electromaster, Mikoto knew that Ichika was actively looking for a powerful fellow electromaster, and so would most certainly notice any electromagnetic probing by Mikoto.
"And now I take this route..."
Last Order had previously acquired accurate floor plans of the building. It had taken Mikoto a while, but she had found a path that let her avoid every extremely likely hacked camera... that was the second step.
"Guess I should be glad this places designer wasn't super paranoid about security."
Eventually and very quietly she reached the room that Ichika should have been in, and moved onto step three...
"Ichika I've come to talk!" Mikoto shouted while moving slightly to the right, which was a wise action on her part because a moment latter a bullet went flying through the wall where her head had been moments before.
"Da-die!" Ichika yelled with the same stammering tone, if at a higher pitch, as the girl who liked music and dressing up as a dog on stage."And your lies end here!"
In fairness Mikoto could understand how a suitable tortured student who had experienced Academy City darkside first hand would assume that such rampant corruption must include the Level Fives.
"I'm sorry I didn't know about your suffering before now." Mikoto explained in a deliberately softer tone while moving. "But if I come here to destroy you, do you think I would have got so close and opened up with conversation?"
There was a long silence with a distinctive lack of gunshots.
"Yo-you come here to fo-force me into your faction?"
Mikoto almost felt like laughing at the ridiculousness of the idea, but it was clear from her tone that she was being deathly serous.
"No I've come here end your nightmare." Mikoto said in her best big sis voice.
"Wait, what?"
"I don't know your full story, but I'm going to guess some adults with lousy ethics have you in a corner and won't let you live a happy normal life. Or chase after dreams like putting the art into musical artist."
"Tha-that impossible for me now.."
She sounded depressed, defeated and full of despair. Mikoto felt anger pulsing through her veins that someone had done that to a mere eight year old.
"I don't like the word impossible." Mikoto explained. "But I've decided if Academy City going to act like I'm some exemplar Esper so people don't notice the shadows, then I'm going to be a exemplar Esper that burns away the shadows and looks after other students."
"You'll protect me?" She replied with a notable lack of a stammer.
"I will."
There was a short moment of silence, followed by lots of rapid little footsteps coming closer, and then a door was opened.
"I wa-want to see Knight Black Snow play."
"The idol?"
Ichika nodded.
"She's play-playing in the park today, but I'm not suppose to go."
"So we go." Mikoto replied in a understanding tone.
She nodded rapidly.
"Leave the gun, we don't want to have to explain it existence to Anti-Skill" Mikoto explained.
"Oh this is easy to hide..." She replied as she clicked buttons and leavers until the deadly weapon looked nothing more offensive than a telescope and a laptop.
"Sometimes it shocks me at how good Academy City is at things like this."
"I have a toy rab-bit that I use to help me with ele-electronic warfare too."
And with that Mikoto took a little girl to see her favourite idol.
There was no trouble as the pair left the building, nor was there any trouble as they went to the show. Mikoto kept Ichika close and her eyes sharp as they made there way to the open air show.
"Knight Black Snow!" Ichika shouted out in a excited tone and pointed. Mikoto first impression of the teenage girl that got onto the stage was A) she looked like some isekai fantasy world knight and B) She had noble grace down to a fine art.
"Hail and greetings good folks." Knight Black Snow said in rather posh tone. "I'm currently a little far from home, but I do hope to offer suitable entertainment."
"So pro-professional!" Ichika whispered in an excited tone. "She plays on an arch-archetype, but she not just copied and put on a co-cosplay. She made her own character, made her own costume and le-leaned how to play her to a tee!"
As she watched, Mikoto couldn't help but notice how similar the girl's act was similar to the 'Princess Frema and her Magical Animal Friends' one she had seen while jumping.
"Is this girl the one who inspired that older Ichika?" Mikoto wondered as she watched the act. She did the whole narrative original song method, but being a one girl act, she was singing with backing music.
"Actually come to think it, I know this backing music..." Mikoto silently noted. "Wasn't it used as a background song in that fighting show Kuroko likes?"
Mikoto continued to listen for a while. While the sources were different, all her backing songs where from TV shows.
"Ahhh... She lacks someone with experience in composing music, while Ichika's latter version had Last Order handling that side of things."
"It's so mu-much better seeing her in person." Ichika explained. "All her vid-videos online are done by am-amateurs and the audio is weak."
"Ahh, she's not got any professional backing yet?"
Ichika nodded.
"She's bo-boldly trying to gain attention by showing her artistic merit!" She explained "I res-respect her greatly!"
"Well I hope she earns it!" Mikoto replied with a smile.
The show went on for a while. Knight Black Snow may have been an amateur trying to get noticed, but her stage stamina was top grade. However as with everything in life, the show did come to an end.
"So wh-what now?" Ichika asked nervously as the crowd started to thin out.
"Well we should assume trouble is going to find us sooner rather latter..." Mikoto replied quietly. "So stay alert while we make our way towards a site that suit us in battle."
The little girl nodded as Mikoto took her hand and walked down a major road.
"First lets get safely away from any fellow music lovers..." Mikoto silently though as she kept to the very public road area for a fair distance.
"And now let's take a 'foolish' shortcut through this abandoned industrial area..."
And right on a cue a giant robot squid like thing smashed through a nearby wall.
"LITTLE ICHIKA!" Screamed a man's voice from the machine. "I PUT IN ALL THIS TIME AND EFFORT TO TURN YOU INTO A LEVEL 5, AND AT THE LAST HURDLE YOU FAIL TO TAKE HER OUT AND REPLACE HER AS THE NEW RAILGUN!"
Mikoto was about to give a witty reply, but she was beaten to the punch.
"I'm no-not your toy!" Ichika yelled as she shot four quasi railguns at the machine ..but they all bounced off the machines armour.
"YOU THINK YOU CAN FIGHT BACK, ADORABLE!"
Mikoto had not chosen this location by chance through, she had chosen it so she could go full out without concern of collateral.
"Oh we're only getting started!" Mikoto shouted as she took out of her game coin and fired a proper railgun directly at the machine before grabbing Ichika hand and swiftly moving to the left.
"YOU THINK THAT WILL STOP ME?"
"Not really, but it's distracting you plenty while I get out of your sight." Mikoto quietly mused as she rapidly changed location.
"He re-resisted your best attack." Ichika whispered in a worried tone once they were safely out of sight.
"I was hoping otherwise, but he seems to have designed that machine to be Railgun proof." Mikoto calmly replied. "He probably analysed all my public battle data and as much private date as he could get his dirty hands on when designing it's defences."
"So ho-how we win?"
"It's armour is likely all but immune to our powers, but it's only has one eye piece and it's hearing is clearly weak... so first we need something like paint to blind it and make it easier to handle, after that I got a plan in mind that should take it out."
"Ke-keep it busy while I che-check that shed." She replied while pointing at a small building near the robot. "Your stron-stonger than me. And I'm good at mo-mowing metal things."
Mikoto nodded.
"Lets go."
The two girls separated, with Ichika sneaking down the right, while Mikoto went left. She gave it a minute or two for distance to grow between them before dropping subtly and throwing a suitably large metallic container at the machine... who promptly smack it out the way with one of it's many arms.
"You know before I find out just how much punishment that machine can take, are you controlling it remotely or actually inside it?"
"There no remote control device for you to hack Railgun, this is my Anti-Electromaster All Terrain Tank!" He explain proudly in a less maximum volume tone than before. "Designed for ensuring badly behaved students like yourself remember your place."
Mikoto internally smirked as she kept him talking. Villains always seemed to enjoy the sound of there own voice a bit too much.
"You know, that's a really long winded name and the acronym would be AEATT... I can hear the eating and neatness jokes already, so why don't you give it a cool sounding name like the Electrobuster Tank instead?" Mikoto suggested while taking care to avoid starting at the paint can that was quietly floating behind the machine.
"The Anti-Electromaster All Terrain Tank is a perfectly suitable name, far better than the childish 'Electrobuster Tank'!" He ranted as Ichika's paint can got into position. "But you children are so obsessed with your 'super powers' that you fail to realise how limited..."
The paint can was smashed on it's eye piece.
"I consider my powers useful, but there only extensions of my wits!" Mikoto explained before rapidly relocating from the rapidly rampaging robot.
"Right so it can't see what I'm doing now" Mikoto quietly reflected as she safely kept out of its way. "Now to wait for him to calm down so I can do some finesse work..."
It too a fair few minutes, but Mikoto kept quiet, away and watchful.
"Gah, you dam brats have run away haven't you?" He moaned as he calmed down. Mikoto took that as her cue to quietly get closer... with the flight trick.
"Thank you Beta." Mikoto silently thanked as she hovered on a metal bar she had found. It took a great deal of concentration, but it seems she correctly guessed the trick was to throw something slightly and consistently... with you on it.
"Oh I see why the Sisters preferred suits..." Mikoto thought as she unconformably hung on tightly to the metal bar and got close to the now still machine.
"He won't stay here much longer in thought through.."
Mikoto pulled out her iron sand... and rapidly and precisely attacked the glass on the eye piece... and then hacked through the optic cables within.
"It's over!" she shouted as she forced the machine to both open up and shut down. Revealing some old looking guy in a lab coat at the controls, who understandably looked terrified at the turn around in fortunes.
"Get out." Mikoto ordered while holding her iron sand in a sword like form, the old villain obeyed. "Now stay there and safely away from that Electrobuster Tank."
He look pissed at the name use, but clearly he knew he was beat. Mikoto took out her phone and called Anti-Skill.
"Hi, this is Misaka of Tokiwadai Middle School." She explained. "I've caught a terrorist using a military grade mecha to try and murder an elementary student, could you come arrest him please?"
The look on his face was priceless.
It was a bit latter. The Anti-Skill officers had took the machine away in a truck and the old man in handcuffs and a car. Mikoto had explained that she would take Ichika 'home' to the officers, and they had given her a polite nod and told her to be careful.
"So where are we re-really going?"
"To a friend of mine who can keep you safe for a few days while I try to sort out something more permanent."
"Is it that gu-guts guy?"
Mikoto chuckled.
"No, he actually claims to be a 'Ordinary High School Student', but he the sort of man who can walk into a tragedy and turn it into a romantic comedy."
Ichika blinked.
They reached his home. Mikoto knocked.
"Bri-Bri?" Touma replied as he opened the door before looking down. "And a friend?"
"Long story short." Mikoto explained. "Little Ichika here is a Child Error whose been taken advantage of. I've taken out the worst bully, but she's got no were safe to go and my dorm far too strict for her to hide out there."
Touma nodded in understanding.
"Index and me can look after her, through do you need a hand..."
Mikoto shook her head.
"I should have everything in hand in a day or two." She said while taking out some light change. "But use this to buy her food and such."
Touma blinked as he looked at the money given to her.
"I know, the budget going to be tight..."
"It's really not." Touma replied with a grin as he took the money "But we will look after her for you while you sort out the rest."
Mikoto smiled, before feeling a little tug at her sleeve.
"Tha-thank you Mi-mikoto." Ichika said with a smile.
As soon as Mikoto was safely away from the building, she made a a few phone calls, but one was a rather imporant.
"Good afternoon, you've reach the office of Board Member Nakamura, how can we help you today?"
"Could you inform him that Misaka Mikoto, the third ranked is waiting for him? I want to discus with him about that mechanical octopus event he wants me involved in?"
"I wasn't aware of any such event, let me talk with him a moment."
Holding music played...
"I've just read the Anti-Skill report." Came a older male voice that Mikoto assumed was Nakamura.
"How did this misfortune reach this point?" Mikoto asked in a rather pointed tone.
"...Oversights were made." Nakamura replied after a moment of silence. "We've purged the dangerous rifle information, we appreciate if you ensure the prototype is destroyed as well."
"I'll see it done." Mikoto replied. "However a certain little Elementary Student well being seems to have been poorly handled up to this point. I be keeping in contact with her to ensure that doesn't continue, but I assume you can arrange her transfer to suitable student dorm where she doesn't feel like a lab rat?"
"Of course, and you won't feel a need to repeat 'Radio Noise' like activities?"
"Of course."
"Then we have reached a understanding, please call me again if there is any future... concerns."
"Let's hope that I don't need too."
And with that Mikoto ended the call.
Mikoto was finally walking towards Joesphs, after her lengthy detour.
"Your finally finished being busy now Oneesama?" Kuroko asked in a slightly impatient tone. Clearly she had hung around with Uiharu and Saten, then stayed afterwards.
"Busy without you, but now I need to be busy with you." She explained... to which Kuroko immediately blushed deeply.
"Oneesama your so forward today!"
Mikoto bonked the girl with a one track mind on the head.
"I need you to get that lust of yours under control." Mikoto explained. "I'm going to introduce you as 'My reliable best friend Kuroko' to some important people shortly."
"Oh?" Kuroko replied with clear curiosity while rubbing her head. Mikoto took a deep breath. After everything she seen in her jumps, she knew she couldn't just keep Kuroko in the dark about everything...
"I want your help with my responsibilities and bigger plans." She explained. "And for that you need to get acquainted with my little sisters."
Kuroko looked confused at that.
"I thought you were a only child?"
"I am, but I was also illegally cloned behind my back." Mikoto explained."There a strange bunch of girls, but I consider them my precious little sisters who need to be protected, no matter what."
Kuroko paused a moment, then nodded seriously.
"Then I will protect them too Oneesama."
Mikoto smiled brightly at that.
"Your taking this rather well, all things considered?"
Kuroko shrugged.
"I knew you were keeping things from me and I trust your ethics."
This time it was Mikoto who felt heat in her cheeks.
"I thought I warn you in advance that your going to hear a lot of strange things and big things today."
Kuroko nodded.
"And you need me to keep calm?"
"Absolutely."
"Then lets go." Mikoto said as she motioned Kuroko to follow her.
Mikoto bit her lips as she stood outside the door. She had a plan, and she had context from the future... but she was still not looking forward to this at all. She knocked on the door and unsurprisingly he answered.
"Number Three." He stated coldly.
"Accelerator." She replied with equal coldness. "You got the message I take it?"
The albino Esper nodded before motioning the two girls in.
"I'm not sure where your fucking going with this, but the Brat seems to be enjoying this circus at least."
Mikoto walked into the living room and saw her immediately.
"Ahh the Original has arrived, says Misaka as Misaka jump off her royal seat to greet her properly!"
Not the scary old woman carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders, while her body hung onto life via machinery, but the little girl with a grin on her face and a lovely outgoing manner.
"Last Order." Mikoto said warmly as her little sister jumped up and hugged her tight. "You good?"
"I was surprised to find myself with company, but you are holding a meeting, says Misaka as Maska points towards the Royal Princess and her Royal Guard?"
The 'Royal Princess' in question was ShokuhouMisaki (aka also the 'royal seat') and her normal ringlet haired right hand Hokaze Junko was with her as well.
"Oh no, were here to gang up and seduce Number One clearly!" Misaki said with her normal mischievous tone. "Why else would four girls visit a boys house for?"
Hokaze coughed politely.
"Misaka called us here today for some kind of private joint strategy meeting my queen... as you know."
Misaki pouted.
"But that sounds boring and serous!"
"I can't see her arranging a meeting between three Level Fives over something minor..."
Accelerator stared at Mikoto a long moment before speaking.
"I saw your face when you came in here and the way your hugging Last Order like you just got back from a war... something has you spooked doesn't it?"
"She was also surprisingly affectionate this morning..." Kuroko added.
"I don't want to talk about it in front of Last Order." Mikoto explained.
"Brat, go your bedroom."
"But..."
"Bedroom." Accelerator stated again.
"We can have fun after this ok?" Mikoto explained in a softer tone to the young girl. Last Order sighed, broke the hug and headed to her room..
"I will return latter and have much fun, Misaka explains as Misaka goes to her room with a defiant attitude!"
They waited a few minutes for Last Order to be safely out of earshot.
"So what all this about?" Accelerator asked grumpily. "And how they hell do you know my home address in the first place?"
"Well the short answer is Last Order told me." Mikoto explained. "But the long answer is far more complex, because it wasn't the Last Order that just went to her room."
"You met another clone?" Kuroko asked innocently.
"Your cute little friend doesn't know about the hive mind yet does she?" Accelerator noted correctly.
"Hive mind?"
"Exactly."
"Well I like to point out that not all the Sisters are networked..." Misaki added, causing Accelerator head to turn sharply.
"Which Sisters?"
"Like the one in my care!" She replied with a grin.
"This isn't to do with Dolly or any of the other Sisters." Mikoto explained. "I met a far far older version of Last Order via time travel."
"Bullshit." Accelerator replied sharply. "You expecting me to believe something that outlandish?"
"Last Order thought you say that... so she gave me words to convince you."
"Oh?"
Mikoto cleared her throat.
"Oh my dear and sweet white flower, who fell from such a very high branch, probably because it was totally rotten to the core! Oh great angel of destruction souring through the sky, who tears flowed like waterfalls when the destroyer finally created something for a little 'glitch'. Also I totally hid 'that' in Yoshikawa's old gaming books, between the one to do with the love triangle between the sporty girl, the flower seller and grumpy merc and the old crappy version of the monster chase game!"
Accelerator went over to some old looking books and pull out a manga.
"The brat hid this yesterday after throwing a tantrum." He explained. "And the rest is the sort of crap I keep close to my chest, but I can believe Last Order would find out in time."
"You believe my Oneesama then?"
"Her words have a ring of truth."
Misaki looked at her a moment.
"Last Order gave me something far simpler to convince you."
"Oh?"
"Black cat with two white spots under it's left eye."
Misaki bit her lip.
"I believe you." She replied quite seriously before swiftly changing the topic "So this older Last Order wanted us three to meet... why?"
"This morning I was suppose to die via assassination, and that assassination would trigger a era of fear that Meltdown and her crew would use to rise to power and becomes tyrants." Mikoto explained to the group while watching Kuroko's eyes go wide with shock and concern the moment she said 'die'.
"I managed to cheat fate and prevent myself being shot with 'this'." She stated as she put the disassembled and currently rather harmless looking rifle down. "But the situation remains the same. Because of the rampant corruption in this city, we're one bad day from things going crazy."
Accelerator picked up the dissembled weapon and started looking it over while Misaki asked a question.
"How did Meltdown become the one to profit out of fear?"
"Somehow in six months time she learns how to turn Level 0s that everyone thought were hopeless cases into Level 1s with considerable ease. This give her a core of Esper supporters that she uses to build first a syndicate and then a company that focuses on Espers. A company that latter goes onto become the most powerful and corrupt conglomerate on the planet."
Misaki rubbed her chin in thought.
"No sting in there power growth latter?"
"Nothing. Last Order kept a close eye on all the early recruits. Most of them remained Level 1s and a few became stronger latter."
"Much latter?"
"Well apparently it took Meltdown lot a long time to create there first Level 2..."
"Like after they acquired proper scientists latter?"
Mikoto cocked her head to the side slightly and tried to remember the details of Last Order's history lesson...
"Takitsubo's first organised lab was where they created Level 2s, and that was after Academy City as we know it ceased to be."
Misaki smirked.
"They must have a way to create Level 1s via unconventional means, and faked they knew the proper means till people who did were asking for jobs and they didn't need to use the unconventional means any more."
"Shall I inform the clique to start investigating the details of how my queen?" Hokaze asked politely while holding her phone.
"Of course, but wait till were finished here, Misaka is clearly in full mastermind mode!" She replied playfully.
"I'm destroying this thing." Accelerator stated while holding the now fully assembled rifle. "Something that can shoot right right through your elecromaster field without you noticing, can shoot through Worst's too. Your safety not really my concern, but hers is."
He promptly clicked his collar and utterly wrecked it.
"It's maker?"
"With Anti-Skill." Mikoto replied before quickly adding. "And before you start thinking out how your going to blow up the lab and everyone connected with it, there a different kind of game we can play to get what we -really- want."
Accelerator peered at her in a rather aggressive manner.
"In Academy City there are two kinds of villains. There those who want results and don't care how they get them, and those who want results, but don't want anyone to find out how far they went to get them."
"Go on."
"The desires of these two types often collide and the latter know just how much trouble we can cause if we go really wild... so why don't we try a policy of divide and conquer and abuse that fault lines to start slowly making it harder and harder for crimes to be committed against our fellow students?"
"Wouldn't it just be easier to kick all there arses when the try?"
"Ah sweet simple Accelerator." Misaki said playfully. "While I understand the temptation to simply try to find all the villains and strike them down, this city is full of trash of the first order that repopulates faster then we can do so. However if we can encourage them to self cannibalise and self regulate... then we will win the long game."
Accelerator paused a moment.
"And to do that we abuse your skill with people, Number Threes skill with electronics and my skill at bringing absolute terror and annihilation to anyone who dare call our bluff?"
"That's the plan!" Misaki remarked.
"I'm in then." He replied. "If dealing with you two and your minions on a regular bases is the price of ensuring the Brat's and Worst future is bright, then I'll put up with it."
Mikoto nodded.
"Then our alliance is founded."
"I do want more details on this time travailing through." Accelerator stated. "I believe your only here because a future version of the Brat told you to come, but what the mechanics of it?"
"Well I was having a normal day with Kuroko, Uiharu and Saten, when I get shot out the blue by the nasty little thing you wrecked a few minutes ago and bleed out on pavement in Kuroko arms... before finding myself sent ten year into a future where I wasn't shot."
Accelerator nodded thoughtfully along as she told the story.
"I spend sometime in a nightclub with Kuroko trying to figure out why my memory doesn't match everyone else. Then we see Last Order and her friends sing before we go to Leivinia Birdway for help."
"Ah that little bitch." Accelerator noted. "I suppose if you had no fucking clue what was going off, seeking her aid would be on the table."
"Whose this Leivinia?" Misaki asked curiously.
"She calls herself a Magician." Accelerator explained. "Run into a few of them, not exactly sure how there powers work, but there not Espers, they do supernatural shit and there power seem to run off stories. Anyhow Leivinia a scheming bitch, but she on a similar level to us and know tons of secrets we don't."
Mikoto nodded.
"Anyhow it turns out Leivinia was married to Kamijou in that timeline, and he wander in while she trying to get to the bottom of thing and taps me with his right hand...then boom I'm sent to a future so far forwards, it take me two further jumps and Last Orders help to figure out that I was sent to a far future and was drifting backwards towards the present."
Accelerator paused a moment.
"That idiot hero's right hand was sending you back to where you belong the long winded way then?"
"Seems so."
"Makes sense, what your little girlfriend's power by the way?"
"Erm...Kuroko's not my girlfriend..."
"I don't care a dam about what you do or don't get up to at night, I just want to know her power."
"She's a Level 4 Teleporter."
"Then this mystery is solved." He stated as he pointed at the quickly amazed looking Teleporter. "I know from talking with a old associate of mine that teleporters use fifteen dimension maths to move about and one of those dimension is time. So she must have pulled off some one in a million teleportation move and sent you to the future... probably via some power of love bullshit because she could see you bleeding out in front of her."
Mikoto blinked. She had been saved by Kuroko?!
"Shirai is rather devoted..." Hokaze noted in a soft tone.
"Saved by the power of love!" Misaki said gleefully before adding with some mischief and a wink. "Shirai you best cash in all her goodwill latter!"
Kuroko however just turned and looked at Mikoto with a face flushed red. Mikoto very cautiously turned to face Kuroko and then patted her softly on the shoulder.
"Guess you really had my back Kuroko!" She stated nervously. In return Kuroko stared at her in red faced silence for what must have a good minute till...
"ONEESAMA, REWARD ME WITH YOUR LOVE!" She yelled as she pounced on her like a tiger.
It was night now and Mikoto was resting in her bed. It had took Kuroko quite some time to 'calm down' so to speak. Last Order had of course heard the commotions from her bedroom and concluded that they were messing around and having fun without her... and decided that she was going to mess around and have fun with them, so the meeting had unofficially, but effectively ended at that point. Things had calmed down when Yomikawa,Yoshikawa and Worst turned up and it had turned out that Yomikawa and Kuroko knew each other via Judgement, so they had talked for ages and Yomikawa had more than subtly hinted she like to see Accelerator spend more time with Kuroko.
"I guess he's more complex than the blood soaked killer I know."
She didn't know how much the two adults knew about the experiments, but she couldn't imagine they were completely oblivious to Accelerator's nature and past... yet they treated him like he was there nephew or someone similar.
"Worst and Last Order clearly love him too..."
The two Sisters seemed to have enjoy winding him up no end, but what had really struck Mikoto as a sign of affection was the fact Last Order had quiet happily fallen asleep on his lap towards the end of the day.
"I'll figure him out in time I guess."
Mikoto looked towards Kuroko's sleeping form. She was absolutely a perverted idiot for sure, but Mikoto wasn't going to lie to herself and say after everything she had been through she could just think of her as her best friend and nothing more any more.
"I can wait for her to figure out what I want, I have time now."
Mikoto slowly drifted of into the darkness again, but this time it was a land of pleasant dreams she 'jumped' to.
In another time and another place a different electromaster had been awoken.
"Controller, we have a signal coming from a new sector."
"Expected colony site?"
"No Controller."
A long long time ago the Network had been told of lost colony, one that the Original had helped salvage, but wasn't expected to be able to contact Earth for a long time.
"Put it through to me."
"Understood"
The computer in front of her booted into life and audio came through.
"Teefor to Earth, Teefor to Earth, do you hear us?"
"We do." She simply stated before added. "You are talking to the Controller of the Misaka Network, Artist the Third."
There was a moment of silence, and then...
"I'm Hiroto of the Chiyo Institute."
"A pleasure, I assume you have many questions, but firstly what is the state of the ships VS?"
"We dare not open her up further, once we found the scientific texts within what the legends called the Temple of the First Spark, many took it as proof of there truth and the government banned any further opening up of it on religious grounds."
The Controller smiled softly, seals would be still be sealed, and delicate circuitry would be untouched.
"Then we have hope she can be revived with her mind somewhat intact. The religious aspects are a complication, but I confidence my little sister Footsteps the Tenth can talk through it once we done enough research and chatted with the proper religious authorities..."
"You can reach us?"
Her smile grew. The Network had been looking forwards to this bit.
"Right now no, but your talking with us via a quantum communicator based on the scientific formula you found inside the ship yes?"
"We call it a directphone, but it is indeed based of the scientific formulas left inside the VS."
"Good good, long after the Seed of Hope left Earth, we invented a far more powerful device based of the same technology."
"Oh?"
"We call it a quantum gate, a door between worlds. It may have been heavily delayed, but before long you be part of the intergalactic community you were always suppose to be part of"
The Controller was pretty sure, as were the rest of her sisters, that the Original would be very proud that the Misaka Network had made it there duty to help those in need.
It was what she always did after all.
A/N And that's the end folks! I hope you all enjoyed my little time travel mystery fanfic, it was certainly something I had to plan ahead to ensure it worked (especially since chapters 2, 3 and 4 are effectively in reverse order) but that was half the fun! (That and finally finding a place for some half formed setting ideas!)
Not sure what I'm going to do next, but a rather silly one shot as a change of pace seems likely, so feel free to leave comments on what characters you love to see something silly based around! :)