Jittery nerves struck up through my arm, trembling like lightning before a storm.

I suspect it was just the anticipation of a fight getting to me. I never was one to get excited about a confrontation, much less a physical one. This whole situation was weird. Even more so when I was expecting to be the one starting the fight to begin with.

Raising a shaking hand up to my eyes, I caught view of an arc of lightning dance between my fingertips.

Direct use of electromaster abilities remains ineffective at any range.

I frowned. I knew this fact well, I didn't need to be reminded.

If it didn't work the first nine-thousand times, then electrical powers won't work the next nine-thousand times either.

I had to try anyway. I needed to test my theory or this whole experience will be entirely wasted.

I needed to know what's real and what's not.

The difference between reality and fiction is noticing the interim between the two states and knowing conclusively that I existed in one or the other. If this was the fiction that I watched from reality, or the reality that I was currently living in was the question I was expecting to face. An experiment on the outside and an experiment on the inside. By action, it will be the question I was expecting to answer once all of this is over.

Am I real? Or am I just a character? I didn't even know the answer to that.

My memories as a clone of Misaka Mikoto tell me that I'm just that. A clone of Misaka Mikoto.

An esper by proxy, due to the circumstances of my creation, and grown using a sterile incubator pod and a concoction of rapid growth hormones. Costing approximately 180,000 yen, or 1700 US dollars, I could buy and stock a refrigerator with the budget used to create me.

A morbid part of me wondered if there was ever a time in these experiments where a body had to be stored inside a refrigerator.

I lower the body bag into the cold storage containment unit, sealing the hatch and shutting the pressure valve shut.

"Disposal complete, returning back to the workshop to return undamaged equipment, Misaka reports dutifully." I say.

I shook my head clear of my useless thoughts. No, not a thought, a memory. It's just not my memory.

I mumbled my discontent, "I didn't even want to know if that was true or not..."

A timer that I had setup on my wrist went off, reminding me that the next experiment was about to begin.

'This isn't the time. I have to get ready.' I had to push myself.

I jogged through the interiors of the power station, until I found what I was looking for.

The generator hummed with an energy I could almost smell. Electricity.

From my pocket, I pulled out a spool of wire made of a copper/gold alloy that I had requisitioned for use as battlefield equipment.

Without fear, I worked on attaching the length of wire. I let my conscious, deliberate control over my body fall away to brain-software installed muscle memory.

I didn't personally work with machines, having barely touched a car engine in my life. I just knew what to do, my hands moving over metal plates and mechanical parts. I disassembled the unfamiliar, yet familiar, technology, glancing at the work of Academy City's engineers and figuring out a way to accomplish the goals I set in my head.

Somehow, I managed to change the system until it was reformatted and rerouted to direct its full power to a set of two jury-rigged metal prongs torn out of the parts of a pressure cooker that I didn't remember bringing with me.

I kept working until I hit my first snag.

My hands held the two wires uneasily. A split down the center connected the two wires into one.

It was obvious to me that this was the last step.

I had to make these two attachments in the generator, that was simple enough to understand. I needed something sturdy enough that won't fail me while I'm moving around. What didn't make sense was the weird feeling of numbers flashing before my eyes that logically wouldn't translate to muscle memory.

By this point, I had to acknowledge the fact that I was relying on the expertise of an electromaster without using electromaster abilities. So naturally, I had to do the thing with the powers.

I took a deep breath in and out, letting my focus taper out and allowing the lingering pieces of the Sister I inhabited to sink deeper into my subconscious where she couldn't interfere with me.

For other Sisters, and especially the Original, this is some trivial usage stuff for their electromaster abilities. For them, using electromagnetism to manipulate metals to their whims was a level of freedom that I could only hope to replicate, not achieve.

The reason for this? I could only guess, because even though I am a clone of an electromaster and I have electromaster abilities, at the end of it all, I am simply not an electromaster. My body may be one, but I can never be. And for that very fact it meant one simple conclusion:

When I'm awake, I cannot generate my own electricity.

From my pocket, I pulled out a collapsable, cordless bug zapper. I bought this some time ago using a cash card from a local store.

I could've also brought a personal taser instead, however I couldn't be sure that this card wasn't being tracked by the researchers, and an electromaster needing to buy a taser led to questions that I didn't feel like answering. Besides that, I needed the extra boost in voltage and a civilian taser just didn't have enough juice in it to keep me charged.

Just like I had done before, the grid-part of the zapper hummed to life in my bare hand and with it came the thrum of power I had come to associate with absorbing electricity. I grinned at the exhilarating sensation underneath my skin, the feeling almost like a hypereffective drug.

Boosted by electricity, the wires sparked in my hands and split under my own power.

My desires to maintain control guide me, I let my own will become my electricity.

Like living metal, the tendrils coiled around the two metal prongs. It felt uncomfortable, almost like squeezing a hand through a tiny tube in order to move something else at the far end. The work felt spotty, but I knew that it would hold far better than if I had wrapped it by hand.

The generator suddenly surged through my body as I finished.

Visible heat waves radiated off of the glowing hot wire, although I wasn't harmed in the process. Instead, I felt a massive boost in energy flood my veins.

"Oh wow..." I sighed out in relief.

I let myself sit there for a moment, getting myself comfortably accumulated to the power surge before I moved on.

I've never been able to easily do fine control with my powers, the first time I tried I only gave myself a headache. The second time, I felt as if my fingertips would explode.

Then the third time happened and something just clicked.

I didn't even get to play with electromagnetism for very long before I came to the awkward realization that my electricity wasn't regenerating like I thought it should. Fortunately, I was able to compensate by using external batteries, but it was a hassle knowing that I would always be tied to whatever electrical sources were nearby.

As far as I could tell, the other Sisters never had this kind of problem with their powers. So this was entirely a problem related to my own circumstances.

Deciding to get moving again, I walked outside with wire slowly spilling out of the spool in my hand. District 17 had hundreds of shipping containers throughout its area, meaning I had plenty to choose from.

Picking a shipping container containing at random, I climbed aboard and placed my palm flat against the cold metal. Power flooded my arm, spreading throughout the metal, and then through each contact container beside it.

I closed my eyes.

I imagined a visual of the area around me, with the first few containers lighting up as my electricity coursed through them. I needed to visualize this because very quickly, I found the boundaries of my power moving beyond my field of vision, traveling through shipping containers, railway tracks, train cars, and metal scaffolding. Anything metal pinged against my abstract senses and was added to my ever growing list.

I couldn't actually feel the electricity flood through every object around me, as I was incapable of feeling the electrons in the air. Yet I slowly knew they were there if I first imagined them existing in my mind... somehow.

The logic goes something like this:

At first, it starts off as a picture in my head of my position, then the position of the container I was touching. Electricity flows from my body into the container, the current flowing from my container to adjacent containers in the area.

Continuing on, I have to imagine the existence of the containers that I do not know about or cannot see. I shouldn't be able to add an imaginary object to my imaginary power, and yet I can do so. That's why I closed my eyes.

I can 'predict' the locations and positions of anything near me using directional positionings. Adjustments automatically surface to my awareness as I come into contact with new objects within my field. Corrections to my imagination that help shape it to mirror the physical reality.

So on it goes.

The imaginings become more defined, predictions leading to positionings expanding my range. Using this, I could reach for surrounding metals far beyond what I could do running from one object to the other.

In fact, this all should have been above and beyond what I was capable of defining with my mind alone. I can't even see what I'm working with, yet I knew exactly where everything was with only minute differences in accuracy.

To put it in other words, it's like I'm adding extra limbs. I'm deliberately connecting new extensions that become a part of me.

Wait, that's what esper powers are, aren't they?

They're extensions of one's internal self physically imposed onto the world as an observable will: A Personal Reality. All I was doing was temporarily accepting more of the world into myself. Supernatural phenomenon was merely just extraperipheral movement given form.

"Oh! Shit!" My eyes widened, an understanding that I felt only I could see unveiled itself.

This was effectively a body brain map. A goddamn cortical homunculus. I was basically remapping a version of reality into my own brain!

I couldn't help myself from laughing at the epiphany, even as the electrified spool in my grip began to fry and oxidize from the amount of electricity I was overloading into my system.

Hysterical excitement bubbled up from within and surged forth in the form of trembling, dancing metal around me. This opportunity to express my abilities could no longer be yielded. From the moment of my inception into this world to my very first spark, I was born for this moment. I needed to find new and interesting ways to use this power.

I needed more.

The sense of power and freedom, being at the mercy of a fanatical powertrip, but never getting a true taste of what may lay beyond the unseen eyes. Dreaming about this wouldn't have given me the same sense of exhilaration as I did now.

I wanted this to never end.

I draw up the rifle sights, aiming 42 degrees to the left and 6 inches down. I take in the scenario, intending to use this opportunity to learn from the coming battle. 'Perhaps a weakness in defense could only be observed from a distance?' Misaka thinks.

Huh? What was that?

I listened closer, trying to figure out where that memory came from.

I'm staring at a white-haired skinny boy. He smiles, "You know, you interrupted me on my coffee run and made me walk all the way over here. You better make this worth it, or should I go breaking bones to make up for lost time? What do you say about toes and fingers first?"

My throat froze.

"The Experiment will commence in 1 minute, please prepare yourself, Misaka explains while lowering her goggles." I say.

The vision of the past entered my head. I ignored it, no longer feeling particularly amused by my situation.

Ah, yes. That's right. I didn't come here to get high on my own powers.

There was a very basic question about this universe that I needed answered. It's just one of those things that just thinking about made me feel terrified enough that I needed to hide the nature of my own existence away from the city and the Sisters. And a certain protagonist.

I bet I could solve all the issues revolving around this ridiculous project if I got Touma involved, and it would be as easy as walking up to his door and asking for help.

In fact, I could probably go to him to solve the Level 6 Shift problem right now.

'Only it wouldn't solve anything for me.' I knew.

For fear of a fate that I couldn't possibly predict, I couldn't actually go to someone who, for all intents and purposes, is a grand piece in a narrative that pushes stronger opponents and ever larger battles onto him. Kamijou Touma is literally a walking international incident waiting to happen.

A brief lull in senses wouldn't make me forget about that fact. I'm not desperate enough to involve myself in that plot.

When it came down to it, I needed to fight Accelerator myself.

Not for the Sisters, nor for an experiment I didn't believe in.

This is all for myself. I needed to prove a facet of this reality that can't be told to me. I needed to know what's real or not.

I needed to know if I'm real.

There's a subtle rumbling in the air, one that I merely accepted as the distant rumbling of an automated train, one of many that were often running supply runs in the background of District 17.

It's only when I lower my goggles that I see the invisible forces happening while I was unaware of them. I took note the above average electrons saturating the air and around me. A magnetic field?

Accelerator suddenly looks skyward, something has attracted his attention.

I look up and see that all of those magnetic fields were consolidating on one spot. The sight of a large object rose into the sky above them, a small figure standing on it.

It cries out, "Accel-"

I cut out the sudden stream of memory from my mind, 'Why is it always trainyards?'

I stood atop the floating shipping container, hand gripping the edge for support as repeated magnetic discharges pumped the object continuously into the air to counteract gravity. It was an absolute massive drain of energy, but a necessary one to set up the stage.

I calmed the tremors down a notch. At the same time, I sent a pulse out to the side to get me in motion so that I had a way of angling my descent, should I need to make a landing.

The wire I was holding earlier was secure, attached to the epicenter of my magnetic field- which would serve as a fallback when I needed it.

Noticeably, the other sister here was staring at me with the most disapproving look a sister could pull off. I put that in the back of my mind, knowing full well that it's not her opinion that mattered here.

I had his attention. The one person I knew I'd never be able to fairly beat even with unlimited electricity. Then again, even if i could, trying to kill him wasn't the point.

"Well now. What do we have here? Someone to interrupt our little session?"

Hands in his pockets, Accelerator glanced at me with a single lazy look, not at all appearing to wonder what two clones were doing here when at most they only ever appeared en masse after he'd had his fun.

"I'm here for you." I said, jittery nerves coloring my voice.

"Oh?" The number 1 ranked esper gave an ugly smile in response.

'I need you to prove something to me.' I thought.

The truth is, I needed to know what's real or not.

Whether the reality of my circumstances lives beyond my sight, or if reality exists before my very eyes. Perhaps this is just a dream, or maybe I'm truly here. Maybe this is a fantasy, maybe a reality, maybe a dream, or maybe something in between.

I won't know until I start looking.