"You can't!"
It wasn't what Misaka had expected. If Kuroko was going to say anything about her disappearances, she would have expected concern; asking if she needed help or digging for information on what she was doing when she was out all night. Not boldly stating that she was going to come.
"This isn't like Judgment, it's…" criminal. Stopping the project was the right thing to do, but only by going a far outside the law as the researchers themselves. A responsible, law-abiding girl like Kuroko wouldn't stoop to taking part in Misaka's terrorism, no matter how well-intentioned or necessary it was.
If she said too much, Kuroko would have no choice but to try stopping her, and Misaka really didn't want to fight her best friend on top of everything else.
Kuroko's wan smile was anything but reassuring. "The S-Processor Pathology Analysis Research Laboratory and its associate factory are the last facilities involved in the Level 6 Shift project. The other eighteen facilities have already been damaged beyond repair as a result of fire.
"Over forty-five experiments have been completed since the 15th," Misaka didn't want to know that. She wanted anything but to think about how many of her clones had been killed as she slowly went through the list, "Nothing we can do will slow them down or stop them in progress. But if the entire project ends faster…"
"Kuroko, what have you been doing?" she asked, horrified. Now that she looked, the signs of fatigue were everywhere. Just like in the mirror. Bags under the eyes, usually bouncy twintails limp and lifeless. Hands scrubbed pink and raw, far from their usual carefully moisturised softness.
"Failing. I thought that I could use my teleportation to save some more, but even then, I was too slow. I thought that I could get Anti-Skill to see what was going on, but that was even slower than me." The teleporter's eyes dropped to her hands, unseeing, "I even thought I could delay Accelerator by myself."
"You did what!?" The idea that her best friend had gone to fight an invulnerable monster, knowing exactly what he was capable of… was it bravery, or desperation?
"But what I can do is help onee-sama. These are their last facilities, and they must be expecting you by now. They won't be expecting Kuroko."
If she said no, what would Kuroko do instead? Tail her until she was forced to knock Kuroko out? Teleport Misaka somewhere she couldn't escape and go in her place? Seek out another fight with Accelerator?
And as much as Misaka hated to admit it, she had a point. She didn't expect the scientists behind this to be able to establish countermeasures to a Level 5, but they could maybe find a way to slow her down. Just posting human guards would make it so much more difficult; the lack of a night crew had done a lot to make avoiding casualties easy. If Kuroko came as well, then it would be easy to get anyone out of the way and get out faster.
"Fine, you can come. You need to get out of that uniform, though…"
Kuroko didn't even take the opportunity to make a lecherous comment.
Onee-sama had seemed surprised that Kuroko hadn't need to make a shopping detour to pick up something more appropriate. Yes, attending Tokiwadai meant having no opportunity to wear any other clothing outside of explicitly sanctioned situations. That didn't mean it enforced a prohibition on owning any other clothing.
Yes, her tastes in swimsuits were far more adult and less frilly. It was only natural, too, that she had a wide selection of clothing suitable for formal occasions, as well as more sophisticated casual outfits. That didn't mean that it should come as a surprise that Kuroko owned shorts and the like as well; she had been in Judgment for over a year and hadn't grown much since the spring. She wasn't so shameless as to enjoy fighting in a miniskirt.
Honestly, where onee-sama had gotten the idea that she was against the article of clothing itself and not the ridiculousness of wearing shorts under a miniskirt…
As a consequence, even with the time lost in persuading onee-sama to let her come in the first place, after changing out of their uniforms—and Kuroko thought no more of renting a hotel room for an entire night just to change clothes—and wasting a good few minutes tying a ribbon in a different place than normal for the sake of matching hairstyles, they arrived at the first target slightly earlier than anticipated.
Teleporting past the massive doors—they must move a lot of machinery through here, then, which was already quite odd for an analysis laboratory—Kuroko kept an eye on the open space of the first floor whilst Misaka hacked into its databases.
"The facility is on the top floor," the older girl said, tilting her PDA to show off the schematic. Lots of little corridors, on top of the lab facilities themselves. With the high ceilings, a straight jump would be pushing the limits of Kuroko's range. Add in some uncertainty in the arrival point, a blind jump might be uncomfortably likely to end up in something, even if the corridors had no obstacles.
"… so we should get to that stairwell first," Kuroko finished, leading the way. Or they could go back outside and come in through the window? Without something like onee-sama's electromagnetic sense, she was stuck relying on line of sight for accuracy.
What she was not expecting was a line of fire to run across the ceiling, which then collapsed.
Not that a falling ceiling with any sort of warning was a threat to Kuroko, the girders slamming into the floor harmlessly. It was proof that they weren't alone; onee-sama hadn't said anything about automated security watching the area, so either there wasn't any, or it was already taken care of.
Frenda, too, was unhappy about this state of affairs. All her planning had been based on their client's idea of a lone wolf attacker. Mugino had wanted to cover both facilities in case there was an accomplice, but ITEM still only expected one attacker. A single electromaster, no matter their level, when she'd rigged the entire first and second floor with ceramic bombs and traps? It was an easy bonus!
Somehow, their lone wolf target had picked up a teleporter, which was ridiculous! In the end, there were hardly any teleporters and this one could teleport herself, too. She might need to wait for Mugino to get here and give up the bonus and the advantage of all her traps…
"Onee-sama, you should go to the facility. I can handle this."
Now the smoke had cleared, Frenda could see the two of them. If they were going to split up, that was great; the actual target would run right through all the traps she had set up—
With a quick tap on the shoulder, the taller girl was gone, probably at the other end of the floor and way past Frenda, now. Right, teleporter, she almost forgot. At least splitting up was a positive, she could take out one overconfident esper at a time without much of a problem. The target had to come back down once she was done, unless she wanted to abandon her friend.
Friend's body, that is. Planning for an electromaster might remove options from Frenda's arsenal but being able to teleport hardly made you resistant to being blown to pieces.
Now that onee-sama was safely ahead to complete their mission, whether she wanted to be or not, Kuroko had hardly given her chance to argue about it, Kuroko started to advance again. Whoever was behind the explosives must be nearby, the remote surveillance would have given them away before the first explosion.
Another line of fire ran past, the heat painful even in the brief instant it shot past her leg, triggering a bomb just far enough out of range to be disorienting rather than deadly. That was only a taste of what came next, more sparks racing to the incongruous looking stuffed animals placed on the machinery. A lethal quantity of explosives.
The teleporter only looked slightly annoyed when she reappeared back at the first pile of girders.
The weakness in her preparation was really coming back to bite her, in Frenda's opinion. Preparing for a dangerous electromaster meant sacrificing any remote-controlled explosives or wireless detonation, relying entirely on old-fashioned fuse lines as triggers. She'd even had to avoid fragmentation rounds due to all the metal. Combined, this was fine for surprising someone who might be a living antenna and metal detector: they couldn't do much with a moment's warning.
Against someone who could take that moment's warning and retreat somewhere already free of explosives, it sucked.
It even threatened all Frenda's other traps! The collapsing staircase was worse than useless, it was more likely to get her trapped with some terrorist's buddy. The explosive-packed vents relied on surrounding the target and setting them off before she got away. Even the backup of bluffing about Ignis was specifically meant to limit the use of electricity.
In the end, she would have to beat the other girl up.
Kuroko received a scant moment's warning that the nature of the fight was about to change when some other object was thrown out from behind a pillar. It was too far away to be a grenade or some sort of direct threat but—
A metal casing, slipping under her foot.
—Anyone with lesser reflexes would still have been staring at the stun grenade when it went off. Kuroko, instead, only had to deal with the deafness and ringing in her ears, the way that her balance was completely thrown off.
It impeded her concentration more than enough to make the dart-like metal objects thrown in her direction a major hazard. Diving forward on the explosion-marked ground hurt, left her open to attack, but it was much better than being caught in the explosion.
It also gave her barely enough time to roll out of the follow-up kick as the bomber finally made her presence known. Maybe Kuroko should have expected that someone with so many explosive stuffed animals was a girl only slightly older than herself.
Although she managed to scramble to her feet, Kuroko was still forced on the defensive, the attacking girl obviously trained and experienced. Not insurmountably more skilled, but she wasn't the one still recovering from the stun grenade, kept off balance and on the defensive.
Frenda couldn't keep the excited smile off her face. Now that she was in close, the esper seemed completely helpless; dodging wouldn't work forever, and once she got a few good hits in, it wouldn't even matter if she was a teleporter.
When the auburn-haired teleporter caught her attack, leveraging it into a throw that left Frenda off balance, it came as a complete surprise.
That was all it took.
Now that she was recovered from the flashbang and had an opening to exploit, engaging a teleporter that trained her combat skills nearly as much as her power with nothing but your body was a difficult proposition. Some espers had powers that could give them a speed or power advantage. Some would use technology to the same ends. Others still might use other means to remain effectively untouchable.
Frenda had none of those, and as soon as Kuroko was able to focus appropriately, the kick from what should have been an impossible angle sent her reeling. Being teleported thereafter to hit the ground head-first and pinned to the ground with a dozen needles sealed it.
Now what…? Normally, this was the point Kuroko would handcuff the perpetrator and hand them off to Anti-Skill. No matter how awkward the position, needles through one's clothing was not a secure containment method for long. Well, as long as the blonde girl couldn't keep setting off bombs before they were done.
A slight woosh, and the teleporter was gone.
It couldn't have been more than a few minutes that Frenda remained stuck in place, working against the little bits of metal holding her down. Working against her clothing, the fabric starting to tear and slip free needle by needle, each one giving slightly more range of motion and making it easier to pry free of the others. The needles, embedded as they were without any gaps or fractures in the floor, were quite firmly stuck.
Frenda wasn't complaining that her beautiful legs had been spared, but for a violent terrorist, the teleporter could have done a lot more to incapacitate her.
She wasn't completely free by the time that backup arrived in the form of a melted wall and someone that would have looked more at place at a fashion show than doing mercenary work.
"Where the hell are they? You were supposed to keep them busy until we got here. Not let them set the building on fire."
Busy. Maybe blown up, but the important thing had been to keep the target from getting away until the offensive team could arrive to bring them down. It was a task that the bomber had completely failed at, with the target getting ahead to destroy this facility and be… teleported… away…
"They have a teleporter!"
The Level 5 ground her teeth. Maybe Saiai would do a better job of keeping them busy…
This was it, then. The S-Processor Pathology Analysis Research Laboratory—the final facility involved in running the Level 6 Shift Project. Quite unlike almost every other place involved, it was busy despite the late hour, with security on the outside and all the lights on.
All the illumination made it conveniently easy to bypass the security and chance of recognition and simply appear on the other side of one of the windows, where Misaka simply hijacked the automated security systems and locked them out. With the doors locked and windows shuttered internally, nobody was going to be getting in before they were finished.
Like the original Radio Noise facility, this lab had a conspicuous black spot separated from the main network. Power was going in but any communication in or out was cut and, for some reason, it seemed to be entirely underground. The plans showed an elevator, but it would be faster to just use the emergency access.
"There are a lot of boxes," Kuroko noted. Just in getting to an access point and then towards the ladder, they'd passed room after room full of boxed up materials. Also, a surprising number of researchers, who barely got a moment to react to the unexpected sight of teenaged girls before they were inexplicably outside.
"If they were planning to move, it's a good thing we got here now."
Turning the corner towards the way down, they were unexpectedly met with the sight of guns pointed in their direction: two hired toughs, one holding a very familiar looking captive, and a slight-looking girl in a hoodie, already ready to brawl.
"This is super unexpected," the girl said, "I thought you must have gone to the other place."
Misaka wasn't in the mood for a conversation, leading off with a shock that fizzled harmlessly against… air? There was something strange about it, electric currents didn't stop that easily on normal air, but the way it stopped felt natural…
The two men with her gave their guns confused looks as they jammed, only to see metal pointing out of the firing mechanisms. The one not carrying a hostage got himself kicked in the head for his distraction, stumbling in his boss's way and interrupting her lunge towards Misaka.
Whatever air barrier she had, it didn't hold up nearly as well against the second arc of lightning, the voltage cranked much higher. If it had resisted, there would have been a need to get creative but, fortunately for the invaders and unfortunately for ITEM, super-dense nitrogen still had finite insulating properties. While it attenuated the shock to a less damaging level, it wasn't enough to shrug it off.
With their only real offence dealt with, the three were soon just as outside as the researchers. That just left Nunotaba with them—given she had been captured for some reason, Kuroko argued they couldn't just send her outside with the others. Adding a few seconds to each trip to move an extra person wasn't going to stop them from getting out in time.
"Stop! You can't destroy this yet!" was not the first thing Misaka had expected to hear out of the girl as she regained consciousness. The scientist was quick to put together what it meant to have the Railgun here, standing in front of a bank of machinery. Delicate machinery that was currently connected to the very same Sister she had tried to give emotions to.
"Why not?" They didn't have time for this. The security at these places hadn't been that impressive, but more might come. Misaka didn't want to have someone follow them into an underground inferno.
"There's a Sister undergoing calibration—"
"Is this her?" With onee-sama and Nunotaba talking, Kuroko had taken the opportunity to look around this control room. The girl in a pod on the other side of the glass viewing screen had been quite distinctive. She seemed to be dealing with the suddenly being awake part quite well, albeit looking distinctly more… confused than the other Sisters ever had. It only made her the second least expressive person Kuroko had ever met.
It even raised all kinds of interesting thoughts. If all the clones were genetically identical to the original, did that mean onee-sama could grow her hair to this length as well? It was certainly striking, if it grew this long and onee-sama was styled correctly, she would look every bit the Electric Princess—no, empress. But her short hair was also a charm point and long hair did take more time to care for appropriately. Kuroko could help with that, though, and it would be another opportunity to bond with onee-sama…
"Ah, yes…" Removing the girl before the process had finished could present… complications. But she seemed aware of what was going on? There was no way to tell without having time to talk to her, and the Network could cover any knowledge gaps if she was connected. She would urgently need to see a doctor for a general examination even more than the other Sisters… if anything could stop the experiment. Nunotaba's plan had failed. There was no way the Railgun's dug deep enough to strike at its heart.
"Kuroko, can you send us straight outside?"
The teleporter thought about that. It wasn't deep enough that she couldn't evacuate straight to the surface, it was a matter of how far they had traversed under the building above. There were plenty of side streets around… "Show me the blueprints again?"
Kuroko confirmed she could go straight to a hopefully security-free spot—and with three passengers and multiple trips, this was definitely worth the risk over taking a safer journey through the facility—and Misaka got to work.
Nunotaba and the Sister were the first evacuated, with Kuroko going back to wait until Misaka was satisfied with the amount of destruction caused.
"'Why are you all doing this?' asks Misaka, seeking clarification."
"Basically…" what? Obligation? Penance? She wanted the Sisters to have a chance to do more than accept their deaths, but maybe she was no more honest than the Railgun in why that was. And Nunotaba didn't have any idea what brought the teleporter into this.
She was saved from the need to answer by the reappearance of the teleporter, this time bringing Misaka along. Who, notably, seemed to be doing her best to not look at her long-haired duplicate. From the pink in her face, there was probably some second-hand embarrassment to it, given the lack of proper clothing.
"Nunotaba-san, can you look after this girl?" Kuroko said, "She needs to stay somewhere, and onee-sama and I can't smuggle a person into our dorm…"
She wasn't used to having a roommate, but she could manage that, for the Sisters.
The Tokiwadai girls chose to head back to the rented hotel room that night, rather than facing the Dorm Mistress in the middle of the night—whatever punishment she had readied for their flagrant abuse of curfew over the past week would be easier to face with sleep. Sleep and the knowledge that the experiments had come to an end.
It could hardly be considered a restful sleep. With everything that had happened, the idea that nightmares would still follow them was all but inevitable. That Misaka was only lightly sleeping followed as a natural consequence of that.
She would have preferred not to learn that sleep-teleportation could apparently happen by being woken up this way, but at least it beat finding her roommate half buried in the floor. After all the tossing and turning, that Kuroko was now sleeping normally…
Well, turfing her out again could wait until morning.
After persuading Kuroko to let go, they dressed normally—the clothes they had worn the night before teleported into the ground, where nobody would find them and possibly draw a connection to all the facilities destroyed—and left the hotel. Like every other time, the news on the fires Misaka had started was awfully limited, but…
"Filed for bankruptcy…?" Misaka wondered, angling her PDA towards the teleporter.
Did that mean it was over?
AN: Personally, out of everyone in ITEM, I think Frenda is actually the worst matchup for Kuroko-her primary approach is indirect, and if you can force an engagement with a teleporter, traps are the way to do it. Saiai is as vulnerable to telefragging as anyone, and Mugino is an aggressive beatstick who really, really wants to get that first hit in such a fight. But since everything was geared for fighting an electromaster, no instantaneous triggers, and...
I had actually planned for a fight between Mugino and Mikoto all the same, just without the interference by Frenda. But then it became kind of obvious that that fight wasn't going to last long enough, and by the time Mugino and Takitsubo get over to the other lab, everything there would be on fire too. Nunotaba actually has a map early in episode 8; the remaining facilities when she was checking were all pretty far apart. A shame, that, a non-exhausted Railgun vs Meltdowner fight would have been neat.
Nitrogen is actually a pretty good electrical insulator. Just not so much against someone who can escalate to lightning bolts. And yes, the interruption to capturing Nunotaba totally throws off the ability of Silent Party to even get started without her expertise to copy the Sisters' base program.