Red lights started flashing around them and an ear-piercing siren wailed loud enough to make the walls vibrate. At least, that's what it felt like to Touma. He covered his ears, trying to block out the sound, but it was futile, the siren seemed to reach directly into his brain, and it was staring to give him a headache.

"Can someone shut that thing up, please?!" he shouted, but no one answered him, it looked as if he'd just have to put up with it.

He saw Etzali take out his phone and try to call someone, most likely Awaki, to get them out of there quickly, but with the siren drowning everything out, Touma doubted he could even hear the phone ringing or if he'd notice when Awaki picked up. He hung up quickly and sent her a quick text.

It didn't take long for him to receive a reply.

"AWAKI IS ON HER WAY!" he screamed at the top of his lungs.

As he said that, Awaki appeared out of thin air in the middle of the group and looked at Touma, specifically, his right hand.

But, before she could attempt to say anything, Mikoto was already sweeping Touma's legs out from underneath him and catching him bridal style.

"Wha-" Touma got out before Mikoto used her magnetism to pull them both up through the large hole she had created when she made her entrance. Othinus, who had, at some point, made her way into Touma's pocket revealed herself and she already looked a little pale.

'Please don't throw up, please don't throw up, please don't throw up.' Touma silently prayed as the trio neared the top with Worst following closely behind, carrying a terrified Umidori under her arm, who had lost Edward's hat when Worst picked her up and screamed the entire way up. In fact, as they reached the top and Worst set her down, she was still screaming.

"Stop screaming, will ya? I'm not going to add a tail… yet." Worst said casually, finally able to be heard as they got far enough away from the alarm.

"Yet?! Railgun, she's your clone, isn't she?! Control her!" Umidori demanded, but Mikoto simply shrugged.

"Actually, Accelerator's the one who usually takes care of her, so you'll have to take it up with him."

"You've got to be kidding meeeeeeee!"

Meanwhile, Touma was on his hands and knees, waiting for his hearing to return to normal.

"I think I might need ear surgery." He muttered under his breath.

"Oh, stop being a baby, you'll be fine." Luna said, appearing with Awaki, Etzali and Edward and now wearing the pirate hat that Umidori dropped.

"Yeah, yeah. Anyway, where's Himari, Valeria and Haru? We're not out of danger yet." he asked, looking around for the three students.

"Here!" they called out from behind them, near the edge of the hole they had just exited. Awaki must have taken them with her when she went to answer Etzali's call for help so as not to leave them on their own for too long.

"Now what? You heard what that voice said, we need to get clear of this place." Touma asked, looking around for a means of escape.

"How did you get here, Misaka?" Etzali asked, looking towards the level 5.

"I jumped out of a cargo plane." she replied bluntly. With nowhere for that plane to land, that option was already out.

"How about the VTOL we saw in the hangar?" Awaki suggested, pointing towards the large hangar doors they had entered when they first arrived.

"Can anyone fly that thing?" Etzali asked.

"You have a better idea?" Mikoto asked.

"Not particularly."

"Then let's go!" Mikoto shouted, sprinting in the direction Awaki had pointed to.

The rest of the group sprinted after her with Etzali picking up Edward and carrying him on his back and Luna hanging back slightly to make sure everyone reached the hangar safely.

As they sprinted across the grass field, Touma spotted an object about thirty meters in the air.

"What is that?" he asked without stopping.

"It looks like a drone, but I don't see any weapons on there, so don't stop, we can ignore it for now!" Luna shouted from behind the group.

The group reached the open metal doors and, looking down, could see the VTOL in the middle of the platform that Awaki had mentioned.

"It's still here, good, let's get down there." Luna said as she jumped down and started looking for a way to get into it.

However, as she made her way round it, the ground beneath her started to shake and muffled explosions could be heard below her feet.

"Shit." she muttered under her breath. "HURRY!" she screamed at everyone else who were making their way down.

Mikoto and Awaki helped the younger students and the injured Edward down as Luna found a closed ramp at the rear of the VTOL, but she was unable to get it open.

"A little help here?" she asked, directing the question at the two electro masters. Mikoto was still helping Haru down, so Worst ran over, putting her hand on the side of the aircraft, sparks flying from her hand.

After a few seconds, the ramp slowly started to lower, giving everyone their much-needed entrance into the VTOL. By the time it had finished lowering, everyone had reached the platform and they ran up the ramp.

Luna and Etzali ran to the cockpit and sat down in the pilot seats. Flipping switches, seemingly at random.

"Come on, come on. Work with me here." Luna muttered.

"Well? Can you fly this thing?" Touma asked.

"Shut up, Touma. I'm trying." Luna shot.

"Just asking, sheesh."

The increasing sounds of explosions outside hurried the pair even more, but it didn't look as if they would figure it out in time.

"Oh, screw this!" Mikoto screamed as she slammed her hand onto the controls in front of Luna as the explosions started to rip their way through to the hangar area.

The rotors on each side of the VTOL could be heard starting up as they responded to Mikoto's direct inputs.

"Wait, you're not going to do what I think you're going to do, are you?" Touma asked his girlfriend.

"Shut up. I need to concentrate." Mikoto replied, giving Touma his answer.

"Oh, crap. Everyone, you might want to hold onto something!"

With more and more explosions ripping their way through the hangar around them, the VTOL started to slowly rise into the air.

"Okay, Luna, I'm gonna need you to guide me out of the hangar, just make sure I don't hit anything and tell me when we're clear." Mikoto ordered.

With Luna guiding Mikoto, the VTOL rose out of the hangar safely, or as safely as it could with explosions around them getting larger and more frequent.

"Please hurry!" Touma shouted from behind them.

He was met with a pair of 'Shut up!'s in response.

As the VTOL got above the hangar doors, Luna gave Mikoto the call.

"We're good to go."

As she said that, Mikoto activated the thrusters and the aircraft shot forward.

"Oh shit! The hills! Up! Up!" Luna screamed, causing everyone else to scream with her.

Fortunately, Mikoto was able to understand her just in time and angled the thrusters downwards, getting them over the hills by a few millimetres.

However, they weren't safe yet, as the underground facility finally exploded, with the fiery explosion reaching high into the sky. The shockwave from the explosion hit the VTOL, pushing it into a spin and causing it to lose altitude.

More sparks came from Mikoto's hand as she tried to regain control, but there just wasn't enough time.

"Brace for impact!" she shouted when she realised what was about to happen.

The VTOL descended quickly, the propellers working as fast as they could to shave of as much of speed of descent as possible, but the impact was still significant. Everyone was thrown into the air and almost seemed to hang there for a second before the were thrown unceremoniously back to the floor.

The aircraft slid across the ground on it's floor and eventually came to a stop. It would have fallen on its side had it not been for the somehow intact propellers. As it was, it fell to a 45-degree angle.

"Note to self, never let Mikoto fly again. It can go right next to 'never let her have alcohol.'" Touma muttered.

"Why don't you try flying a VTOL that got hit by a shockwave?" Mikoto replied snarkily. "And what do you mean 'never let her have alcohol?'"

"Have you seen how your parents handle that stuff?"

Mikoto went quiet. She didn't really have an answer to that, and she hadn't tried alcohol herself, so she couldn't disprove Touma's point. She did, however, decide that she would be trying alcohol as soon as she could to try to prove her boyfriend wrong.

"Is everyone okay?" Luna groaned from the pilot seat. "Sound off if you're conscious."

"Here!" Mikoto shouted.

"I'm good." came Etzali's voice.

"Alive." Touma bluntly replied.

"Where did you get that cable? You can't use that as a cat's tail!"

"Why not? I think you'd look cute with it."

"I'm good. The three students are unconscious though, same with Edward." Awaki informed the rest, checking on the four people she was talking about. "They seem to be okay, though. No obvious injuries except from Edward's wounds from his fight and nothing to indicate we can't move them."

"Good." Luna replied. "Because we need to get moving. I'd rather not be sitting here, waiting for them to find us again."

"I'll call Accelerator. Get him to pick us up. In the meantime, let's carry these guys as far away as we can. We don't want to tell people where we are until Academy City arrives." Etzali said.

And so, the group made their way out of the VTOL and started putting as much distance between them and that facility as possible.

On one of the hills, in the other direction from that which the VTOL used to escape, a man and a woman stood, looking at the remains of the facility. If Mikoto had seen them, she would have instantly recognised the woman as Maria Arikimo, Luna's mother.

"That should be them safe, it looks like we didn't have to come here after all." she noted.

"It… would… appear… not." the man said, hunched over, clearly out of breath.

"Kahaku, I told you, you should stay home. I could've handled this myself."

"You know exactly why I can't let this particular incident go. If those two monsters are taking my children, I can't just sit on the side-lines and do nothing."

"Honey, we did do nothing this time. Just added an unnecessary risk."

Before Kahaku could argue back, his phone started ringing. It was a number he didn't recognise.

"Hello?"

"Hello, dear Kahaku. I see your daughter managed to escape." came the voice of an old woman through the phone.

Kahaku remained silent as he glared into the distance.

"Oh? Staying silent? That's not like you."

"What do you want, bitch?"

"Now, now, that's no way to talk to your own mother, is it?"

"You've got to be kidding me? My mother? You may have given birth to me, but that's all. With all the shit you did to me and my siblings, you don't get to call yourself that." he said through gritted teeth, each word filled with seething hatred.

"I don't know about that; your little sister seems to like calling me mother-"

"Only because she's just as twisted as you." He spat.

"And she seems quite excited to meet the rest of her siblings." She continued as if she hadn't been interrupted.

Kahaku went silent as he processed what the woman on the other end had told him. And then he let out a sound she didn't expect.

"Pffft. Hahahahahahaha. You honestly think you found them?" he laughed.

"I do."

"And where would that be exactly?" he asked.

It was the woman's turn to go silent.

"You didn't think that trick would work, did you? That I'd contact them to make sure their okay so you can follow me? Sorry, but that's not going to happen. I suggest you give up." He said before ending the call, not giving her a chance to reply.

As he put his phone away, he took a deep breath and turned to his wife.

"Shall we go home?"

Maria smiled at him.

"Yeah, let's go home. I could do with a nice, warm bath." she said as she walked past him.