Let's continue with the story of the Imagine Breaker and the Spider-Man, Touma and Peter, the Misfortune Duo...
Disclaimer: I don't own Spider-Man, To Aru Majutsu no Index, or any character from the comic and novel.
Chapter 2
"Ok, let's take a break" Touma said from a park bench almost breathing. They had run to the other end of the park carrying Mikoto's body all the way without any rest. "Hey Parker-san, how the hell you don't' look any tired?"
"I'm in good shape" Peter responded casually looking in another way. He couldn't tell him that the bite of a radioactive spider had given him many superhuman abilities, including super resistance.
Besides Touma there was Mikoto's unconscious body. She seemed like she wasn't going to wake up soon.
"So, should we leave her here or wait until she wakes up? Peter asked Touma.
"The most politely thing we can do is to wait" answered Touma.
"You realize that the first thing she probably do is to shoot us a lightning" Peter said worried. He had fought with Electro many times before. He knew how much electricity could hurt.
"Oh, I know that, but you don't have to worry about it" Touma gave Peter a sad smile. "Just stay behind me."
"All right? If you say so."
The pair of unlucky boys spent like half an hour waiting her to wake up. They were already getting very tired of just sitting on the grass looking at a sleeping girl.
"Why didn't you come to summer class of today?" Touma asked Peter wanting to start good chat his rather new classmate, with he hadn't talk till now. Peter was new in Academic City, so he had to go to summer classes. Even if he was a genius in his regular high school, Academic City had really bigger standards of intelligence. Either way, it wasn't so hard for him to understand the classes, very different from the spiky hair boy in front of him.
"I had my System Scan" Peter responded casually. "A group of scientists test me in many ways."
"Really? How did it go?"
"Not very well" Peter said, not feeling so bad about it. He didn't even cared. "I was labeled as a Level 2. Sticky Touch, that's my ability."
"I am a Level 0" Touma told Peter. "But I'm not of the ones who hate being one the weakest espers. I don't care at all." Touma thought about that. He was a Level 0, but his Imagine Breaker was something nobody else had. The power to cancel any ability, any magic and even the systems of God. No esper nor magician could have something like the power of the Imagine Breaker.
"So, Parker-san, it is your first week here. How is Academic City treating you?" Touma asked trying to know about the American.
"I like the place. I am really into technology, so this like a paradise for me!" Peter said happily. "Every building is like a Stark Tower. People treat me good and they are very respectful, but please Kamijou, just call me Peter."
"OK, Peter, I got it. In that case you can call me just Touma."
"Sure, Touma"
The two boys smiled at each other but they caught a movement with his eyes. Mikoto's body was moving like she was going to wake up.
"Finally" Touma sighed with relief. "Please, biri-biri wake up". Touma approached Mikoto and check her head. "Dear God! What kind of kick was that? You hit her in a hot spot with all your might. That bruise is going to last a week." What Touma didn't know was that if Peter had used all his force Mikoto would be lying dead with a broken neck. He only used half his strength and, besides, the electricity covering her had slow down Peter's kick reducing the force of the impact.
"I know that" Peter said ashamed. "I swore that I didn't want to knock a middle school student."
"Man, this won't last a week, this bruise will last a month... Wahh!"
Peter turned back to look at Touma. Surprising view. The spiky hair boy was laying over Mikoto with a nervous expression. If someone else could have seen them, that person would totally have misunderstood the situation.
"Touma?" Peter asked uneasy. "What are you doing?" He didn't know that Touma was that kind of men. Would he have to knock him off too?
"I-I-I-I-I was just checking her bruise!" Touma stammered. "Then I lost my footing and I end up like this. It was an accident!"
"It's alright I believe you but... Oh crap."
"What? Oh, such misfortune!"
Mikoto had woke up. She was looking at Touma over her with a surprised look on her face. After a few seconds of apparently calm the girl burst out.
"What are you doing? You idiot!" she shouted with a total red face. "Get off me!"
"I am sorry! It is a misunderstanding!" Touma excused himself. "I am getting up. Ouch! Biri-biri I am so sorry!"
While getting up of her, Touma had tripped and fell over her again. The difference this time was that Touma's right hand, instead of grabbing the floor besides Mikoto, it fell in her right breast! And even more, his reflexes had made him squeeze it. Mikoto face was totally red, she looked like a fire extinguisher and was dangerously close to tears.
'If it wasn't for my Imagine Breaker, she would have already fry me like a chip' Touma thought scared. He got up, sweat dropping of his forehead, and help Mikoto to stand up.
"Are you alright?" Peter asked as Touma was completely embarrassed and speechless to ask.
Mikoto was standing completely frozen in the same spot. She had her head down like and looked like a hopeless person who had just lost something irrecoverable. Suddenly she started to raise her head and...
"YOU! – PER! – VERT! - JEEEEEEEEEERKS!" Mikoto shouted dropping a few tears while generating enough electricity to power a mall center. With that detrimental energy she shot a lightning storm at the two unlucky boys.
Even before Peter's body could make a move, Touma put himself before him with his right hand raised. In the moment the lightning stroke at Touma's hand there was a crack sound like a window breaking and all the electricity disappeared. Spider-man was astonished, Touma didn't even had a wound or looked in pain. He was completely fine.
'Wow! What kind of ability this guy have?' Peter thought astonished. 'He can't be a Level 0.'
"Please, just listen to us" Touma was saying. "This is a misunderstanding. If you let us explain ourselves." And in a record time they managed to explain what happened.
Equally, as it was expected, they received another lightning storm.
"But, biri-biri, we have already tell you the true!" Touma yelled while he dispersed the smoke that had generated in the collision between his right hand and the lightning bolt.
"I swear, it was a total accident!" Peter, hiding behind Touma, tried to calm Mikoto down.
"An accident?!" Mikoto yelled still embarrassed of the last situation. "Your kick wasn't an accident at all! It still... Ouch! It still hurts. And YOU!" She pointed at Touma. "Don't call me biri-biri!" And Touma received another lightning bolt.
"Ok, ok, ok, just stop trying to fry us!" Touma plead after he negated that last attack.
"First you defeat me" Mikoto red face was starting to release steam. "Then you-you-you-you don't take responsibility! And now..."
"Defeat you?" Touma asked very confused. "What? Responsibility?!"
"Touma?" Peter looked at him with a mixture of worry and curiosity. "What did you do?"
"No-nothing!" Touma declare immediately. He couldn't be sure because of his memory lost that happen when he met Index.
That girl, Mikoto, looked like she knew him from before. She didn't look, she knew him. And that same girl didn't seemed to be willing to quick the offensive position. She began to generate more electricity and Touma prepared his Imagine Breaker.
"Onee-sama?" suddenly a feminine but almost robotic voice interrupted the scene.
Mikoto paled at the sound of that voice. The three students turned to the origin of the voice.
"Another..." Peter began saying feeling confused.
"...Misaka Mikoto?" Touma, totally puzzled, ended.
In front of them, near some stairs, there was another person. This person completely equal to Mikoto. She was even using her same uniform. The only difference was the military goggles she had put on and her totally unemotional expression. Unemotional like a doll.
"You have a twin?" Peter asked interested, twins wasn't something you could see every day.
"What are you doing here?" Mikoto asked her sister ignoring Peter question.
"I felt the electric waves of Onee-sama's ability, says Misaka giving an explanation" answered the girl without any emotion in her voice.
Mikoto didn't look like she took well that answer as she asked again:
"What are you doing here?"
While the girls were having their awkward conversation, Peter and Touma were feeling uneasy. The two boys didn't know if they should leave or wait until the Misaka sisters finished their talk.
"As I said before I…" started to said Misaka Imouto (A\N this means little sister).
"Shut up! Just come with me" Mikoto interrupted her angry and drag her off the place last saying: "And you hentai (pervert) duo! We haven't finished yet" and she took off.
The hentai duo was left open-mouthed and a bit scared because of that last phrase.
"What´s wrong with them?" Peter doubt.
"I guess every family have their own problems" Touma thought out loud.
Peter didn't wonder more about it. He remembered very well about the family problems that many of his close people had. He thought about Mary Jane, Gwen and many of his X-Men friends whose parents left them when they were kids.
"Do have any plans?" Touma asked Peter.
"No, I was just chilling around. I got thirsty, went to buy something to drink and ended in this difficult situation."
"There is convenience store near" Touma said. "If you are still thirsty we don't need to go back to the vending machines and risk to have problems with Judgment. I can take you there if you want, I also would like to have some juice."
"I would appreciate that" Peter responded feeling happy to have somebody to hang out with until the curfew limit.
The two boys left the park towards the store. There Peter bought a coke can and Touma a juice can. Then the two classmates headed back together to the dorms. In the way, they resumed their previous conversation back in the park. They didn't talk about anything important, it was a regular boy's talk. A talk about manga, video games, bikes and in the end about girls. Peter told Touma about New York, how it was so different to Japan, and moreover to Academic City. The pair of classmates kept laughing all the way home. When they arrived, they took the elevator, said their goodbyes and entered in their respective apartments.
Peter was thinking that even though he was involved in that too messy situation, he at least had made a friend. Touma was a really cool guy, easygoing, funny and besides that, had good principles. All that considering the hard luck he had. A bit like him, but that guy was like persecuted by a devil. Peter was opening his door when he heard the voices of his new friend having a chat with a girl on the above floor, where he lived.
"Sphinx have fleas" said a girl with, Peter had to admit, a really cute voice.
"So I have lived this last days with a cat sheltering fleas?!" Touma yelled.
'Does he have a cat?' Peter thought already in his room opening the envelope he just found in his mailbox. 'I didn't know that pets were allowed.'
The envelope had the logo of Stark Industries. Inside it he found a lot of papers and a Stark Industries smartphone. Among the papers he found his own curriculum, but with a lot of fake information. There were also a lot of contracts that need signatures. Peter, very confused, turned on the smartphone. It contained a video.
"Hello Peter, how are you?" a pre-recorded smiling Tony Stark face said. "How you feel the most technologic city of the world?"
'What is this?' Peter wondered.
"Getting to the important part, did you see what I sent you? That's what you are going to present to join the Judgment. Did you see? With my help you won't have to do the training. I want you to know that I did this all by myself. I could have ask Pepper, but I didn't want her to get into... this kind of stuff.
"What kind of stuff is that?" Peter asked, then he remembered that it was a video not a video call and felt dumb.
"I think that there you will learn a better how to fight evil... no, you will learn a better way to protect the people. Remember what the true duty of a hero is and learn how to perform it without destroying an entire street. Maybe the problems that face Judgment aren't similar to the ones you face in terms of size, but they give all their effort just like you do."
'He is right about that.' In the short time Peter had spent in Academic City, he could get the chance to see a few times the Judgment members in action. They took their job seriously and focused like a swat would do. 'And all this people have around my age and some are even a lot younger'.
"You must be wondering, why did I sent you a video instead of just calling you" Tony continued. Peter was really wondering. "Well, I won't lie, there has been some big troubles and many of us are involved in them. I don't have so much time. You don't even know how I'm recording this..."
At that moment Peter realized something. There was a very low sound like a whisper in the video. It was similar to the sound of wind when you are traveling at fast speed in a plain.
'Is he recording this from his suit, while flying?'
"However, you must only focus of getting the best knowledge of the art of protecting the innocent. Talk you (maybe) soon." And the video instantly ended.
"Maybe he is right" Peter thought out loud. "Spending a little time like a Judgment member could be a good training."
He was thinking that, but equally he couldn't get off his head the "problems" Tony mentioned before. Peter was a hero also, if there were people in danger he should be standing beside the other heroes to protect them. He was thinking of that and tried to focus on signing the several contracts that were required when...
"What?! All my futon is populated by fleas. Such misfortune!" A big cry was heard from the above room. Thanks to that Peter could apart everything else from his mind.
"Well, let's see. Where do I have to deliver this and start my new duty as a Judgment member? Here the Judgment 177 Branch Office. Wait for me 177 Branch, your best recruit is starting his duty!
Ok, until here the 2nd chapter of Misfortune Duo. I was suggested to slow down the plot a bit. I think is true. When I wrote the first chapter I was thinking in jumping into action the sooner. Now I believe that I should "ballance" the story a bit. Having actions and character development in similar conditions. I tried to start this new plan in this chapter developing Peter and Touma new friendship. I don't think I did it very well. Sorry, the thing is that am better writing actions than character development.
You probably noticed that I didn't put the second encounter with the sister. I did this because it won't be necessary for the development of the story.
Besides all this I don't think to have more to say until now. Except, have you see the cover I put? I made it with the Photoshop. I hope it makes the story more attractive.
I hope you enjoyed. As always all suggestions and ideas are well accepted and wanted.
Fav, Follow and most important: Review. Sebaspe out!