Saten had changed into a dry set of clothes earlier, she had put on black jeans and a tight-fitting top, the girl also wore a coat to warm her up. Accelerators pants had dried for a bit in the meantime, his shirt however was torn up and stained with blood.

He didn't care, put on his white coat and left Satens residence together with her, this time, they had an umbrella.

Naturally, a couple walking under a single umbrella had to stay rather close to one another.

Their destination was an old underworld cache in a back alley of District 7, Accelerator had told her about. He said, the underworld of this city was torn up this year by infighting, it all came crashing down so rapidly, they couldn't even move all their secrets out of the way.

After turning many corners and passing through even more alleys, a large shipping container was in front of them.

It was locked.

"Here Ruiko, hold the umbrella for a moment! I will open this damn thing."

He proceeded to input a code into a hidden terminal, however the power seemed to be offline.

"All right, then I shall break this sucker!"

Saten heard a *beep sound, as the boy operated a switch on the choker-style electrode he wore.

She gulped and thought: the powers of the #1 Esper, what is he gonna do?

Her expectation was way different from reality, rather than ripping the whole container apart, Accelerator "just" reached into the space between the doors, broke the lock and bent them open. The *beep was heard again.

"Let's get inside!" he had a slight grin on his face.

The inside was dark at first, Accelerator knew his way around, he found and activated some chemical lights.

The container was a storage for weapons and apparel for the former underground organization called GROUP.

He went through the items and put on a black shirt he found there. The bulletproof fibers could stop even round from a rifle. The boy handed one to Saten.

"Here, this will help protect you, I want to be prepared!"

She put on the shirt over her normal clothes, it was cutting edge lightweight body armor.

"Hm, where is it? Ah there we go!"

He held a silver pistol in his hand, skillfully dismantled it, then put it back together. Accelerator proceeded to load the gun using his teeth and left hand, that process took about 3 seconds.

"Ugh, I've gotten slow. I'm glad, but the peaceful life makes your skills rust a bit!"

Saten was at first frightened by the tools he used, but then remembered

Right, Accelerator dwelled in the underworld for a long time, he just recently surfaced again.

The girl had no experience with weapons at all, but one of them resembled a baseball bat, she knew how to swing that!

"Ah, the shock baton, good choice, I thought we should keep it non-lethal for as long as possible! So, I've got two magazines of those gummy projectiles Anti-Skill uses and two with armor piecing rounds, just to be safe." Accelerators internal voice screeched at him

They would move out soon, the girl held her red good-luck charm in her hands and thought:

It may not be scientific, but having good luck would really help here.

Accelerator saw her holding an item, that seemed to be very important to her. He closed her hands around it, looked into her eyes and spoke, an angelic smile covering his face.

"We can do this Ruiko and after this is over, let's spend all the time we can together."

I should give up; this girl just has the ability to overturn me 180 degrees. Level 0 my ass, this is advanced brainwashing fucking hell! What is with 0s changing me like that!

She looked happy to hear that.

The two were fully geared and ready to move out.


Misaka Worst was angry at Accelerator, she walked the whole distance from where she lost pursuit, to where Accelerator was, or rather where he should have been!

The rain drenched her, but she was trembling in anger.

"Misaka will smack him! This Misaka hates to be left behind!"

She saw five younger copies of herself heading into the direction of District 19. Worst had filed her first official report to the network to get them after Last Order.

"This is how that white-haired punk thanks Misaka. Misaka could explode right now!"

She walked up to the identical girls, four were wearing military goggles.

"My, my, the boring Misakas got the message, Accelerator isn't here as you see." the girl spat those words out, her anger was not getting smaller.

"Ah the rogue Element, says Misaka calmly analyzing the situation, while internally laughing at the Elements choice of clothes for the rain."

Worst was wearing a pink-white aodai, she didn't calculate with sudden rainfall, the weather forecast wasn't as accurate as it used to be. The thin, white, wet cloth stuck to her body and revealed her underwear.

"At least this Misaka has to worry about that, unlike all of you." retorted Misaka Worst, underlining her point by puffing out her chest.

"STOP IT! BOTH OF YOU, WE HAVE MORE IMPORTANT THINGS TO DO THAN TALKING ABOUT BREASTS!" the yell came from a flustered Misaka Mikoto, the Original Misaka.

It may be true, that she has more bust, than all the other Misaka Sisters together, myself included, but this doesn't mean anything, at all… mumble mumble mumble

Mikoto dragged the girls, including Worst forward again. She was insecure, every time that topic came up, them, including Worst, being genetically identical gave her a small glimpse of hope for the near future.


Last Order, the girl moving so many people right now, although having been kidnapped, was not in an uncomfortable situation. She couldn't leave, that's that, but it was not like she had been threatened or something, she had been given a towel by that large man. They have even prepared hot chocolate to warm her up, she couldn't figure out what they were up to. All in all, the people seemed quite nice. They called themselves a magic cabal by the name of "Beschützer der faustschen Idee[1]" and were from the central European country of Germany.

"We don't want you to catch a cold, do we? We mean no harm to you, I just want Accelerator to take this seriously, he bashed all my messengers until now… I promise, by my honor, no harm will come to you, child!"

Jonas Engelmacher was in his thoughts:

My child would be about this age right now, hadn't my beloved Melanie passed away. I'm doing this to prevent anyone from suffering that pain ever again, mein Schatz[2].

"Misaka has a question!"

"Ask right ahead, but be informed, the things we talk about here will stay, until you leave. We severed the connection to you network, for now at least."

"Misaka doesn't understand, why you want Accelerator to come here, he will be furious! He will tear you apart, further presses Misaka on the topic."

"You will see soon enough, I want to see his power first, then it will all be clear."

He left Last Order in the care of his underlings.

Another one of the black-clad people approached him.

"We have confirmation on both targets movements. The satellite just picked them up"

"Excellent, let's set it up like this, we try to get the Misakas to move through the main entrance and throw the main body of the troops at them, to keep them stalled. A hand full should secure the side entrance, that is where we try to lure Accelerator in. I got measures to insure both follow our setup!"

Engelmacher checked on his preparations, he set up a people clearing field to keep civilians away. He also had stolen a prototype war-machine from the nearby District 23, it was to be flown out of the city for a major test. The machines power on self-test revealed the piece of cutting edge technology was 100% operational.

"In the end, all that won't stop the Accelerator I heard so much about. I want to know… "


[1] "Keepers of the faustian idea" àFaust is a part of German folklore, a scholar striking a deal with the devil to learn everything about the world and fulfil all his earthly desires.

[2] my dear


Six genetically identical girls crossed the border into District 19. The Special Ability Institute they were targeting was abandoned after Anti-Skill seized the main base of research in District 10. No other company wanted to have their name associated with that Institute, so the building has never found a new user, not even the ground it stood on was sold.

Misaka Mikoto led the group, from her personality, the enemy deduced, she would take them head on, so no special measure was needed to get her attention to the main entrance.

The magic cabal's underlings were prepared and in cover for the attack, when…

Mikoto didn't hesitate, she fired her railgun, to initiate the fight. A coin passed between the soldiers, it was glowing in a bright orange and moving at three times the speed of sound.

Interestingly, an object moving supersonic overtakes the air in its way. The gas gets compressed, because it can't move away fast enough, this leads to an effect called ram heating. That effect is what makes supersonic travel so difficult, a high-altitude plane moving at Mach 3 can get as hot as 550 degrees Celsius. Even the phenomenon of the sound barrier itself is explained like that, the air can't get out of the way fast enough, so it builds up a shock-front.

But in the thick air near the ground, the story is different and way more extreme.

The cabal's troops didn't care about the science behind it all, when the main entrance was blown away by the blast. Some were knocked down by the impact, most of them lost consciousness when the sonic boom blew away their orientation. Electric shocks took care of the rest.

That massive blast was a testimony, to what the monsters this city called Level 5 could do. Even the rain had been swept out of the path.

After the dust from her opening blow had settled, Academy City's #3 led her Sisters into the building.

"Accelerator was overpowered by these goons?!"

Out of thin air electronic whistling was heard, the girls were disoriented for a moment, as their senses for electromagnetic waves were flooded by an EMP.

"Our connection to the Misaka-Network was cut off, explains Misaka, while holding her head."

"I sense a jamming field, we should split up and destroy every signal source, after that it's easy to find Last Order using the network."

Misaka could have demolished the whole building using her railgun, that would also mean many casualties. They didn't know where Last Order was, so that was completely out of option.

The girls split up to disable the electronic countermeasures their enemy had prepared in the whole building. Misaka 10032 went with Mikoto, so she would have connection to the network too.


Accelerator and Saten were prepared to head toward the 19th District. When they left the container, the rain was still as heavy as before.

"Walking all the way may take a long time, we should get a taxi!"

"Who said anything of walking, Ruiko?" Accelerator smiled. "I may have only 30 minutes using my power with this device, but it's still the strongest ability in history."

A slightly insane expression covered his face.

Saten winced what is he gonna do?!

The *beep was heard, Accelerator directed the falling rain away from them, as he picked up Ruiko, like he was a groom carrying his bride over the threshold. The girl blushed slightly thinking about it.

"Now hold on tight, I don't want to lose you on the way."

She complied, seconds later the two were already at an altitude of a thousand meters and on their way to District 19. Accelerator was laughing like a madman, while four tornados spouted from his back and carried them at 700 km/h. Saten meanwhile was holding on for her dear life.

Academy City's lights looked quite peaceful in the rainy night from up here. Ruiko may have found it to be quite the romantic view, did they not soar through the air at the speed of a jetliner, or had he at least given her a warning.

Accelerator saw some commotion on the front gate of the facility as they approached, so he decided to covertly slip in at the side, while they were occupied. Unknowingly, that played directly into Engelmacher's hands.

In the end, the flight didn't even last a full 60 seconds.

When they touched down at the Destination, Saten was still grabbing on tight. The girl was shaking; The sudden dash had caught her off guard. Accelerator made sure to keep all dangerous forces away from them, but that induced motion sickness in her.

Normally, Saten Ruiko was the last person to feel dizzy in an amusement park, this was on a wholly different level, though.

"You can open your eyes now; We are on the ground again."

He sat the terrified girl down and turned off his Esper-Mode. Accelerator slightly caressed her cheek with his hand. Saten snapped out of it.

"What the hell was that for! Couldn't you have at least warned me?!" the girl normally didn't curse that much, it felt too unladylike, but this situation called for it.

"Sorry, I thought it was better to not make a big fuzz out of it!"

"That's not my damn point, Accelerator! I could have enjoyed that flight, if I had anticipated what you're doing!"

"Okay, okay, fine, I get it! I'll make sure to repeat it, once we are done here. I'll show you the sky on a fucking sunny day!"

The argument was settled with that.

Accelerator I think, we are damn similar in some aspects, his internal voice slowly mixed back in with his normal self, accepting that girl into his heart was not the worst deal he could have made.

The boy opened the door, and illuminated the entrance using the small flashlight on his pistol, Saten followed him in close proximity with her baton.

A stairway led downwards to the underground floors, the way up was sealed by debris, it looked somehow artificial.

"This might be a trap."

"What should we do then?"

"Let's charge into it and find out what it is!"

The pair moved on.


Thank you very much for the review about Worst's speech pattern, Anon, it's way less obvious than Last Order's. I corrected the affected passages!