The Vending Machine Story
A Crossover fiction
Durarara! and To Aru Majutsu No Index
Misaka was walking down the narrow alley, her bag slung over her shoulder, not suspecting anything, when it happened.
She heard a scream a few blocks away – a very angry scream, followed by several frightened yells and the sound of lots of running feet.
She stopped in her tracks and turned her head towards the source, frowning slightly.
She didn't have time to wonder about it, though – at that same moment a shadow passed over her, blocking the light of the sun. Slowly she raised her head to face the sky – and froze.
It was a vending machine – one of those found in nearly every street in this district of town, one that sold drinks.
It was flying through the air straight towards her.
Misaka was too stunned to move. She didn't even manage to call out in surprise – she was completely taken aback by the absurdity of the situation.
Several seconds passed as the machine seemed to hover in the air briefly before falling, becoming larger and larger in her vision.
"What the…?!"
At the last moment, Misaka jumped to the side, her bag flying from her grasp, and the machine slammed into the ground with an unpleasant sound, just where she had been standing a split second before. It broke through the tar on the road, cracking the ground.
Miraculously, neither did the glass front of the machine break, nor did it seem to be broken in any way. It simply stood there, slightly tilted to one side, almost innocently – as if nothing had happened.
Misaka broke through her astonishment and bent to retrieve her bag. Then she stepped up to the machine. Looking closer, she saw that it had small dents in its side, marks that looked like the imprints of human fingers.
"Someone… threw this…?"
Incredulously she leaned forwards to examine the marks.
"No doubt… but who would have enough strength to through a vending machine…? A high-level esper…?"
She straightened up and a look of annoyance crossed her face. She looked around and, raising her voice, she yelled: "Accelerator, was that you? No one else would think of such a stupid way to kill me! What the heck are you planning, you bastard?! What do you think you're doing, throwing this at me?!"
She received no answer. Angrily she turned back to the machine.
"That idiot! It's almost insulting! He doesn't even want to fight me? Is crushing me under a machine the only way you can think of to get rid of me, stupid?!"
She raised her leg and kicked the side of the machine in order to vent her anger. As she did so, an electric shock surged through it, and it began to rattle. Then a can of juice dropped into the slot.
She stared for a moment, surprised that that had still worked, even though the machine had fallen from considerable height – then she bent to retrieve the can.
Frowning, she opened the can with a soft popping noise. Due to the fact that it had been hurtled through the air, a small amount of juice spilled from the opening and splashed to the ground.
Holding the can to her lips Misaka drank a sip, then turned at the sound of footsteps.
A man was walking towards her, coming from the same direction the vending machine must have been thrown from – and also where the screams had come from.
He had his hands in his pockets and was looking down at the road as he walked, dark sunglasses shielding his eyes. He was wearing what looked like the clothes of a bartender: a gray vest over a white shirt and matching gray trousers. His most outstanding visual trait was his hair, however, which he seemed to have died blonde. He looked somewhat angry and pissed off, in a menacing kind of way.
Before Misaka could react to him, however, she heard footsteps on the other end of the road.
She turned around to see another man strolling towards her. He had a skip in his step and was grinning widely, in a creepy sort of fashion. He seemed like the complete opposite of the blonde man: He had dark hair and wore a jacket with a fur hood and fur cuffs on his sleeves, and a pair of gray jeans. His hands were, unlike the other man's, outstretched to his sides as he walked, swaying up and down slightly. He almost looked like a child who was balancing on a wire, and doing a bad job at it. As he came closer, Misaka could hear him laughing.
The blonde man had heard it, too – he looked up, hatred flaring up in his eyes.
"I…ZA…YA…!"
He broke into a run, completely ignoring Misaka and reaching for the vending machine.
She watched, astounded, as he grabbed the already dented edges of the machine – his fingers matching the dents perfectly – and yanked it out of the pavement in a single movement, lifting it up above his head. With a cry he flung the machine high into the air and threw it at the other man.
The dark haired man, Izaya, didn't seem at all surprised at the other's strength, nor did it seem to bother him much that a vending machine was flying towards him.
He stepped aside casually, as if he did this every day, and dodged the flying machine, which slammed into the ground a few feet behind him – in a position that showed it would surely have crushed him if he had been hit.
Laughing, Izaya turned to speak to the blonde man – but found his path and vision blocked by Misaka.
She had walked straight up to the blonde man, her eyes glittering dangerously.
"You…" she said, her voice low and shaking slightly, as if she was barely controlling her anger.
He ignored her, however, still panting slightly from lifting such a heavy object, his face contorted in rage at the fact that he had not hit Izaya.
"It was you!" she screamed at him, startling him and causing him to tear his gaze away from his enemy and focus his gaze on her for the first time.
"You're the one who threw that THING at me!" she yelled, pointing at the severely dented machine, whose glass front now had deep cracks in it. In her outstretched hand she still held the can of juice.
The blonde man frowned.
What did this obnoxious girl want? All he wanted was to kill Izaya, who was standing mere feet away from him. If throwing something wasn't going to work, he would just have to use his fists.
He hated violence, so he wanted to get it over with quickly.
Why wasn't this kid running away like everyone else when they saw him throw something? Was she out of her mind?
And, what's more, why was she standing in his way and yelling at him?
"What the hell? Get outta my way!" he said, in a rather unfriendly way.
He knew that what he was doing wouldn't have pleased his brother at all, who had always wanted him to become a kind person.
He wasn't doing this because he wanted to. But Izaya had to die – so he should finish it quickly and get it over with.
I'm sorry, brother. I don't want to hurt the innocent – but this kid is in the way. She's preventing me from doing what must be done – to smash Izaya Orihara's damn face into a wall!
He moved to push Misaka aside so he could walk past.
"Move."
"I won't," she said fiercely, gazing up at him with hatred in her eyes. "I won't move until you apologize!"
Misaka was determined to get him back for this. He could have killed or severely injured her if she had been hit by that machine! What a pathetic way to die – and here he hadn't even acknowledged her presence up until a few seconds ago! If it had really been an accident, he should at least apologize!
He showed no signs of doing anything whatsoever, though.
He didn't even answer her. He simply grabbed her shoulder roughly and pushed her aside, clearing his path.
She froze. Her voice shook with rage as she hissed: "Don't. Touch. ME!"
As she shouted the last word, she took a step back and flung the empty can of juice at the blonde man's head.
It met its target with a dull thud and then fell to the ground.
Any normal person hit with something thrown by Misaka would have most likely fallen over and lost consciousness – but this man didn't even flinch. He turned his head, slightly irritated – only to have Misaka's shoe make contact with his cheek.
She had spun around and kicked him with the force she usually used on vending machines, swinging her leg up high and causing her skirt to flip, revealing the boxer shorts she wore underneath.
The blonde man didn't move even after the impact. As Misaka removed her foot from his face, he stared down at her incredulously, raising his eyebrows. She didn't seem to have hurt him, he was just surprised.
"How dare you turn away from me like that?! I'm talking to you! Don't ignore me after you almost killed me!"
Izaya, who up until this moment hadn't made a sound, suddenly exploded into a new fit of laughter. It seemed he had been holding it in all the while, and now it was bursting from him rather violently.
"Look at you, Shizzy – you've really done it now, haven't you? You'd better watch out!" he all but squealed between fits of laughter.
The blonde man looked around sharply, and Misaka turned her head as well. This guy was starting to annoy her as well.
"Izaya… shut the hell up! You're annoying!" the blonde man yelled – and yet again, Misaka faded into the background as he returned his full attention to the man he wanted to kill.
Damn kid – I've got no time for this crap. I gotta finish Izaya off first!
He charged forwards, bounding past the girl towards his enemy.
Izaya, in turn, did not stop laughing – instead he began running away. But still, he looked like he was having plenty of fun all the same.
Misaka balled her hands into fists and closed her eyes, praying for patience. On the inside, however, she was boiling up.
How dare he. How DARE he ignore her again! How she hated him. She knew full well she shouldn't use her esper powers on the innocent… heck, was he even innocent? He couldn't be considered helpless!
She reached into her pocket with the hand that wasn't holding her bag, and pulled out a small silver coin.
"You… are going to pay for that!" she screamed. "Both of you!"
And then she began to give chase.
She was a relatively fast runner – even though she didn't know the streets of this town too well, she knew she would catch up to them quickly. Sure enough, she soon saw the broad back of the blonde man running ahead of her, his voice carrying back to her over the distance:
"I…ZA…YA!"
She was catching up to them. Soon she could also her the other man's mad laughter.
She rounded a corner after them and found herself looking at a dead end at the end of the road.
Izaya had already reached it, and skidded to a halt in front of it.
"Oh, this is bad," he stated – but still, his tone of voice didn't suggest that he was really worried. Smiling widely he turned to face his pursuer. Then he spotted Misaka, who had also stopped running and was blocking the only exit to the road.
"Oh, look, Shizzy – your friend's back!"
That did it.
"I am not your friend!" Misaka screamed, electric force rising up around her. The darkened alley was suddenly lit up by blue beams of light.
"You're going to regret you ever met me," she said menacingly. "Nobody makes a fool of me and goes unpunished. Both of you – prepare to pay for what you did!"
She stretched her arm out in front of her and flipped the coin upwards with her fingers.
The blonde man barely had time to turn around and see what hit him, before a huge wave of electric shocks surged through the small road, and everything was swallowed by bright, blinding light.
Izaya peered around the corner of the building he had hidden behind, to see what damage the little kid had done. What he laid eyes upon almost made him gasp.
The entire road was charred and black, centering around the little girl who stood, panting, at the entrance of the road.
The blonde man was lying in the center of the road, flat on his back, having received the full blast of electricity.
Exhaling slowly, Izaya turned away from the scene.
He was sure that that couldn't have killed Shizuo – or Shizzy, as he liked to call him – but it still looked painful.
"Interesting. I've never seen that kid before. I wonder what she's doing in my town."
With that, he turned his back on the road and walked away, down the narrow escape route he had known he would find if he squeezed between the two last buildings of this road.
It was his town, after all. No one knew it better than he did.
Hello there, everyone!
So - this is a little project I wanted to get over with, you could say xD Yeah, this is actually just a random one-shot - but, what do you think? Should I make this a longer story? I can come up with a plot for sure, since these characters are so fun to write :D I love interactions with them, they're just hilarious! In my opinion, at least. Was this any good? What do you guys think? I'm putting this as "completed" for now, but that may still change, depending on the feedback I get.
Please review/fave/alert and let me know what you want me to write :D (Of course I haven't given up on my other, longer stories - goodness, no! xD)
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this! Have a nice day :D
~ZoeTsunami~