A Dragon's eyes and an Angel's wings


[ACMI3: Hell Factor]

Uiharu was on the floor, a man was standing above her. Esther reached into her pocket for something but with a flash of light, she was knocked back and slammed into a wall.

Joule spun towards Last Order, determination in her gaze shifting to something else as she stared the young girl in the eyes.

"Go inside, hide, don't move until I come to get you."

"Okay." Last Order said, having lost her emotional tone. Probably due to the shock.

Turning back to the scene, Joule processed the situation. The man had stepped over and his foot was pressing down on Uiharu's arm. Joule didn't know who the man was, but if he was here and attacking them, he was probably realted to the Dark Side of Academy City. Was he trying to force Frenda's location out of Uiharu? That flash of light... that was the result of an Esper ability. She was getting that kind of a "reading" from the exhausted Lumen.

Uiharu's life was in danger so Joule couldn't hesitate. She rushed towards the man, catching a few of his words as she ran.

"Tell me, and I'll let you go."

Uiharu's face was in agony, did he break her arm? Even so, one of her eyes peaked open and Joule heard her reply.

"That child... is at a place you will never find." Uiharu stated. She was ready to give up her life for... it was probably Frenda. I mean she'd said "That child" so...

"What?" The man looked confused just as Joule arrived. To add to his confusion, he proably felt a lot of shock as Joule swung her bag into his face.

He was probably an Esper that could use a projectile attack. She'd seen something like that when he'd hit Esther. Joule had no idea what the nature of the attack was but it probably needed him to focus on a target. Very few Esper powers were truly reflexive.

The man staggered back and Joule felt something strange. She felt a wave washing against her and she sidestepped the full force of the wave. As she did, a blast of light shot past her. The weapon looked something like a glowing wing.

"Leave her alone!" Joule yelled at the man "Leave us alone!"

And now, for the first time, Joule felt the change in her eyes. She'd felt it many times before, well. She'd felt it since coming down with her strange cold a few days ago at least.

Her vision blurred very slightly and the man leaped away from them.

"Damn you, nosy telepath!"

Around his head formed some kind of helmet. It was coloured all-black, even the lenses at the front were black so she couldn't see where he was looking. In the same moment, she saw his wings.

Behind him, a set of six angelic wings grew out from his back.

Well, angel wings means it was probably a magician. They seemed to be the ones focusing on angels. Seeing them annoyed Joule further. There was only one person she throught deserved these kinds of wings and GV wasn't here right now.

"Who the hell are you?" The man asked "Do you even know who I am?"

Joule took a breath. She had to remain as calm as she could here "No, and I don't really care. You were hurting my friend."

She heard a chuckle at that.

"Ah yes, you were in the information too. Yes, this will be much more fun."

Joule felt the waves again, before any of them touched her though, the wind picked up as a sudden squall blew through. The man's wings that were moving to lash out at her were blocked by the very person they'd spent most of the day looking for.

[ACMI3: Dog Fight]

"Seriously? Is that all it takes to stop you? Scumbag." Accelerator, the first ranked Esper in Academy City, had arrived.

As he began a clash with the unknown man, Joule went over to Uiharu. She was grasping for her phone and Joule helped her up. Her legs weren't damaged but she needed to splint her arm soon to avoid damage.

Everyone was evacuating from the scene of the two fighting and with Joule's help, Uiharu was able to call in Anti-skill. They went to check on Esther too. She was hurt badly but Uiharu insisted that she'd recover if they got her to safety quickly enough. Uiharu couldn't help support Esther's weight and she was too heavy for Joule to lift.

As she panicked though, a strange dog bounded out of an alleyway nearby. The dog's hair looked messy and dirty so it was probably a stray. Even so it quickly rushed over to Esther and looked down at her. Did it know her?

Just like the waves from before, Lumen's assistance in reading abilities told her there was some sort of magic on the dog. Maybe Esther had... Enchanted it? Joule didn't know the proper terms.

She helped lift Esther onto the dog's back and they all dashed away from the scene. Then Joule stopped, she'd forgotten Last Order. She'd left her behind in the store. The store near to where Accelerator and the man were fighting. Judging by how long the fight was taking, the man was probably a Level 5 too.

Hopefully they'd be distracted with each other and not notice her evacuating Last Order. It could distract Accelerator in a life or death moment if he saw her so she'd have to be sneaky.

"Stay safe." She asked her friends as she turned to run back for Last Order.


End of chapter.

Now, I've said in previous chapters there'd be sections where, if this was an anime, the camera wouldn't be looking at Joule's face as she was talking to someone?

Well, here's the first time the camera would be looking at her face in one of those moments. Specifically when she was yelling for Kakine to leave her alone. In that moment her eyes shifted. If you've heard of Polycoria, that's what Joule's eyes would have looked like in that moment. Her eye colour changed to green and for a moment she had two pupils in each eye, both surrounded by the proper Iris.