Awakening
As a reminder I will be including musical recommendations from both series, if you see something like [[ASG1: Commander]] that basically means "Play the azure striker gunvolt track called Commander from the first game
The two children slept in their hospital beds, it had been more than a week after they had appeared out of nowhere.
The doctor with a face like a frog came by twice a day to check that they were healthy.
Nearing the end of that week, the two had almost completely recovered from their injuries. Yet they remained in a coma, likely they had been badly hurt in the head too, those injuries normally required a while to heal correctly if they would heal at all.
The doctor with a face like a frog did what he could for their minds, he performed MRI scans to determine if there was any obvious damage. He was slightly disappointed when there wasn't, as that removed most of the help he could give.
He didn't have to worry that much as one of the children awoke the next day.
[[ACSRS: Study]]
When Gunvolt came too he quickly recognised that he was in a hospital.
He knew from the look that this was a highly advanced hospital, likely belonging to Sumeragi.
If that was so then he would be here to be experimented on.
As that thought crossed his mind he bolted upright to get a better look around. The room he was in had a window leading outside, the window showed a city he didn't know.
In addition they had taken his equipment, a natural thing to do given the circumstance but he would still need to get them back.
He felt for Joule, hoping to find her. Nothing came back to him and that made him worried, were they blocking her septima somehow? Or had they killed her?
He tried to stand up but his legs felt very week, either they had drugged him or he had been unconscious for a while. Both options worried him but he pulled himself and walked around the room.
He was surprised when he looked behind a curtain that had been besides his bed, Joule was there but unconscious. The reason that her septima wasn't working was just that she was out cold then?
When he escaped he would take her with him obviously but he needed an escape plan first. He walked over to the window to get a better idea of the city he was in.
The city sprawled out beneath him, he couldn't see to the edge of the city from his vantage so it was clearly quite large and populated. The thing that surprised him first was the windmills, normally those are quite inefficient so the people who run this town must put a lot of work into optimising them.
Around then he started to notice other things, the blimps first but then he noticed that the technology looked different. The robots for example; he had gotten used to fighting the Sumeragi robots so he noticed the difference quickly when he sensed one or two moving about just on the street.
As he looked out the window he heard the door to the room open, he span around quickly to look at who was coming in.
The man who walked in was getting quite old, he had greying hair and was bald on the top of his head. He wore a doctor's coat and had a face like a frog.
The coat struck something within Gunvolt, the coat looked like the sort that the men who had experimented on him as a child had worn.
The doctor looked at him surprised and spoke "Greetings, you have woken up then? Good." the man then stepped forwards to look past the curtains that hid Joule from him. He looked at her still sleeping form and shook his head.
Gunvolt appraised the old man, he wasn't going to make any accusation of what he had them here for. If he were wrong and he didn't intend to experiment on him and Joule then that was that, if he was right or the doctor was undecided he didn't want to remind the man of that.
The doctor looked at him and started to explain that they had found the two of them in a park almost a week ago, The news only slightly surprised Gunvolt but the news that came after that (the fact that they had been brought here for treatment and not an examination) was much better.
[[ACSR: Taisetsu na Tomodachi]]
Frog-face spoke again "If I may ask, how did you come to be in academy city?"
Gunvolt didn't reply although he did appropriate learning the name of where he was, he just shook his head and lied "Nothing much, just a blank space." An idea then struck as Gunvolt continued "I didn't happen to have anything on me?"
To that the doctor nodded "You did indeed, from head to foot you had high quality equipment and Judgement were forced to confiscate most of what you had on you" Gunvolt's face fell, he didn't know what Judgement was but it sounded like some sort of police force.
The man watched Gunvolt and he continued "I said most of what you had on you but I don't mean all" turning to a desk in the hospital room he pulled out a key and unlocked it. He then waved that Gunvolt should come over.
Within the desk draw was the incomplete pendent made by Joule and the last gem he had found. The doctor looked at him "These are yours I take it?" Gunvolt nodded and put the pendent around his neck and dropped it beneath his hospital shirt, he then took the remaining gem and pocketed it.
The doctor turned to look between him and Joule slowly but then spoke "If you two don't have a place to stay you probably could sign up for the Power Curriculum Program, they provide money that could allow you to rent a room somewhere."
Gunvolt parroted "Power Curriculum Program?" and so the doctor responded "I'm surprised you don't know. The PCP is a large scale curriculum in academy city taken alongside normal learning. They allow students to develop supernatural abilities and become espers."
[[ACSR: Sakubou]]
Gunvolt was silent for a moment before asking "Espers?" he was worried about the result of this question, the idea of this curriculum reminded him of the experiments that Sumeragi would perform to draw out someone's septimal powers.
The doctor nodded "Espers can use their psychic powers to do things such as read minds or control fire, the PCP takes people and allows them to unlock their dormant esper powers and rates them between zero and five"
The concept was not alien to Gunvolt, the idea was similar to Gunvolt. It was horribly similar to what Sumeragi did with drugs and hypnotism designed to draw out semptimal powers.
Gunvolt shook his head and replied (as calmly as he could) "I don't want to be an experiment thanks"
The doctor nodded but continued "That might very well be but you must at least find out what your ability would be?"
To this Gunvolt grinned internally, he already knew his 'Esper power' of course.
The doctor spoke again "If you really don't want to join then where do you intend to stay?"
Gunvolt stood still for a moment thinking, it was only then did a realisation hit him. Sumeragi never was optional in joining, if you had power you were forced to join. in addition he never heard of regular high school children being put through the torture that he was put through. He had never heard of academy city before, that meant it wasn't part of japan (Sumeragi would never let it co-exist with them) but it also can't be anywhere else (Most of the rest of the world was in great turmoil).
This left more questions but the base thing was that Sumeragi didn't exist for the people of academy city. He didn't know what had happened but Sumeragi wasn't a problem here, making this the safest place for Joule possible.
If he needed somewhere to stay he could always get the money from underground jobs, he was trained in breaking into places and killing adepts. Maybe he could find jobs to hunt evil adepts.
His thoughts stopped, he would need his equipment for jobs like that and the organisation called Judgement had that.
Whatever he decided to go with would have to be legal, he would also need to enter school with Joule to hide in the crowd (and he would also admit that a place called 'Academy city' would probably have really good schools) so he would need to work during the evening or night to prevent school getting in the way of his jobs.
The simple option would be just to join their power curriculum program, it would provide funding and they could go to school at the same time.
He still didn't like the idea of being experimented on so he decided to talk to Joule about it and see what she thought.
[[ACSR: Chiisana Nozomi]]
"I don't know, " Gunvolt replied to the frog-faced doctor " I think I'll talk to my friend about it." he said this nodding to Joule who was starting to move slightly.
The doctor noticed too that Joule was starting to wake up so he brought some tools over to examine her, as joule got up she was subject to a quick examination.
She was panicked at first but seeing Gunvolt there calmed her. He wouldn't allow bad things to happen to her.
The doctor moved away and spoke "You both appear to be fine, you can stay here for a couple of hours to make plans but I will have to insist you leave after that"
The two adepts nodded to him as he left. Then Gunvolt filled Joule in on everything he had learned about the strange new world.
When Gunvolt explained about how the power curriculum program was a part of normal school life in this city Joule's face went through many changes quickly, from fear to curiosity to a strange longing curiosity.
The idea of going to school with other adepts sounded amazing to her, she would have friends who could empathise with her troubles.
She nodded and said "I think we could do it GV, this city feels much safer. I think we could do it, both of us" Gunvolt was surprised before muttering "You won't reveal Lumen though right?"
A soft chuckle could be heard as a blue butterfly landed on Gunvolt's hand. He knew what Lumen meant, "If it keeps you two safe I am fine hiding from them"
The two of them nodded to each other again. Before leaving to ask the doctor where they could sign up for the power curriculum program.
Joule talk 1: Academy city
[[ASG: Cyanotype]]
Gunvolt and Joule looked at the city around them as they walked, they held a map that led to a building where they could sign up and perform something called a "System Scan" to determine their power and level.
Joule was humming while seeing the city, Gunvolt recognised it as the song she had been slowly composing when she stayed at his place in the past.
Joule looked to him, her humming stopping for a moment and asked "This city is amazing isn't it, a place where people like us can live in peace"
Gunvolt nodded as he checked the map, the building was only a few streets away now.
He hoped that Joule would be as safe as she hoped.
*You feel a little closer to Joule*
End of chapter
So I said the chapters would not be constant week after week.
Apparently I am a liar, I just want to get the opening arc of A certain musical diva done
The Joule talk part at the end is a reference to the game itself, basically Joule and someone (depends on the chapter) will just chat about normal things.
I hope you all enjoy, thanks for reading
Reminder: if anyone has any lore questions about this combined series I will answer them both as a reply and at the bottom of the next chapter