REVEAL

[[ACMI: Hizumi]]

Academy City has many mysteries, one that has never truly been answered is the windowless building. A building with seemingly no way in or out that was protected from any damage. In truth the main way in or out was via a teleporter's ability.

In this building was a large device, within a very large tube in the device floated a man upside down. The easiest way to define this man was "Human" most other descriptions don't quite explain him. This man's name was Aleister Crowley and he was currently analysing a report from tree diagram about a pair of espers that had recently appeared.

According to tree diagram they both had the potential to reach level 5 with minimal effort, more interestingly was why the two were this close. Their powers were incredibly strong and yet both of them seemed intent during their testing to weaken their abilities. To be fair that was more likely to be extrapolation from the boy's testing, he was apparently trying very hard to weaken his electrical output and yet he still hit the level 4 threshold and, Crowley suspected, he might have been a match for Railgun had he not been holding back. The girl seemed to be similarly powerful, her AIM field actually surpassed the boy's in terms of raw quantity. Yet during the tests her abilities only displayed as level 2.

The two were an enigma, an unexpected piece of the puzzle. Crowley thought they both had to be Gemstone Espers and yet...

Crowley wanted an answer, he would get it and see if they could fit into his plans even in this relatively later stage. He called up his contact list, it contained most of the teams that could be hired from academy city's dark side to perform jobs. The only ones not on this list were those who had proved themselves useless. He could always use MEMBER but they were not used to missions where threats were preferable to death. He instead turned his mind to one of the lesser known groups; REVEAL.

REVEAL was still a very small group and they didn't get jobs often, however for this task they were perfect. They had been able to fully test a target's ability in combat in the past. It could be simply put that they would "reveal" any intentionally hidden aspect of an Esper's ability.

Crowley dialled.

[[ACMI: Nichijou]]

Gunvolt had submitted the paperwork to allow Joule and himself to officially join the school that Joule's friends went too. It had been a few days since she had met with them for the first time but she had talked to them over the phone since then.

Gunvolt stopped in a park on his way home to watch the sun slowly descend towards the horizon, the sun would be down within an hour. It was a beautiful sight but he knew that Joule was waiting for him to make supper at the home they had so he focused and continued walking.

He got to the complex that they lived in and climbed the stairs to get to their floor. Once there he walked through the corridor to their door before going to open in.

[[ACMI: Kashiri]]

The door was unlocked, he had the key with him and Joule wouldn't have used the interior lock without him to lock the door after she left. He swung the door open and looked inside.

Their room was a mess, the kitchen table had been knocked over and the chairs had fallen all over the floor.

Gunvolt's breathing became faster as he remembered the last time something like this had happened, to try and calm himself down he made a plan and he left again and locked his door.

He headed down to the offices, luckily no one was there at the time apart from a sleeping worker, Gunvolt quietly slipped in and placed his hand on the computer in charge of the building's security cameras. He looked to the attached monitor and began to manipulate the electricity within the computer in order to play back the footage without needing a password.

Gunvolt was fairly skilled at using his power to hack so he wasn't surprised when the computer began bringing up the files for him to watch, he used his power to select all videos from his floor and then began watching through them.

This afternoon, about an hour after he left to drop off the forms, A group of people had come to his front door. They had knocked and apparently spoken to Joule judging from their lips. Eventually the door opened and Joule looked out at them all with a look of surprise, A moment later one of the people reach out and grab her. When Joule was grabbed she went limp and the group took her.

Gunvolt quickly looked through the cameras before seeing them leave in a car with Joule.

[[ASG: Hostage - Urban Run]]

Gunvolt took off (after wiping the system of his tampering) the car left a while before him so he would have to track it the hard way. The city's security cameras were all part of the same system and he had (when curiosity called him) tested their security.

It was very good but Gunvolt still had to try, he leaned against a pole topped by a camera that must have seen where the car went and pulled out his phone to act as a monitor. A moment later he was looking at the outer layer of their network, He focused on getting into the stored videos and managed to peel it open. The quality of the extracted footage was awful but enough to see where the car went.

He continued leaning against the pole as he checked every camera on their route to find their destination, a few minutes in he swore under his breath, the car had gone into an underground parking lot. His best chance was to go there and then check their cameras too.

An Azure bolt of lightning crossed the ground towards the building.

He dropped into the car park via the ramp he had watched the car use, instantly he knew something was wrong. Not a single car was here, was this a trap?

Not two seconds later he got his answer as the ramp he took sealed up, locking him inside. He ran for the elevator on the other side of the car park that would take someone into the building above but before he got their he heard the sound of an elevator arrive and a group of what looked to be soldiers dressed in black came out.

Before Gunvolt had a chance to say something they all raised their guns. Gunvolt knew he had to take them out fast and without the Dart Leader (as he still had not gotten it back) so he ran towards them, as they began firing he dropped low to avoid the first few shots. His reaction time was amazing, good enough to see that instead of normal bullets they seemed to be shooting a dart of some kind. Were they trying to capture him too?

It was useless for them however, before they had time to fix their aim Gunvolt got behind them and used his flashfield to fry them. He got into the still open elevator and gave it the instruction to take him to whichever floor it had come from.

A few floors later he was allowed out, he appeared to be in some sort of laboratory.

In a room on the floor GV had come to a few people were looking at the camera feed.

The woman smiled "He really is quite skilled isn't he, that hacking and electrical field. The boss might well be right about him being a level 5."

The taller man snorted "Perhaps, regardless are you ready M? I?"

The woman's smile grew "Yes, the boy won't see this coming"

She proceeded to walk towards a figure in the corner who was tied to a restraining table.

Gunvolt continued through the halls, each room had windows so he stopped dead when he saw Joule tied to a chair in one of the rooms. A quick spark later and the door to the room opened, inside the room there was something wrong though. The room inside was magnetic, he could feel it. It would throw off his accuracy if he had to do anything precise.

He headed over to Joule but before he got there someone just appeared in front of him. It was a small man with a gun in his hand. The gun pointed at him, it wasn't going to be much danger however. When the man fired Gunvolt would just use Prevasion to get out of the way. When the gun fired however nothing came out, Gunvolt threw himself out of the way of the invisible bullet.

Thinking quickly he used his flashfield to magnetise himself to dodge the next shot, by doing this he was pulled into the air by the magnetic field in the room. Before he could counterattack however the man vanished again. Gunvolt didn't have much experience with invisible foes so he was forced to try and "see" where he was in the magnetic field. This two was something GV lacked practice in but the strong and more importantly stable magnetic field would make finding him easy.

Gunvolt watched for a distortion and kicked out, his metal boot connecting with the man's chest. As the man became visible again Gunvolt ran over and sent a charge throughout his body to paralyse him for a few minutes.

He then headed over to Joule to untie her, he removed her blindfold and gag and smiled as she smiled back.

Joule had been watching the fight, she also hadn't been blindfolded. On the screen she watched the woman who had somehow made herself look like Joule smile at GV.

She was gagged however so no matter how much she tried to call, GV couldn't hear her and she was panicking. Lumen had been unable to get to him as Joule was being closely watched. Her heart cried out, Gunvolt was going to be tricked and she would be trapped here!

Lumen wasn't much calmer, she understood Joule's terror. Joule would be trapped again and Gunvolt wouldn't come to save her if he thought he already had. Lumen tried to calm Joule but she hadn't been having luck.

Then she heard a conversation from the monitor and her heart leapt for joy.

Gunvolt had untied the person he thought was Joule, she had said that her legs were weak after being drugged so he would need to carry her. GV was very strong for his age so he lifted 'Joule' onto his back before running for the exit. On a whim he asked the question that would end up fixing the mistake that he had been tricked into making. GV asked "Where is Lumen, I would have expected her to be with you?"

The woman who was pretending to be Joule had a sharp fear dig its way into her, A girl named Lumen was never in a report they got. She didn't know what answer to give so she tried to make one up "She wasn't with me when I was kidnapped." The lie sounded true as the woman was an expert liar, however a liar with a lack of information can easily get caught in their own lies.

GV stopped, realising something was wrong. Instead of calling her out on the lie he through a thread to see if this was actually a fake he carried. "She must have been with Copen then." He said it as a fact but the real Joule would know to call him out on it. "Yeah that must be it!" the fake Joule said confidently.

Gunvolt unceremoniously dumped her to the ground before pulling the gun he had secretly taken from the man in the lab room. "Where is the real Joule?" He asked without a hint of emotion. The woman started "I am the real..." before she was cut off with a gunshot that hit besides her head. She raised her hands an replied "Down the hall, First left, second right, door with 46 on it."

He then kicked her and ran down the hall, before he got passed the first corner he heard a gun shot and felt a pain in his side.

[[ASG: Despair]]

He turned to see the woman (No longer looking like Joule) with a gun like the one the man had carried. His side had gone numb as he realised their bullets had some drugs in them to ensure victory in a single shot; a sleeping agent perhaps. As his thoughts twisted he thought he heard Joule call his name.

"Gunvolt!" Joule cried, she saw the shot in his side and it looked dangerous, she knew his Prevasion didn't work against sneak attacks and she had seen the woman raise her gun. As she watched Gunvolt fall she heard a cry from her own heart. If only she could sing, she could save him.

Lumen rose up from her body and asked Joule a question "I can sing if you can't, I'll be seen if I do, shall I?", Joule's heart only allowed one answer and so the butterfly on her body changed form into that of a beautiful woman. The tall man who had been watching her fell back in shock. Lumen then opened her mouth a sung a single note, a note of pain and fear that drove the man to the ground with a splitting headache.

She then calmed herself and began to sing in earnest.

[[ASG: Reincarnation]]

It was her song for Gunvolt, a song for his health, his luck, his care. It was a song in thanks to everything he gave her, a song of hope for the future.

Gunvolt felt it, he felt Joule and Lumen sing for him. He rose to his feet, his wound healing at a fast rate. The drug was still in his body but the "Drug" of Lumen's song was stronger. He felt his power be restored, all of his powers were stronger and he was ready to save her!

As he stood the woman was surprised and a bit freaked out, she couldn't hear the song that gave him strength. Lightning flashed and he was beside the woman, his flashfield cracked the air and she was left crispy on the ground.

Again Lightning flashed and the door to the room Joule was kept in was broken open. Joules eyes widened in joy as he came over to free him, Lumen singing the whole time. "Thank you" was all Joule could say as they embraced.

Lightning flashed again and they were at the front door, at this point Joule had taken over the song with Lumen only adding power. It was significantly weaker but at this point all they needed was to get GV to the hospital so he could be healed properly.

Mission REVEAL; Clear

Joule talk 4: Angel

[[ASG: Cyanotype]]

Joule looked at Gunvolt asleep in the hospital bed, she had been humming her song by the time they got to the hospital so GV looked like he would pass out.

Luckily they got to the hospital in time and the bullet was removed, the frog faced doctor said in all likelihood he would wake naturally in the morning.

That had been the third time that Gunvolt had rescued her. A train, a space station and now a laboratory. It seemed that no matter where the two of them went she would always be a target and her angel would always save her.

Lumen chuckled at that and said "That line sounds so cheesy." Joule puffed her cheeks and Lumen went on laughing for a few seconds.

She smiled at the sleeping GV before lying on a set of pillows and a sheet that the doctor had gathered together so she could rest without going home alone.

*Joule feels a little closer to Gunvolt*

End of chapter

Phew, this was a long chapter for me. Next week we may begin an actual arc from A certain scientific railgun if I can't think of another good filler arc