A Break and a start

[ASG: Today's Contract]

Gunvolt sat back in the seat as he looked at the monitor in front of him and sighed, the heat was scorching and the AC wasn't nearly as good as it could have been.

While Joule had been invited out by her friends he was still working.

Two days had passed since the AIM burst was defeated. Since then he had dedicated most of his spare time that he wasn't spending doing schoolwork trying to research the location of where the children that Kiyama taught were being kept now.

The searches had not been going well. As far as he could tell the location where the children was being kept was likely not even stored digitally, if it was digital then he would have found some hint of it by now.

He sighed again and turned off his computer, it was unlikely for anything else to come from it now. He got up and paced towards the balcony that was attached to the main room and looked at the city.

The wind blew past him, cooling him faster than the AC would so he stood there for a moment thinking about what had happened over the last two days since the battle.

The first thing of note was a letter arriving at their rooms, it was some sort of request for the two of them to attend an extra system scan just for them.

It was to be expected really, he and Joule went passed their self-imposed limits while fighting the Burst and it was likely noticed by some of the scientists. The scan was scheduled for the end of the month so they had a few days left but they would need to think of an excuse.

It wasn't likely that they would enjoy hearing the truth that they had been holding back.

After that he had received a text message from the lightning user Misaka, Joule had likely told her the number after she asked for it.

The message had not really said anything, it could be summed up as "Hey, thanks for your help."

He had ignored the message mostly, the text app would show that he had read it so she would know the thanks had been received.

After that, early this morning he had heard that a few robots in their area had gone berserk and that they should be careful. GV was curious about this rumor but had yet to look into it, he was busy with his other reasearch and schoolwork.

The wind was slowing down and the heat was pressing on him so he went back inside. It was still hot but as the balcony was now even hotter he put up with it.

He wasn't fond of this much heat but he didn't want to go to the pool to cool off, he wasn't fond of the water after coming close to drowning in a Sumeragi base during a mission. In theory he enjoyed swimming but the feeling of his powers shorting out and his mouth being filled with water was still there.

He turned his mind from that subject onto Joule. Her friends had invited her to do something with swimsuits, she hadn't told him the details over the phone but she still sounded a bit embarrassed over the phone.

He wondered if she was doing okay, he trusted her friends to a certain extent but he hoped that Joule was enjoying herself.

[ACMI: Odayaka na You]

Joule was enjoying herself.

They were all in a room that they had been brought to in order to choose swimsuits they liked. She, Uiharu and Saten had been invited by Misaka and Kuroko to help model swimsuits. She didn't fully understand the reason and had originally intended not to come but Saten had convinced her that it could be fun and so she came along.

The three of them had met up with Misaka and Kuroko who had then introduced some more friends who were apparently part of the swimming club, after that a few more people had shown up and the now nine girls followed a manager into the room.

Though she had yet to pick a swimsuit for herself, Saten and Uiharu had found some they liked. After her friends tryed and failed to get Misaka to wear a childish swimsuit they came over to her to help her pick.

Lumen was trying to get her to pick a blue bikini while she was arguing for something closer to what Misaka had first seen. When Saten came over and saw her considering Lumen's choice she let out a small chuckle "So that's the kind of thing you want Joule?".

Joule blushed and stammered out that she was still choosing before Saten insisted she should at least try it. Joule nodded shyly as she heard Lumen congratulate her on 'Her choice' and walked over to the changing rooms.

A minute or two later she was back out. Saten noticed the blush still present on her cheeks but before she started to tease, Uiharu cut in "It looks great on you Joule!".

Joule's blush got a bit redder, she had been hoping it looked good but she still didn't want to admit it to Lumen. Lumen knew however and Joule could hear her chuckle in the back of her head.

A bit of time passed as everyone who had yet to change did so, Joule waited for them and when the members of the swim team emerged first Joule had a proper introduction with them. Their names were apparently Wannai and Awatsuki, Joule talked with them a bit after until Uiharu, Saten and Misaka had emerged. After that a conversation about swimsuits started and continued until Kuroko emerged wearing the least material out of any of them.

Joule was pleased when the snake showed up with one of the other girls that had come along, the snake broke the conversation.

Uiharu stood beside her admiring the snake. Everyone else had backed away quickly when the girl came in wearing the snake.

The girl had some fun frightening the others with her pet snake until the last girl (Who Joule had finally remembered was the leader of Uiharu's branch of Judgement) came out in a swimsuit too small for her. Everyone was silent after that, possibly just from shock more than anything.

[ACMI: Heat Island]

Joule took in the new information she had gained since coming to the studio with the others. It could really be summed up with a single sentence; "Academy City has touchable holograms."

Lumen was just as shocked as she was, Sumeragi didn't have anything like this that wasn't Adept powered yet somehow it was just here in a studio!

Sure it was cutting edge but she could hear Lumen laughing at the situation as the person who led them here explained that the camera would never be in view.

After a minute of the girl with the snake (she had learned that Kongou was her name due to conversations between her and Kuroko) posing seductively it was pointed out by Misaka that they were supposed to act natrual. She then ran away from a Kuroko who seemed ready to jump on her.

Everyone basically just decided to enjoy themselves on the beach after that. Joule sat by the water's edge and poked at it and the sand trying to figure out how it was done.

As she looked over to see what the others were doing it was apparently real enough to build a sand castle out of as Uiharu had apparently been trapped in one.

Her thoughts started spiraling but Lumen quickly cut in "Hold on a moment, you are thinking about this way to hard."

She stood up and walked over to where Uiharu was in the sand castle while responding to Lumen "It shouldn't work though, the studio floor was flat though, and we walked down onto the beach. Ignoring the fact of solid holograms for now that is still impossible!"

As she stood beside the sand castle, Uiharu burst out of it throwing sand over the other two. As Joule almost fell over from the shock Lumen quoted "'It's just a show, I should really just relax.' Right?"

Joule sighed as she stood up and tried to just play with her friends at the beach.

When the area changed to a pool, Joule was about to start saying something again but calmed down after being reminded to have fun by Saten this time. She saw the expression on Joule's face and knew that she was concerned about something so she just advised her to have fun in the pool for a bit.

A bit later it changed again to a boat, it even felt like the boat was moving quickly and Joule could feel the air moving so she just decided to throw her hands up in defeat for now and just decided that it was somehow an esper power doing this. Maybe a really skilled teleporter.

After the boat they were in a blizzard, then a desert and then a ship during a storm. Whatever this place was it was likely still a prototype so it didn't work properly.

Then another shift in location, it was dark above and gray below. They were now on the moon.

Joule looked into space, remembering the last time she was far from earth. The satellite base of Sumeragi had been cold but the moon they were now one wasn't.

At least there was air, and it was a temprature humans could live on. It proved it wasn't a teleporter doing this at least as this moon was fake at least. A telepath then maybe? might explain the fact that Saten, Uiharu and Konori had apparently had something to drink while they were at the pool.

At this point Lumen was quietly singing in the back of her head a song that basically just went "Don't think too hard, it does make sense, your friends accept it."

A voice came over hidden speakers that they needed to make some adjustments to the studio. After a moment it became a campsite.

The person who had brought them to the room in the first place came out of a little hut at the campsite and told them that the cameras were not working so they should all take a break. There was a set of ingredients at the campsite and Konori determined that with the ingredients they had they should make a curry.

Joule joined team curry with Uiharu and Saten. As they began to argue about how big to cut the vegetables they turned to her to act as a tie breaker.

Joule shrugged "I've only recently learned to cook, to be honest I've only made curry once before."

Saten cut in then "Then what did you do the time that you did make it."

Joule thought to herself before answering "Small chunks."

The three of them sighed, as now they had 3 diffrent ideas instead of two.

Over on the other side of the table, Kongou along with Wannai and Awatsuki were making Kongou's curry with strange ingredients and production methods. While they watched them fumble around the three friends played rock, paper, scissors to decide on the method of cutting and got down to work.

While working Joule asked the others "How do you think this food got here?" it was a question that had been bugging her for a bit.

Uiharu thought about it for a moment before replying "They probably brought it in while we were on the moon and just set it down on a solid surface."

Lumen nodded sagely in the back of Joule's head as she got back to work.

All of them gathered together to eat the curries that the groups had made. In the end it worked out quite tasty which was good.

[ACMI: Kyuuketsu Koroshi]

The shooting finished for the day and they all left the building. They chatted for a bit and left in their groups.

Joule smiled, today had been the most fun day she had seen since coming to academy city.

End of chapter

I should note here; Joule's thoughts along the line of "How does this even work" were basically my thoughts as I rewatched this episode to write this chapter