Wild Robots

[ASG: Today's Contract]

Gunvolt walked down the street nonchalantly while every so often checking who was around him via reflective surfaces. It wasn't that he thought he was being followed but he had to be careful.

Joule was out with her friends again so he had deemed it a good time to grab a quick mission from the dark side, the closer he got the more likely he was to find something out about the missing students. He had made sure to take one that likely looked harder than it was.

according to the job notice "A foreigner in black has been seen in town, they have no info about them in any database so they likely entered illegally. Mission objectives; capture the foreigner and bring them to a designated location."

For GV it didn't look too hard, it might even be a misunderstanding. The job had come with a picture so he knew what to look for to find the foreigner.

Since this was a job from the dark side he suspected that she would not be well treated wherever he was going to bring her to, nothing a tracking bead and a phone call to judgement couldn't fix.

GV couldn't see anything going wrong, in some ways that worried him as it meant he likely was missing something.

Regardless he had been able to track the foreigner, she had been seen by security cameras in district 7 mostly and a few other locations around the city.

Gunvolt looked up at the building it was suspected that the foreigner was hiding in. It was a set of rooms that was near a park where the foreigner had been seen many times. First thing first, GV entered the building's security room.

A little bit of hacking later he ensured that nothing that happened during the next 90 minutes would be saved by the cameras. He then began to search the camera logs for the female foreigner.

After a while of searching he found her, he checked the records of the building complex itself then and deduced that she had one of the rooms on the ground floor. She wasn't there now but he knew where she was likely to be later.

He altered the cameras again to set the time they would remain off to 5 more minutes before he left in a hurry.

He could search a couple of places now, the park was where she had been seen the most so he walked to it and began looking around. It was a lovely park for the middle of a city but he didn't care much. He began walking around the park in a strange path.

He hoped to see the target on this strange route so he could follow her in secret.

While looking around he decided to call Joule to see how she was doing. He pulled out the phone and dialed.

[ACSR: Uiharu Kazari]

Joule was in the restaurant with her friends as Misaka and Kuroko argued about what to do and she and Uiharu sat back and watched. Saten had been pulled away by a training day that those who had used the level-upper had been forced to take and the rest of them couldn't decide what to do without her.

She and Uiharu just sat back passively, each had an ice-cream they were slowly eating.

Joule checked her watch and Lumen noted that the first screening of the movie that Kuroko wanted to watch had already begun. The event that Misaka wanted to go to would be running until a lot later.

At Lumen's suggestion Joule looked up from her icecream and spoke to point out the time and it's meaning. Kuroko pointed out that there would be later screenings so they would still have to think about it.

As they continued eating, Joule got a call on her phone from GV. She answered.

From the other end of the line she heard GV say "Hey Joule, is the day going well?"

Joule sighed and explained how the others were having problems choosing what to do.

Gunvolt sighed as well before responding "I get it, but why don't you just ask them to flip a coin?"

"As one of the people invested in getting their way can magnatise objects to control them, she could just manipulate the coin in the air to win."

GV pointed out that it would be petty and if that was the problem then she should take her friend and flip the coin where neither of the two arguing could manipulate it.

Lumen agreed (Though GV couldn't hear her over the line) but before they could ask about how he was doing he suddenly cut off the call.

Joule explained the coin flip idea to the others and Uiharu agreed that it would be fair.

As Uiharu left to flip the coin, Misaka looked at the phone that was still in Joule's hand, resting on her leg. "Was that your friend Joule, the other electromaster?"

Joule nodded and Kuroko looked over curiously "How long have you known him?" Joule blushed slightly before answering "Somewhere between 6 months and a year I think. At some point I stopped keeping track"

Kuroko noticed the blush and started teasing Joule while waiting for Uiharu to get back.

When she did it was with a heads-up coin which had been agreed to be Misaka's choice. Kuroko Groaned but went along with the others to the event.

[ASG: Underworld ~ Stratacombs]

Gunvolt had ended the call because he saw his target. The foreigner was a young woman, likely between 21 and 26. She wore a black dress that looked like it was practically designed to not impede movement, she also had short brown hair that was tied in a style to keep it out of her face. He would need to be careful and follow her as he could predict that she was ready to run if she had to.

He followed her from a distance, it was likely that even should she look behind herself then she would have missed him.

After a while she passed by a cleaning robot and as she did so she placed her hand on it. As she did so the robot stopped suddenly as if its off button had been pressed. She knelt besides it for a few moments before standing up and walking off. GV was confused but as the robot started moving again he suspected it of being some sort of ability.

As far as he knew there was no espers outside of academy city so how come she was a foreigner. It failed to add up.

He checked on the robot as he passed, he couldn't see anything diffrent in it's code so she left it be and simply followed the woman. Each time she passed a lone robot she did the same thing again, froze it then knelt down for a moment while continuing to touch it then just standing and moving on.

Her ability was eluding him but he continued to follow her for a while until she came to a stairwel that led into a tunnel beneath the park, depending on how crowded it would be in there it would either be a great place to capture her (if the number was low) or he might be able to continue tailing her (if the number of people was large).

He waited for a moment for her to descend the stairs before quickly walking after her.

There were few people inside the tunnel so GV quickly decided on plan A, he would just need to wait until she was near the center of the tunnel to get her. The tunnel was low and wide and was mostly staffed by robots who were moving boxes around. It was likely a very small warehouse or other distribution centre.

As they walked, the woman glanced back and noticed him, GV for his credit acted as if nothing were wrong and he was just following his normal route.

The woman quickly ducked into a side tunnel, GV silently cursed when he realised that she would lose him if he didn't run after her. He made a quick calculation before running down the side tunnel after her.

At the end of the tunnel was another large room where he could see the woman hunched over something in the corner, The woman spun around at the sound of his shoes against the floor (An issue with metal boots) and angrily asked "Are you with judgement child?"

GV shook his head "Just a freelancer I'm afraid. Unlike judgement I can break laws to bring you in."

The woman rolls her eyes before muttering "Of course they don't send it, Aleister wouldn't send his precious espers to fight a mage."

That last word took GV back a moment "Mage?"

An evil smile covered the woman's face "Oh, so you don't know? How about I show you then."

[ACMI: Idai Naru Chikara]

The woman spun before placing her hand on the floor and yelling out "Despertar oh feras falsas" (Awaken oh false beasts)

As she did a light seemed to burn from her hand, then GV noticed that the light was actually coming from under her hand.

The light stretched out, becoming lines and figures across the ground. As the circle grew the woman explained it "There are many stories of mages giving the inanimate the minds of beasts, egypt had their sphynx and many other locations across the world create statues to act as defences against the supernatural. In all cases the idea was that in times of trouble the statues would come to life with minds of their own."

The woman continued as Gunvolt started to hear a rumbling from outside the room "I modified the spell to become contagious, if any target touched another viable host then the host would be infected too."

As she spoke Gunvolt looked out of the hallway to see many red dots of light looking for him from the gloom.

"My magic name is Leo 112, it is my killer name. You will not leave alive boy." The woman finished.

Gunvolt realised now what the lights were, they were the eyes of robots.

He ignored the talk of magic for now and focused, if he lost that then he would likely die down here.

Logically she was somehow controlling the robots with her "Magic" (Likely an ability of some type) and if what she had said was true then the ability also took effect on those robots that touched already infected robots and on and on.

Gunvolt looked between the oncoming robots and the "Mage", and began prioritising targets as the robots emerged into the room.

Joule and the others were at the event Misaka had found, it was nice but she just felt that something was wrong. She looked out into the cityscape.

She hoped GV was okay.

End of chapter

Little short but I am busy today. This episode basically is episode 14 from railgun but from a diffrent view (Joule and friends) while I do an arc with GV on the side.

So yes, GV does not believe in "Magic" as anything other than an esper power as in the world he is from most people who see "True Magic" are just seeing an adept.