Start of the party

[ACSR: sister's noise (OP3)]

Joule watched the video feed through her phone, the powered suits were gathering at the various exhibition points that her friends were guarding. She flicked to the side to get a better view and saw a lot of people gathering behind her friends. They carried shields and long staves with prongs designed to hold back foes safely. They wore armbands with a symbol that was also on their shield, the symbol of Judgement.

Judgement as a whole had been alerted last night so they were all ready for this morning. It had been the plan for them to be here earlier but getting this many people to four points had likely been harder than expected.

She smiled as her friends said the creed of Judgement.

Misaka was likely already on her way, Febrie was with her to guide her to the enemy base.

As she watched the robots prepare to charge she flicked her microphone's power switch and called out, her voice being relayed across all four sites "Testing, can everyone here me?" she blushed as she spoke. Singing and public speaking were two different things.

Her friends smiled and nodded towards the cameras she was using so she focused, Lumen manifested behind her.

"You ready?" Lumen asked, a eager grin on her face. Joule nodded silently and pressed the start button on her laptop.

[ACSR: Level Upper]

The "Song" started strangely. It was discordant and sounded unpleasant.

Joule spoke over the mic again "Sorry for this bit, I promise it gets better."

Through the camera Joule saw Saten look a little frightened, she was getting a clearer version than most of the people with her that might recognise it. She spoke again for her benefit "For those of you hurt by the event a few weeks ago, I am sorry for the bad memories."

That didn't seem to cheer her up but she was distracted by the first wave of attacks from the powered suits. Joule checked her watch, 50 seconds had passed so she spoke again as the sounds became quieter and some more normal instrumentation began "Sorry again for all of that. Now time for the actual song."

[ASG: A Flash of Azure (Joule)]

Joule began to sing with the song. As she did, the song's effects began to show themselves.

In her head she saw points of light appearing in darkness. Only a couple at first before more joined in. She looked for the ones she knew and "touched" it and pulled her "finger" away, a glowing strand followed it. This strand she attached to a glowing light that Lumen held out towards her. Lumen would administrate the network she was forming while she sung. With that first connection formed she let Lumen set up the rest.

The first voice across the network was Kuroko swearing. Lumen smiled and projected a message back to her in Joule's voice "Miss Kuroko? I could hear that."

Lumen set up the network well, connecting groups together in such a way that they could communicate quickly. Each group had a group leader who could speak to the leader of that area and the leaders could speak to Lumen.

"Joule? Why did that sound like the Level upper?" Saten sent the message to Lumen as she caught her breath. Lumen (Still speaking with Joule's voice) replied "Think of it as translator, while I could speak to any of you freely like this. Getting you all to speak to each other is harder and requires extra help."

Uiharu gasped over the link "Did you just make us all into telepaths?"

"Nooo?" Lumen let the word drag "It is just a complex set up, I'm acting as a terminal, I thought I explained this to you earlier?"

Saten coughed "I thought you were going to be in contact with us, not the entire battlefield!"

"Think of it this way," Lumen began "We are using this network in the same way we would have been using phones and earpieces. Only this network cannot be intercepted or jammed."

Misaka spoke up, her voice clear even though Lumen sensed she was currently leaping through the air "But STUDY can hear the song too right?"

Lumen answered simply "The only people in the network are those confirmed to be on our side. I checked everyone who joined."

"Are you sure?" Kuroko asked. Lumen just rolled her eyes "Yes. While anyone can hear the song, they need to be here to be included in my first search. We can be fairly sure that STUDY aren't here. Right Misaka?"

Misaka sent an affirmation.

GV saw that Joule and Lumen were already hard at work, his connection to her network was more free. He acted as an "Extra" like Misaka and Febrie. Lumen was forwarding any useful information to him so when he heard some suits had broken off to target the stage he ran off. His boots gave him a boost as he dashed over to them.

He slid under them, using electromagnetism to avoid scraping the ground. When he was behind them he put his hands on two of them and fried any internals they held. That was enough to shut them down.

After that he got an alert from Lumen "Misaka has reached the target. Are you ready to offer support?"

Misaka mentally spoke up so that both he and Joule would hear the message "Joule, can I send what I see and hear through your network?"

Lumen concidered for a moment, she drew a new line between GV and Misaka and then spoke "Set up, I won't be able to focus on you but you can send to GV when you wish."

GV saw a small box appear in the corner of his vision that he could move and hide when he wanted. On it he could see a large screen with Aritomi on it. From the surroundings he could tell it was some sort of sports arena. Beneath that he could see she was surrounded by powered suits.

Aritomi was speaking "All you espers share one common weakness. You're only human, which means you will eventually tire. And you are no exception to this rule. I don't care what level esper you are, when you are this outnumbered you don't stand a chance."

"Yeah, you're right." It was a strange feeling, GV realised, hearing Misaka speak through her senses "If I was all on my own this would be difficult. However, things are different this time. All of us-" Misaka threw out lightning to zap the first wave of suits "-are fighting against you together."

As she began fighting, going from wave to wave, Lumen spoke just to GV "Hey, want to show her just how right she is?"

GV rolled his eyes "Fine, but limit it, I still need to fight too."

Lumen laughed as she drew a new line, from GV to Misaka "Naturally, I can't use up all of that space. Your snark is important."

GV felt a mental stab as Joule's song dug deeper. Lumen mumbled "Let's start with a dash. Yours is faster anyway."

Misaka gave a gasp and jumped back, the jump carrying her further than normal "What on earth was that."

Lumen laughed in a way that Joule wouldn't "Well that works. Misaka, you have access to a small part of GV's skills and some of his brainspace is free to do extra calculations for you."

"What?" Misaka was so stunned she almost failed to dodge an attack being thrown at her.

Lumen winced "Sorry, can't explain any more. Need to help the others."

Misaka was quiet as she fought for a moment before she asked GV "Do you mind if I...?"

GV shook his head but realised she couldn't see that "I don't mind. Joule set up enough security that it won't be any danger. Just know that I can read any calculations you use it for."

He checked behind him and saw that members of Judgement had gathered to protect Joule so he added "I can come over and help if that would make you feel better, you are only using my power until I get there."

Misaka was quiet for a moment before responding "Yes, that would be more comfortable. I don't like the idea of messing with your head."

GV nodded and ran to where he could feel Misaka through the bond.

"How is this safe?" Saten exclaimed "You are messing with our heads, I trust you to do it carefully but still Joule, what the hell?"

Lumen had explained the power sharing trick to the area leaders.

Konori spoke up "I must agree. If you based this off the level upper..."

Lumen sighed "It is based on Dr Kiyama's research but I installed half a dozen safety messures before doing anything else. The program will uninstall itself after thirty seconds of not hearing the song. Additionally it will never alter anything permanently and it can never alter anything important."

Saten was still angry but spoke with mroe control "I still dislike it, You should have told this to us earlier instead of being cryptic! I hope you understand I am not going to share my power."

Kongou spoke then "If it becomes important you can borrow mine Saten."

There was a short moment of silence before Kongou went on "Well... I mean, If it's a choice between keeping them for myself and saving any of your lives I am fine being without it for a short time. Our abilities are similar Saten so it might save you. I don't like the fact we weren't told either but still..."

Lumen sighed "You wouldn't lose it, it would only be lowered in strength for a short time. Also Saten, you don't need to worry. The safety messures require your permission to access anything close to your ability."

[ACSRS: STUDY]

Saten continued to grumble before exclaiming suddenly "Joule, the earpiece just cut out."

Kuroko agreed "Mine too but the speakers are still working."

Uiharu muttered "Its the wireless, STUDY are blocking the signal."

In the web, Lumen watched as countdowns appeared over the heads of many of the lights.

She sent out a general order "Anyone who can't hear the song, find a speaker still playing it!"

Many in the crowd were using earpieces as the speakers were mostly inside the building, the few outside the building were only in a few spots.

Someone could boost the volume of the speakers to help but that couldn't help everyone. She watched the lights that showed Misaka and GV. Both of their timers were down to 15 seconds. She quickly broke the link between them and sent a quick explanation. If their connection broke with as many complex links as they were using it could give headaches and she didn't want to endanger either of them with that. Those complex links were not fully covered by the safety systems which were designed with the Judgement members in mind.

Lumen prayed silently "Please stay safe, the both of you."

Their lights went out, their connections were broken and the program was being uninstalled from them. Joule could only pray they would be alright.

She focused on everyone else and made a few more connections, she then spoke across that link "Fellow Telepaths, you have work to do!"

End of chapter.

I am doing a lot of really long chapters, mostly because this arc is starting to drag on and I need to get everything done.

Joule's network was inspired from an idea I had that was simply "What if the level upper network was designed without ulterior motives" The telepathy was originally going to be similar to the method the Misaka network used but I couldn't make that not cheesy. Joule/Lumen would know who was speaking anyway.