Other Heroes
[[ACSRS: Future Gazer]]
"A missile?" Saten asked in shock after Misaka filled her in.
GV had gone to find the handcuffs as she explained to her friends and the members of STUDY had allowed themselves to be cuffed without any argument.
"How can we help?" Kuroko asked quickly soon to be followed by Uiharu giving a suggestion "Give me it's origin and trajectory. I'll try to figure something out."
Misaka tapped on the console to pull up the info as she did she replied "Just a sec', okay?"
All of the friends had networked their call and Misaka had pulled up the feeds on the console itself to make it easier to see them as she worked.
"Judgement has it's share of science students, I'll ask around." Konori stated her goal and left her phone with the rest of her team to help coordinate.
"I will help out as well" Kongou agreed to help too and her team got to plotting ways to get up high enough to stop the missile.
On the screen Joule was panting slightly "Sorry, I'm too exhausted to create a calculation network. We'll see if we can help find science students too."
"Hey, Febrie is looking flushed!" Saten reacted quickly as she saw Febrie to the side of Misaka.
Misaka looked over quickly before asking "Hey Febrie, show me your lolipop."
Febrie took hold of the stick and pulled it out to reveal an empty head.
"I guess it's all gone?"
"Tell me she has some left!" Kuroko almost begged only for Misaka to grimace "That was the last one!"
"Let me handle this." Nunotaba asked, she had been standing beside Febrie but had yet to speak since Misaka had taken control of the situation. She had taken Febrie's shoulders as she spoke "It isn't a matter of can or can't, I will find a way. I'll do this somehow, anything is possible because I know I'm not doing this alone."
Aritomi grunted slightly and GV knelt beside where he sat on the floor "Where is the formula?"
The man shuddered "Gone, that memory stick I held was the only copy."
GV's face grew angry, but before he said anything the female member of STUDY spoke up "There are spare lolipops."
She said where they were kept and the message was sent to the teams on the ground. Just as the message was sent Uiharu groaned.
Banri looked over "What's the matter?"
"Judgement's systems aren't fast enough to calculate the missile's path, let alone find a countermessure."
Kuroko sighed over the link "It's not like we have a super computer. Is there any way around that?"
Misaka stepped away from the console for a moment, as she did Saten set off to grab the spare lolipops with the help of a Judgement member who knew how to drive.
When Misaka returned to the console she was giving an awkward smile.
GV looked at Misaka in curiosity as she had not actually said anything on the call but Misaka sent a message from her phone to Uiharu and said "Here, a few acquaintances ran the numbers for me."
Uiharu opened the message as GV quipped "I thought our phones were meant to be as good as the computers we used during the moon landing, how does Judgement have a computer slower than that?"
Uiharu replied as she read through the message "That part isn't the problem, the problem is that I didn't know the mass or the acceleration of the missile. I could have made guesses but when dealing with space that is never good enough. Crunching the numbers would have required me to try every possible combination that STUDY's words could mean. Hmm?"
At the end she stopped and sighed "This is going to be tricky. Misaka is there nothing on the missile itself where you are?"
Misaka tapped away and found a few encrypted files, she sent them as they were to Uiharu as she would be able to open them herself.
A few minutes later Saten sent a message saying how she had found the spare lolipops and Uiharu finished her analysis.
"It's an ingenious design, when the missile's warhead reaches 30k meters it is set up to then subdivide into 5000 micro warheads, each with a strand of hair. Once that happens it will be too late so it is imperative that the missile be shot down before the split occurs."
GV had left by the time that Saten arrived with the lolipops for Febrie as had Misaka. They trusted their friends.
She and Nunotaba would work on breaking Janie out of the runaway state while the others destroyed the missile.
Kongou's mecha had been set up with enough jet points to launch it into space after Misaka had volunteered to use the hull of the mecha as a projectile to shoot the missile with it. Kuroko was going too to act as an escape system for the two of them.
GV sat with Joule to the side as Uiharu finished briefing them. When they lifted off the ground there was a cheer from everyone else who was watching.
"They are cutting it fairly close." Joule commented. They had both looked at the numbers and by the time everything was ready to launch the missile was only a few minutes from dividing.
"They'll make it though." GV smiled as he watched the mecha grow smaller into the sky.
"Of course they will." Joule agreed wholeheartedly.
[ACSRS: Grow Slowly (ED)]
Everyone took a well deserved rest after that busy morning.
Waterproof mats and blankets were laid out and Joule decided her friends were in the right when they all found a place to collapse on them. The late morning sun shone down comfortably warm and Joule wondered if this was why cats spent so much time in the sun.
GV had wondered off and Misaka had wandered away after seeing someone she recognised. The rest of them just lay there.
They didn't say anything but just enjoyed each other's company.
Misaka didn't come back but someone else was walking around the various groups on the ground. Joule wasn't sure if she had ever seen the princess-looking girl before but she felt that she had. Joule didn't recognise her from any of the groups but it was unlikely that someone had just wandered over to the groups without knowing what was going on.
Eventually the girl wandered over to their group, it seemed most of Joule's friends had begun to nap so Joule was the only one who noticed her.
"Oh, hello." The girl greeted Joule when she looked up. She looked a year or two older than Joule and had sparkles in her eyes that looked strange to Joule.
"Hello." Joule politely replied and the girl smiled.
"Misaka just asked me to check on all of you, she doesn't often ask for favours but it was fine." The girl's eyes told Joule that she was quite happy to be owed a favour by Misaka but Joule didn't ask about it.
Joule shook her head to clear some of the sleepiness before asking "I'm sorry if this sounds rude but have we met before?"
The girl gave a slightly haughty laugh "Not in person, no, but you have met some of my friends before. I go to the same school as Misaka and when you went there for the midsummer festival you met one of my friends."
Joule nodded her understanding as the princess-like girl gave a shrug "Are all of you doing fine then? None of you were hurt?"
Joule shook her head and the girl simply nodded "Good meeting you again Joule, I hope we can speak in the future."
They said their farewells and the girl began to walk away before reaching into her handbag.
After a moment Joule heard Lumen cry out in shock. Joule looked around in a panic but she couldn't tell if anything was going on. Lumen was still shaken but she explained quickly "Sorry, you were under mind control for a second there so I was worried."
"I was?" Joule asked "I still remember everything and I never felt different."
Lumen hummed as she looked Joule's brain over "I can't find anything permanent, the power hasn't left anything in you but I still don't know what they were doing while it was in effect. I'll keep an eye on you for the next few days if you want?"
Joule nodded "Please do."
End of chapter
Thus ends the Silent party arc (Except for the epilogue that takes place on september 2nd)
As of the end of this episode it is august 30th.
Finally the longest arc so far is (technically) over!
Regardless that girl in the final section was Misaki Shokuhou / Mental Out, Misaka refrences her in the epilogue so I showed what she was actually doing.
Next week will likely be another side story chapter. Probably, not sure yet.