Road Running

[ACMItM: Innocentius]

In Gunvolt's opinion, kidnapping was the worst sort of crime. Kidnapping to exploit someone's innate talents was even worse than normal kidnapping.

So why were people so determined to kidnap the very people that he would want to protect? Be it Joule or Joule's friends, kidnapping them was a really dumb move.

He ran- or rather dashed- over the road, pushing against the metal within it to increase his speed. The fact that there was already a slight charge running through them just made it easier.

He was catching up to the chase quickly. He passed the back most robot in a flash of light.

"What? Who?" A female voice spoke. He had heard of her in his research, of course. After Joule had told him about what had happened, he looked into the robots first for a lead.

The Black Crow Unit was a private security organization that maintains and preserves order in Academy City. They were created by Ladylee Tangleroad, the CEO of Orbit Portal. Arisa apparently worked for the same company so it wasn't unusual to find them protecting her.

"I'm here to help Arisa too, don't worry about me, worry about them." Talking while dashing at the speed of a car was annoying but not too difficult. He had been able to talk to QUILL in the past even during tense moments so this wasn't much more than that.

As the robot's pilot spluttered something, the car drove into a tunnel. Gunvolt charged in quickly to reach them.

The mages were more unusual. He had fought mages before, though he hadn't realised it at the time. It was almost two months ago now but he realised that the person he had once thought to be a Chūnibyō esper had probably been one of these types.

That thought was odd. Normally, if someone told GV that something was magic there were really only two choices; Either it was a trick or it was a septima. In the past he had added to the second option with 'or an esper ability' but the fact that real magic existed felt odd.

In theory it fit into the second catagory too but there was a difference between 'Something called magic' and 'Real Magic' that made it feel strange to put them into the same group.

Gunvolt's thoughts suddenly stopped short as he saw one of the mages from inside the car climb onto the roof. He did react quickly though "Pull over and surrender!"

The man, for he was tall even if he did have a teen's face, looked surprised to see a person running at the speed of a car.

"Buzz off kid, you're not involved."

GV shook his head.

"I am actually, involved with this, that is. Your hostage is a friend of a friend. That's enough for me to get involved."

The man sighed and muttered something about the "Kids in this city." before shaking his head.

"Leave, I can tell you have an ability but you will still get hurt."

GV just increased his pace and began to close on the car. At the same time some smaller drones quickly approached.

The man summoned fire into his hand just as the Black Crows began their attack by launching explosives and cables.

Gunvolt himself was forced to dodge out of the way of those as the car burst back into the night air.

The mage began throwing fire around as Gunvolt concidered his options. The choice he made was to tag the car and zap it. The car would act as a faraday cage and prevent Arisa from being shocked while also knocking the car out of use. It would also zap the mage on the car's roof, that might hurt him.

Tough.

He drew his pistol as the car was swerving to dodge some of the drones and to get them out of the way before entering another tunnel. The pistol, the same one he had liberated from STUDY, was the same as ever but he had customised the ammo in it. Each bullet in it held a few short hairs from his head. Enough to act as a medium for tagging targets.

All he had to do was lodge a bullet in the target.

The drones were driving up the walls as one of the other mages leaned out a window.

"Master, use these!"

She waved a fan and hundreds, maybe thousands of small pieces of paper flew into the tunnel. They were about to try something.

Gunvolt aimed and fired. The bullets weren't enough to punch through much of the car's frame so it wouldn't disrupt the faraday cage. As he did that however the mage conjured more fire in his hand before waving and sending it into the air.

"Innocentius, Strike!"

The fire swirled in the air, taking on a humanoid form made purely of fire. The wall of heat almost seemed to slam into GV with real force. He had to race ahead down the tunnel to prevent it from cooking him alive. He had the tag but the car was moving too fast. If he stopped to pour power into it, the car would get away.

The giant of flame slammed forth with its hands to destroy some of the drones. The lead robot made it through though leaving the fire giant behind them all but quickly following. It was targetting the crow leader more than him but GV was still starting to smolder.

With an explosion, they exited the tunnel. The flame giant was trapped inside as the robot burst forth with GV in quick pursuit.

It was about time to finish this, GV decided. There was enough metal around him to carry the charge. He just needed to get the angle right to avoid losing a hand.

His hand brushed against the wall of the road and friction burned the tips of his fingers. It was enough for the charge to carry though.

Power poured from him into the wall, from this section of the wall too the wall next to the car and from there into the bullet and thus, the car.

Blue lightning shot through the car, frying it's internals. The robot then lauched some disks and detonated them, flinging the car to the side.

The car, paralysed and sent flying, skidded and landed against a wall. The mage was flung free before the car slid to a stop on it's side.

GV caught up quickly and raised his gun to the mage's chest.

"Surrender." simply an order this time.

Suddenly a familiar voice spoke from behind him.

"Stop this!"

It was Touma.

End of chapter.

Just a chapter dedicated to the car chase.