Electric Charge
[ACSRT: I Cannot Hold My Anger Any Longer]
Misaka stepped through the door and looked up towards the upper floors. She could feel the radio jamming waves from here with her power.
Had they only just been deployed? If not, then how had Uiharu's message got through? She'd been standing outside when she had gotten the message from GV so that made sense but...
"Kuroko? Keep an eye out here."
"No." The teleporter spoke quickly "There's no way you can keep me out of this, not now."
She looked at her friend, her face grim "Please? I need to be sure that no one who did this gets away."
The hesitation was obvious on her friend's face.
The electromaster sighed. She thought of ways that she could use to make Kuroko agree but-
It felt manipulative. After what Misaki had done-
"Fine."
The teleporter followed her in and then began making there way up the building, following the damage."
They travelled together, alternating between magnatism and teleportation in order to move around the damaged building in the quickest way possible.
It took them less than a minute to make it to the intruders, even if they hadn't known where they were going.
A metalic doll faced them, it turned to look at them and without waiting a moment, Misaka zapped it. When that didn't seem to do much though, it's metalic hands began to move.
"Sign language?" Kuroko asked, the moment she did though, the doll gave a nod and signed again.
"Who are you?" Kuroko read out.
Misaka glared at the doll "Introduce yourself first, who are you?"
The doll tilted it's head, a smile forming. A moment later it slunk away into the darkness.
"...What on earth was that?" Misaka asked "A mage?"
"An Esper." Kuroko noted "I think. Do you want to go after it?"
"No." Misaka looked up to the damaged staircase that the doll had been standing next to. If she was counting the floors right, that would be the way up to the roof.
Together with Kuroko they climbed up and found a small group.
"Misaka?" Uiharu asked with shock "Why are you here?"
"Later," The electromaster said, glancing at the group that was gathered. Uiharu, Saten, some man and-
"A sister?"
Uiharu looked guilty and Misaka put the dots together "I heard about this, was that the sister kidnapped yesterday?"
"Rescued is closer, but yes." The man confirmed simply, glancing towards Kuroko "You're a teleporter right, can you evacuate them?"
For "Them" he meant Uiharu, Saten and the sister.
Kuroko hesitated "You aren't behind it are you?"
"No." The man said simply "Ask these two if you need proof. Teleport me to a holding cell if you want, just get all of them out."
Kuroko stepped forward and froze as Misaka heard a voice from behind her "Oh, I don't think that's going to be happening. I need the clone at least."
Misaka spun and her eyes went wide.
"Gensei Kihara!"
"It seems I was right." He said with a grin "You weren't safe from me-"
[ACSRT: One Who Is Not a God]
Before he finished whatever he was saying, Misaka charged him, throwing a bolt of lightning.
Gensei sidestepped with an agility that seemed to not fit his age at all and in return ice formed in the air and shot towards Misaka.
"He's got multi-skill, be careful!" Uiharu called out from behind her and Misaka grit her teeth.
"Of course I do!" The man said with a smile "I was the one who taught Doctor Kiyama how to tune brainwaves after all. I've even made my own network."
"Doesn't matter!" Misaka called, summoning electricity to strike him from behind. She would have liked to summon her iron-sand sword but that needed a source of iron sand. The rivers worked great and she could gather enough for a sword at least as long as she was on ground level but up here in the sky there was too little to work with.
Once again, Kihara dodged and this time shot a blast of air that bounced off a container behind her when she dodged it for the first time. Throwing herself down, Misaka spun to the side and prepared a coin.
She had no reason to hold back against this man.
She'd made a mistake though. Gensei's target changed in that moment as he held up a remote and pointed it towards the currently sleeping sister.
The sister screamed herself awake as the man tapped twice on what turned out to be a laser pointer. Black lightning shot into and filled the sky.
"What did you do to her?" Misaka yelled but the man grinned "Ah well, if you want to know that, I'd have to ask you put that coin down. I'd hate to be blasted while explaining."
Misaka wasn't dumb enough to put the coin down. She kept it pointing straight. The man smirked anyway and began to talk "Mental Out put strong protections around the mind of this sister so that anything done to her wouldn't affect the network. That was my first press."
"What? Do you mean-"
He chuckled "Don't you know? This building was working on a way to allow anyone to use Mental Out, at least until she shut it down. There were still... things left over."
"What was the second press?" Misaka asked quietly, her eyes glancing up at the sky filled with black lightning. It wasn't natural and yet-
"Ah, that." At this, Gensei seemed the happiest "A custom-designed virus, one that would spread throughout the network quickly. Think of it like a version of Level-upper but tailored just for use on the sisters. With all... 9000 or so sisters that are left, that might be enough brain power to replicate your ability at full power."
"So what?" Misaka's rage was boiling coldly "You want to use that too, you want two level 5 abilities under your control?"
Her emotions screamed at her. Her instinct too. This was and was not her ability. It was-
Gensei looked up at it too "Magnificent isn't it? It really puts your ability into scale. Even putting you alongside electromasters of a lower level is a bit of a joke."
"So I'm strong, so what?" Misaka prepared to flip the coin.
The fact was that she was unwilling to actually do it until she could be sure that she or someone she knew could fix the sisters. He didn't need to know that though.
"Indeed." The man's smile grew "At the current point, it's just a pretty lightshow without a purpose. To answer your earlier question, no, I don't indend to use it. There's a much more interesting thing I can do with it."
[ASCRT: Now, Let The Experiment Begin]
Misaka felt something change and she looked up to see the lightning begining to drop towards her. Even as she moved, it moved perfectly to follow her.
"What?"
"Did you know you're Aleister's favourite? I mean, you're only rated third but I think he likes you for more than just your power. He hid you in the shadow of the main plan after all. Did you know, there were no plans for how to attempt a level 6 shift on you? There are plans, at least the start of plans, for every other level 5."
Misaka looked to him, panic and confusion in her eyes.
"What?" She repeated.
That moment of distraction was enough, as she looked away the lightning jumped down to her as if following a lightning rod.
Uiharu had to throw up a hand to protect her eyes from the light as lightning filled the sky. The blue of Misaka's lightning, not the red of the network.
"Let's find out!" Gensei called as Uiharu finally opened her eyes "Can Misaka reach the divine world-"
He paused for dramatic effect and then yelled out in success "Of level 6?"
Joule and Misaki looked up at the lightning from below. They had just arrived.
"Oh no." Misaki's voice was quiet, it sounded like it was filled with honest fear and... a hint of sadness "We're too late."
End of chapter.
And-
Here-
We-
Go!
The following is only valid if you're reading this chapter the week it comes out;
So, a quick google search says that it's about 6 weeks until I can play through ASG3.
People have commented before that GV's power might be stronger than ever in that game and I want to see how natural the power boost is. But for that I'd need to play the game first. If it is a natural boost, it may have an effect on this story.
So, two options; Either I put this story on pause (Which I hate the idea of doing) for a few weeks for it to come out or I keep writing for now until GV shows up and pause it then (Either next chapter or the chapter after.)
I'd like to hear your thoughts on that. And also some ideas on what I could do during my normal writing slots?
I have an Umineko story on SB that I've barely worked on and I have an idea for a new quest (Bleach-based) on SB too (The fact that I'm already running two quests might be a problem but... who knows?)
So, any thought?