Above Level 5
[ACSRT: Evolutionary Steps]
As Joule sang, GV took a look over the side of the building. Touma didn't look to be doing that well.
He was dodging more than attacking, Misaka had grown some sort of fence-like shape on her back that she could use to lash out of him. That and a crown instead of antennae.
This was her second form it seemed. She was still chaging even as Joule worked to free her.
While Touma was able to parry the attack with his hand, it wasn't actually disrupting the attack in any way that GV could see.
Joule was safe. All possible foes were being dealt with as he watched this fight. Gensei had been tricked by Mental Out, the doll girl was fighting Kuroko and Misaka-
Misaka he could try and help with. Casting another glance back at Joule, GV jumped off the building once again. Hand against the wall, he slid down towards the ground.
As he slid down, GV tossed a knife her way. Normally he'd never be able to throw that far but he had picked up a trick. His dart leader had always been magnetic, he could replicate the effects with his hand. It wasn't nearly as powerful as Misaka's railgun, not without practice at least, but at least it let him launch his knives a long way.
He smiled even as Misaka deflected the attack with a magnetic field of her own. It was amazing in a way that she'd apparently figured out this trick on her own. Joule had once passed on the story of how she'd figured it out one day. It hadn't even been very hard for her. That just went to show the difference in how Adepts and Espers worked.
He tossed another two knives but they were deflected much the same. He'd need to be closer to get anything to stop her.
Down on the ground there was something wrong, some obvious changes to Misaka. It looked like Misaka wasn't focusing on Touma at all.
She was shifting but it seemed her attacks were slowing down. Instead of the rapid stream of strikes from her fence, there were discharges of lightning from her. No, something closer to a particle beam. An electron gun that fired at a rate that seemed to cut up the ground. It wasn't targeted though, more like it was lashing out at random.
No, they were tracking him!
GV dodged to the side as Touma turned around in shock "Are you okay?"
Without the ability to respond, GV was forced to create a flashfield around himself. He created it to redirect the electrons shot his way.
If it was targeting him but ignoring Touma...
"It's targeting AIM!" GV yelled "It must be since it's ignoring you, do you have a window to get closer?"
Touma hesitated and looked back at Misaka "I'm not sure, the blasts might be random for me but I don't know if I could react fast enough to block one."
He might be right.
GV stepped forward, reaching the point where he stood only a meter or so away from Touma. He couldn't get too close as he needed that lens to redirect electrons shot his way.
"I'll go forward with you! It should direct all blasts my way!"
"But what if you fail to block one?" Touma asked, worried.
They didn't have time to talk any more as something happened suddenly. Misaka moved back slightly and her blasts stopped for a moment. Had Joule managed to free her?
"No, she's changing again." Touma said quietly.
Indeed. She was shifting. Her white body was growing more extentions. Her crown was growing closer together and her head- her head changed to look like a field of stars.
Then her hands, which now looked like some sort of symbol rather than anything you could grab with, were raised forward and GV felt something wrong.
A sphere of darkness and light began to form in the air, in seconds it was larger than Misaka's body and it seemed to be pointed straight at the windowless building.
To GV it felt like a skill. Something like Luxcalibur only he had thought that Espers couldn't do that. He understood that there were things he and Joule could do that Espers could not. In return, the Espers were able to improve their abilities through study, a thing that couldn't be done with the Septimosome that the two of them had. For Adepts it was about learning more about your Septimosome. Just learning physics or psychology didn't really help.
Back to the "skill", it felt like Nova's last skill. The skill that had taken them to this world in the first place only... this one was warped.
It certainly wouldn't send them home if they tried to go through it, it would simply rip him into a million fragments.
In theory, it would have been created via her skill as an Electromaster, that meant he should be able to interact with it, maybe he could stop whatever she planned to do with it? But it felt beyond him. It was alien, a thing not meant to be understood by humans.
Touma's gifts would be needed to stop it.
Off the sphere came something strange. He wanted to call it lightning but it really wasn't. It was black and he felt that it would rip straight through him regardless of what he tried. Only small sparks came out though, if more came out, it would be a disaster, the energy of the sphere being released all at once would be like a bomb going off.
As he thought about that he heard a crack, it was like the surface of the sphere split open like broken glass. That much power running free could destroy the city if not worse. GV rushed forward as it's outer layer broke away like an eggshell. Inside was a roiling mass of darkness.
[ACSRT: Scientific Development and Sacrifice]
"What is she?" He asked under his breath.
Touma shook his head "I don't know. She wasn't using this lightning before. Has something happened to her?"
"Joule is in the process of freeing her." GV relayed "We only need to stop Misaka doing any more damage before Joule finishes."
[ASG: World's end]
"What?"
Misaka's voice was quiet within the dark space. There was cracking behind her but Lumen was more focused on her friend.
"Misaka!"
The girl looked over, blinking as if finally able to see properly.
"Lumen? What's-"
She turned around and Lumen followed her gaze to the darkness behind her, the same darkness that the boys outside were looking at.
"What's going on?" Misaka yelled suddenly before running over to a crack in space itself that showed a vision of what was outside at that moment "Stop it! No! I can't release that thing!"
"What is it?" Lumen asked "How can we stop it?"
"I- I can't control it." Misaka's voice was quiet "Why, why not?"
"Focus girl!" Lumen raised her voice slightly "What's wrong, how can I help? What's happening?"
Lumen quickly accessed the back door that was still in her friend's head.
"Your powers are running rampant, it's like the AIM burst! Unshackled it's now trying to act on it's last impulse." Lumen reported quickly as she looked for something, anything she could do.
Could she make something like the cure for the level-upper network? Right now? Right here? No, there was some sort of core. It sat within Misaka, a space where her AIM fields had crossed and fused together.
Lumen refused to destroy her friend's brain. No matter what else happens, she had to get rid of the core safely.
"What is this?" Lumen spun as Misaka spoke again. The red chains were reforming around the still awake Misaka. It was a representation of the wild nature. It would keep acting in order to carry out it's last directive;
"Destroy the windowless building. Destroy anything you need to in order to carry out that goal."
[ACSRT: Scientific Development and Sacrifice]
"Well, this isn't over yet." Touma said quietly
GV nodded "Whatever else happens, we cannot let her use that sphere."
But the question was how.
"We... We discharge it safely or we move it somewhere else. We can't attack or move Misaka, each risks setting it off."
Touma nodded "I'll do it. I might not be strong enough to do it myself but-"
"I don't have a better option." GV admitted "Your hand might work, it might not."
"The only problem is-" Touma grunted as one of the black bolts of 'not-lightning' passed them by "-I'll never reach her with all of this in the way."
GV nodded "I'll clear a path, just wait a moment."
He focused.
This 'not-lightning' still followed some laws of reality. He could feel the electric charge of them, it was wrong but it was there.
Each line of the strange lightning acted like normal lightning, it was following a stream of energy. All he had to do then was disrupt the streamers along the path that Touma would travel down.
But oh how wrong they felt. It was obvious now. It was backwards. The streamers were positively charged. Each bolt was a tiny blast of anti-matter and they blew apart the street like little bombs wherever they made contact.
...This was probably a horribly radioactive area. They should get that checked after all of this. Regardless of how Misaka was doing this, that told him how he would bypass this.
High Positive charge in her, Low postive charge in target. That was the method she was using to strike the road. All he had to do was change the electric charge in the ground.
He'd need to be careful. The power difference was great. He might be able to protect himself with his flashfield and disrupt her lightning with some pieces of his hair as a medium but neither would be enough help bridge the gap that Touma needed to cross now. The hair thing might create a bridge but Misaka's power might be able to push through any blocks he created.
...Now was the time. He needed to counter this skill with a skill of his own. Astrasphere's range was too small for this distance though it would provide the required output. Luxcalibur could only create an opening for a moment, not long enough for Touma to move through to her.
Then there was his third technique. The one he had thought about using earlier.
Trace the path in his mind. There, between a lamp post and the ground. Another spot between a vending machine and a spot just next to Misaka. He'd force each blast of anti-lightning to follow a preset path-
He felt the energy leave him as he began to chant.
"Bolts of rebellion!"
Lightning traced the paths he'd mapped out. Only a bit to clear the positive charge and ensure his power followed the correct paths. Out from his hands extended invisible lines. Each shot towards a spot on the floor along the path that Touma would follow.
"A thunderous voice in his heart!"
More lines, these ones from his hands to the ground and then up again. they bounced around, targeting anything in the area that could carry an electric charge to the ground.
"Speaks of one true law!"
Ready.
The lines shot out again. From each point on the ground or machine other than to guide Touma's path.
He couldn't target the sphere without setting it off, but he could target Misaka and the air around the sphere.
Plus and minus.
His hand lifted again as he finished the chant.
"Voltaic Chains!"
Each line that he had traced glowed into the visable spectrum. As they gathered power, they changed from being lines of charged particles to being chains that wrapped all over the place. The area besides this building had become a spider web of electrical chains.
The ones near Misaka pulled out her dark lightning and drove it down pre-set paths. Paths to the ground or to other machines.
"Go!" GV yelled to Touma "It'll only last a few seconds!"
[ASG: World's end]
"This, this will destroy a lot more than academy city." Misaka said quietly as she tried to tug her arm free.
Lumen looked over at her with worry "Can you move it? Maybe up? Out to space?"
Misaka let a mad laugh out at that point before restraining herself "No, nowhere close. This goes more than a few meters away from me and it goes off in an instant. It can't be safely discharged- all I can do is try to contain the blast."
"How?" Lumen was worried, her voice sounded like-
"I'll shrink it down. Compress it to a size I can cover with my body. If it detonates like that, I might be able to- What?"
Lumen looked up, on the "screen" she could see GV open the way and Touma charge forward.
"Him?!" Misaka froze "Is he trying to stop this thing?"
"Imagine breaker!" Lumen remembered "He might-"
"No!" Misaka yelled "Wait a minute! This isn't just my ability." She was yelling to him, unhearing in the world outside.
"It's something my heart created out of anger, out of my desire to destroy all of the horrible things in academy city! So let me-"
Touma jumped, his out outstretched.
End of chapter.
Yes, I'm saving the dragon strike for it's own chapter. I'm sure you don't mind, this chapter is longer than normal anyway.
Edit: This is an updated version of the chapter. Apparently people thought that 1.5k words still wasn't enough for this part of the story. After some discussion with them, I came to agree.