Sleeping on the job

[ACMI2: Thing To Be Told]

The two had began to look around after that. Lumen leading them around to the locations where Kazakiri's AIM fields were strongest. They caught sight of her once or twice but she fuzzed away before they reached her.

Lack of communication was always a problem during big events, if their friend was trying to warn them about something, getting her to talk to them was best.

"She's nowhere near as stable now though." Lumen pondered to the two of them over a telepathic link.

Imagine there was a 3d model. That model would be a "completed" Kazakiri. The problem was that she was in a lot of different pieces right now.

What had briefly talked to them before was something like twenty to thirty percent of her "complete state." but now they were only finding a few percent of her at a time.

Lumen could try to shepard the pieces around but the sun was already setting. Getting to work on this would mean working into the night and GV wouldn't like that.

Kazakiri's warning meant one of two things; there was something coming tonight or there was something coming soon. If it was the latter case, it could be saved until tomorrow.

If it wasn't...

Well, they just needed to rule that out.

They turned to head home but as they did, Joule spoke to Lumen.

"Can you see if there is anything strange going on?"

Lumen flitted up into the sky as Saten checked her watch and scowled.

"I don't know if we'll make it back to our homes before curfew. It's already past six thirty."

"We could take the train?" Joule suggested, "That would cut down our travel time."

As Saten checked the train schedule on her phone, Lumen came down, a worried expression on her now humanoid face. She'd dropped her butterfly form and now looked like a doll of herself.

While it was true there weren't many people around, Joule had to hope that Lumen was still hidden.

"There is something going on. Something... well, it's not AIM. There's on odd wave coming from the north. It's already covered all of academy city."

"All of it?" Joule tilted her head "How long has it been there?"

Lumen shrugged "Well, I didn't notice it when we started our search for Kazakiri so... less than an hour? That's the best I can do I'm afraid."

Joule thought about it for a few seconds before nodding, coming to a decision. Saten came to one at the same time and they both spoke them at the same time.

"Let's tell GV."

"Let's not tell Misaka."

Lumen smiled and offered her own thoughts "Misaka would just get involved if she knew anything. If we told her to not investigate the north, we could be fairly sure she'd do the opposite."

Joule nodded and looked towards home "Lumen, can you tell him while we're taking the train?"

"Of course."

Lumen became a butterfly again and offered some quick words to the two of them before leaving.

"Please, don't get into trouble you two."

Joule offered a soft smile "I'm not going to run towards the danger... Actually, we should probably tell Touma and Index too."

Rain was starting to fall on them. The weather report had been off by a full half of an hour.

They ran for cover, Lumen having just left. When she looked at her phone, Joule mumbled.

"I never got either of their contact information."

Saten smiled and pulled out her own phone "Don't worry, I have Index's."

...Index had a phone?

She dialed and put the phone to her ear. A silent moment passed and Joule watched as Saten frowned.

There was a beeping sound and Saten began to speak.

"Hello, it's Saten. Sorry, it looks like your phone was off while I was calling-"

Oh, she was leaving a message.

"But do you know anything about the- Lumen described it as Not-AIM so I'm assuming it's magic- that's covering Academy City. Please get back to me when you can."

Saten put the phone down and sighed.

"I wonder if she's watching a movie or something like that?"

Joule offered a shrug and they ran from cover to cover to get to the train station.

There, they found something strange.

[ACMI2: Roman Catholic Church]

There were a few other people at the train station and there were Anti-skill trucks set up around the station itself.

The people were starting to panic and it took the two of them getting closer to the station to see why.

The members of Anti-skill were on the ground. Had they passed out or something.

Joule and Saten rushed under the roof of the station and headed over to a member of anti-skill who was off to the side. Not as many people were gawking over here so it was safe to look closer.

Lumen wasn't here but Joule tried to set up a quick telepathic bond to see what was wrong.

"He's out cold." She reported "I can't figure out why though..."

Saten bent over and tried to check the man's pulse via his wrist.

She closed her eyes, counting the heart beats under her breath.

"40 BPM." She finally said "Roughly."

"Then he really just passed out?" Joule wondered, checking for wounds.

40 BPM was "normal, but slow, sleeping heartbeat." At least it wasn't any lower.

There was a radio near him. It crackled to life and a voice came from it as Joule turned her attention to it.

"Intruder in the metro area. I repeat, gate destruction confirmed. Intruder's in the metro area! We're under attack but the assailant is und- Argh!"

The line went dead.

Saten and Joule glanced at each other.

Large area of effect magic, unconscious Anti-skill members, Kazakiri's warning.

Yep. It was happening tonight.

The trains didn't seem to be running either so they were walking home in the rain. That wasn't great but if they had to, then they'd have to.

Maybe they could ask Shirai to give them a lift? No, she was probably busy with Judgement work.

Joule hoped GV would be fine at least.

End of chapter.

...Finding a place for these two in this arc is going to be hard.

Also, fun fact: the scenes in the anime (Index 2 episode 19) take place out of order. The attack on Accelerator happens after the talk between Vento and Aleister.